I have a Dark/sonic and it does pretty good solo..
also the mint chocolatly goodness that is Dark/rad is fun too..
"...well I have wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor and I am happy to state I finally won out over it." Elwood P Dowd (from the movie Harvey)
rad/sonics can solo AVs and Giant Monsters....
with the aoe elec attack and short circuit i can drain whole mobs of end, and then pick away at them so i dont see how its the worst combo.
Radiation solos extremely well. i was rad rad since this was pre sonic but the two together must be quite powerfull.
cheers
TA/A is in my opinion one of the better sets for soloing, also at lower levels. It has no buffs, just a lot of debuffs and crowd controls and most of the powers in the primary are AoEs.
Simply start out the fight with a Flash Arrow (debuffs enemy to hits and lowers their perception radius a lot), which doesn't draw attention. Then Poison Gas Arrow, which will put them asleep and is a considerable damage debuff. After that you can pick them off one by one, if you feel there's too many. Acid Arrow is an AoE debuff to defense and resist. With Glue Arrow you can slow enemies considerably. And Archery offers both some nice single target and aoe attacks.
As an added bonus the set is easy early on. Cheap on your endurance and with a high built-in accuracy (I think it's equal to a dual origin accuracy slotted in your archery powers), which means that while Stamina is good, it's not a power you have really been missing and looking forward to and you will miss less shots than your opponent.
At level 18 you'll have most of the tools from your primary you'll be using later on in every combat (At 12 all you lack is Disruption Arrow, the last two powers are on a very long cooldown and you only use them when you really need to pull a rabbit from the toolbox... Oh, who am I kidding, you'll be using Oil Patch as often as you can, even taking down a blue minion because it's just so nice!)
As for your secondary, it's a well-rounded set, having a few AoE attacks and some single target. The damage is lethal/smashing (except for Blazing Shot, which also has fire), but fortunately you'll get Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow before enemies start having really strong resistances to it, and both of those debuff resists, so in this case lethal is not completely crap. And of course you get Rain of Awesomeness (though you'll have to wait to 38 to get it). Basically you can nuke in every combat (well, okay every 30 seconds) and it costs you a good amount of endurance, but doesn't drain you completely and you recover endurance normally after that (so by 38 stamina may be a good idea, but it's not the most important power to get by level 20).
Well if you want to keep your defender an Empath I would say choose sonic or arrow as a secondary. However if you wanting to move to a new primary give Kin/Son or Kin/Arrow a try. They get some awesome tools and buffs to work with. Its even possible to do it without Stamina once you get the recharge on Transference just right.
Dreaded Wail hits things freakin' hard.. i like to hit things freakin' hard... so.. id go Wail... SAVE THE WAILS!!!! - Solar_Lunata
I second kin/sonic but since you said no kins. I say anything /sonic. Cold/ or Sonic/ are very busy and extremly team friendly.
awww i love empathy. But if you want to keep ur defender with empathy i would go archery or dark blast . If your looking to get away from empathy id go rad/dark or rad/sonic
Opp sorry OP, didnt see no kins, I was blind earlier.... QUICK, I NEED A CM!
Dreaded Wail hits things freakin' hard.. i like to hit things freakin' hard... so.. id go Wail... SAVE THE WAILS!!!! - Solar_Lunata
Yeah, electric is pretty much the worst blast set. I suggest psychic or ice since they have strong single target chains.
Decided to go with Rad/Sonic...he's level 14, whee. Thanks for the replies.
You picked a not-so-great primary and a not-so-great secondary. If it's raw performance you're looking for, just about any other combination of defender sets will do.
Okay my question is do you want to be a defender regardless of powersets? or do you want to be an empath? I have seen numerous good suggestions for possible Defender powerset combos that will allow you to solo but you'll be giving up Empathy? ( I play a number of Empaths but no big deal if you are looking to stay a defender) Most Defender sets can solo its just that its a slower more deliberrate strategy that works with them.. and yes like some blaster sets and stalkers of old RUN LIKE HECK is part of that strategy at times LOL
Now if you want to stay an Empath but aren't necessarily worried about staying defender try a Controller. I have several that sol0 quite well and add to any team they join.
ILL/EMP ... Superior Inv, along with selecting Recall Friend, makes you a definate favorite for TFs. That and Confuse make you very effective soloing since you can sneak in undetected [there are only a few things that see through Sup Inv .. Rikti Drones, Knives of Artemis, and those blasted eyeball things in the Shadow Shard to name most]. So sneak in confuse the mob and let them beat each other senseless hile you help. I have run entire missions without ever taking a bit of damage. Oh and Malta HATE me since I turn their Sappers and Gunslingers into killing machines... MY killing machines.
Plant/Emp I don't have one myself but do have a Plant/Rad that solos very well. Teaming or solo its hard for anything to damage you when they are being slowly strangled by you vines. Seeds of Confusion may be even better than the standard confuse you get with Illusion.. its a cone so as long as you position yourself right with one application you can turn an entire mob into mindless puppets beating on each other.
Whatever you decide have fun.. I rerolled one of my first Defenders a long time ago. I started with a Dark/Eng but got discouraged when Dark Masima missed so I rerolled her around 20 level and went with Emp/Eng since the Aura always hits its mark. Oh later I recreated her, she's an andriod BTW, and came out with Sara2.0 an Ill/Emp Controller and fell in love with the powerset combo. 
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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Decided to go with Rad/Sonic...he's level 14, whee. Thanks for the replies.
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You picked a not-so-great primary and a not-so-great secondary. If it's raw performance you're looking for, just about any other combination of defender sets will do.
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I agree completely. Rad/Sonic is about as mediocre as you can get, with no raw performance capability whatsoever. Anytime I see a Rad/Sonic Defender, I send them a tell advising them to re-roll, because they will only experience unmitigated heartbreak and impotence from 1 to 50.
Of course, I know you weren't replying to his post, Rigel, but I got a kick out of reading those two messages in succession. I had a good chuckle.
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
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Decided to go with Rad/Sonic...he's level 14, whee. Thanks for the replies.
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You picked a not-so-great primary and a not-so-great secondary. If it's raw performance you're looking for, just about any other combination of defender sets will do.
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I agree completely. Rad/Sonic is about as mediocre as you can get, with no raw performance capability whatsoever. Anytime I see a Rad/Sonic Defender, I send them a tell advising them to re-roll, because they will only experience unmitigated heartbreak and impotence from 1 to 50.
Of course, I know you weren't replying to his post, Rigel, but I got a kick out of reading those two messages in succession. I had a good chuckle.
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yeah i was about to cough up my drink for a split second before it occured to me that he was addressing the OP not the new choice 
:sweatdrop:
storm/elec works pretty well
My first 50 was a brute. My second was a scrapper. My third will be my Storm/Sonic who was at 46 for a while to sweet spot SK, but hey, MA is here, so I'm finishing leveling her up right now.
).
All of these characters can hold their own against nearly anything. My 22 empath/elec can barely kill a LT+minion. Bosses are ridiculous, they're tougher than AVs on my claws/sr. I'm pretty sure I chose the worst possible secondary for Emp. Also, I think I dislike characters that solo weakly (I work nights, so I often play strange hours and don't always want to pug).
The problem is that my empath is a tribute character to a friend, and I really want to keep the character. So, what should I reroll him as? I still want to do another defender, but I want one that can solo efficiently as well as be a great contributor to the team. I don't need to take down AVs or even EBs solo, but being able to do radios and safeguards is a must (preferably on diff 2-4
I'm thinking:
Rad/Sonic
Dark/Rad(or /Dark) (though...I have a Bots/Dark already)
BROADSWOyou get out of here!
TA/A (Unsure of how well this solos out of the box)
(I have a rad/kin corr, so no more kins!)
Suggestions?