Go Rad/Sonic. It's fun and good at just about anything. With some experience and a nice build you can even manage to solo some AVs 
@False Fiction - Virtue / Defiant
Current projects - [Glaciologist - Ill/Cold Troller] [Cloudshaper - Storm/Dark Def] [Harald Wartooth - Elec/Psi Domi]
Kin/psi - excellent damage output, lots of secondary effects (sleeps/stuns/immobs etc). Not many mobs resistant to it, very soloable (I got mine to 50 mainly soloing). Works very well if your duo partner is a melee toon (scrapper or, even better, tank - will be able to handle AVs with no problems).
I'd probably say Kin/Something simply for the extra damage available to you from the Kin and you get a self heal and can get your end back later as well.
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
Kin/sonic would be my best guess, but as I hate playing both sets I couldn't give too much in the way of recomendation
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I have an L33 Kin/Sonic, they are rather good once they get Transference to compensate for the high End consumption. If you can put up with the yowling of /Sonic then it's a combo well worth investigating.
How would Storm/Ice be I wonder? Something a little different. Decent single target attacks, AOE madness, if you like, with FR and Ice Storm (although not that useful in a duo), best single ToHit debuff power going and 2 holds with -knockback and Tornado. Plus Lightning Storm at 32 for more damage,
Dark/Sonics is okay too, very, very safe indeed and lots of -resist with Tar Patch. Plus a pet which heals. Only downside is the lack of -Defense so it doesn't work the best with the Vet powers
Okay here's soloable Defender Primaries in my opinion:
Dark: Great but boring for me. Also most early powers are must have, even the rez power which is a great panic button when soloing.
Kinetics: If you are a kinetics at heart great set. I never get along well with it. Also shrugging off travel powers from your choices gives you more attack.
Radiation: Wow! Easy to solo even with Archery secondary missions like Atta. 3 debuffs, AM, independent self heal, hold toggle(which i never get) and another great hold as last tier power.
Force Fields: Yeah i know many will thought it is very poor for solo but it has great control options (Knockbacks, one trap and emergency invincibility). Also endurance light set which gives you more endurance to blast more often.
Storm: As storm is controllish defender set yeah soloable but never mix it with ice. (I tried it Carni and here's my thoughts) Both sets are end heavy. It is my only defender i need to rest in teams.
Trick Arrow: Without Archery secondary and higher damage your chance of survival is very high, if you don't set your game plan on Oil Slick Arrow's damage tho. 
Empathy and Sonic are team builds and Cold Domination's powers have long recharges as far as i see.
Summary: In all those sets only Radiation have independent healing power which is great. For Dark and Kin you need to hit your target which means more slotting on those powers. Storm's healing is great as it is both little heal and CM but no use for self. FF and TA don't have any self healing so Medicine pool is a good idea to include builds. FF have a upper hand in that as you can heal yourself in your PFF.
Not as an offender but as a soloable defender i am thinking about a FF/Ice defender nowadays.
For secondary i am obsessed about Ice nowadays. With two holds and high damage companied with slow that set is really nice. Psychic Blast have good damage and useful side effects. Sonic has a nice -res side effect which will cause more damage. Electric Blast also have that nice -end which will leave mobs without a blue bar. That set also have a sleep (iirc Tesla Cage is a sleep) and pet. (Hmmm Dark and Storm with electricity means two pets (Dark Servant/Thunderstorm with Voltaic Sentinel) seems nice). Energy has that team-annoying KB but for solo also could be an option.
In the end soloing with defenders is more personal than other ATs. Pick one set who suits your play style. I heard some people saying TA ain't a soloable set but i soloed many missions with mine (TA/Psi) which i deleted around lvl 20 (not that i don't like him, i was leaving the game).
Hope my thoughts help you a little but as i said you are the only one who will say which set is soloable for you.
Highest Regards,
Knightly
I have recently created a storm/ice fender and although only level 12, I am enjoying immensely. As Knightly says, they are a little end heavy, especially pre-stamina, though a few end red slots will help a lot later on. Great defense and nice attacks, a combo I would very much recommend.
IMO the best primaries to go with are Dark, Rad or Storm
Secondaries go Psi, Sonic or Ice
Any combination of these will work, personally I'd go Dark/
I've got a Dark/Rad and a Rad/Sonic the Dark is the better soloer.
I wouldn't go with FF/ I've tried various combinations and stuck with FF/Dark for the -tohit, he can solo but isn't a patch on the other two.
Not tried a kin Def (only controllers) I would expect to feel a bit exposed so if you go kin get some control on the Secondary.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
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Go Rad/Sonic. It's fun and good at just about anything. With some experience and a nice build you can even manage to solo some AVs
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Agree with this! My rad/sonic was felt incredibly powerful, I think my most damaging defender so far... was good solo, duo and teamed.
And despite what people have said about Kinetics... if you are just duoing I don't think I'd rate it much. The uber damage buff only feels uber when you have a team and good sized spawns to get the damage buff off... I've found kin quite dull in a small team environment tbh... obviously just a personal opinion...
Storm is fairly fun... one of my favourite defender sets and very easy to play concentrating on offending as you don't really have any buffs to think about or remember. You can even herd with hurricane as long as you remember to drop your storm cloud where you are herding to...
rad/psi or rad/sonic. They both solo av's pretty easily with th proper slotting at high levels
Something I would recommend is Dark/Ice. Debuffs stuff so hard they're harmless, has excellent control and self-heal and a good slow/-Res. It can herd with ease and keep huge amounts of mobs at bay for a long (if not indefinite) period of time. It functions brilliantly both on a small scale and a large scale, in terms of mob size.
Ice is good for damage as well as control. Ice Storm when used to maximum effect is one of the most powerful Defender AoEs out there and Tar Patch lets you use it. Fast and powerful single-target attacks complement this.
Main problem's you'll want all of your primary except Black Hole, and thus be pressed for powers to spend on your secondary and tertiary pools. By level 22 only had Freeze Ray from my secondary, but a small price to pay for being nigh-unkillable.
I imagine Dark Servant could also take over the debuff role if when solo you'd rather opt for blasting everything in sight with /Ice.
Surprisingly wasn't bad on endurance, but the way I played it I wasn't throwing out attacks too often, focusing more on control. Would differ to playstyle one would imagine.
It's not unusual to be at the fore of a team with them having to catch up to you, it can perform admirably at tanking. Fearsome Stare to Darkest Night'll floor their accuracy, lower their damage and have them cowering till either support's arrived or you decide to make a start yourself. The trick to Dark Miasma is knowing the debuffs are worthy of your trust. Break-frees are good to have on you for more mezzy enemies, but aren't needed as much as you'd think with all the -Acc flying around.
My Rad/Rad is built with an Offender build to mind.
Rad/* debuffs stuff so hard it will often have trouble hitting you while AM also boosts your damage by 35%, combine this with Assault from the Leadership power pools and you've got some nifty +damage.
*/Rad also debuffs defense as well AND it lets you AoE quite well, Irradiate and Neutron bomb are good for taking out large debuffed groups in one go while Proton Volley, Cosmic burst and Neutrino bolt can help you with your single target attacks, combined with Aim I've two shot +2 lts when it comes to the Proton Volley - Cosmic burst combo since Cosmic bursts damages is on the high end.
Plus if things get really hairy you can always fire off EM Pulse and Atomic blast to wittle down the numbers and make a run for it.
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
Ive recently started playing after a huge break and my defender is Emp/Archery and nobody seems to like either of these power sets - I really am curious as to why?
Soloing with this setup means good damage dealing and also the ability to self heal (albeit not very well)
as a duo you can concentrate on healing your team-mate and deal damage as well when the fight in under control
in a team you can heal everyone and take potshots at various enemies provided you dont take too much aggro.
Id like to fly the flag for empathy and archery!!
Comments please would be great and i hope this has inspired some changes to people opinions
P.S. if you want look me up in game: Alex Grim - Defiant - lvl 10 defender
The reason people wouldn't push for empathy is that it doesn't actually boost your damage in anyway. Now as a standard defender this is no issue, but if you're soloing as an offender you want that damage boost.
Dark debuffs the resistance of your foes and thus boosts your damage, it also contains a very chunky self heal for example (probably the best in the game) It also has a cone Fear which allows you to ignore some targets while fighting others and an ST hold which will take certain foes out of the fight.
That's just an example of why one set would be better than Empathy for an Offender.
The reason I wouldn't pick archery at the moment is the redraw on it slowing you down. It does have fairly nice damage in that burning arrow type thing (I have a level 26 blaster with it so I should know the name, forgive me for not) but the delay from changing between your primary and secondary set does make it a pain to use.
I've teamed a few times with a level 50 Emp/Archer on high end task forces which is a fantastic character to be on a team with (the no end loss nuke is the main reason) but I'd bet solo its like pulling teeth and I cant think I've ever seen that player online and not on a team
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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Dark debuffs the resistance of your foes and thus boosts your damage, it also contains a very chunky self heal for example (probably the best in the game)
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I believe it has thwe exact same values as Kineytics Transfusion but it does higher heal points than anything empathy can come up with short of Absorb pain because it requires a to-hit roll in order to work correctly. In short it's the best 'non penalty' heal, along with Transfusion in the game.
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
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Dark debuffs the resistance of your foes and thus boosts your damage, it also contains a very chunky self heal for example (probably the best in the game)
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I believe it has thwe exact same values as Kineytics Transfusion but it does higher heal points than anything empathy can come up with short of Absorb pain because it requires a to-hit roll in order to work correctly. In short it's the best 'non penalty' heal, along with Transfusion in the game.
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I prefer it for two reasons
1) I like the debuff more than Transfusions
2) It is centred on you so as long as you hit a foe you're in it. No one can knock the centre of your heal out of your range.
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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[ QUOTE ]
Dark debuffs the resistance of your foes and thus boosts your damage, it also contains a very chunky self heal for example (probably the best in the game)
[/ QUOTE ]
I believe it has thwe exact same values as Kineytics Transfusion but it does higher heal points than anything empathy can come up with short of Absorb pain because it requires a to-hit roll in order to work correctly. In short it's the best 'non penalty' heal, along with Transfusion in the game.
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I prefer it for two reasons
1) I like the debuff more than Transfusions
2) It is centred on you so as long as you hit a foe you're in it. No one can knock the centre of your heal out of your range.
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Also you can heal whoever you want with Dark. Just run near the team mate and launch heal, no need to yell "get close to enemies for heals" like a Kinetic defender. Also if someone kill their target while heals in action, Transfusion fails where Dark still can achive healing goal. (Maybe this one is a bug but for now it is works that way)
If you ask me Kinetics more valuable in the hands of a controller as they can lock their enemies before getting into close range for their buffs.
I have a highish Defender now (Kin/Dark) but really hate her...
I want to roll at least one Offender, what are the best sets? Probably play as a duo so I can self buff, just given up on FF/Rad as the damage is horrible, I liked the bubbles.