First Defender, Crisis

I am about to make my first Defender in about a year and it's come down to FF/Enrg or Sonic/Sonic. Anyone have any advice on which can solo but also be useful in a team on the rare ocassion that I would get a team in this time of AE farm crisis.

Sonic/sonic. Too few are played. It gives enough mitigation and adds to team speed and that's what you want in the end. FF will be safer as a soloist, but Sonic will be faster.

FF might find an AE team easier. Even newbies will notice the blue bubbles and thank you for them. Bubblers seem to have a lot of fun with it.

NRG seems to be the solo-ers favourite, but teams can whine about the KB.

The benefits of Sonic are less visually-obvious (so missed by some), but the team will notice the res debuff in action by the way their enemies fall down after just a few hits.

I'd usually prefer a sonic as a team-mate.

A sonic/sonic is repeating the same debuff, and that kind of specialisation has always led to harder times soloing for me.

The sonic/sonics I've played with haven't seemed to debuff the teams any more than the sonic/others. YMMV though.

The sonic/sonic should be quicker to cut through mobs than the FF/NRG, but I see it face-planting a lot more.

Both could be tremendous fun as concepts

Or you could combine... Go FF/Sonic. I have one and it's pretty nifty. Since FF/* has a few KB powers (that your team would thank you to skip), it opens up some room in your build for attacks and pool powers.

Just an idea.

Sonic Resonance is one of the worse sets to solo, in my experience. I tried soloing a Sonic/Energy Defender and gave up in the 20s, I just felt like a weak blaster with few bonuses from my primary.

You get:

- Sonic Siphon, against anything less than a boss, you probably save yourself one attack by lowering the res of the target, so its not a great time or endurance saver. It works much better on teams. 1/5 for soloing, scores higher on teams.
- Sonic Cage, handy for when you get in over your head. 2/5 for soloing
- Sonic Dispersion, pretty good, its mez protection and 24% res when slotted to all but psychic. 5/5 for soloing
- Liquefy, you need to wait till 32 and its on a 5 minute timer, but its good. Great for the end of level boss when soloing radio missions. 2/5 for soloing.
- 5 other powers you cant use without an ally.

So your entire primary really gives you mes, protection, 24% resistance and a couple of situational powers. Thats not a lot. You're outputting 65% of the damage you could be on a blaster (less counting the loss of Build Up and secondary attacks from a Blaster), and taking 75% of the damage you would without Sonic Dispersion, so you're much less effective than a Blaster at taking down the enemy before they take you down.
Sonic/Sonic will do OK because Sonic Blast is that good - high damage and control, but it could be paired with a better primary for more effect.

Force Fields on the other hand gives you PFF, knockback tools that can bounce a boss indefinitely and personal Defence that can be boosted via set bonuses to very high levels (see the guide in my signature).

I'd agree with Emperor Steele and suggest FF/Sonic. The powers match in terms of look -both are colourless and ripply looking. I played one to 50 and could solo Invincible easily by the early 20s.

FF/Energy is kind of redundant in that both sets give you all the knockback you could want.

What they said.

My vote is for FF/Energy. FF gives you some really fun toys to solo with, and teams will love the crap out of you when you're softcapping they're squishies (Two bubbles, Manuevers and the Dispersion Bubble gets 'em pretty damn close, I believe). Energy Blast is nice to solo with considering all the KB.

But Sonic/Sonic has its pros. You'll do a ton of damage thanks tot he -res, and you can help your team to boot.

I have to agree with EmperorSteele on this one. Split the difference and go FF/Sonic. FF/ gives you the ability to stay alive in a long fight (which is what it will be with the defender Damage scale) and the resistance debuffs in Sonic speed up the damage that you do.

Translating that over to a team where you are a force multiplier = everyone lives longer and everyone defeats stuff faster.

Just gonna mention this... I never had a problem finding teammates on my FF/* characters. Just send a tell to a Blaster or three saying something pithy. I like "/t $target, Join my team and you may never get hit again. Level 26 FF/energy (or whatever) defender LF blasters."

Works best in the late 30's/early 40s.

Edited to point out that you have to be OK with the following math:

If it takes you 200 hours to level 50 [actual play is around this, I think] and you rebubble every 3 minutes on average, that's 4000 "rebubble cycles" to level 50. I do it like this: shift-1, 6,7, shift-2, 6,7, shift-3, 6,7, shift-4, 6,7, oops I'm #5, shift-6, 6,7, shift-7, 6,7, shift-8, 6,7 .

I've got over a thousand hours on force fielders, and I don't even notice any more. It's like "Time to rebubble!" [45 second fugue]

I have to say, I've been enjoying my FF/Nrg Defender, but be ready for the first few levels to be kind of painful. Mine is L30 now, and he's really starting to round into shape. Still does dismal damage, but he's finally getting some decent mitigation now.

You'll notice the change around the time you get SOs.

Use the second build slot for a team build.

Sonic/ isn't difficult to solo - it just takes a little building. By the time you get to 50 and get IO'd out, you will be a BEAST. It's a long road there, and much longer solo, but my Sonic/Sonic is one of the most appreciated team toons I have.