Choosing a secondary

When I16 gets released, I'm planning on making a Traps defender, but I've been torn on what to pick for a secondary.

The sets I'm considering are AR, Radiation, Sonic, Elec, and Ice.

AR seems like it could be pretty fun, but it could get pretty repetitive seeing as Defenders don't usually take a huge array of attacks right from the get-go (the Burst sound effect would get incredibly annoying), additionally, I am fully prepared to see a large amount of Traps/AR defenders, so I will probably go with something else.

I've never had a high level Radiation Blast defender before, so that seems like it would be something fun to try, but the reason I've never leveled one is because Radiation Blast seems rather underperforming. I realize defenders aren't huge damage dealers, but I don't want to feel like I'm throwing cotton balls. Am I wrong in my assumptions about Radiation blast?

Elec seems fun for the conceptual synergy as well as elec being an all-around pretty good and fun set. Not much to complain about with elec, but I may want to try something new (I already have a couple /elec defenders).

Sonic seems like it would be great to go with Traps for one reason: soloing with Siren's Song. Siren's Song would allow for me to put groups to sleep and place mines/debuffs without getting completely owned. However, Sonic seems like it might get boring; the powers don't look outstanding and there aren't any great AoEs..... I love me some AoE.

Ice seems like it could be fun for some controlling to go along with traps as well as some good single-target damage. Not much to complain about here either, except for maybe a lack of AoE, but Frost Breath is pretty decent.

So, any opinions about what would go good with Traps?

Well, Rad does seem to have some of the lowest damage, but it also has the most AoE damage. I don't know what will be in Traps, but if it has anything that'll buff your damage, then rad is a safe bet.

What about Archery? Not great in the AoE department, but a non-crashing, fast recharge tier 9 more than makes up for it.

As far as Theme is concerned AR will be the most synergistic, and I would expect that alot of people will try that combination. One thing to think about though is this; fewer blasters stay with AR/Dev than other combinations (from my experience), so people trying AR with defender level dmg may be even quicker at dropping it.

I dont expect alot of people to stick with AR all the way to 50, so you should not discount it purely by how many start one.

I think Ice and Rad are the best. I lean towards Ice. Traps makes a nice kill zone with its Poison Gas trap and its other fun things, so I think it'd be nice to drop some AoE in the kill zone. Thing is, while Rad has more AoE, one of them can do knockback, which might play havoc with your kill zone. So, I'd lean towards Ice.

Frost Breath (with Aim) could smash the stuff in your kill zone pretty well, plus you could maybe frankenslot in some Slow Movement in them to make harder for bad guys to run out of the kill zone. Also, you'd have 2 single target holds for more controllery goodness, AND nothing seems quite as funny to me as an emergency death zone of caltrops + poison gas trap + trip mines + aim + build up + frost breath + ice storm + BLIZZARD. If you could even cast blizzard before everything dies. Or heck, just caltrops + Poison Gas + Aim + Blizzard would probably be nasty as hell. Carry some blue pills!

Dang. Now I kinda want one.

Lewis

Defender secondaries are thankfully easier to compare. Apples to apples.

Sonic Attack's AoE damage is okay, if you can manage the knockback and the nuke. Slotting Siren's Song for damage is also an option, to squeeze an extra 40 damage or so on the pack during your alpha, but people don't seem to like to take advantage of damage slotting in SS for some reason.

Howl: 50' 30 degree cone. 0.81 damage scale. 10 second recharge.
Shockwave: 50' 30 degree cone. 0.64 damage scale. 8 (!) second recharge.
Siren's Song: 40' 50 degree cone. 0.50 damage scale. 20 second recharge.

Note that Shockwave's fast recharge means its DPS is plenty good when the knockback is managed. The fast recharge also means that you can keep 10 enemies on their butts quite easily. And since it's a 100% chance to knockback what it hits, it's easier to keep enemies together when you move them than with scatter-happy Energy Torrent and the like. Add Amplify to the mix, and I'd put Sonic Attack at right about the middle for AoE damage potential among defender secondaries.

Huh, I never thought about it that way. I'm hesitant to agree with it though. 6.5 seconds is a long time to get out all your area attacks. I think animation times would start getting in the way at higher recharge values. I've never tried it though.