most damaging combo

i rolled a rad/son

so far (level 20) he is not bad. but i see a lot of **/elec

what are the best combo damage wise?

for ST or for AoE.

for AoE i'm not sure that rad/son is the best choice. i have nothing to root mobs (so the debuffs don't apply on all the mob all the time) and son is a little poor AoE wise.

maybe dark/ice would be better?


last question, but not least: does our Voltaic sentinel scourge like the dom's version?

Defenders dont get Scourge. Best AoE Combo IMO would be Cold/ice/Power Mastery

i can see why for the /ice part . i did not took it for the moderatly long rech of the first rain power (can't remember it's name) and the generally high cost (end wise) of the powers.

but for the cold/ part i don't get it.

concerning our VS that doesn't scourge.... WHYyyyyyYYYYYyYYYyYYYYYYY?!

Standard damage wise, Kinetics/Sonic. You get a nice res debuff, as well as almsot always being at the damage cap =). can't imagine standard damage gets better than that for defenders.

If you're looking for max damage, you might want to consider rolling up a Controller instead. Once you factor in containment, I think a Fire/Kin outdamages a Kin/* defender because containment isn't limited by the damage cap. However, a problem with Fire/Kin Controllers is that they take a long time before they come into their own, damage-wise. Their damage pre-Imps is pretty weak and they don't get Fulcrum Shift till 38, and to really mature they need an epic AoE like Fireball slotted up. So honestly Fire/Kins don't get to full "wow" until they're in the low to mid 40s.

If you want to limit your play to blueside, once Going Rogue goes live, you'll have the additional option of rolling up a Corruptor and switching sides. Fire/Kin Corruptors play very differently than Fire/Kin Controllers. For one thing, their damage is solid right out of the gate, and just gets better and better.

Did I hear Rad/Son?

Im soo going to get Flak for this..but...theres 3 builds that come to mind when it comes to outright damage and survivability for a Defender....(In my eyes atleast)

Traps/Elec #1

Traps/Dark #2 (Wicked fun)

Rad/Rad #3

This is my personal opinion with exp added playing these builds.

In terms of raw damage, aren't Dark, Rad, and Elec among the lowest (Psy being the worst)? They're less resisted and they have some nice utilities, but even so, they don't hit very hard.

Kin/Arch/Psi for aoe

Well,maybe i look at damage a little diffrently then most people.

Rad Blasts its self,can allow you to contantly hit..rarly ever miss because of the side effect of debuffing def % of your foes....so in turn,not missing makes for better damage over time.

Dark Blasts,yeh,little bit on the low side for many attacks in damage,but whats the use of extreemly high damage if you get nailed the second you start your attack run?Dark Blasts debuff toHit % of your enemies,allowing you to continually dump more control,making the damage acctually a mute point,they will die surely enough,but you wont have a scratch on you most times due to the debuffs and the FF generator.(Traps primary)

Sonic,now this is the interesting one...i keep hearing how sonic blasts are just out of this world,and awesome for a defender...i totally dissagree... i have a lvl 37 Kin/Sonic Defender.....and i am find it not only borning,but not as fantastic as everyone hoots and hollars about.(yes,i know how to use both power sets very well)

Alot of things are resistant to the damage Sonic does,and Fulcrum Shift does help with the problem,and make you hit VERY hard...however...a diffrent blast set would benifit more from Kin/ then sonic blasts do...but who am i to judge right?cant change everyones minds...and yes..im sure someone will throw mids at me over this statement,but,as always,mids dont know anything but numbers,and dont take in account the damage type,or the resistance of what you may face,or the offensive capability of what you may face.

Im prolly going to roll a Kin/Ice Blasts Defender soon,simply because i think Fulcrum Shift + Aim + Blizzard would be funnier then hell.Not to mention the end drain from it wouldnt be totally horrible,considering youd lose end,but played right,you never run out.

Then again,ANY Blast set would be a good combo with Kin/,so trust me Sonic isnt that great,it has alot of knock back,which i dont perfer vs soft control of other blaster sets.

So yeh...im saying Sonic isnt that great...that and i rarly see a defender with it...prolly because its not as great as forum goers belive..and i wouldnt make another defender with that set if i was paid to do so.

The OP never specifies how they're counting damage, or whether they're playing in teams or solo.

For many Defenders, their individual damage will always appear to be useless compared to every non-Defender on their team. However, since what many Defenders are geared to do is de/buff, the team's overall DPS might have sky-rocketed thanks to the Defender(s).

Kinetics is the obvious Primary for boosting damage, esp on a team.

Radiation is the next-best, imho, although it relies upon weakening your enemies more than boosting your team-mates. I actually prefer playing Radiation Primary on my Defenders, and find that I get similar results in terms of improved-DPS with the added bonus of higher survivability.

(On Controllers, I find Kinetics works better than Radiation, so personal play-style is obviously a factor.)

Kinetics gets complaints for being click-heavy and people whining for Speed Boost. Radiation gets complaints for its use of toggle-debuffs, which are less useful on TF speed runs where you're murdering most mobs before your toggles are even set, although they do make killing the AVs really easy.

Most of the other Primaries give improved survivability, but not the DPS-boosts of those two.

Sonic as a Secondary is interesting in that what makes it wonderful is the huge Res Debuff. Sure, your actual damage isn't fab, the special FX (even with colouring) are lame, and sound effects are god-awful, but your team's damage-dealers are rapidly tearing apart that mob/AV/GM thanks to your Sonic attacks' debuffs.

I have deliberately sat back and not used my Sonic attacks for a mob, then attacked on the next, and gone back-and-forth, just to watch how much more quickly the team slices through the Sonic-debuffed mob. I can clearly see it's not my direct DPS making the major difference, but the debuffing.

However, when playing solo, my Sonic Blast can feel a little weak on regular mobs. Pared with Radiation, it fares impressively against AVs and GMs, but I still have an alt build to get through the regular mobs at a reasonable pace when solo.

Radiation Blast is quite punchy and fun, with some nice debuffs. I'd always take this as my Secondary if I didn't have Radiation Primary (the duplication of debuffs isn't anywhere near as effective as Rad/Sonic.)

Ice does the best direct DPS, mostly due to Ice Storm and Blizzard, and backed up with some punchy if slow ST attacks.

However, I played a Kinetics-Ice to 50 and deleted it. Kinetics is click-heavy and fast, and Ice is slow as Hell, so it felt schizophrenic to me. In team-play it spent most of its time SBing and FSing. Ice Storm proved rather redundant with its very long DPS when the Fulcrum-Shifted damage-dealers have already destroyed that mob and the one after it, and Blizzard was an unnecessary aggro-draw and a potential down-time to my more important powers, like Fulcrum Shift.

A Kinetics-Sonic would probably fit together quite beautifully, or a Kinetics-Radiation, if you're dead-set against Sonics. If you like Ice Blast, I think Radiation Emission would be a smoother fit, but YMMV.

The other Secondaries add survivability at the cost of DPS, which is not what the OP is looking for.