It's probably not a great combo if you solo a lot. AR's forte is AoE damage but it is weak in ST attacks. On a Defender you really want some resistance debuffs in the primary to or a single target hold/immobilize to allow you to use ignite since the lack of ST damage makes fighting bosses and such very hard. Additionally ARs mitigation is mostly in the form of knockback which FF already has plenty of.
If you team a lot it is better. AR provides AoE attacks out the wazoo and you can let someone else provide the ST damage.
Redraw wise I would consider it moderate. There are only two FF powers that you're going to be frequently interspersing with blast attacks: Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb. It will be annoying if you want to use Force Bolt for mitigation since you'll be virtually alternating between Force Bolt and AR attacks. Repulsion Bomb is on a longer recharge so it's less of an issue there, you should get several attacks in between each bomb attack.
Given what we've just been told about going rogue, I wouldn't bother making a FF/ar if it'd just be a placeholder for a FF/dp. Since it appears that preordering GR will allow you to make dp and demon summoning characters early, and the announcement appears to suggest that this will be available around early march, I'd just wait a month and make the ff/dp then.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
Does anyone have anything to say about an FF/AR defender?
I know we can't make solid guesses here yet, but I'm thinking to make an FF/Dual Pistols Def when GR hits because I've never run a Def past about 10th and I've never run anything FF.
Assuming that DP isn't too outlandishly different from DP (I know about the ammo-switch power and all though), I was thinking that might give me some ground to start pondering this choice from. However I didn't see a guide for FF/AR listed...
So, any thoughts?