Defenders - 5 years as an Altaholic

After playing every Archetype and about 200+ toons later,
some only to level 20, others past 40, I would like to share
some observations and perhaps save someone else the
time it took me to learn some of these interesting builds.

I'm not going into great detail. There is lots of information
on most of the archetypes in the forums. I'm just going
to mention a few types I found to work real well and why,
and a pointer or two in the build.

All primary and secondary powers in the hands of a good
player can work well, BUT there are some power combinations
that work better. It is usually because the primary and secondaries
work better together, they have a certain synergy. A good example
would be the power RAIN OF FIRE combined with TAR PATCH.
Tar patch not only slows down the enemies but also has a damage
resistance debuff, increasing the fires damage. This game has many
such synergies and I have spent years experimenting with them.
All Archetypes have them and they are there to discover.
Here are a couple of interesting ones that work well:


DEFENDERS

Traps/Dark (A dark powered battle tank)
I always liked the Dark/Traps corruptor but it works much better
as a Traps/Dark defender.
This Archetype plays like a battle tank - You plop yourself down,
put up your shield, healing AoE, mines, caltrops, etc. and start
blasting the enemy at range. The synergy between your shield
defence and dark defense debuffs works well, making it hard for
the enemy to hit you. You have 2 healing types to keep you heal up
if they do. A very survivable defender. You'll go looking for overrun
situations just to test your survivability.

Dark/Rad (A well balanced Defender)
Good damage resistance and defense. A great AoE heal.
A rez that can rez the entire team if need be. And on top
of all that, a slow power, a damage debuff (tar patch) and defense
debuff in your blast powers. So in a nut shell, this defender will
reduce incoming damage, heal the team, rez the team, make the
enemy easier to kill and hit. Bonus - you get some soft control as well -
Fearsome stare, etc. You even get a pet!

Yes, I did mean accuracy debuffs. The corruptor eqivallent doesn't work as well as the defender version due to the great difference between these buffs and debuffs. My shield defence is around 20%+ on the defender not including other defenses that stack as well.

My appologies for this post.
I will post more tactfully and minimully in future.