Defender that can solo quickly?

Hi folks. Long-time player (with lots of breaks) that has only recently managed to get a toon to 50 (plant/storm troller). Been working on a tanker and scrapper but can't really decide what I want to commit to so I'm looking at Defender builds as well.

So ... Given that I tend to mix solo and team play (probably 50/50) is there a Defender setup that can actually do good damage and run quick missions (hopefully at x8 at some point)? I have literally no experience with Defenders but from what I've read they don't really look to have the damage output necessary.

Thoughts and suggestions?

Defenders can solo, but there is a huge difference between ones that can sorta solo and ones that really rock.

In general Dark and Rad are probably the best soloing primaries being focused on debuffs but with an AoE heal tossed in to keep your HP up. Traps is probably next, it's an excellent set but is a bit slow. Kin, Trick Arrow and Storm also work well solo (although both Kin and TA have problems mitigating the Alpha Strike).

For Secondary you want one of the higher damage ones. Sonic is generally considered the best since it stacks quite hefty resist debuffs on enemies. Archery and Assault Rifle both have very good AoE potential which helps solo larger numbers. Dual Pistols has some popularity since Defenders get more benefit from Ammo Switching than Blasters/Corruptors although that's more defensive than offensive.

I agree Adeon,

Dark and Rad work very well for soloing. I didn't mention them ahead of Storm, because the OP mentioned a desire to run at x8 eventually. My experience with both Dark and Rad are that scaling up group size can be problematic for the toggles of those two sets, especially Radiation. With Toggles up, your good, but in a mezz-heavy mob, one mezz gets thru and your toast. Dark has it a little better because of better crowd control, but suffers for it by having less DPS boosting ability.

Storm doesnt have a heal, which is the only thing I feel it really needs. So another combination for thought would be Storm-Dark and be sure to take Drain Life.

Its all good You cannot go wrong with a defender !

I haven't tried it myself, but in Theory a Kin/Arch/Psy should be able to take down spawns pretty handily with Mass Hypnosis > Fulcrum Shift > RoA. Of course getting up to that point solo could be a bit difficult, but you won't be wanting for teams if you're a Kin.

For x8 its also worth pointing out that Darkest Night has a much bigger radius than Radiation Infection.

I'd recommend Traps - build up your Ranged Defence and AoE defence second, and use Caltrops to keep melee'ers at bay.

in terms of primaries, chose any of the 'offender' primaries that is Dark, Rad, Traps, & Storm, and some may argue TA. These are primaries that offer various forms of debuffs, control, and damage mitigation. The only secondary I would be hesitant with, would be psi blast. As a defender your already at a 65% damage base( which -resist debuffs do help to mitigate), combine that with the super high resists on the critters that do resist psi damage ( generally anything that uses psi, robots, and zombie like critters with no brains). The other damage types have critters who resist that type of damage, but I'm pretty sure you don't see resists like you do with psi damage. I am told DB works really well with defenders (variety of damage & secondary effects, combined with stacking with their existing debuffs, and secondary effects on blasts are generally much stronger with defenders)

I still remember leveling my first 50, my rad/dark defender who was a monster in terms of soloing, vs. my wife's emp/rad, granted that was before ED

Before I left I could solo my Rad/Psy on Invincible quite well (he's lvl 40 frankenslotted), so for x8 maybe a Dark/Psy or Dark/Ice (both with good ST+AoE) because Dark has Fearsome Stare, Tar Patch, DN, Fluffly, better than Rad's toggles for large mobs. Dark/Dark may be an option if you solo without bosses, although all the DoT makes me impatient.

My lvl 50 Kin/Arch/DM defender is pretty survivable, and fast(for a defender) at clearing out spawns. The fun thing about a defender compared to most of the other AT's is that they get massive defense and resistance from pool and epic power sets. My non-purpled out 100mil dollar build has over 62%(with tough of course)SL resistance and a hefty amount of defense. I took DM for my epic pool for the Oppresive Gloom. The stun from OP keeps minions at bay and can stack with the stun from Archery to keep bosses perma mezzed. Now this build will be neither tough nor survivable until you pick up some pool powers, and it will not be fast until you get ROA and Fulcrum Shift, but if you like to play a toon after reaching 50 you will find this one to be pretty durable. If you just like to level them up to 50 and then shelve them this may be too much of a late bloomer. I used this build to run +2/x6 farms prior to getting my blaster IO'ed and farm capable.

My fastest leveling defender soloing was my Rad/Dark.

/Dark has some very nice AoE/Cone damage and has tools in both Tenebrious Tentacles and Torrent to keep the spawn (even when set to 8 Players) bunched around your anchor.

The to hit debuff in the dark powers also stacks nicely with the to hit debuff in radiation infection. With out any defense slotting at all, just slotting rad infection up to the ED -to hit cap and stacking your cones with out to hit debuffs you can keep the equivalent of softcapped defenses against +3s. Minimal defense slotting from combat jumping/manuvers and/or a few defense set bonuses or a small purple insp will keep you at the soft cap against +4s.

T_T will keep things immobilized and out of melee. If too many things get away from you choking cloud (especially with the lock down proc) and EM pulse will allow you to recapture the situation.

It takes some time to really hit it's stride, but TA/A solos pretty well. Especially post level 26. Just make sure you can do energy or fire damage either with powerset or origin attack. A HUGE amount of your damage comes from oil slick. I'm talking "melt 16+ even con minions in seconds" damage. Although archery isn't a slouch in damage it's self. At least, not unless fighting warwolves.

Heh, talk of this TA's OSA reminder me of why I made him. TA/Ice. Crap tons of AoE damage with OSA, Ice Storm, and Blizzard. However, I've yet to really focus on him to where I could solo him as easy as my Storm/Dark.

Defenders can't solo. They are there to heal the team, when not teamed they should roam around and heal people street sweeping.

Rad and dark are definitely the best options. Early blooming primaries with a good measure of offense and safety along with self heal. The easiest path for a casual scenic trip to 50.

Of course any set can be leveled solo but all the others are missing at least one of those strengths and will have a rougher road as a result.

They should either remove TA from the game or give it a healing arrow. As it stands it is useless to teams.

And yes Bio the defender inherent should be a side-kick they just runs Healing Aura on auto. Then defenders other than Empathy would be useful. I knew you would see it my way.

I am probably wrong here but doesn't AM protect some versus MEzz?