Defenders in Pvp

Sorry to bother everyone but im curious about defenders in pvp, a friend of mine says defenders are laughable in pvp, i have a concept in mind for my defender for pvp but i am not sure how well it will do, its all in theory at the moment. I would just like some input if he is remotely correct or is a defender capable in pvp to actually finish off an opponent or stand there being a punching bag and laughed at.

I think laughable is an overstatement, unless he's talking about some sort of "uberleet" level PvP. They're certainly not more laughable than Brutes, and yet people bring those to the game. A well-built and well-played Defender is pretty solid against most ATs in 1 on 1 (Blasters and Dominators are the rough matchups). I've certainly finished off lots of opponents if that's your concern.

The real problem is in zone PvP where they tend to be the primary target due to their annoyance factor, and get badly outnumbered. Nobody's going to go after that [insert Melee AT here] if they have a shot at the guy who's making them miss/killing their recharge/buffing their enemies/draining their endurance/etc.

You have to have strong powersets and a good build, but defenders are viable in most forms of pvp. My storm/sonic works well, with dominators being the only thing that easily rapes me.

Build for high hp. Have an escape power or two. Get a team. Evade evade evade.

my defender is pretty much good for helping the tank or scrapper anything melee i just turn dispersion bubble on bubble the guy im following and do what i can xD

Also, because of the base damage resistance granted to most ATs in PvP, Sonic and Thermal shields are less useful. Not sure what your build plan was, but that's something to keep in mind.

It tends to be alot easier when you appoach pvp with the understanding in mind that your going to be a target.

As for laughable?not at all.

Just think about the movie with Riddick in Pitch Black.Nothing around you, but you can hear them, and all the sudden 50 stalkers apear and eat you alive.

Welcome to PvP.

I'm sorry for taking so long to reply been working on my FF/DP Defender. I know people will say DP isn't all that great but there really is no other choice for me. My main focus for playing a Defender is to obtain roughly 5-6 moves from DP, and about 3-4 at most from my primary. So for example this is what i have now.

Force Field:
PFF
ForceBolt
Dispersion
Force Bubble

DP:
Pistol
Dual Wield
Swap Ammo
Exec. Shot
Piercing rounds
*Suppression Fire

Fitness:
Hurdle/Health/Stam
Speed: Haste/SS
Fighting: Kick/Tough/Weave
Leadership:Assault/Tactics *Maneuvers (if i dont take Supp fire)

Electric Mastery:
Thunder Strike/Charge armor/Power sink/Shocking bolt

From the numbers on mids if i went with this build and without suppression shot and with maneuvers in place i can get (full IOd) the build could reach about 33% defense (35/6 give or take as well) However it has no heal which could be a problem. currently it does well vs squishies, but vs at least melee if i dont have Force bubble up im in trouble. (could be my defense though seeing as (with my current IOs i have only 20% defense and about 77% resistance *dont have tough in my current build but with the new idea tough would bring my resistance to 100%)


My other concept was a Emp/DP Nearly the same set up except replace

Force Field/Emp
PFF >>>>Healing Aura
Force Bolt>>>>Empty Clips/heal Other *For the recharge IO at least
Dispersion>>>>Recovery Aura *Full recharge+Perma Haste makes this a 1.5m recharge and 1.5 uptime
Force Bubble>>>>>Regen Aura **Same as Recover aura

the rest is the same. the numbers of mids say that it can reach 1300% + regen, and about 530% recov for 90 seconds, my main focus would be dmg so the idea is to go in hit up the two auras and focus primary on dmg, the problem Forcefield has vs this is forcefield requires at least 1 extra toggle, but provides much higher defense 33% vs the 12% im getting from this however from what mids says ill be getting close to 61Hp per second for that 90 seconds and has a 280hp heal every 5 seconds. It's a small form of dmg mitigating i suppose, and it's nice to have a heal i can run with.

I would like some input and some ideas tossing around if possible. There is no Changing DP, Force Field was my main idea and the one im currently building, however the Regen idea was an interesting concept in my mind.

defense doesn't matter, it'll get DRed to nothing.

look, if you're main purpose is to do damage than A) you shouldn't be doing a defender and B) you shouldn't be doing FF and/or emp

both FF and Emp are buff sets in pvp, if you don't take the buffs in either set, then you're basically a nerfed blaster.

for duels, against any experienced pvper, you'll get wrecked, and in zone with no buffs you'll be basically worthless. defenders excel in disruption and buffing, neither of which those builds do any of. even for a damage build, you still have no vertical movement so TS is gonna suck for you, and you have no exit i.e. phase so thats gonna be an issue(even with PFF anything with aim/bu will hit you anyway, as i said defense will get DRed to nothing) not to mention taking fighting does nothing for you.

defenders aren't laughable in pvp, an FF/DP or emp/DP that only wants to do damage is. The current pvp system, awsum as it is, unfortunately doesn't help most concept builds, if its not specialized it'll be much harder for you to excel. if you're absolutely hell bent on going DP, you're better off making a DP/EM since you'll atleast do some damage and can be built to have some pretty good range in it.

You really need to take detention field. It's force field's entire saving grace in pvp. That and knockback slotted force bolt. Don't bother building for defense, as a slotted dispersion bubble will make you hit the defender defense cap of around 10-15%. In pvp, force field ceases to be a defensive buffing set and becomes a disruption set.

You did take the right pistol powers though, and you definitely want suppressive fire. As for power pools, definitely drop fighting.