Mostly Solo Defender - Which is best?

Kinetics does so provide good suriveability.

People forget that every Siphon Power reduces the enemy's damage by 25%. Siphon Speed also reduces the enemy's recharge by (I think 25%). So when it comes down to single targets. Kinetics is able to debuff them by a heafty sum. Infact, you -can- stack 2 Siphon Power drains on a Single Target so their damage is now 56%. Not 50%, 56% due to multiplication and evil math.

Fulcrum shift does the same thing only to a whole group of enemies. Don't forget Repel and Transfusion too.

-Damage is not nearly as good as defense. -Dam won't stop a mezz from hitting you. And resistance (which -dam kinda duplicates) gets better the more HP you have. Since defenders aren't high on HP, -dam isn't going to do nearly as much as defense (or to hit debuffs). Plus, Dark has -dam to go with it's to hit debuffs, so nyah nyah!

I'd stick with the Dark/Dark, or reroll Dark/Ice. Last I heard, a couple of the Ice Blast powers were actually doing blaster level damage, always a good thing. Once you get to the 20s, you'll have the awesome ability to Fearsome Stare->Tar Patch->Ice Storm. Massive mob destruction, that is. Once you hit the late 30s, you can add Blizzard to that and watch with glee as the mob melts before you. Their movement speeds will be floored, so it's a rare spawn where any of them get out of the patches before they're dead. Plus Dark/Ice has *3* single target holds available to it, so stacking holds on a boss is easy, even onto EBs so long as they don't have the PToD on them. Or you can spread the "love" (holds) around, to take 2-3 troublesome mobs out of the fight long enough to deal with them at your pace.

Kinetic/Archer. Soft cap your ranged defence and use siphon speed to boost hover speed. You can actually farm with this toon let alone solo. Use super speed and stealth IO to get over mob (using hover). Fulcrum shift+mass hypnosis+rain of arrows=love.

Vel_Overload, I have to disagree on what Kin brings to the team defensively. Not because what you said was wrong, but because what you said isn't very much protection, COMPARED TO OTHER SETS.

So a few seconds into the fight, a Kin has lowered the effective damage of one enemy by 50% [if they're even con] and all the others around him by 25%. (those numbers are 40% and 20% for +2s. And Siphon Power stacks linearly with itself. ) So half damage from the toughest guy and 3/4 from the rest. If you would live 20 seconds with no defenses, with Kinetics you live 27 seconds.

A few seconds into the fight, a Rad has lowered the effective damage of all enemies around the target by a factor of FIVE for +2s (radiation infection) and then another 20% (Enervating field). Or a factor of TEN and 25% against even-cons.

20 seconds becomes 120 seconds against +2s, or 266 seconds against even cons.

Kinetics is very, very good at what it does. But really, "what it does" is almost entirely offensive.

I solo Alleyne, Traps/Dark, on +2x8 most of the time.
For the really tough stuff I drop her to +1x8.

Wow! What a great forum and response to my noob questions. Theres a lot of great information and variety of sets to try and may succumb to 'altitis' and have to roll up a number of different ones just to try them out. Thank you all for the helpful info. I'm just trying to get thru the player guides section on combat mechanics myself so i can better understand how defense, resist, tohit, accuracy etc. all work.