Endurance.

Ah, right. I saw a level 50 build and assumed you had a level 50 Defender. Well at level 41, there are some interesting opportunities as well. You already have Conserve Power, I assume? Don't put it on auto, fire it off together with Hasten so the increased End use from using your attacks faster is countered by Conserve Power. Then there's Force of Nature. If I remember right, it has a Recovery boost as well so if it gets bad, you can alternate these two.

Really, get to level 42 and slot up CP (Three Recharge SOs/IOs) and use it with Hasten, or if your End begins getting low. And when you get Force of Nature, use that for boss fights so you can recover End and have high resistance.

I don't get what I just read.

Completely agree with using Thunderstrike as a starting point for getting cheap IO sets into your powers. To be honest, you'll be amazed by the difference. Kinetic Crash advice is also very good. Specifically, Power Bolt, Power Blast, and Power Burst should be your bread and butter attacks, and most difinately 6 slotted with Thunderstrike. This change alone will make a big difference in performance.

I'd start by putting up relatively lowball bids on recipes immediately. Some will fill right away...others you may have to wait a few days, or a week, maybe even longer(although I doubt it). I'd put up bids on anything you can slot immediately. As you buy them, slot 'em up. I'm gonna get into game now and take a look at Thunderstrike recipes in the high 30s, low 40s right now and see what you're up against...

Edit: Well, they seem to be pretty scarce right now....many bids with none for sale. It's a very popular set. The history says that at most levels they sell daily though. It'll be more expensive than the previously mentioned 30 million, but not by much...say 50 million for three sets.
If you're truly just trying to improve your character, I'll toss you a couple hundred million to get you going. My global is @Ignatz and I usually can be found Sunday mornings after 6AM PST, Monday evenings after 9PM PST, and late night after 3AM PST every other day.

Finally! I've told you to get Thunderstrike in every thread like this, even this one.

Thunderstrike is cheap and awesome.

It gives you bonus recovery, and global accuracy so you don't waste end by missing.

It carries the equivalent of 3 Dam, 2 Acc, 2 End Redux and 3 recharge in the powers its slotted in. (Almost 2 of each...)

It will cap your Ranged Defence on a FF Defender.

Do it do it do it! Six slot Power Blast, Power Bolt and Power Burst with this, change nothing else and tell me you don't feel the difference!

Re: buying IOs.

It is almost always cheaper to buy recipes and salvage and craft the IOs yourself. That said, it is also often worth browsing through the listings to look for pre-crafted bargains. Which brings me to point 2...

It's helpful to understand that there is pretty marginal improvement between level 35 IOs and level 50 IOs in terms of the basic % bonus they grant. E.g. a level 35 acc/dam IO gives a total of 45.88% in acc/dam bonuses, while a level 50 gives a total of 53%. This leaves a pretty wide range of levels in which to hunt for bargains. The highest supply and, generally, highest prices, are at level 50, but with a little patience and being willing to leave in lowball bids for recipes over a range of levels, you can make big savings.

Lower-levels IOs have the secondary benefit of letting you keep the set bonuses when exemped down. My FF/ defender is largely outfitted with level 33 IOs, which let her keep the set bonuses down to level 30. (She has an unusually matching collection, though, simply because I vastly prefer playing her in teams to plinking things to death while solo, so I exemp down a lot.)

Really, you should have a look at IO sets. Once you get into them, designing builds can get fun in its own right, and they're perfect for doing exactly what you want to do here -- what seems like a small amount of +def, +rec or +dam really adds up.

You might also consider frakenslotting attacks. Ignore set bonuses, grab IOs with the enhancement values you want from different sets, and stick them in there. You won't gain much in the way of set bonuses, other than random strays that may or may not be helpful, you can easily get six slots worth of enhancements in three or four slots.

Also, if you're having endurance issues, Hasten is bad. Very bad. Not only will attacks be recharging faster, meaning increased end usage, it also has a crash of 15 end which can really hurt if it happens at a critical moment if you're not very end efficient yet.

You may also consider looking at the Dark and Electric APPs. Both have a PBAoE end drain power that can refill you every so often. Electric especially, since its end drain is auto hit. Just shove a bunch of recharge in it and you'll have far fewer end problems. It's more effective than Conserve Power by far. Electric also as Thunderstrike (the move, not the IO) which is similar to Total Focus but also PBAoE. So, you won't entirely lose your favorite power.

What I don't get about this alleged experiment (aside form the bizarre slotting and obvious intent to "prove" a specific point) is that you used a Force Fields/Energy Defender against a single boss.

A mature Force Fielder totally owns a single boss. Mutliple foes can present quite a challenge, but just ONE guy is all-but-helpless against you if you use any of several different tools. The two easiest would be Force Bubble or Force Bolt, either one.

MY FF/Energy Defender, built more conventionally, used to farm the Winter Event missions for my own amusement. Snaptooth is an Elite Boss, and a hard hitter -- much stronger than the Rikti scum you tackled here -- and he was completely helpless, spending most of the fight upside-down and ragdolled, flattened against a wall by Force Bubble.

And that was before IOs. AND before the Defender damage increase in Vigilance.

I'm not some kind of super-genius. You can do this too.

A FF Defender may not be the ultimate warrior, but in this case you have the perfect character for lopsidedly crushing a single boss. Slot normally -- not like your first posted build -- and it'll not only be doable, it'll be easy.

Increasing the damage of an attack increases it's endurance efficiency at the same rate as increasing its endurance reduction.

Similarly, increasing the ACCURACY of an attack increases it's endurance efficiency at the same rate as increasing its endurance reduction, except in cases where the amount of gained hit-rate from the accuracy slotting is above the 95% cap for your intended target.

The advantage that both of these slotting options have over endurance reduction is that, like endurance reduction, both also increase the speed at which things die. This has a teritary endurance benefit of requiring less endurance invested in surviving, via buffs, debuffs, and controls.

A similar comparative relationship can be drawn between Accuracy and Damage, and Recharge reduction, when observing DPS as opposed to DPE, with the missing benefit of Recharge slotting being Efficiency.

For optimal efficiency (Damage per Endurance per slot), slot exactly enough accuracy to reach the to-hit cap, then exactly that amount of endurance reduction and damage.

Figure out what to do with the excess space yourself based on the particular priorities of the character in question, noting that survivability powers magnify the benefit of increased kill speed in increasing efficiency due to the fact that every second the enemy lives incurs a cost in endurance to survive their attacks, regardless of whether controls, buffs, or debuffs are the tools being used.

I went and got the Thunderstrike set from the Merit Vendor in the Atlas Wentworth's, but don't have enough merits to get two sets, let alone three.

I had most of the necessary salvage already, and the stuff I needed to buy wasn't terribly expensive. Crafting them myself thus cost a total of about 6 million for the entire set. That stings, but I noticed a difference, even with only one set of them. I can imagine three sets will be very nice indeed.

Just a little update.

Thunderstrikes are (mostly) super cheap.
Buying them with merits is crazy.

Long time observer of these threads, this one seems above average.

Haven't seen it mentioned but popping in the Numinas and Miracle Unique IOs in 2 of your health slots will give you another 25% recovery which iirc is equal to base Stamina. Each for only 2 Alignment Merits each. (if market is too pricey)

Unless you're sold on Power Mastery, Dark Mastery gives Dark Consumption at 41 which is a nice +end power, as opposed to Conserve Power's end cost reduction.

I went looking for them at Wentworth's initially, but there were only a couple of them and people were asking 5 million plus each (for the recipes!). They were 50 merits each, and I wanted to get this thing under way asap. I figure, I can get more recipes over time, but I'm not likely to if I'm not interested in playing the character. Get him playable first, then worry about luxury.

Good advice from the Medbot.