Emp Defense

As an Empath, with the secondary of ice, does it make more sense to build for Ranged Def, with a fair amount of Energy/Neg Energy or go with Smash/Lethal defense with some Melee def?

I know there isn't a right answer to this question, just curious what the word on the street is.

Range. As a ranged character, your attacks have more bonuses that grant range defense, so it will be easier. Also, if you can stay at range, not much will hit you, but with s/l, there are some attacks pegged as only fire/dark/nrg in the game, which are more common than you might think. And besides, as a cold/emp, you really have no reason to be in melee range anyway.

A second vote for range defense.

And a note that, in general, I don't build purposefully for defense on my numerous Emps. Building defense requires too many choices away from maximizing my recharge and that is almost always my priority for Empathy. My Emps rely mainly on high regen from RA, self healing from HA, resistance, teammates and inspires for mitigation. The only builds I've worried about defense on were dedicated duo/small team builds typically with other Emps as teammates or otherwise not "general" team builds and in those cases the builds general hit +defense (all) effectively. I've only had one build with ranged defense as a priority and it was meant for attempting the RWZ challenge.

As much as I like building for defense, as an Emp/Ice, I would say recharge is better. THe combination just has too many oportunities for recharge. Empathy is full of powers that can slot for 5% recharge, Ice Blast has plenty for the 6.25%. You can muster around 55% worth of recharge without even making build sacrifices or losing slotting values.

But if you really want defense, as others have said, range would be the way to go.

I do agree that recharge will make an emp a stronger teammate. However, to mix things up, I'd like to cast a vote for s/l just because you get to 32% s/l with Scorp Shield, Maneuvers and CJ. 25% to energy as well. That's without any consideration for IO bonuses, which will be harder for an emp to build up via bonuses for s/l (no natural home for melee attacks for Kinetic Combat). So my 2 inf is to build this foundation for s/l defense and focus on recharge.

Emps don't really need defense, to be completely honest. They don't generate enough aggro to really need it.