New Defender secondary help.

Hello all, finally decided to give a Defender a shot and I am kinda stuck on what to pick. I plan to use Rad as the primary, so I am set there.

Now where I am stumped is in choosing a secondary. Looking over the secondaries, these are the ones I have narrowed it down to, but I am really not sure of the effectiveness/synergy as my only similar experience has been with corruptors.

Here is the list in the order that I like them, though admittedly I am partially biased based on the look of powers as well, so I may be way off... hence my plea for help!

Psychic Blast
Radiation Blast
Electrical Blast
Dark Blast
Sonic Attack

For some background, I prefer to solo while leveling/basic questing in most cases as a way to relax/blow off stress, but I want a character that is useful for team/TFs as well. Being able to solo is important, but I don't need to have a super duper AV/GM soloing machine, just something that can handle solo missions with EBs and such. For that reason I tend to play characters with some forms of crowd control. And while not planning on much "hardcore" PvP, I'd like a set that will at least limit my self embarrassment to say a strand of toilet paper stuck to the shoe as opposed to splitting one's pants during a business meeting.

They all seem to fit the bill in one way or another, but as I don't have the practical experience, I come here asking for your help. Which would you advise and why? Which would work best with Rad as a primary given my little blurb of goals above? What is the overland flight speed of a laden swallow? Any help or advice would be appreciated.

They all look like fun to me, so now I just need to know which would be more functional and or effective.

Help me Defender Forums, you're my only hope!

I think you're starting to see why defenders cause altitis.

Rad/Psychic: Pros: broken amounts of AoE -recharge, nice single target blasts. Cons: no Aim, worthless single target stun, miserable damage type, keep eyes peeled for crafted or flashback temp powers to deal with zombies and robots solo. Vibe: scrapperish -- you can take down a problem target quickly, with enough survivability from your debuffs to be not too squishy (and the team likes your debuffs too).

Rad/Rad: Pros: three non-nuke AoE blasts, a respectable damage type, Cosmic Burst, Achilles' Heel procs, and Irradiate messing with stalkers in PvP in so many ways. Cons: Neutron Bomb's damage type is nice but it's still no Rain of Arrows, unpredictable knockback on Electron Haze. Vibe: tankerish -- you can take point, Burst an LT in the fase, entice the other enemies to crowd around (the fools!), heal yourself, and dodge stuff as long as Radiation Infection is going, just watch out for mez.

Rad/Elec: Pros: nice single target hold, stackable with Choking Cloud, with a recovery shutdown built in, PBU+SC option at high levels. Cons: a bit low on AoE damage, a bit low on ST damage when Sparky isn't focusing. Vibe: defenderish -- you make bad PuGs work by providing a backup plan to shut enemies down (provided your teammates suck at mezzing, spike damage, and tanking), and in a veteran TF (where your teammates don't suck), even though your direct damage is low, your rad debuffs justify your place.

Rad/Dark: Pros: spammable cone immobilize, -tohit stacking is nice in the rare cases defender strength Radiation Infection isn't enough (purples). Cons: no Aim, a bit low on AoE damage, emphasis on cones means you might have to rely on slot-needy Dark Pit for minion mezzing instead of Choking Cloud (and the two don't stack), Torrent's knockback is workable but does little damage and has a steep learning curve. Vibe: controllerish -- you're the "no" man: enemies can't move, can't hit, can't recharge, can't regen without your permission... just pretend your teammates are your pets.

Rad/Sonic: Pros: -resistance debuffs make everything faster, -resistance debuffs' hidden boost to Enervating Field's -damage makes AVs and GMs even sadder pandas, nice split damage type. Cons: cones/Choking Cloud mismatch, Shockwave's knockback has almost as steep a learning curve as Torrent, though the damage is better. Vibe: blasterish -- soloable with careful use of mezzes, debuffs, and single target burst, but with a good team backing you up and letting you go full throttle, look out universe.

All in all, single target damage is the limiting factor for defender soloing, so if you're mostly concerned with soloing, lean towards heavier single target hitters (/Psi is best at that, followed by /Sonic, /Rad, /Elec, then /Dark). Damage and defense are altered in weird ways in PvP, so /Rad actually ends up one of the more popular secondaries for PvP. Any flavor of rad emission will do well on PvE teams in general, but /Dark is especially good for PuGging (chaos reduction), /Sonic is especially good for TFing (AVBBQ).

I'm a big fan of Rad/Dark. The tentacles help keep everything in your debuff fields (and at range) which is really helpful. While the Tentacles/Night Fall combination won't produce large damage numbers, they do produce tons and tons of little numbers and do, in fact, get the job done. Heck, if you get some recharge reduction in those two you've got a non-stop area effect cycle—especially with Hasten and Accelerate Metabolism running! And, you know, since Rad/ will let you grab bunches of enemies pretty safely, why not unload constant area effect damage?

I won't say it's perfect or foolproof, but it's pretty effective at melting mobs of enemies. And if you love a storm of orange damage-spam numbers like I do, it's even better.

Rad/rad is a classic. Neutrino bolt and x-ray beam are kinda pew pew pew, but you can proc out neutrino bolt with some nice stuff, chance to hold, resistance debuff whose effects can outshine the damage and defense debuff in rad blast. The really good thing about rad blast is that when you 'paint the target', successive targets have better chances to hit.

Rad/dark is another classic combo. Back before Rad/Sonic was available, rad/dark blast was all the rage. To hit debuffs on targets outside the radiation infection AoE increase survivability. Everyone loves tenebrous tentacles. Dark blast is the only AoE immobilize available to defenders in the secondary. The synergy between dark blast and radiation emission is something you have to experience to enjoy. It's almost surreal.

Rad/sonic is the GM solo'er. It's the bandwagon combination and for good reason. Sonic blast rips through your targets resistances like a defender primary power when you get it all stacking on tough targets.

Psy blast is resisted, but at least rad emission has enervating field to counter some of that.

Electric blast is a set I only enjoy pairing with kinetics for super sapper mode.

One advantage to sonic I didn't see mentioned thats nice for soloing is the cone sleep; rad debuffs don't break sleep, so you can get all your debuffs set up before waking up the spawn. It also has a low damage ST stun, so you can mezz lts before they mezz you. As mentioned, rad/sonic will also be in very high demand on high level teams for its "hard target" melting capabilities, I've been on far too many teams that won't start without a rad. Down side, weak AoE, so you have to ST things to death soloing.

If you don't mind toggle debuff herding, I'd suggest rad/rad. Set up Rad Infection, pull into a clump in Choking Cloud + debuffs, and you have 2 AoEs you can use while standing in the middle of the spawn. With enough +recharge set slotting to make AM/Hasten perma, those two plus Cosmic Burst (best damage + mezz ST attack a defender can get) are basically a full attack chain, so you can pull 2-3 spawns together and melt them simultaneously, faster though not as safe as a /sonic. Achilles proc in Neutrino gives substantial extra -resist debuffing on a hard target because of its fast fire rate.

Otherwise, I'd suggest Dark. I'm not fond of the cones, because you constantly have to move back and forth to get a whole spawn, but mobs run pretty readily these days if they are debuffed or whiff a few times, so pinning the spawn in place to keep the debuff anchor from running through another group will save you a lot of grief. Otherwise, plan to stun or hold your anchor with one of the other power sets.