Why make a Defender today vs Corruptor?

I think percentage values aside, the reason to make a Defender over a corruptor is the simple fact you get your buffing / debuffing powers sooner rather than later.

And I guess, that makes you more useful to a low to mid level Team of heroes (or villains).

A Defender's main function is to support his/her other hero (or villain) teammates. Fighting, is a secondary priority for sure. Corruptors are there, like most other villain based archetypes it seems, to fight, first and foremost. All the villain Archetypes are there to damage things.

I think you can ask yourself the same question re: tankers and brutes for example. Why make a Tanker, when you can have a Brute that does more damage once fury gets going, and has the same res and def caps? I suppose the answer is similar to Corruptors and Defenders.

I would rather be more useful to my team sooner rather than later, which is why I personally favour Defenders over Corruptors, and Tankers over Brutes.

That's not to say Tankers and Defenders can't fight well unlike their villain equivalents, because they can fight, and fight well.

You can argue the numerical differences back and forth all day in regards to what is and isn't a significant difference.

For me, having played both, my personal experience is this: I notice the damage difference of playing a Corruptor, I don't notice the increased buff/debuff strength of playing a Defender.

Bear in mind, the majority of my play is end-game stuff, where AVs and GMs are prevalent. Against those kind of targets, Scourge really shines.

Plus, Defenders don't get Blaze or Rain of Scourge.

I mean, c'mon.

Another reason to make a Defender over a Corruptor. Force Fields!!

Made a new Defender last night, FF/Elec, what a vicious combo! Between my single target bubbles and my AOE bubble toggle, I was giving my teammates just over 32% defence! With a few lucks they were literally untouchable almost! I had a Blaster tanking!!

Defenders have higher debuff values. Usually this doesn't matter, but sometimes it can, e.g. for sonic blast (Def: -20%/blast, Corrr: -15%/blast). There's a significant difference in the amount of -res a Rad/Sonic def can stack vs. the Corr equivalent.

Defensively, defenders are usually easier to build for due to higher values for ally buffs that also affect self e.g. Maneuvers, and they actually get Tanker(!) modifiers for Tough/Weave and APP shields. My Ice/Cold Corr build has around 25 defense to everything. The same build, reproduced exactly on a Defender, has close to 30 defense to everything. That 5 defense might mean the difference between softcapped and not on a tight high-end build.

Defenders get access to buffdebuff powers sooner, which is nice on sets that mature late (Kin, Cold). They can also skip or delay the T1 power of their primary, which can be an advantage on some builds (I'd skip infrigidate on my Cold if I could).

Corruptor advantages are that they do better damage, they are excellent at killing single hard targets, they get access to Fire Blast, and they do so without debuffing meaningfully less than Defenders (in most cases - see above).

Because I am not an anal nerd. It's a game, not the olympics, not warfare. I suppose it could come down to whether or not I want to give people the immediate impression that I am going to be more defensive or offensive. I suppose I have sort of thought; I'd like a corrupter but I'd rather go through the hero side missions because there will be more people to team with.

I chose defender for my Cold/Sonic - there is a significant difference in -res debuff potential.

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Any particular reason for necro'ing this? Just felt like celebrating the two month anniversary of the last post?

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Oooh, good time for a necro as this thread kind of fits a question I had but didn't want to make a whole new thread about.

How about Time Manipulation and the great Defender vs Corruptor debate? I'm considering Time/Ice and wondering if I should go Defender or Corruptor but can't make my mind up.

The rule of thumb is that if you're going to be fire blast, ice blast, or kinetics, choose corruptor. Otherwise, defender is probably the better choice.

It definatley depends on the power sets. It's been said.. (i dont know personally because I dont care to crunch numbers)...that a sonic/sonic defender does more damage over time than a corrupter. If it's something like a kin i would say to make corrupter....but for other things....like lets say a traps/ice defender will do more damage over time than a ice/traps corrupter when soloing because of the debuffs precentages alone.

Either way it's up to you....I personally love defenders, but I have wanted to get scorpion shield so bad for my sonic/sonic making her move verstile

Every time I'm about to roll a corrupter, I wonder why I'm not just rolling a defender.

As mentioned above, it depends not only on what sets you play, but how you want to play the character. Kinetics is usually better as a secondary than a primary, and some sets, like forcefields work just fine as a secondary and you may want more damage from your blasting set, so a corruptor is just fine.

Some sets though, like dark miasma or sonic, get incredibly good numbers as a defender where they make very compelling primaries.

What's also worth noting is, if you do a lot of endgame TFs/SFs/Trials, Scourge adds a tremendous amount of damage. Its overkill most of the time on minions/lts, but does terrific damage on targets with a lot of health like AVs and GMs.

As a matter of personal preference, the only sets I'd go Defender over Corruptor for are Empathy and Sonic Blast. The former because Corrs can't have it and the latter because the debuff values on the blasts are so insane with Defender mods.

As for the idea that Defenders buff more, I disagree. I expect the same of any Corruptor or Defender, that they support the team and blast. Any Corruptor or Defender worth a damn does both.

With the new AoE buff changes, its trivially easy to keep an entire team SBed/shielded. If you're playing with a Corruptor who doesn't support the team, you're playing with a bad Corruptor. Much like if you're playing with a Defender who doesn't blast, you're playing with a bad Defender.

In almost all cases, Corruptors won't blow Defenders out of the water damage wise. Similarly, Defenders won't blow Corruptors out of the water buff/debuff wise. If you want to be more offensive, make a Corruptor. If you want to be more supporty, make a Defender.

It probably isn't true. I don't crunch numbers,as stated above, but my friend who does sounded pretty confident. Didn't mean to put out false information...but trying to point out a stronger defender. Guess I should have left it to just the sonic/sonic that most people have heard of
my bad