Making a Defender that can do 'great things'.

Hello all, I'll try to keep this relatively short while still putting out the necessary information.

While I used to be a very support-oriented player in my past gaming experience, I've come to enjoy playing more offensive type of characters in the recent past. More recently, though, I have come to the conclusion that I want to make a Defender.
Now, this might seem rather strange coming from a player who defines himself as a 'support type', but I've never made a Defender before. The closest that I got to was when I made my Fire/Thermal Corruptor, a few years ago.

That being said, I am not looking to simply roll a Defender by picking X primary and Y secondary. If I wanted that, I'd have rolled one already and wouldn't have spent time on writing this!
So, I am looking for your thoughts, personal experience and whatnot, anything that could prove useful to enlighten me as to which combination of power sets can accomplish 'great things'.

These 'great things', that I've mentioned twice now, might not be so great for others, though. What I am looking for is the ability to solo remarkably well (aka to not be dependent on a team) up to the point where I could take on AVs and, possibly with the use of temporary powers and/or inspirations (but looking for the possibility of neither), GMs.
Soloing bosses (and elite bosses) have been an easy task for most of my characters; it's the kind of thing that comes somewhat naturally (exploiting terrain, flight, the non-immunity to mez effects on some/most, timing inspirations, etc.). On the other side, facing off against much tougher foes, who would normally require a team to defeat, is something that I've never done before and have been wanting to get around to doing for quite a while.

Now, while I understand that Defenders are probably the most team oriented AT in CoX and soloing stuff isn't necessarily their forte, I've decided to at least give it a thought by making this post and, hopefully, give it a try by making a 'fender in-game.

Really, in short, I'm just making a character to visit my roots as a gamer again and want it to be more than 'just another 50' (not that all of my characters are the same, mind you) by doing something that I've wanted to for quite some time.

As a final note, and to start the discussion, I've been looking at Dark/, Empath/, Rad/, Sonic/ and Storm/, mostly, but it's sure been a long time since I've taken a close look at the buffing and debuffing sets in this game, so any suggestions or comments are welcome.

Rad/ and Dark/ are super debuff/buff sets. Sonic and ice blast are also quite powerful. Rad/sonic and Dark/ice are two combos for defenders that are extremely deadly.

Traps/Sonic or Rad/Sonic are always good.
Perhaps when I21 comes out /Fire blast may be nearly as strong.

I say go rad/sonic now or wait to make a dark/fire later

I'll throw my vote in for Rad/Sonic here. I made one a little over a week ago and she's at 43 now and is one of the more fun rides I've had on the way to 50. It's also one of the Defender powerset combos that happens to be very, very good at soloing AVs and GMs between solid DPS, LR for -Regen, EF, and a self-heal (not to mention the ability to perma hasten/AM without outside help for relatively cheap).

EM Pulse deserves special mention for the fact that it crashes your End recovery, but doesn't kill your bar, so you can pop Aim and AoE Hold that entire mob that the fire imps brought back with them. I love this power so much that I find myself looking for excuses to use it every time it's up.

Edit: Typo.

Fourthing Rad/Sonic. Also consider Fire/Dark corruptors, for other support squishies that solo well and do great damage.

More broadly, all the generalist debuff sets are good for this: Rad, Dark, Traps, and with some caveats Storm (no -Regen so needs pets/temps to solo GMs, using Hurricane takes fine control) and Cold (comparatively little protection for yourself, but can be fixed with IOs). They have good survivability due to either heals, flooring enemy tohit, or res/def buffs, and boost your damage with -Res and -Regen.

I have played a lot of defenders and the one build that has truely made me feel awesome as a defender is my Dark/ Ice. Any well played character can be great but there is a synergy to these two sets that just make them feel like you can take on anything.

You have Tar Patch, Ice Storm, and Blizzard that can be layed down from behind cover to devastate a whole room of bad guys without ever taking a shot. You have a good heal, group stealth, defense and resitance bonuses, Res, slow, and to hit debuffs, stacked holds for bosses, area fear (awesome power), group res, and a pet. what more could you want in a defender?

The build grows through the levels well and the tactics change enough to keep things interesting as you gain new powers. The only weakness I have found is the lack of mez resist. I get around that with capped range defense, mezzing first and avoiding line of sight. Carry a lot of break frees too.

Rad, Traps, or Dark will likely work best. /sonic is the best for soloing.

Dark/Sonic

Rad/Sonic

Blast sets are kinda suited to taste in my opinion, so you could go something else besides sonic and be fine, but sonic will dramatically increase your damage.

Several posters have indicated soloing GMs with Rad/Sonic, so that is FotM for defenders these days.

You mentioned Empathy. Did you just recently look into defenders ?
Sorry, not being snarky, but Empaths suck at soloing anything tougher than a Lieutenant.

Mine currently can solo +0/x3 no bosses with Uncommon Ion, Spiritual, Reactive, Storm Pet, and the Rare Clarion for perma mez protection. And I STILL manage to face-plant regularly.

So dont choose Empathy if you are looking for a Super Hero.

First of all, thanks for all the replies!

Now, with so many of you mentioning Rad/Sonic, I'd definitely need to look into one of those. Although if I had to say that there's a blast set that I've always been leaning away from, it's Sonic, it's still an interesting option.

Dark/ was possibly the set which I felt like choosing, so that Dark/Ice or Fire fender or even a corr might prove quite interesting.

As for Empathy, it was really more on my sight because I've been thinking of making a group of Defenders with a few buddies of mine, but I can see why it's not that great at soloing.

I've known that Traps/ was a good set to kill Big Bad Guys with, but since I already have a Fire/Traps corr in the making (read: soon), I've been keeping away from it.
That being said, it's nice to see that there are more choices then 'go rad or traps or go home'.

On another note, I've read that the Longbow Cataphract has some pretty insane -Regen. How well would Storm/ fair against some of the real Big Bad Guys with that -Regen?

I've got several defenders that can solo at x8: Dark/Dark, Storm/Electrical, Rad/Sonic. That's a worthwhile goal.

However, I'm not sure it's worth your while trying to solo an AV with a defender. Primarily because it's really slow and boring to actually do it. It'll take you half an hour or so to take the AV down. Doing almost anything else will be more worth your while.

I am currently at-work and cannot elaborate but before you choose anything I am throwing Ice/Sonic into this thread as the BEST option. It is truly an AV/GM liquidator

That you think soloing a boss is any sort of achievement at all is evidence enough that empathy sucks at soloing.

I've decided to try out Rad/Sonic and see if it's a feeling that suits me.
Made it through the tutorial and the first 5 levels quite easily.
The sound on Sonic Blast was really one of the two things that put me off from the set originally. Now that I don't play with sound, or that it's usually quite low enough to not hear them, all that remains to irk me is the animations, but that's more of a concept problem (as in, I can't seem to fit them in any concept).

As for Dark/ I've settled on waiting for issue 21 and then decide on /Ice or /Fire to go with it.

On Empathy/, I'll be keeping away from the set until I can rely on a leveling partner or two, as I have a very bad luck when it comes to finding 'decent' teams throughout the first 20 or 30 levels.
Oh, and please don't turn this thread into a 'Empath is guud' vs 'Empath is bewd' thread. I'd really appreciate it

Cold/ is something that I've tried on a Controller, but got tired of it rather quickly. Perhaps I did not reach a high enough level, or simply made poor power choices (Superior Invisibility and Arctic Fog isn't a good idea), but I'm thinking that using the set on a Defender, who gets the powers earlier, might be worth a try.


As to keep the discussion going, if anyone is interested, I'd like to hear a little about Dark Blast and Psychic Blast, and if they could be considered worthwhile option for a solo heavy Defender. I've read that Psychic/ for Blasters is pretty meh. As for /Dark on Defenders, I remember reading that it's rather low on the damage side.

As for personal experience, I've seen a bunch of Defenders with either set running around, but most of them hardly ever blast away at things. Most of them are Empathy, but some were also Dark/, Kin/ and Cold/ (and possibly other sets that I've forgotten).

Obviously enough, my own perspective of the matter is somewhat biased, as I've only seen Defenders running in groups and they tend to make use of their primary sets more than playing as a pseudo Blaster (at least in those circumstances).


Thanks for all the replies, by the way. It's really helpful to hear others' thoughts on the matter.

Naktor, the cold domination set matures a bit later than some other debuff sets. Sleet and heat loss are relatively late to the game but worth the wait. Ice shields can be recolored to be next to transparent, and they provide very good team damage mitigation with the improved AoE style casting.

hmm..

Dark/Ice, Fire or Dark
Cold/Ice or Fire
and I'm enjoying that Rad/Sonic a bunch...
plus there's the possibility to remake my Thermal Corr.
Without forgetting that Empathy. Should really convince a few other players to roll a bunch of Defenders.

Well, I might not have time for a MA/ Scrapper anytime soon!