I just LOVE being a Defender!

I have to say hands down this thread is a homage to the Defenders of the Rogue Isles and Paragon City, their powers simply put... make the impossible, possible.

I sampled most Defender primaries, and I have settled on my two personal favourites, Empathy and Force Fields.

I love Empathy because its great, it can counteract a variety of concerns to any super-team. It can counteract damage, it can counteract holds, sleeps, immobilisations, it can restore you to full from unconsciousness. It can give you enough stamina to turn the whole group into a player controlled wrecking ball. It can take one character and supercharge them to the hilt. Its just an awesome set, and offers good fire and forget potential. Once the team are all buffed nothing to stop you having some fun is there? I paired it with Energy Blasts for a bit of knockback, after all, can be quite funny to watch an enemy go flying in the opposite direction, it also packs a decent wallop and fit the theme of my character quite well.

I love Forcefields because its the ultimate "fire and forget" set, you make sure all deflection and insulation shields are up, your dispersion bubble is running and if you got it, manouvres, mostly you're going to be seeint softcapped defences which means you get free reign to open fire, and if you pair forcefields with electrical blasts that = stamina sucking for the enemies, so their big attacks that may have hit, they can't do now, mwa ha ha.

There are my two main Defender and I love them both so much. I enjoy playing my Defenders as much or even more so than playing a tanker.

Defenders 4 life!

I agree on the defender for life. I am as well. I love sonics defender because I when I first started out I solo'd a hole bunch and the /sonics damage resistance really added up with her debuffs and it all went really well. I learned a lot of story and went to many places with her. Except dark astoria. ( i don't know why)

I have also tried all the defender primaries and fo ra time there had one of every kind. only one i don't have is an empath currently, but only because I hate looking at green bars...but I will make one once I find a different story.

My second favorite defender would probably be a dark defender. Since /dark blast is known as a staple for defenders I wanted to try dark/ and was amazed at how well the character was even from lvl one. Of course expecting that you only have a few powers at lvl one, the choices from the get go helped me and my team get through the sewers to kings row. ( my firs time I ever made it all the way there) It's a fun and very controlerish/ jack of all trades defender and I truly enjoyed the power sets. esp the pet who makes life way better.

I play other toons of course. Mainly tanks and mm and my fort, but my heart will always be with defenders.

My favorite is also Traps. I'm not sure what comes in second... probably Dark although I don't actually have any Dark characters (I should really rectify that one of these days, maybe I'll foll a Dark/Fire Defender in I21).

Traps here as well.

I've also been running a Dark Miasma/Assault Rifle (currently level 44) that is a lot of fun.

I only have one concern with playing a Defender: I sometimes worry that we make the other ATs feel bad about themselves.

This is what I like, in order. Please note this is not a ranking based on effectiveness, but, "what I like" to play.

1) Traps
2) Cold
3) Thermal (soon*)
4) Trick Arrow
5) Kinetics
6) Dark Miasma
7) Radiation Emission
8) Sonic
9) Storm
10) FF
11) Empathy

This is not necessarily the same order I'd put the same powersets for a MM or Troller, though it would probably be the same for a Corr.

My favorite is prolly a Sonic. It's great fun to watch a team of players go from "we'll need another defender if he's a sonic/" to "how are we gonna survive" to "why am I holding back" during a TF.

Remember the best mastermind in the entire game is a Sonic/Sonic defender.
The key to being a good one is to remember all the extra damage your teammates do is yours.

I'll always have a soft spot for Empathy, because my Empathy Defender was my first level 50. And he still kicks *** today.

Otherwise, I'd have to say my favorites are... um. Well, er. Huh. Forcefielddarkmiasmaradiationcoldkineticstrickarro wsonicstormtrapsthermaltime? Hm. That's not one thing, is it. I guess I just love Defenders, whatever set they are.

1) sonic
2) dark
3) traps
4) cold
5) storm
6) kinetics
7) trick arrow
8) FF
9) empathy
10) Radiation Emission

and yes i totally agree that the best mm is a sonic/sonic because all of "your" extra damage"
Cant wait for mm to have sonic either...or us to have thermal

My first 50 was my FF/Rad. I still use her as my "go to" character for all TFs and events in game. She's one that will always hold a special place in my heart, even though she's not the "best" character on my roster. Loved FF so much that, when CoV had it's pre-launch weekend, leveled up my Bot/FF in those two days.

My other L50 Defender is my Kin/Sonic. This one was duo'd with a Kin/Rad, so, again, another special place in my heart. Teams would wet themselves when they saw not 1, but 2 Kins when on TFs. There was nothing that could stand before us; it was awesome.

I will always love my Dark/Dark/Psi.

I have not played Traps much, what is the appeal of it for those of you that love it? The idea of set up never appealed to me because of fast moving teams.

Convince me to be a Traps lover.

Nevermind, convinced myself. Looks like I got a project for double XP weekend.

For the past few weeks I've been on the fence about keeping my subscription active because of the very many things I've grown to hate recently. Then I saw this thread title and remembered why I love City of Heroes.

Group hug?

Group hug

I love my defenders. I love my corruptors, which I mistakenly play like defenders . I play my masterminds like the defenders of old that used to have multiple dark servants. Being in an all defender supergroup, it became an unwritten rule to try to fit recall friend into your non-dark defender's build so you could help teleport the fluffies up the elevators (in the long long ago, pets didn't zone with owners even inside mission maps).

I even play my arachnos soldiers and arachnos widows like 'defenders with melee secondaries'.
Stack those leadership buffs, arachnos style and leadership pool style.

Now is the time to update your lists to include the Time manipulation defenders in the order of preference

I really got into the Shield tankers as well. I love that phalanx fighting and grant cover. In the Willpower tank, I love the Rise to the Challenge; look mom, Ima debuffer!

The other day I got my Empathy / Energy to 32 and my Forcefield / Electric to 32.

I have to say the final powers in both primaries were, to my mind really worth it. Adrenalin boost is quite awesome really. Even with just one slot for recharge, I turned my end happy MA Scrapper Friend... into Chuck Norris, on steroids!

And in forcefields, I used to have trouble soloing on her due to mobs getting into melee range all the time and smacking me about, particularly freakshow, now, its not a problem anymore, forcebubble keeps them out of range and keeps me safe. It really is fun watching them try to get near, get pushed back, slip on their behinds. Oh happy days!

LOL I did consider that, imagine the Tanker or Brute's reaction when all of a sudden the mobs he/she is pounding on suddenly go whoosh in all directions

I have a macro though saying something like

"if you are squishy stay near me, Im going to activate force bubble to keep them away from us!"