Defender help- The Choice

I am pretty new to the game and wanted to make a defender.
I have three options I have been thinking about.
They are: Storm Dark Bubbles
Three unlike powers IMO

Background: I have about 250mil to work with. My two current mains are my Ill/Rad 'troller and my BS/SD scrap. I am looking for a fun and effective character purely for teaming (Solo is okay but an optional extra).

Question:
Which of these should I dive into, or do you think I should choose a Diff AT altogether?

Cold is very strong for teaming - great ally buffs and very powerful debuffs. My main support character is Cold/Sonic.

Of the three sets that you named, I'd suggest Dark; great control and debuffs with a very powerful heal. Storm is great, but has a, um, learning curve where teams are concerned. Bubbles... just don't. My first 50 was a bubbler and I loved the set, but if you want great team buffs go Cold and get awesome debuffs at the same time.

On a side note regarding Cold shields: you can color them with dark desaturated colors (on the left side of the palette) and they are barely noticeable. I hate when a Cold teammate shields the team and I suddenly need sunglasses to look at my monitor.

I agree... COLD or DARK!

So Dark it is.

Question:
What is a good Secondary to pair with dark?

Dark/Dark/Dark is a classic. It's a classic for a reason. It works very, very, well.

Dark is a very good choice. Very versatile and adds a good amount of control and classic defender powers not to mention the best rez in the game. ( which works amazingly well as a debuff whenever not needed for rezzing)

Cold i salso great for teams and solo as well. The debuffs really show there colors when facing avs. Turns them into high hp'd butter


I agree with greyhame on storm. It is a wonderful set, but not good for a newbie and takes some solo time to really understand angles and powers. A truly wonderful set once mastered and can really change the tide of battle, but them powers must be used wisely or else people will wind up hating you and you won't know why.

Bubbles is very boring and leaves you a lot of time to use your secondaries. The bubbles once slotted out, even with just io's gives everyone on your team higher defense than most scrappers and tanks have normally. A great secondary, but also has a wee bit of a learning curve with the knockback.

/sonic is a great secondary b.t.w.

I'd go with dark. It's stupid good. With tough and charged armor from electric mastery, you'll have 66% resistance to smashing and lethal, and 60% to energy with a slotted shadow fall. Add your damage debuff on top of that and bobcat will be eviscerating you for 32 damage. It's also very cheap to IO, I think mine cost about 300 mil total. Power sink from electric mastery is also incredibly good.

Instead of going with dark blast, I took ice blast for mine. With 1 to 2 tar patches always up, and with assault running, my single target DPS is around that of a claws scrapper. The nuke/rain is also very good, since it has blaster modifiers and a pretty big tohit debuff/knockdown. Add Clarion into the mix, and you'll pretty much never die.

The only problem I have is that I run out of endurance fast, since I picked up recharge incarnate instead of endurance reduction. But that's what power sink is there for, and it's always up.

*Edit*

Your heal is also an incredibly good debuff. Mine's on a 2 second recharge, and gives -12% tohit and damage debuff, and -50% regen, all for 20 seconds. Stack that puppy a few times and Lattices will be foot stomping you for 24 damage and Impaling you for 18.

Dark, please.

Very good point about the -dmg, I did neglect that despite Chem Rounds being the default for my /DP Defender. That may well put it into T1 given that -dmg is such a tasty debuff.

Deacon also left out dark/ice. Ice has the two blaster-level AoEs in Ice Storm and Blizzard. Ice Storm on a tar patch is a beautiful things.

I would submit that because Dark miasma has no inherent defense debuff that Rad blast is as useful as dark blast because of the overlap on -tohit. Of course there is no overkill in fighting debuff resistant foes Also, it seems like rad blast is very low on endurance cost.

Heh, that's what happens when I don't have access to a resource like City of Data, I knew I was forgetting something. It's especially egregious since my next Corr is going to be an Ice/Dark.

Back to my tiers, I'd have to put /Ice in Tier 1. In addition to the Blaster level rains, Freeze Ray is very fast animating and can hold a boss with Dark's hold with a quickness.

Unless there is a fantastic reason why i should not venture into dark/dark, I am probably going to use it. I already have a name, a concept, and half a costume. The only thing I would ask is for a little help on my build.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=270757
Every bit of help is greatly appreciated.