why aren't you playing a defender?

Never really popular but often much sought after for teams, I rarely see defenders now. I think they are probably the AT I see the least since the stalker fix.

The Repeat Offenders showed that blasters brought a great deal of power to a team, in a group they are unstoppable.

The old reason not to play defenders was that they were painful to solo, but the solo damage bonus fixed that.

I don't play defenders because I want instant change from my powers. I want to hold people, or draw their aggro (and survive). I know in my heart that a defender's shield is saving the team, or speed boost is making them do more damage, but it lacks the feel of being effective.

I do have one corruptor - sonic/dark. The two powersets make me a virtual controller with cone sleep, cone fear, aoe stun, single target hold. So it does not feel like a corr/defender. It was basically a toss up between corr/defender but since I play mostly low levels getting the attacks faster was appealing and I felt scourge would be better on teams and vs AVs/GM's. Again seeing scourge has a feeling of being effective that knowing defenders have better numbers in some buffs/debuffs does not.

Why aren't you playing a defender?

I prefer Corruptors over defenders - Still give good buffs/debuffs, but damage is better and mmm SCOURGE!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Because of Vigilance. I love Defenders, but Corruptors have a much better inherent power, better DPS, and they don't seem to suffer much in the buff/debuff/heal department.

Give Defenders a better inherent and I'll come back to the AT I first loved. As it is, I'll keep cranking out Corruptors.

I was a paramedic for 5 years irl. I have no desire to do it in the game. That and I just don't think it is fun. I tried a Rad/Rad Defender and it was just really boring.

I do play 'fenders - my very first toon, DreamWeaver her very self, was Emp/Psi and soloing was indeed pretty hellish. However, taking care of 8-man teams soon fixed the XP issues.

While I still love DW, I haven't played her in a while. However, Gamma Ranger (Rad/Rad/Power) gets brought out frequently. Not only is that combo readily soloable, but the ultimate mobile nerfing machine with a great balance of offensive and defensive options. The aura heal's a little irritating if you're trying to keep a disorganised team alive, but workable.

Other combos to try if you're new to 'fendery:
Dark/Dark
Heat/anything

Also: you need to read Dead Calm's Defender Manifesto. Still as true (and funny) today as it ever was...

If you don't feel effective on a team I'd suspect you're not playing a defender, they have force multiplier tattooed across most of their primaries. Even Empathy is that way as long as you're not a "healor".

I do play a defender (several actually). My main and namesake is an Emp/Dark, who recently took great satisfaction in defeating the army of Romulus Augustus, purging Moth cemetery of Banished Pantheon, rescuing the Vindicators, and crushing Mot beneath his heel. All by himself.

Just think what he can do with some pets...er, I mean, "teammates".

I love my Dark/Dark/Psi defender. I play the hell out of my defenders.

Defenders are way down on my list of ATs to play, about even with stalkers & tanks. One of the first few characters I made was an emp/elec defender, Doctor Love, and I still really like him.

But I find myself soloing 99% of the time and haven't found defenders to be much fun. And now that you can get corruptors blue side, defenders are even less attractive.

If the game was harder, if teams *needed* defenders to really succeed, they'd be more popular. As it is, pretty much any team composition works and pretty much any other AT is more fun to solo, so.....

I don't like their risk vs reward. For lower damage which you get at slower levels, you can make fights last longer by having enemies almost useless in combat, or make your allies so powerful that your own contribute to damage is neglible at best, all while having sub-par personal protection, low health and being weak to mezzes (depending on primary).

It's not usually my kind of fun.

I sometimes play Defenders. My first 50 was a FF/Rad Defender.

I occasionally play them now, but various things annoy me. The lack of mez protection in most sets being a major contributor. I tend towards FF/ and Sonic/ for that reason.

I am playing one. Actually, playing several.

Just recently (as in, in the last month or so) hit 50 - emp/psi. Also soloed DA with that one. Tub ci was an... interesting, inspiration-laden fight without a level shift.

Two I'm focusing on:
Dark/Electric/Power at 43 or so right now. Older one I've just picked back up on.
Storm/Rad (which is an odd combination) at 25. Another fairly old one, but I've been serverhopping more and it caught my eye. Probably be slower, since I've already gotten storm and rad to 50 - just not together.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I am playing them. I have several, and play them regularly. I have more who are still lowbies, and I do intend to level at least some of them further, but they aren't on my current "hotlist". The reason? I've played other similarly-playing characters recently and I want to play something different.

I solo a lot. That doesn't keep me away from Defenders. It just keeps me away from Defender primaries that don't support soloing very well. I focus on powersets like Dark Miasma, Rad Emission and Time Manipulation. (I focus on the same powersets when building a Controller or Corruptor, too.)

Largely, I make the distinction on which AT to choose (Defender or Corruptor) based on concept.

Corruptors have higher base damage.
Corruptors have higher damage caps.
Corruptors have Scourge.
Corruptors get the same numbers on many buff powers as defenders (many buff powers don't obey AT buff modifiers)


A Corruptor will always out-dps a defender. A Defender will not always out-support a Corruptor.

i dont play them because of the horrendous dmg output, although my time fire defender has some decent dmg output

i do also like vigilance too, but i my corrs just do better dmg and they do about the same thing

the first defender i made was emp/psi and it was great to play in teams, but it was god awful to solo, eventually deleted it and rerolled as an ill/storm troller

Basically, the defender archetype was rendered obsolete by Corruptor.

Yeah, chalk me up as someone who prefers Corruptors. I tend to play melee or support characters most often, so I have a few corruptors (and maybe one defender, I think). SoAs are also pretty good at hybridizing support and damage. If we could get a proper melee/support AT though, I'd be a happy camper.

I am, sorta.

When I restarted my account back in January, the first toon I rolled to try out Praetoria was a Dual Pistols/Thermal defender, and yeah, it was pretty slow going for a while. Then I started getting missions where I had built-in allies/sidekicks and WHOA! A Defender really doesn't get full value out of her powers unless she's got someone else in the group. I absolutely agree with the 'defender = force multiplier' comment above. (If you want to feel like you're doing your job as a Defender, play through the Praetorian Loyalist 'Power' arc with one.)

It's my feeling that Defenders are harder to play well than any other AT, including Controllers, which is a big reason why people don't tend to play them. Why do all that work, when you can just roll a Blaster and mash buttons?

--
Pauper

I have a few defenders.

Even with the new vigilance, I spent most of my 1-50 time thinking..."If I was playing a corruptor, this pesky mob I'm dutifully debuffing would already be dead."

Because you told me I should be playing a Crab SoA! Which is it, Dug?! Why are you so demanding?

*sob, sob, sob*

I'm the opposite of most here. With the changes to Vigilance upping Defender damage solo, my desire to play Corruptors plummeted. Defenders do what I want out of the Def/Corr archtypes sooner and better than Corruptors do.

I play more Defenders than anything else.

It's entirely possible that I play more Defenders than multiple other ATs combined.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Although I'm a huge fan of defenders and have quite a few, I prefer to play an AT that can Control the bad guys. Be it a controller, tank or dom. I like to take the alpha and control the pace of the team. I am fully aware that this is a generalization and several defenders are capable of what I need.

But I gravitate to the three I mentioned. But I love defenders on my team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.