I honestly don't know. But I'd guess that Dark, Radiation, and Ice/Cold are the most popular, and that Devices and Archery/Trick Arrow are probably the least common. Force Fields are probably in the middle, but still somewhat more popular, I see a fair number of them.
I don't play defenders, but I do like Dark and Radiation. Those tend to be very strong sets.
There really isn't a clear 'best', so trying to rank a 'three most used' and 'three least used' is going to be subjective. You'll get different answers from different people.
Most Defender powersets offer a mix of buffs, debuffs and/or control. The powersets that are more debuff-heavy tend to do better solo, since many of the buffs are only useful if you have allies around to use them on. I'd therefore recommend Dark Miasma, Radiation Emission or Storm Summoning for someone who wants to solo.
The Cold, Thermal, Sonic and Force Field and Empathy powersets all have a significant number of ally-only buffs (although Cold and Thermal less so), so these powersets will do better in a team setting.
The above is all very over-generalized, however - there will always be exceptions based on the player and the build in question. You really won't go wrong with whatever you choose.
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Devices would definitely be the least common since it isn't available for Defenders.
Traps is available for Defenders, but Devices has never been available for them.
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Need to point out about "solo" powers and powersets while solo -
You can use dual builds, which can make quite a difference. Some, not a great deal - Dark Miasma, for example, you wouldn't even want to skip the rez while solo as it's a very nice debuff, so you'd likely have the same build solo and teamed, while Empathy or FF you may skip quite a bit on the solo build and have a more offensive-minded build.
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I'd say the most popular in my experience are: (1) Radiation Emissions, (2) Kinetics and (3) Time Manipulation. Time has recently passed Dark, IMO, though that may not last.|
Originally Posted by Yellowbelly
Hey I cant post in the archetype forum so I am gonna ask it here, if I can
Its about defenders and how they are played the questions are very simply what are the top 3 most used defenders (powers) and the 3 least used what is the best defender powers for solo and pve (could care about pvp) And basically your own opinions on your own builds (defenders only) |
The three I see the least on a Defender are: (1) Sonic Resonance, (2) Trick Arrow and (3) Traps. People who want to play the latter two tend to pick Corruptors or Controllers or Masterminds. Sonic just isn't popular at all, especially now that Thermal Radiation is available to Defenders.
The best for solo depends upon how much mez annoys you and what you're willing and able to do about it. As a non-VIP I'd suggest a Traps Defender. You get mez protection, some Def/+Reg and ways to boost your offensive output.
There really isn't a "best" for PvE in general.
I don't have a whole lot of Defenders, with only 1 at 50. She's a Rad/Psi/Pow. She's a definite "10", but she has an expensive build and is fully Incarnate. Without that the build's shortcoming is that Psi isn't the best offensive set (the -Rech helps a Def though, as fights tend to be longer solo).
Of the non-50s the next highest is Cold/Sonic/Dark Def at L48. He's OK. He can't handle what the Rad/Psi can, but he's very effective on teams and in AV fights. He also solos reasonably well on lower settings. After that I drop all the way down to a level 31 Traps/Dark who is a lot of fun and solos surprisingly well despite the mediocre single target offense of /Dark. All the rest are under 30.
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My vote would be 1)Rad, 2)Dark and 3)Time. All are solo-friendly, but Time particularly might need help from a more damage-heavy secondary, like Fire, or Energy. I'm leveling a Time/Fire right now, and it is more fun than I thought it would be, tbh. Rad is very safe, at least until you get to the high 40's, when mobs develop more resistance to your debuffs. Dark is also sort of safe, doubly so if your choose dark for the secondary, since you can then stack all the -tohit you're delivering. Time starts slow and grows in strength, so it really helps to have a secondary with good damage to get you over that hump.
Most of the rest of the defender primaries have a lot of team-friendly powers, and so are less optimal for solo play.
I'd go with 1) Rad, 2) Dark, 3) Kinetics as top three. Not necessarily in terms of popularity, but in terms of usefulness on a team. Kinetics are incredibly powerful to a team when in the hands of a player who really knows how to use the set, but it is one of the sets you see the least on Defenders. You see it all the time as the secondary for ATs like Controllers, and sometimes I think that is because players are bitter over not being able to Speed Boost themselves (buffing your Fire Imps, however, is akin to buffing yourself, hence Kinetics' popularity as a pet-class secondary).
I almost never see Force Field or Sonic Res even though both are also pretty darn useful. And IMO, the least useful or necessary power set is Empathy. Whoever decided (Emmert?) that a superhero MMO needed a "healer" class was a moron.
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I'd disagree. |
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Whoever decided (Emmert?) that a superhero MMO needed a "healer" class was a moron.
|
1. Empathy is not just "healer"-ing, despite how some want to play it. It's made powerful by its buffs.
2. Empathy (and pain domination) give *guaranteed* heals. No to-hit check, no need for an enemy, no need for you to be in melee range (as you have both a PBAOE and ranged ST heal choices) - but they pay for it by having them not be as powerful (minus Absorb Pain, which gives you a debuff to "pay" for the heal.) There are times that's more important.
3. It also pays for the guaranteed buffs by having no *de*buff capability (slightly different from pain domination.)
A focus isn't bad. Playing it as just part of that focus (the "h34l0rz" who rock the aura and take the medicine pool while ignoring attacks and buffs) is bad.
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Get over it.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
And IMO, the least useful or necessary power set is Empathy. Whoever decided (Emmert?) that a superhero MMO needed a "healer" class was a moron.
|
Maybe the goal was to have VARIETY. Someone had a great line in their sig years ago. Something like:
Playing two different scrapper sets is like the difference between playing squash and playing tennis.
Playing two different defender sets is like the difference between playing hockey and playing piano.
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Exactly. On smaller teams Empathy's buffs can turn the rest of the team into a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut. On larger teams the buffs tend to get allocated to those who need them most. Empathy's single target buffs are very powerful, but tend to have long timers compared to their durations, so it's hard to maintain some of them on more than half of a large team. The AoE buffs are on even longer timers.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I'd disagree.
1. Empathy is not just "healer"-ing, despite how some want to play it. It's made powerful by its buffs. 2. Empathy (and pain domination) give *guaranteed* heals. No to-hit check, no need for an enemy, no need for you to be in melee range (as you have both a PBAOE and ranged ST heal choices) - but they pay for it by having them not be as powerful (minus Absorb Pain, which gives you a debuff to "pay" for the heal.) There are times that's more important. 3. It also pays for the guaranteed buffs by having no *de*buff capability (slightly different from pain domination.) A focus isn't bad. Playing it as just part of that focus (the "h34l0rz" who rock the aura and take the medicine pool while ignoring attacks and buffs) is bad. |
The biggest issue with Empathy's buffs in my opinion is more to do with how most players time using them. Many Empaths tend to insist the team huddle up whenever the AoE buffs are up regardless of whether there are any enemies in the area. Most times i find the buffs are more useful if they're held back until there's an actual use for them, not used whenever they happen to be recharged.
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Weird, people usually say Force Fields is the worst-designed set... I'm in the tiny minority of people who actually play it and like it, but I wouldn't recommend it to other people.
To the OP: one thing that takes a lot of getting used to if you're coming from another game is how very, very powerful the buffs and debuffs are around here. Dark Defenders have had a couple of nerfs; they used to sit in the middle of large enemy spawns doing /e newspaper . Now they get hit every ten, twenty seconds and keep losing their place. Buffs like "the entire team does a third more damage" and "+2 spawns hit so rarely natural healing takes care of it" are unimpressive. You can probably get those in the same set. (I don't think Rad gets there, quite, but it's pretty close- in four powers. The other five are pretty good, too.)
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Hey I cant post in the archetype forum so I am gonna ask it here, if I can
Its about defenders and how they are played the questions are very simply
what are the top 3 most used defenders (powers) and the 3 least used
what is the best defender powers for solo and pve (could care about pvp)
And basically your own opinions on your own builds (defenders only)