purplereign

This build is DOPE. I love it for a few reasons: 1) I had no idea you could get epic pool pets to perma (or close-to) which gets me very excited 2) I hate Thaw HAHA. It's a great power, but I don't like the upkeep portion of it. Totally fine with Forge. 3) Really clever use of Shout Thank you for putting this together so quickly!

I'm certainly no expert in the game, but I have learned to approach things a bit different from others... and I think that mindset applies to your question. Two points I should make... one general and one specific. The general point: People. Select. Too. Many. Attack. Powers. It's my biggest pet peeve in toon-building that I've seen (obviously this is all a personal opinion). It may not seem like it while leveling, but once you reach endgame, when you're in the 150%-170%+ recharge numbers, your attacks recharge so fast that you end up not using a lot of them. People often develop their own attack chains (that solve a variety of purposes) to determine their most effective DPS. Not only does that smooth your rotation of abilities, but it ensures that you're using everything effectively based on your own, personal recharge. Additionally, for defenders, you'll often see them skip long-animation powers and SNIPES. Doms and Blasters have a much easier time getting enough ToHit to get insta-snipe. Defenders is a lot harder, so it's often skipped. The specific point: At the end-game build, for example, you could go Scream > Shriek > Screech and repeat that endlessly with no holes. So why would you need Shout? As someone who is specifically focusing on the Defender aspect first, the blasting comes secondary (despite how good -res is) and so having a minimal, effective, tightened attack chain for Sonic feels best. A good way to test this is to go onto the test server, Pineapple, and try and make a build like this. Heck, take all of the abilities, slot up some recharge and you'll quickly see that you can't click powers fast enough to effectively incorporate all the attacks without wasting recharge (if that makes sense). I make it a priority to focus on building effective attack chains. Remember this ONLY applies to end game. In fact, I'd even recommend you take all the attacks while leveling (since respecs are all over the place) to get the attacks you want and then as you finalize your build, you can slim it down. Lastly, look how tightknit this build is. I can't even get everything I want with the minimal powers I've taken in Sonic. I still need to get amplify in there somehow and not sure what to give up. At the end of the day it's all based on what you want to play but hopefully this provided some perspective on how I think about it.

If it's not too much trouble, would you mind sharing your version of a Thermal/Sonic? ❤️ Regardless, I really appreciate the input!

Thank you for putting this together, Auroxis. I like this looks of this a lot. Sucks to lose aim, but damage is secondary for me anyways. The only thing I might try to move around is Melt Armor. 47 feels a tad too late for me, so I might try to swap it with tough and weave. Melt Armor at 32 Tough at 44 Weave at 47 Is there a reason you went Melt armor so late? Maybe I'm missing something.

Thank you for being so involved in my defender journey, Darkir. I leveled my Kin/Sonic to 36 or so, and legitimately felt like I had no time to use Sonic Blast attacks. I haven't even touched the proper build with sets, just some attuned SOs and I feel like I'm already spending 95% of the time rotating through Kin. Am I missing something? I appreciate your willingness to help me put a build together, even if it isn't the one you recommend. Many people I've spoken to suggest that Kin is simply better on a Controller or Corrupter. As a few people have mentioned, there's no hard numerical benefits to running it as a Defender primary. Not sure how true that really is, but if it is, I could understand the concern. Do you have any playstyle recommendations for Kin/Sonic that may change my mind or help me see it differently? Thanks again for all your help. You're awesome and I really, really appreciate it. EDIT: Also, looking at the Therm Build, Cauterize is a must for the way I want to play. I may have to tinker with some stuff to fit it back in. Cheers

Thank you for this write-up. To elaborate a little, if you'll indulge me... The Nature recommendation is an interesting one, for sure. I can see the potential, as I currently have an Earth/Nature Troller. Despite being a ways off from full IO sets, it still packs quite a punch in the support department. Is there a tremendous difference to running Nature as a primary versus a secondary? Do Defender numbers push the powerset into overdrive in some way? It's certainly a well-rounded set, and if you can fashion a build that manages to achieve perma-OG I think it really contributes to a team in a way that your'e alluding to. If I did decide to pursue Nature a bit more, can you give a bit more context into your opinion on Fire? While Fire probably does the most DPS, it offers little-to-no secondary benefits, right? I never, ever solo in the game and don't really need to be hitting hard, which is why I defaulted to Sonic as the most "team-friendly" secondary. Lastly, I notice you linked three difference builds, though I'm not entirely sure when/where you use each one. I think if I had to pick based on what you recommend, I'd probably push for Ice, as I happen to love that powerset. Water seems a bit iffy though I've never personally tried it. Thank you for taking the time to write this up and share your builds. I'm a huge fan of your Time/DP builds (though a bit too OFFender for my taste) and think you're an incredible and valuable asset to the community. Much love.

Hey, all - I know I posted earlier about recommendations for a primary to pair with /sonic on a new defender I'm making. After many discussions today and yesterday, a bit more research, and some theorycrafting, we've settled on Thermal/Sonic. I've never built a Thermal before, and don't see much in the way of it done recently. Any chance someone has, or could help me make a really strong Thermal/Sonic build? A couple considerations: 1) Can be expensive. I have about 1 bill saved up and could muster up another 500mill or so if need be. 2) I want it to be SOLELY focused on teamplay. I have no interest or intention of soloing in the game, ever. 3) Would like S/L/E cap (f it's the better route) 4) Perma hasten 5) Trying to make the best team-oriented defender I can make. Can't reinforce this enough. I'm also chillin' in the discord and happy to chat about choices/options/etc. Here are my power choices: https://gyazo.com/e7fa1f49e8773d6747e8fb94b73cb6eb I'd like to keep it roughly like this. If there's a way to squeeze in a travel power, great, if not NBD. Thanks in advance for anyone that can help.

Thank you for the response, Psylenz! I actually decided to give Thermal/Sonic a go before reading this and feel better about my choice having read this. Now I just need to find someone to help me figure out how to build this character out.

Hey, everyone - Coming back to homecoming after a few months break and looking to go hard into a Defender. I've done my fair share of research, pine-building, testing, etc. and I'm yet still struggling to determine which primary I want to play for a Defender. My current options are: Emp/Sonic Thermal/Sonic Kin/Sonic -and maybe- Cold/Sonic /Sonic is the clear winner when it comes to Defender secondaries, purely for -res stacking. My goal is to be the ultimate, super-duper team support as I never, ever play this game by myself. I'd log off before I ever solo run missions (unless it's to prove that something does/doesn't work). Now each of these builds is good, so I can't really go wrong, which is great. I know people might say "play them all" but unfortunately, due to time constraints, it's easier for me to focus on one out the gate. How do I see each primary? Emp -- severely misunderstood. Anyone that's played the game at a high level knows that "healing" isn't really a thing, except when people do silly stuff, or are not geared enough to take on the content. Heals are really a fail-safe, not a playstyle. However, PB + Fort, RA, Regen and even CM are incredibly potent tools for any team. I do think they're probably middle-of-the-pack as far as overall sets go, but I think it's combination with /Sonic makes it a solid boost to any team's consistency. More regen, more end, more damage = better group experience. Thermal -- really feels, to me, like the jack-of-all-trades for a Defender primary. Buffs to softcap the team, heals as your fail-safe, a better rez than Emp. Plus it has the 1-2 punch of Heat Exhaustion and Melt Armor, which can do wonders to any boss/AV and help your team cut through them like butter. I don't know how Forge stacks up to Fort, but I assume much weaker. Does this set particularly excel at anything special? Kin -- Ooo baby... the "go fast" primary. I feel like this set offers little-to-nothing in the defense department, but makes up for it in its ability to augment the offense of your team by a SUBSTANTIAL margin. So ST buffs to maintain (unless you want to ST cast ID for the mez protection) and probably the largest contributor to the user actually adding more damage. A Kin/Sonic will probably contribute more DPS than either of the above builds. This is just my look at the sets. Those who are far more experienced than me.... any recommendations? Any watchouts or thoughts? Any builds would be lovely to look at, too. Thanks in advance for any help. Cheers

Hey there, Banana Man! Was checking out your builds, thank you for posting them! Out of curiosity, why do you put off Ice Storm til 28 and get all the defensive abilities so early? I feel like, for the sake of exemplaring lower, you'd probably benefit a lot more from having your AoE no? Regardless, I just rolled an Ice/Fire and I'm very excited about it.

Wow that sounds like an insane hassle. I'll wing it for now and see what happens, but if opening the link works, here it is: https://gyazo.com/eba9ffda5a5c82a352088962b0edc165 I was grouping with some people that told me that Time/DP is just strictly inferior to Time/Sonic. Makes me sad, but I'm not sure I agree. Anyways, thanks again for all your help and everything you do! I actually wanted to follow up with a question.... now that I've got my common IOs in and I'm 32, the build feels GREAT. My only concern is... what the heck do I prioritize and what's my general approach to a group of enemies? I almost always open with distortion field and try to find someone to target someone with Time Crawl. After that? I was trying to Time Stop and/or Slowed Response, but I think maybe I should go into empty clip + bullet rain. 1. Distortion Field 2. Time Crawl 3. Empty Clip 4. Bullet Rain 5. Slowed Responses? 6. Time Crawl + Time Stop + suppressive fire any necessary foes? 7. Pistol + Dual Wield? I mean the truth is, even with the current setup, I have enough recharge to basically never make it to Pistol and Dual Wield IF everything else had higher priority. I recognize that some stuff is obviously more situational, but where are the priorities? EDIT EDIT: The more I think about it... I think the priority would be: 1. Distortion 2. Slowed Response 3. Empty Clip 4. Bullet Rain then Time Crawl, Time Stop, Suppressive Fire, Pistol and Dual Wield as needed.... (PS I'm only 32)

Yea that's roughly what I was expecting. Most attack powers feel pretty easy to common IO out, it's mostly the time powerset that I wasn't sure about. Anyways, I'm a MASSIVE noob when it comes to making builds but I took a stab at "what would this build look like with common IOs" Let me know what you think: https://gyazo.com/eba9ffda5a5c82a352088962b0edc165

I've actually started to check around all the forums to find all the posts and builds you've made, because I think you do incredible work. Made an Ice/Ice tank and a Mind/Time troller. Apologies, I think my previous post wasn't communicated properly. I completely agree with the IOing -- honestly, because of how fast and efficient DFB is, I can get a character to 22 in an hour. I suppose I just wanted to know what this build looks like with common IOs instead of sets. For example, would you slot dual pistols with 1 acc, 5 damage? Would you slot 1 acc, 4 damage, 1 end redux? Because sets cover multiple enhancements, I was having a hard time determining what I should slot where until I reach the point that I can fully build out the character. As an example, I made up a NA/Dark defender with generic enhancements. Ignore the fact that they're SOs: https://gyazo.com/724ce170814387422d5a4c54f0b2f925 I would obviously be doing IOs, but mostly want to get a gist of what should go where. I recognize you're super busy though and have a lot of builds you're working <3 soooo nbd :)

Thank you so much for this build, I'm making it right now! As I'm still learning the game and quite poor, is there any recommendation you can make for slotting for common IOs? Just want to get a gist of what goes where before I'm rich :P