Melee Defender?

[TrishaTwilight]

I'm hoping to build a defender that gets in to the middle of things. Standing next to the melee characters to throw out buffs/debuffs/heals, whatever set I'm using, and get in the mix with my damage. That being said, I have no idea what to build for this role. 

 

Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking Rad/* because of the debuff strength, but maybe FF or something for the higher defense for me? Keep me a bit safer?

 

Also, on that note: What I would really like is a melee damage choice, like Katana or martial arts. But Melee support or support/melee isn't a build as far as I know :(. New AT just for me? 

 

Any advice would be great!

[Darkir]

I suggest a kin/sonic as this will massively help everyone's damage and as a defender you can still softcap defenses with IOs. I made a build for someone else who wanted to massively increase their team's dps here: 

 

That being said if you want a toon to be able to do this early on without IO sets, I'd suggest time. The combination of farsight and time's juncture is just fantastic for standing toe to toe with mobs out of the box.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Darkir

[Hedgefund]

I made a Poison/Rad recently for this same purpose.  Lots of PBAOEs and targetted aoes in both the primary and secondary.  Cones are counter to this objective since those are best executed at range (Sonic blast relies heavily on Cones for aoe).

[Omega-202]

4 hours ago, TrishaTwilight said:

I'm hoping to build a defender that gets in to the middle of things. Standing next to the melee characters to throw out buffs/debuffs/heals, whatever set I'm using, and get in the mix with my damage. That being said, I have no idea what to build for this role. 

 

Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking Rad/* because of the debuff strength, but maybe FF or something for the higher defense for me? Keep me a bit safer?

 

Also, on that note: What I would really like is a melee damage choice, like Katana or martial arts. But Melee support or support/melee isn't a build as far as I know :(. New AT just for me? 

 

Any advice would be great!

You could go with a Widow or Bane Soldier instead of a Defender.  They have great support auras, solid debuffs, operate in melee and you can grab some healing from pool powers.  I believe there's even a support Bane build thread.  

[Bopper]

You can go with a Time Defender. With Clarion Radial+Power Boost+Farsight, you can softcap an entire team and stand in the thick of it. Plus you have Time's Juncture which provides a -tohit debuff around you. I did that with mine, and went with Void judgement as it debuffs damage around me.

[SlimPickens]

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

You can go with a Time Defender. With Clarion Radial+Power Boost+Farsight, you can softcap an entire team and stand in the thick of it. Plus you have Time's Juncture which provides a -tohit debuff around you. I did that with mine, and went with Void judgement as it debuffs damage around me.

Thats exactly how i play my time/DP build. PBAoE specialist with soul drain and hail of bullets plus point blank casts of bullet rain.

 

You want to be in the thick of things to use Void and times juncture, and hit as many people as possible with chrono shift and clarion farsight.

 

Its a fun playstyle as well.

[Justaris]

I play my Rad/Rad defender mostly in melee as well, since the -Defense in the Rad Blast powers help to boost the utility of Choking Cloud.      Irradiate is a very good defense debuff and is PbAOE, and you can add on the single target blasts and Neutron Bomb to do a lot of AOE damage from melee and hold nearly everything around you.      It makes for a fun playstyle, stacked with the debuffs from the two anchored debuff powers which you'll typically land on the tougher targets like bosses.    

[Shoulung]

I second the widow/crab suggestion. I suppose you could also dip into the fighting/super speed/jumping pools for melee attacks if you’re really set on defender. I personally think a sonic resonance character would be more useful at end game than time, as most of the squishy people focus on soft capping their defenses and you can also get stacked defense via maneuvers, so resist is probably going to do more to fill team mates‘ holes.

[wrongholecohv]

I have a Ninjas/Thermal MM that I play very much like you described. I jump right into the fray, apply my heals and keep the team alive...... While my henchmen that I rarely give orders to slice, burn, and snap necks with crane kicks.

 

I think it would work great with any support set you want to build up, and it's very "fire and forget" damage. Just defend your pets like you do your team.