Best Primary for a /Sonic Defender

[Doomguide2005]

9 hours ago, parabola said:

I prefer dark blast with storm for the utility of the immobilize. From a damage point of view storm/sonic is very good on paper but I'd worry about actually applying that damage when things start flying all over the place.

 

Rad/sonic had a reputation on live for being just about the best defender for a long time. Rad has lost a little of it's sparkle over the years due to other really powerful debuff options (cold in particular) and because the pace of the game has changed (long animation toggle debuffs really hurt it now). It is still a really solid set though and does allow solo big game hunting if that appeals.

 

The other set I love is thermal. It's a bit more understated, in that it doesn't do anything much that another set can't do better. But it can do a lot of things well and it brings variety to the table. It's hard to imagine the team or situation that wouldn't benefit from something thermal can do. It's heals don't require tohit checks so they are always reliable, it offers resist shields which are always well received, it has solid debuffs, forge is great and it has a rez. It really is a swiss army knife set.

A Storm/Sonic is one of the earlier posts I saw about defenders soloing an AV.  Harder targets don't go flying as much ... and softer targets just die bouncing around.  And IOs make bouncing more, um, vertical and less horizontal in nature without losing the mitigation involved.

[DougGraves]

I have 3 goto's for defender primaries. 

 

Dark/ is half controller with a fear and a stun.   Take Dark if you like control.  It also has pretty good -regen for fighting AVs so it remains useful until level 50 when the control is not needed and the debuffs take longer to put up than the enemies take to defeat.

 

Sonic/ is a good protective set for your allies with some -res.  The primary has very few active powers so you can set it up and then use your secondary to attack.  It is best at the lower level game when characters are not tough - a low level tanker teamed with a sonic can really tank. 

 

Kinetic/ is a great buff for your allies for doing damage.  It is always good but is best at endgame when only doing more damage faster matters.  It is a fairly active set so it can interfere with attacking with your sonic secondary.