Looking for suggestions for defense build that solos decently below level 20

[KaizenSoze]

I have an inkling to make a defender badger.  I have thought about this before, but thought of all the soloing at low levels, causes me to give you on the idea.

 

What do you think is a good low level soloer? I was thinking Radiation/*.

 

[Astralock]

Yes, Radiation Emission, Dark Miasma, or Time Manipulation are your best bets.

[Meknomancer]

I ran a cold/sonic, shockwave+howl for soft control/trash mobs, procced out infrigidate/shriek/shout for harder target, snow storm to slow stuff down and benumb for the -regen, superspeed and arctic fog for invis/ghosting. Thats up to level 18. By 20 you could have both team buffs and amplify thrown in too. 

[Uun]

Agree on Rad and Dark. Also, Nature gets just about all its tools by lvl 12 and Trick Arrow by lvl 18. Wouldn't recommend Cold, since you don't get Sleet until 26. Same goes for Time and Slowed Response.

[Pyriold]

+1 for nature. Of course all the other mentioned sets are nice, but people usually overlook the +82.5 damage boost and ridiculous endurance discount that overgrowths provides. Yea, that's level 32... but before that you already get everything and more to survive and all the buffs you will get yourself also, making it a nice solo set.

[Six-Six]

I vote for Elec/Elec.

At level 20, you get

Rejuvenating and Energising Circuit which you can bounce off of Galvanic Sentinel to basically take care of your Regen and Recovery. Just slot it for recharge and end redux so you can spam it if you need to. You also get Faraday Cage which you can slot in a Steadfast Res/Def and a Gladiator TP + Def All to give you a hefty res against everything as well as ample status resistance. Also, Galvanic Sentinel IIRC lasts for a min and has a min CD so you can have it with you all the time. Its got decent debuffs and I like to slot it with +Stun and an end redux.

I prefer to take CJ for more movement control, but you can also go for Hover where you can slot Winter's Slow Res, Zephyr's/Karma's -KB, Kismet +Acc, and Shield Wall's TP +Res All. If you do take Hover, I'd advice an End Redux SO, although Energising Circuit should have you covered. I also take Fighting Pool's Tough and Weave for added res/def out of habit; and I just slot Kick with either Kinetic's +KD or Slugfest's +Disorient.

That leaves 3 attacks which are 2 ST attacks, a snipe and a choice between an ranged AoE  (Ball Lightining) or mini-nuke (Short Circuit). 

[Ankhammon]

Storm does well at low levels also. Hurricane and sleet storm are about all you need. Then blast to your hearts content.

[wRECk69]

Truly, any defender primary can solo content.  Some will be faster than others.  You just need to consider how you want to approach things.  Will you ever team up?  If not, you can skip powers that don't directly buff you (like heal others, shield others, etc.).  Of course, some story arcs have NPC partners on the missions that can take advantage of your buffs (e.g., Faultline arcs).  Think about what you want your character's end-game life to look like, too.  You can always respec (or use multi-builds) to make your solo defender life easier.  I recently soloed all the Praetoria arcs (levels 1-20) on my Elec/Elec defender without any problems using only DOs and SOs that I acquired in the missions.  I left Praetoria after just starting DW because I wanted to team some.

[Voltak]

On 8/29/2022 at 9:16 PM, KaizenSoze said:

I have an inkling to make a defender badger.  I have thought about this before, but thought of all the soloing at low levels, causes me to give you on the idea.

 

What do you think is a good low level soloer? I was thinking Radiation/*.

 

Interesting no one, except Six, has mentioned 

Elec/Elec Defender. 

It can solo things as difficult as any other defender can. 

You get your pet very very early which means you start healing and buffing yourself very very early 

Your drains provide huge mitigation on top of the things mentioned above. 

I leveled mine from 1-50.  Did not feel like a grind and that was before the buffs to Elec Blast. 
Now, the dmg is better. 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Voltak