Suggestions for Good powersets for Defender December 2022?

[CasualPanther]

Hey! 

 

Just got back into this game after many years! a lot of the info around builds for defenders seem out dated!

 

looking for a solid powersets for Solo-play and group play where I would be welcomed!  what are the current most popular Primary/Secondary Combos for a defender? and which  situations they are useful  or excel at?

 

thanks ! 

Edited December 27, 2022 by CasualPanther

[Doomguide2005]

Welcome back to the City! 

Bit sleepy for a proper overview but I'll be back.

[biostem]

4 hours ago, CasualPanther said:

looking for a solid powersets for Solo-play and group play where I would be welcomed! 

Dark Miasma has a good variety of tools that you can use while solo or teamed.  Tar patch now also applies a -RES effect to enemies, making it a great AoE debuff.  You also get a PBAoE stealth, a cone fear, a heal centered around yourself, and even a cool pet as your T9, (which is available even sooner due to a recent change in what levels you gain access to each tier of power).

[Uun]

In addition to Dark, I would recommend Nature. Strong combination of buffs (which also work on you) and debuffs. I recently did Nature/Seismic, but /Ice and /Water would also work well. Sonic Attack did not get nerfed. While the stacking of the debuffs got toned down, several powers got major damage buffs. Just be aware that all the AoE (other than the T9) is cones.

[Doomguide2005]

Yeah while there's certainly room for changes and tweaks to some things on some sets overall Defenders are in a very good spot.  Nature and Electric Affinity are a couple of newer sets with very solid reputations especially for teaming.  Sonic Attack as mentioned did NOT get nerfed.  Rather the resistance debuff changed in duration primarily.  It's probably easier now to maintain a lower but still quite potent debuff on a target while still using your primary without neglect even on a busy primary.  And as mentioned a couple powers got individually quite buffed in damage.  Screech being the notable one going from a mag 3 stun that tickled, to a mag 3 stun that hurts (much more in line with, as an example, Cosmic Burst).  Force Fields and Trick Arrow have both been updated.  Force Field now has a power that provides DDR (one of only two sets that can provide a DDR buff to another character).  My personal favorite debuffer is Cold/Ice, buffer would be Empathy/Any, and I'd love to try Nature and Trick Arrow (and about a billion other pairings for that matter).

[Sir Myshkin]

On 12/24/2022 at 7:18 PM, CasualPanther said:

a lot of the info around builds for defenders seem out dated!

If you're looking to get up to speed on things, there's a few interesting topics linked in my signature (one in particular about Defenders) you'll probably find worth skimming through.

 

This thread also has some good anecdotes about the current status of choices and direction in the game:

 

(funny that, the image it plays is one of my gifs, lulz)

 

What level of difficult are you looking for to get the rust off?

[MoonSheep]

kin for life. when the best is on offer, why choose anything else? 😛

 

edit: probably not too great for solo play though

Edited December 26, 2022 by MoonSheep

[Zect]

Define "good".

 

What criterion do you use for gauging performance? What are the metrics for each? Determine those, then we can start talking about good and bad.

 

 

 

 

[Force Redux]

Welcome back Panther!🙂

 

Many great choices. I like Dark, Time, Nature and the revamped FF and Trick Arrow on defenders! But so many great choices.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Force Redux

[Psyonico]

If you want solid solo play, look at the following primaries:

 

Dark

Electric

Nature

Poison

Radiation

Storm

Time

Traps

Trick Arrow

 

All of the sets will perform well on teams.

 

As for secondaries, pick whatever sounds cool/thematic to your character.

[Dahkness]

Time is a good one. A lot of self buffs with a self heal. Easy to play solo or team. Not a slot heavy set. 

[Force Redux]

11 hours ago, Dahkness said:

Time is a good one. A lot of self buffs with a self heal. Easy to play solo or team. Not a slot heavy set. 

This is true, my Time/Rad Blast defender plays like a melee, can get right into the mix with the Tanks. Lots of defense, heals, soft controls and AoE. 

[StriderIV]

40 minutes ago, Force Redux said:

This is true, my Time/Rad Blast defender plays like a melee, can get right into the mix with the Tanks. Lots of defense, heals, soft controls and AoE. 

I’m building one of these myself. I love that it’s an “in your face” Defender. At the same time, puts it in a bit more danger. Have you tried it in any of the new Hard Mode content?

[Gulbasaur]

Idle musings:

 

Dark teams and solos well, without having to change what you do really.

Kinetics teams well but is kind of mediocre solo. It can be done, but it shines in teams.

Storm is wonderful and amazing and brilliant and fun and I can completely understand why some people don't like it.

Traps is fun but you'll spend a lot of time standing and waiting for things to recharge.

Rad and Time are fun but not my thing.

Sonic is fine if you like hands-off gameplay. Likewise Force Fields.

Elec looks good. Trying that next!

[Force Redux]

36 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

I’m building one of these myself. I love that it’s an “in your face” Defender. At the same time, puts it in a bit more danger. Have you tried it in any of the new Hard Mode content?

Not in a while; I only run HM stuff infrequently, and not since I got back from a half-year hiatus this month. Definitely is the place to put builds to the test. When I did run in some of the AE difficult arcs I had to be careful, was not invicible any more. Which was kind of the point of those arcs, I think! If you do, post your experiences!

[StriderIV]

41 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

Idle musings:

 

Dark teams and solos well, without having to change what you do really.

Kinetics teams well but is kind of mediocre solo. It can be done, but it shines in teams.

Storm is wonderful and amazing and brilliant and fun and I can completely understand why some people don't like it.

Traps is fun but you'll spend a lot of time standing and waiting for things to recharge.

Rad and Time are fun but not my thing.

Sonic is fine if you like hands-off gameplay. Likewise Force Fields.

Elec looks good. Trying that next!

Dark seems like it might be a good Jack of all trades. What are you planning on pairing with Elec?

[StriderIV]

31 minutes ago, Force Redux said:

Not in a while; I only run HM stuff infrequently, and not since I got back from a half-year hiatus this month. Definitely is the place to put builds to the test. When I did run in some of the AE difficult arcs I had to be careful, was not invicible any more. Which was kind of the point of those arcs, I think! If you do, post your experiences!

Appreciate this Force! Will let you know once I have mine built out 😂

[Gulbasaur]

Just now, StriderIV said:

Dark seems like it might be a good Jack of all trades. What are you planning on pairing with Elec?

I'm all about concept, so I'll probably go elec/elec/elec.

 

Dark is very... safe. You debuff -ToHit hard as well as -DMG so it's a very tanky-feeling set. It also has a very big heal.

[StriderIV]

1 hour ago, Gulbasaur said:

I'm all about concept, so I'll probably go elec/elec/elec.

 

Dark is very... safe. You debuff -ToHit hard as well as -DMG so it's a very tanky-feeling set. It also has a very big heal.

Nice. Looking at maybe a Water/Dark or Fire/Dark Corruptor myself. Soul Noir effects just too nice 😂

[CasualPanther]

 Thank you everyone for your input! really enjoyable reading everyones thoughts.

 

On 12/26/2022 at 5:15 AM, Sir Myshkin said:

If you're looking to get up to speed on things, there's a few interesting topics linked in my signature (one in particular about Defenders) you'll probably find worth skimming through.

 

This thread also has some good anecdotes about the current status of choices and direction in the game:

 

(funny that, the image it plays is one of my gifs, lulz)

 

What level of difficult are you looking for to get the rust off?

 

Both threads were a really good read thank you! 

 

So I've Spend a few days trying out lots of different builds to around level 20 - 40s to get a feel for the skillsets as I'm new to the game.

 

Rad/Sonic Defender -  I thought Rad was fun but I wasn't a fan of sonic, didn't feel that powerful and I don't like the aesthetics of the powers either ( but im sure its good for big high end group play)

 

Time/dark Defender - Time was easy going more enjoyable then Rad primary to play but didn't enjoy the Cones of the dark skills, I also found that in group things were too quick to use the -Tohit Debuff 

 

Cold/Cold - Corruptor after lots of reading  I heard corruptor was better and it's really good but didn't enjoy having no heal  so I might at some point try a Water/Cold at some point 

 

Fire/Kin - Corruptor, heard Kin was better on a defender ! this is my favourite far (I know its not a defender) I love the Dmg it brings and the support it brings! plus I am getting a lot of /tells to come join there group 😄 I think I will use this for group play and level to 50! 

 

following this build as a guideline! 

 

 

Force field I've yet to try in homecoming but years ago I had a Forcefield/Energy back during the early Live days, maybe I will check it out ! 

 

3 hours ago, Force Redux said:

This is true, my Time/Rad Blast defender plays like a melee, can get right into the mix with the Tanks. Lots of defense, heals, soft controls and AoE. 

 

thank you for this suggestion! Im currently levelling a Time/Rad and Its ideal for what I'm looking for! its my favourite defender soo far! I'm gonna definitely level this to 50! 

 

I'm following @Sir Myshkin proc Monster Build as a guild for which skills to use ! 

 

 

Thank you everyone else for your suggestions !  love to hear everyone else's favourite defender builds ! I love playing support builds there the best! 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by CasualPanther

[Sir Myshkin]

5 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I'm all about concept, so I'll probably go elec/elec/elec.

For what it’s worth, if you’re a MM person or not, I highly encourage doing Electric Affinity on a MM over a Defender, and it is the only set I have and/or likely ever will make this suggestion; and I’m not even a MM fan myself.

 

ElecAff is indelibly all about having someone else present to bounce off of. Yes it does give you that little Galvanic pet but it is relatively uninspired in combat when there are much better things you could be supporting. If you ever want to solo, or find yourself in a team-mate-less position you’ll discover you can’t do much, but as a MM you always have something on-tap.

 

With Faraday Cage and Pet Uniques and personal IOs I was able to Res cap pretty much everything for myself and get many categories well covered for my friendlies. I ran it on Demons (partially for their favoring Res, and partly because Whip), but The new changes to Mercs would do really well under ElecAff support too. Grab the Electric Mastery Epic for some added attacks and theme, and it all rounds out nicely.

 

Just a personal experience suggestion.

[smnolimits43]

One of my favs, is Storm/Energy.  In fact i'm trying Storm/Water right now.  God i love freezing rain.  I have like 7 emps, but none have reached lvl 50.  I've tried dark a few times now, just not for me.