What makes a good Defender build?

[KaizenSoze]

1 minute ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Your question raises an interesting point to me: Will my first attack be consistent through the levelling process? How will I know what my attack chain looks like at 54 when I've not yet tried the power set combination? But it does nevertheless give a good insight into what I'd like to achieve.

A few personal examples as food for thought, my first "attack" with trick arrow is always flash arrow. One of the many reasons I love trick arrow. I am very fond of dark blast, because of torrent, it is a massive cone with knockdown, Force Feedback:+recharge, and -tohit. You start any fight with many mobs on their butts, debuffed, and you get bonus recharge. IMO. If you are going to take a power set that opens with a notifying attack, Sleet, Tar Patch, etc... You need to be able to take the alpha strike as if the spawn is not debuffed. This is due to timing issues when the debuffs actually take effect vs the spawn getting their initial attack.

[Gerswin]

I make defenders almost exclusively for "hard" content. With just a few outliers, +0 content goes faster with blasters or even corruptors. Practically, what this means for me is that I load up on force multipliers, personal survivability, and enough single target DPS that I am not a liability when taking down very hard targets like TVHW Tyrant or the AVs in a shorthanded multibox  BAF run. I tend to skip single target holds, un-proc-able low DPS AOEs, and anything with really long animations. I have made defenders designed to speed solo and to slog through +4x8 missions, but I don't really enjoy it and I find there are other ATs that are more suited for that style of play.

 

I have somewhere between 35-40 fully built defenders in my rotation, so I try to pick the type that is best for the challenge. I generally try not to pick a toon that is not suited for the type of mission.  In some cases, the whole team or league stands in one place.  In those cases, dark, storm, traps etc. can really excel.  If the team gathers between objectives, nature, can really shine.  If the whole run is just chaos with many groups doing different things, sets like cold and thermal with long lasting fast recharging buffs can be the most effective. If I only had a handful of defenders I might try for a more generalist approach, but I have so many options I can always select a specialized tool.

[Nostromo21]

On 2/5/2023 at 6:50 PM, MoonSheep said:

 

not as high level as yours but still great fun, submitting my club membership haha

 

i found it didn't really need much defense from all the enemy debuffs if solo, and when on a team i let the tank take the alpha then hop in, venging any corpses that arise. great for speed run TFs, the debuffs make damage procs nice and spicy too

 

 

I have over 50 toons on HC. I really need to get at least one of them to 50... *blush*

 

[Scientist]

Gerswin makes some excellent points.  I agree that having multiple defenders is a good idea, for two reasons.  First is that as he mentions, different defender power sets are more or less ideal for different teams and scenarios.  A 5 scrapper team might benefit from a Kin, a 5 blaster team might benefit more from a Cold.  Second is that defender power sets play SO differently from each other, that switching between them is like switching entire ATs IMHO.  Thus you can get a lot of fun play variety just from the "Defender AT".  

 

I think a good defender build emphasizes team support, and ideally includes the entire range from "support of survivability" to "support of kill speed".  Some teams need a lot of help with the former, others need the latter (they are tough but low dps).  Support of kill speed is part of all defender sets now with the Force Field revamp, but also comes with having a blasting secondary, so don't neglect that.  

 

Something else I try to include on all my defender builds is the ability to stealth and recall teams to a location, I consider that team support as well, even the fastest blaster can't kill their way past 15 spawns on 3 floors faster than I can sneak past them if we are speeding missions.  Similarly, if someone drops, being able to teleport them to a safe spot to rez makes things more fun for them than lying there for the whole fight and speeds things up by getting a teammate back in action.  Speaking of which, bring at least temp power rezzes, I get the day job accolade one too, its faster than messing around with combining insps and hoping someone makes an opening to drop it.  

 

The only defender I take Tough/Weave on in general is a Kin, because they have to run into spawns at a pretty dangerous point in the fight to exploit Fulcrum Shift properly, and don't have much in-set defense.  For everyone else I rely on the 30% or so ranged defense I can get fairly easily and aggro splitting with the team, along with debuffs.  Some defenders like Time, obviously, can get high personal defenses without much sacrifice.  In general I'd rather have buffs and debuffs up more often so I use recharge sets, and be able to contribute some decent damage for slow teams, often with procs, which preclude set bonuses.  I also like to take Maneuvers or Assault and Tactics, that helps especially to hit in hard content and Defenders get the best bonuses on it.   I also have an alt build for my Main, a defender, that includes Tough/Weave for something like a Master Of TF or other hard mode content, though that gets expensive.