What's your favorite Defender?

[xR_Squaredx]

What's your favorite Defender. I don't mean the one you like to play. I mean if you're on a team and a Defender joins the team, what primary and secondary power sets do you hope they have? Why?

[Crowcus Pocus]

Now that's a different question and a very hard one to answer to - I like it! Naming one and one only is quite challenging, but to me it would have to be...

 

... /em drumroll

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

Dark offenders. One could argue that Dark Affinity is better than Dark Miasma, but still. The healthy mix of perks that Dark Miasma brings to any sort of party (especially leveling teams) is absolutely amazing.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Falsey

[mousestalker]

My favourite pc is, has been and will be a Dark/Dark/Dark Defender.

 

Typically the Defender I want to team with regardless of what I am playing is a kin/. I ❤️ Fulcrum Shift. And Speed Boost is always nice.

[Without_Pause]

Never played them, but two I can think of would be Time/sonic and Storm/water. You can talk me into subbing in one of the gun based sets with Time. /dark is just too damn good on controllers. While Kin might be my favorite powerset, I'm kind of over it for now, and I just find defenders the least appealing AT for Kin. From ones I played, Rad/sonic. Everyday. Twice on Sunday.

[Gentoo]

Storm/Dark is my new love

[Sailboat]

Storm/Dark was my favorite character to play, period, at the moment of shutdown...and is my current main.  So it's been an obsession for about 8 years.

 

That said, I am excited to see any Defender whose player appears to have enthusiasm for their character.  I must confess the contrarian in me has a harder time appreciating the healing-focused sets, however.  Generally I like debuffers a bit more than buffers just because I like to see the bad guys suffer (and because I've never seen another game where debuffers are so powerful).

[Ankhammon]

I would think if you had to take just one I would go with a traditional Rad/ cuz... AM and it's awesome at big game hunting. 

 

What to pair it with... maybe DP cuz it is so versatile. 

 

 

...now I gotta fight my altitus again. 

 

[Gorgar]

Just the fact that they picked the defender AT makes me happy.  Doubly so if they're dark/whatever, but fruit salad is good too.

 

Dark just happens to approach problems in a way that works really well for me.  Second would be emp or a well-played storm. 

[Tahliah]

Interesting question!  It kind of depends on what I'm playing at the time.  On a leveling blaster, I love to see a kin; on a defender, I like to see an emp (if they are using their buffs on squishies); on a troll, I like to see either of those or a rad.  I don't play melee toons, but I imagine that I would love to see a rad, kin, or dark in those cases. 

 

As an aside, I've been running into a lot of kins lately that are slapping down SB after the mishes rather than in them.  I get wanting to speed up team travel between missions, but what about IN the actual mission where SB does more than simply add travel speed?  It's really been weird to see this happen so frequently with different kins (not just defs, also trolls, etc.).  I'm never sure if I should say something.  I don't want to rain on their game, but I do seriously wonder if they "get" the power's power.  Sigh. I say nothing, of course, but I don't see the point of teaming with kins who think SB is only useful between missions. 

[Pyriold]

If i know that the defender is really skilled, almost any defender is really welcome, for different reasons. If i play my stone brute, abviously i want a kin. A stormy can be very nice if i have my blaster. Go into the hurricane and nothing touches you. I also like nature and time.

 

For not so competent defenders empathy or pain are good. Everybody can heal, it's trivial. You just need to be awake.

[Radiaria]

The best one for a team's survival is IMO cold domination, it's very good debuffs and very good damaging powers with -res, you literally cannot go wrong with this set, and you take a lot of your friends to the softcap.

 

Time is worth mentioning for the "not dying" aspect but imo, I hate grouping people up to be effective, so this one takes a backseat for me.

 

The ABSOLUTE FAVORITE of mine that turns an average team to a wrecking ball of destruction is KIN/SONIC between this build at maximum damage caps for everyone and -res, it's a omfgwtf-level damage booster.

[hastened]

Sonic/sonic for me.  Everybody's got +def from stuff,  +resist is almost always going to stack.   Likewise,  you will almost never floor - resist while it's possible to cap +damage several ways, and a Sonic/ sonic is going to literally double the team's damage against hard targets.  If you're ever fortunate enough to get a sonic/sonic and a kin/sonic on the same team,  it gets super silly.

 

There are specific cases I'm happier to see specific other defenders,  but I'm always extremely happy to see a sonic. 

[SmalltalkJava]

On 9/24/2019 at 11:36 AM, hastened said:

Sonic/sonic for me.  Everybody's got +def from stuff,  +resist is almost always going to stack.   Likewise,  you will almost never floor - resist while it's possible to cap +damage several ways, and a Sonic/ sonic is going to literally double the team's damage against hard targets.  If you're ever fortunate enough to get a sonic/sonic and a kin/sonic on the same team,  it gets super silly.

 

There are specific cases I'm happier to see specific other defenders,  but I'm always extremely happy to see a sonic. 

I always like it when a sonic/ is in the team.  The resists are such a help

 

For me playing.  I’m really digging Nature at the moment the Bastion absorb is really cool.   Nature brings 2 layers of damage mitigation.  Resist buff and absorb. The damage buff is nice also.  Basically group wide build up.   The downside is that you have to go full recharge build. That way the buffs are available when you need them 

 

Edited September 29, 2019 by SmalltalkJava

[Force Redux]

I'm always happy to see any defender. 

 

However, I'll admit I get a particular kick when I see Trick Arrow, FF, Sonic, and a Dark defenders. They all hold a special place in my heart. And I like the things they can do for a team. Plus I like underdog sets (FF, Sonic, TA).

[Sarkastik Observer]

I was recently looking at thermal and was wondering why there are not more of them? I see someone always promoting them on the forums because they literally do a lot. (Idk how to tag people in post lol)

 

@oedipus_tex hopefully could share his thoughts on thermal

Edited October 8, 2019 by Sarkastik Observer

[SmalltalkJava]

7 minutes ago, Sarkastik Observer said:

(Idk how to tag people in post lol)

Start by typing the @ sign      

[Myrmidon]

Rad/*. You can never go wrong with a good Rad Defender on the team.

[littlenog]

Right now I think my favorite might be Sonic Res. The resistance de-buff ability of that kit is just too good.

[Redlynne]

I'm rather ... partial, I guess you could say ... to playing a Time/Dual Pistols/Soul Defender ...

[Darkir]

Kin/Sonic Defender, boost your whole teams damage into the stratosphere. You can build it with incredible survivability too, like softcapped def, max s/l res, with perma hasten. Super fun. If I'm playing on my fire/kin corruptor though, typically I hope to see a Sonic/Sonic or a Cold/Sonic defender, really just anything with a lot of -res.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Darkir

[oedipus_tex]

Thermal is possibly the most underrated Defender set for dedicated team players. I'm surprised to see so few of them. Although it is true that for a player who sometimes solos, Thermal is probably better for a Mastermind or Controller, since Thermal can help heal and shield their pets. 

 

I can't recall ever seeing a Thermal Defender. I've seen plenty of Empathy. I'd generally rate Thermal better than Empathy, so its interesting Thermal is so much less popular. Maybe its due to the thematic aspects of Thermal.

 

Force Field is a hit or miss. If we're talking about incarnate trials, having a Force Fielder with Power Boost is a gift sent from god. Force Field is not nearly as useful in an 8 man task force.

 

Storm is kind of irrelevant as a buff set. I think of Stormers as a subset of Dominator and not really Defenders. They tend to do their own thing, which is fine. It's just not a support set I take much notice of or that radically shifts play.

 

Other than that, the usual buff sets are good. Cold, Dark, Kin. 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Crowcus Pocus]

I say it's time to bump this thread. So... BUMP!

[Papaschtroumpf]

I have a kin/sonic in the high 20s and it's a ton of fun and utility, and I don;t have Fulcrum shift yet!

My build plan should make it quite sturdy, but man is that HP low, I need to remember not to take the alpha at this level, 2 hits and I'm down!

[Darkir]

15 minutes ago, Papaschtroumpf said:

I have a kin/sonic in the high 20s and it's a ton of fun and utility, and I don;t have Fulcrum shift yet!

My build plan should make it quite sturdy, but man is that HP low, I need to remember not to take the alpha at this level, 2 hits and I'm down!

 

Taking maneuvers, tough, weave, and combat jumping really helps defenders/corruptors survive in the earlier levels. I highly recommend it.

[Papaschtroumpf]

yeah, I have Weave and Tough, but I really mostly needed an attitude adjustment, I have been playing mostly 50s for too long and every one of them as softcapped defense and high res, so even my corruptors and controllers can open and take the alpha. I just need to remember to jump in second, right after the tank or brute or scrapper takes the alpha, then jump in for Siphon Power for the melee characters, jump back out for AoE howl and possibly another SP for ranged characters. I did 2 TFs yesterday andthe only times I died is when I forgot and tried to absorb the alpha (although I also had a teammate spamming ice shields on me and got the occasional Fortitude, so I need to remember I had help surviving).