Defender

Overview

The Defender is a support specialist. This archetype is effective with ranged attacks, though not quite on par with the Blaster. Instead, the Defender's true worth shines in the area of their powerful buffing and debuffing powers. Defenders are the premier helpers in the game—they are the best at strengthening their teammates' abilities (buffing) and weakening foes (debuffing). They aren't built for lengthy hand to hand combat, though they aren't fragile, either. The Defender needs to keep an eye both on his teammates and the enemy—in order to see which requires his attention.

The Defender's powersets are:

Primary: Buff/Debuff
Secondary: Ranged

The Defender has low hit points and low damage.

Powersets

Primary Powersets

A Defender's primary powersets are designed specifically for buffing or debuffing. They are:

• Dark Miasma
• Empathy
• Force Field
• Kinetics
• Radiation Emission
• Sonic Resonance
• Storm Summoning
• Trick Arrow

Secondary Powersets

A Defender's secondary powersets are designed for ranged attacks. They are:

• Archery
• Dark Blast
• Electrical Blast
• Energy Blast
• Psychic Blast
• Radiation Blast
• Sonic Attack

Ancillary Power Pools

• Dark Mastery
• Power Mastery
• Psychic Mastery
• Electricity Mastery

Inherent Power

• Vigilance

Strategies

The underlying principle behind Defender play is that of support. No single power of the Defender set tends to pack a distinct punch on its own, because they're designed to improve the power of a team. What this means is that most Defender power sets are designed to start with a large number of cumulative attacks.

This can be seen fairly evidently in Defender secondaries; most of them attack very quickly, and all Defender secondaries have a cumulative debuff effect of some variety. This means that a Defender's actual attacks can be stacked together very quickly, and their debuffing effects can be maximized. Therefore, the most potent powers of the Defender are usually at their finest because they can be stacked. Defender play, when solo, is very action-focused; you attack very quickly, and many of your buffs and debuffs recharge very quickly. This speed seems to be so that in a team, you can quickly transfer your attention around to different concerns.

The unfortunate drawback is that Defenders rarely have much direct impact; because their powers are so powerful when cumulative, they tend to not have much immediate effect on their own. Defeating a higher conning boss or lieutenant for most low-level Defenders can best be compared to pushing rope uphill. While the Defender is often very safe, with their debuffs and buffs, the exchange for this safety is speed.

External Links

• Archetypes documentation on official City of Heroes site
• Official City of Heroes Manual as a zipped PDF file