Defenders Unite. Lets get some skill guides together!

[Xaece]

First off, Adrenaline Tree.

Adrenaline has a hidden recast timer of 30 seconds. The 1st modifier to Adrenaline, Resilience, is an absolute must. At level 6 Resilience, Adrenaline's cooldown drops down to 10.8 seconds.

A lot of people put the HPS (Health Per Second) skills down. But, as a Defender, you will always be getting hit, a -lot-. Having Adrenaline with Rally makes for a very effective combo. 1 pt in Adrenaline and 1 pt Rally. When Adrenaline procs, you cast Rally and your HPS jumps to 15 HPS. ( 6 * ( 1 + 1.5) ). Max'ing out Adrenaline, while not as much needed in Normal, will definitely be a must in Epic. With a lv 10 Adrenaline and Rally your HPS becomes 62.5. All of this is not including gear, which can add extra HP Regen% and HPS.

Once Resilience is max'd out, and you can keep Adrenaline on constanly, max out that Defensive Reaction! It will add 50% damage and 20% Total Speed (effects running, casting, and attack speeds!)


Second, Battle Awareness Tree.

Battle Awareness, I have seen several people say they max this out. I am unsure if Marine O'Keefe, or the other successful Defenders have this max'd out, personally, I don't see its worth. At lv 10 Battle Awareness, it adds 12 Armor, and 64 DA. My own character, using lv 1 Battle Awareness at lv 30 has over 500 DA. Which so far has been more than overkill (haven't seen a crit land on me in ten levels). The +12 Armor, without Armor Handling will reduce all 'Physical' damage (this does not include Piercing damage!) by 8 damage. I personally can not justify spending 9 points more than is needed. 1 point however is required for Focus.

Focus, is a modifier to Battle Awareness, it increases your block rate, substantially. At lv 6 Focus, your block rate is increase by 18%. If you get +Defense skills bonuses, at lv 8 Focus, that block rate is increased by 24%! Unlike Armor, a shields block will block 100% of the damage inflicted. However, it only effects Physical damage again. With this skill combined with Quick Recovery, a Defender can ignore Axe and Mace users completely while taking out Bow, Spear, and Mages. Mages first, then Bow/Spear. Sword users generally have a significantly lower pierce damage ratio compared to bow/spear.

Iron Will is the last modifier to Battle Awareness. On normal, through Greece and Egpyt, I found little to no use of having Iron Will. However, once you're in the Orient, there are many enemies that will have ensnares, stuns, and skill disruptions. This is to prepare you for Epic! By the Orient, you absolutely must have atleast 1 point in this skill. Your mileage may vary, and you may need to put additional points in here before hitting Epic even.


Shield Proc Line ( Shield Smash, Disable, and Pulverize, yes I know they're not actually linked).
This series is a very YMMV line. Absolute minimum is 1 pt in each of these. They will all strike with both Weapon and Shield! (But the damage is added seperately).
All of these start at a 6% chance to proc and increase to 16% chance. With all three max'd, your Defender will have a 48% chance to strike with shield and weapon. The damage bonus listed in each skill is added to BOTH the shield and weapon.

Pulverize, is the only shield proc which has an increasing damage%, and it is capable of striking multiple foes. If your Defender is more defense based than Offensive, Pulverize should be the first to max out (or only if you're that tight on skills). At lv 6, its a 25% damage boost, at lv 8 its a 30% damage boost.
(With +2 all defense skills, and all shield procs max'd, you have an 18% chance for each proc to trigger, which leads to a 36% to strike a single boss for +30% damage.)


Shield Batter line.
Just like the shield procs, Shield Batter strikes with both weapon and shield. The % damage bonus definitely effects both weapon and shield, but it is unclear if the +Absolute Damage (i.e. +3 damage at lv 1 and +29 damage at lv 12) effects both, or only one, and if only one which one it effects. My gut says it effects both, but don't quote me on that.
At lv 1, it has an 18% slower attack to the foe (or foes) you strike with it, at lv 12 it has a 50% slower attack. This will increase your ability to tank substantially, however through out Normal I have found enemies to die too quick for the lowered attack speed to be worthwhile (I can see it in epic however).

The modifier to Shield Batter, is Rend Armor. At lv 1, it gives you a 3 target maximum! 90 degree arc (which I call shenanigans on, I have struck enemies behind me with Shield Batter's AoE on many occasions), and a 5 reduced armor. When max'd at lv 8, it will reduced enemy armor by 46. Which will increase your damage by 30pts per strike, nothing to sneeze at if you have high aspd, however, again, this is something to wait for Epic to increase in my opinion. When enemies become harder to kill, Rend Armor will bring them back to the mortal realm.


Shield Charge line.
Ahh, Shield Charge. Can make some pure Warfare Warriors /drool and curse you when you go charging head long into a pack of enemies. Definitely 1 pt is required in here, if not for the coolness factor, but for the ability to bypass a pack of meleers and quickly nuetralize the real threat. Mages. Which, Shield Charge is so aptly designed to do! Its given a large range damage bonus, so sometimes, you will do very little damage (comparitively since you strike with melee and shield, again), and other times you'll do massive damage and take out your foe. Just like Shield Batter, I am unsure if the +Absolute damage is added to both weapon and shield, if it is, at lv 12 Shield Charge, which gives 31-102 bonus damage that means you can strike for 62-204 bonus damage -before- adding any +% damage from say, Adrenaline/Equipment.

Disruption is the modifier to Shield Charge, in Normal, for the way I use shield charge for the most part I don't aim for maximal AoE use. YMMV, and if you're planning to use this for the AoE, by all means max it in Normal, its incredible doing a Shield Charge -> Shield Batter and dropping 2-4 Foes before they can react (This may change in Epic). However, once you're in Epic, maxing Disruption is a must. At lv 6 Disruption, it will block skill usage for 4.0 seconds. (Unsure if this skill disruption is added with or after the Stun). Thats 4.0 seconds of one, or more casters not being able to use their high damage nukes on you and your party (Though they can still use their staves, but not Ternion Attack if they have that).

<pants> So much typing If you've read all the through to here, thanks for reading! I will be adding more to this later on as my experiences change. I don't feel I have much to comment on Colossus Form, haven't had much time to 'test' it out. And not ready to go into Rally, since its integral to Colossus Form imo.

[Marine OKeefe]

Currently my Pure Defender is level 32, I completed Normal at level 30.

Defenders are very good at dealing damage, suprisingly. I have and am maxing out all of the Defender abilities except..

Concussive blow - This forces you to use a mace weapon

Batter > Rend Armor - This would take up your right click most likely and as a pure defender Energy is something that you need to conserve since you wont be putting too much into Int and Energy.

For my Attributes I started off with only strength so I could use the best armor, weapons and shields. A defender's damage output is controlled by the shield they use more so then their weapon.

For my skills I did it like this, ever level I put one point into the mastery bar, and the other two into the skills I wanted at that level, except I stopped to max out shield charge since this is my MAIN skill, this is what is on my right mouse click, it rushes you almost instantly to your target, stuns them and when maxed will most likely kill them and anyone else in a 360 degree radius of you, and it has a short cooldown.

With Pulverise and Shield Smah you'r attacking with your shield roughly 30% of the time and when you do attack with your shield it does Shield+Weapon damage! PLUS the modifiers shield smash and pulverise add ot that damage and it also hits in a 120 degree angle and with Pulverise it adds a stun effect to the already super-damage attack of doom!

Colossus has a long cooldown, but with this + Adrenaline active your character should be invincible to almost everyone except maybe Typhon, I have screenshots in my Xfire Profile showing me killing bosses at full health while in Colossus form.

Quick recovery, I use whenever something is damaging me uncomfortably fast, this skill just makes you block quicker and more often, blocking NULLIFIES all damage up to its block amount, so if someone hit you for 50 Damage and your shield Blocks 50, you take 0 Damage.

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Not that PVP is balanced but with this build I was able to defeat a player Corsair (KillaJohn) and a Conquerer (Rupert Pumpkin) several times without a scratch and of course they were of similar levels at the time.

[Xaece]

How about your Battle Awareness line Marine? You made no mention to that. Just curious your thoughts on it as well.

[Marine OKeefe]

I didnt think it needed mention sorry.

I have it and all of its upgrades max (Or on the way to being maxed) since it costs nothing but a shaving off of the top of your Energy pool and gives you and your party Defense Bonuses, Increase Shield blocking and Near IMMUNITY to Stuns, Traps and Disruption effects.

For a Hybrid Defender I dont know how useful it would be to you since it does lower your Energy Pool, but as a Defender you dont use much Energy anyway and the amount you use is and have is so small that a potion would fill it up easily.

[Xaece]

Ah, so we do differ slightly on it. I only use 1 pt in Battleawareness but keep its upgrades max'd out. =) Thats why I wanted to know your thoughts.

Hopefully this thread will help out up and coming Defenders.

[Marine OKeefe]

As I explained in my Skill Spending section, I would add 1 point to the master bar and 2 to the skills I used at that Skill level and my two level 1 skills were Armor Handling and Battle Awareness, I did not get Batter or Concussive Blow.

[Darmane]

What do you guys have to say about Armor Handling? I'm level 12 and I find myself busy enough thinking about all of the other skills to invest in. Is it worth it?

[Marine OKeefe]

I would say yes, it has let me use items I would not have been able to far earlier then I would. It makes a huge difference and gives you an armor bonus. This is probobly the #1 Defender Skill.

#1 Not as in the most powerful but as in the First you max out.

[Xaece]

Definitely agreed with Marine on this. Armor Handling not only lets you use strong armor and shields earlier, but it also decreases the amount of physical damage you take. Which gives you all the more time to take out the nasty mages by ignoring the melee enemies that deal predominately physical damage.

[Hadrian]

I put one point into battle awareness and maxed out it's upgrades as well. I don't think that the 50DA and 10ish armor I'm missing out on is worth it personally.

Other than that, I've taken almost everything to the top. Batter/Rend is my baby, I cannot live without that skill (my other two characters are already defense-secondaried). The shield attack skills are great as well, especially with an awesome shield. The Defender is certainly capable of doing good damage, oddly.

At later levels I will go Nature as well for Plague, the Nymph, double HPs and refresh for Collosus. More healing will certainly be nice as well.