Just got Vanation III from the Weekly Heroic...I never get good primaries ;_;
Nightfall, and you just did get a good primary. What perks does it have?
Just an observation, but I definately feel more like a tank with all my Sunsinger damage reduction abilities activated vs doing the same a a defender
Fully defensive specced Sunsingers are than a balanced Defender, but a fully offensive Sunsinger is less tanky than any spec defender.
Neither feels squishy I just expected the Defender to feel a lot more tank like than a Sunsinger
The flame shield vs force barrier difference is puzzling, one is on hit and the other on kill
Well, Flame Shield is a choice to modify the Sunsinger melee Scorch (often the best one, but you can't use it along with the other options at all), whereas Disintegrate/Force Barrier
is the Defender melee attack itself, which you can then modify in some pretty good ways. War Machine is the best weapon handling modifier in the game, Gift of Light is crazy for orb generation if you're getting melee kills, and Unbreakable makes you decidedly tankier than even a Flame Shielded/Radiant Skin Sunsinger. Of course some would say Fireborn is the ultimate tank skill and nobody else has that.
If Force Barrier activated on hit, my opinion is that Defenders would instantly become the best class by a substantive margin. As is, Force Barrier and its modifiers are still pretty amazing, but you have to gauge your ability to actually kill with a melee hit rather than just scoring one, while Flame Shield is only ever Flame Shield, so it's a far trade.