Let me preface this by saying that the Defender neutral game is actually pretty good, and with No Backup Plans implemented, it makes Defender a decent option. But that's really the extent of it. There is only one perk in the skilltree that directly affects the Defender neutral game, Relentless (which gives an additional 15% damage resistance to Force Barrier, bringing it to 55% overall). While Defender has this one perk that affects neutral game, all of the other subclasses have two or more perks that directly affect neutral game and in some cases, also super game. Most subclasses have neutral game perks that affect grenades, melee, and/or weapons while Defender only has an option for melee. But the most effective way for the Defender to take advantage of the melee ability, is for you to use No Backup Plans, an exotic, while all of the other subclasses can perfectly take advantage of certain perks/abilites without the need of an exotic. Not to mention that using Defender also pretty much limits you to equiping a shotgun to even make the build useful while the builds on any other subclass can be completely taken advantage of without the need of a specific weapon. And I know people are going to say things like "you can use Universal and <insert special weapon here>" or that you can use "No Land Beyond and a shotgun," but that still involves equipping a shotgun. And people may also say that you don't [b]need[/b] a shotgun, but how am I going to make this build useful or easily proc Force Barrier without it? Try to constantly double melee eneimes with T-Rex arms, even though I can easily get gunned down before even reaching them. So how do we solve the neutral game issue of Defender. Simple. We can buff/replace certain perks in the skilltree. For example: Untouchable. This perk seems a bit boring despite its usefulness, and a good way to buff it would be to make it grant +2 armor instead of +1 armor like how Unstoppable on Striker Titan gives +2 armor. Another idea would be for the perk's name to imply being Untouchable, like making bullets bounce off of overshields whike stilk maintaining intended damage or something like that. I'm not really sure. Thoughts? Iron Harvest is also a perk that could be changed or replaced since Defender already has other orb generating perks. Maybe make it generate orbs on every Heavy kill or make it so that it makes grenades more effective. Specifically Spike Grenade. Maybe increased cone radius or something or increased grenade blast radius. Again thoughts? [spoiler]My other idea to replace Iron Harvest was to make it so that it suppresses enemies that enter Ward of Dawn, but that is in regards to a Super buff, not a neutral game buff[/spoiler] TL;DR: Defender neutral game is alright but it pretty much limits you to using shotgun. My buff ideas are in the last two paragraphs.