Don't get me wrong, I love Fenn, but he's leagues behind soontir on defense.
While I agree that Fenn is behind Soontir on defense thanks to Palpatine, I would like to point out that he is as well leagues ahead on offense and usually never ends up in Range 2, because if he lands in range 2 he should be able to choose to either arc dodge, switch into r1 or r3. He is harder to block as well as you don't have to run him with a ptl crutch.
Oh I don't disagree on offense at all. Fenn does far more damage (if you get range 1 shots) than soontir ever will. I absolutely do run him with PTL though. He doesn't always have to trigger it depending on where things end up in a given round, but I wouldn't run him without it.