BugeyeJack

I too am an altaholic. The issue I have with one-trick-pony characters is that I get bored of their one role. The only things that interest me are jacks of all trades.

Like, I get on my level 51 DP/sonic corr, with nice IOs and tier 3 cardiac alpha, to be the support anchor of my team. But then I get bored of the relatively weak orange numbers a corr throws up (even with scourge... I have no idea how defender players stick with their toons), the lack of survivability, and the weak soloability. I want something with more pew pew. So...

I get on my level 32 sonic/psi blaster. He has lots of cones of doom that just mow down the minions, and some strong single-target attacks for the toughies. But then he faceplants. A lot. Maybe I have a bad run of misses on some baddie, or my cone attacks miss something, or another group aggros. I took tough/weave but that only goes so far with that AT. I've gotten pretty good at that toon but I get sick of always "playing scared" as a glass cannon. So...

I switch over to my lvl 27 ice tank. Nothing can touch that guy, even without IOs, between the normal shields and EA. Not even fire attacks are that much of a problem, because a lot of fire attacks have an S/L component to them which gets deflected by the ice shield. And if anything does get through, I have hoarfrost at the ready. But... geez, things die awfully slow. I have to wail on a single LT forever just to make him die. And if there are multiple tanks/brutes already on the team, I don't have a whole lot to bring to the table. Weak damage, no buffs. Besides, that toon is on Victory and finding a group as a level 27 on Victory is like trying to win Powerball. So I switch toons...

I think my favorite toons are my merc/traps MM and my soldier. The MM brings a bit of everything to the table. The soldier can go from a melee machine to an AOE death-bringer with one visit to the trainer. So to the OP, you really should look at a jack of all trades (MM, soldier, maybe shade) and see if that will hold your interest in the long run.

It's the player not the character; every powerset can be effective in certain situations; it all depends onit all depends on synergy with the other powerset; etc etc.

But a couple types of powersets have overall winners.

Strongest pet set: Bots. Hands down. It's not even close. Best survivability; best AE damage; good damage types; best support -- they even bubble the MM himself. Demons have good support, but don't have the damage. Thugs have good damage, but don't have the support. So, there's bots, and then there's everything else.

Strongest control set: Plant. It has everything. Start with Seeds, the most powerful level 8 ability in the game. Then add an AE root, AE sleep (underrated), AE hold, standard pet... and then add carrion creepers, which is unlike any other power in the game. Sure, fire is better for pharming due to the imps, but for overall control, nothing else competes.

I've had a good run of WST's lately, each taking under an hour and with few to no deaths.

Now that I've gone and said this... queue the fail-squad with the afk'er, the emp who does nothing but heal, the fire/kin who logs during the third mish, the fire tank with no -KB enh's and no acrobatics, the fire blaster who opens before anyone else with all his AOEs, the FF defender who never bubbles anyone, and the team leader who has every message to his team partially blotted out with <&^%@>.

My personal experience on raids with my mercs/traps.

LGTF: The pets got chewed up like doggie toys soaked in BBQ sauce and thrown in a kennel full of rabid Dobermans. I was resummoning all of them pretty much whenever the summon powers refreshed. However, /traps gave a lot of help to the team, especially with the big 3 of FF-gen, acid mortar and poison trap. I think I died only once, and that was due to my own stupidity.

STF: The last mission is where the toon really shines. When it's time to pull GW and her pals, it's nice to have a minefield complete with poison traps and acid mortars waiting and ready. Also, the pets seem to fare pretty well in this TF, with relatively few deaths. They have a lot of chances to keep on the consistent damage while I'm busy doing my traps thing. The key is to occassionally Heel them to peel off the morons who moved in to brawl, and then re-siccing them on the AV.

Khan: To be honest, every run I've done has been a turbo run, with someone stealthing + group TPing every mish. The only real fight came with Reichsman, and again, /traps really shines with these AV fights. And even while I'm toebombing or setting up poison traps and acid mortars, my guys are still pouring on the damage, something a /traps corr can't do.

I've never had any trouble getting invited to a WST. I'm sure I'll eventually run into some min/maxxer who will tell me to go get bent when I ask to join, but honestly, with all that /traps brings to the table, that wouldn't be such a wise decision. Even for meatgrinders like LGTF. And I haven't even tried a barracude SF yet.

Responding to the comments... and thank you very much for abstaining from the personal attacks... I was not sure which forum I was on!

Yes, stalkers get a sniper attack 41+, as alluded to in the initial post... but one single sniper attack isn't worth a whole lot. I thought that having multiple sniper attacks might let a stalker set up a decent alpha attack chain, that could take the place of AS, before having to close to melee. For instance, open with Body Shot on the sapper, Leg Shot on another minion, then Head Shot on an Lt before closing. Obviously they would have to have passable interrupt times for this to work.

And PvP... that is the major catch. I was trying to find ways to have stalkers compete PvE without being overpowered PvP. The fact that all these shots would be interruptable would remain a major catch. I think that if they made these shots unable to cast while flying, that should make them much more balanced.

My wishlist has only one item:

A hero pet class utlizing a single pet.

The player would have 2-3 different types of even-level pets they could train, but only one could be out at a time. The secondary would be the dominator "assault" line. Have its class inherent be called "Symbiosis": As long as the pet is alive, and in Supremacy range, it slowly but constantly transfers health and end to the player if the player's health/end levels are lower than the pet's. It can even survive the player's death, although it will constantly lose health until it dies if the player doesn't get a rez. The price: if the pet dies first, the player loses a major chunk of his current health and endurance instantly. The pet is much, much stronger than an MM boss pet, but of course, there is only one as opposed to six. The rest of the player's primary would consist of support or control powers, such as out of Poison or Storm.

Some sets might have a temporary pet or two tacked on, but only the main pet would respond to commands the way MM pets do.

My Mercs/Traps was my first villain toon and my first 50.

Its biggest weakness is support tier compared to other sets. The insanely long recharge for the spec ops control powers is inexcusable and makes its utility basically negligable compared to the protector bots' shields and heals. Once in a blue moon, your spec ops will hold or flashbang a dangerous enemy that would otherwise kill one of your pets or even a teammate; but this is so rare it is barely even worth mentioning.

Still... you can be a badass with mercs. The commando is second only to the assault bot in pure pwnage, and since bots is the undisputed king of MM primaries anyway, that's saying something. And there's something strangely satisfying in seeing your own private army go all Predator-style on some dumb mob all at once.

Just theorizing here... please hold your meltdowns for later! Just speaking from my experience.

Stalkers currently have an extremely narrow role in PvE. There is little reason to take a Stalker onto your team (or SG) instead of a Scrapper or Brute, when they produce less overall damage and are more squishy, and can Placate an angry monster onto the team's defender. Increasing Stalkers' combat stats even more is not an answer, because then they'll just be Scrappers who have free Hide and AS. So there must be some other way of making Stalkers a distinctive AT, right?

Enter sniper attacks. After all, what is the class symbol of Stalkers? A set of crosshairs! And think of the PPD Ghost making sniper stealth strikes. Why can't the Stalker be a special forces type of character who can use multiple tools to take down a target? And not just one attack from an epic pool either at level 41+. There is no reason why a sniper rifle can't be a core part of an assassin's arsenal. (I mean, come on... DEADPOOL! Who doesn't want to be DEADPOOL! )

Solution: Make 2-4 sniper attacks available for training, at the stalker's option. The "sniper set" may depend on the stalker's primary, or may be selectable as a separate pool. (The epic ATs have shown that it's ok to have more than 9 powers per powerset without the world ending.) Either way, group the sniper attacks in their own separate box. If the player chooses to take sniper powers, then great. If not, then absolutely nothing is changed with his character whatsoever. The powers could be available at levels 8, 12 and 26, as an example.

Stalkers who open with a snipe attack from hiding get a Stealth Strike crit. Such an attack might not even break Hide... although this would obviously have to be carefully balanced, especially for PvP... An initial sniper barrage would be a great advantage for the team. Trying to maintain an attack cycle with sniper attacks would be inefficient compared to a pure ranged class, but would certainly give the Stalker options not enjoyed by his bigger cousin, the Scrapper.

Finally, this would create a market for Sniper powers and IOs that doesn't really exist right now. Stalkers would truly have their own niche as Assassin/Ghost/Splinter Cell agents who can kill at range and at melee, while still being nice and squishy compared to Scrappers and Brutes.

Example sets:

SNIPER RIFLE: This non-magic set uses only the assassin's hardware and keen eye to make the kill, rather than supernatural powers.
1. Body Shot: Works like the generic "Sniper Rifle" power from AR. Lethal damage. Knocks the victim back.
2. Leg Shot: Less damage, but snares the victim.
3. Head Shot: Increased damage; stun secondary effect; longer interrupt time; worse accuracy.

DARK LANCES: Use the power of the Netherworld to eliminate your foes from range.
1. Moonbeam: like the Dark Blast attack. -ToHit.
2. Nightbeam: Inflicts less damage, but gives -Perception as well as -ToHit.
3. Dreadbeam: Inflicts massive damage over time. No secondary effect.

Thanks for reading this!

Sadly, he does have a point about stalkers. In PvE, there is no reason to run a stalker over a scrapper.

If you want to stealth missions, power pool stealth + one of the travel +stealth enh's is plenty.

Of course, PvP is another concern. This reminds me of DAOC infils and nightshades, who sucked hard in PvE but who were lords of the realm in PvP. That seems like a fair trade. The only reason why stalkers are considered underpowered in CoH is because PvP is not much of a factor here. If we had a "new frontiers" type zone... the stock value of stalkers would skyrocket overnight.

Best ST villain = brute! Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned before. For maximum ST damage, I'd go with stone primary.

For ranged? Well, a pimped-out bots/dark MM is hard to beat...

My oldest is an AR/Fire, hardly ever played anymore, on the Victory server. I remember going on these boards trying to argue why secondaries other than /dev could be useful. I was like, why didn't anyone understand how Buildup could be powerful?

Although, I only got her to 29. All my high level toons have at least one "new" powerset.

Here's how to do it.

1) Drive-by shields cast on random people should last 4 minutes... maybe 6 or so, but not that long.
2) Shields for teammates should last a good 30 minutes to an hour.
3) SB should still not last that long, but should have an AE effect that does not affect the caster
4) Mez-breakers such as Clear Mind, if the player has no current target, should auto-target the nearest friendly who is slept/held/immobed/stunned.

There ya go! Buff sets are no longer so annoying to play.

Most of the MM level 18 powers are kinda worthless. I mean, Gang War is kind of funny but it doesn't do much except get in everyone's way, and maybe eat an alpha strike. And serum and repair are beyond worthless. The only lvl 18 power that's any good is in Necro.

The pool powers have a lot of doozies. Someone mentioned flurry and whirlwind before. The entire presence pool sucks hard except maybe for tankerminds, and jump kick is so worthless it makes Propel look like a good attack power.

For APP/PPP's, I don't get the point of armors that don't protect against all. Temp Invuln from field mastery gives the best resistance and the detailed info says it protects against *all* forms of damage. Or is that a bug?

If it's good enough for Ghost Rider and Spawn, it should be good enough for this game! And no offense to the devs, but the whip looks and sounds a lot cooler than kinetic melee. Why have it only on MMs?

The challenge would be that players would expect two types of lash: the hellfire lash currently used by MMs, and the chain whip of Spawn and the movie's Ghost Rider. The issue is that the two would clearly employ different damage types. What to do? They could allow players to select which type of lash they want via costume selection, but this seems a bit overpowered. Or, they could have players select their damage type at character creation and be stuck with it until they respec.

Possible effects of each type of lash:
Hellfire: Fire damage; -Res; Toxic DoT
Chain: Smashing damage; -Res; knockdown

Powers:
1) Quick Lash (quick, low damage)
2) Lash (as the current power, middle-range attack)
3) Crack Whip (cone)
4) Thrash (slow, more powerful)
5) Buildup
6) Leg Swipe (minor damage, snare, possible knockdown for Hellfire or guaranteed knockdown for Chain)
7) Whip Circle (PBAE)
8) Flay (multiple whip slashes to a single target. Superior damage)
9) Engulf (player wraps the whip around the victim, draining their life force, same animation as Hell on Earth. While this power is active, the victim is Held but the player can take no other action. The victim takes massive damage over time. The player is granted a significant +recovery while this power is running. The power still works if the victim resists the Hold, until they move out of the player's range.)

Thoughts? Think they'll still make more power sets?

Traditionally, on the forums people get shouted down if they dare suggest taking personal attacks. Personally I find them useful, especially when soloing... and shooting at baddies can be more entertaining than just standing there picking at your behind. It also depends on your secondary. Some secondaries like FF are more passive and leave you with a lot of time on your hands to shoot at baddies during a fight.

You get two single-target and one AE attack from your primary. There are melee attacks in the pool, the best one being Air Superiority. And your epic powerset will give you at least two ranged powers.

Besides the usual cliche of "anyone who plays their toon well"...

I appreciate a good AE-damage toon more than anything else. Between the various melee, support and control toons, the defense is usually covered. What my pickup groups are usually lacking in is killing speed; everyone who goes DPS seems to be going with single-target sets these days. A good fire blaster makes missions go by twice as fast.

This is currently the "golden age" of melee pets. The attack command makes all melee pets close to attack... but it also tends to make ranged pets do the same. And then they go splat.

My ninja/poison is my strongest single-target killer that I have. He's my most consistent AV killer, and he's only 37.

For regular, general purpose slaughter, though, bots as always are king of MM primaries. Even with the current "close to melee" AI behavior. I think that they always intended from the get-go for bots to be the ultimate MM set, and everything else existing for flavor or for niche roles.

I have a few reasons to IO up a lowbie toon.

1) I'm in desperate need of +recovery, and the next patch doesn't seem to be coming until 2023
2) I happened to find a unique lowbie IO such as +stealth
3) I found the recipe, I found the parts, and why the heck not?
4) Boredom

In the early 20s, yeah, SOs are the way to go. But otherwise, IOs will always give better bonuses. They sell for garbage on the AH anyway (except for uniques).