Dechs Kaison

Have you seen my guide? I'm told it's pretty good for this.

Staff or TW for sure, and paired with Fire. I think TW is heavier on damage, even considering the redraw affecting momentum. Staff would get the edge if Fiery Aura didn't have a recovery tool.

That's my vote.

Aye, nice look. You know, Dark/Fire is my tank of choice. I have a few builds posted, even.

I'm told they suck, though.

TW was fun the moment I smacked somebody with a concrete lollipop.

To echo Hopeling, keep at it until Whirling Smash. If you still don't like it then, you never will.

My brute is a Claws/Dark. I already don't find problems with endurance, so form of the soul would be a waste in my mind (see what I did there?), but the redraw is occasionally annoying.

Staff is a great pairing with dark, though. Build end reduction in the attacks and you can start using the other forms to good effect. And of course there's the defense bonus.

Quicksilver Mage.

Bots/Traps, but most anything will work. See my guide for more info (green link in my sig).

Still an issue. No MM is free of this problem, though. My guide goes over some ways to minimize it, at least.

MFing Warshade.

Hands down the most fun experience I've ever had playing this game.

Or you could try redside.

While you were soloing, what difficulty setting were you at?

I'd like to have a frame of reference for how these tactics perform.

Sparked by Johnny Butane's thread in the AT forum discussing a way to rework how the game handles mez, I'd like to present my own idea.

First, I would like to define what I feel are the problems with the way mez currently works.

1. It is binary. Your character is either stunned or it is not.
2. It shuts down your ability to stay alive. A melee character who is mezzed loses his resistance and defense. Aside from one exception, any mezzed character cannot activate inspirations to stay alive.
3. The combined effects of 1 and 2 lead to a situation that is neither fun nor challenging. It just sucks, particularly so when chain mez occurs. A character that cannot react to what is creating the mez condition has to suffer while the mez is reapplied. This often creates an endless loop until the character dies.
4. It is not thematic. Superheroes are rarely completely incapacitated.

My solution is to rework mez so that it works in degrees similar to how a character is exemplared. Each point of mez magnitude would reduce the pool of powers available to the character. I could see two implementations of this.

This simplest method is to use the way the character was built. Each point of mez would take away one power selection, starting with the most recent. For example, a level 18 Fire/Fire blaster who is hit by a mag 3 stun would lose access to Blaze, Build Up, and Fire Sword Circle, assuming those were the three most recent power choices. The same Blaster at level 50, now with Flame Mastery, would lose Rise of the Phoenix, Fire Shield, and Bonfire.

The other method would be to disallow powers based on the level those powers become available. Let's take the same Blaster as an example here, but assume that he chose his powers in a different order. At level 18, the mag three stun would make it so he couldn't use powers that require him to be 14 or higher. He would still lose Blaze and Build Up, but Fire Sword Circle has a minimum level of 10, so it stays, despite being chosen as the level 14 power. At level 50, he only loses Rise of the Phoenix, because that power isn't available until 44. The other two can be chosen as early as 41 and 35. This is by far a more complicated way to do mez, but I believe it is far more thematic.

As far as theme, imagine this situation: Spiderman gets surprised and clubbed in the side of the head. The hit has thrown him off balance, enough that you might call him "stunned." Spiderman is a pretty resilient guy, though, so he's going to try to fight back. He won't be able to do any backflips in this condition, but he can still throw a few kicks.

This translates very well to the Blaster analogy I've been using. If your Blaster is stunned, it makes sense that he can't do some of the more complicated things like Inferno or keep focused enough to maintain a Fire Shield. But I'll be damned if he can't still throw a fireball at the guy that hit him.

So in conclusion, I believe my idea will make for a more fun experience when dealing with mezzing enemies because it addresses my defined problems. Mez would no longer be binary, which could lead to more varied enemy groups. Some enemies could be very strong at mezzing while others could be weak, outside the limits of "there's seven of them stunning me." Characters would be able to react to mez. A Defender leaves his toggle debuffs on the enemy and a Tanker keeps his armors active until they become completely overpowered. This creates an environment where there is more than one option (use a Break Free) to respond to mez. With options comes the chance to intelligently interact with your environment, creating the challenge of choosing the best option and the fun that goes with it.

Thanks for reading.

What if mez just worked differently on players than it did on NPCs? Here's my idea to make it not binary:

Each point of magnitude would lock you out of one power, similar to exemplaring. Also similar to Defiance 2.0.

So a level 50 blaster with a mag three stun would lose his epics. A level 22 would lose the three most recent power picks. Defiance for blasters could still work as normal, just preventing the last three powers from being mezzed away.

Brawl and the origin temp would be exempt from mez, so no matter what, you could always do something. Incarnate powers might be exempt. Mez protection would work the same as it does, reducing the mag applied.

Brute if only for the taunt aura.

I'd vote going with a Shield Defense / Martial Arts Tanker.

Storm Kick will give you 10% defense to all positions, which will be enough to softcap the SD on SOs.