DrMike2000

I've tried:

Elec/Elec Blaster (level 50) - saps groups with Short Circuit and Power Sink in theory, but this requires close to 5 seconds in melee range of said group with no other damage mitigation. I tended to hold first, then sap, then focus on damage.
Damage was a bit average, but only because I didn't take the heavy hitting punches in the secondary.

Kin/Elec Defender (level 50) - saps the worst target at range using Transference. You also have a big combat heal to keep you alive (mostly) before the second Short Circuit is ready to fire and sap the group. As a bonus, the heal saps 5% energy, which is often very useful. Tesla Cage is highly recommended here to keep an enemy close and immobile for use as a healing/transference source.
Damage wasnt great, but who cares when you have infinite health and endurance once the group is locked down?

Elec/Energy Blaster (level 31 currently) - you almost sap a group of +1s with Short Circuit slotted for end mod, Ball Lightning slotted for damage and Power Boost. Since the numbers for Boost got lowered a couple of issues back this is a big exercise in frustration, since you're so close but just not there for most enemies you'd realistically fight at higher levels.
The punches in Energy Manipulation make up the damage shortfall, but since they also contain stuns, and you have Tesla Cage, draining remains something of a gimmick.

None of these three builds really felt that satisfying to play, probably the Defender was the best of the three. If you ask me, Electrical Blast is a bit dysfunctional. It has this secondary effect thats tied to a long animated PBAoE, but that would still be too powerful if it was allowed to do its stuff ie neuter a room full of bosses. As a result, it kicks in really late as a useful tool, and often gets overshadowed by the nice simple effective,but not unique, single target hold in the set.
If the set had a single target end drain power, like a Malta Sapper's drain attack, it would be a different story.

I played a Kin/Elec Sapper to 50, often soloing.

Yes, it works, in a kind of edgy seat of your pants way. A lot like soloing a blaster, really.
The first 25 levels are terrible, because your main damage mitigation comes from Transference (26) and Tesla Cage (28), but once youve got the jkey powers its a lot of fun.

I've found plenty of short term goals to aim for in the forties, for my squishies at any rate.
Scrappers probaby get the least out of epics, but then again they need the least of any archetype.

Some powers I have drooled over...

At level 41:
PFF on a Blaster
Fireball on my first Controller.
Oppressive Gloom on two Defenders to date.
Fissure on my plant Controller.
Thunderstrike (the power) on my FF defender to slot Scirrocco's in and complete my 45% Psi defence masterplan!
Earth Immobilise on my Fire Tank to pair with Burn (never quite got there though, but it sounded good..)

At level 44:
Armours in general, but especially Charged Armour on my Sonic Defender.
Laser Beam Eyes will be a big draw for the right Tanker one day, just for concept.
Seismic Smash on my Plant Controller
Shocking bolt for a second hold for an Elec Blaster, or Char for a first hold for a Fire Blaster.

At level 47:
Force of Nature on my Blaster
Power Boost on my Fire/Rad Controllers
Rise of the Phoenix, although this really kicks in at 50.

On top of that, the 40's is a time for completing those odd sets and finishing off the IO bonuses. eg Taking Manouvers and slotting with Red Fortune, or Tactics with Gaussian's.

On top of that I find that most characters play really well in the forties - plowing through content with the odd panic moment more than covered by a big tray of 20 insps.

Of course, once they get to 50 I generally drop them like a ton of bricks and make a new alt, but I find that last leg very fun to play.

Grab the Synergy programme off my website (its free, and in my sig) and you can play two active characters at once who coordinate their attacks.

Ive got a Fire/Rad pair, and they do very well as you might expect.

On Defenders, I found Kinetics and Force Field really shored up each others weaknesses - it may be worth trying this on Controllers. A (mostly) un-mezzable Kin is great to play.
I currently often pair up my Earth/Kin with a Sonic?energy defender for great results in a similar vein.

Ive generally found /Sonic to be an excellent second-box set since it has no awkward location powers (except Liquefy) and no real need to look at the secondary screen ever.

For primaries - Illusion would make a bad second box set due to the constant need to resummon using location based powers. Gravity would be good except for Wormhole, one of its key powers, needing screen attention to use.
Plant works quite well (from practice) but requires re-summoning Carrion Creepers and lining up the cone fro Seeds of Confusion.

Mind is probably one of the best sets for a second box character.

I used Aegis extensively -four sets I think in the ally shields, Dispersion and Charged Armour.

Add in the Steadfast Unique IO, Thunderstrike in my Energy Blasts, two sets of Blessings of the Zephyr (because I'm loaded) and I ended up with around 30% Def vs Ranged and AoE without even using the Fighting pool.

+Recovery is very good to chase too, due to the end cost of Sonic Disperion and Disruption Field. Thunderstrike, plus wherever els you can squeek in a couple of set IOs for a Recovery bonus.

Phew! Glad I'm not the only one.

I was looking at three missing slots on one account and four on the other. I figured that the Online Store being down would be asociated with this problem.

Ive got to agree, it seems a bit of an odd way for this to work, not to mention a huge pain in the rear end. Especially if you decide to roll up a new character in a slot you paid cold hard money for, which is what I was just about to do.

Ace of Swords started off as a speedster with battery-acid blood that gave him electrical powers (an idea ripped off from Shocker in the V&V module "Crisis at Crusader Citadel") in a Freedom Force mod of mine.

He then became "Ace V" in CoH, and I made him as a Kinetics/Electrical Defender, since it seemed to fit. Unsupressed superspeed in combat via Siphon Speed, electrical powers and Sands of Mu and Flurry for speed punching.

I soon dropped Flurry the damage was rubbish, but used Sands of Mu and jousting with Siphon Speed all the way to 50. Tactics and accuracy IO set bonuses stopped me from whiffing too badly with it.

My main dissapointment as I levelled up was how Kinetics demands that you stand still in front of the enemy. By my early 20s I'd got the hang of ducking into melee range for a quick heal, but once I'd got Transference and Fulcrum Shift as well as Transfusion (and Short Circuit) all going it quickly became more effective to stand there and take a beating, relying on healing and end drain rather than running around confusing the AI. So the experient was kind of successful, but left me thinking that Kinetics is a highly schizophrenic set. All about moving but all about standing still too.

I havent tried a Scrapper speedster yet. Ive currently got a leonine scrapper Max Leonus with slotted Sprint, unslotted Swift and Hurdle and Combat Jumping who bounds around the City without a travel power, but he's really more of an acrobat/sprinter than a true speedster.
I can imagine that slotting up Swift too much and accruing too many set bonuses for a high passive movement speed could result in a character who's hard to control in some situations.

I've heard that slotting Hot Feet for slow can be extremely effective. Imagine everyone running away in very slow motion (and not attacking) while you chase them with Blazing Aura on, and possibly Burn ticking away too. The slower they arem the lonegr they take to leave the afraid effect and turn round and shoot.

Unfortunately, my Fire/Fire blaster (first character ever - what a baptism of fire! *cough*) stopped at 36, so I never tried this out.

I will say that I lived and died by Fire Sword Circle and Blazing Aura. My typical tactic was: Locate spawn of +2s or +3s. target the Leiutenant. Run in with Build Up or Aim going off (I'd alternate these two per group, since high kill speed was the name of the game), fire off FireBall as I approached and then Fire Sword Circle once I hit the mob. Blaze the lieutenant in the face and apply Aid Self while they all lie down. Use Fire Sword if there are two leiutenants.

I hadnt got the hang of using Fire Breath at this point, hence the slightly odd tactics. I'm not really recommending these tactics to anyone, I was new to MMos and died a lot, but it was a lot of fun and quite effective.

I found that running Blazing Aura let me do this to +2 s and +3s instead of +1s, so it was definitely a worthwhile power. Using Fire Breath as an opener is obviously even better, but Im sure there are other situations where Blazing Aura is the difference between a spawn lying at your feet or all standing around you with a sliver of health and you just having single target attacks left. Its not a total garbage power.

That said, my more recent Fire/Energy Blaster (and my practice with Fire Breath) is miles ahead. No surprises there.

BTW I highly recommend Bonfire.
Its great when you need a breather from melee.
It's awesome in places like those tight little police stations on bank missions, doing both decent damage and keeping nasties like carnie bosses flopping about in a corner while you destroy them.
Its also a nice fire and forget against AVs and GMs who arent affected by its knockback.
All in all a surprisingly useful power - I took it thinking it was situational, but have found that it was more a case of "any situation that isnt a big outdoors map".

Sonic's one of the sets that benefits a fair bit from being used by a Defender over a Corrupter or Controller - the Resistance buffs total up to 58% per teammate as opposed to 42%, and the total -Res on hard targets is -60% instead of -45%.

The set is an end hog. Below level 20 you can pretty much run Disruption Field and Sonic Dispersion and keep everyone shielded - you'll start hitting End issues once you start attacking as well. Getting on a good team and cruise controlling through Steel Canyon or Skyway like this will help I guess.

Once you've got Stamina and SO's though you should be OK. I run on 2 End Red's in Disruption Field, equivalent of 3 in Dispersion via sets and Thunderstrike in my attacks for 57% or so End reduction and recovery bonuses, and get by quite nicely.

Sonic/Rad will be a real teaming build. You have very little personal damage mitigation there if you ever solo, but teams will love you for your debuffs and the increase in defeat-speed they bring.

I took Manouvers on my Storm/Ice Defender.

Stacked with Steamy Mist and both slotted thats a +13% defence to the team. Not bad for an incidental effect of me being on the team. Playing along with my BS/Shield scrapper with Grant Cover, the effect's really noticeable.

Its totally overshadowed by Hurricane, but you can't always touch everything with it straight away, especially Council and CoT and other "spread out and fire" mobs.

Defence works pretty well.
Aegis in all your +Res powers adds +4.7% vs AoE for 5 slots.
Thunderstrike in your ST blasts for +3.75% Ranged Defence per slot. Add in a Blessing of the Zephyr in Hover (or CJ if you prefer) and you're over 20% vs Ranged and AoE before you know it.
Reactive Armour gives less total defence I think, but spread it between three sources - S/L, En/Neg and AoE if I recall. It may be worth thinking of as an alternative, I prefer Aegis for AoE, Thunderstrike for ranged. It's simpler.

Recovery is good, Thunderstrike helps here too. Positrons Blast will go in the AoEs, even if its just the cheap +Dam/Range and +Dam/Rech ones, you get the recovery bonus. So getting over +10% extra here is quite doable.

A little bit of accuracy is always good, Thunderstrike takes care of that again. Have I said how much I love that set yet?

My Sonic/Energy Defender has also gone for +Damage to compound/multiply all the -Res. Thats been a bit tricky, I get that from Obliteration in Nova and Thunderstrike (the epic power) and 2 Lockdowns in Liquefy (kind of wasteful really) and Adjusted targetting in Aim.
With Assault I get an extra SO's worth of damage or so, but Assault is providing over half of that.

A trick for Sonic Blast is to put the Entropic Chaos: Chance to heal in Siren's Song. Not a greta trick, but I did this on my Sonic Blaster and occasionally kind of like it.

Another reason why Thunderstrike rocks - it helps Sands of Mu hit.
Positrons Blast in Ball Lightning and Adjusted Targetting in Aim will also help with global accuracy.

Electrical Blast is a bit of a pain to slot for global acc because it only takes 2 Thunderstrikes and 1 Positrons set compared to, say, Energy Blast that does 4 and 2 respectively.

Aim itself will make Sands of Mu hit - even though Sands does not gewt the damage buff it will still do more damage than a Defender attack at +50% damage. I found myself using Aim and Sands together like that a lot. You could take Tactics later to further help - my oft-soloing Kin/Elec did and he swore by Sands of Mu as a superspeedster.

Last bit of advice - save a yellow pill (or make one) for the end boss to take him down quicker with the old Sands.

I'd say go get Zapp. Telsa Cage then Zapp is very nice against all those lone lieutenants you get in solo missions!

And do use Sands of Mu.

Its available at 12 months, and I wouldn't be advising anyone with under a year's playtime to go solo a Defender. Its one of those things you do when you're tried out the more travelled paths in the game. If one of my friends started to play, I'd be more likely to say "Try soloing a Scrapper" so as not to put them off the game straight away. Maybe even suggest they try a Blaster first for the sheer fun, and then a Scrapper so they appreciate the surviviability and mez protection.

To put it in context, I've had people on the boards say that soloing certain types of Defenders is slow and boring. My first question is always "Did you use Sands of Mu?" Its no more cheating than taking Hasten to get Short Ciruit up faster - its an available tool, and any analysis of Defender soloing speed is incomplete without it. If I talk about soloing a Defender, I mean "soloing a Defender and using Sands of Mu amongst other tools".

if you want to skip the 36 month vet powers, fair enough. I'd solo'd a few Defenders before getting them.
Plus, its a complementary damage type to your Electrical blasts. Good for Rikti (for example) when you get there.

[Edit] While you're at it, grab the Ethereal Shift temp power from Wentworths. It may save your bacon a couple of times, and its cheap and affordable, therefore open to everyone. And I'm sure Healing Aura works while its up, so it actually ties nicely with Empathy.

Archery/Fire Blaster worked pretty well for me, concentrating on the flaming sword attacks in my secondary.

Good luck with this, Biospark.
I hope you find what you're looking for.

I'm a bit dubious about the effectiveness of a sapper strategy to be honest, having taken a Kin/Elec and Elec/Elec Blaster to 50. Even with a secondary drain tool (Power Sink or Transference), Short Circuit is risky, slow to activate, and slotting it for end drain further cuts in to your damage.

The best times I've had with Short Circuit are on teams - let the tank take aggro, use it, use it again in ten seconds or so and drain everyone.

Solo, Tesla Cage was way better. The fact that its single target is less relevant if you're facing only two or three enemies, it recharges very quickly and can permahold bosses quite easily. It also lets you use Zapp in combat.

When you get an Epic, Dominate in Mind Control means two fast recharging holds, much better than holding out for Power Sink IMHO.

Another point with End drain is that many enemies run off when they can't hurt you for a certain amount of time. High Defences will do this as well, but so will Short Circuit. You can get a group stading around you down to 1/4 health only to have them all run off in different directions out of range of the next one - thats very frustrating.

All I'm saying is that end drain can be quite dissapointing if you plan around it too much. Solo, its very fiddly and unreliable compared to the power of a single very good hold.

That would be brilliant.
I'm not sure about choosing pets with different powers, that woudl require a lot of thought regarding game balance, but having alternate pet skins would be fantastic.

I've often hated Controller pets as being oh so useful but oh so concept-breaking at the same time.

Singularity can be ignored fairly well just as an extension of your own magnetic/gravitic powers. But having an X-Men style mutant Ice Controller suddenly followed around by a frozen dude with a sword is really hard to explain. Being able to swap it our for a more graphically abstract entity (with the same functionality) would be very nice.

I do what I can to work with what we have. One of my characters has a pet cat with human torch powers and self-duplication that runs around on its back legs when it gets too excited, for example. But more options would be most welcome.

I'd love to see what a Singularity-like version of Earth's pet would look like. A big boulder with smaller lazily orbiting rocks, that speed up when it executes a melee attack?

Nice build, Dodger.

One thing Sonic resonance does do well for a solo-er is help you build up a decent AoE defence.

You could swap out the two flight IOs in Hover for the Flight and Flight/End Blessings of the Zephyr for an extra +3.125% Ranged Defence.
With the recent increase in base Hover speed, Ive found this to be quite bearable for combat manouverability.

Melee Defence is really hard to build for ranged characters - the best bonuses come from Touch of Death and Obliteration - seems like its set up for tankers to build up Melee Defence and ranged balster-y types to build up Ranged defence sometimes.

Ive also found Hover works better than anything else, just for staying out of melee range. Having the Thunderstrike power on auto doesn't hurt either >

If you're going to explain things like ED and Mez resistance, I reckon they're better set up as appendices which you refer to. O2 Boost isn't the only place where you'll want to reference ED if you're going into this level of detail.

I'd also maybe make a synopsis for each power, describe the core of the power in two or three sentences, before launching into the details. eg

"O2 Boost is a low strength single target heal. It also gives the target resistance to stuns and sleep (but not hold), resistance to endurance drain and improved perception for one minute, making it a valuable pre-emptive buff against certain enemies."

One spelling mistake I found, you mention "Malta scrappers" instead of sappers at one point.

Martial Arts is my favourite Scrapper set by far.

I've got two character with distinctive fighting styles out of it - one is basically human with Thunder Kick (slotted with the Stupefy KB proc, yee-ha!), Crane Kick, Storm Kick Dragons Tail and Cobra Strike.

The other is a super-flexible super-strong android (think Pris from Bladerunner for fighting style) with Jump Kick, Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Dragons Tail, Crippling Axe Kick and Eagles Claw.

Both are a joy to watch and have their own distinct personality through the animations. Both are highly effective despite having compromised a bit of efficiency for style.

No other powerset for any archetype has given me two distinct styles like this. Thats how cool Martial Arts is.

Aegis is where its at IMHO.

5 pieces gives +4.69% AoE/Fire/Cold Defence - three of them in Dispersion and the ally shields makes a great start. Add in the Steadfast Res/Def IO, a Blessing of the Zephyr set and the three sets of Thunderstrike I always recommend to just about any Defender and you're sitting around 20% Def vs Ranged and AoE.

Aegis doesnt really give you much else though.
Impervium Armour in your shields could help with END issues (and you will have them) by providing +Recovery and +Endurance for 2 and 4 pieces, but it tends to be a very expensive set.

If you can't afford Blessing of the Zephyr, Steadfast Knockback IOs are pretty cheap these days, and easily slottable in your shield somewhere.

For Ice Blast, if you forego the Thunderstrikey goodness, I'd recommend Decimation as an alternative - +Rechareg and +End, and top it off with an Impeded Swiftness Damage proc. That goes quite nicely with the -Res from your primary.
My Storm/Ice Defender uses that setup.