JWatt

Thugs/Traps is sickeningly strong. I have a friend who uses one in PvP, and throw out Gang War as soon as she sees her opponent as a distraction while she lays down her traps, making it a great "Whoopsie" power for multiple occasions as well as a big hitter.

Thugs are best when you take Leadership, because it stacks with the leadership given out by your Enforcers. Combined with Force Field Generator, you get solid defense for your thugs and nice offense, as well (I suggest assault and maneuvers, as well as tactics if you can make room for it). Caltrops and Acid Mortar make a great combination when pulling through an open door, especially if you have a firing squad of thugs to dish out damage.

The only thing that I see in common with these two sets is the passive +recharge powers, Lightning Reflexes and Quickness.

Elec is resistance, has more offense (with its damage aura), and has powers to keep your endurance bar full. It's recently become more popular because one of its powers was turned into heal+regen boost+recovery boost combo power, and keeping it up does wonders for survivability. This set was boosted at the same time that Claws was brought over to Brutes, so a lot of people started using both of these "new" sets together when making a new character.

SR gives great defense that makes softcapping easier, but you have to take almost all of its powers in order for it to work properly, and some people like to branch out. SR is one of the two most commonly paired powersets with claws, the other being Regen.

I am on many servers, on many different times of the day, based on whatever I'm needed to do at home or work. That's the problem with me being part of ANY static team. :P

But a man can dream...

I'd say 2-3 man your difficulty. The more enemies facing you, the more you can use powers like Sunless Mire to get their best effect.

I agree. Look at mids, select the powers you want in the build, play around to maximize the numbers in favor of whatever bonuses you want, and then try it out and edit it accordingly. If you run on a mac and thus cannot use mids, then you could also use suckerpunch (http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner) for a general idea of what you want, though it lacks the nifty calculators that mids has built in.

Personally, I would start out by trying to look for recharge IO bonuses, followed by accuracy, damage, and lastly Ranged Defense.

CURSE my love of WP blinding me to other options!

Well why don't you tell them that it's their job to chase the enemies that you bounce away from them. Tell them "fetch" while you're at it. That'll go well.

Or you could learn to manage your knockback like a big boy. Use Hover to stay above enemies when knocking them back, making it knockdown, or make sure to knock them INTO a controller AoE power's radius, or bounce them against a wall and keep them there for the melee people. You could also use the immobilize power that almost all blasters get at level 1 to keep the enemy from being knocked back at all, and make sure to focus on one enemy at a time that no one else is aiming at so that you don't accidentally knock an enemy away from a player who is trying to kill it. It really doesn't take much thinking to figure out.

Honestly, I don't really get a lot of people who actively complain about how I play, even when I know I've just made things harder for someone (usually accidentally). People in this game tend to be pretty understanding about things, unless you're so terrible that you cause numerous team wipes and have an attitude that says "why didn't you chase the enemy I just knocked 50 feet away into that big pile of AVs? You aren't doing your job, buster".

Think about it like this: "If I shoot this bad guy and he's knocked back, how does that effect myself, my target, the enemies around my target, and my team mates?" If the answer is "The enemy will be knocked back into a position where he either makes things harder for my team mates and myself, or easier for itself and the enemies around it." then pick another target.

I personally wouldn't want to even ask for that set to be implemented. Player outcry would be unbearable, and the set would just end up being bland due to balance issues, which would cause MORE player outcry about how weak it is, followed by a period of popularity due to some newly discovered exploit when combined with another set, which will lead to both of those sets being nerfed, causing MORE more player outcry, which the devs will attempt to silence with a small buff to one set or another to balance, leading it to be looked down upon by some players and embraced by others like any other set.

The whole process takes about, oh, a year and a half to two years?

^ And Konsultant also dueled a malevactor'd down lv 36 Gravity/Elec dom named Myzrahi who wiped the floor with him. He was NICE about it, though. Had trouble chasing him and getting WM's hits to connect, wheras his holds and electric attacks had no trouble wearing Konsultant down.

Entry 5:

Joined an excellent PUG with rotating team members. The basic team roster sort of stayed the same: 3 dominators, 2 brutes, 2 Corrupters, and a bots mastermind. One Corrupter who stayed on for most of the time was a Fire/Kin, and while she stayed back most of the time so that Konsultant didn't get a lot of benefit from Siphon Power, she was very timely about Speed Boost buffs, which always makes melee characters a lot more fun. She was also great in the healing and attacking department.

Konsultant stayed on that team for probably 2 hours or so before it disbanded, and got 3 levels. I picked Energy Cloak at level 22, both because it offers added defense and because I thought that Konsultant's endurance bar wouldn't be able to easily handle Whirling Mace yet. After grabbing most of my SOs, though, I think that I underestimated their effect on the endurance bar, and could have picked Whirling Mace.

That being said, Energy Cloak adds some unique advantages, aside from the added 5% defense to everything. It seems to lower the amount of threat Konsultant gets (but it's actually adding in a calculation that runs a check against enemy perception, I know), so I have more control over the number of enemies Konsultant fights with at one time. When there are two mobs close together, Konsultant can use his Inherent power to pull one or two enemies away and take care of them where the other mob can't hop in and make things more difficult.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this character right now, both on teams and solo. Konsultant spent two hours holding his own next to a SS/WP brute a level higher than him, and I got nothing but compliments (thought that MAY have been because it was a polite and very fast-paced team, which precludes both smack-talk and mostly keeps typing down to the occaisional "Grats!" and "ty!"). The lack of AoE in the build is becoming a sticking point now, though. Clonking people in the head with a spiked baseball bat is fun, but only doing it to one enemy at a time can drag out fights for a melee character.

Starting level: 20

Endling level: 23

Overall fun: 4/5