RiverOcean

Grav/Earth, is actually a very good soloer. I have one at 38. You are combining a strong ST Hold set, with a strong ST melee set.

Also, you can stack holds between your pet, your ST hold, power boost, and Seismic Smash. You'll be holding bosses and slowing down some EB/AV's.

I'm sure others have thoughts as well. Overall Grav/Earth is a surprisingly solid combo.

Necro/Pain is a good combo. With all the to-hit and defense debuffs from the Zombies, and all the + regen and healing from the secondary, you'll be really hard to kill. AAnguishing Cry, stacks very well with the Zombies debuffs too.

I also like the control the Lich, lays down. Another rare, but fun teaming build in Necro/Force Fields. The -to hit and the +defense are very beneficial for a team.

My vote is Necro for a heavily team oriented build and Bots if you're going to solo a lot.

I've had a concept character for a long time...that I never made because her powers are "Tarot" based. The new magic aura will be perfect for here. I will be buying this.

Thanks DEVS!!!

Hide being made an Inherent, would alone make a big difference. I think a modest HP increase would also be helpful. It should be below a Scrappers HP still though IMHO

Other than that, I still find Stalkers effective soloists (probably one of the fastest soloers around). It's team-play where it seems most people complain about them. I'm not sure what to change about them that wouldn't completely change what the Stalker is as an AT.

I have a mercs/ta. I find that Serum is useful on the Commando, when you have an EB to take down. If only the recharge wasn't so horrible, the duration was longer, and they would remove the end crash.

Also try this upgrade order:

Special Ops >Tactical Upgrade > Soldiers > Commando >Equip Mercenary

This actually seems to improve the damage output. It gives the Special Ops their damage mitigation/control powers. While the Soldiers and Commando get a shorter attack chain, so they spam burst attacks.

That, serum, and the procs you have should help. I wasn't a believer in the upgrade order, until I actually tried it...and it really seemed to help. Let us know if it helped you out too..

Bon Chance!!!

Funny I wandered in on this. I was actually looking at Charge Mastery and EMP pulse. It does -regen and might be useful on a Bots/FF. But I could see why a Bots/Traps wouldn't bother with it.

The AOE Immobilize is far more useful for a trapper. You want to keep things solidly in your debuff patches.

Carrion Creepers...I just love em. They are a hidden gem..sure you have to resummon em' but if you slot right they can be almost perma.

Of the traditional pets. Stoney and Singey are just too cool for words. The both can off-tank for you. Are generally reliable and don't usually run off into mobs. Love em both.

Sets like this have been proposed before...I like the idea personally. I think there should be more natural options across the board for all AT's. Right now if you want to be a gadgetry, tech, or science type your options are limited.

I would also argue you could go Solider of Arachnos for a "gadgetry type" controller.

I think Touch of Death slots pretty well into the Dwarf attacks. I don't use mids, but might bet tempted to. I have a Warshade that's just languishing these days as well.

Hmm....

Im thinking Necro + Traps + Heat Mastery might be the way to go here...and end up being an effective late game soloing build.

+ To Hit from the primary, and Seeker Drons, stacking with the defense from FF-Generator
+ Additional Damage from your secondary (Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Trip Mine).
+ Taking Fire Ball, Bonfire, and Fire Blast from Heat Mastery.
+ Summoning the Lich, leading him into melee, blowing him up with Detonator. You could also then use "Soul Extraction" and pull the wraith from his corpse. (not 100% petless..but summoning a pet just to blow him up sounds fun. I think I'll name mine "Sacrificial Lamb").

I might actually try this..this could be a fun experiment.

I'm wondering if this is tied to certain maps. On my Mercs MM the pets were fine on all missions until I got tips mission vs. Arachnos.

The map was one of the Abandoned Rikti ship maps. The pets simply stayed docile no matter how much damage I took..goto, stay, it didn't matter they just stood there not attacking.

Frustrated, I left that mission. After running a couple more I decided to try the troublesome mission again, same thing happened, pets went docile on that map, whenver I tried to use BG-Mode.

I gave up and quit the tip-mission and joined a Citadel Task Force. During the entire TF not a single problem with BG-Mode. I'm convinced something about that particular tip-mission was the source of the problem.

In the meantime you can always switch to Villain, run the Patron Arc, and then get your hands on Mace Mastery.

Looking at what MM's have now I just don't see anything the fits my Merc/TA MM other than access to a 2nd EM PULSE!

I have Serum on my Mercs/TA. I really expected it to be craptastic. It's only kind of meh, in my opinion. Serum can be a nice "Oh Crap" power to toss on a top tier pet. But other than that...it's a little lacking. For what it does, the end crash could be removed and it could have a much shorter recharge. So you could cast it on multiple pets.

So I tried a "master of fear" mind dom build awhile ago. Yes domination effects the mags of the fears (but not the provoke).

So it makes both Intimidate and Invoke Panic a little more useful. I found the cons of losing a power pick to Provoke and their relative weakness outside of Domination not worth it. Of course my mind energy wasn't Perma at the time.

I think Intimidate is a Mag 2 (with a chance for extra bit of mag..i forget how much) as well.

If your bored and want to give this a try as a perma dom build..I say go for it. But other than for novelty I wouldn't recommend it.

Kheldians don't get any Epics at all. So before the spiders get some love, I'd rather see Khelds get access to Epics (and I love my Fortunata and Huntsman).

I respeced my old Mind/Energy into Force Mastery to check it out. I also had an old "Snap Tooth" mission from DJ Zero so I figured WTH. Energy Transfer helped me wittle down Snappies HP to nearly half before he killed me. Now my caveat is, the build I was using sucks and had little to no set bonuses.

However, I later moved on to help a team take on the "Ghost of the Scrapyard", and that went much better. ET worked out really well. The aoe heals made using ET pretty safe though..(I believe we had a kin, dark, and pain with us).

So IMHO solo using ET was not so safe, however on a team, it was almost perfectly safe to use. Not only that it was effective.