StrykerX

Fire goes with toe bombing better than Archery does from a gameplay standpoint, though Archery is a better fit with Devices for a "normal human" concept. Rain of Arrows is a fantastic attack but it's slow... you have 3-4 seconds before the rain goes off. It's a great opening attack (it even works without line of sight since it's location targeted) but if you have already aggroed the enemies with a mine you don't want to stand there for several seconds. Fire, on the other hand, can follow up with an immediate Fireball and then jump back for a Fire Breath.

Some of the other Devices powers like Caltrops do work well with Archery since they help keep enemies away and Archery is a long range set. But Trip Mines don't mesh as well. Though if your concept involves appearing in the middle of a group of enemies and blasting them, you might consider Fire/Mental or Fire/Fire with Stealth + Super Speed (or a stealth IO) or even Teleport (teleport in and unleash the AoEs). Psychic Shockwave + Fireball or FSC + Fireball are nasty, and /Fire even gives you Burn and Combustion for additional PBAoE goodness.

It depends... do you want to be able to mow down large hordes solo or just apply a ton of damage on a team? If you are solo the main consideration isn't damage output, it's survivability... your DPS is zero while you suck floor and Rise of the Phoenix can only be up so often. For soloing I'd recommend a high recharge Archery/Energy or Archery/Mental Blaster; you can open up with Aim or Build Up + Rain of Arrows and wipe out the minions before they ever get to attack. A S/L softcapped Fire/Mental can also do a ton of AoE damage and get very nice regen from Drain Psyche, but you're going to be limited on what you can fight without seriously turning down the difficulty because non-S/L attacks (especially mezzes) are going to be killers in large numbers.

On teams, you hopefully won't have to worry about eating alpha strikes or getting massive aggro so it's all about damage. Nothing does massive damage like Fire, so a Fire/Fire Blaster (or a Fire/Mental if you want slightly less AoE but more mitigation) is a great choice. And as a bonus, Fire also does huge single target damage so you'll still be dishing out a ton of pain on AVs.

As I understand it the main drawback of the recharge proc is that once it fires, any future applications are suppressed for 10 seconds. However, it will still fire during that 10 seconds, you just don't get a recharge boost... but you do get a new 10 second suppression timer. So if you put it in an AoE and fire it more often than once per 10 seconds you'll keep resetting the timer and therefore you can't get a second recharge boost until it fails to proc (and therefore doesn't reset the suppression) or you wait more than 10 seconds. Basically it has two effects: the recharge boost, which is flagged "only apply if not suppressed", and the suppression itself, which is not flagged "only apply if not suppressed".

As far as proccing 2+ times off one group, it may be like Vengeance used to be where multiple simultaneous buffs get around the normal one buff limit.

Also, it's important to realize that your final to-hit is basically (in simplified form) equal to your base to-hit (depends on mob level, it's 75% for +0 and 48% for +3 for example) plus any to-hit bonuses, multiplied by your accuracy. (Assuming you aren't debuffed)

That means that accuracy effectively enhances to-hit bonuses since you add the to-hit up before multiplying by accuracy. If you want to hit really hard targets like +4s or high defense foes the best thing you can do is get to-hit buffs and significant accuracy bonuses.

A lot depends on what you plan to fight. Both FA and DA rely a lot on heals... your defense and resists just need to slow down damage enough for Healing Flames or Dark Regeneration to deal with it. Very heavy burst damage (like alphas from 8-man spawns) will require higher defense to deal with, with less defense needed for smaller spawns.

Also, it depends on if you plan to mostly solo or group. In a group you probably won't be taking all the aggro and you'll generally have buffs or heals, but soloing the same spawn will require extra defense to keep you alive until you can heal yourself.

Unless you have a specific goal in mind, like soloing +2/x8 or something, I'd suggest getting whatever defense you can work in without compromising your damage or recharge slotting and then adjust your difficulty as needed while soloing. Recharge bonuses can help you more than defense, since healing again quicker is probably more important than dodging a bit more often. And of course dead mobs do no damage, so the quicker you can kill them the squishier you can get away with being.

Bots/Traps is a great choice for a low-cost AV soloist. Some people have soloed GMs on them using only SOs, though they tended to be the really good MM players. But you can certainly do a lot with a cheap (sub-100 mil) build.

There are a couple of basic strategies you can use. The first is to simply boost the bots' defense as high as possible... between the Protector Bot shields, Force Field Generator, Maneuvers, and a 5% defense aura IO you'll softcap the Drones and Assault Bot to almost everything (I think psi is the exception) and the Protectors will be close. Then just turn the bots loose and heal the occasional hit that gets through with Aid Other. That method works well for normal mobs but AVs can be trouble, which brings us to my preferred method: tankerminding. Build for defense in the bots, but also in yourself... ideally you will want softcapped Ranged and AoE plus decent Melee. You get a lot of defense from FFG and your Protector Bot bubble, so once you add Maneuvers it isn't hard to softcap or at least hit 40%. Then use Provoke (or Challenge if you only tank on AVs) to keep an AV attacking you and spam Web Grenades to immobilize him and keep him using ranged attacks (which will miss you most of the time). Stand on a Triage Beacon while you do this and keep the bots on it too... the beacon will keep you and the bots topped off from the occasional hit / Bodyguard damage. Just be sure to stand a bit away from the bots rather than in the middle of them so AoEs are less of a problem. (This method also reduces the problems from the borked ranged pet AI... bots running into melee with an AV that's taunted into only using ranged attacks don't get stomped on.)

As far as slotting the bots goes, I like a full set of Blood Mandate in the Battle Drones. They need the damage and accuracy and the defense is handy. For the Assault Bot, you need less accuracy but still plenty of damage, and if you can afford it a Soulbound Chance for Build Up proc is great. Four Acc/Dam Pet Damage IOs, a 5% defense aura IO, and a Soulbound proc if you can afford it is my preferred slotting. The Protectors are the tricky ones: they need some endurance reduction and good defense slotting to boost their shields, but they also do decent damage so it's not good to skimp on that and they need a fair bit of accuracy since they're -1 level to you. Oh, and some people like to enhance their heals too (though some don't because that tends to make them wait longer to use them). Ideally you'll use Hami-Os but failing that two Acc/Dam and two Acc/Dam/End pet damage IOs and two level 50 Defense Buff IOs works well.

The upgrades just need 1-2 endurance reduction, and the rest of Bots is pretty skippable. Repair is occasionally handy but Aid Other is a much better option for keeping the bots going... I'd either skip Repair or take it and just stick a recharge in the default slot and save it for emergencies. The personal attacks... well, they're MM attacks. They look cool (you get a laser gun) but they cost a lot of endurance for minimal damage. I might take Photon Grenade since at least it's AoE but only if you can spare the endurance because healing and trapping is a lot more important.

Speaking of traps, the big key here is recharge and lots of it. Slot everything you take (other than Web Grenade) with a ton of recharge, and if you can get global recharge do so. The more Acid Mortars and Poison Traps you can drop the better. I like a full set of Trap of the Hunter in Web Grenade, it gives good enhancement plus decent bonuses and you'll spam Web Grenade a lot if you solo AVs so the proc can help a bit. Triage Beacon is pretty much useless for normal fights since you move too fast, but it's great on AVs and decent to drop in a big room where you'll fight multiple spawns. Take Aid Self for normal healing though... I like 5-slotting it and Aid Other with Doctored Wounds for relatively cheap recharge bonuses. Acid mortar is one of your key powers... make sure it has ED capped recharge and some accuracy, plus drop an Achilles' proc in it for more -resist. Poison Trap is another great power... it can help mitigate damage with the hold but the real key is the massive -regen that ruins an AV / GM's day. Slot plenty of recharge and some accuracy, or drop a hold set in it (Basilisk's is good for recharge, but it's a pricey set.) Trip Mine is fun if you have high defense, since you can walk up to something and plant one right at its feet (which you'll also do with Poison Trap). I've not used Detonator but it could be amusing simply as a way to let badly damaged bots go out in a blaze of glory. And Caltrops can be handy to keep things off of you or to slot procs for more damage on AVs, but it's skippable if you need room.

Just remember that ever since Going Rogue came out the ranged pet AI has been a bit off. Your bots will often decide to run in to melee (even the Protectors, who have no melee attacks) so you'll need to make frequent use of Goto unless you want to just taunt the mobs and let the bots do what they like. Fortunately, Goto Defensive and Stay Defensive do still count as Bodyguard mode, so you can spam Goto commands to keep the silly buckets of bolts at range without losing protection.

Rhode Island is around 1200 square miles and is over 30 miles wide. That's more than enough room to hold a city that's probably only 10-15 miles across or so based on the highway signs near the zone exits.

Aside from the obvious fact that larger teams = larger spawns and higher level mobs, one thing to consider is that you have a lot less control over the action on a team. Solo, a MM tends to set up fights to their own advantage... using debuffs, slows, KB, or whatever to at least somewhat control the pace of the fight. It can be harder to do that on teams, with people scattering spawns before you can debuff them, killing your Darkest Night anchor, or starting a new fight five seconds before Fearsome Stare is back up. Plus MM pets have a fairly high threat rating, so they're likely to pick up aggro from stray mobs that aren't fighting the tank or Brute... and those mobs are probably not as well debuffed as they would be while solo and higher level than you normally face so they'll take out the pets pretty fast if you aren't careful.

Dark in particular can have a bit of trouble on teams because you rely on defense debuffs to protect the pets. But aside from the fact that your Darkest Night anchor will probably be killed 2 seconds into the fight enemy level goes up as team size increases, and higher level enemies resist debuffs. So you end up with mobs that hit harder and more often being debuffed less... unless you have a good tank or a lot of control / other debuffs in the group any stray fire your pets catch is going to do a number on them.

On teams I often prefer to hang back a bit and direct my pets to focus fire rather than letting them spread out and aggro too many mobs (unless I'm tanking for the group). Undirected pets just seem to get into trouble too fast to save them. (Assuming you are fighting things tougher than you normally solo, of course. If you solo +3/x8 you probably won't have to worry in groups... )

Looks pretty good. About the only change I'd make is trying to find a sixth slot for Power Bolt (maybe pull the stealth IO from Fly and put one in Sprint) and slotting that and Power Blast with Thunderstrike. The extra 7.5% Energy defense may be more useful than the HP and regen since that's about the most common damage type for non-S/L damage and several mezzes are Energy based. I generally use Thunderstrikes in every Blaster power that can slot them... it's just that good.

Another vote for Plant/Storm here. Mine is one of my few 50s and is my favorite Controller yet... not only is Plant awesome but it has a ton of -KB so you can really cut loose with the Storm powers without scattering things. Of course you can also just leave off the -KB and toss stuff around too if you need the extra mitigation... though since 90% of the enemies are going to be shooting each other instead of you you seldom will.

A lot depends on whether you solo much. Decent defense (25-35% or so, don't need to softcap) makes a huge difference for soloing on medium difficulties (+1/x4 or so). If you have a crashless nuke then recharge can also help a lot since if you use the nuke every spawn you can generally fight larger crowds, but if you don't have a crashless nuke recharge does almost nothing beyond a certain point.

Once you have a good single target chain, more recharge will do little to help you improve DPS on hard targets since you're probably still using the same chain. Only if you add so much recharge that you can move up to a better chain does it help, for instance going from Flares -> Fire Blast -> Flares -> Blaze to Flares -> Fire Blast -> Blaze. And once you hit that higher chain you're done... you aren't getting Blaze -> Fire Blast even at the recharge cap.

Likewise, once you have your AoEs up every fight and maybe your targeted AoE up twice, do you really need more recharge? You're already wiping out the minions with AoE blasts... finishing off the Lts and bosses is more a job for your single target attacks.

Of course that's only while solo. In large teams there are generally more than enough bad guys to go around... the faster you can toss out AoEs the more you add to the team. But solo you just aren't going to need three fireballs on one spawn, unless for some reason you play at +4. What you do need is to stay alive long enough to take out a full spawn with no tank or controller mitigating their return fire... so unless you can wipe them out before they shoot (have I mentioned how much I love Rain of Arrows ) you are going to want some defense if you plan to up your difficulty much.