Archetype Combo Question
By
DrMike2000,
Posted on: 2009-06-09 15:22 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Pretty much any pairing will work well. In my admittedly biased opinion, 2 Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, or Masterminds are best (in any combination) 
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There are very few bad combos. Good players can of course overcome damn near anything, blah blah blah. I'm giving advice to NEW players. Who will start out, well, average.
Some "harder" combos:
Blaster + Scrapper
Blaster + Kinetic Defender
Tank or Scrapper plus "high knockback" (energy blaster, storm defender, etc)
Anything else? You'll be fine.
Some good duos my wife and I have done: (primary/secondary)
Rad/Sonic defender + Scrapper
Ice/Ice blaster + Dark/Dark defender [I'd recommend Ice/something else or something else/ice, personally, if I had it to do over again. But I'm greedy. Ice/ice is very good, but ice/energy or fire/ice would have been even BETTER.]
Fire/Elec blaster + Fire/Ice tank
Brute + Anything/Kinetic Corruptor
Good duos we have not done:
Two Elec/* Blasters or an elec/* blaster and */Elec defender.
Two Empathy/Sonic defenders- there's a specific build that works UNBELIEVABLY well for this. One empath can make one other character spectacularly powerful. Two empaths can make each other spectacularly powerful.
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Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
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@Boltcutter in game.
Blaster (not energy) + Tanker
Defender + Scrapper
Corruptor + Brute
Earth/Thermal Controller + Fire/Stone Tanker is my specific recommendation for this post. It might mature a little slow, but the duo should be taking enemies to town in the end.
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@Starflier
A dark defender and a different kind of dark defender. Dark/Psi and Dark/Sonic perhaps. Just don't fall into the healing trap: Dark Miasmists have more than enough tools to prevent damage almost completely, so focus on those. (And they deal quite a bit of damage out too.)
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Me and my friend are thinking of starting to play and will mainly be playing together just us 2 unless we find more to group with. My question is what would be a good duo or combo of Archetypes that would work with each other and do good? we havent chosen a side either so take a stab at either.
Thanks!
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The two parts of a good team are Damage Output and Damage Control. In other words, you want to do as much damage as you can to the opponent while preventing or curing as much of the damage to your team as you can. To this end
Damage Output ATs: Scrapper, Blaster, Defender
Damage Control ATs: Tanker, Controller, Defender
Pick one from the top row, and another one from the bottom row, and you've got yourself a good Duo combination, usually. You'll have to be careful of your own and your partner's build choices if one of you is a Defender, since they can go either way. But otherwise you'll be fine. Yes, Defenders do very well with other Defenders, so that is a good option.
Some other odd combinations that work: Scrappers are usually very good solo since they have their self-armor sets. So two Scrappers in a team of two gets the job done. Tankers can also do very well with Controllers if the controller sets his secondary powers correctly. Kinetics, Radiation Emission, Sonic Resonance, and Thermal Radiation have options that can push a Tanker's damage output up to scrapper levels. An actual Scrapper up front might be better for damage output, but the tanker and controller team tends to have enough DPS to get the job done with very little being able to get through the combined damage control.
For the Villain side, things get even easier. The only thing you don't want to do is to pair a Brute with another Brute. Otherwise, every redside AT is roughly evenly balanced, so while Corruptors and Dominators usually need a team to do well, it almost doesn't matter what AT the teammate is. You just need to revise your tactics somewhat with certain combinations.
Hope this helps.
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Damage Output ATs: Scrapper, Blaster, Defender
Damage Control ATs: Tanker, Controller, Defender
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Tankers have greater damage output than Defenders do, as do Controllers. Defenders are not damage output ATs, as is evidenced by their beautifully low .65 damage scalar for their primary attack mode (ranged) with no inherent mechanism to increase it. Tankers have a .80 damage scalar for theirs (melee). Controllers have a .55 damage scalar, but they've got containment which, depending on how often you think containment is attained, allows controllers to attain between a .825 (50% containment) and 1.1 (100% containment) scalar.
Honestly, I'd suggest getting a single "hard" AT (Tanker, Scrapper) and a single "soft" AT (Blaster, Controller, Defender). Of course, the functionality and placement of the specific AT on the hard/soft continuum depends heavily on the power sets that the build in question takes, as well as the power sets the AT it is paired with takes.
When it comes to defenders, what is true for one is not necessarily true for more than one. One defender may be soft and weak, but two defenders are neither.
Also, AT damage modifiers are only a small part of an AT's real damage output. Also relevant are the number of attack powers, damage scales of the attacks, number of AoE attacks, target caps on those AoE attacks, area coverage of those AoE attacks, and the influence of buffs and debuffs being traded between the characters. Excellence in all of those categories is why defender teams outperform what a simplistic glance at their AT damage modifier would suggest.
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Also, AT damage modifiers are only a small part of an AT's real damage output. Also relevant are the number of attack powers, damage scales of the attacks, number of AoE attacks, target caps on those AoE attacks, area coverage of those AoE attacks, and the influence of buffs and debuffs being traded between the characters. Excellence in all of those categories is why defender teams outperform what a simplistic glance at their AT damage modifier would suggest.
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By that same logic Controllers should be on both lists as well, as I pointed out. In general, Defenders are actually lower damage than any other AT, even when they've got that additional buffs and debuffs to toss about because they've got less to work with from the baseline.
Correct, controllers can definitely be on both lists.
And again, even if we boldly assume 1 defender is the lowest damage choice of 7 possible heroside ATs, it still doesn't mean that 2 defenders are the lowest damage duo of 49 possible combinations. That'd be 2 tankers or 2 peacebringers. Oy, I'm getting a headache just thinking about how slow those duos would be!
Anyway, the specific defender duo I recommended (Dark/Psi + Dark/Sonic) is especially gifted in the damage department, as it packs a frightening (no pun intended) amount of resistance debuffs, plenty of AoE damage, and a great mix of damage types.
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And again, even if we boldly assume 1 defender is the lowest damage choice of 7 possible heroside ATs, it still doesn't mean that 2 defenders are the lowest damage duo of 49 possible combinations. That'd be 2 tankers or 2 peacebringers. Oy, I'm getting a headache just thinking about how slow those duos would be!
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Once again, it depends on the primary of choice for the Tanker (though I agree for the PB in general). Fire/* and Dark/* can both do some amazing damage thanks to their auras, especially when paired with a decent secondary.
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Anyway, the specific defender duo I recommended (Dark/Psi + Dark/Sonic) is especially gifted in the damage department, as it packs a frightening (no pun intended) amount of resistance debuffs, plenty of AoE damage, and a great mix of damage types.
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This pretty much follows with my advice: get 1 support character (Defender/Controller) and 1 of any AT (including Def/Troller). You're set.
I don't know if I'd stack two Dark Defenders- well played, ONE dark defender provides sufficient mitigation- but I didn't come to the DD side until I'd been playing for several years, so I don't know how it works out in the hands of the inexperienced.
"Overly safe" isn't a real complaint, I suppose.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Dark/Psy and Kin/Sonic is another option. There's a lot of wiggle room in a defender duo, really hard to go wrong.
I dual-box a lot, as if playing two active characters (ie not just a buffbot second character) and some of my favourite combos have been:
Empathy/Energy Defender duo, really any Emp/* duo. Emp/Sonic would be the best.
Fire/Energy Blaster + Dark/Rad Defender. Safety, a big -Res patch, and heaps of AoE damage.
Sonic/Energy Defender + Peacebringer. Lots of AoE knockback, and 85% Resistances to all but Psi for the PB in Human form. The PB can also heal both parties regularly Makes for a wonderful tankmage duo if the PB gets aggro first.
FF/Sonic Defender and Kin/Electric Defender - Kinetics and Force Fields really shore up each other's deficiencies. Pick your secondaries as you wish, but Sonic Blast is probably optimal once again for any two Defenders.
All of these duos have regularly taken on AVs without any problem.
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As others have suggested I will as well.
A Scrapper (or Tanker) of any powersets + a Kinetics Defender is a great combo; mainly because of the melee aoe heal that Kinetics gets. This can be taken to the red side as well with a Brute + */Kin Corruptor.
That is the best thing about this game is that no combo really, really stinks...you have to try REALLY hard to get 2 toons that don't have a good synergy.
But the basics still apply: get 1 'support' toon (controller, defender blue side or dominator, corruptor red side) and 1 'damage/meat shield' toon (tanker, scrapper blue side or brute stalker red side).
Heck even 2 tankers could do it...you might move/defeat mobs slowly but..you could do it; as well as 2 stalkers...2 stalkers would probably work better than 2 tankers since (depending on the difficulty level you play on/with) the stalkers can usually 1 shot a minion/lt once they get Assassin's Strike.
Good luck to you and have fun!
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Me and my friend are thinking of starting to play and will mainly be playing together just us 2 unless we find more to group with. My question is what would be a good duo or combo of Archetypes that would work with each other and do good? we havent chosen a side either so take a stab at either.
Thanks!