*stirs up controversy just for the hell of it*
It depends on what you're planning to do Mr. fuzzypants. If you want a good challenge while soloing crack out a defender. Make a melee blaster if you want a decent comparative analysis of every floor in the game. make a petless Mastermind and go all 3rd rate John Woo on your foes. Make a human only warshade that's afraid of the color purple and you'll have plenty of trouble.
@SoylentPlaid
I haz 87 Clouded Points
Ok, let me clarify a bit then. What is the most chaing combo without limiting the powers available within the primary and secondary? Any combo can be challenging if you eliminate half or more of the available powers. And I am looking more for the overall challenge of the combo, not necessarily something that sucks soloing but is no challenge at all to play in a group. Something that is a medium challenge in both solo and group would be preferable to that.
Oh, and being the altaholic that I am, I do not have access to the kheldians or ATs yet.
Stalkers used to be challenging, but not so much anymore.
Ninja/* MMs are challenging in the sense of herding psychotic cats well can have solid results.
Mercs/* MMs are just plain weaker than the others.
Defenders can spend a lot of their time struggling with things other ATs don't, especially if you play a weaker secondary (relatively speaking, so no Rad or Kin).
Herding psychotic cats sounds promising. Any particular secondaries that would up the challenge of a Ninja/* MM?
Trick Arrow
@SoylentPlaid
I haz 87 Clouded Points
Pick whatever combo and play without enhancements.
I think everything can work in City of Heroes. The only combo of Primary/secondary that I ever thought was at odds with itself is an Energy/Fire blaster. Fire Melee wants lots of guys standing around close. Energy Blast wants to put all the guys far away.
I've had a Fire/Ice tank sittin gbenched for almsot as lon gas the game has existed, because of its utter stupidity when it comes to playing the game. You CAN play it... but Fire gives much less resistance than many other defensive sets, and Ice does far less damage than many other melee sets. If you want difficulty, go with a Fire/Ice Tanker.
If you've had no experience with it, do a Storm character. After you know what you're doing with it, it's a breeze.
>.>
<.<
Anyone else catch that?
50s: Bla- Arch/Mental Cont- Mind/FF, Earth/Cold, Ill/Therm, Earth/Rad Dominator- Plant/Psi, Elec/Earth Corr- Fire/Storm, Arch/Sonic, Rad/Kin, Beam/Sonic, Psi/Time Stalker- Elec/SR Def- Storm/Dark, Emp/Psi, Dark/Elec, FF/Arch, TA/Ice, TA/Elec, Kin/AR, Cold/DP, Traps/Psi Scrap- Fire/Shield Tanker- Dark/Mace, Ice/Kin Brute- Claws/WP, SS/Energy, BS/Elec
Hehehe you made a play on words 
Storm/breeze
*hugs* that was cute
[ QUOTE ]
Trick Arrow
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How is TA challenging? I'd like to know why you think it's hard? Why is my TA/A defender a great asset to teams if it's so 'hard' to play Trick Arrow? There are no healing arrows because the arrowhead would keep the bandaid in anyways.
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Anyways, for difficult? */Energy Aura brute. Props for Energy Melee/Energy Aura brutes. You'll have a difficult time with endurance and some enemies will make you cringe with fear. At least sonic grenades won't seriously impact your defensive capabilities!
BTW: My current Elec/Elec blaptroller is not good friends with ze floor. He's actually quite adamant about not seeing ze floor as an enemy. Total death count: 3 at level 34. Really.
Re: Humanform Warshades... Once you pass a certain level they aren't that bad. My humanform build is great solo, horrible on teams, while the inverse is true as well.
ATs to 50 - TA/A Def, Nrg/Nrg Blaster, EM/EA Brute, WS,ELM/ELA Stalker
Yay! Hugs! Excitement!
50s: Bla- Arch/Mental Cont- Mind/FF, Earth/Cold, Ill/Therm, Earth/Rad Dominator- Plant/Psi, Elec/Earth Corr- Fire/Storm, Arch/Sonic, Rad/Kin, Beam/Sonic, Psi/Time Stalker- Elec/SR Def- Storm/Dark, Emp/Psi, Dark/Elec, FF/Arch, TA/Ice, TA/Elec, Kin/AR, Cold/DP, Traps/Psi Scrap- Fire/Shield Tanker- Dark/Mace, Ice/Kin Brute- Claws/WP, SS/Energy, BS/Elec
I have done storm before, so I will probably take something else. But there are quite a few other suggestions I will have to give a try to. Thanks for all the replies so far. If there are any more ideas, please feel free to keep adding to this thread.
Ice/kin?
Oh, yeah, Bots/FF Mastermind late at night. It's a challenge to stay awake.
Earth/Emp Controller
Ice/Sonic Controller
Sonic/Psy Defender
AR/Sonic Corruptor
Dual Blade/Electric Stalker
Assault Rifle/Mental Manipulation Blaster. There ya go!! 
-Pogoman, Master of Kick-Fu
-Co-Leader and recruiting officer of the Virtue Honor Guard
- lvl 50 ma/sr scrapper
-Ace O' Diamonds lvl 50 fire/rad controller
and waaaay to many other alts to mention right now
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Trick Arrow
[/ QUOTE ]
How is TA challenging? I'd like to know why you think it's hard? Why is my TA/A defender a great asset to teams if it's so 'hard' to play Trick Arrow? There are no healing arrows because the arrowhead would keep the bandaid in anyways.
[/ QUOTE ]
Personal opinion obviously. TA does lots of great stuff, but most of it's more subtle/indirect...until you get to Oil Slick of course
@SoylentPlaid
I haz 87 Clouded Points
[ QUOTE ]
Assault Rifle/Mental Manipulation Blaster. There ya go!!
[/ QUOTE ]Eh? i have one at 32. Hasn't been all that challenging yet, and i deliberately play the character like a raving lunatic.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
I never hear much about the combo..ah well.
-Pogoman, Master of Kick-Fu
-Co-Leader and recruiting officer of the Virtue Honor Guard
- lvl 50 ma/sr scrapper
-Ace O' Diamonds lvl 50 fire/rad controller
and waaaay to many other alts to mention right now
I know this goes against what you said about not choosing particular powers, but one challenging concept I've had kicking around for a little while is a Grav/FF Controller without the single target hold.
Its often debated on the Controller forums if the AoE hold is a must-have, this got me wondering could any Controller go without their Single hold, which is the real bread and butter for that archetype.
Conceptually its very much classic telekinesis, and with Lift and Force Bolt (and Propel) you have a lot of single target control through knockback.
Force Field would allow you enough damage mitigation to get away without your ST hold on teams, and you still have Wormhole and GDF for backup.
Solo, you've got some degree of protection from your Dispersion Bubble, and PFF in a tight spot.
I also have one, my only Blaster. He's level 21 and fun to play. Granted, I'm probably going to have him jumping in and out of melee all the time, but currently I'm just standing back and AoEing everything to death.
50s: Bla- Arch/Mental Cont- Mind/FF, Earth/Cold, Ill/Therm, Earth/Rad Dominator- Plant/Psi, Elec/Earth Corr- Fire/Storm, Arch/Sonic, Rad/Kin, Beam/Sonic, Psi/Time Stalker- Elec/SR Def- Storm/Dark, Emp/Psi, Dark/Elec, FF/Arch, TA/Ice, TA/Elec, Kin/AR, Cold/DP, Traps/Psi Scrap- Fire/Shield Tanker- Dark/Mace, Ice/Kin Brute- Claws/WP, SS/Energy, BS/Elec
Axe & Energy Aura
Fire Melee & Energy Aura
Super Strength & Energy Aura + Rage Crash = Faceplant
Anything/Energy Aura for BRUTES, minus Dark Melee. Cuz that would help Energy Aura.
JJ
I delete more 50s, then you'll ever have.
http://www.pandora.com/people/jjdemon
OK, looking for some thoughts on what the most challenging AT/Primary/Secondary combo is. It does not matter if it is red or blue. Just looking for whatever the most difficult combo is to see what I can do with it. I am open to any suggestions. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to stir up any controversy here.