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Can a Tank solo EVERY AV in the game?
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Depends on your definition of "every".
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What would be needed to do so?
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[u]Hierarchy of Needs[u]:
1. Survival - Can't kill the AV if you can't live for the time needed to take it down.
2. DPS - More specifically, greater than 93 DPS (for "normal" AVs...see above in regards to what is/isn't "normal"). With a level 50 AV having roughly 27-28k health, as long as you have DPS greater than 93 and patience, you can take it down.
3. Endurance to sustain the above - Should be self-explanatory.
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How many diff powersets could do it?
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I'm sure if you name it, someone's pulled it off (except maybe in-Granite Stone/Ice but hey, I wouldn't doubt it).
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What would we have to get Recharge and DPS numbers to?
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Generally, the ideal recharge for AV soloers utilizes perma-Hasten which is, if I recall right, is somewhere around 114% global recharge or something.
DPS is mentioned above.
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I see people wanting to build and UBERMAN for whatever reason, mine is to, just feel that symbolic and Iconic Idea bleed through my screen as a virtual homage to Superman.
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Much like Batman, in CoH, is a Batman AT, Superman is a Superman AT. CoH isn't the DC universe, it's the CoH universe. It can be amusing to postulate cross-overs but I don't base my opinions on Eragon's version of magic as being superior to the type of magic presented in Harry Potter and vice versa (for example, that is). In before J_B
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Can it be done? Who here can come up with an answer to such a task. Maybe you've reached something close, but have fallen short somewhere, post you results and maybe someone has that missing part that could help you complete the formula for our COH UBERMAN!
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Nihili has done it with Shield/DM. I believe he has it with other Tanks as well. He's also a good source of information. I suggest you find his skull and stab one of those sap extractors into it so you can extract his tasty, tasty information and advice.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
Nooo ! Not my skull ! 
Without temps, I don't think a tanker can solo every even level AV in the game (I don't think any melee AT can solo Statesman, period).
You need over 95 DPS to solo an even level AV without any resistances, as they regen 95hp/s. However, ideally you want much more than that to account for resistances, heals, tier9s and stuff. 150 is a good value to shoot for... as long as it's not S/L damage. Bringing me to my next point : AVs have much more S/L resistance than the average joe. I've got a 190 DPS S/L damage scrapper and a 170 DPS Negative damage tanker, the tanker can solo AVs the scrapper can't.
The two best tanker attack powersets for the task are, in my opinion, fire melee and dark melee. The others don't seem to come close. Ideally, you also want damage boosts from your primary. Shield is your best bet if you keep foes around to increase your damage output with AaO. Note DM also benefits from fodder with Soul Drain, hence I believe Shield/DM is the ideal pairing for DM.
If you'd rather fight one on one, Fire and Ice seem to have damage auras and other great tools - granted, I don't speak from experience for these two powersets, just looking at it on paper. Burn looks like great DPA for tankers, as I don't think AVs run from it, and Fiery Embrace is always good to have, especially if you go Fire Melee.
As for Ice, Energy Absorption should take care of all your end issues, allowing you to slot more aggressively towards recharge, accuracy or damage through procs (normal damage at 95% being a given for any combo).
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Nooo ! Not my skull !
Without temps, I don't think a tanker can solo every even level AV in the game (I don't think any melee AT can solo Statesman, period).
You need over 95 DPS to solo an even level AV without any resistances, as they regen 95hp/s. However, ideally you want much more than that to account for resistances, heals, tier9s and stuff. 150 is a good value to shoot for... as long as it's not S/L damage. Bringing me to my next point : AVs have much more S/L resistance than the average joe. I've got a 190 DPS S/L damage scrapper and a 170 DPS Negative damage tanker, the tanker can solo AVs the scrapper can't.
The two best tanker attack powersets for the task are, in my opinion, fire melee and dark melee. The others don't seem to come close. Ideally, you also want damage boosts from your primary. Shield is your best bet if you keep foes around to increase your damage output with AaO. Note DM also benefits from fodder with Soul Drain, hence I believe Shield/DM is the ideal pairing for DM.
If you'd rather fight one on one, Fire and Ice seem to have damage auras and other great tools - granted, I don't speak from experience for these two powersets, just looking at it on paper. Burn looks like great DPA for tankers, as I don't think AVs run from it, and Fiery Embrace is always good to have, especially if you go Fire Melee.
As for Ice, Energy Absorption should take care of all your end issues, allowing you to slot more aggressively towards recharge, accuracy or damage through procs (normal damage at 95% being a given for any combo).
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If you count a tray of purples and reds, shivians and nukes and an assist from ghost widdow and black scorpion as solo then I soloed states on my EM/WP brute. 
Yes as hero not as EB. Even then it still was not easy.
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The two best tanker attack powersets for the task are, in my opinion, fire melee and dark melee. The others don't seem to come close. Ideally, you also want damage boosts from your primary. Shield is your best bet if you keep foes around to increase your damage output with AaO. Note DM also benefits from fodder with Soul Drain, hence I believe Shield/DM is the ideal pairing for DM.
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Any opinions on Invul/SS? True... all smashing from SS, BUT SS has Rage, with a 2 minute, 80% dam boost (as opposed to 10 seconds for other secondaries). Couple that with 3 min of unstoppable (goodbye endurance worries, hello damage res caps in everything but psionic), Hasten (to keep your somewhat sup-par attack chain rockin'), and attacks slotted for big dam and maybe recharge (to keep that knockout blow coming back)...
No personal experience with it, but it SOUNDS nice, as long as you can drop the AV in 2 min 
I think he was talking about the AV version.
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The two best tanker attack powersets for the task are, in my opinion, fire melee and dark melee. The others don't seem to come close. Ideally, you also want damage boosts from your primary. Shield is your best bet if you keep foes around to increase your damage output with AaO. Note DM also benefits from fodder with Soul Drain, hence I believe Shield/DM is the ideal pairing for DM.
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Any opinions on Invul/SS? True... all smashing from SS, BUT SS has Rage, with a 2 minute, 80% dam boost (as opposed to 10 seconds for other secondaries). Couple that with 3 min of unstoppable (goodbye endurance worries, hello damage res caps in everything but psionic), Hasten (to keep your somewhat sup-par attack chain rockin'), and attacks slotted for big dam and maybe recharge (to keep that knockout blow coming back)...
No personal experience with it, but it SOUNDS nice, as long as you can drop the AV in 2 min
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I've had limited sucess with AVs on my will/ss, but they take far longer than 2 or 3 mins.
I've solo'd AVs on my Inv/SS but there is a certain wall that I've hit with regen/heal intensive AVs.
I would think SD/DM (if it can hold up) or Invuln/DM would make for great AV killers.
Stone, Axe and WM would probably fall next and Fire Melee if paired with FA.
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No personal experience with it, but it SOUNDS nice, as long as you can drop the AV in 2 min
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EBs are not AVs. It gets wonky when some mobs have a habit of being called "Hero" regardless of if they are EB or AV class (although the difference should be immediately obvious when you come across them).
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
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Any opinions on Invul/SS? True... all smashing from SS, BUT SS has Rage, with a 2 minute, 80% dam boost (as opposed to 10 seconds for other secondaries). Couple that with 3 min of unstoppable (goodbye endurance worries, hello damage res caps in everything but psionic), Hasten (to keep your somewhat sup-par attack chain rockin'), and attacks slotted for big dam and maybe recharge (to keep that knockout blow coming back)...
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While Rage is awesome, especially with the ability to stack it, the attack chain (like you mentioned) is very, very subpar. I doubt you could break 130-140 DPS on an Inv/SS ; which, admittedly, means you'd be able to solo some AVs, but not all of them, and you'd be looking at very long fights even against the weakest AVs. Doing 40 DPS per second over their regen, that gives you a 12 minute fight against an AV lacking any resistances, heals or tier9.
Unstoppable shouldn't be a concern for an Invul tanker as you (should) have enough defenses to take on most AVs without it.
Basically, it can be done, but other builds would do better and have a larger pool of AVs they can defeat.
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In before J_B
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IBTJ_B
GIVE TANKS DARKNESS/ELECTRICAL MASTERY! =3
Level 50's: Komrade Kommunism (T); King Darksource (T); Burning Red Star (T); Komrade Kosmonaut (WS); Vredesbyrd (Br); Anarchery (Bl)
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I've solo'd AVs on my Inv/SS but there is a certain wall that I've hit with regen/heal intensive AVs.
I would think SD/DM (if it can hold up) or Invuln/DM would make for great AV killers.
Stone, Axe and WM would probably fall next and Fire Melee if paired with FA.
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Nihilii, would you agree with these statements? I would think FM and Nrgy Melee would be above Stone, Ax, and WM. I was thinking of going either Nrgy Melee or FM with Inv. for the defense/resist, I have a SS/Fire Brute that pumps so much dmg it's unreal; however, he often gets One shotted. He's IO"d to the tune of 3-4 bil as well, so it's not for lack of IO's. Put me up against any fire dealing foes and I can cake walk it, most anything else, face plant. So, back from that tangent. . .I don't care for DM all that much for a Super type character, if I am min maxing then for sure. For, a Superman homage though I was thinking either Fire Melee or Nrgy melee.
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For, a Superman homage though I was thinking either Fire Melee or Nrgy melee.
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Just
On the one hand, with the BS level amounts of S/L resistance the devs gave every two bit mob in this game, I can see exactly why a statement like this gets made.
The fact it got made in the first place, and the reasons why should be a red flag to the developers if they knew what they were doing.
.
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I would think FM and Nrgy Melee would be above Stone, Ax, and WM.
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FM is definitely up there in my opinion, not as much peak potential as DM but on the other hand you don't need to keep 10 mobs around for Soul Drain, so it's easier to use. It'd be my first pick on an AV soloing tanker for any primary, except for Shield (which pairs so well with DM) where it'd be my second pick. 
To me, it looks like Stone and WM have better damage than EM (before resistances ; which means against some AVs Stone and Wm would do better, against some other AVs EM would do better). EM also lowers your HP by a lot with ET, I'm not too fond of it for AV soloing unless you go with a primary with good regen or a fast recharging heal. On Invul, ET might lead to using Aid Self which would decrease the DPS.
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I've solo'd AVs on my Inv/SS but there is a certain wall that I've hit with regen/heal intensive AVs.
I would think SD/DM (if it can hold up) or Invuln/DM would make for great AV killers.
Stone, Axe and WM would probably fall next and Fire Melee if paired with FA.
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Nihilii, would you agree with these statements? I would think FM and Nrgy Melee would be above Stone, Ax, and WM. I was thinking of going either Nrgy Melee or FM with Inv. for the defense/resist, I have a SS/Fire Brute that pumps so much dmg it's unreal; however, he often gets One shotted. He's IO"d to the tune of 3-4 bil as well, so it's not for lack of IO's. Put me up against any fire dealing foes and I can cake walk it, most anything else, face plant. So, back from that tangent. . .I don't care for DM all that much for a Super type character, if I am min maxing then for sure. For, a Superman homage though I was thinking either Fire Melee or Nrgy melee.
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The problem with EM is that the long animation times of its heavy hitters actually end up reducing the overall DPS you can achieve with the set.
Fire is a bit diffuse via AOEs and also has some animation time issues.
DM has the DPS capability (especially when paired with Shields) and the added utility of being able to go through long fights.
Stone has just about the quickest animations to single target attacks (it produces the best attack chain imo). The only issue with SM (and any quick attack chain) is running out of end.
WM and BA both (I think) have the DPS for AVs with BA being slightly better for single target damage. Unfortunately weapon draws and animation times slightly lower their attack chain speed.
Ice Melee doesn't have the single target DPS to take down an AV (iirc).
Don't know enough about Dual Blades to comment.
From a "toughness" standpoint ...
Stone Armor is toughest but recharge and damage penalties I think take it out of the running for an AV killer unless supremely built (Stoners correct me if I'm wrong).
Invuln seems the best choice here (to me) out of the box with a mix of all purpose toughness (and very strong to S/L) ... if it's a psi based AV then you're going to be out of luck.
WP is a bit squishy and doesn't typically do well against large single target alphas but can be built to stand up. This is probably your best bet for long haul fights.
Ice and Shield are both good, the former for staying power and the latter for damage, however both suffer from number generator syndrome being defense based sets which means a string of bad luck and down you go. For AV soloing I would probably give the nod to Ice Armor (depending the secondary and particular AV of course).
Fire Armor is a bit squishy but if you can build it to stand up then it becomes #1 as it returns the best rate of additional damage.
DA ... don't know it well enough to comment other then to say it's fairly endurance heavy so not sure how good the set is over the long haul.
P.S. - It's not the amount of influence you've spent on your toon that determines how well built it is for a given task.
Pure or nearly pure resist sets (fire and dark armor) have the toughest time dealing with the damage output. While both *could* theoretically handle AV's, I'd heartily recommend against them.
DM's easily the best single target monster (from a damage + utility standpoint) available with a self heal, tohitdebuffs & great damage output. Stone, Fire Melee and SS are all still single target monsters IIRC.
SS is a tad poor (FM I *think* isn't that great on single target either but I haven't looked at the numbers recently).
Animation times being the operative factor above.
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Stone Armor is toughest but recharge and damage penalties I think take it out of the running for an AV killer unless supremely built (Stoners correct me if I'm wrong).
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No way. One of my guilty pleasures is trying to build the toughest baddie(s) in the MA I can and see if they can solo me on my stoner (I've done the entire LRSF, but unfortunately you can't get them all on a small enough map that they will all attack you, but have gotten 3-4 of them at a time), but trying to actually kill it would be a lesson in futility... and my build is pretty high up there. Outside of granite, possibly but still unlikely... and I don't know if you'd have enough survivability to manage it.
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SS is a tad poor (FM I *think* isn't that great on single target either but I haven't looked at the numbers recently).
Animation times being the operative factor above.
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Starsman had some charts up a while back with varying recharges ... iirc Stone, Fire and SS were the top 3 for single target with good recharge. If those charts are around, easy to check.
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Stone Armor is toughest but recharge and damage penalties I think take it out of the running for an AV killer unless supremely built (Stoners correct me if I'm wrong).
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No way. One of my guilty pleasures is trying to build the toughest baddie(s) in the MA I can and see if they can solo me on my stoner (I've done the entire LRSF, but unfortunately you can't get them all on a small enough map that they will all attack you, but have gotten 3-4 of them at a time), but trying to actually kill it would be a lesson in futility... and my build is pretty high up there. Outside of granite, possibly but still unlikely... and I don't know if you'd have enough survivability to manage it.
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We're talking about solo killing an AV, not making a sandwich while one attacks you
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We're talking about solo killing an AV, not making a sandwich while one attacks you
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You mean while 3-4 attack you! 1 is for amateurs and scrappers (possibly the same group)
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SS is a tad poor (FM I *think* isn't that great on single target either but I haven't looked at the numbers recently).
Animation times being the operative factor above.
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Starsman had some charts up a while back with varying recharges ... iirc Stone, Fire and SS were the top 3 for single target with good recharge. If those charts are around, easy to check.
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IIRC Starsman's chart was based over a period of time. For the purposes of killing an AV that time period can only be based across the regen rate of the AV (i.e. a single tick ... which in this case is something like 1.25s?). So basically the DPS of the attack chain has to be greater then the regen rate of the AV. Additionally on some AVs you have to account for +healing, resists, T9 powers that can include resists and/or more regen, etc ....
SS has enough fire power in it to beat the lower end AVs (lower end of the regen/resist spectrum) with about 120-150 DPS or so on average (varied for build). You need a minimum of 90(?) DPS to overcome one of these low end AVs.
The only secondaries under this formula that are lower (that I know of) are Ice Melee and EM.
Again I haven't gone number diving on this, so this is just off the top of my head.
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DA ... don't know it well enough to comment other then to say it's fairly endurance heavy so not sure how good the set is over the long haul.
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Dammit, stop giving me ideas for builds. I have enough to plan already!
DA/DM
Off the top of my head, the problem I see is making any headway in damage increase through slotting while maintaining +max end and soft capping defense. Possibly add Assault to compensate.
DA/FM
I've never tried this but can see similar problems with hopefully similar solutions.
DA/SM,BA,WM
AV S/L resists keep me from trying this.
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IIRC Starsman's chart was based over a period of time. For the purposes of killing an AV that time period can only be based across the regen rate of the AV (i.e. a single tick ... which in this case is something like 1.25s?). So basically the DPS of the attack chain has to be greater then the regen rate of the AV. Additionally on some AVs you have to account for +healing, resists, T9 powers that can include resists and/or more regen, etc ....
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Err, can you clarify the highlighted, I can't make any sense of it. Are you saying that you can only calculate DPS over the course of 15s*?
If so, then you'd you'd be incorrect. The period of time DPS is calculated over could be a complete 5s chain, or a complete 10s chain, or a dynamic chain over the course of 20 minutes. All you need to do is add up total damage dealt and divide by time. That is perfectly acceptable to compare against AV regen to determine if it's killable or not. (The hard/impossible part is accounting for things like Unstoppable, Dull Pain, etc. I mention impossible because, well, it relys on enemy AI. )
* Unless an AV has higher than normal regen, they regen 5% of their hp every 15 seconds.
[edit: Oh, and lvl50 AVs regen ~94 hp/sec.]
I was trying to keep it simple
But basically what I was saying was that your DPS (over however long you want to measure) has to be above the AV's regen rate (over however long you want to measure).
Other things to consider are resists (as you've pointed out in the Soloing Recluse thread) which can be factored into determining if your DPS is high enough.
Heals and T9s as you've pointed out are based on mob AI so a little less predictable to account for (but if they do it at least once in the fight then you must account for it).
All this talk about Reichsman around the Forums and the ability to try and Solo an AV with the advent of MA (Mission Architect) has got me thinking. I always loved the Idea of having a Superman type character in comics. That virtual bad [censored], that you know no matter what, when the chips are down, when all else fails, and even the Super guy looks beat himself, all of a sudden, he pours it on and comes back with a vengance to win. Of course in COH we have that character in Statesman. Ergo, if he is our (COH's World's) Superman, how could we make someone as strong as him, as powerful, to stand toe to toe with any AV and come out on top with out the help of others. Is this possible? A few questions that will help this discussion on its journey to finding an answer are:
Can a Tank solo EVERY AV in the game?
What would be needed to do so?
How many diff powersets could do it?
What would we have to get Recharge and DPS numbers to?
I see people wanting to build and UBERMAN for whatever reason, mine is to, just feel that symbolic and Iconic Idea bleed through my screen as a virtual homage to Superman.
Can it be done? Who here can come up with an answer to such a task. Maybe you've reached something close, but have fallen short somewhere, post you results and maybe someone has that missing part that could help you complete the formula for our COH UBERMAN!