'Ask the Villains'.. for their suggestions.

Hi all,

Just wondering really, what do YOU think the best AT would be for levelling to 50 mostly soloing, but with the occasional group (when i get invited and am not about to log)

The reason i ask is because i have a level 39 Thugs / bubbles MM and im finding that it's taking way too long between missions / start of missions to bubble up and use both upgrades on all 6 thugs, then go and do the mission.

I'd like a fresh approach. And with the sets merging so to speak (can't remember the exact phrase, apologies) i'd like to create a new villain in the hope i'll get to 50 relatively quickly to be able to create a VEAT. as im getting bored waiting to bubble up and upgrade EVERY SINGLE TIME i do a mission

I don't Powerlevel, or allow myself to be powerlevelled. Therefore it's got to be a toon that can fend for him or herself plus be useful / offer witty banter when grouped.

So what would your suggestions be? What do YOU find the most enjoyable?

Thanks in advance.

Probably a Brute of some sort (SS/WP for example seems to be quite popular)

Or a MM with a debuff secondary. Dark and Traps are both excellent and don't require any / little initial set-up (Traps you summon the FFG but thats it).

Also you don't need to buff every henchman before starting the mish. My Necro/Dark I just buff the Lich and Knights before heading off and buff the rest on the fly (bar one zombie since he's sent into the first group to die so I can summon the spirit).

My Necro/Dark is my soloist of choice (although I have a Thugs/Traps too I find the Necro more fun at the mo)

I have a ninja/poison MM which seems to do the job quite well. TBH I reckon any MM will get you through the majority of the storylines but there is the problem of summoning and upgrading everything at the start of the missions.

The good thing about poison is that there are some nice debuffs that make the individual battles go a lot quicker (just make sure they're slotted for accuracy). Ninjas are good for damage too and they're a bit quicker than necro. Their defence is rubbish though.

A stalker may be a good bet if you dont like MM and want to get from Level 1 to 50 quickly but I don't have much experience with them so can't give too much advice.

Definitely a Brute. I've taken most of the CoV archetypes to high levels (most to 50, though my Dom is only at 44 and my Stalker at 45, and I haven't played Widow yet) and the Brutes had the least problems soloing - they solo very fast and very safely, generally, and aren't that tough to play either. My Fire/Fire Brute mowed down spawns faster than my EM/Elec, but the latter had far less deaths at high level (mainly due to having Power Surge as a panic button, but also end-drain and slow resists and no psi-hole), and my SS/Dark and Axe/WP seem very survivable too but aren't 50 yet.

If you go Brute you could make it even easier on yourself by taking a brute secondary that has no "holes" in it to certain damage types - Dark, Electric & Willpower have decent protection to most damage types, no psi damage hole (a weakness for many sets in CoV, as psi damage is much more common) and some exotic status protection/resists that other sets lack but which come in handy at higher levels (e.g. end-drain, slow, fear and/or confuse).

Then just add any primary you fancy - most of them are decent because of Fury - just bear in mind that Energy Melee and Dark Melee are more focused on single-target damage, so if you have a secondary that's very comfortable in big spawns (like Willpower, or Dark, or Invul for that matter) you may want a primary with better area damage than they provide (War Mace, Battle Axe, Dual Blades and Electric Melee each have several cones/PBAEs) or go for the middle ground with sets which are great at both area or single target damage (Fiery Melee, Stone Melee or Super Strength).

My Mastermind had occasional EBs that were really tough, or even whole factions (Nemesis, due to the fear resist, as my /Dark MM relied heavily on Fearsome Stare), but generally it felt like easy-mode 99% of the time (compared to my Doms, Stalker and Corruptors anyway) - but the set-up at the start of every mission did annoy me, as you say - so much so that my second MM stalled at L16 and I haven't been tempted to play another since. All MMs get that set-up time, but it will be worse for you with /FF secondary because of the mini-bubble buffs - I haven't played an /FF MM since beta, but it was the re-buffing that put me off playing it live (and makes me avoid not only /FF, but also /Cold, /Sonic and /Therm on other archetypes) - you might want to try an MM with a different secondary to see if you have better tolerance for the archetype without having to refresh those buffs every 4mins on every pet.

My Dominator soloed much slower than my Brutes/MM until higher level (but he's Mind/Psi so that may be down to powersets more than archetype - my Earth/Fire seems faster at low level). My Stalker soloes faster when there are lots of bosses around, but slower as spawns get bigger with minions/lieuts as he's purely single-target (he sometimes struggles when two large spawns overlap in a mission) - sometimes I hunt outdoors purely for more bosses to face. But I do enjoy both Dom & Stalker because they have to approach spawns tactically instead of just wading in with the usual attack chain like my Brutes/MM can. Personally I get more satisfaction out of that, but then I also find it fun sometimes to play my brutes and wade into every spawn laying waste to whatever is in front of me - depends on my mood.

Some Corruptors can solo very safely/quickly (Fire/Dark I've heard is very good - having played both sets separately to 50 I can well believe it), but others tend to need teams to progress safely/quickly, depending on powersets - for solo you'll be wanting some control powers in there plus great damage. Both of my corruptors (Fire/Rad and Ice/Storm) look fairly similar on paper, being built mainly around debuffing then delivering huge damage, but play very differently solo and in teams. They are probably my least survivable archetypes for solo (I mainly play them in teams/duos), but supposedly have some of the best primaries/secondaries for soloing, so I'm not sure I could make a blanket recommendation of the Corruptor archetype for that playstyle.

Definitely a Brute. Solo extremely well, and can DPS or tank in teams if you do get invited every now and then.

The easymode build is SS/WP. Steady, very high damage and the ability to oneshot most things whenever KO blow is up, and an extremely potent secondary.

I myself like Elec/Elec. I can deal awesome amounts of AoE damage, have two AoE knockdown powers, I can play a Sapper, I have unlimited endurance and no particular damage holes (aside from a slight weakness to Negative)... And the coolest Tier 9 attack in any melee set.

Once you have SOs and if your build is at least -somewhat- efficient (and if not, insps easily fix it), you can get your Fury up and just keep on smashing nonstop, steamrolling through any mission faster than you can even notice.

Oh, and soloing EBs is a piece of cake.

I concur, brutes are easy to solo, and one of the few ATs which can be fun solo.

I currently have two brutes. my signature char Sapphic Neko who is Dual Blades/Willpower, she can hold herself quite well. My second brute is Energy melee/Electric armor. She has a completly diffrent feel to her, she feels more like... SMASH SMASH SMASH! where Sapphic Neko feels more like a lawnmower just cutting everything down in her path.
Both are mad fun tho!
I think Energy Melee / Willpower would be a pretty nice combo too.

Masterminds bore me mostly I get tired of using 1-2 powers then sit and watch my pets. The mastermind char i like most is my Thugs/Dark, she havn't taken any pet powers and is just using her twin guns and debuffing/healing. Play her more like a defender than a mastermind really. And on a personal note, i dislike teaming with more then one mastermind in the team, maybe two if one of em have ranged pets. As a brute it's frustrating getting pushed by pets, so hard to line up my cones well with a bunch of pets in my way.

Thanks for the replies, all - some interesting notes there. I had a quick play with a SS/WP brute last night, but after reading the above, ill probably try an Elec/Elec or NRG / Elec Brute when i get to play again tomorrow.

I might be tempted to try a brute once more. Non so far ever hit level 20 before I think I will try the easy mode next SS/WP. Lets see if i can make that work.

BTW I found MM thug/dark a pleasure to level up. Even if the setup is a bit tiresome. There is just something good about being able to send forth your thugs while you twidle your mustaches and cackle evily.

I have 3 lvl 50 mms the easiest to lvl was my thugs dark but was mainly in duo with a bots/dark. My necro/poison took the longest but the 1 i enjoy the most and still use even in RV is my bots/traps. Have seen bots/ff do realy well so don't give up completely on your mm. I find if I go away and play something else for awhile its not so bad coming back to it.

As for brutes again I have 3 lvl 50 easiest to lvl was my eng/wp with the exception of the fire/rad super team and a full crab team it was the fastest lvler i've ever had. The only down is the nurf which has made me stop playing him) my fav brute for a long time has been has been my ss/fire. Fire secondery can be hard to play as you realy are relying on your heal but it is 1 of the best self heal's in the game. My other brute was a dark/dark hard to play but great fun.

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BTW I found MM thug/dark a pleasure to level up. Even if the setup is a bit tiresome. There is just something good about being able to send forth your thugs while you twidle your mustaches and cackle evily.

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Yes, i love Avril, my Thugs/FF MM for that reason, however the time it took to get into the mission, is why im getting a bit fed up of levelling her

I had to go Thugs for my MM because of the dual pistols, but I'd have much rather had mercs as henchmen. Took Forcefields as secondary to better fit my concept, but I must say, Personal FF is bloody useless unless you've lost all your pets and need to get the f out of dodge.

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I have 3 lvl 50 mms the easiest to lvl was my thugs dark but was mainly in duo with a bots/dark. My necro/poison took the longest but the 1 i enjoy the most and still use even in RV is my bots/traps.

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While I don't have high level experience with most of the MM secondaries (except /Dark), I've played several of them on other ATs to early/mid levels, and tbh I'm convinced that /Dark is the easy mode where MMs are concerned. You have good control/debuffs for spawns, but also great debuffs for EBs - while your pets do the damage you can just run about playing controller/defender, locking down threats to you and your bots - then at 38 you get a pet from /Dark that even helps you to do that better.

Sure, /FF and /Traps makes you and the pets safer, but pets are expendable anyway and I'd rather have secondaries that keep me busier in combat - /Storm controls almost as well as /Dark (if a bit more chaotically, so perhaps more suited to ranged pets) but the debuffs don't make you quite as safe and require more skill to use - /TA has good debuffs that help you to kill fast, but again they won't keep you as safe as /Dark does - /Poison arguably makes EBs easier, but doesn't really have many tools for big spawns. /Dark pretty much has all the tools you need for fast, safe killing in almost every situation - it does a lot of what the other sets do well, plus a few unique things, all in one set - team it with pets that do great area damage, which basically means Bots or Thugs, and you can't go wrong.

But really if you want consistently good solo performance throughout the level range, survivability, ease of play, fast levelling, but still be useful to teams, then like most of us have said nothing in the game compares to a brute - and yeah, I'd personally include heroside in that blanket statement too.

again, thanks for the further comments

I'll now be making a bots (as i've not tried that yet) / Dark MM as well

I've started the SS/WP brute and am liking him so far.
Also played a small amount on the NRG/Elec brute and think ill like him too.

All i've got to do is work out which one i want to concentrate on now

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All i've got to do is work out which one i want to concentrate on now

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Well that's the trick, isn't it? CoH/V promotes altaholism more than any MMO I've ever played. It's the first MMO since EQ I've ever been able to, or wanted to, get more than one character to the level cap (although I did have tons of mid/high level alts in WoW that would soon have joined my dwarf hunter at 70 if I hadn't got bored of the game so fast).

I'm fairly disciplined when it comes to focusing though - I usually have a character I duo regularly with a friend, and another I use for soloing/PuG'ing when he's not online - that focuses my attention nicely. But recently that has gone rather awry and I find myself levelling my 45 Mind/Psi dom and my 26 Ice/Storm Corr in duos, while my 45 EM/EA Stalker should be getting all my solo/PuG time but is having to share it with all the lowbie alts that the very evil I12 allowed me to create (extra slots) and then persuaded me to create (powerset proliferation)

I'm sure you'll enjoy the Bot/Dark - I only really got bored of mine at higher levels because it was all just too easy. Levelling should be pretty fast though.