Tank: Ice/energy is still good, but these days id go for ice/ss, and go with either fire or ice epic. Throw KO blow and throw the hold from the epic´s, wich will hold the sqiushy´s, wich means you can burn the BF´s and greens pretty fast.
Controller: Ice/rad will destroy anything in the game really. Both imob´s, holds and slows from primary and the mighty debuffs from rad. illusion troller isnt that bad but ice simply outperforms ill in duel´s very much.
Blaster: Fire/energy is still probably the king here, followed by psy/energy.
Defender : the old FoTM Rad/psy still holds its ground good, but im not sure what to go for here, cold/sonic or rad/psy or sonic.
SCrapper: Spine/regen is excellent for duels (especially against blasters, can take the hits) untill you run into a troller.
At this present moment in time ie i12:-
Tank: Ice / SS / Fire - the slow resistance coupled with hibernate, huge HP along with perma Hoarfrost with IO's, 2 holds in the form of char and KO blow to burn BF's, rage to negate the need for focused acc in the epic and fire blast, fireball for some nice ranged damage it can work well in the arena.
Controller: Ice / Rad / Psy - There is no contest here, it is hands down the most powerful arena controller, i ran one of these for a while untill no one would fight it, they are stupidly powerful and can only be trumped by a better skilled Fire / EM Blaster or Fortuntata.
Blaster: Fire / EM / Cold - This combo is great for duel and/or team arena, the most damaging blaster available, with IO's you can dish out blaze every 2.5 seconds and can hibernate every minute....rocks.
Defender: Cold / Dark / Psy - This is purely a arena duel thread so i would say this outclasses Rad / Psy as it can defeat a wider variety of sets, it really is a beast of a combo when purpled, proc'd and IO'd i also ran one of these and had alot of fun because it was so different, but the massive - rec, some -to hit, a self heal, fast recharging attacks, dominate recharging in about 3 - 4 seconds on top of perma benumb, TK to keep them where you want all on top of massive resists in arctic fog and mind over body psy sheild, and being able to take tactics aswell as having a self heal makes for a great dueling defender.
Scrapper: - Spine / SR / Body - This combo is a fantastic arena dueling scrapper, again this is taking into account purpled, accoladed and proc'd attacks. you can get elude down to such a short timer that when it drops you can pop a blue hit conserve power and phase and wait the 30 seconds, it means you have very little downtime of elude downtime, it also means you dont need to take fitness, you take medicine, speed, leaping and concealment, once again i say this over spine/regen purely because it will beat alot wider variety of sets, here is an example of this build i made just so you can understand what im going on about...
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I know you wanted Hero only, but i would strongly reccomend a Fortunata, there are by quite a margin the best dueling character in the game at the moment, can be tough against a Ice / Rad / Psy but at the worst you will get a draw if you play well, i run one of these at the moment and am yet to loose a duel on one.
Thanks for the replies.
Certainly interested in the fact that ice/rad is the preferred choice of troller for both of you, in that I've never had a problem aganist ice/* with my ill/rad. Confuse on Jack seems to be the game breaker there though.
However, I *can* see that against some other AT's that ice may have a slight edge for primary.
I still personally feel that once PA is perma that ill/* is better.
Would be interested to duel an ice/rad at some point to see the differences.
As for the others:
I think so far that we're agreed that ice/SS or EM for tanks, fire/em for blasters and spines/sr or regen for scrappers is the way forward.
More thoughts on the Defenders would be interesting though 
Fahie
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the replies.
Certainly interested in the fact that ice/rad is the preferred choice of troller for both of you, in that I've never had a problem aganist ice/* with my ill/rad. Confuse on Jack seems to be the game breaker there though.
However, I *can* see that against some other AT's that ice may have a slight edge for primary.
I still personally feel that once PA is perma that ill/* is better.
[/ QUOTE ]
No problem,
The problem you have is you wont have perma PA when facing an ice / rad / psy.
The kill count wont be massive but the ice controller will stack alot more holds purely because your recharge will be gutted, hence forth you will run out of break free's alot faster.
again this assuming equal skill level.
In regards to ice only having a slight edge over illusion im afraid your wrong, with the immob stacking and massive amounts of -recharge plus ice slick for -jump, it trumps it quite easily.
Dont get me wrong illusion isnt bad at all, just ice is alot better.
[ QUOTE ]
No problem,
The problem you have is you wont have perma PA when facing an ice / rad / psy.
The kill count wont be massive but the ice controller will stack alot more holds purely because your recharge will be gutted, hence forth you will run out of break free's alot faster.
again this assuming equal skill level.
In regards to ice only having a slight edge over illusion im afraid your wrong, with the immob stacking and massive amounts of -recharge plus ice slick for -jump, it trumps it quite easily.
Dont get me wrong illusion isnt bad at all, just ice is alot better.
[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting.
I'm open to new ideas always. Having been on the wrong end of a -recharge before I can see the point you are making. However, add in +recharge accolades, a confused Jack and a perma ST even with -recharge and I can't see the advantage to ice being huge here. As for Immobs, I'd rather be stacking holds than immobs personally 
-jump? That's why I use fly on my ill/rad
I would love to be proved wrong. I need a reason to level another controller and spec it out
One thing I think that can be agreed on though ( and going back to the initial post ) is that for trollers, ill/rad/psi and ice/rad/psi are the big guns. Having said that I only *just* beat a fire/rad the other week, but played by a very experienced pvper
Fahie
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No problem,
The problem you have is you wont have perma PA when facing an ice / rad / psy.
The kill count wont be massive but the ice controller will stack alot more holds purely because your recharge will be gutted, hence forth you will run out of break free's alot faster.
again this assuming equal skill level.
In regards to ice only having a slight edge over illusion im afraid your wrong, with the immob stacking and massive amounts of -recharge plus ice slick for -jump, it trumps it quite easily.
Dont get me wrong illusion isnt bad at all, just ice is alot better.
[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting.
I'm open to new ideas always. Having been on the wrong end of a -recharge before I can see the point you are making. However, add in +recharge accolades, a confused Jack and a perma ST even with -recharge and I can't see the advantage to ice being huge here. As for Immobs, I'd rather be stacking holds than immobs personally
-jump? That's why I use fly on my ill/rad
I would love to be proved wrong. I need a reason to level another controller and spec it out
One thing I think that can be agreed on though ( and going back to the initial post ) is that for trollers, ill/rad/psi and ice/rad/psi are the big guns. Having said that I only *just* beat a fire/rad the other week, but played by a very experienced pvper
Fahie
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I can understand where you are coming from in your own experience, and i can understand you have no inclination to take my word as rule of course.
Having recharge set bonuses wont mean any difference to a ice / rad / psy, your recharge will be gutted (unless you have a sets with slow protection i.e Cold Domination).
Taking the flight pool wont make any difference, for one you have no acrobatics (i assume unless you have 3 travel powers - as i thought hasten would seem mandatory to you in approaching perma PA) which means you will run out of break free's even faster. Also Chillblain (the immob from ice) has a -fly component so it nulefys the set completly (apart from hover - which wont matter when you run out of break frees after 5 minutes).
Having an immob to stack along with a hold simaltaniously nearly doubles the break free usage by your opponent.
Once again this is assuming the people fighting are of equal skill level, i am telling you the ice / rad / psy will win, there is a reason ice / rad / psy is considered one of the best dueling sets in the game to date.
Again, this is all within the issue 12 guidelines
I wish you the best of luck
You make a strong case spag bol
I'm coming from a slightly complacent standpoint here. I've never done worse than draw with my ill/rad ( not being bigheaded, I don't duel *that* much at all these days )
I think I'll see how I13 affects builds before rolling up a ice/rad too though
It would be very interesting to see an ill/rad duel someone, then an ice/rad duel them again after and see where the major gameplay differences really are.
Anyways, thanks for the comments, much appreciated.
Fahie
Sincere apologies if i demonstrated my argumentative side
I wish i could show you the capability of ice / rad ,but i stripped mine a while ago
Just out of curiosity which server do you call home? i am ingtrigued..
[ QUOTE ]
Scrapper: - Spine / SR / Body - This combo is a fantastic arena dueling scrapper, again this is taking into account purpled, accoladed and proc'd attacks. you can get elude down to such a short timer that when it drops you can pop a blue hit conserve power and phase and wait the 30 seconds, it means you have very little downtime of elude downtime, it also means you dont need to take fitness, you take medicine, speed, leaping and concealment, once again i say this over spine/regen purely because it will beat alot wider variety of sets, here is an example of this build i made just so you can understand what im going on about...
[/ QUOTE ]
Didn't realize my spiney/sr could actually compete in 1v1 arena matches, it might actually mean ill have to IO the guy now
So what's everyone's views for villain side duels?
[ QUOTE ]
Sincere apologies if i demonstrated my argumentative side
I wish i could show you the capability of ice / rad ,but i stripped mine a while ago
[/ QUOTE ]
Shame 
[ QUOTE ]
Just out of curiosity which server do you call home? i am ingtrigued..
[/ QUOTE ]
Union.
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Didn't realize my spiney/sr could actually compete in 1v1 arena matches, it might actually mean ill have to IO the guy now
[/ QUOTE ]
I must admit, my Spines/SR isn't too hot in 1v1, but then I specced her for zonal, specifically for chasing down stalkers. It's rare I die except to well played corrupters and doms, at which point I fall over in a tiny heap of -def horribleness.
That's why personally I put /regen above /sr for 1v1. You can deal with the debuffs that much better.
Haven't played her so much since stealth IO's became so prevalent on the red side though. Not so much fun when the occasional stalker is still invis until they are 10 feet from you :P
Fahie
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That's why personally I put /regen above /sr for 1v1. You can deal with the debuffs that much better.
[/ QUOTE ]
I find it the other way around, that arena build i posted will deal with debuffs from controllers/defenders alot better than a regen, it will walk over doms (just take breaks for mind as well as the usuall 3 blues for elude crashes) and colds where as regen would suffer.
Regen is ahead versus blasters but if you play well, running in elude downtime, oranges for aim / bu and keep the pressure up you could get a sneaky win, especially with a high recharge build and proc's in all the attacks.
Again this is all down to skill level, but with the build i posted you will do better in 1 vs 1 than a regen over a wider variety of builds.
[ QUOTE ]
-jump? That's why I use fly on my ill/rad
[/ QUOTE ]
I believe theres more -fly powers than there are -jump powers.
I could probably get you a IO´d ice/rad if you wanna see what spag is talking about. If you are interested.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sincere apologies if i demonstrated my argumentative side
I wish i could show you the capability of ice / rad ,but i stripped mine a while ago
[/ QUOTE ]
Shame
[ QUOTE ]
Just out of curiosity which server do you call home? i am ingtrigued..
[/ QUOTE ]
Union.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
-jump? That's why I use fly on my ill/rad
[/ QUOTE ]
I believe theres more -fly powers than there are -jump powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't forget that Hover gives immunity to -fly now.
@Rooks
"You should come inside the box... Then you'll know what I mean."
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
-jump? That's why I use fly on my ill/rad
[/ QUOTE ]
I believe theres more -fly powers than there are -jump powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't forget that Hover gives immunity to -fly now.
[/ QUOTE ]
ye but gives it protection against immob. ?
A couple of reasons for fly on ill/rad.
1 : Yes, there are more anti-fly powers. but a) Not many people use/take them and b) hover is a quick toggle to fix that
2 : With ill/rad, movement is NOT key. Staying out of melee range whilst is however. Fly is the best answer here whilst still maintaining LOS and range.
3 : with indom-will from psi epic, plus KB resist IO's, you don't need acrobatics, especially following the accro nerf.
I don't take fly on melee toons/blasters for obvious reasons.
Having respecced ALL travel powers at various points on my ill/rad I have found fly to be the most useful. I have SS too for travel in zones and/or escaping a bad duel moment. Ideally, I would have TP too to escape immobs, but nowhere near enough slots
Fahie
[ QUOTE ]
A couple of reasons for fly on ill/rad.
1 : Yes, there are more anti-fly powers. but a) Not many people use/take them and b) hover is a quick toggle to fix that
2 : With ill/rad, movement is NOT key. Staying out of melee range whilst is however. Fly is the best answer here whilst still maintaining LOS and range.
3 : with indom-will from psi epic, plus KB resist IO's, you don't need acrobatics, especially following the accro nerf.
I don't take fly on melee toons/blasters for obvious reasons.
Having respecced ALL travel powers at various points on my ill/rad I have found fly to be the most useful. I have SS too for travel in zones and/or escaping a bad duel moment. Ideally, I would have TP too to escape immobs, but nowhere near enough slots
Fahie
[/ QUOTE ]
1. Web nade is available over the counter as a temp power. 6 uses but still thats pretty good going and open to everyone.
As a side note I still like Fire/rad for the faster damage. Those imps just seem to scare people.
@Sweet Chilli
[ QUOTE ]
1. Web nade is available over the counter as a temp power. 6 uses but still thats pretty good going and open to everyone.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hence .... a) Not many people use/take them
[ QUOTE ]
As a side note I still like Fire/rad for the faster damage. Those imps just seem to scare people.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the reason fire/rad still works is that you're dealing with 4 sources of damage. That can certainly be difficult if you aren't used to it.
Fahie
[ QUOTE ]
I could probably get you a IO´d ice/rad if you wanna see what spag is talking about. If you are interested.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks
If you could drop me an email at @miss fahrenheit that would be awesome
Fahie
Sent you a email.
[ QUOTE ]
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I could probably get you a IO´d ice/rad if you wanna see what spag is talking about. If you are interested.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks
If you could drop me an email at @miss fahrenheit that would be awesome
Fahie
[/ QUOTE ]
I remember, back in the day, when people looked at me and thought I'd just made a FoTM fire/Rad char. They didn't realise that Fire/Rad was never FoTM - just I played it so well that a few people had started to think that it was. I stopped playing a lot when IO's came out but I am starting to get back into it now and am starting to IO up my fire/rad.
I think once IO'ed up I'll be able to give any set/player a run for their money.
@Sweet Chilli
Your on.....
When your done that is so i'll keep my 2010 diary empty!
CoH PvP SG = SuperUnion - Co-Leader - Union/Freedom
CoV PvP VG = Disruption - Co-Leader - Union/Freedom
Global = @Rent & @Rent.
Playgroup are all **** - Global Handle
[ QUOTE ]
Your on.....
When your done that is so i'll keep my 2010 diary empty!
[/ QUOTE ]
Whoa, whoa boy. Lets not be hasty? You'll need to give me some time to get that ammount of inf. Maybe 3 years if I flog myself?
@Sweet Chilli
Ok, I have my own opinions on this, but it would be interesting to se what other people think.
Question : What's the "best of the best" for arena ( lvl 50 ) pvp.
One build for each AT. I can't speak for villains side since I hardly play it but these are my votes for blue.
Tank : Ice/Energy
Reasons : Negation of slows. Good damage and armour. Hibernate ( combine with phase shift for evilness )
Controller : Ill/Rad
Reasons : Biased here, but PA with rad debuffs just makes this a winner. Run your opponent out of BF's with blind and it's yours.
Blaster : Fire/Energy
Reasons : Most damage possible. TP Foe a must here for energy melee fun.
Defender : Rad/Psi
Reasons : By far the best pvp 1v1 defender build. Best rad debuffs topped off with psi damage.
Scrapper : Spines/Regen
Reasons : I still think spines/SR is better zonal, but for the arena you have to go /regen. Spines for the toxic and range.
Comments/Corrections welcome
Fahie