Hardest one life to live combination

Recently, I've been playing a character that I've role played as a normal human in a world full of super powered beings. Any defeat I suffer I've taken to mean as a character death. Essentially, I'm mimicking the hardcore mode in games like Diablo, where if your character dies, that's it.

I realize that you can play solo and really carefully and you won't die (though, it may take you hundreds of hours to make it to 50); however, I reasoned that as a registered super hero, my characters will seek to team up, so I teamed most of my way until I died.

My latest experiment was a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender which made it one bar away from level 22 before suffering her first defeat. A cargo boat full of +3 Council was just too much to handle. Fairly proud of that accomplishment since she teamed all the way up (no AE) and stayed alive on some pretty sketchy PUGs.

I'm thinking of doing this again, and wanted to solicit your opinion as to what would be the hardest "hardcore" combination you can think of, assuming that you're teaming your way to 50.

My initial thoughts are:

* Sonic/Radiation Blast Defender (no self heal, low damage)
* Fire/Fire Blaster (lots of damage, no mitigation, lots of unwanted aggro)
* Peacebringer (technically wouldn't be a "normal" human, but same rules apply; would have to watch it around quantums)

Generally, I don't think most tankers, scrappers, stalkers, MMs or brutes fit my criteria. Most combinations of them, once they get mez protection, shields or self heals are pretty hard to take down. I want something that will make me fear for my life every time I join a team.

I will say that as a sonic/ defender, the biggest thing will be how you've no need or even reason to join in on the fight. It makes sense for a proper "one death only" character, since you shield everyone, turn on the donut, then go sit within max range of dispersion. If you want a real challenge, play an empath that heals with Absorb Pain as opposed to Heal Other or just flat out refuses the latter (Aura + AP + Buffs = skirting death at every turn). If you manage to reach your auras and AB, you stand a substantially larger chance at not dying.

Melee wise, I can actually tell you a fire/shield scrapper/brute would be fairly dangerous to level, as they tend to get no real mitigation until 22 (True Grit notwithstanding) and survive by simply pumping out as much aggro as they can possibly get, which gets them massive amounts of aggro they usually can't handle. Defense in general suffers extensively until SOs, so you may suffer some early game casualties because of it. Even at end game, an ITF will make a tombstone for any defense based melee that aren't soft capped from buffs/sets.

If you -really- want to make a near impossible to get to 50 character without dying, I'd suggest a petless mastermind primary matched with Force Field secondary. You'll contribute a good amount from your shields (albeit, nothing like a defender) and can make use of your secondary. If you go thugs, you get dual pistols (so you can act like a proper thug) and can even get gangs of war. You also have zero defenses and the lowest HP in the game. Definitely, a great challenge.

I think Kinetics would probably be pretty hard for a death = delete character. It's only available on squishy ATs, and mostly requires you to be in melee. The heal is small compensation.

For anyone considering death = delete and doesn't want a super hard core challenge, Mind/FF controller is extremely safe

I totally agree with your choice of Sonic/Rad Defender.

You have very little in the way of "get out of my face" emergency powers - 25% knockback chance in Electron Haze, and maybe Sonic Cage, if you take it.

If your health starts falling on this character, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it except cross your fingers and fight, or run.

You could always buy the Ethereal Shift temporary power and totally defeat the point of this exercise..

Sounds like a good albeit masochistic idea to do with pistols.

Archery / Fire Blaster

Elec / Fire Blaster (although Tesla Cage comes at 18, it should be tough getting that high)

Cold / Archery Defender

Assault Rifle/Electric Blapper would seem quite difficult to keep alive.

Petless thug/traps or ninja/traps MM must be a very painful experience. Or you could just go ahead and roll a toggle man if you are really suicidal. toggle man = spine/dark scrapper with only one click power and the rest being toggels.

I'm with Lemur here.

My Kin/Elec lived on a knife's edge from one Transfusion to the next. You could sap a single target like a boss using Transference and Short Circuit if you got the drop on them, but you'd be waiting for the second Short Circuit to be up before sapping his buddies. And until then all it took was a single mez to ruin your day.

It was fun, definitely, but it wasnt safe.

On top of that, your best damage mitigation kicks in at 26 (Transference) and 28 (Tesla Cage). You'd be lucky to get there without dying in this "one life" challenge.

Energy/Fire Blasting was a tough combo, but it was my first toon and I didn't know how to really play/slot or do anything right in the game.

Electric/Fire Blaster. Lots of PBAoE 2 of which animate in 3 seconds, giving you plenty of time to faceplant at the worst possible moment.

Doesn't exist yet.

Electric/Fire tank.

No heal, nothing but resistance, and zero mitigation from your secondary. On top of that, you attract more hate than anything else in the game just by existing. And you HAVE to enter melee range, you have no choice in the matter.

I suppose you could survive by street hunting greens, but that would take forever. On a bad PuG your life expectancy would be measured in seconds.

I was going with the Fire/Fire blaster until someone mentioned Elec/Fire blaster.

I think the Elec/Fire has it. Not only do you have three seconds of animation in stabbing range, but then you do nice slow damage over time so they have plenty of time to remember that they hate you.