Pylon soloing.

I'm curious why you'd think a Fire/Rad Controller would be any good at this - the pets wouldn't last long under pylon attack, even with the pylon debuffed (they hit so hard that even debuffed they would hurt), and I doubt the controller would last long either unless they were def-softcapped to ranged (or lethal) and were lucky enough not to get hit much. Radiant Aura isn't that brilliant as a heal when it comes to keeping up with the level of damage a Pylon can do. Also Fire/ controllers are more about area damage than single target damage.

An MM with taunt, debuffs and a decent area heal is probably a good option - I'll have to give it a try with my Bot/Dark sometime (I'd have to respec him into taunt though) - it's not like a pylon can run away from the mini-Burn patches the Bot AEs lay down, nor the Tar Patch. I suspect any flavour of /Dark MM could do it (Dark has lots of -regen, that nice -res, and a good area heal), with Bots (aforesaid reasons) or Ninjas (single target specialists) probably fastest, but time-wise I'm not sure how they'd compare to a scrapper/brute/stalker. I've not played my MM in ages, but tough single targets always seemed to take longer to defeat solo than with some of my melee ATs.

/Traps is probably viable like you say (if Triage Beacon can keep up with healing the damage you take, but def-softcapping should be easy enough with the FF Gen to build upon - especially with Bot primary's ProtBot bubbles too), though I very much doubt /Poison's heal could keep up plus you couldn't heal yourself - sure, the Poison debuffs are amazing on a single target, but even debuffed I suspect a Pylon will hurt a lot more than you think it will. /Thermal might be another option for secondary, but I don't have any experience with it to comment - slower at this task than /Dark or /Traps though, I reckon.

An Ill/Rad Controller could do it fairly safely - not sure about speed though, as mine is only in the low 30s - but that's generally the controller combo you want for really tough single targets (they can solo GMs) - sure the psi resists would be bad as the Pylon is basically an object, but the pets mainly do energy damage and they'll be doing most of the work. You'd need perma-PA though (or close to it) or it could get very painful.

My Bane Spider can solo a pylon, but it seemed to take a lot longer than 4 minutes (never timed it - just wanted to know if it was possible). He has Aid Self and is def-softcapped to all positions, and of course has hard-hitting attacks (albeit slow) and lots of -res and is very end-efficient - but if I'm unlucky enough to get hit twice by the Pylon in consecutive attacks then I die, even after firing off Aid Self between the attacks, unless I use an inspiration (which I believe technically breaks the rules of the Pylon Challenge, as it does for the RWZ Challenge with triple-boss L54 spawns).

My Night Widow struggles despite having an expensive build - she can certainly damage the Pylon fast enough to beat its regen, but she runs out of end when the Pylon is at around 50-60% - an end-balanced widow could probably do it in scrapper-level times though.

A def-softcapped brute/scrapper/stalker with a high dps primary is probably your best bet for a fast take-down - Fire/ for sure (Fire/SR and Fire/Shield are often touted as AV/Pylon-killers), maybe Claws/ (perhaps not the weaker Stalker version), probably Dark/ too (though you'd lose the benefit of Soul Drain after the first round unless you had someone dragging Rikti Monkey spawns to you - Stalker version of DM would work better with BU + Placate-crits). Other than /Shield and /SR, a Brute (or maybe Scrapper) with /Invul might work too for secondary - get as close as possible to softcap for lethal def (probably best not to have a Rikti Monkey spawn boosting Invincibility considering the psi weakness ), plus you have all that lethal resist, and Dull Pain for when necessary.

Few of my brutes/scrappers/stalkers are built for Pylon take-downs though, so I haven't really tried (had a brief attempt with a few before realising it was beyond them) and have no idea on times - the only def-softcapped ones in my sig are the Elec/Nin stalker (more focused on area damage) and the Mace/SR brute (ditto) - not really optimised for the task.

A def-softcapped Blaster with Aid Self would likely take a Pylon down fastest, if the build was end-balanced and had a high single-target damage primary (especially Fire, Ice or Sonic) teamed with a secondary that had good single target damage too (Energy or Electric). But again with the lower HP you'd be praying you didn't get two pylon hits consecutively. If you could def-softcap a Fire/, Ice/ or Sonic/ Corruptor with /Dark or maybe /Rad then they might have a shot too if Scourge works on Pylons (I can't really recall - ages since I used my Fire/Rad on a Rikti Raid - I tend to take my Bane or Widow as I like having mez protection and decent defences on MS Raids) - actually with Darkest Night on the Pylon and Dark Servant sat next to it you wouldn't even need def-softcap to floor the Pylon's ToHit chance (not sure on the numbers though - I suspect Pylons have some resistance to debuffs like AVs do).

Being softcapped to ranged (or lethal) defence is advisable whatever AT you use (except obviously Ill/Rad as the indestructible PA will be tanking) - and you really do need a means of self-healing (or a lot of luck) because even with just a 5% chance for the Pylon to hit you I think you'd be surprised how often you get hit. Admittedly I don't have a massive amount of experience at the Pylon Challenge (I prefer the RWZ Challenge as I find it more fun), or any definitive answers for you, but those are my thoughts.

I dunno about speed, but the only character I have personally witnessed solo a pylon was Ill/Storm.

Yea, I saw that topic, I was curious to see if people have done it under 4 minutes.

Very nice, I'm sure Fire/Rad blows Ill/Rad out of the water.

Do you think a well built Bots/Traps can do it faster?

Yeah if you didn't have to convince the pets that they need to stay all the time the time taken would be less. I'd lose a tier 2, 2-3 times during the whole thing.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.