Better/More Fun/AV-killer

So I have a couple of 50's under my belt now....

I'm looking to try something I haven't done yet, tackle an AV solo. I'm all about concept (going for the Samurai concept) and I want to try Dual Blades...something that seems to escape me for some reason. I was thinking of pairing it with WP. So I have a couple of questions for those who have some experience with both this combo and with soloing an AV.

1.) I like running a Tank. I like the survivability of a Tank. Can a DB Tank solo an AV, or would a Scrapper be MUCH better at it? Would I have more fun leveling a Scrapper up to 50 to get to the point where I can solo the AV? I have very little experience with Scrappers (only have 2 that got up to lvl 35 so far).

2.) If the answer to #1 is a Scrapper, can WP survive soloing an AV? Or is there a better secondary for the job? I've seen the Shred Monkey vids (which are awesome btw), so I know the SR would be a good choice as well...it's just getting to the 40's that would be a PITA!

3.) I'm looking to spend no more than a couple hundred million on this build if at all possible

SR would generally be a better secondary for soloing AVs. Also DB is less than optimal because of the lolethal damage, which means you'll be at a very significant disadvantage compared to say, a Fire/ or Dark/ melee toon

Have you totally ruled out a mastermind?

Generally, Scrappers that can kill AV's are at the bleeding edge of performance. They do just barely more damage than the AV regenerates, resulting in fights that go 10, 20 minutes... I think someone on the Scrapper forums has a video of a fight that went three hours. The AV lost. However, Scrappers who solo AV's tend to play by rigorous self-inflicted rules. "No shivans or other temp powers" is sort of the baseline, with serious soloers going to "No inspirations".

It is very difficult to build such a scrapper if you start with concept and then try to build for AV killing.

However, you can use both Katana and Dual Blades to solo AV's- Werner, expert on the topic, started out with Dual Blades/SR I believe. (My only AV soloing experience is a Ninja/Ninja Stalker who got Countess Crey and, so far, failed on Lilitu and Positron. On the other hand, that was at level 43, so I had no purples; I consider this a respectable start.)

I don't know if any Tanks have soloed AV's- it would seem to me that it would be considerably harder, because Tanks are giving away 20% of their DPS(and DPE) right off the bat. Still, someone has probably done it. Heck, a BLASTER soloed Lord Nemesis and that's a pretty impressive acheivement.

Building an AV soloer is a pretty technical achievement -at least in the melee classes. There are Ill/Rad controllers who just wake up one morning and decide to take out the entire Praetorian community, I'm sure, but scrappers and such have to work at it.

It may be possible on a tanker, but would be quite difficult with the lower DPS than Scrappers. Its easier to make a Scrapper with enough survivability than it is to make a Tanker with enough DPS.

A WP Scrapper can indeed solo AV's, but it will cost you much more than the couple hundred million max goal you have set.

With that goal in mind, I would suggest a Fire Melee / Super Reflexes Scrapper with Aid Self in the build. You can easily softcap /SR and with Aid Self can heal back the damage when you get hit, and you will get hit occasionally. I suggest Fire because you can get very high DPS attack chains with little recharge requirements (High recharge gets quite expensive).

With that said, this post only reflects Hero melee characters, as there are other Archtypes that can do the job as good or better.

If you are doing on the cheap and want dual blades, try db/sr.

DB Tank probably won't be soloing AVs at that budget. You could possibly build a Shield/DM or Shield/SS that could do it though.

I'd say an MM (hell, I'm biased )
Or maybe a god-slotted Rad/Rad Corr. Or maybe Something/Rad. Or /Dark, I guess, but I've only ever tried Rad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Dark/Elec Brute. Screw IOs and tactics. Just find an AV who does primarily energy damage and you win.

Thanks for all the advice. I may have to re-think this.

Standard disclaimer : no insps, no temps. With insps and temps, any combo in any AT can solo most AVs.

DB/WP scrappers can most definitely solo AVs on a 200 mill budget, provided you're willing to let your bids sit for days/weeks. I can't guarantee the success rate will be satisfying, though.

WP/DB tankers would have a hard time soloing an AV. On paper, it's theorically possible against the few AVs without S/L resistances, heals or tier9s, but as you'd be barely above their regen rate it'd be incredibly slow.

So I'm looking round the boards & this thread, a few things pop into my head:

I can solo AV's no problem on my DM/SR/BM perma-hasten scrapper, I can solo AV's fine on my DM/SD/BM scrapper just as well, some times quicker if I can keep AAO fodder alive.
What I want to know is if I put the same base slotting into a brute, would I be able to defeate the same AVs faster with the brute?


As for the original question, my 1st AV soloing build with the DM/SR/BM scrapper was in the 200-250mil budget, but that was back before AE farming etc and the markets went mad. I'm pretty sure I could re-create a similar softcap decent recharge build for about the same budget.
As for tanks, It may be possible to solo AVs with some builds, but you'll be looking at a huge fight time.

Make a Fire/SR or DM/SR scrapper... get the generic attack chain (fire doesnt really have a "common" chain, pretty much anything will work) that doesnt require any rech. Then spend a bit to softcap your postional defenses. You can do that for like 50mil.

Just a QR - I already have a fire/reflex toon with a concept I enjoy. (may reroll as fire/will with an eye toward blaze but that's either here nor there) If I didn't, I'd be rolling a magical samurai guy with all three fire sword strikes planned in right this minute.

Maybe not your cup of tea O swift-foot, but certainly a valid concept.

Would the Sonic/Rad/Mu corrupt be a better AV/GM soloer than the Defender version? I was thinking because of scourge it would be better, but I'm not so sure what Defender builds bring to the table.

Not really, in practice a Corruptor does a lot more damage than a Defender, even before Scourge kicks in.

I was considering the debuffs from Sonic Blast as well in that. Defenders get slightly better numbers, unless I am remembering wrong. Slightly more -res would, in theory, close the gap a little bit. But once scourge kicks in the corruptor would leap ahead.

Any other set than sonic the corruptor would be the clear winner (especially fire, since, well, defenders don't have it). Just saying that with sonic blast specifically the difference shouldn't be that huge until the corruptor starts scourging.

I didn't say the defender would ever do more damage than the corruptor, just that with that particular combo the gap isn't as large as some other combos.

My vote goes for FM/WP Scrapper. You can get a good attack chain out of fire melee without too much recharge, and willpower is a solid set that you also don't have to invest much influence in.