A solo-friendly char

Dear ladies and gents,

Since I am EU based and have weird gaming-hours at times I was wondering which class the most solo-friendly is. I have a level 33 Dark Defender which I will use for grouping but for the times I cannot find groups I would like to have a good solo class. I returned to the game after a year and a half break so I am not really up-to-date.
All tips/pointers are greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Martin

Common wisdom usually suggests Scrappers blueside and Brutes redside, but all ATs have combinations that solo well. (And there's always setting enemies to spawn at -1 your level, if you're OK with that.)

Take it from a father/husband who has very little time and has to get up constantly when he has time, Brutes, Masterminds, and stalkers are perfect for soloing.

I've soloed a Dark/Dark/Dark defender to 50. It was a little slow but very, very safe.

My fastest soloers were either scrappers or certain controllers (Ill/Rad and Ill/Storm). As Laevateinn said, you can find combos that solo well in any AT. Fun is just as important as speed, so my advice is to play around and find something you like.

I'd say Scrappers Blueside and Masterminds Redside.

I team very rarely and basically solo'ed both a Katana/SR Scrap and a Ninjas/Dark MM to 50.

Scrappers have great damage and decent damage mitigation.
Tankers have great damage mitigation, making them durable, but some attack sets are low damage.
Controllers generally have somewhat lower damage, but some sets mesh very well and create unstoppable killing machines, not to mention standard solo mob sizes are small enough that you have plenty of crowd control to be safe.
Defenders are fairly low damage and generally lots of team support. However, defenders CAN solo, it's just slower.
Blasters have EXCELLENT damage and virtually no defenses - the proper term for this is 'glass cannon' - if you kill them fast enough, you're totally safe! If you don't, you're taking a dirt nap.

All of the redside ATs are good at soloing. Brutes are probably the easiest. MMs, if you like being the battle commander, are also very easy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I'm going to go against the flow a bit and suggest a Fire/Ice Blaster. Ice Manipulation offers a comfortable amount of mitigation and Fire Blast tends to kill them quickly (especially if you play at -1/X2-3).

And by playing a Blaster, you can stay a bit farther back from the mobs, for a hasty "withdrawal" if necessary.

Actually, a dark defender is pretty good for soloing. I soloed most of the RWZ arcs on mine, including some where I had to fight two Vanguard bosses (sorcerers) at once, or the two automatons in the shard mission from Dark Watcher (as EB's, not AV's).

Having said that, you'll solo faster with a scrapper or brute. Blasters and corruptors are also very good for soloing since you won't be facing large groups (unless you up your difficulty settings). Just carry some Break Frees, in case you get mezzed.

Literally any Scrapper will solo fine. Some Tankers, Blasters and Controllers should do well also.

Nearly any villain will probably work too, they're all designed to be soloable and self-sufficient. Brutes and Masterminds especially.

I think one of the most important points for soloing is just picking an AT you really enjoy playing. 'Cause you're going to be spending a lot of time alone with them, so if it's something you don't love it's going to be tedious even if it's faster. I levelled up a SS/WP Brute solo (plus the occasional SF) because I really wanted to try the VEATS. It went by pretty quickly, but it wasn't anywhere near as enjoyable as the Fire/MM blaster I've just levelled up the same way. I just find blasters fundamentally more fun.

Especially with the new difficulty settings, it's really easy to tune the settings to get the right level of challenge for any character. You can set the relative level of the enemies from -1 to +4 to your own level, the spawn size, and whether or not bosses spawn. Plus, it's now free to change difficulty settings, so you can tweak between missions at no cost.

Going to have to throw Crabs out as a possible option. Mine is an absolute tank-mage steamroller of destruction.

I don't have a level 50 yet but I intend to have one in the near future :P
Thanks for all the tips ladies and gents; I have always been a fan of pets (hence my dark-dark defender) so I will try a mastermind red side and a brute (never played a melee char before) blue side. It feels rather good to be back from WOW; now all I need to do is convince my stephsons that COH/COV is much nicer than that other game. That won't be a problem though ;-)

One more question regarding dualspecs; at which level can one dualspec and is it costly?

Note that it is free to have a second spec, and it is free to switch between the two specs. There is a 15 minute cooldown between switching. Switching refreshes all cooldowns (including the 2hr cooldown on the Mission Teleporter).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I'd just like to toss the matter of playstyle into the equation. Even if you like certain powers you will have to play each powerset a certain way to succeed at soloing (at least I do).

If you play a scrapper you can pretty much just charge in without planning and bang away. If you play a blaster you will have to plan more, set up the fight, worry about getting mezed, maybe run a lot lol.

So while you might like fire, playing a fire scrapper and a fire blaster are totally different animals.