What Archtype to make?

Trying to work out what archtype that I should play. I'm just coming back to CoH/V after a long while away. I want something that is fun, interesting and is fairly powerful and has good synergy. Something that can solo very nicely would be great as well. To be able to solo the hardest things I can manage. But also be useful on teams.

Difficulty of investing in various IOs or such or expense does not bother me at all. And if it requires skill that is fine, if it doesn't that is fine as well. It would be nice if it is not extremely slow to start but that could be lived with as well.

Presently I am leaning toward either a Robots/Traps mastermind or a Illusion/Rad controller. Are there any others that could do what I want fairly well? Quite curious what others think in regards to this.

- Sloshed

Well Scrapper and Brutes both tend to solo well, and work well on teams.

Masterminds solo well and are nice on teams although some people complain if you don't handle your pets well. And or course Ill/Rad Controllers

Those are probably the top ATs for doing the absolutely hardest things (soloing AV, soloing Pylons etc.)

Just coming back? Make a Brute.

Can a Brute and Scrapper solo AVs and the Big Monsters as well?

Having a hard time figuring out what would be best.

Also...

I'll second making a Brute. That or a Scrapper.

Since you're new, you might wanna try out Shield Defense. Once you get Shield Charge at 35, it will become your favorite AoE power evar.

I don't think anything solos AVs better out of the box than MMs. If that's your criteria then you may want to look at a Thugs/Dark or something.

Speaking from experience as an owner of a 50 Thugs/Dark myself.

I would say eather an MM, Scraper, or Brute. MM's can farm with almost no effort a Robots/Traps will make getting the millions of Inf for good IO's easier.

Shield is a good defense set, easy to softcap to melee (45%). Now with the nerf of Bless of the Zephyr, it is a tad bit harder to soft cap Range/AoE defense.

Shield goes well with other sets, such as Electric Melee. Although Shield is also Endurance Heavy. The drainage from ELM will help with that Also, the fact that you will have many AoEs it does have nice synergy.

So, I'd say Brute or Scrapper

- Then again that takes work, and as said above : A MM can solo quite easily.

Anyways, Welcome Back To CoH/V !!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavicle CoH players are stupid and incompetent compared to WoW players.

How do Thugs/Dark compare to Bots/Dark and Bots/Traps?

Wanting something that can handle AVs the best solo. And big monsters too.

If you want to solo hard enemies with minimal investment, make a Bots / Traps Mastermind. They can solo almost anything in the game with a high end build, but more importantly they can solo quite a few AVs and possibly some GMs with a very cheap build. I've never seen any other combination that can match Bots/Traps without investing a lot of inf in IOs and even then the only real difference is some others can do it a bit faster.

Heroside, Ill/Rad Controllers can solo anything once you spend a few billion inf, but it does take multiple billions to get perma-PA. Rad/Sonic Defenders can do similar things, though it's a bit riskier.

Some Scrappers and Brutes can solo AVs rather easily, but they can not solo giant monsters. Nobody can do enough damage solo to kill a GM without debuffs because they heal too fast... you have to have strong regeneration debuffs to do it, and Brutes and Scrappers lack those.

Bots traps requires skill? Roll a Nin MM with a secondary you can stack holds. You become a mini controller with you and your Oni.

Ill/Rad can be very powerful once it matures, it's very good against single hard targets and less effective against large numbers due to limited AOE controls. My Ill/Rad is 50 now with a Perma-Phantom Army build and is quite capable of soloing many AV's... it does take a bit of time though and I've found spending 10+ minutes pounding on an AV isn't worth the trouble. If you want to solo single hard targets though it's hard to do better than Ill/Rad. Perma-PA is very expensive however... my build came in close to a billion a few months back and prices have risen in the market since. Still, it's very effective even on SO enhancements; just not at the uber AV killer level.

I also have a Broadsword/Shield scrapper at 50; soft capped to all positions. It's a considerably cheaper build than the Ill/Rad (comparatively speaking of course; defense is cheaper to find than 206% recharge) and is capable of massive damage output and tanker level durability. Shield Charge, with fully saturated Against All Odds (the damage buff aura) and Build Up deals over 700 damage to +2 mobs, easily killing all minions and LT's in a spawn. It's up every 60 seconds too and has no end crash. Look at it as a blaster nuke on a shorter timer without the crash and you're not far off.

As far as which is best that's a very loaded question... clearing maps quickly? Take the scrapper. Killing AV's? The Ill/Rad is better here. Both are highly survivable... but they require vastly different tactics and playstyle.

I can say with confidence that Bots/Traps is an absolute beast at taking down AVs. The only thing it is missing is some kind of endurance recovery and a real heal. But I still managed just fine with Aid Self and going Staminaless. I took down my first AV, Barracuda, in the 20s. Calystix proved to be too much for me at that level, though.

Bots / Traps can go the "tankermind" route or just stack tons of defense on the pets and let them take the aggro. I'd suggest using the pet defense aura IO and Maneuvers plus slotting some sets with ranged defense... that way your pets will be pretty much softcapped (except the Protectors) and you'll also be near the soft cap, which lets you command the pets to attack specific targets in normal groups (fastest way to kill them) and then take the aggro yourself on AVs since those can pretty much kill a pet in one hit. The key to fighting AVs (at least for me) is to immobilize them (stacked Web Grenades) and keep the bots parked out of AoE splash range while you stand there and taunt. If you do it right, you can have the bots on one side of your Triage Beacon while you stand on the other side and taunt. The bots will only take Bodyguard damage (Defensive Goto and Stay modes do count for Bodyguard) and the Beacon and Protector Bot heals will keep them full. Plus keeping the AV immobilized really boosts damage since your Assault Bot has missiles that drop burn patches. Just be sure to run in and drop a Poison Trap at the AV's feet whenever it recharges and keep the Acid Mortars up and you'll have plenty of debuffs to speed up the fight, though any solo AV kill is going to take a while. Some of them also tend to have annoying tricks that force you to change strategies, like Silver Mantis and her super-caltrops or Lord Recluse and his "summon every Bane Spider in the Rogue Isles" power.

As for things a perma-PA Ill/Rad can take that Bots/Traps can't, I'm not sure. A well played Ill/Rad with a top-end build can solo literally every enemy in the game other than Hamidon, Trials with time limits, and possibly the Statesman Task Force (though I wouldn't bet too much on that last one). However, they don't do it quickly... a guy soloed Lusca on one but it took something like five hours. Bots / Traps MMs will probably kill things faster, but they are only very tough while perma-PA Ill/Rads are literally unkillable since all the aggro is taken by indestructible pets. We won't know for sure if a Bots / Traps can defeat everything an Ill / Rad can until after Going Rogue since that's the first time they'll be able to fight the same enemies.

As for Shield Scrappers and Brutes, a SS / Shield Brute should be far better than a BS / Shield Scrapper at clearing large spawns. Broadsword has little AoE so whatever survives the initial Shield Charge will mostly be fought with single target attacks, whereas SS has Foot Stomp and Rage to pile on more AoE goodness and still has significant single target damage for bosses. Electric / Shield would probably be a better Scrapper build for large groups, since it has massive AoE damage.

Note that [certain] Controllers solo AV's because it's easy. Scrappers solo AV's because it's very hard.