Tips on making a good AV?

hi all!

does anyone have any good tips on making cool and challenging AVs?

any sets really shine? any sets to avoid? how to avoid making them too easy/hard?

thanks!

It isn't so much what sets to avoid anymore, it's what powers to avoid. Build Up, Aim, Rage cause AVs to hit VERY VERY HARD, even scaled down to EBs. Auto-hit end drains are just annoying. A defensive or debuffing secondary cranked up makes for a tedious fight.

You should use sets that are thematically appropriate for your AV's character and background. As for making them too easy or too hard, you will have to test them. Keep in mind that many players solo AE and will encounter your AV as an EB, while a well-put together team will just steamroll any AV you make unless it's stupidly insanely hard.

Total Focus also hits extremely hard, I've found (hard enough to almost one-shot a Tanker), so that's a good one to avoid. A lot of the Nova-style Blaster tier 9 attacks can be pretty devestating too - one AE arc I played had an AV using one, and it killed 2 members of the team outright and reduced the rest to almost nothing right at the begining of the fight.

I personally enjoy Mastermind AVs, and AVs with a self rez power can be interesting if not over-done, as long as you consider the fact that they aren't very well supported in MA (on-death text will be repeated, mission objectives involving them will complete after the first death, even if they rez etc).

Oh yeah, nukes. Custom Critters don't always wait until they're at 1/4 health to use them like dev-created critters do. Same deal with tier 9s like Unstoppable. Make sure you test repeatedly if you want an AV to activate a tier 9 when their health gets low. Instant Healing is right out, since you might as well not bother attacking for the first two minutes of the fight. Rise to the Challenge is also bad, as it makes MMs with melee pets worse than useless.

Heavy-hitters like Total Focus, Headsplitter, and the like should probably be reserved for high-level (40+) arcs, as should nukes and tier 9s, if you choose a set with a tier 9 that works properly and decide to include it.

thanks for the tips, all! this is great stuff to know.

how do Super Reflexes and Energy Aura hold up in the hands of an AV? workable or useless?

Will an AV be too easy if I go with a set like, say, Poison instead of a Defensive set?

and, correct me if i'm wrong, but we still have to pick sets, right? i can't, say, mix a little from poison, spines, energy melee, etc., right?

Anything one should avoid with a Fire Melee/Fire Armor AV? As annoying as defensive sets are, it's a huge walking suit of armor so it'd be somewhat jarring if it were squishy. Humorously enough, the lack of KB protection makes it look like you can tip it over due to its own weight.
I've removed the obvious Build Up and Fiery Embrace.

Also, on a related note - attack chains. Said Fire Melee AV currently cycles attacks almost without pause. Would it be a good idea to, for example, remove the non-sword attacks (or the sword ones, haven't decided yet) to slow down its attack frequency?

I'm not trying to go for 'easy', I'm trying to go for 'not frustrating as hell'.

Fire Armor AVs are innately frustrating as hell to anyone who relies on fire damage, since they have insanely high fire resistance (something like 90%). The lack of KB protection is irrelevant since AVs bring their own.

Fire melee is going to hurt, no matter what you do. Fire is designed to hurt. For a lower level AV you might want to slow down its attack chain, but high level dev-created AVs pretty much keep attacking.

As a rule of thumb I lean away from armor sets on an AV. They are already bags of HP. Giving them even more protection just makes the battle stretch that much longer and don't really add much interest.

The Control sets are also a mostly-avoid. Ice Control and Earth Control (and Cold Domination) have massive debuffs that will make the fight very frustrating. Mind Control bypasses positional defense completely, and will make your Force Fielder worthless. Force Field itself on an AV is just evil.

Other powers that can be problematic:
- Regeneration Aura, for reasons that should be apparent
- Any Confusion power
- Repel/Repulsion Field and any other knockback toggle, which can actually make the fight impossible for some characters
- Choking Cloud
- Personal Force Field/Hibernate/Phase Shift, which just make the fight annoying instead of challenging
- Shield Charge and other hard hitting ranged AoEs in general (choose cones over radial AoEs if you must include them so that teams can at least hope to keep the AV attacking the tank)
- Phalanx Fighting and anything else that grants bonuses based on the number of enemies surrounding the AV, which simply penalizes melee and pet heavy teams
- Fast recharging heal powers
- Dimension Shift/Black Hole (if these powers are even available)

If you want some of these kinds of effects but dont want to make them OP'ed, a suitable alternative is to have the AV summon waves of weaker enemies to help him. That way the powers are part of the fight but the enemies can be disabled/defeated.

My personal takes on AV's:

First remember that the rank carries with it massive inherent damage, HP, and resistance modifiers.

My taboos:
Buildup of any sort.

Resurrects. You beat them once, fair enough. Twice? no dice.

Masterminds sets. Mastermind foes are the 'weak point, so taking them out takes out their summons. An extra tough summoner is punishing and not rewarding according to the trouble.

Endurance drains. These are long fights, being unable to use powers is no fun.

Debilitating/long term debuffs. Light ones maybe, but thing like melt armor, heat exhaustion, weaken, lingering radiation, or benumb? Please don't.

Also be careful about debilitating controls that leave the player vulnerable, as that can lead to frustration. AV's can pose a long, hard fight, so being killed by a tough for that keeps you from fighting back is not fun.

When making an AV, I tend to look to archetype balance for inspiration. I you wish your AV to have controls, make sure they have low damage. High resistance? parse out the high-tier attacks. High damage? lower the resistance.

On a side note, I've found what I might term the 'better' AV: Elite bosses, with more complete powersets. That way the purple triangles are replaced with armors or other mitigating effects: These are very tough fights, but are tough because of the bosses' abilities, not the overwhelming stats AV's provide. Just make sure people know what to expect: few players are used to enemies that pull some of the hijinks that player powersets provide.

I too prefer custom EB's as opposed to custom AV's.

As an EB you can showcase most or all of the sets abilities without making the encounter broken. You can give them much more powerful abilities and the fact that the fight should end much quicker makes that more acceptable. IMO at least.

If you're going to use a Control Set I recommend sticking to the AoE ones over the single-target. Single-target controls have short timers and high accuracy, so the critter can stack them like crazy on you. The AoE's however have long recharges and rather crappy accuracy, so there is a better chance of you avoiding the power plus it is not as likely to be used multiple times during the battle.