Terrible Twos

Back in the day we had the MAN challenge, where we rolled characters who were "normal" people and only chose abilities from the Power Pools, with various limitations set by different MAN factions.

Which led me to wonder back then if it would be possible to roll a character who stops leveling at 2 and play the game from there without ever choosing another power. Temp powers would be permissible on "Easy" mode, disallowed on "Hard" mode. I recently received the 54 month Vet reward, which grants you a second bonus power and temp powers would make it easier, as well.

One of the most serious stumbling blocks was always the issue of Hazard Zones, because it was impossible to play the game without going into one or another. However, now that we can drop missions and Hazard Zones are no longer gated content, I'm wondering if rolling a "Terrible Two" character might actually be doable.

What do you guys think? Is there an AT and/or powerset combination which would offer the most survivability if you stopped training up at level 2? I kind of think a Scrapper with a damaging aura (Dark, Fire) might be best.

Mastermind redside but you couldn't pay me to try something like this.

Mind/Kin Controller springs to mind as being fairly survivable and damaging for a level 2

I took an elec/elec blaster to level 25(ish) without training him. Every time I logged in I would start with him and fight a dozen or so mobs (street sweeping) then switch to another character. I didn’t use contacts so I didn’t need to go to a hazard zones.

It took me about three years. I might still have him around somewhere. I don’t remember ever training him.

I seem to remember someone doing this back in the day, calling it project "Forever Young". If I remember the story right, they got fairly high in level, but were politely asked by the GMs to level the character because they kept getting petitions because they were soloing level X enemies as a "level 1".

Still, I love to see projects like this. I say go for it.

I went from 1 - 50 without powerlevellin ONCE!

Someone already did this, there was the mighty TURTLE MAN! who was a bit slow and didn't realise there were trainers. I think the guy on the EU forums got him up to level 32 before giving up.

Now that you mention it, I do recall someone playing a character they never leveled up. My original rationale for a Terrible Two was just to make that hardcore playstyle a bit easier by training to level 2 in order to get Rest.

Smiling_Joe has a good point about */Kin Controller with a Damage boost from Siphon Power, since I'm pretty sure it also boosts the bonus powers.

Even better than Kinetics, I'd go Brute if I were going to do this. Once you get to high Fury, having your powers largely unslotted is far less of a problem than it is for most other ATs.

An ice/fire blaster might do reasonably well; the slowing abilities of cold and the hefty damage in the fire immobilize would make for reasonable damage and a decent leveling speed.

No other AT can touch a blaster's ability to handle mez at level 2, and blasters have both good damage and decent base hit points.

I have a level pacted toon still in in outbreak that's now level 33. It wont leave till it's level 50.

I once saw a blaster, Ice/Ice. She was level 50, with Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Chilblain. And she worked her *** off to get there. I was duly impressed.