So... when does a Corruptor actually get fun?

I've always had some problems playing Corruptors, but until recently I played it off to getting an Energy/Thermal to fifty solo-only back before you could drop missions. Recently, though, I've tried them again, having played the other Villain ATs to death.

Nothing has changed. It's still an exercise in frustration that serves no useful purpose. At no point during my attempt to play these characters has the game actually been fun. There is only so long I can tolerate having genuine difficulty with three even-level minions, and being forced to use Demonic against some Lieutenants is almost insulting. I've yet to beat a boss without a Shivan or a fistful of purple inspirations, and Elite Bosses are a lost cause.

Obviously, something is wrong. If this archetype was actually as unplayable as it seems, it wouldn't be played by any sane person. I can't figure out what it is, so I'm hoping someone else here felt similarly until they realised that they were doing something stupid and figured it out.

It shouldn't make a difference, since it felt equally unenjoyable across the board, but my current effort is a Dual Pistol/ Pain Dmination corruptor. Slotted with IOs, at level 26. If there's no reason for the game to be this painful to play he won't make 27.

What difficulty are you playing on? What were you looking for out of the Corrupter? It sounds like you wanted a more survivable blaster, in which case you probably picked the wrong secondary; Pain domination relies on being on a team for the majority of its' powers to reach full effect.

It's hard to know what to say when you don't post a build. Even with a build it could be an issue with playstyle. However, put simply, at level 26 a Corruptor can beat 3 even level minions without any use of the secondary and really without breaking a sweat. Perhaps you are exaggerating to add emphasis but again it's impossible to tell. It seems like your post is more of a rant than anything?

For soloing I would not use the secondary effects of your weapons (ie: no swap ammo). The knockback is pretty darn effective and quite reliable. If you plan on soloing you should be aiming for Suppressive Fire. Open with your stun and then proceed to hit with AOEs. You should immediately put one of your enemies out of it from the stun and be able to knockback another. Keep cycling AOEs (you should have two effective ones by now) and then hit the closest with Executioners Shot. Be prepared to dance around a bit if need be. Really, by the time you hit with executioners shot they should be pretty darn hurt from both AOEs if specced right, and you can just scourge them down.

I can't say I've ever had issues with levelling up corruptors, or any character, especially once I've hit SOs.

^ What Tangler said. Both of those combos are weak-middling on damage and much better on teams than solo.

Try something like a Fire/Dark or Fire/Rad. They're awesome from level 2-4 and stay strong right through.

That said, Fire/Dark and Fire/Rad are somewhat of an exception as Corrs go in how incredibly early they get their core powers. In my experience, most Corrs really get going in their 20s with SOs, their attack powers rounded out and starting to get their main secondary powers.

Thermal, Cold and Pain are on the opposite end of the spectrum to Rad and Dark, getting their offensive powers at 35 and/or 38.

Edit: shameless plug, I've got guides for all the Corr secondaries in my sig if you want to take a look

25 to 30 IOs won't make a noticeable difference, the %s are too marginal. It might be a build or playstyle you are using. I don't see the harm in you asking people you play with and get some tips, because asking on here it is very hard to know what is going wrong.

You are playing sets that are almost exclusively designed for teaming. It is no surprise you are having issues soloing.

If you want to enjoy your Energy/Therm and DP/Pain, play on teams.

If you want to enjoy soloing, play a debuff set, like Rad, Dark, or Traps.

It's the sets you're playing (secondaries in particular). Try something like fire/dark or fire/rad.

Try a thug/pain mm. You can shoot things and use your buffs effectively while solo.

Are you good with Defenders on blueside?

I'd go with what Silas mentioned. Fire/Dark is pretty powerful, especially after lvl 12 when you get rain of fire. My main is a Fire/Dark and he's Duo'd the AV at the end of Ice Mistral's SF, just him and a Stalker. I don't know how you play a corr but they're awesome.

Ice/Dark is a good combo too. Or anything /Traps.

I have a dual pistols / traps (lvl 18) corr, a traps / dual pistols (lvl 40) def, and a 50 IO'ed huntsman / bane for my guns & gadgets toons.

DP / traps is so much better to level than the traps / dp defender. I strongly encourage you to try traps. Not that rad / dark / etc. aren't good, but traps is just so much fun and you feel like a dominator with scourge with it

I've got a level 36 Sonic/Energy defender and I never had the trouble you seem to be having with three even-con minions.

I have two suggestions for playstyle for defenders and corruptors:

1) You need to learn to "juggle" enemies when you have a set like Energy. Defenders and corruptors usually need some kind of mitigating power that unconditionally holds/stuns/knocks back/sleeps, etc. For energy that power is Power Push. It does a great job of taking one enemy out of commission for a long time. Your other powers also have knockback, but it's much less reliable.

For you, hitting the spawn with Energy Torrent is probably your best option. Two of the three will be knocked back on average, and then you can blast the one left standing to smithereens. Apply Power Push to anything that gets near you. Slot for recharge on that.

Another bonus with Power Push is that you can slot four Kinetic Crash IOs in it and get KB -3 very cheaply. This will prevent almost all knockback from minion and LT level mobs.

Your three single-target blasts also have a high chance of KB, and that can help a great deal.

The juggling comes in when you have multiple targets attacking you. You need to switch targets constantly to keep knocking down the ones that get up. If you try to take them out one at a time, scrapper-style, they will hammer you. You need to switch targets frequently and remember what each target is doing, even when you turn your back on them.

It takes a while, but when you've mastered it, you can often keep three mobs at bay and never take a scratch.

2) Use your inspirations often. Whenever you fight a boss or higher, use a couple of purples before starting the fight, and reds during the fight. Don't "save them for later," because you'll always get more and you can combine them if you don't get exactly the ones you want.

Well, everyone's mentioned your secondary power set choices, being more team oriented, no need to rehash.

Like you, I noticed many of my older builds not performing as well as they used too. After a little poking about and questions asking - and this is completely unsubstantiated, I've found nothing official saying this - it is my understanding that the base-line difficulty of missions was increased 'round about when the difficulty structure was changed.

Playing with the setting of -1/x1 seems to bring about (generally) the same style of mobs that were normally spawning before the changes. On most squishy builds/ATs I've had a pretty good success rate with -1/x2.

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...

fire/dark is an epic machine of destruction.

As other said it all depends on set.

My first corruptor was fire/cold. She was very hard to level solo in the beginning, but in time it become much easier (when she got debuffs). On teams... lets just say that I can't do LRSF on any other level 50 because everybody ask for /cold

Can't say much on fire/rad solo, because I have leveled her in team.

I can solo on ice/kin 0/3 without much problem as long as i have bf's. 0/3 is the maximum I ever rise difficulty on alts without sets (just SO's and plain IO's), except MM.

My corrupter that is most painful to level is A/TA, mostly because I am leveling her on all A/TA team, and before oil slick and RoA we did had lot of trouble staying alive. On level 38 now and we are getting better. Funniest of all is that we can take AV's and Elite Bosses without breaking sweat, but minions and lieutenants are to hard for us.

Finally my fire/dark is only level 5, but I think she is going to be fun to play. I have almost 50 Dark/Psi defender and she was fun to play. Her biggest problem solo was endurance, since I love to spam powers.

The same thing goes for defenders. Soloing on empathy/dark was painful, she had troubles killing even level minion, and in time when I were leveling her there weren't -1 setting.

On the opposite side I could solo 0/3 on traps/rad defender without much problem. Since I have sloted her she can solo +1/8 (maybe even higher but I haven't tried that).

And selecting set that suits you is important on any AT. For example I have 2 brutes - Claws/WP were fun to level from the beginning until level 50, but WM/SD to me is painful and although I have made her before other brute she still has long way to go.

The strange thing is that after hitting 27 and adding a handful of damage slots to the single-target powers, everything just seems to work. Certainly, it's not the runaway bus full of freight trains that's a SS/SD Brute, but now I can actually fight bosses without using a Shivan. I haven't changed anythign that could actually explain this, but so long as it does work, I'm not going to ruin it by asking questions.

Energy/Thermal is still incredibly boring, though.