Hate soloing: perma-held, prema-stunned, perma-dead

I started playing my 45 fire/kin after a long break. What defenses do I have against being held and stunned? As soon as I get in a block of ice, stunned, etc. I am dead in seconds. I don't mind a challenge and I am not a farmer by any means - just want to run normal missions. But - well, this is not fun.

I have my difficulty slider at -1 and myself set to 2 heroes. I have Weave, Maneuvers, and Combat Jumping. All level 25 IO enhancements (have not upgraded in a long while). I try to identify the 'controller' mob and Char him first but it seems like there are multiple mobs that can freeze, stun, or overall mess me up.

As a fire/kin once I can't move and lose my toggles, well....

Any advice? Otherwise I seriously do not think I want to play the character. To be honest, I got from 1 - 45 almost entirely teaming in the Mission Arch. I love teaming but I'm having trouble finding them so I am soloing more. Another fix would be to help me find teams

I tried joining some of the Virtue LFG channels but they're full and the /broadcast is hit or miss at best. I miss the days of walking into the Mission Arch building in Atlas and forming a team in seconds...ah, the salad days.

Thanks for any help!

Flashfire is your key control power.

AOE stun, hits up to 15 (IIRC).

Stun, then immoblise, the in for fulcrum shift and hot feet. Onto next group

With sufficient recharge slotting flashfire should be up almost every group.

Did you pick up Psionic Mastery: Indomitable Will for your Epic? It's your anti-mez armor.

The other keys are picking & choosing the enemy groups you fight solo (ie, avoiding the ones with lots of mezzers - knowing is half the battle, after all , and to carry Break Frees (there is no shame in using inspirations to make up for your build's weaknesses!).

Try the following channels: Virtue TFs 2010, Virtue United, Virtue TFs, Virtue and Virtue Forever United.

No clue which are full the last one probably isn't.

All of the above advice is good (recharge, pick your mob type and Indom Will especially). I found x 4 was better on my fire kin because I got more bang for my Fulcrum buck.

You might want to get better Enhancements on that character, too. At level 45 you should be using level 45 Common IOs at a minimum. They have a big enhancement advantage over level 25 Commons.

WARNING: I bold names.

VU2011 is the new VirtueUnited channel, you can always look for team in there. Also, Acrobatics gives some protection against holds.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds mezzes extraordinarily un-fun.

Thanks all! Awesome advice across the board.

There are also Procs you can slot to help out. Aegis +Psionic and Mez resistance is a good one. There are a few KB reducers too. I tend to keep those procs on most of my characters in some kind of dummy power like Combat Jumping or the likes.

there are various things to do, most of which have been suggested already, but the big thing to emphasize over and over again is Mez Them Before They Mez You!


MTBTMY!

1) I didn't see any mention of Fire Imps. I know, they're uncontrollable little darlings with no attention span and an insatiable love of spillover aggro. But they also take the hits for you and work quite well. They are, more or less, the POINT of Fire/Kins.

2) Level 45 is a heck of a time to learn to play your Fire/Kin. You might want to go to Ouroboros and do a couple arcs at level 20, couple arcs at level 25, and so forth so you work your way up the ladder and learn to deal with the tougher critters and the new powers as they come.

I've found a couple of helpful things in playing my Ill/Emp controller who I seem to solo with a lot more than I ever intended:

1) Know your enemy: Hold/Confuse/stun the mezzers. Focus any attacks that you have control over on the mezzers first.
2) Watch your Insp tray: If you see triples of something that isn't a heal or def buff convert it to a break free.

Here is what I've found..
I too have quit playing for a couple of years and just started backup. I had several toons completely geared out with HOs (Hami Origin). Stun and Sleep city when playing any of the newer content such as the newer 50 TFs or AE missions.

I found myself being hunted down like a dog with my ill/kin controller while invisible, to the point where everyone on the team thought it was funny and later just sad ( I died like 7-8 times in one mission) . Maybe it was me SB & ID everyone on the team, I think part of it has to do with the aggro limit on tanks. The tank actually aggro stuff but since there is a limit they aren't able to attack the tank so they take it out on anyone else on the team. This seems the newbie or lowest buff protected player first.

The characters that I've filled out with IOs don't seem to suffer this problem anymore. I can't say what part of the IOs sets helped or why the IOs sets helped. I tended to go for IOs sets that gave the buffs I thought were good like +accuracy or +regen and my stone tank went for +run but not all powers sets have these buffs.

It still cheeses me to no end when my invisible controller is the first to die.

The excessive amount of CC/status effects in CoX is still one of the big things that plagues it. It is this flaw that causes such a huge percentage of people to play scrappers and brutes when they'd love to play more blasters and other ATs.

It is also why the -KB IOs are so incredibly popular. If there were -stun, -hold, etc. IOs you'd see people flock to them as well. I'd happily sacrifice slots to be able to have even so-so mez protection.

I completely miss out on a huge percentage of the game (about 2/3rds of the ATs) because having to suffer status effects/CC is so miserable. I'd love to play more blasters, a dominator, mastermind, defenders, another corruptor, and some controllers, but I just can't make myself do it. Playing those ATs means any time I am soloing it is absolutely miserable, and even in groups it can be a pain.

That's one of my personal rants I've had about the game since the beginning. Way too much CC.

I cannot thank you guys enough. Following your advice, here is what I did:

- Upgraded all 25 IOs to 45 IOs (cost about 15 mil)
- Repeced with more recharges in Flashfire so I can lead with it every fight
- Kept Tough and Weave each 3 slotted with Def/Res IOs
- Switched to the psi epic for the mezz protection and the psi armor
- Started popping Def insp before fights
- Started tracking who mezz'd and who I need to lock down better

Now it is much, much more fun. I love the action of the fire/kin - I am always on the edge of my seat. I can't just stand there and melt them - I need to be on top of Transfusion, my Siphons, etc. to stay ahead of the fight - not to catch up after it goes down hill.

The end result is I was able to set my diff to +1 and say I am equal to 3 heroes and have fun running missions.

I also joined the suggested Virtue LFG groups. I'll try them tonight now that I am all set again.

Thank you! The right spec and tactics make all the difference in the world