Ideal Leveling Team

Every now and then I wonder what the best possible team make-up is for general game play. So, in your opinion, what's the best 8 hero/villian team possible? To narrow the focus, here are some guidelines:

Team plays together from lvl 1-40
Runs all apropriate TF in their level ranges
Completes radio/paper missions as well as tips
No AE content

Team should efficiently and quickly handle all these challenges at the highest difficulty to maximize leveling speed while moving through content.

I like:
2 Brutes: Stone/Dark- big hitters, layered defense, early aggro auras, mag 4 AoE perma stun on each
6 corruptors: 4 Fire/Rads- great damage, heals, all Rads greatness vs AVs, and stacked AM means no recharge or end problems ever, even for hungry Stone/Darks; 2 Ice/Sonics- stacked shields should minimize incoming damage, sonic powers lower dam res, and Ice has two holds to provide a little more control

Only issue for this crew is only one real form of control- stuns. the holds in Ice are single target. But enemies should be melting so fast it shouldn't really be a problem.

I played on an all-Corr levelling team, with 2 Fire/Rads and 2 Fire/Kins. We'd invite other players who were looking for a team, and whenever we had a brute join us they spent most of their time running frantically ahead of the team trying to find something -- anything -- to kill before we melted the mobs. If we were anywhere nearby, it was bye-bye fury.

8 Fire/Rad Trollers. This has been done with superteams many times in the past.

Speaking as someone who tripleboxes, I have pondered this and put it to use more than once since I am usually 1/2 the team myself, nearly all of the time (I don't often go to 8 except for TFs).

ANY SETUP with a good bubble defender and lots of damage dealers will feel amazing. Unfortunately, bubblers are rare individuals these days. I used to love making a bubbler + 2x Fire/Fire blaster setup. But on top of those, I usually needed a KIN for endurance & heals to keep things topped off. It works great, but a combo of toons that can self buff is more efficient over the long run in terms of play time versus team building/rebuilding time.]

My current setup is 3x Fire/Rad Corruptors. It is by FAR the most damaging and destructive pile of characters I have had -- in and of themselves (i.e. not requiring others for boosts). I typically pair them up with a MELEEr (brute/scrapper/tanker -- doesn't really matter), let that meleer take point (i.e. initial aggro), and then I melt everything in sight with my ridiculously amped up characters.

FYI: 3x Fire/Rad Corrs give the WHOLE team 3x Accelerated Metabolism, which is 60% damage boost ALL THE TIME, nearly limitless endurance, greatly boosted travel speed, etc. On top of that, I have a smattering of leadership powers on all 3 characters to further improve the boostage. ALSO, with the right epic pool, I effectively have two more dmg boosting powers (for that character only) -- so I can easily do 2x+ damage on my initial attack anytime I like.

3x Fire/Rad Corrs ALSO give you 3x RAD debuffs. Very little can stand up to 3x EF+ 3x RI+ spammed Lingering Rad + 3x Fire Rain (LR and Fire Rain are movement slows which are fantastic at managing enemy numbers). Add to all that 3x the /Rad HEAL, which when fully slotted up and spammed as needed is a fantastic filler upper when the team is in a phalanx setup.

Anyway, that's just me.... I've played the triple KINtroller setup, but it is not as powerful as the Fire/Rad Corr setup. It MAY have that potential, but requires a lot more work vis-a-vis Fulcrum Shift and the like -- 3x AM with the fire/rads is better, IMO, and the enemies melt away so fast any additional damage boost you may have had from a large MOB with FS is meaningless... PLUS, in the BIG BOSS battles (i.e. ArchVillains), where there is only one enemy to FS versus, 3xAM is a far better deal.

That said, we're talking about super powered setups regardless of whether the boosters are RADs or KINs. They're just different shades of awesomeness. Make what you enjoy.

FUNWISE, I like a lot of splashy action going on... i.e. a lot of ranged powers of different types being thrown all over the place... that usually means a limited # of meleers, but that's just incidental.

5 to 8 players who know what they are doing.

I don't know why people get so jazzed up by 'control'. When I play only my 3x Fire/Rad Corrs with a single meleer... everything just plain dies. Dead = best control, imo. Way WAY back (I'm talking i1, i2), controllers really could control like crazy. Now, they just handle some minions, who, with proper AoE attacks, die in the first few seconds anyway.

8 F/Rads is the answer, but might I put forth 8 VEATs? The team buffing toggles make you invulnerable. 95% accurate against anything, 16 applications of Assault for a total of... +240% damage. That's before build-up or any other damage buffs. 8 stacks of Soldiers TT: Maneuvers and regular Maneuvers would provide about 160% defense. Soldiers using pet powers would provide a ton of little killer robots to help out.

F/Rad team is just as tough and does a lot more damage but 8 VEATs would probably be the next best thing. 8 defenders or controllers of practically any combination is an unstoppable force either way.

I've been on one of those Fire/Rad controller superteams. They are great fun, but I'm not certain they are the answer. Two reasons: ST damage is very anemic-especially while leveling; and they are vulnerable to catastrophic failure- this requires more skill on player part.

Their survivability went way up when one bubbler was subbed in. All those layered controls are superfluous, a case of subraction by addition. Fire corruptors add more damage.

When I thought about it more, the Ice/Sonic corr could be just as easily replaced by ?/sonic controllers, adding the same buffs/debuffs, while providing more control. Fire is the likely winner here.

So:
2 Stone/Dark Brutes
4 Fire/Rad Corruptors
2 Fire/Sonic Controllers

Less likely to fail when zerging or when team gets spread out for a moment. The +190 global recharge is past the point of excessively diminished returns, making it more than adequate. Greatly improved single target damage while maintaing ultra high levels of AoE. Rediculous enough recovery so that End never runs out. -22.5% Dam Res on each brute needing no recast.

It seemed to me that 8 fire/Rad trollers was too much of a good thing, and not enough of other really neat stuff.

Put one Force Field Defender and one Kinetic Defender on any low to mid level team and the other 6 slots no longer matter. Force Field takes a huge beating on the boards for its end game performance, but during the middle leg of the game it is unstoppable. Slotted correctly, almost nothing can touch your team, and with the Kin there to crank recharge and damage, you can roll over anything. (The one enemy group that may be an exception are mid level Circle of Thorns, but even this has work arounds.)

The reason I prefer this set up to others is it means the other 6 people get to play whatever they actually enjoy, which will almost always mean better performance than the alledged "ideal" set up.

Don't know about THE ideal team but it was extremely powerful ... potent enough to zerg the 4 patrons in a Master STF run and hardly blink.

3 Emps (2 emp/rads, 1 emp/sonic)
1 Mind/emp
1 sonic/sonic
1 cold/arch
1 ff/arch
1 fire/kin
>>> equals 2000%+ regen, enough end for anything you might want, capped defense (all), massive to hit, capped damage, sleeps, cages, capped resists, massive resist debuffs, regen debuffs etc. etc..

Still, as I recall, it took 7 Fire/Rads about 3 minutes and 16 seconds to chew up the 4 STF patrons in the Time Force II competition. (The usual 8th Fire/Rad was replaced by a Time Force II observer/judge)

Edit: Just to point out that while I didn't specifically mention it the 8 AT's/power sets of the Master STF team would be very potent while leveling not just at the end game. Team would be crazy good by the low teens and just get nastier rather steadily till by level 32+ almost boringly mowing anything down that got in the way .

I find there's many combos that allow you to steamroll through the normal game, and there's a point at which there's so much overkill damage even on +4/x8 you're better off splitting to raise overall speed. With that in mind (and the requirements in the OP ; i.e., if we were talking about level 35+ I'd pick all colds and no storm, but starting from level 1 and having level 40 as the goal, I prefer stormies as freezing rain is big), I'd go with 2 fire/shield brute, 2 fire/kin, fire/storm and fire/cold corruptors, and split them in 2 individual teams of 4 within the same mission.

The Achilles heel of F/Rad teams has always been mezzing. IIRC, Top Doc's last iteration (at least that I heard of) included a F/FF.

FWIW, I think Traps is a stronger set than FF if everyone's already running Maneuvers. Same mez protection as FF, but with other goodies -- and, yes, I know that Traps isn't available to 'trollers so you'd need a defender, corruptor, or MM along.

And one last thing ...

Once you're up into the stratosphere of (de)buffing goodness, toons without significant (de)buffs tend to be a net overall drain on team performance.

7 Fire/Rad + 1 Fire/Son. We did the corr version of this on Freedom a few years back (actually 2 Fire/Son so everyone got Clarity), but would work even better w/controllers. As for ST damage for hard targets that someone mentioned, Fire/Rads can solo pylons in just over 4 min (at least I never broke 4 min, others may have). Imagine what 8 of them can do.

Super teams aside, I'm duoing w/a friend--started on redside, but migrated blue--w/my SS/SD brute and his Son/Kin corr. Occasionally, we're joined by another friend playing his Crab. AAO + Rage + Fulcrum Shift + FS + SC + -res + recharge + infinite end + heals + overcapped defenses (w/the crab, mere def cap w/o)... is more or less unstoppable running x8 missions. Not too fast til 32 and Foot Stomp, but after FS & SC... insanity.

Any mix of an all Corruptor team.

Did an all Corr ITF and and we flew thru it.

2 x fire/kin
2 x fire/dark
2 x son/rad
2 x ice/anything

You get the AoE terror of 4 Fire corrs, the -res of sonic, the awesomeness of 2 Tarpatch Blizzards with 4 Rains of fire.

Seriously nothing can touch this team.

Edit: I would make the Ice/Traps and now it is unbeatable.

8 Elec/SD Scrappers running Assault and Grant Cover.

I doubt it's the best, but it would be the most amusing to see in action.