Strong from the start

I'm looking for a character whose strong at soloing from level 1 onward. I've got some cool characters I enjoy playing, but they don't do that well solo I've found and sometimes I don't feel like joining a team. I'm also looking for it to be strong from the start because quite simply, I get distracted or quit when I have to wait too long for key powers. My Controllers never do much because of this, for example.

I'm open to pretty much any Archetype, there's not really anything I dislike playing, having tried it all at least a bit. I have a number of Masterminds (all Ninjas, somehow) and an abundance of high level melee scattered throughout the servers though.

I'd suggest something like a sonic/kin corruptor or a /cold controller.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

You say an abundance of high level melee characters. Does that include Scrappers? If not, I'd say go for that.

Something paired with Willpower would be good at the start and a smooth ride to 50. Perhaps Katana/Broadsword or Dark Melee?

My top picks would be a Mastermind or a Brute.

/Dark for an MM, preferably with ranged pets so they're less likely to run out of range of your heal. I find bots have fairly anaemic damage early on so optimally thugs/ or maybe demons.

As for Brutes... I'd say any. I recently started a Fire/Fire and she's an absolute damage monster - level 10 in 1 hour 40, all solo, running papers at 0/x2 and street hunting... and I wasn't really rushing.

Stalkers of course make excellent soloists. I've found Ninja Blade very effective - Flashing Steel easily and consistently hits multiple targets which is a nice bonus for such a single target focused AT.

I've yet to find a Controller (or to a lesser extent, Dominator) who wasn't slow at the start of the game.

Definitely a Brute, Scrapper, some defenders and a Stalker would be a great choice.

Stalkers are excellent soloers but still sadly suffer from the perceptions formed by early models of the AT from the launch of CoV. They can scrap with the best scrapper and are easy to master. Good starter Primaries would be Ninja Blade, Dark Melee, Elec Melee and Kinetic Melee. These all have built in mitigation that will help smooth the lowbie journey. Secondaries for a starter would be WP, Ninjitsu & Regen. Ninjitsu is your best bet, it's a "swiss army knife" of secondaries, a bit of everything and good at all of it.

I will have to go with a Dominator. Great damage and depending on your primary, good survivability. Mind Control allows you to lock down three mobs right at level 6 (Mesmerize, Dominate and Confuse). So if you go with Mind/, you could do Mesmerize at level 1, Melee attack at level 2, Dominate at 4, and Confuse at 6. The best part is that Mesmerize and Dominate each do the same amount of damage as your secondary's tier 1 (and in the case of Flares and Psi Dart, more damage than).

Some of my characters

heh, gonna get flamed for this one, but here goes.

with the changes to their inherent, Defenders have become VERY solo friendly, and if you take the most solo friendly build to begin with, well, it's just freaken amazing. so try a rad/sonic def, the rad/ part is well documented, get the toggles, debuff the bad guys down to mewling kittens, and then scream at them until they implode....... i giggle almost non-stop while i play mine. i'm sure you've played SOMETHING with rad emission, so you should know how good that is, but take into account the def damage boost solo (+30% at lvl 20 and up), the +25% dam boost in AM, and throw in the roughly +20% dam from assault and you have +75% dam BEFORE you debuff with EF AND sonic attacks. trust me, it gets even better the higher you go. odd to think of a def as a solo toon, but my rad/sonic is almost strictly solo, and plows thru missions as fast as almost any other toon i have, and is so safe i MAY have faceplanted 3 times in his whole toon life. just my 2 cents

Defenders have always been self-sufficient, but slow. I know, my first 50 was an emp/dark defender.


I would suggest just examine whether you want to play up close and personal, or farther back... Controllers rule the school for range, and reasonably quick leveling. Brutes have become my favorite melee and basically are on 'easy mode' for their first dozen or so levels anyway. After that slotting becomes extremely important to Brutes.

But any AT is soloable and fun, try a bunch.

I'd go with a Dominator. My En/Grav is very good at both crowd control and taking out groups of mobs fast, and it's only level 9.

the lesson you should take from this is "anything but a blaster"

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I feel like I should tell those who posted what I ended up doing. In the last several days this is what I've accomplished:

I have a Level 7 or so Trick Arrow/Assault Rifle Defender.
I have a level 25 Warshade.
I have way too many hours on Marvel Vs Capcom 3.
I have what I imagine is a mediocre grade on an Anthropology quiz.
I'm four badges into Pokemon White.

I know I didn't respond to a lot of what was said, but I did read it all and appreciate it, even if I did kind of ignore it completely for whatever reason. Spring Break is in session now though and I'm going to make it happen with COH.

Katana/Regen scrapper

Illusion/Rad controller has been nerfed multiple times since the game launched and it's still one of the most potent soloing combos in the game. If you're already familiar with controllers then you'll have no trouble with it.

One alt I made that was quite strong from the start (although I haven't played her a lot) is a Fire/Dark Tank. With the damage aura early on as well as getting Consume (+End attack), she's pretty much a steamroller. I'm seriously considering rolling a similar Brute in order to get the massive attack bonus from the Brute inherent.

I've always found that blaster are quite strong at lower levels, it's at higher levels when there are more mezzing enemies that they become more challenging.