What can solo Giant Monsters & AVs?
By
Boomie,
Posted on: 2011-04-07 05:44 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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All AT's have a place in the incarnate content as far as I am concerned.
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Read that thread already regarding AVs ^.^ My interest is more for the Giant Monsters. I like the feeling of being able to take down huge dangerous beasties on my own, but also able to team up with others. From what I've read you need very good defenses as well as some heavy -regen to keep on the GM to down it. Which classes tend to be able to handle that?|
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
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And thanks much for the welcome back!
Right now raising up a Mind/Energy Dom and a Plants/Fire Dom. But neither can really manage a giant monster on their own. So looking for one that can so I can get that 'fix' for myself.
I know that a dark/sonic defender can do it, 'cause I did. They're not as efficient as a rad/sonic, though, I hear.
I'm also told that there are various MM builds that are good at GMs, most notably traps/bots and dark/thugs. That's strictly rumor though, as I haven't seen one take out a GM yet.
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Bots/Traps can handle quite a lot yeah. Kinda curious if there's much that Thugs/Dark can't handle that Bots/Traps can. Though MMs have been hurting a little in the new incarnate stuff though that is while they are still getting all their new incarnate abilities. Sounds like the 'soft cap' raised some. Thugs/Dark is a lil tempting... Bots/Traps too but would rather have something that wasn't so pet reliant.|
Originally Posted by El_Spark
I know that a dark/sonic defender can do it, 'cause I did. They're not as efficient as a rad/sonic, though, I hear.
I'm also told that there are various MM builds that are good at GMs, most notably traps/bots and dark/thugs. That's strictly rumor though, as I haven't seen one take out a GM yet. |
I figure with the right builds pretty much anything with radiation emission, traps, dark miasma, or perhaps cold domination could handle it. That means... defenders, controllers, corrupters, and masterminds. Are there any other power sets with a powerful anti-regen?
The best known builds for taking out AVs and GMs are Illusion/Rad and Illusion/Cold controllers. Both need expensive, high recharge builds for Perma-Phantom Army. (Ill/Rad is a little bit cheaper because it gets 30% Recharge from AM.) Neither one needs tons of Defense because PA and Phantasm's Decoy draw the aggro away from the player. Both have a good amount of -Regen and -Resistance.
I've taken down a few GMs with my perma-PA Ill/Rad. Frankly, I feel it gets boring after a while. I believe several folks have used an Ill/Rad to take out every GM in the game who can be handled by a solo player, including Lusca. (Obviously not Hamidon.) Ill/Cold has better debuffs, but no self heal or Recharge buff, so it needs more Recharge from sets -- a few more purple sets.
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Bot/Dark MMs can do some if not most of them too (only done a few on mine)
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So... Illusion seems to be the best controller type to manage it due to Phantom Army. With Rad or Cold as the subset. Dark could probably work as well. Or Traps.
Masterminds seems like Bots or Thugs can do it with Traps or Dark as secondary.
And the defender as well... wouldn't be surprised if a corrupter can manage it too.
Any know of Dominator, Brute, Scrapper, or Tank builds that could manage to take down a variety of Giant Monsters?
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Except that Dark and Traps are not available as Controller secondaries.
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Originally Posted by Sloshed
So... Illusion seems to be the best controller type to manage it due to Phantom Army. With Rad or Cold as the subset. Dark could probably work as well. Or Traps.
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Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
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Sorry ^.^ Been playing with masterminds a bit much lately.
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Originally Posted by Local_Man
Except that Dark and Traps are not available as Controller secondaries.
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I can solo some GMs on my Fire/Cold corruptor. Not all of them though..but that's more to do with my build than the toon itself. If I respec my toon for more AoE defence I'm sure I can take them all out.
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Mastermind is the way to go. They can likely solo AVs on SOs alone.
With my bots/traps I have solo'd Kraken, Scrapyard, Deathsurge, and one of the mushroom monsters in the Hive.
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You don't necessarily need high defenses if the GM never shoots at you, that's why ye ole Illusion/Rad controller was a staple of AV/GM soloing even before IOs were introduced. Rad has AM that helps you get Phantom Army perma and debuffs that increase it's damage, plus Lingering Radiation to put a huge dent in anything's regen. You only need to be able to survive aggro in the interval while recasting PA (and that can often be done with tactics instead of high defense or the like). Phantasm used to help more with damage (and his Decoy even helped with aggro sometimes) before the AI change that now makes him rush to melee often despite having no melee attacks. |
Originally Posted by Sloshed
From what I've read you need very good defenses as well as some heavy -regen to keep on the GM to down it.
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You yourself (as opposed to your pets) won't be doing as much damage as other controllers might, though, because I don't think Illusion controllers can get immob anywhere for containment (do GMs have the immob/sleep hole too? I'm not even sure), even if they go for patron powers, but an Ill/Rad would still be a solid choice, and I have -always- seen them be very welcome in teams (funny how KB haters don't complain about illusion's pets...)As for other controllers/dominators, I don't think you could go the route of letting your pet take all the beating, because not being indestructible they might not take it too well, and the tough ones who might do it (Say, Stoney with Thermal shields, heals, buffs and even debuffs) might not keep the GM aggro as tightly on them as PA does - but I never tried it, so this is pure speculation. And actually looking up how crazy good Thermal is to post this, I'm feeling like trying that out now! Cold is a great alternative to Rad in the debuffing (and even pet/ally buffing) department, even if it won't help with your PA recharge. I've seen people do crazy things with Cold domination (so I think it's funny when I see teams waiting for rads specifically... Even though my main character IS a Rad!) Not saying the other buff/debuff sets are not worth it, but I don't know enough about them in this particular context to discuss it.
If you wanna go at them without counting on pets for your survival with a controller/dominator, you certainly could buff up your defenses with IOs and resistances with tough and epic shields (controllers even get mez protection that you can perma, and dominators get, of course, domination). But I personally wouldn't go for them in this case, instead I'd pick a corruptor (better damage) or defender (better debuffs, good damage solo nowadays) to outfit with all those extra defenses. Rad and cold continue to be great options for debuffing here, and for blasts the default is to go sonic (lots of -res stacking to buff up damage), fire on corrs (for straight up damage) or maybe ice (to slow enemies to a crawl and it has lots of quick-activating damage too, but less than fire). I'm moderately sure, though, that people can make other combinations work as well. Defenders and corruptors are always welcome in teams (more like hunted down and dragged into teams, actually, from what I've seen).
High damage blasters (fire comes to mind) with Drain Psyche for the regen debuff have soloed GMs (I think Silverado did it, using inspirations to top up his defense - he couldn't make a build, then, with enough recharge, damage and everything else he needed AND soft capped defenses, so he settled for 1 small purple short of the softcap). Maybe a Psi Dom with Drain Psyche, now that their single target blasts got buffed, could do it too, but I really do not know if they'd have enough damage output.
Maybe melee characters could do it too, I've certainly seen them trashing AVs and stuff solo, but I'm not sure even the best can get enough damage output to counter a GM's regen even with whatever weak debuffs they can get their hands on (including envenomed dagger). But maybe it's doable, once again I don't know. If you wanna go that route, I'd ask in the scrapper forums, they're good at this stuff.
Regardless of AT and build, though, I'm pretty sure soloing GMs is gonna require a little (or more than a little) trial and error, some luck (so maybe more than one try even after you have the strategy for that monster down) and there may be some that will be stronger against your damage type or strategy and you might not beat at all.
All of this is without considering incarnate abilites (don't think they've been around long enough for the GM hunters to tell us much about them yet).
As a final note, search for Silverado's threads, he's one of the guys that posted about his AV/GM smacking with a bunch of different ATs, if I remember right.
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Duh, I can't believe I forgot Masterminds. Yeah, Bots rule (as do Traps), but with MMs I think quite a few combos can work. I think I saw, ages ago, a post about a /poison MM soloing GMs, but I can't remember the primary. Nowadays it will take a bit more micromanagement to keep the pets away from melee (if they start dying in melee, which won't always happen, I guess), but they're still good.
I haven't really had much trouble finding teams for my Mercs/Dark MM (despite Mercs' bad rep) for incarnate stuff, but I haven't tried the new trials yet. Speeding with him makes me feel like a leecher since the pets die ASAP and I don't contribute much damage, but I can still help with the debuffs/heal/rez/controls even when it's not a good time for resummoning yet.
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Can also be done on a rad sonic, but you do have to pay attention a bit more than on other pet sets and requires a bit of luck.
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Sorry. There was some relevant discusion regarding GMs in that thread though. |
Originally Posted by Sloshed
Read that thread already regarding AVs ^.^ My interest is more for the Giant Monsters. I like the feeling of being able to take down huge dangerous beasties on my own, but also able to team up with others. From what I've read you need very good defenses as well as some heavy -regen to keep on the GM to down it. Which classes tend to be able to handle that?
And thanks much for the welcome back! Right now raising up a Mind/Energy Dom and a Plants/Fire Dom. But neither can really manage a giant monster on their own. So looking for one that can so I can get that 'fix' for myself. |
Bots/traps would probably be easiest to manage the task. I have taken out Scrapyard on my fire/traps corr.
Short answer: anything with good -regen and the ability to stay alive.
"Good -regen" in this case means several hundred percent, since GMs resist regen debuffs like AVs do. As for staying alive, that generally requires softcapped defense plus healing, pets that can somehow stay alive (like Phantom Army or possibly softcapped Bots), or a combination of both. In general a perma-PA Ill/Rad is the best of the best at soloing extremely hard targets because he will never take damage in any fight unless the number of foes exceed the PA's aggro / taunt cap and he packs a ton of debuffs. Also very good is Bots/Traps, since Bodyguard + softcapped defenses = near invulnerability so you can taunt the GM to yourself and neuter his regen with Poison Traps while the bots kill him. Any combination of Sonic Blast and Radiation Emission also works if you have enough defense... kill his regen and stack a ton of -resist and you can blast him down sooner or later.
I'm sure there are other combos... and if you are willing to use temp powers a ton of things open up since you can use Envenomed Daggers or Shivans to supply the -regen. But for the classic "no temps" victory, nobody can do enough damage to outpace a GM's regeneration so the -regen is key.
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I've also been hearing that Masterminds are doing poorly at the new Incarnate TFs. That the AoE is just annihilating their pets and neutering them. And have experience with this? And any archetypes/sets folk really like to see in those?
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Sadly giant monsters have protection to all types of mezz but they all can be end drained fairly easy barring Lusca with tentacles and Kronos Titan.(At least from my fights against GM's solo)|
Originally Posted by DrGamma
(do GMs have the immob/sleep hole too? I'm not even sure)
.... All of this is without considering incarnate abilites (don't think they've been around long enough for the GM hunters to tell us much about them yet). .... As a final note, search for Silverado's threads, he's one of the guys that posted about his AV/GM smacking with a bunch of different ATs, if I remember right. |
Incarnate abilities, especially the alpha slot, give more build freedom and I believe it makes it easier to down GM/Av's quicker/more efficiently.
Silverado is a beast and that's all I can say. I've only managed to down 3 GM's and a handfull of AV's on my Electric/Cold Controller. I'm gonna have to try some more when I get time.
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Coming back to CoH/CoV and wanting to play something that can handle Giant Monsters by itself. I've heard of a few archetypes/sets that can handle it but curious which ones can do it best?
I am also curious which archetypes/sets are most valuable in the new Incarnate content. Even if they can't handle GMs/AVs.
Trying to get a feel for what would suit my needs and chose a few specs from those to play.