Mechanical Magic - Help me choose a Corr.

So I have a concept for a new corruptor, which uses both machines and magic to do villainy. I have a few possibilities for powerset combos, I'm just not sure which one would be best, so I was hoping for some feedback and suggestions. I'm looking to solo *and* team, but not really looking for anything special besides that. I usually play Scrappers, so I'm fine with more conventional play, but also willing to try more quirky tactics for some change. These are the possible combos:

Dual Pistols/Dark Miasma
Dual Pistols/Storm Summoning

Assault Rifle/Dark Miasma
Assault Rifle/Storm Summoning

Dark Blast/Traps
Fire Blast/Traps

Thoughts?

All of those will work reasonably well. Personally I'd say go for the Fire/Traps. Traps is nice since you get good mez protection and defense as well as nice debuffs. I say Fire Blast over Dark Blast since I find Traps has enough control, you don't really need the extra from Dark so you might as well go Fire for more damage.

If you decide to go the other way around I'd recommend Assault Rifle/Dark over the other combos presented. I've played DP/Storm and was not impressed with the combo, it was ok, but I found the synergy weak. I also prefer Assault Rifle to Dual Pistols since I find the DP animations to be rather irritating.

I've been leveling an AR/Storm that has been quite a bit of fun.

Ih depends on how 'magicky' you want them, and how much fluffing you're willing to do in the background. Their offensive set should be their big deal, with the secondary their 'other' thing. If you want to be primarily a technical-type with some magical ability, a mechanical primary is best. If you want to be a magic user with some knack for devices, go mechanical secondary.

I think an Assault Rifle/Dark Miasma works best for the device-user as your biggest trait, with a strong secondary in magic, or even if you use magical devices as well. You'll be constanbtly using the secondary so it stands out, and Dark sets are, as far as I feel anyway, the most 'magical' of the sets. It helps that AR/Dark is a savagely powerful combination, because the different tricks nature of AR meshes extremely well with the wide utility of Dark. Your buttloads of cones work so well with Tar Patch, and all your cones are your huge damage attacks, so you get so much out of it. Ignite is brutal at the best of times, but with -Res from TP and the Hold, it's almost horrifically powerful. Seriously, damage a little less than a nuke on a still target, and you can use the fear effect it has with TP and corners or just TP to keep melee fighters way back. The sets also do levels of damage bordering on the biblical. Tar Patch, Flamethrower, FA can be done almost every single mob without even using sets, and will utterly obliterate most swarms, and leave you with a few near-dead Lts and a boss or two to deal with. It's also damned survivable to boot. I've rolled many a Corruptor, but the AR/Dark was the first one that genuinely felt like the engine of destruction I wanted.

Also, you're not just powerful, but powerful early on. Tar Patch is so early and the best power you get. Flamethrower is an attack most sets would give up two or three powers to get, and you get it early too. Ignite gives you the capacity to devastate Bosses almost unreasonably early.

Take anything Traps that fits your theme and you will not be disappointed.

This is a Fire Traps build defense capped. I removed the powers from Fire and unslotted them to just show you that you can obtain positional defense cap and not even have many of your powers slotted up.

I'm big on the use of Power Sink with traps. Since I am capped I can get back my endurance by just having 3 or 4 mobs near me. So between my endurance, Power Sink and Inspirations I usually only have an endurance issue because I am not paying attention. It really does make you self contained.

But you can take something else besides endurance being 6 slotted. Your Regen with Triage Beacon is nothing to complain about as well. Plus you can have double Triage Beacon outs during a time which is helpful.

End result you will be soloing 4/8 settings.

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Thanks for the responses guys.. I'm trying out both Fire/Traps and AR/Dark, but I'm really liking Fire/Traps a lot so far

And thanks for providing that build, plainguy, I appreciate it! I think I'm going to use some ideas from that while formulating my own. Just a question though--I really want to take Fly for concept reasons; is this feasible with /Traps? I was going to put a Celerity: +Stealth, and pick up Stealth, and figured that'd make me invisible. But can I lay traps while I'm in the air? I sure hope so!

Since you mentioned both builds, I wanted to throw out this vote for Fire/Storm, with Fire being the mystical portion, and the storms being summoned via mechanical devices.

Fire is king of damage and Storm adds even more damage, as well as tons of mitigation. This build has soft capped defense to S/L/E as well as perma-Hasten and decent endurance recovery. It also gives you a near permanent pocket tank pet.

I also included Hover, as it will allow you to 'fly' while doing battle (per your concept). Using the actual 'Fly' power while in battle incurs an accuracy penalty I belive. I use Ninja Run as my travel power, but you could add Fly to the build instead of Assault, I just threw that in for even more beautiful damage.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.93
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Fire Storm: Level 50 Magic Corruptor
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Flares -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7)
Level 1: Gale -- Acc-I(A)
Level 2: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(9)
Level 4: Fire Ball -- Posi-Dmg/Rchg(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), Posi-Acc/Dmg(11), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Posi-Dam%(13)
Level 6: Rain of Fire -- Posi-Dmg/Rchg(A), Posi-Dmg/Rng(15), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(17), Posi-Dam%(17)
Level 8: Snow Storm -- HO:Micro(A), HO:Micro(45)
Level 10: Steamy Mist -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), HO:Enzym(19), Ksmt-ToHit+(19), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(21), S'fstPrt-ResKB(21), HO:Enzym(45)
Level 12: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(33), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(40)
Level 14: Hover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), HO:Enzym(42), Frbd-Stlth(46)
Level 16: Freezing Rain -- Achilles-ResDeb%(A), ImpSwft-Dam%(27), ShldBrk-%Dam(27), ShldBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(29), LdyGrey-%Dam(29), Posi-Dam%(31)
Level 18: Blaze -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(33)
Level 20: Hurricane -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(23), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(25), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(25)
Level 22: Aim -- Rec'dRet-Pcptn(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(23)
Level 24: Fire Breath -- Posi-Dmg/Rng(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(34), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Posi-Dam%(46)
Level 26: O2 Boost -- HO:Golgi(A)
Level 28: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), HO:Enzym(34)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), HO:Enzym(36)
Level 32: Inferno -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Erad-Dmg(36), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(36)
Level 35: Tornado -- ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(37), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(37)
Level 38: Lightning Storm -- Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(39), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39), Dev'n-Hold%(40), ExStrk-Dam%(40)
Level 41: Scorpion Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), HO:Enzym(42), HO:Enzym(42)
Level 44: Web Envelope -- Acc-I(A), GravAnch-Hold%(45)
Level 47: Summon Disruptor -- ExRmnt-+Res(Pets)(A), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(48), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(48), SvgnRt-PetResDam(50), S'bndAl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50)
Level 50: Spiritual Radial Boost
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(43), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(43), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 1: Scourge
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(3)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(3)

You have to be on the ground to use many Trap powers. Like Acid Mortar, PGT and the mines.

One vote for dark/traps. The tohitdebuff on all the blasts in combination with Force Field is awesome. I really enjoyed this combo. The color tintable dark blast looks great and feels extremely magical. The damage is less than stellar though, fire is much better and looks awesome too. You can't go wrong with either combo.

Mine is an alchemist, magic with mystical traps! I'm just saying great minds think alike.

After leveling an AR/Traps and a few other favorite corruptors and blasters, for your concept (I am a fan of Mixing mech/magic) I would say you might be happiest using DP/Dark. In fact at the moment I had the same idea but with AR/Fire and kind of regret it. DP Dark will give you the concept and some great tools and LOTS of orange numbers.

Now if your set on AR, while I am a fan of traps, AR/Dark might be something you want to look into as well. While I haven't played it myself, I can only imagine that the Tar Patch + Ignite + Full Auto would make things a bit more fun.

As a storm fan, I think if your set on Dp or Ar, I would go with AR since you could lay down Freezing Rain, then ignite, while strategically using grenade to blow back anyone that runs out (tricky but works once you practice it) but if you prefer immediate fun (see Fire/Storm build) that works quite well but I think you might be pretty happy with DP/Dark overall.

Of the ones mentioned, I would go fire/traps.

If it can include options not included, roll a dp/kin. With the changes coming in 20.5, kinetics will be less demanding as far as the ST buffs are concerned and more fin and rewarding to the people that avoided it for that reason.

Even more to the point, There is something definitely RP magical about stealing away someone's power and making it your own, slowing them down, stealing their energy and so forth. In many ways, the animations look like hexes being cast about.

Of course, for the mechanical side of things- dp fits nicely. And as someone who has a dp/kin that actually overtook my fire/kin as my favorite corruptor to play, I have to say the two compliment each other well. Sure, dp isn't the most powerful or damaging set, but kinetics helps to feel more powerful and self boosting recharge will do wonders to bring that beautiful T9 back for much fun.

For concept toons, I think Storm is really fun... I also like Dual Pistols conceptually.... never considered them together before... I may look at that myself.

AR/Kin/Mace.

Web Envelope+Fulcrum Shift+Ignite+Flamethrower+Full Auto+etc.

I know this isn't an optional choice, but depending upon how high/modern tech you want to go..I like Archery/Dark..it lets you use old school tech(or upgrade with weapon design ie composite bow with laser sight). I have several Witch of Locksley style characters.

Fire/Traps.

People are getting necro happy lately.