So how to build a character for I-Trials?

I've got my SS/Fire/Mu brute, who runs the trials quite well, but with the large number of merits needed to acquire all the costume-y aura bits and such, having all of one character I like and is able to run the trials doesn't seem enough.

I like the melee archetypes and AT's that can play from the sort of safety that are common to melee archetypes. So mez protection, personal defenses, and pretty good damage. Over the years I've acquired a number of level 50's, though most have been sitting gathering dust after I dinged them 50.

I have:
Energy Melee/Willpower Brute
I've only played her once or twice since the changes to Energy Melee. Right now she feels incredibly slow to me.

Claws/Electric Brute
I built her to have Power Surge up as often as possible, and her build sports Permahasten as a result, but due to the crashing of Power Surge she's not as effective as I'd hoped.

Dark/Dark Brute
I think my second Level 50, or my third. Just looking at her IO slotting makes me go "What sort of idiot made this character?" rather like I did when I picked her up after leaving her on the sidelines for years. "How the hell did I make it to level 20 with only one attack?"

Shield Defense/Super Strength Tanker
Originally made because SS/SD was the flavor of the month farmer at the time and I wanted a blueside farmer. She was made before you could e-mail INF to yourself and I needed a friend to act as an intermediary. She's sitting at around 50% defense, actually, and has a pretty good allotment of IO slotting. No self-heal, though. So she'd probably be duct-taped to someone with a heal aura during Keyes.

Spines/Regen Scrapper
My first level 50 character and my original badge hunter. Oh boy do I ever regret that. She was my main for a long time, and actually managed to get purpled out when purples were running 100-200 million on the market. Rather survivable, but with Spines incredibly, obnoxiously, cripplingly long animation times, she's very difficult for me to play these days.

Plant/Psi Dominator
My only 'squishy' level 50. Softcapped defenses (Am aware the Trial foes hit easier), and about 70% recharge pre-hasten. She's about halfway to the permahasten build I have for her. But it's like all purples from here.

Crabstermind
My only other character currently with an Alpha Slot. She's within sneezing distance of being softcapped to all positionals and Permahasten. Once I get her Alpha Slot to Tier 4, all her pets will be perma. Provided they survive, which may cause problems in Lambda and Keyes. The only other character I've really played post-50. But having her pets getting eaten may put a damper on things since she's very AoE centric. without them. And I suppose even with them.


Near 50's:
Warshade, Level 42
Not IOed in the slightest. I don't really remember how to play her and I don't have the twitch reflexes to fire off things and shift forms like a proper MFing Warshade, so she's been stuck at 42 for awhile.

Katana/Willpower Scrapper, Level 45
Is just a few levels shy of getting the slots she needs to be soft capped against all damage types that are not Smashing and Psi, at least once she's hit Divine Avalanche and I find where it is exactly I left that PvP +3% Def IO of mine.





Something New?

Or should I level up something new? I'm not above dragging another character up though the ranks so long as they can solo well. I was thinking that maybe a Dark Melee/Electric Armor might be an optimal character to run the Trials due to the high levels of Smashing/Lethal/Energy resistance it is capable of attaining.

Not sure how to build for the trials, though.

I know for the Trials you play what you find fun and that ought to be what you go with. But I'd like something that is relatively durable for the three trials and is somewhat self sufficient. And also sports mez protection. Something with some good single target and AoE both would also be nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

I am a melee guy as well. Please remember this when I give my recomendation. By far, my strongest toon in the barn for the trials is my fire/traps corr.

Safety that is common to melee can also be found in this combo. FFG is your mez protection. Personal defences? My toon is softcapped to to sm/l/e before ffg is summoned. with it out, I am sitting at iContent softcap. Damage? Fire blasts plus scourge. Nuff ******* said.

The toon can pretty much solo a door in a baf or if doing choke points, can help with north side and grab leakers from the south. Can solo a acid or pacification grenade spawn.

Blaze, Flares and Fire blast is all the single target I have ever needed.

Rof, Caltrops, Trip mine and Fireball is enough aoe to put alot of hurt on a big spawn. Can even grab breath of fire for ***** and giggles if you want.

Of course, before Dechs goes to prison or something, should probably mention the MFing Warshade. Google should take you right to his blog.

Any character would do, really. If your build is good for regular play, inspirations will likely do fine in closing the gap.

Just find something fun to play, a single character doesn't make a huge difference in trials, anyway.

1- Anything with lvlshift/incarte shift will be 1000 times stronger, so dont be afraid if you feel you toon "sucks" at first.

2- If you want melee Id suggest brute. Why? Brute are top damage AND top tanking AT, not from scrach but with heavy buffs. In I-Trials you WILL be heavily buffed (even more with the new AoE buff factor on Cold/Therm/FF/Sonic/Kin). If you dont have enough tankers a Brute can do the job, if you do have enough your dps wont be embarassing.

3- Primary powers: Most likely something with heavy ST damage, nothing in I trials requires very high AoE. AVs, Lams crates/tubes, BAF prisoners Leuts. So thats DM, Fiery, SS but Claw is very competitive.

4- Secondary Power: So, what does these Praetorians? 1- S/L, 2- Energy, 3- Psy. That means? Elec armor, yeah.
You can do fine with other armors but avoid def based power sets because you be most likely soft caped extremely fast with buffs.

All in all you may to slightly better with DM/Elec due to self heal but you really will do great with you already 50 Claw/Elec. Rebuild her for +def (you can easely reach 20% all pos, buffs will cover the rest) and maximise your steady resistance buffs (dont rely on power surge). Dont pass on Tough/Weave.
Think "group", your Leadership aura may not be very usefull for you be will considerably improve the sucky non lvlshifted blasters around (and 6 Gausians are 2.5% def all).

Honestly, your SS/fire is far better than all of your other 50s right now.

I'd keep him for BAF and Lambda for sure, and if you want to reroll something, in my opinion, an emp/sonic/soul defender is by far the best character you can bring to a PUG Keyes (as well as being generally useful in most team situations involving tough targets thanks to /sonic bringing very high res debuffs). Your success is directly tied to other people not being disintegrated, and the best way to ensure this is with tremendously powerful healing.

To the original poster - this is exactly why I never plan to run an Incarnate trial.

When I made up my mind to ignore all of it and just run thru to Alpha - the game became once more fun. I like ALL of my characters that reach 50 and so to have to build one just so I can mindlessly grind trials so all my other characters don't have to be played - is insane to me.

I can run all of them thru to Alpha and then ignore all the rest until they give me a non-farming path. I mean obviously the trials are so much "fun" to you that you don't want to play all of your characters to do them - right? How does that make sense?

I like to have:
a tank, a scrapper/brute, a controller/dominator, a blaster, a buff/debuff def/corr at 50 that I can switch to as a team may need.

Step 1: Roll a character
Step 2: Get to level 50
Step 3: Join a trial

These things are not like other games where you need a specialized build or exact powers to run them.

You got one SS/FA you like - roll another.
Then you can swap between the two and never feel like you are playing a different character

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavicle CoH players are stupid and incompetent compared to WoW players.

The SS/FA/Mu build is going to be hard to beat in iTrials. You really do well at the BAF, can solo crates/chambers during the Lam easily enough (especially +3 level shifted) and your self-heal keeps you going during the Keyes.

Honestly, out of all the others you've listed, its going to be hard to compare. But I think a close second would be to roll another /FA brute, this time a Claws/FA brute. There's a mission sequence in AE that will let you self-powerlevel that character from 1-50 in about 11 hours. Check the forums (thread titled something like 'good farming from where I'm at now' or similar).

Two-three nights of casual play and you've got a new 50 that is almost as powerful as your current SS/FA but with enough of a twist in animations/playstyle that it could keep things new for you.

I have a ss/fire and ss/elec brute, and for the Lamb and BAF the Electric Armor seems much stronger. Elec is strong against energy attacks, which there are a ton of, and solid against psi and lethal, has stronger KB (which isnt a huge issue for fire, but still) and against end drain. My ss/elec is built solely for recharge, and I pop power surge quite a bit when its up. Ageless helps a lot with the crash. Elec is also solid against Anti-mater in the trials, though sometimes healing against the pulses can be a little tight. If you have a claws/elec I would at least try it on the trials, it should be pretty good.

Hmmm...

I'm with Zandock on this one.

* Build a toon you enjoy playing...
* When that toon hits L50, don't retire it, play it if you still enjoy it...
* Run Mendor Ramiel's arc to start down the Incarnate path.
* Run with teams that have a clue, and open/slot all of the iContent goodies.

Call me naive, but I'm simply not seeing any point to building specifically for an
iTrial...

From a helping the newbies approach, it only takes a couple dozen runs to open
up all of the iStuff to date, and by the time you do, you can probably slot
T2 or T3 stuff in there right off the bat and move on to content you enjoy.

From a farming perspective, there's plenty of stuff that's better (in any category
you can measure - except slotting iPowers).

Once you *have* your iPowers, what does your toon do then?

To me, iPowers aren't an end goal - they're an acqusition along the path to
an end-goal (whatever that is for you and your toon)


Regards,
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