Cheap but...

Hey all. Yep, its that time again. Altitis...aint it a biotch??? Ok, I have 118m Inf. I have 3 50's from when I played before, but I cant seem to get the hand of them. I got 2 toons up to 21 over Double XP Weekend, but, well, to me they seem meh. I have a Dp/MM Blaster which I took over to Red side and a claws/something or other brute. The Dp/Mm I do have the most fun with, but the problem is he is so damn squishy.
Ok, my playstyle I am more of a melee based player, I hate slow animations. I do like to farm, but not AE. I MAY do AE if you all suggest it more than normal game play. I Prefer to solo, but of course TF's anbd such I have to group. Which brings me to another thing, When I run Oro, I need to be able to live LOL. O, and last but not least, I want to be viable on TF teams. That is a must once I am 50 as I LOVE TF's and now that we can switch sides, there are more to choose form LOL.
So, can anyone point me to a Cheap AT that I can do what I have asked for? I just want to be able to get to 50 without having to buy IO sets just to be good at what I like doing, and thats killin stuff enmasse. I see alot of referance to FA and ElA for such things, but they seem so damn squishy.
Rollin through my account, I gutted my toons for all the Inf they all had and combined it all to a...DU DU DA 118m...So, obviously, IOing is out of the question. I still get on my Crab which I have done a respec on with the measly IO's I have on it and solo Cim wall when I get extremely bored (been happening more and more because of the extreme boringness of lowlevels and not finding groups redside Freedom). I Can use my Crab to farm a little, but I want up close and personal. I know a mellee crab or bane can do the trick, but I dont know. its the stupid backpack.
Anyway, I appreciate any and all help any of you masters can give this young padawan.

Pretty much any brute or scrapper will be both deadly and survivable (and are usually fairly cheap in terms of enhancing)...

Some armor sets mature a bit later than others, and may not get some key powers until the late 20s. Some rely on clicky powers to shore up their defenses/heal, and are considerably less "set it and forget it" than others (Fire & electric come to mind).

Any primary will work just fine, and some can even boost your survivability (Dark debuffs enemy tohit, BS and katana have a move that grants you +def. A number of sets have some knockdown or disorient).


That said, what are your existing 50s? Perhaps your inability to 'get the hand of them' stems from some build/slotting issues that could be resolved.

edit: 2 more things;

Well, I have my Bane/Crab at 50, a Ss/Invuln whome I always hated because every red Inf I could get was sunk into controling his ED, Seems like no doctor could find a pill to help with that one and a Thug/Pain.
Back when I actualy played my Thug/Pain, every person I played with on my server (TF's and such) I always recieved compliments on "how" I played my MM. With all the AE babies out there now, I am not sure I would want to try a MM because of the rep I am hearing about now. It was hard enough to find a team with my MM back then, I can just imagine what its like now.(Sory, not trying to bait, just stating a fact; MM's are about control, not just about killing stuff as fast as you can. Well,they are, but ya know)...
ARGH! Now I want to make a MM just so I can show up these AE loosers. Are the Demons half way as good as Thugs? What is a good Synergy with them?

I have to agree with The Grim Heaper, that almost any scrapper or brute will do fine for a survivable melee toon. Some are more painless than others. Regeneration and Will Power are pretty painless during the leveling up process, though they aren't the toughest when it comes to incarnate trials. But for anything but new stuff, they're very painless, and not squishy. Well, the regen sort of is - but regen has a bunch of heals with which offset that. Also, very inexpensive to slot up, since they just need the heals slotted up, not defense/resist armors.

When it comes to your attacks, there are some sets which favor single-target (like broadsword/katana, or dark melee), and ones that are more AoE oriented. If you are easily bored, you might try an AoE attack set - it can make soloing go faster, which may keep you more interested in the long run.

I had a ton of fun with both Electric Melee (which is often paired with Shield Defense - a bit slower to mature than WP or Regen, but tough as all get out, and a huge amount of fun with it's 2 teleporting attacks) scrapper and tank (yes, the tank does very decent damage!), and a Mace WP brute. These all leveled up VERY fast.

For the best teaming options, have your toons be either a vigilante or a rogue. This will allow you to do TF's for either side. Find your servers global channels for TF's, or LFG (Looking For Group). This is where most people find TF's and teams. However, begin your toons as a hero - you'll find a lot more low-level teaming, at least until I-21 comes out with it's new Mercy content.

Or, you could try your hand at an Ice Blaster (they have holds, so you don't die a lot), or an Illusion Controller (who has pets once they hit 18, an early level confuse, and the best invisible in the game). Maybe it's just the straight damage that bores you? Plus - no ugly backpack!

ENHANCEMENTS: There are some really good IO sets which are really cheap. They're cheap because they're common, meaning they drop frequently - not because they are bad sets. Crushing Impact (Melee) and Thunderstrike (Ranged) have very nice bonuses, and Multistrike (PBAoE) which has fewer bonuses, but has much, much more endurance reduction than any other PBAoE set. Buy the recipe, and bid low, give it a day to fill. (NOTE: the T-strikes and CI's are difficult to come by in the lvl 30's. If you do some AE mishs for tickets, you'll end up with quite a few of them, though). Don't forget your own recipe drops, too. As TGH said, frankenslotting is a great way to go to get more mojo out of your powers!

Once you hit 22, you can start slotting common IO's. These do not wear out, like SO's do. Place really lowball bids (10,000 - 12,000), and start bidding before you need them - you'd be surprised how often these bids fill (people who are trying to get the crafting badge have to clear out their sales fast, so end up placing them for bid VERY cheaply). If some bids don't fill (acc, dam, endurance and recharge may not), that's fine, use SO's, and place a bid - at that time! - for the next level up. If you can get some IO's this way, you save a lot of money. If you don't get them, you haven't lost anything but a few minutes of your time.

INFLUENCE: An easy way to get some decent money to play around with is to do Tip missions. Do 5 per day on a toon. After 4 days, you'll have 2 hero or 2 villain merits, along with the experience you're getting. Using 2 of these merits, Buy a Luck of the Gambler +7.5 global recharge bonus IO. (NOTE: When you are getting the recipe, move the slider at the top of the interface to level 25, or the nearest lvl that is divisible by 5. For some reason, they sell much better that way!). This will net you between 150-200 million, and you can worry less about any purchases you make. Also, you can do some AE stuff. I hate farming myself, but some of the missions are wonderful, like Becky's Revenge, which just won Dev Choice. Am also very fond of Pandas vs. Rikti. Get AE tickets and do Recipe Reward Rolls - bronze (which will get you a ton of recipes, only a few of which will make over 10 mill crafted), or silver rolls (you'll only get a few recipes, but some are very worthwhile). Check at WW's to make sure these sell for a reasonable amount, then vendor the duds, and craft the good ones. Be sure to put your asking price LOWER than the price you want it to sell for, or it can be up for bid for a very long time, going to the guy who put his up for 1 infl. less than you did. BIG CAVEAT: If you do NOT like doing stuff with recipes or WW's, IGNORE THE LAST 2 PARAGRAPHS! It's a GAME and it's supposed to be fun! If you find crafting or mucking about with this stuff painful, DO NOT DO IT. We'd love to see you stick around, and if you feel like you have to grind stuff you hate to keep up, you won't. Good luck, and happy gaming!

Three levels of IO'ing. Generic, Frankenslot, and Set-Bonuses.

118M can get you a perfectly good frankenslot build.

Or I can put in a plug for the Market forum, where we will not shut up about our secrets. I could triple 118M in about three days; it might take you a week because of the learning curve.

I don't know the specific Brute for your needs- I have a pretty good Fire/Will in the 30's, but Brutes take about 22 levels before they get rolling. It's a rough start.

This is all excellent advice, but the thing I'd like to highlight is global chat channels for your server. Finding a group when you're in the relevant LFG channel is much, much easier than any other method I know of.

Thank you for all the sound advice guys. Its realy appreciated. LOL An ingame friend reminded me last night that the reason I have only 118m inf is because I had a bunch of stuff on the market when I quit over a year ago. Apparently, I had done a ton of respec missions and cleaned out both builds of my MM and sold everything off, but never collected the INF from the BM.
O, I wont be quitting the game, well, not for a while atleast. I want to see Freedom and how it goes.
BTW My Claws/ Brute is an EnA. I made it JUST for the Freedom release and the redo of energy aura. I do like him quite a bit. At cl 21 he is a bit squishy, but like you all said, he isnt quite to SO's yet. I will work on him some more tonight as I can actualy play for a few hours tonight.

*Gods, Claws/EnA is HEAVY on Endurance. As far as I can remember, SS/Invuln is lighter on endurance

Energy Armor is also getting buffed come i21 so that will also help out your character.

Very true about the global chats, but I do prefer to solo as my hours as a truck driver make life in gaming miserable. Sometimes I only get to play for 15 minutes, time to log in, play one mish and...Woops, there goes the internet because I am in northern wyoming and there is no signal. Like right now, I am waiting to get loaded, then I have to drive 500 miles before I can go to bed, and I havent slept since 0400 mtn time this morning. So, unfortunately, soloing is a way of life for me. I know I could probably find a team if I realy tried, but you dont get a decent name if you have to quit the group right after you ding or get YOUR mish done.
BTW, noone has mentioned anything about the new Demon Summoning. Are they any good? Can they compare to a Thug? If so, what would be a good pairing for it besides Pain?