The impossible to solo character.

Howdy all.

It's me, houtex the oddly thinking oddman, and he's thought up another oddity for y'all to consider. If it's been done, then I apologize, I did a search for 'weakest' and such.. Oh, and I've read about weak archetypes/combos, etc... and that's not my question for y'all today.

No, the question is... what would you do to create a character that is totally ineffective *except* for teaming?

I mean... this character is complete weaksauce, offensively. Has no offensive powers to speak of. But in the department of being a complete team player, this thing is *supreme*. Buffs, heals, debuffs, what have you.

I'm assuming that you have to take at least one offensive power, beyond brawl and the trick power for the origin, like Mutagen for Mutants, because that's the way the game is set up for character creations. Beyond that, though you don't want get anything else offensive, if possible. *Damage* dealing is to be avoided. Consider it a religious problem: Your character wants to help, but can't possibly hurt anyone. Like a doctor, sorta. Your sole purpose for this character is to be the ultimate helper, completely dependent on the team for whatever XP you can get with them.

Best build wins cake. Cake that is delicious and moist. The build is judged by you, the viewers.

Go!

/Already have one, but curious what you guys/gals come up with.
//She's a 37, btw, being just a helper. Kinda fun to do.
///Be goin' back to her after Rose Dawn is finished to 50.

You... can't.

I mean, let's take a classic, the "healor." (Emp/something, medicine pool, etc.) Yes, you can decide "I'm not taking any attacks," though you still *must* take at least one. But by doing so - you're being less awesome than you could be in a team. Not just by contributing damage (and controls, don't forget some of those sets have holds and immobilizes which can be VERY handy) but you're depriving the team of the debuffs that come WITH those attacks.

Or a "petless" mastermind. Other than the fact it's going to be *really* hard to not pick something from the primary up at some point, again, you're going to be less useful to the team than you could be (and your buffs/debuffs in the secondary aren't as potent as they could be.) You're missing the debuffs from the attacks. You're missing the meat-shield goodness of the pets, who could take hits instead of another person on the team.

Basically, to *be* the "most awesome" or whatever... you can't neglect your attacks.

Still, for the heck of it (and mostly SOs) - I'd never play this like this -


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Worthless 1: Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Cold Domination
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Concealment
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Medicine
Ancillary Pool: Ice Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Stone Prison -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Infrigidate -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(3), Acc(7), DefDeb(46), Range(46)
Level 2: Ice Shield -- ResDam(A), ResDam(3), ResDam(7), DefBuff(31), DefBuff(50), DefBuff(50)
Level 4: Snow Storm -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(5), Slow(5)
Level 6: Quicksand -- Range(A), RechRdx(15)
Level 8: Salt Crystals -- Acc(A), RechRdx(9), Sleep(9), CSndmn-Heal%(15)
Level 10: Glacial Shield -- ResDam(A), ResDam(11), ResDam(11), DefBuff(40), DefBuff(43), DefBuff(50)
Level 12: Hover -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(31), Krma-ResKB(31), DefBuff(37)
Level 14: Fly -- EndRdx(A)
Level 16: Frostwork -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(17), Heal(17), Heal(43), Heal(43)
Level 18: Earthquake -- RechRdx(A), DefDeb(19), ToHitDeb(19), ToHitDeb(36), DefDeb(42)
Level 20: Arctic Fog -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(21), DefBuff(21), ResDam(36), DefBuff(42), DefBuff(42)
Level 22: Grant Invisibility -- RechRdx(A), DefBuff(23), DefBuff(23), DefBuff(36)
Level 24: Maneuvers -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(25), DefBuff(25), DefBuff(37), DefBuff(37)
Level 26: Tactics -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(27), ToHit(27)
Level 28: Benumb -- Acc(A), RechRdx(29), Acc(29)
Level 30: Vengeance -- DefBuff(A), ToHit(34), Heal(34)
Level 32: Aid Other -- IntRdx(A), RechRdx(33), Heal(33), Heal(33), Heal(34)
Level 35: Stimulant -- IntRdx(A)
Level 38: Heat Loss -- Acc(A), RechRdx(39), RechRdx(39), RechRdx(39), EndMod(40), EndMod(40)
Level 41: Hibernate -- RechRdx(A)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(45), DefBuff(45), ResDam(45), ResDam(46)
Level 47: Aid Self -- IntRdx(A), RechRdx(48), Heal(48), Heal(48)
Level 49: Resuscitate -- RechRdx(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(13), EndMod(13)
Level 4: Ninja Run

Had to pull Sleet out because it did damage.

See my Guides and Tutorials

If you're looking for a pacifism-themed character, I'd say mastermind. Come up with some reason why this well meaning fellow who really just wants to heal people, or give them shields or what have you, is continuously pursued by a gang of ruffians who tend to beat the stuffing out of anyone who wanders near. Maybe he's been cursed by a mystical indigent. Maybe he has Alzheimer's syndrome and does not remember what will happen if he summons his special robot friends again today. The only limit is the wide open horizon of your imagination.

Electric/Empathy/Mu 'Troller.

Aside from the 1 damage power at the beginning (Tesla Cage, lower DPS), you can pick up another 4 non damage powers. Empathy does nothing to affect mobs, so take everything.

Mu Mastery, for Power Sink to add to the sapping abilities, Charged Armor and Surge of Power to make you tougher.

Leadership Pool (the whole thing). That leaves 3 powers for travel. I'd say Hasten, Super Speed and the upcoming Burnout (or Whirlwind for laughs).

There's room for Hold, Confuse and Sleep Purples, 3 places for LotG's, as well as plenty of places for 5% bonuses (Heal and End Mod). Slot Tesla Cage with 4 parts of Basilisk's Gaze (least recharge possible to keep the DPS as low as possible). For a quick throw together build, with Spiritual Core, I had perma-hasten. Ageless would help get your powers up faster and get other team members attacking more.

You should be able to 'solo' too, using Synaptic Overload (stacking on bosses if necessary), whilst still doing no direct damage yourself. It'd be slow, but possible. There's nothing, in my opinion, that is 'impossible' to solo. Even completely unslotted it could still make some progress.



That said, you could actually take the attacks from Electric Control, and still do hardly any damage without have -res in the secondary, compared to other sets. My Elec/Rad is depressingly slow to solo, despite the debuff heavy secondary.

Emp/elec defender with all attacks slotted for end drain.

I have one and it cant solo anything. Okay, its not that great on a team either. I was just curious what it would be like.

If you take full advantage of your Primary and Secondary set rather than deliberately picking bad powers, I'd suggest an Ice/Sonic Controller as the most team-oriented pairing. Sonic resonance is a boon to any team but the worse support set solo.

Its quite acceptabel to slot Block of Ice for control, and thus have that and damage-slotted Chillblain as your only attacks. Your secondary gives you some small resitance and status protection, no endurance benefits as you chip away with your two attacks at the enemy, and Sonic Siphon to slightly speed things up.

(Of course, once you get a pet you can use Disruption Field on him. Mind/Sonic would be less solo-friendly in that way, but Mind provides quite a decent soloist attack chain.)

The most Jelyll & Hyde I've teamed with would probably be Earth/Rad or possibly Earth/TA. Very limited offense but massive control and debuff making it a great teammate but extremely slow solo.

I have an Ice/FF controller that does damage at a glacial pace . At the same time, I am properly slotting Jack. I also wonder how much xp I do lose with arctic air since it seems they kill each other faster than I kill them (ha ha). Really slow, but he is really good on teams.

I have an empathy/energy defender. She actually can solo under the right build through KB juggling, but my default build for her leaves her with four attacks total. When dual builds launched I explicitly built her primary build around the idea of being CRIPPLINGLY team dependent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

My earth/emp is almost 30. He's always felt tough to solo. Mostly because I specced him as a "support" character - so I wound up avoiding that sweet-damage-dealing single target immobilize. (Not sure why I made that decision; it was during chemotherapy, and thinking isn't too hot during that time - but I've been sticking with it, waiting for 32, when I hope my tier 9 pet could maybe help, especially with fortitude)

Earth Rad

I had / have one. I made him and started leveling him before I had Vet attacks.

It was painful, painful, painful leveling up..

I would look around for temp powers and try to pick them up. If it was a timed Temp power like Ironblade I would only log the toon in if I was seriously going to play him. I was just deadly afraid of wasting the temp power.

Only when I was high enough in levels to picked up the Pet was I semi decent. I eventually went fire Ancillary on him ( before they had going rogue available ) just to finally have some attacks.

I'm still at level 45 or 46 with him after 6 years of play.

Already mentioned, but have a lv50 Ice/FF troller.

Impossible to solo? Not quite.
Deeply, intensely boring and slow to solo? Yes.

Her soloing career came to an end at Atta, after it took the best part of an hour to get halfway through the mission.