Solo AT power set suggestions?

Hi there,

Sorta new player. I've had the game about a month and I've been playing around pretty much in Praetoria. Kind of waiting for Issue 21 to roll in before I jump into the Hero/villain stuff.

Anyway, I'm mostly a solo player, and I kind of curious about all the different archtypes. I know some ATs solo better than others, and its technically possible to solo with anything given enough patience. In fact of my 4 current characters I've had the least trouble running around with my Mastermind over my corruptor and blaster. I'm having fun playing around and experimenting, kind of going with stuff that seems like it would be helpful for solo builds. But at the same time, I don't want to get stuck in power sets that are just ok starting out and then crap out or just plain aren't that great.

So! The bottomline question is:

What powersets would you guys recommend for each AT for a solo build? You don't have to give me *every* archtype if you don't want to, if you just want to talk about your experiences running X or Y builds with whatever, that's fine. Just kind of fishing for suggestions and opinions.

Thanks!

Levelling-solo and being-50-solo are VERY different things.

Also, it matters a lot what you consider fun or acceptable. If you are not in a hurry, some sets can be AMAZING when playing slowly -- for instance, /dev on blasters. Wow. But if you're on a team you mostly just don't use it.

For scrappers, I have a katana/regen that was great for soloing as I leveled and even now at level 50.

I did a lot of soloing for my ice/cold corruptor. It started out slow, but she became a favourite of mine. Things really begin to pick up in the 30's, with Heat Loss and Sleet.

I had a lot of fun with my elec/shield scrapper.

I'm currently leveling a SS/Elec brute, and while I am teaming a fair bit, I also enjoy soloing.

I've been duoing a lot with my wife lately, as well. I am finding a Mind/Fire Dominator to be quite capable of soloing.

Thank you, Champion.

I don't know blasters inside and out, but /devices is fairly good solo. I should warn you that it works best if you're not in a hurry - if you take your time you can take anything short of an archvillain or giant monster with NO effort whatsoever. Just time (tripmines and recharge reduction like hasten, or gaeas are your friends). One of the downsides, however, is that unlike every other blaster secondary, Devices offers very little in the way of damaging abilities. What it damage it does have requires long interruptable cast periods, meaning they aren't much use during a fight, but are great to set up before one.

Storm.

Things are a little rough until you get your first gamebreaker power at level 16 (level 8 if you're a defender). But after that it's all downwind from there.

Mind Dominators can be quite good for solo play, thanks to powerful sleep effects and good access to confusion coupled with fairly strong attack powers. You can more or less dictate the terms of the fight.

Pretty much any Scrapper is also an excellent choice.

For a character that can handle pretty much all the content solo I'd suggest a build with status protection and decent damage. That's pretty much any Scrapper or Brute, some Masterminds and Corruptors, Widows, Soldiers and Dominators.

I usually tab Kat/WP Scrappers, and will now add Brutes, as the easiest leveling non-IO build for solo content play. I deleted my Kat/WP Scrapper as too boring however. That's just a matter of taste though, of course.

A Fortunata can be a lot of fun, as they are quite versatile and give you a variety of tactical options. They don't quite do the damage of a Dominator and aren't as good at crowd control either, but they have some team buffs and are intrinsically much tougher. There are very few encounters a Fortunata can't handle with just whatever insps happen to be in the tray. On top of that you can add a Night Widow dual build to provide a very Scrapper-like play experience for even more variety.

If I had to choose just one AT for solo it would be a Mastermind Bots/Storm. However, as a 99.9% solo player, I've had great fun getting other AT's to 50.
Brute: Dark/WP (2nd most fun. This build handles +3x4 w/o much effort at all.)
MM: Thugs/Storm; Ninja/Storm; Mercs/FF
Scrapper: Thorns/Regen; DM/Regen

Also developing some Controllers for progression. In their mid-20's, the Fire/Kin is a very reliable but slow killer compared to the ILL/Rad and Mind/Rad, both of which can slice through groups fairly quickly.

For MM I find /Dark to be too dependent on accuracy for my liking. I want a secondary set that both keeps mobs off me & pets and is self sustaining - Storm and Traps fill that req. best. You can't beat Bots for primary - they are durable; self healing; mostly stick to their Range and Assault Bot gains a devastating AoE attack with the 2nd upgrade.

Easiest solo character I've ever made?

That's simple.

Fire/Ice Blaster!

You get the amazing AoE destruction from Fire.
Combined with the wonderful mitigation in /Ice.

Ice Patch and Shiver are wonderful at keeping you alive while you melt everything standing. Shiver is extra nice Vs Bosses!

Honestly. I'm mainly a soloer myself, have been for years. Out of all the toons I've rolled that one was by far the most enjoyable and easiest to get to 50! Was so fun I didn't want it to end, so I rolled a praetorian one to take Redside.

My other choice would be Necro/Dark MM. /Dark is just awesomesauce though.

I found my Mastermind to be the easiest to solo, but at level 50 managing pets can be a drag on Trials and other difficult content. (I play a bots/FF mastermind btw.) Tanker solo decently, from personal experience, and team well too. Forts and Windows also are plenty capable solo and also team well.

I haven't played them all the way up but Soldiers (Crab and bane) have good reps. Scrappers too have a reputation for being solo friendly as well as good damage on teams.

It really boils down to what you want. Pick what seems best to you. Yes it does help if you pick one of the "power" builds (like /Dark Miasma) but most things can be made to work. Most people don't pick Bots/FF as their "solo" builds but I found it very capable.