Ever have a character surpass your every expectation?

A while back I talked about disliking Rad Blast for defenders. The -Def is largely negligible in the end-game in my experience with the prevalence of set bonuses and other factors, liking stacking Tactics. I had played a Kin/Rad, Cold/Rad, and some corruptor Rad/? up to 50, and a Rad/Rad defender up to... 30-something. I just didn't like Rad blast.

Then someone in my SG said, "Well, have you tried it for blasters?" ..and I had to admit that I hadn't. They said I should try it. So, after a little thought, I came up with a Rad/Fire blaster. I figured I wanted a PBAE DoT machine.

I hit 47 on him last night and started to set him out, and tonight I hit 50 and finished setting him out. I didn't expect to make it past the early 30s with the character, I felt it just wouldn't work out for me. How wrong I was.

Immediately after hitting 50 and getting everything finished (or frankenslotted a little because 26 hitpoints aren't worth 212 million influence to me) I decided, "Let's see how many enemies I can take out before they get me!" I have 35% S/L defense on the character, so I carried a couple purples and some breakfrees just in case.

Not wanting to go too far, I set it for +2/x8, hit up a random Council radio mission. The mobs just melted. With Blazing Aura & Hot Feet running (with 2 damage procs in both) I have pretty good ticks of damage going up just passively. Then you add in Irradiate, Combustion, and all the minions are dead. The lieuts die after the Fire Sword Circle. The bosses are swept aside with a couple passes of Neutron Bolt, X-Ray Beam, & Cosmic Goo Ball each. I think I got hit twice in the first group, nothing substantial. Now, while I'm aware that many blasters can achieve the same sort of thing with just one or two powers, I was not really expecting the level of survivability & damage I achieved with the character. I was very pleasantly surprised. He's an endurance hog, but it's a pretty fun character.

What are yours?

Fire/Cold controller. At the time I underestimated how much survivability a fast recharging AoE immobilize is worth, and it came off a bit as a pleasant surprise to see how easily that alt could take on certain odds that trumped many of my other characters.

Time/Fire defender, although it's still low level and started a mere few days ago, mostly because I still haven't come to terms with how uber time is, also because [Fire Blast]'s animation has been fixed faster than I expected, and fire blast (the powerset this time) is just so fun even on defender damage.

My DB/Invul scrapper would be mine. I wanted a character that wouldn't faceplant and I ended up with something that could solo +4 AVs. kinda took me by surprise, but in the best way possible

Recently? No. I don't make toons that *might* be good anymore and any toon that I do make has full expectation that it will be godly otherwise I wouldn't put time into it. This is also why I've deleted over 70 level 50s, cause if a toon doesnt meet my every expectation it gets deleted, lol.

Mind/Psi Dom. I made it as fill-in character while waiting for Psi Blast to show up for Corrs, so I could make a Dark Ring Mistress character.

I set the Dom going in Praetoria, so I could check out a few more of the storylines. I generally like AoE mayhem and destruction, but all the Confusing and Sleeping is a surprising amount of fun. She makes Praetoria feel very safe. When First Ward came out, I make her a super-snazzy Circle of Light costume, recoloured all her powers golden, and ran her through the First Ward storyline. She worked really well for that, especially in terms of letting me finish reading the dialogue while the ambushes rolled in/the person I was talking to attacked me.

Now I don't know what to do with her. I've got the Praetoria exit mission lined up, but I'm oddly reluctant to abandon her Praetorian roots.

(I made the Psi/Dark, but she's still hanging around in Atlas, waiting for me to get back to her.)

Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper.

I made him back in the day to pair with my wife'e Ill/Storm controller (an odd but effective pairing)

I almost deleted him countless time while I was leveling, and needless to say, I'm glad I didn't.

Once I figured out his current build (which is softcapped to all positions with double stacked Parry), he became my go-to character for any new high level content, and became my in-practice main. (Claws is still my main, but my BS/DA gets way more playtime these days)

He's just a beast. I've outlived just about every tanker set there is at one point or another, and I can soloa large percentage of the AVs in the game with him.

I never thought that character would end up being so powerful back when I rolled him up, just because I'd never seen the combo before.

My Plant/Storm controller.

I've mostly been a melee player (I'm a scrapper above all else) and then one day I thought; hey, why not try something completely different?

And oh boy am I glad I did, I am a teaming kind of person, I almost never solo and let me tell you in teams a plant/Storm controller is the most awesome thing ever, you mess up large spawns so badly it's just funny.

And it's also, very.. very visual so everybody will SEE you mess them up, if that's your thing

My Rad/Fire/Mace is a beast. It's coming close to edging out my main that I've been playing since I4.

Sometimes its not the build you make, but its the way you build it that surpasses your expectations. I made a Storm/Ice defender with all intent to go all AOE with Freezing rain, ice storm, blizzard, and snow storm. Well I had steamy mist so I decided to get super speed to help make me alot more invisible those 2 have good synergy there. I also selected whirlwind for the effect with hurricane for more spinny goodness. Well since im a defender I do feel obligated to heal my team and I keep a close eye to the health bar of my team-mates, and you know that moment when you start seeing everyone's health-bar drop at a very quick rate and you know that the whole team is about to get whiped out like we have seen before and you get that urge to run away so you dont get debt. Well in order to get aggro off the team and for them to catch a breath, I decided to do something as a defender that would surely get me killed in order to see that the rest of the team lives. I turn on hurricane and whirlwind and I start moving from each enemy to the next doing a "Scatter and Splatter" like technique taking all aggro and placing it on me. The enemies were getting thrown all over the room, they were on their back-ends the whole time and the -Tohit from hurricane was making it easy on me. Throw in a couple of Gale's and WOW not only do I survive so does the team. Now yeah a Fire tank or SS/Fire brute would hate this cause the enemies are all over the place but hey we lived. This actually far exceeded my expectations, so I thought I will do this again as a "panic button", and it worked again. Well sure enough being a defender will catch up to you taking all aggro like that and I eventually died, but still it was like out of every 5 times I did this it work 3 times on average it seems. This far exceeded my expectations and worked very very well.

My Super Strength/Super Reflexes brute surprised me. It was that combo which turned my hatred of Super Strength into love.

I have a new AR/Dark Corruptor that is just silly good fun. I just giggle as the bad guys die in droves to my scourgey cone awesome!

My original surprise character was an earth/storm controller way back in the day. Once I had quicksand, freezing rain, and earthquake, I was in love. That combo really turned me onto controllers and to stormies.

Lewis

My AR/Traps Corruptor. I made it a couple years back when every single person I asked was pretty much replying "Assault Riffle? Are you drunk?" and boy oh boy am I glad I did.

He was my first villain too, still is my only REMAINING villain and is a ton of fun on teams and solo. Now mind you, I solo him far more often than not, since on my server Redside was pretty much dead till Freem came along, but he's probably the safest solo toon I have - and he's not even IO'd.

Frankly, AR is a boon to corruptors, with Full Auto and Ignite being such Scourging gems, and traps ensures that mobs are hit harder and longer by both of those. That toon is and AoE death machine.

I'm going to "ditto" the OP. I PLd a Rad/Fire blaster during one of the more egregious AE exploits (statute of limitations applies to exploits in game right?) and put him on the bench, but about a month or 2 ago I dusted him off, stole a build I found in the forums to soft-cap s/l and tweaked a bit. Now I'm loving him on tfs. I haven't tried pushing the envelop yet to try +2/8 farming, but maybe one of these days (farming is no longer an interest).

So, I had little expectation for this character, but it looks like he just may be capable of more mass destruction than any other character I have and can actually survive while doing so.

My new Dark/Mental/Force Mastry Blaster.

My Bane who took the ranged mace attacks. I made her on a lark, found myself at 50 a month later looking for sets!

As someone that is almost pathologically driven to try as many archetypes/powersets as possible, who plans out builds after making any character, this is a tricky question. Yet there's only so much you can see with planning...it's when you get them working in practice that you can be blown away.

My fire/fire dominator was a weak blaster early on- but I looked at powers, and kept playing it because I "knew" it would be fun when I crammed some recharge sets to bring my favorite powers and domination up faster, it would be better. I "knew" that using the fire ancillary pool, it would give me some more fun AoE's. But boy was it fun when I actually did it.

The other character is less about actualization and more about the game's progression. Back when CoV was just released I made a dominator. (Mind/Psy) I loved the character and theme, but it did get a bit rough. /Psy had only a few good attacks, and most of them came late. Being off/on domination for damage meant that especially at low level, with low damage and weaker attacks, some fights were painfully slow until the magic button came up again. I got some inventions to help things, progressed the character, things were a lot smoother. Enter the change to dominators- damage was normalized, and /psy was rebalanced.
I put in some better inventions. All of a sudden the character was not just fun late game, but even when exemplared. I didn't have to rely on 3 attacks for all of my damage, as most of my attacks are darned decent. Having domination makes things safer, but I don't have to time it the same way to take down a boss at any different pace. Now all of a sudden my strong character is one of my strongest...and then, then they gave it incarnate powers. Oh, those silly fools.

My Super Perma Plant/Psi Dom...think I hit over 203% Recharge with Hasten. I farm maps of Nemesis at +2 (not spectacrular) without blinking an eye. With Barrier, Storm pets and Void with -Damage and the -Damage proc in all attacks, I am a dervish of purple and blue destruction.

So much fun.

My Earth/Kin/Stone controller. I'm one of these people that just throws stuff together for concept and only looks at Mids for quality of build later.

My idea for her was that the kin powers were just spells to call forth the earth. I don't know where I got the idea.

But what I found out after playing and respeccing a few times is what a decent build this is. In earlier days I farmed friends with her, which you didnt see much for an Earth/Kin

The rinse and repeat is quite nasty

Stealth in as stoney gets all the aggro
FS
AoE Stun
AoE Immob
Fissure Fissure
Siphon Speed (so that I can rinse & repeat faster)
Seismic Smash
=Dead mobs

Rose Dawn is WAY overpowered for a Mind/Kin 'troller, as I've built her, and with a few exceptions, can handle multiple +4 bosses easily. Way beyond what I expected.

Total Dependent. An Ice/Ice Defender. Has but ONE offensive power, and that is only slotted for aim. The rest of her powers are team oriented, so she pretty much completely depends on a team for her XP, offensively, but does her best to buff/debuff as needed. Never had a complaint using her, and got her to 37 in that form, which was, to me, sorta unexpected. Thought it would have been harder. Will likey re-roll her to just start over and see what happens now, once Rose is a 50.

Rad/Mental Blaster - Pop a luck, drain Psyche a mob and just go to town with incredible regen and outsurvive near everyone else. And with Psychic Wail and Rads PBAoEs, she is an AoE machine.

Dual Blades/Dark Armor Brute - I expected it to be terrible, but bearable, but actually pulled together quite well. I built with Kin Combats, Oblits, and Cloak of Fear and got enough S/L defense that I soft cap anything in melee (including the Cloak of Fear debuff). Combine that with the 'heal anything' power that is Dark Regeneration and he is very strong.

Beam/Time Corr - I knew time was 'good' before I leveled it, but wow, oh wow, is time good. And Beam really shines when you're fighting +4s and can leverage disintigration to it's fullest.

Have had several, but the most recent is my (currently) level 46 plant/thorn/fire Dom who, after a bit of intuitive respeccing, has become an AoE Engine of Chaos and Destruction. I don't expect to ever solo AVs with him, but he can certainly clear the rest of the room on his own... and he's not even "satisfactorily" enhanced yet.

Fire/Storm/Leviathan controller.

I feel like a moving category 5 weather event.

With the flash fires, fire cages, imps, added to the lighting storms, tornadoes and water spouts, I am surrounded by things going on. Spam fire cages and ever thing is stuck to the floor. Withhold the fire cages and pure chaos ensues. Bosses and mobs bouncing off walls, even changing directions several times as they fly though the air as one or more tornadoes fling them up and the lightning storms knock them around.

Now find me a room or hall I can block off with bonfire and toss in the rest of my abilities and the mobs look like popcorn bouncing up, down and everywhere.

I never think it is as good for them as it is for me though.

Ah well they should not live a life of crime and villainy.

SS/fire brute.

Orignally i made mine for farming in AE, with plans to NEVER leave it, as a way to get inf for my "better" toons.
Once iPowers came out tho i wanted him to be as fast as possible. So i threw together a build for content, hoping to be decent enough to not be dead weight, so i could get the new awesomeness.
Next thing i knew i had the most powerful, well balanced and down right fun character i had ever created. The toons i was going to get inf for? Haven't been touched since.

My FF/Archery defender.
Now, FF is essentially a mini-tank anyhow. But with some sets in there, it becomes really EEEVIL. The change of the ally shields to AoE made it even MORE godlike since now I apply once and cover everyone during stuff like ship raids. So I can spend more time dropping Rain of Arrows, Repulsion Bomb and Explosive Arrow. And if they get to close. THUNDERSTRIKE!

Rikti
Flying
EVERYWHERE!

Yeah. Come gripe to me about KB.

Yeah. It may not be a Fire/Fire blaster (but what, besides a fire/fire blaster IS?). But the amount of combat control I have with the set was a VERY pleasant surprise.

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