Good solo ranged class?

So I am returning after quite some time away from the game. I am looking solid ranged class. I've been playing around with blaster with dual pistols/devices and like it but I'm not sure about later on in the game how survivable at solo she will be. any advice?

Try asking people on the Blaster and Corrupter archetype forums.

Awesome thank you for the input. I was a little concerned that a dual pistol blaster would be unsoloable later on in the game, but I like the feel of that AT. Also toying with a mastermind with mercs/traps. probably be between the two of those.

Just keep in mind that blasters will perform best when you utilize their melee attacks also.

Corruptors or Dominators.

Crab Spider Soldier.

Quote:

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

Actually, the post only asks if DP/Dev is a good ranged class. A more accurate title would've been "Is this a good ranged solo class?" since the title is the only way you could construe the OP is asking about what ranged classes are good solo in general.


Frankly, anything that can shoot from a distance outside of Epic pools is at least decent to good at Solo'ing. There aren't many combos that can't at least squeak by. Empathy, for instance, has a lot of ally/team based powers, so solo mileage will be somewhat limited.

some combos just might require eating inspirations a lot more often than others is all. But most ATs with ranged capability can range well.

I have a job where I work nights, so primarily I play after work, usually mornings until noon or so. As a result, I end up soloing. A lot. No, I mean a LOT. I used to play on Pinnacle and Triumph, but then I decided if I want to play with other people on teams to do the big stuff, I should probably move to Freedom or Virtue, so now most of my characters are there. Anyways, to my point.

I've soloed every class in the game. I seem happiest playing melee classes, but I haven't had any difficulty soloing any ranged class. Sure, there are caveats, like don't give a blaster more than she can chew at once, but all classes, and even all ranged classes can be soloed with confidence. Some are just a little more difficult than others. Even the much-maligned defenders can be soloed. Right now I have an Empathy/Energy defender at level 43 (heck, even my Grav/Rad controller is 45) that has been mostly soloed. Sure, the min-maxers out there might not like the numbers, but soloing ANY ranged class IS doable, and the important thing is the fun factor you have playing them, not how big can you get their numbers. In short, don't worry about what people tell you about your class. Carpe Diem! Go out in confidence and blaze your own trail. If you like playing the character, all the rest will follow.

While almost any AT can be a reasonable solo toon, I find that the ranged and support toons deliver an excruciatingly slow mission-completion pace because either they have to manage aggro so carefully (blasters) or because their dps is so low (defenders) that I just get impatient and frustrated with the toon and stop trying to play it solo past the early levels.

That's not to say they aren't playable, just that everyone's definition of "soloable" may be different. For me, a toon isn't soloable if it takes twice as long to solo any given mission as a melee toon. A toon like that is only suited for teaming because I just don't have the patience to travel such a slow leveling trajectory.

my 2 Inf. I have been trying to break my Brute addiction for awhile now. The Devs messing with Fury helped me get into rehab. I have been trying for a few weeks to find a good pure ranged character. I worked with the Blaster boards asking what is the best pure range/why? Turns out Ice/Nrg is a very nice, strong pure ranged Blaster. then, I thought, why not dom. I tried Ice/Ice. Then looked at the Dom boards. Earth/Fire it was. Then I thought of an old Dom I 50'd (Grav/Nrg) and how much I liked it. I looked at the choices, and rolled a Grav/Elec. Now, I got all these toons somewhere between 21-28, not long enough to get the full development, but starting to get the flavor. For me, something was missing. Right. Pure Damage. I rolled a Fire/Psi Blaster. Solo, it is living on the edge, no safety net. On teams, it just adds the AoE damage a team needs to kill those spawns. Puts the "steam" in Steamroller.

But my plan for the Ice/Nrg Blaster was to slap a full I/O softcap range defense on it. Not tons of damage like Fire/Psi, but played smart a real tank mage. I can post the build if you like. It is very expensive though.

I have played blaster, dominator, and corruptor. Note these comments apply to leveling, not playing an IO'd out build that goes beyond the classes abilities.

Blaster is either easier or you are dead. Because if you don't kill them fast they take you out. You also have no self heal, so there can be lots of downtime resting.

Dominator I want to love, I like holds and control. They work solo, but are more melee than ranged and take effort. They are all about upfront control, with no heal if things go badly you get taken out, or have to rest a lot. They are maybe a bit better to solo than a blaster - but an ice blaster with 2 holds is probably about equal to a dominator in soloing. And dom does not get dual pistols.

Corruptor works better. I have a dual pistol/rad corruptor. Against weaker groups I can just act like a blaster and take them out. Against tougher groups I can use rad debuffs and then take them out. I have a self heal to help recover in a fight, and downtime is minimal (accelerated metabolism also means END is less of an issue). I also have played other corrs and they also play well solo.

In summary you can make any of them work solo. Blaster and Dom are more limited in their powers so they are a bit tougher solo. Corrs are more flexible and generally work better. Dual Pistols is a solid but not amazing set. Traps is probably okay on a blaster, not great on a corr - giving up a self heal is a big loss.

Having played a DP/Devices blaster to 50, I can say... play something else.

You can solo anything in this game. But DP/Devices solos very slow, and when you come up against something like a malta robot with its high resistance to smashing/lethal damage, you'll want to cry.

I made mine as part of a regular group that played together 3-4 times a week. If not for that, I would never have gotten to 50.

Now, my fire/kin corr can solo like nobody's business. ^_^

Dom: Grav/NRG works well just take the holds and the range.
Cor: Fire/Sonic or anything/sonic the aoe shield helps you and with tough and late epic of choice you have defense.
Def: FF/anything see above for cor. the aoe shield and pff help on your defense

PB: human only. good HP/Shields/range and misc powers

Last is Blaster: Fire/Mental pure AoE damage kill fast kill more pray you live.