What do you consider the Definitive Power Set combinations?

This is just out of curiosity, but I want to know what people think of as the definitive power sets for the basic archetypes.

To make this clear... I'm asking what sets you think of when you hear 'Blaster' or 'Mastermind' etc., without any other information at all. Not what you think the best sets are, or the most effective. Just what first comes to mind when you hear 'Brute' or so on.

I realize this is completely subjective and opinion based, but I am curious.

And to start things off, here are mine:

Blaster: Energy Blast/Energy Manipulation

Brute: Super Strength/Willpower

Controller: Illusion Control/Force Fields

Corruptor: Fire Blast/Dark Miasma

Defender: Empathy/Archery

Dominator: Mind Control/Psionic Assault

Mastermind: Robotics/Traps

Scrapper: Street Justice/Shield Defense

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu

Tanker: Invulnerability/Super Strength

I honestly couldn't tell you WHY some of those are my definitive sets... (Controller and Defender especially) but these are what I think of when I consider the AT without anything else.

So... what do you consider the definitive sets of the archetypes?

Blasters: Fire/Fire - (Note the devs actually used Johnny Storm as the template for things like the nukes)

Scrappers: Claws/Regen - Nuff said, bub.

Tankers: Superstrength/Invulnerability - It's a bird...

Defenders: Storm Summoning/Lightning Blast - Because....just 'cause!

Controllers: Mind Control/Force Field

Brutes: Street Justice/Willpower

Stalkers: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu

Dominators: Illusion/Psi (NOTE THE PRIMARY DEVS!!!!11!! )

Masterminds: Thugs/Pain

Corruptors: Rad/Rad

Stalker: nin/nin

Scrapper: Any weapon set/ Either regen or SR

Brute: TW or any SS/any resist or regen

Tanker: Invul/ any none-weapon

Blaster: Fire/Fire (though I don't like cliche combinations)

Defender: Emp/anything with no-weapon (bandaid anyone? :P)

Dominator: anything that doesn't have weapon really :P

Controller: Same as domi

Corruptor: Rad/Rad (just it fits to name)

Mastermind: well all are viable options but secondaries are meh at best i would like to see a leadership secondary instead of what we have for MM really.

Mastermind: Bots/Traps

Corruptor: Fire/Cold

Brute: Super Strength/Fiery Aura

Blaster: Archery/Mental and Fire/Mental

Scrapper: Dark/Shield

Controller: Ill/Rad

Defender: Rad/Sonic and Cold/Sonic

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu

Tank: Invulnerability/Super Strength (there are just so many)

Dominator: Mind/Fire

Blaster: Fire/Fire

Brute: SS/Invuln

Controller: Plant/Storm

Corruptor: Fire/Cold

Defender: Force Fields/Energy

Dominator: Mind/Fire

Mastermind: Thugs/Traps

Scrapper: Martial Arts/Super Reflexes or Street Justice/Willpower

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu or Dark/Dark

Tanker: Shield/SS

Blasters: AR/Devices
Most highly offensive characters are not also squishy. To me, as a player from the early game, AR/Devices was a common combo and made a lot of sense. A squishy normal guy walking into a super powered fight? Is he crazy? NO. He's got GUNS.

Scrappers: Dark/Dark
I can't even begin to argue why I think this, but it's the honest answer. Dark always seemed like scrapper territory to me and when someone says scrapper I expect to see DM/X or X/DA if not DM/DA.

Tankers: Super Strength/Invulnerability
Because, yeah...

Defenders: Empathy and defenders don't get a secondary.
Yeah yeah... 'go back to WoW kid!' but really that's what a defender is to me. Either Kinetics or Empathy making sure everything goes right, with no free time to blast. Again I played mostly in the original game and have since just come back many times for short periods. Back when enemies would jump inside eachother and defense stacking was broken, if the tank didn't need healing and buffing, your mission was too easy!

Controllers: Mind Control/Anything
Mind Control is just the absolute quintessence of the concept. The basic and common, but still awesome way control is achieved in media and a set with a very basic layout. Mez, KB, Hold, Confuse... AE of each, with a cone terrorize thrown in for an even nine. Every other set is giving something up to get something else, deviating from this standard.

Brutes: Titan Weapons/Willpower
Ever since I first read the word 'Brute' in the context of a CoH Archetype I have thought of them as using big giant two handed weapons. Nothing says brute, not super strength, not throwing things, not getting mad - NOTHING says brute like a weapon that looks too big for the user to carry at all, being swung like it weighed nothing.

Stalkers: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu

Dominators: Mind Control/Mental Assault
See Controller

Masterminds: Bots/Force Field
Bots gives that feeling that you're really controlling many things at once, both the concept of remote operating several machines at once and the animations that all go together very well where as with the other pet sets if you say 'attack that guy' they all sort of scramble and do different moves without synchronization... but the bots all lean back and fire a few rounds of lasers together.

Corruptors: Thermal Radiation / Fire
I saw these come out with City of Villains, and so I still find it odd seeing HERO corruptors. Nothing says 'evil support' like fire IMHO and I think of Thermal / Fire when someone says corruptor.

Not necessarily what I'd play (I only even have 3 of these combinations), but it's what I think of when I think of these Archetypes.

Blaster: Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation

Scrapper: Martial Arts/Super Reflexes

Controller: Earth Control/Sonic Resonance

Defender: Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast

Tanker: Invulnerability/Super Strength

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu

Brute: Fire Melee/Fiery Aura

Dominator: Mind Control/Psionic Assault

Corruptor: Ice Blast/Cold Domination

Mastermind: Robotics/Traps

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

These are what I immediately think of:

Blaster: En/En
Controller: Mind/Kin
Defender: Emp/Psy
Scrapper: MA/SR
Tanker: Invuln/SS
Brute: Stone/WP
Stalker: Nin/Nin
Mastermind: Bots/Traps
Dominator: Plant/Thorn
Corruptor: Rad/Rad

I can't explain why, because I haven't ever played any of these combinations. But maybe I should?

Wild Streak - Lv. 50(+3) Beast Mastery/Sonic Resonance Mastermind, Amnesty - Lv. 50 Staff Fighting/Dark Armor Stalker

I think the only thing everyone agrees on is Stalkers are Ninjas.

Personally (and probably because I'd view a Katana as a Scrapper niche thanks to my main) I think Dual Wielding and/or throwing weapons are more thematic for Stalkers (throwing weapons stand-in would be Spines for me). Block one knife to the kidney: lucky you. Block the other knife to the kidney: unlikely. Or getting a headshot with something you just thew and outright killing a minion (or having him die from bleeding out momentarily)...can't really do that with a Scrapper, though...or a Brute/Tanker.

Defender: Empathy/anything makes me shake my head. There are actual Empathy Defenders but they are very very rare, most are Empathy healers.

Everyone made an energy/energy blaster at launch. I checked and not one person didn't. That's about as telling as it gets for definitiveness. Likewise, inv/ss has had eight years of being a go-to combination. There are things that are popular because they're effective like fire/kin and ill/rad, and then there's en/en and inv/ss. Completely different league of popularity: they're naturals.

Blaster: fire/fire
Burn things, blast things- it's the land of the quick and the dead. And you're the quick one.

Brute: Super Strength/Willpower
Smashing in rage all that come into you're path, shaking off any damage just because you could care less.

Controller: Mind Control/Force Fields
Messing with minds while protecting the team. I find mind/ to be the quintessential control set thematically, and forcefield just works with it as the perfect 'guarding people' secondary.

Corruptor: Fire Blast/Pain Domination
Sure it'll heal you, but it'll still hurt. Oh, and the enemy? They will burn in pain, and when they show signs of weakness, burn them harder.

Defender: Empathy/Psyhic blast
Yeah, I know. Defender aren't 'healorz.' But when it comes to a character the reinforces the team while messing up enemies with their attacks, this one is what seems the most obvious.

Dominator: Mind Control/Psionic Assault
Make them helpless then break them as they are vulnerable with your own deadly power. Mind control just says 'mess with their heads' and /psy says 'use the same to break their minds until they collapse.'

Mastermind: Robotics/Force Fields
Disposable, heartless hardware that you make invulnerable as you squash all foes in you abuse technology to gain dominance. Mastermind to a T in my head.

Scrapper: Martial arts/Super reflexes
Sure street justice might work here, but I'm old school. You go into a fight with nothing but your hands, feet, and combat skills, and they all will regret messing with you.

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu
What's that? yes, it's a blade, magically appearing through your chest. A stalker? No, just a puff of smoke.

Tanker: Invulnerability/Super Strength
Plink away with your pointless attacks, then the tanker will walk right up to you and send you to the hospital with a knockout punch.

I'm posting this before I read anyone else's post. Any similarities are purely coincidental. This is a pretty cool idea btw, I've never really taken the time to consider this before.

Blaster: Energy/Energy
Defender: Rad/Rad
Controller: Mind/Empathy
Scrapper: MA(StrJ)/SR
Tanker: Inv/SS

Villain ATs are somewhat more difficult, since I don't play redside much. I'll give it a shot anyway.

Mastermind: Bots/FF
Brute: SS/Fire
Stalker: Nin/Nin
Corruptor: Fire/Thermal
Dominator: Grav/Energy

Some of these have clear influence from how often I see them in game, while others are relatively rare but just thematically are what I think of. That was a fun exercise though. Amusingly the only one of these combinations I have EVER played is Energy/Energy Blaster.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

Blaster: En/En or Fire/Fire Both are pretty staple...

Defender: TA/Archery ....cuz everyone has that guy with the funky arrows...

Scrapper: Claws/Regen ...Cuz what you do ain't very nice...

Tanker: Invuln/SS ...It's a plane...

Controller: Mind Control/Empathy ...Cuz you're gifted...

Dominator: Plant Control/Thorn Assault ...damn eco-freak... (Also see EG and ILLUSION!)

Mastermind: Thugs or Ninjas/Traps (even if i don't have a traps toon) ...Because both thugs and ninjas come in endless supply.

Brute: see Tanker ...cuz their big, strong, tough as hades....and usually dumb as a brick...unless it's Bane...

Stalker: NB or DB/Nin ...Cuz all you'll see is a glimmer...and then you're dead...

Corruptor: Fire/Thermal ...zippo lighter not included...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.

Blaster: Fire/Ice. When I started, Blaster seemed like the go-to ELEMENTAL FORCES OF PAIN type to me.

Brute: Super Strength/Fire. I know, I know, but this is actually what the first Brute I ever made was, it just seemed appropriate for the Archetype to be lit up and running around smashing everything. Of course, that was long before SS/Fire became the Farmer's Choice.

Controller: Gravity/Kinetics. Nothing says "Control" to me like the ability to directly alter the universal forces of physics.

Corruptor: Dark/Dark. I don't think this even needs an explanation, does it?

Defender: Radiation/Radiation. This combo does it all for your team, and it's so much more visually impacting than Empathy, that it was the one I really remembered noticing do a lot back in I0. Of course conceptually Emp/Psi is also an obvious choice.

Dominator: Plant/Thorns. This was the big Dominator exclusive and it's a highly unique aesthetic, too.

Mastermind: Robotics/Force Fields. An army of laser shooting robots just seems so right for something called a "Mastermind." Bots/Force was my very first villain for a reason.

Scrapper: Spines/Dark. This was one of the definitive combos of the original game, which is probably why it's stuck with me. Spines/Dark was once the king of AoE and incredibly... unique... looking, if not pretty.

Stalker: Martial Arts/Ninjitsu. Stalkers are Ninjas is right; I'm just more a fan of unarmed ninjas, I guess.

Tanker: Invuln/Energy. Totally badass once upon a time, and a little more "Super"-looking that Super Strength with it's glowy fists of doom (hey, I like my heroes to either be low-key low-power or high-key high-power, the Normal Looking Dude in Tights who can FLY AROUND THE PLANET BACKWARDS TO REVERSE TIME doesn't jive with me).

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

Hmmm...this is tougher on some than on others. Are we going with what we think players want, or the idea of "This is what a typical comic book character would have as this AT" or the go to pairing for the AT, so many ways to do this!

Blaster: Energy/Energy (Cyclops/Iron Man)

Controller: Mind/Force Field (Jean Grey)

Defender: Storm Summoning/Electrical Blast (Storm)

Scrapper: Claws/Regen (Wolverine)

Tanker: INV/SS (Superman)

Brute: SS/WP (Hulk - it's just nonstop SMASH, there is no pause to heal, it's toggle and go!)

Corruptor: Dark Blast/Dark Miasma (Dark powers are typical corruption style powers)

Dominator: Mind/Psi (Emma Frost)

Mastermind: Robotics/Traps (The evil tech genius)

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu (The straight up classic Ninja combo)

Interresting, I find it's the Corr, Defender, Troller that become the hardest to define when trying to base it off comics, because of how the powers work. Fire Manipulating heroes in comics, don't generally cover their allies in fire to protect them. Nor to Cold based super powers. And Empathy, for at one time being really popular in CoH (I don't think it is as much anymore) I never found to be that comic bookish. Empathy has always seemed (to me) straight up MMO. In Superhero comics, there just aren't a lot of characters that can heal like that (it takes away from the drama if you have that character who just swoops in and goes "You're HEALED!"

Now, if I was going to base it on CoH and what I think I'd suggest to someone new...

Blaster: Fire/Mental (DAMAGE and AOE)
Controller: Illusion/Rad (RAWR!)
Defender: Time Manip/Fire Blast (AOE and Survival)
Scrapper: StJ/Shield (MORE DAMAGE and good survival)
Tanker: INV/SS (The classic!)
Brute: SS/FA (SMASH AND BURN)
Corruptor: Fire Blast/Time (See Defender)
Dominator: Mind/Fire (LOCK EM DOWN AND BURN EM!)
Mastermind: Thugs/Time (You want an army? How about a Gang War!)
Stalker: ELM/NIN (AOE is huge in CoH! ELM is best on Stalkers! Combine that with classic Ninjitsu!)

I don't even like playing fire, but I see it as the default set in most cases. I still kind of see things from the city of blasters days though.

Blaster: fire/fire
Brute: fire/fire
Controller: ill/rad
Corruptor: fire/thermal
Defender: emp/...anything
Dominator: plant/fire
Mastermind: Robotics/FF
Scrapper: claws/regen
Stalker: ninja blade/ninjitsu
Tanker: invuln/ss

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle Everyone made an energy/energy blaster at launch. I checked and not one person didn't.

I am officially not a person. I made an elec/elec.

Im guessing what you are asking is what most would call the optimal pairings which is still ofcourse somewhat opinion though some forum posters over the years have released videos to back up thier views.

Ill stick mostly with the ones I personally know and have seen in action firsthand by myself or others over long years of play.

Dark/Regen Scrapper: My friend who I helped learn about IOing and even just earning merits to help aquire those IOs more casually eventually had to retire his permamently simply saying it had become too dull with nothing in the game to make him feel even remotely threatened solo. I still fondly recall the first time I watched him solo charge an AV ( the one at the end of the sara moore TF) and afterwards say it was the first time he ever went at an AV not afraid. How people can grow eh.

Single Sword/Regen Stalker: always was good on scrappers, and imo makes for one of the scrappiest stalkers even pre upgrade. might lack the full end recov of a regen making team centric builds like leadership abit less appealing, but that just makes the choice of the solo centric builds I favor using phase shift for an ultimate oh **** power much easier. Doesnt mean for a second my batman esque MA/Ninja stalker isnt my fave stalker toon still.

Psi/Ment Blaster: Personally I do believe Dark/Mental may be a superior blend but I made my psi ment when it first came out, and really cant imagine ever needing to play another blaster since I had tried every power set combo for blasters before the release of psi and found them all worthless. Not that I believe blasters themselves are in need of an upgrade, rather I feel more advanced blaster secondary sets akin to Mental and now Dark manipulation need to be the focus for future blaster tweaking. Update older secondaries by adding some decent health recovery option akin to the heals blasters can now gain in our more modern sets. This combo I also believe is the ultimate expression of characters like combat mode jean grey, and with the ability to make multiple builds one can use fire mastery for pheonix mode, and one force mastery just to express stronger TK powers.

Ice/SS tank: Probably the best DPS/aggro holding tank I know personally in game. Sets a standard few other so called tanks have ever competed with. Sad thing is the guy isnt even purpled up maybe only a 2 or 3 billion build at the most. Hits harder then most scrappers I see in action, holds aggro through his dps alone often calling taunt a broken and exploitive mechanic to depend upon. When bad guys charge him over the blaster you dont go thinking man thats silly to avoid the big dmg, you think damn they are smart trying to overwhelm that hulk before he tears down the caverns bare handed.

Fire/Kin Troller: Do I really even need to bother explaining? Well I have known a few, one is a favorite TF running friend of mine, and with thier help ive knocked out sister psyches in under 45 minutes, a synapse in about an hour flat( with 4 manning babs) and a few ther fun exemped TF challenges. Not to mention the fact they clear ridiculous amounts of inf and drops when they farm.

Kheldians: Both human form, cant stand the squids nor the lobsters and dont tolerate them on my teams out of sheer disgust. Human form builds by lvl 50 especially with clarion to fill thier mez vulnerability, will become true supermen and all the Inv/SS tanks can go cry thier eyes out.

Dark/SR brute: The scrapper kind could solo 8 AVs at once, the brute kind by all rights would have to be better in such a long drawn out slug fest. Especially since the strength of the scrapper build was in using the to hit debuff sets, meaning brute rage actually is a much bigger boost in such a test at least in theory. My dark sr scrapper is alot of fun, but when I imagine what I could do with him as a brute it is about the only combo I do feel brutes can do better then scrappers with.

The great thing about all these and any optimal build is few are so good without an actual understanding of the game itself. IO sets, timing with powers in various circumstances, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a given set is what allows us to enjoy even using so called gimped comboes to great effect when we think outside the box.

Let me reiterate:

I'm not asking for 'Optimal' pairings. I'm asking for what powers you think of when you consider the Archetypes without any bias toward a name or a backstory. Or, as Trickshooter put it:

Blaster: Elec/Elec
Tanker: Inv/SS
Brute: SS/Regen
Defender: FF/Psi
Dominator: Fire/Fire
Controller: Gravity/Kin
Corruptor: toxic blasts or thorns(not available)/posion
Mastermind: Bots/Time
Scrapper: Ma/invuln
Stalker: Nin/Nin

As far as powersets that are simply made for eachother, there are more than a few.

Any Defensive armor (SR, Shield...) and Dark Melee.
In addition to making you harder to hit, it is the only Melee powerset with both a Self Heal and a Self +End power. Dark Melee is very helpful on many builds, but on a SR, the ability to finally heal oneself, as well as an endurance siphon to beat any recovery problems including a crashing elude, make Dark Melee an ideal set. The fact that it is in the top tiers of single target DPS doesn't hurt either.

Illusion Control / Radiation Emission.
If you want an Ill Controller and you want to do good damage, easily get perma Phantom Army, and solo AVs and GMs, then Rad is the obvious choice. Ill needs two things to increase its effectiveness: +Recharge on self, and Debuffs. Buffs are a bad idea, because the Phantom Army can't be buffed. While an Ill-Kin should be a good build, and can easily stack +Recharge to get perma Phantom Army, the Fulcrum Shift will simply leave those phantoms "Unaffected" lol. That's why debuffs are more important. In that respect, a set like Trick Arrow is also very good with Illusion, since it's all debuffs and gives you something to do while you watch the phantoms right... but TA doesn't help you out on recharge. There's a reason Ill-Rads have always been popular.

Fire Blast on any Blaster / anything.
Fire has always done the most damage, Blaster's are one dimensional and while you CAN make them do some other things... it's in the best interest of the team your Blaster joins that you focused on Damage first. They can take aggro, they can keep you alive, you just focus on max possible DPS and earn that exp. Blaster no think, Blaster shoot. Fire Blast obviously excels here, but Sonic Blast can make arguments to team play about -Resists stacking and helping the team more by helping yourself less... but uh oh now I've gotten sucked into...

Sonic Blast on Defenders.
Higher Buff/Debuff numbers, Sonic Blast having the most noticeable Debuff in an AV fight, the one that makes them start melting and makes teammates start hitting for quadruple digits: -Resistance. Defenders get the highest number for this set (20% per attack) and Sonic Blasts stack with each other and themselves. Combined with the already higher potential -Resists from Debuff sets compared to the other ATs who can take this set (Corruptors and Blasters) the amount of Resistance that a Defender can take away from you is staggering. Just as Fire Blast becomes the best set for a Blaster, Sonic Blast becomes the best set for a Defender. For a Corruptor, the choices become more complicated than that due to the half n' half nature of the AT, but that's another story.

Blaster: Fire/Fire - human torch

Brute: claws/regen - wolverine

Controller: gravity/Force Fields - Magneto/Invisible Woman

Corruptor: ???

Defender: Empathy/Dark - Raven, the only healer I can think of in comics

Dominator: Ice/Ice- Iceman

Mastermind: Mercs/Traps - Nick Fury

Scrapper: Street Justice/Shield - Captain America

Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu - a ninja

Tanker: Earth/Super Strength - Thing

Haven't read the rest of the thread, to avoid being influenced...

A couple years ago when this topic came up, here's what I came up with:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino My personal picks (without having read the rest of the thread so as to not be influenced): Blaster: Fire/Energy. Great AoE, great ST, strong at both ranged damage and blaps, some self buffs, not much mitigation. The blaster AT in a nutshell. Tanker: Invulnerability/Super strength. The image of Superman as the iconic 'brick' type character is just too ingrained in culture for anything else to fit. Scrapper: Claws/Regeneration. Because when you want to kill something, 6 blades are always better than 1, and downtime? What's that? Why would you ever want to stop? That's the scrapper mindset. Defender: Radiation/Radiation. I can do anything. Name a buff or debuff, and odds are I've got it. And since for the longest time, if you saw green eye-lasers heroside you were looking at a defender, rad blast sorta comes along for the ride. Controller: Earth/Storm. Because nothing says 'I CONTROL YOUR WORLD' like stopping 3 or 4 spawns in their tracks and then grinding up half of them before the mezzes even run out. Not to mention the whole 'I can hit you with the power of an entire freakin PLANET' vibe. And, on the red side: Brute: Super Strength/Willpower. Because when I think Brute, I think of an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction that just keeps on coming, no matter what. Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu. Yeah, I know, it's a cliche, but it's that way for a reason. Nothing says 'death from the shadows' like a 3 foot length of exquisitely sharp steel suddenly growing out from your target's heart. Dominator: Mind control/Fiery assault. What's the only thing more evil than fiendishly ripping apart the fragile minds of do-gooders and innocents alike? Ripping apart their minds and then incinerating their bodies! Muhahahahahah! Mastermind: Robotics/Traps. It's every sci-fi villain cliche in one! The unstoppable army of cold, unfeeling robotic minions, the fiendish array of lethal (and not-so-lethal) booby-traps, the slightly comical-looking ray-gun... All that's missing is a giant bald head and a properly imposing secret-trapdoor-equipped throne room! Corruptor: Fire blast/Dark Miasma. Hellfire raining from the sky, explosions of purest demon-spawned flame, insidious meres of grasping, chill darkness, visions of gibbering terror from the deepest pits of hell - yeah, someone's about to have a really bad day. And now to look at the rest of the thread to see how many times each of these has been mentioned already...

The interesting thing is that, at the time, the archetypes were still stuck on their 'native' sides. So, a lot of my perception of what the definitive combinations were was influenced by the traditional hero and villain roles. I think I probably would have to pick new ones for defender, stalker, dominator, mastermind, and corruptor:

Defender: force field/energy blast. IMO it's the conceptually simplest exemplification of the concept of 'defense' applied to the defender AT.

Stalker: street justice/ninjitsu. Because the prototypical stalker, divorced from the question of alignment, is actually a certain nocturnal-flying-mammal-themed vigilante. Sure, you can't make him in game, but that doesn't stop his image from informing our instinctive visions of that sort of character.

Dominator: mind/psi. Doms, to me, have always filled the vision of the physically weak (relatively speaking, of course - weak compared to characters with super strength, not compared to a normal person!) super-being with immense non-physical power, *in both an offensive and defensive sense*. The fire elementalist who dances unharmed through the flames of battle, dishing out carnage right and left while smothering any attempts at counter-attack. The ice mage who fights with glacial deliberation and implacability, launching daggers of frozen fury with pinpoint precision while icy barriers freeze attackers in their tracks and chill storm winds cover her relentless advance. The darkness adept for whom the shadows are both ward and weapon - weakening the will, misleading the mind, clouding the eyes, binding the limbs, and rending the soul with unspeakable horrors. And the unstoppable psion, who needs no magic or technology to turn a battle-tank inside out with a single glance, reduce the strongest-willed man to a helpless puppet or catatonic lump with a negligent whim, stop bullets in their tracks or smother an exploding bomb with a mere thought, and rend the very fabric of the universe at will. All of those are dominators, and all of them are amazing. (Can you tell what my favorite archetype is? )

Mastermind: Robots would still be the primary, just because they're so cliche, but I think I would go for dark or time as the secondary. They just seem nicely thematic and more personally active than traps (the mastermind might let their minions do the heavy lifting, but that doesn't mean they won't lend their own weight to the fight in a less physical manner, in my vision).

Corruptor: Fire blast is still the primary, there's nothing more fitting than that. I think I'd go with radiation as the secondary, though, in that it feels very much like the offensive flip side/inversion of force field - where force field has defensive buffs and its enemy-affecting powers are essentially disruptive in nature, radiation has debuffs that weaken the enemies' ability to take and give damage and buffs that boost allies' ability to dish out pain.