Biospark

My Vote for a Tank-Fender would be Forcefield Primary , hands-down

Forcefields offers the ability to get to the Softcap on defense AND some form of personal "Mez" protection. If your team is looking to you for "Tanking" you can soften a spawn with Repulsion Bomb or fly in to range with PFF running and soak up an Alpha strike.
And there are many, many, more tactics that FF Vets here know better than myself.

As far as which secondaries would work best, I will leave that to others since I don't generally play my Defenders as "point men". Running into a spawn is someone else's job

Of the four choices you mentioned, Kin/Dark is probably the best soloer. It has alot of extra control at its disposal which is both group and solo-friendly. Some might say its not as solid of a synergy because you need to be at range for the cones and in close for the kinetic buffs, but I have never found this to be an issue. I move all the time during combat.

Psychic is a secondary I have always wanted to like, but just cannot get past the sound effects. On paper it seems like a very solid powerset with much more control than electric, thereby being perhaps a better soloer.

I agree with Je_Saist about energy, Its a wonderful powerset, but definitely has synergy issues with Dark, Rad, Storm and Kinetics primaries. It pairs better with Empathy, Forcefields, Sonic and possibly the others which I have zero experience on (TA, Cold, Traps).

Having a Kin-Electric on Guardian (currently at 36) I can tell you that Je_Saist has given you a very good run-down on this one as well. My main toon is Emp-Electric and he uses "sapping", and I was intrigued by Kin-Electric as a more powerful "sapper". Kin-Electric is a moderately skilled soloer and can survive reasonably well due to the +damage that he can deal, but you still have only "Tesla Cage" for dealing with alpha strikes making it somewhat problematic raising difficulties to higher spawn sizes.

Listen to Strato_Nexus, he is usually right

My highest level Controller to date was a Mind/Empathy. I was aiming for total support in that I would have the best controls, combined with the best buffs and best heals. It was actually quite fun.

I have also leveled an Ice/Empathy and enjoyed it as well. Empathy as a secondary has a lot going for it, especially since Controllers now have "containment" to assist in their solo-ing needs.

But if I were to ever try Empathy on a controller again, it would probably be Earth/Empathy.
Just the thought of having something to put Fortitude on while solo makes me smile. And I would bet "buffed-up Stoney" is quite a sight to see in action.

I agree with Techbot_Alpha

This idea is interesting and I can see the concept behind it clearly, however it strikes fairly close to "Willpower"; a set we already have, so might not be different enough for developement.

I do like the idea of a major debuff taunt aura though. We currently have three sets with AoE taunts (+regen/-tohit, +def/+tohit, +dmg) so something that was more focused on debuff would be interesting and due to lack of regen, defense, and resistance of large amounts it could work. I would take away the penalty and just make it a flat (and large) debuff of their tohit and damage. This would simulate Defense and Resistance, but only to enemies in range. Then I think you could fit in some ranged and aoe defense somewhere else to bring it up to par with other sets, because as you balanced it, I think its a tad on the weaker side.

Bio

As far as Kheldians are concerned (Not having played the Villain-side EATs) they could make them un-lockable at level ONE and I still will not play them. I just don't like them.

My guess is that they are making them more available to encourage more people to play them. As it stands now, only a small fraction of the player base even plays them, and that must be kind of a "slap in the face" considering how hard they had to work to create them.

So overall, this was probably a good change. Just don't know if it will have the desired effect.

Here is my take on IOs. And this is coming from a casual player as well.

I always, repeat always, slot out generic level 25 IOs once I get a character to 22.
This will run anywhere from 2-5 million depending on the types of IOs you need. For example, my DM/SR character was pretty expensive because of needing a Luck charm for every ACC IO and every Defense IO (ickk). It may seem on paper to be more expensive than SOs, but here is the good news, you NEVER have to replace that IO until your darn good and ready to do so. Level 25 Generic IOs are nearly identical to SOs but never degrade as you level up. Then you only need to add in new IOs (generic) as you gain new powers and slots to fill.

As far as Set IOs, there are many ways to approach these, and many folks will tell you to wait till 50 and after you have decided on a final build before chasing IO sets. Which is a good plan.
My characters all start slotting specific IOs and cheap sets in their 30s, but that was not always the case. My first IO'ed toon got lucky and found both a respec recipe and a miracle +recovery proc in his late 30s. Instead of using them, I sold them to get a nice bank account started, and turned those 2 drops into 3 full sets of Thunderstrike, a full set of BotZ (they were cheaper then), and several other uncommon sets.

So to answer your question, with only 32 million to work from, I would just do generic IOs and level up. Do merit story arcs, do TFs to get merits, and hopefully get some lucky drops. I will not go into some of the influence-making schemes that are possible, but I would play around with Mid's and see what cheap IO sets could be good place-holders for your ultimate build. For example, my 47 WP/Fire Tanker has 5 full sets of Smashing Haymaker which are place-holders for Kinetic Combat. These 20 IOs cost me around 25 million. I could easily spend that much on ONE Kinetic Combat recipe. But in the meantime each Smashing Haymaker set is yielding me 1.88% Defense, which is halfway between zero and what the Kinetic Combats will give me. Its a very sound investment while I wait on the Billions I may need for 5 Kinetic combats sets.

Hope that made sense. I sometimes ramble :/

The inherents are particularly difficult to come up with without going into ones already done or not very popular.

For instance, one Idea I had for the Avenger was to have their damage scale up as their team-mates were wounded to an 80% damage cap. This would be similar, but different than the current Defender "Vigilence" but give some offensive "punch" to the AT.

For the Trickster, I thought going with corruptor base damage would be fairly decent, since the use of Defense sets would make them far from "squishy" even with LOW hps.
I like your idea of putting in Placate and Assassin's strike in order to make the set have more interest. In actuality, my first thought was to have Sniper attacks at Tier 4 instead of "Buildup". But I am less a fan of "Sniper" attacks than some folks. Perhaps the inherent could be more like a Critical that only occurs on a mob that is unaware of the "Trickster", which makes use of the placate very important for gaining more damage.

I read that thread as well.
Interesting Idea, although my thought would be to have a Defender-like option with full team support, but being a melee oriented AT rather than Blasting. I like blasting, but not so much that I want EVERY defender I make to be a ranged toon. It would be nice to have a mix of melee and ranged support characters to choose from. As it stands now, every support character that I have (Controllers, Defenders) uses ranged attacks. There really is no melee option for combining with Forcefields, Radiation, Dark etc...

AVENGER (other name choices include Protector or Guardian)

PRIMARY POWERSETS : selection of Defender/Controller/Corruptor Buff/DeBuff powersets
SECONDARY POWERSETS : selection of Scrapper/Brute/Tanker/Stalker melee sets
HIT POINTS : Medium
DAMAGE : Medium (Damage at Tanker strength)
INHERENT: The Avenger’s ability to shrug off attempts to control his actions comes in the form of a “Fury” type effect. As this “Fury” builds he/she becomes more resistant to most Status effects.
This effect would start at zero and build up during combat based on damage sustained to both the Avenger’s team and to the Avenger themselves.

This Archetype has always been one that I have had a great desire to see implemented. The Melee-Defender is a non-existent “entity” and any attempts to create a “Pseudo-version” are extremely limited. The nature of “Support” powers in general would seem to make it less powerful to combine with attacks that “require” you to be in melee range but I think most support sets are very capable in melee range. This is also why I believe very strongly that the Hit Points need to be on-par with Scrappers/Blasters AND that some means of making this AT more scrapper-like is needed (better damage than defenders baseline and/or Status protection). Due to balance considerations, this could require the Buff/Debuff values reduced to Corruptor/Controller levels. As far as a team role, this would be another flavor of a support character who specializes in getting into melee instead of ranged assault.



TRICKSTER (other name choices include Deceiver or Manipulator)

PRIMARY POWERSETS : selection of Tanker/Brute/Scrapper/Stalker defensive powersets
SECONDARY POWERSETS : a new Hybrid set meant to combine Control powers and Ranged powers
HIT POINTS : Low
DAMAGE : Medium (Blast Powers at Corruptor strength)
INHERENT : Every attack by the Trickster has a “placate” effect which could be helpful solo to allow for better pulling and on a team would simulate the “trickery” that is their hallmark in staying “off the radar” of their enemies. This effect could be varying in strength, due to some powers (AoE for instance) generally being more obvious and less likely to be ignored.

The Trickster is an AT which utilizes control, deception and ranged powers to reduce their foes strengths and yet keep them safely out of harm’s way. Enemies of the “Trickster” that can endure or overcome these “flashy” attempts to keep them “at bay” realize only too late upon entering combat range that the “Trickster” is just as skilled and “slippery” up close as from afar. The LOW hit points of the “Trickster” become his only weakness and they easily fall if the enemy can succeed in pinning them down.
Due to balance concerns, the Defense/Resist values for this AT’s primary may need to be reduced down to scrapper levels.

The following is a rough “template” that would hopefully capture the “spirit” of the Idea;

Tier 1 : Single Target Immobilize (Electric Fence, Ring of Fire, Chillblain)
Tier 2 : Single Target Blast (Lightning Bolt, Fire Blast, Ice Blast)
Tier 3 : Single Target Hold (Tesla Cage, Char, Block of Ice)
Tier 4 : Buildup power
Tier 5 : Miscellaneous ( Short Circuit, Hot Feet, Arctic Air)
Tier 6 : Debuff special (Smoke, Shiver, Quicksand, etc..)
Tier 7 : AoE Attack ( Ball Lightning, Fireball, Ice Storm, etc…)
Tier 8 : Special Attack (high damage single target or, pet type like Voltaic etc…)
Tier 9 : AoE HOLD (Total Domination, Cinders, Glacier etc…)

*** I would like to credit FAR_REALM for first using the name "Trickster" as an AT idea. I liked the name and the image it "conjures" so much, that I used it here for one of my AT proposals.

I would especially like to thank STRATO_NEXUS for taking the time to read thru this proposal and offer suggestions, especially in the area of making the post shorter and more to the point.

Bio