Biospark

Hmm I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or maybe I misunderstood the context.
::I have edited my prior response to highlight what part of your comment which was being responded to::

Critters in the game, for the most part, deal much more damage in melee range than at range. So any AT that can "keep" enemies at range thru a variety of powers, can reduce overall sustained damage considerably. I am not just saying this, I have done it several times to prove it to myself. I felt it was necessary to point out that this is an important factor when determining the "balance point" for a Ranged AT. Every character capable of defeating opponents "at range" can capitalize on this fact.

But we also agree more than you think. If an AT was made that had "Defense" powers (Tanker primaries, Scrapper Secondaries) and had Ranged-Based damage as its means of defeating Villains, the best way to balance this AT would be thru HPs, Defensive values, and Damage MODs. So, in effect, I agree with you that it could work, provided these factors didnt marginalize other ATs.

The real problem with this AT concept is perception.
As soon as you, me or anyone mentions pairing Defense Sets with Ranged Sets, the word "Tank-Mage" gets rolled out and visions of toons with Blaster level Damage, Scrapper level Hit points and Tanker level defense must be what people think we mean. But this is not the case with me, because I understand that game balance needs to be preserved.

I have to agree with Umbral on this one Far Realm. At every stage of the game there are melee and ranged focused villains. By far the biggest attacks will come from melee range.

Lost Rectors, Freakshow Tanks, Warriors, Crey Tanks, Malta Tanks just to name a few.

And... you kinda have to be right about this for it to carry weight.

Edit:: I highlighted the section of your comment that I was responding to. It may not be as apparent in print as I had intended. Sorry

Yes. I cringe everytime someone brings up that tired old "Tank-Mage" argument, as if the devs aren't smart and capable enough to balance Ranged + Self Defense after this many years of working with the game.

And actually, if you do a Distribution study of the existing ATs (not EATS), you will see that Defense paired with Ranged Dmg/Control is not represented at all. This (I am sure) was intentional, but if done correctly, would be just fine. Heck, all the Devs would have to do is balance it on the low side of damage, and they could always tweak the damage UP till they get it right where it needed to be. Err on the high side, and of course it would be overpowered and when they need to nerf it down, everyone will cry like babies. Hehe

DO IT! We want Iron Man , don't be namby-pamby Devs ! DO IT !

I have played several Blaster and Defender versions of Dual Pistols and so far I am having the most fun with DP/Energy. The added *punch" from /energy is very helpful for a set like dual pistols which likes to be in melee range. Additionally, I like the variety of available IO sets that you can use with Energy. You can pursue S/L defense pretty easily and no need to wait for Epic powers.

With that train of thought DP/Electric could also work well.

When I first heard about DP, my first thought was DP/device or traps/DP
Now that I have seen more of the set in action, I think /devices offers a small measure of safety, but is more geared to a the blaster that wants to stay "at range" and therefore not as good a "fit" for DP as I first thought. Traps, on the other hand, is a good choice for a defender (You asked about a Blaster, so ignore this part )

hope your choice turns out well for you. Good Luck

100% Agree. And I doubt you would need unlimited INF to get there.

I guess you should count me in that minority of players that seems all too common around here. There is a HUGE difference in the "feel" and "effect" of long animations in the game.
Especially in a team environment, where ALOT can happen in a 3 second animation, not to mention if you happen to do 2 in a row.

My most common experience with this is Short Circuit. I cannot even begin to tell you how often I jump into the "middle" of a spawn on a team with the intention of "sapping" only to have the whole spawn "shift" away from my "spot" and miss a third or more of a spawn.
I used to have Thunderstrike in my build, and after dying quite a few times "during" the animation of that attack, which was activated right after my first "short circuit", I respecced out of that power faster than you can say "Wakie please".

I am sure numerically, you can prove that the damage-to-activation is just fine, but having quicker animating attacks allows for more intangible "reactive" actions, like I think I will run back here and put some distance from this mob, or, I think I need to switch targets right now and throw a "cage" on that mob that just took a big chunk of me, or how about using a Heal Inspiration when you suddenly drop into the red. None of these reactive actions are "easier" when you are locked in a 3-second animation.

I suspected that, just making sure. Thanks

Funny you mention Assault Garent Now that I know what the new Inherent is going to be, I am really tempted to pick up assault on my solo build and see how it stacks with the Inherent. I am assuming its additive, but does anyone know how the new inherent stacks with things like Buildup, Aim, Assault etc... ? Does it increase total damage OR just raise base damage ?

I would like to see this AT, however I agree with what many have said. The damage and self defense would have to be seriously balanced to avoid being overpowered. Also the Inherent is already a proven "fail". I would also add that the AT name should probably be something else, since yours has been used already. "I'll be back!"

This one could work. I am not sure about the Inherent and its probably too close to existing ATs, which would possibly make it less popular overall. Just guessing though.
Without Domination or Containment, its solo-ing ability might bring back memories of "pre-containment".

No way in heck would I play this, and I like playing support characters. My Empath is about as "full-support" as I can stand. If you are familiar with a game called "dragon realms", you might understand better why this kind of AT/class is simply not worth the effort to make.

This is another of the combinations I REALLY want to see. My thought was to called it a "PROTECTOR" but a name is a name. I agree with others regading the Inherent and say that its going to be too much to have High melee damage, buff secondaries and a scaling inherent. I think a better option would be Buff Primary, Medium melee damage on Par with a Tanker and maybe some kind of damage scaler like Vigilance that raises your damage as your team gets hurt.

Very cool AT Name if you ask me, so I would want this one to work, but...
I dont know what you mean by a "Wild Card" set, other than maybe something like a collection of random powers arranged like a "Kheldian" set. You could instead do an "Assault" Primary which has ranged and melee attacks with Medium damage, and then your secondary could be "control". This would be like a reverse Dominator, so I dont think the similarity will make it a good choice after Going Rogue. The idea of random secondary effects sounds good at first, but I think would be a nightmare for coding and for planning a build.

Just realized that your "Wild Card" set should be the Primary, not the secondary. Also one idea that just occurred to me would be to make the Primary options switch-able like the Pistol ammo types. You could have an "Elementalist" that uses the four primary elements, an "Acrobat" that uses a variety of melee moves and hand-held objects (knives, rapiers, rings etc...) and perhaps some other "groupings" that could be thought up. Also the secondary could be a Manipulation set like the Blaster secondary, which would allow a "Trickster" to go more range focused or gain some melee strength. Since we already have Controllers and Dominators, I am not too eager to add another control-based set, but getting a second AT using the "Manipulation" or "Assault" sets would be AWESOME

So, I really like two of these choices Terminator and Vanguard, with Trickster being a very interesting AT possibility.

Thanks for sharing your ideas.

For the most part I agree with you regarding the sets, but one other thing to consider is that in a "tight" build, going "typed" means that you would need 5 slots on your attacks (assuming 4 KinCombats or SmHaymkr plus 1 other IO to boost ACC/DMG/etc) rather than 6 slots you'd need for Touch of Death or Mako's. Additionally, for F/C/E/N you need considerably fewer than 6 slots to get bonuses, whereas for Ranged/AoE you will most often need 5-6 slots. Those extra slots can mean better bonuses on other powers that would otherwise have 3-4 slots.

My basic rule is to look at the generic SO slotting and see what sets fall in place real well and what "trends" appear. Some are very easy to see. "Willpower" should be built as "typed", no question. Shields and Reflexes as "positional", Duh ! But other sets are harder to see until you start looking at the whole picture. "Dark Armor" can go either way, but if you play Dark Melee too, your going to want those nice ACC bonuses in the 6-piece sets, so "Positional" has an additional reason to push for it.

And of Course, if you are trying to "softcap" there is no doubt "positional" is going to be cheaper in most cases.

I am thinking there was also some "wonky" conversion of points healed to damage dealt as well. Oh well, main thing is the OP needs to "move on" and not feel bad about it.

Not to mention that ALOT of those "Lethal" attacks (Ranged and Melee), have a side effect of lowering ALL your defenses. Its hard to appreciate the difference until you have experienced it, but I agree Smash/Lethal > Melee

Hmmm, sorry to hear about your Fire/Dark experience Unicycle

In that case of the three choices, I would guess (not having played this combo myself, just having seen how others have done with theirs), that your First choice Dark/Elec would be pretty solid. You would have two ways to Heal (Siphon, Energize) and two ways to recover endurance (Dark Consumption and Powersink), plus Touch of fear which gives you some control over problem villains. Debuffs in all your attacks which help layer your defenses. Topping it all off, you have Soul Drain which is one of the best "buildup" powers around and Lightning Reflexes.
Plus, as I mentioned in my last post, Endurance drain resistance. I think Elec also has slow resist, but not sure. I could be thinking of Fire.

Your other two choices look pretty solid as well, but Fire/Elec has lots of AoE, but no control or debuff, while Dark/Fire would give you 2 heals/2recovery clicks, but is generally much less resistance across the spectrum. You would get a self-rez though. Some folks are pretty happy with them.

Yep I meant Endurance per second, and Adeon explained it well.
Its the difference between your total recovery rate and the endurance use of your typical powers in combat.

Mainly, I wanted to indicate that if the self rez was not a "must-have" power, you could consider Dark Consumption in its place and basically never worry about endurance again.
Some folks prefer to avoid melee range at all costs, so the idea of running in to melee to fire it off and re-fill your blue bar may not be your style. Just something to consider.

For a Scrapper, my vote would be Fire/Dark.
You have resistances to everything in varying degrees ( Fire has many holes, Electric has no Toxic)

You get at least one defense power (Cloak of Shadows) that is as good as Weave with lower cost and Stealth. Electric and Fiery get zero defense powers.
I know you said you wanted to avoid +def IOs, but adding some level of defense will tier your survival quite well. My Willpower/Fire Tanker has 5 sets of Smashing Haymaker slotted in his melee attacks until he can afford Kinetic Combats, and that would get you to 20% defense with cloak of shadows and just 1 or 2 more random sets. I probably spent at most 25 million on these 20 IOs (recipes and salvage included).

The heal is not as good as Fiery Aura's heal, but can heal more. I say not as good because it requires a "to-hit" check and is VERY expensive at the level you can take it.
One of my guild mates is trying out the +endurance proc in Dark Regen to see if he can make the power a nearly "free" heal.

Fire Melee is an excellent AoE set, and you could add in Fireball at the epic level for even more AoE. Plus Death Shroud puts out MORE AoE damage.

Fire Melee lacks any types of control powers, but Dark is "rife" with added control. For your stated goal of avoiding the "softcap craze", Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom seem to fall right in their as an alternate type of mitigation.

Both Dark and Electric have resistance to endurance Drain. Sappers? Why does everyone freak out about those guys ? Hehe

Finally, Dark Armor graphically evokes "smoke" so pairing it with Fiery attacks just sounds like a match made in... well... somewhere....

Your response was not disrespectfull at all

I acknowledge that my two comparisons are probably at the polar opposites for the level range that we were discussing (being that Emp/Electric could very well be the worst ST defender and Mind/Rad could very well be the best ST choice), however, I have played many, many defenders and controllers thru the first 25 levels over the years and what I believe is;

Prior to the implementation of "Containment" Controllers were "safe" soloers with low damage, while Defenders did more damage but were much less "safe" while solo. That was not a good situation for either AT, but it was at least balanced. Now with the Controller Inherent being what it is, I really do feel Controllers have it pretty good at all levels. Their damage is still at the "low" end, but the added safety makes them MUCH more solo-able than some defenders.

So, from one of my many previous posts regarding Defender Inherent, what would be balanced would be either to restore Defender-Controller balance to how it was (With Controllers being safer but slower, and Defenders dealing clearly more damage (at all levels) but in less safety) OR.... Do something to put Defenders "on-par" defensively with Controllers while solo, which creates a greater distinction between them and Corruptors.

Hehe, no.. no.. I wasnt suggesting anything like that.

I was responding to Garent's post regarding How controllers only out-damage Defender's in the end game. What I meant was that I was not 100% in agreement, because "containment" is a game-changing ability for Controllers at all levels.

I DO, however think that a Level 50 controller, especially a Pet-using one is going to outperform most defenders, especially in the AoE department.

And the example was to show that in solo cases at base settings, I really think a Controller does as much or more damage and is MUCH safer. The latter is actually my biggest gripe about the situation. I dont care whether Controllers out-damage Defenders, but to do so AND be safer while solo is not "balanced"