Madam_Enigma

That is, until your claw/super reflexes scrapper hits 45% defense to ranged, melee, and aoe WITHOUT elude. Then you play it cause being a bad motha (shut yer mouth) is fun.

If you really want maximized xp, I would suggest running a single mastermind who has -regen debuffs and some sort of healing. That way you have the capability of taking down elite bosses. Thugs or bots for a dual boxing point of view might be best I suppose. Both get really high defense. Bots will kill slower till mid game though.

Take it as you will but:

Heroes
Scrapper: love them
Tankers: sure their fun for a while, but I feel like minions take half an hour
Controllers: Oh my lord my troller is fun!
Defenders: Uhm, I have 12 of them...
Blaster: Ok, fun and all. A bit squishy, but still a blast (pun intended)
Warshade: Love my 'shade
Peacebringer: Meh, not as fun as a warshade

Villains
Brutes: Brute Smaaash... and bored
Stalkers: boring
Dominatiors: Love my dom
Corrupter: ok... can I have my yummy debuffs now? No? Well fine then. I'll play a defender
Mastermind: Oh my lord their fun
Soldier: blast to play
Widow: meh, their ok.

Sounds like a typical crab to me. You'll notice you have enough powers to get to 50 and not get everything. Not unless you completely forgo all pool powers and a patron pool. And they all are good powers really. A good number of them demand slotting too. As such, here is what I did to solve the slot crunch.

To begin with, I'm not planning on using too many set enhancements. I have too many powers that need slots to afford putting enough in any given attack to justify a set. Level 50 common IO's are rather effective too. Fortunatly VEATs get Combat Training: Offensive. Many will say to either skip it, or leave it unslotted. I am here to offer another viewpoint.

It's base is to give all your powers a +10% ACC. That may not seem like much right now, but stay with me. If you slot 3 ACC enhancements into it, that bonus goes up to 22% or so. Just a little less then an even level SO. And you get that acc bonus to ALL your powers. Including temp attacks and vet attacks. It's like slotting a -2 acc enhancement in every single power. When combined with Tactical Training: Tactics you'll find you can hit most +1 mobs with ease, and many +2 mobs will also be hit fairly easy. Only high def mobs or to-hit debuffing mobs will be a problem. This means you can stop at slotting 3 damage in the bulk of your attacks. Thus by investing 2 slots in an underwhelming power you save 6 slots potentially. Eight attacks which would require acc slotting minus 2 slots spent in CT:O.

Now, I know your tempted to either take crab armor upgrade or spider armor. I am about to suggest something which your probably not going to like. Take both, and 3 slot them. Hold off before walking away in disgust. I'll explain my reasoning. Since you may not have many power choices free, you will need both to get as much damage resistance as possible. Then 3 slot them for resistance. Well, for now anyway. In the late 40's try getting a resist set knockback protection IO to slot in one or both. You may also want to 4 slot Combat Training: Defensive. 3 defense, and 1 Karma: Knockback Protection.

By taking both you also have a total of mag 12.8 protection to status effect except knockback, confuse, and terrorize. Those will be mag 6. Just the karma-knockback protection will give you mag 4 knockback protection. One more such IO and you should be immune to most KB and KD effects.

This will give you (without set bonuses) 32.8% smashing and lethal resistance. You'll also have 39.14% resistance to toxic, fire, cold, energy, and neg energy. And 6.21% psi resistance. Not much true, but that psi resistance helps a lot. You'll also have 27.1% ranged defense, and 15.43% defense to everything else. Including psi. You'll also grant your team mates 15.43% defense to everything. Assuming of course you slot enough defense in Maneuvers to soft cap. If you take the leadership pool's maneuvers, your defense and team's defense will be higher yet.

One way to save power choices is to use Sprint as a mini-travel power. It will eventually take six slots to do this though. Eventually you would have 3 run speed in swift, sprint, and mental training. Yes, I am assuming you take stamina. Trust me, it's a Good Thing.

Just you. Although I'm not sure if your enforcers can accept non-pet sets.

SOmething about not being able to remove a weapon that is also an always showing costume item.

Still reading thread, so don't flame me if my points are covered already.

Whips in the real world aren't dangerous? I find that statement hilarious. While it's true they can be used for non-lethal combat, they can equally be used for causing much damage.

A whip is flexible, thus hard to block or parry. And it will cut if your struck often enough or hard enough. They can break bone, tear muscle, and hurt like hell if the whip is 'cracked'. You know how much it can hurt when someone whipcracks a towel so the tip hits you sharply? Picture that being done with a thin strip of very flexible leather. Even if it barely hits you, getting whipcracked is painful. The person is likely to drop whatever their holding because of the pain. It can be used to entangle and trip. Or choke someone. And the stronger the wielder is, the more force they can get into the swing.

If the whip has multiple tips at the end, it's called a cat of nine tails. The ends are usually tipped with a barb or blade. The blades will wrap around the target, cutting them from all angles.

Shorter lengths with multiple ends are called a scourge. These tend to have glass, nails, and anything else the user feels would be fun to drive through, going the entire length of the ends. And the ends begin about half way down the length instead of a quarter of the way down. Scientists did some experiments to see how much damage a scourge does. Within 3 stokes skin was being flayed off the dummy. Afterwards a medical examiner looked at the damage. He deemed that it would have shredded muscle, cut the lungs, and bruised the heart easily. And several ribs would have been broken. Did I mention that the skin had almost been pealed off? The dummy was constructed to have the same resistance to damage as the human body.

Flails are nothing more then a wooden handle with a short multi-head whip attached. A morningstar also uses many of the same principles as a whip. But I guess whip type weapons aren't dangerous in the real world. Silly me.

Then you get into the world of superheroes. A couple marvel characters were already mentioned. There's also a hero character who creates energy whips. Can't remember the name of him, but I have an issue of the comic. For heroes, a whip would be ideal. You can subdue your foe without killing them, assuming your skilled enough. Using a gun or sword, your using a more lethal weapon. Whips can be controlled to do as much or little damage as you desire. More so then a gun.

For a villain, coat the whip with poison and/or razors and you have a very frightening weapon.

As the above poster said, it is possible. However in the mid to late 20's and beyond it's less and less a good plan. Masterminds who put one power on auto and just follow the team in the late game tend to cause team wipes.

Just finished the rest of your arcs. Nicely done. I tip my Crab backpack's legs to you.

With the controllers, you don't have six pets who will go spastic on you. And you have fewer pets who are fairly sturdy and enjoy running across the map when there's a runner. Imps I notice tend to die if they try it. Ninjas, not always. Think of it like multiplying the chances of the pets doing something bad. The more pets, the more chances they'll do something stupid.