StrykerX

Pre-SOs: +0/x1 on pretty much every toon, just to maximize mission speed.

Once I get some decent enhancements I generally boost the level by one or two since I mostly play ST-heavy Blasters. I'm thinking of bumping my Archery / Energy up to +2/x4 or maybe +1/x6 (he's at +2/x1 now) but really I rarely solo on him so I've just never bothered cranking the difficulty more. (Pure ranged archers are a blast on TFs). And if I ever finish my Ice/Elec I may try +4/x1/Bosses just to see if I can do it...

Tanks are of course the best at tanking, since they have Gauntlet, very strong taunts, and tons of health and mitigation to survive all that aggro.

Scrappers can tank quite well with the right build. They need a good taunt aura and/or a lot of AoE damage plus enough mitigation to survive the aggro. Ideally they'd also want a taunt power to help with mobs outside melee range.

Defenders can also be built to tank, mainly by having decent defense and debuffing the mobs into helplessness (which also draws a lot of aggro). Some can also just make the rest of the team so hard to kill you don't need a tank, but that's not really the same thing. Also, Defenders don't have the level of aggro control and mob positioning a Tanker or Scrapper does (except maybe Storm Defenders blowing mobs into a corner).

Illusion Controllers with perma-PA can tank things that would kill even a fully IOed Stone Tank in Granite, but they also lack the ability to position mobs since they cannot directly control the pets that are holding aggro. Likewise, they have more trouble getting a specific enemy (that's too tough to just hold or mez) that goes after a squishy teammate under control since they can't (usually) survive much personal aggro and they can't direct the pets to hit a specific target. Some other Controllers can pretty much keep things from attacking, but that's not the same as rounding them up and tanking them.

Blasters can't tank without popping a ton of inspirations, in which case they just do a ton of damage and draw massive aggro (kind of like normal play, only they live longer ), but they aren't really able to do general tanking. A softcapped S/L build could probably tank things that do mostly S/L damage with no defense debuffs without inspirations, but not as well as a Scrapper and the Blaster would have a much narrower range of mobs he could handle.

Kheldians have Dwarf Form, which seems similar to Scrappers in tanking ability.

Redside, Corruptors can do pseudo-tanking like Defenders and I suppose Dominators can sort of "tank", though it would be more a matter of locking mobs down so they wouldn't be able to position them as well. Brutes are pretty much squishier tanks with more damage and a bit less taunt, so they can do almost anything a Tanker can plus actually kill stuff. Stalkers seem a bit squishy to tank things, since they have Scrapper defense with less AoE and fewer HP. There are probably builds that can do it, but a Scrapper will do it better. Some Masterminds can tank extremely well (Bots / FF and Bots / Traps especially) but they do lack the mob positioning ability of a Tanker or Scrapper. VEATS... I have no idea since I don't play them and rarely team with them, but I'd think Bane Spiders might be able to tank about as well as a Scrapper just based on powers.

Really, a lot depends on what you mean by "tanking"... if you only care about holding aggro and surviving then lots of ATs can do it, especially with buffs. To me, tanking means not only holding aggro, but also keeping the enemies clustered up in the specific area where you want them. That's hard to do without good taunts or the ability to physically move the mobs (which is why Stormies can tank well if built for survival), but if you can pull it off you can really speed up the time to defeat a group while minimizing the chance of aggroing other groups nearby.

Then again, there's something to be said for just making an all-Defender team, hitting the damage, resist, and defense caps on everyone, and just annihilating every spawn you see in a couple of seconds...

I'd love to see this added, but only if they can do it right. Champions has sheaths, but they aren't connected to powers... you'll still have your sword in a sheath on your back while pulling a second sword out of thin air. It actually looks sillier than the CoH method...

In terms of raw damage the most powerful single target primary is Fire, at least with a high recharge build. Blaze is the most powerful single target ranged attack in the game, with a DPA that is about 50% higher than any other attack from any other blast set. In addition, Fire Ball actually has higher DPA than many single target attacks. However, Fire Blast has no mitigation whatsoever so it can be fairly dangerous, especially against hard targets.

Ice is also very good single target damage, plus it has two holds and a lot of -recharge to help keep you safe. You lose a little damage over Fire but gain a whole lot more mitigation.

Sonic has fairly low damage, but the stacking -resist debuffs make it fairly powerful in a prolonged fight, and as a bonus those debuffs also boost the rest of the team's damage. It also has a huge cone Sleep that lets you safely take out targets one at a time.

Finally, Archery has decent damage plus a tier 3 blast with a full 80 foot range. If you like to stay well back from enemies Archery is a great choice since the other sets require getting closer to use their heaviest hitting attack.

As for secondaries, I'd suggest /Energy or possibly /Ice. /Energy has Boost Range, which is easy to make permanent and adds a fair amount of range. The melee attacks won't really help, but you get Build Up very early and Power Boost (good if you pick Ice) and Conserve Power if you need them. /Ice gives you Shiver and Ice Patch to help keep things away from you and add even more -recharge, plus yet another hold to stop enemies that do manage to get in melee range. If you don't mind giving up Build Up you can also go with /Devices to get caltrops for area denial, trip mines for extra damage, and stealth. It also has targeting drone for a to-hit boost, though I've never really had problems getting enough accuracy on a Blaster without it.

I find the best way to make a pure ranged Blaster is to take Fly or Hover and stay out of reach. You'll also want ranged defense from IOs. I have an Archery / Energy / Munitions Blaster that I really like... I went with around 29% ranged defense and 45% recharge rather than trying to softcap defense. He's still fairly survivable and the extra recharge really helps with my attack chain... though a more expensive build could do both. If I was going to make a pure single target ranged Blaster I'd probably go with Ice / Energy / Force and try to get as much ranged defense as possible while still getting around 50% recharge (which will let you use Ice Bolt -> Ice Blast -> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Ice Blast without gaps). Force will give you Force of Nature to help against tough bosses and EBs, plus Repulsion Field if you care for it (some people love it, some hate it). If you don't want to be a flier, go Ice / Ice / Force instead... you'll want Shiver and Ice Patch to keep enemies away. I personally would just fly and take Energy for the range boost and longer lasting holds though.

I'd like to see a decent amount of defense added only to Hail of Bullets, and only while the animation was playing. That would make it a lot more usable without unbalancing the set as a whole. Adding defense in general would be a bad idea since blast sets aren't supposed to have mitigation other than enemy-affecting things like knockback or stuns / holds from control powers. I could see making a special case for a four second defense boost during HoB since it is so much worse than every other nuke, but adding defense in general would be asking for trouble (and future nerfs).

Don't forget that you can slot Aid Self for interrupt reduction. Five Doctored Wounds and an Interrupt IO give you a fairly powerful and fast recharging heal that can usually be used in combat (provided you don't have a DoT on you) and some nice set bonuses. Even without the interrupt IO I find I can get it off in combat fairly reliably if I time it right... the actual interruptable period is a only one second instead of the full 4+ second animation time.

I would't look to /Mental for a single target monster, it has a strong AoE focus. /Mental does go very well with Ice, but it's because it adds AoE capability and rounds the set out nicely. For a true single target specialist, go Ice/Electric or Ice/Energy and use the melee attacks.

As for soloing AVs, I suspect Mental would be a decent choice. It gives you a regen/recovery boost (though it is of limited use against a single target) which should help keep you healed up provided you have softcapped ranged defense. I'd actually consider /Electric even for AVs though... it has a very high DPA immobilize (which is good because keeping AVs immobilized is important, especially for non-fliers), a damage aura to speed up the fight, and an endurance recovery power (though also limited in effectiveness vs one target). You also get extremely strong melee attacks if you want to risk going the Smashing / Lethal softcap + melee route.

Ice/Mental should be a fun, well balanced set, I'm just not sure how much /Mental adds specifically to AV soloing.

I think some people underestimate how much damage Protector Bots can do... between their AoE Photon Grenades and their lasers they actually contribute enough that I wouldn't want to skimp on damage.

I tend to slot mine:

2x Acc/Dam (any sets with a decent first bonus)
2x Acc/Dam/End (same sets as above)
2x Defense

For a level 50 high end build, I'd probably go with Hami-Os:

2x Acc/Dam HOs
1x Damage/Mez HO
1x Heal/End HO
2x Defense IOs

I don't slot the auras in Protector Bots, they have too many things that need enhancing. You can replace the Heal/End HO with a Defense/End HO and slot an aura if you need to, though I find Battle Drones a better place for those (4x Acc/Dam IO plus both auras) since Drones don't need endurance or defense slotting.

I consider the ability to use Full Auto from range makes up for the lower target cap... at times you can't safely use Hail of Bullets even with a good tank since AoE-heavy groups will probably kill you with splash damage, and solo / small (tankless) group it is far easier to use a long range cone than a PBAoE. You can certainly use HoB without dying, but I've noticed that DP Blasters I've teamed with that use HoB seem to faceplant considerably more often than other Blasters do.

Still, even if you assume using both as often as possible the shorter recharge means that Full Auto is hitting 20 targets for every 16 hit by HoB, plus AR has better AoE capabilities to stack on top of Full Auto. About the only thing HoB has going for it is the knockdown, but even using Standard ammo (and therefore doing even less damage than Full Auto) the mid-attack knockdown isn't very reliable. The knockdown at the end is reliable, but that's a little late since everything has already had a chance to attack you.

I don't consider HoB a bad power, I just don't think it's better than Full Auto. Which means it should recharge as fast as Full Auto.

I'd go Build Up for sure. I find that it's not hard to keep my to-hit chance at or near 95% against almost everything I'm likely to be fighting (especially if using IOs), but being able to take down a boss faster is very useful. That means higher +damage is better than a higher to-hit buff, especially since Build Up can be slotted for to-hit if you really need that.

Of course Aim is nice against Elude users, but unless you are going to make a career of hunting Paragon Protectors I think the higher damage boost in Build Up will be more useful to you.

You may want to try Virtue server... join the Virtue TFs 2010 channel and you'll often see things going on pretty much all hours, every day. I like to solo a lot too but some toons are just a lot more fun on a team, and ITFs are a quick source of merits since they generally take about an hour to an hour and a half and people run them on Virtue all the time.

LGTFs are good too, but at least on Virtue ITFs are about 10 times as common.

I'd suggest Smash / Lethal defense slotting. You can get some for free with Frozen Armor and it works against many ranged attacks and almost all melee. Melee and S/L defense are both a lot harder to get from set bonuses than Ranged with the powers a blaster uses, so it's good to start with the one you can actually pick up from an armor power.

Remember that procs in toggles, rains, and other such continuous effect powers only check to see if they fire once every 10 seconds... at a 20% chance to do around 72 damage every 10 seconds each proc is only adding about 1.5 DPS. If you have nothing better to do with the slot then you might as well go for it, but I'd look very closely at your build and make sure there's not a place those slots will do more for you.

Taking Fire Blast and 5-slotting it could add around 35 DPS to a single target, not counting Containment. The procs add negligible single target DPS but will add up when fighting large spawns, so it's really a question of which you want to defeat faster: minion hordes or bosses.

RoA can be a bit annoying on a fast team, but then on a fast team do you really need it? The really nice thing about it is that it can be up every spawn and by alternating Aim and Build Up before using it you can pretty much clear every minion in every group before that group gets to shoot at you. Then finish off the lts and bosses and any minions that got missed and repeat the whole process with the next spawn. Since it's a location targeted attack you can even fire it around corners or over obstacles that block line of sight, making it the safest opening attack a Blaster gets.

The other thing Archery has going for it is Fistful of Arrows, which has a higher base range than most cones. Add a bit of range enhancement and Boost Range and you'll be hitting a lot of enemies while still staying well out of melee range.

I took Devices on Test for the same reason. Once I make one on Live it'll probably be either Energy (the closest thing Blasters get to martial arts, which is what I really want for my gun-fu character) or Mental (PSW plus Hail of Bullets should be very useful, and Drain Psyche would make using that combo survivable). DP/Devices was the lowest damage Blaster I've ever seen, so I'm not making one unless DP gets buffed... I don't have the patience to rely on stacked mines all the time.

In my opinion there is one and only one reason to take World of Cheap Purple Set Mule...

The +recovery IOs will work in Hibernate, though you only get the bonus for two minutes after turning off the power so unless you Hibernate very frequently it's not a good place to put them. If you mean the Performance Shifter chance for Endurance proc, it will only have a chance to fire while Hibernate is actually running, which is pretty pointless.

The best place for +recovery uniques is Health and the best place for the Performance Shifter proc is Stamina. That way you get the +recovery all the time and you get a chance for bonus End every 10 seconds.

As far as soloing AVs (or even EBs) goes, your holds and stuns will be pretty much worthless so +recharge will only help you kill them faster, it won't help keep you alive. You'll want either high Ranged defense or high Smashing and Lethal defense, because AVs can kill you in a couple of hits. If you want to go the "no inspirations" route you'll want at least 45% (softcapped) defense, but if you don't mind using inspirations you can get by with around 33-35% and pop one Luck to get you to the softcap. You'll also want a way to heal, either Aid Self or a lot of +regen.

Since you are wanting to go Cold Mastery, I'd take Frozen Armor and Weave and put a Steadfast 3% defense IO in Tough (does the same thing as that Gladiator's one for almost 2 billion less). Then slot for Smashing / Lethal Defense bonuses and you should be able to get within one Luck of the softcap without giving up too much else, or fully softcapped if you don't mind less recharge.

And speaking of recharge, I'm assuming you want to go pure ranged based on your power selections so your best reasonably achievable attack chain is Ice Bolt -> Ice Blast --> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Ice Blast (even your high recharge build lacked enough recharge to leave out the second Bolt), which will require 184% recharge in Bitter Ice Blast. That's around 90% global recharge, which may be doable while still getting enough defense, or 20% global and Hasten, which is easy. However, one nice thing about going Smashing / Lethal defense instead of Ranged is that you can actually get close to the AV since almost all melee attacks are at least part smashing or lethal... that lets you take Energy Punch for a massive boost to your DPS. Bone Smasher is better than Ice Bolt or Ice Blast, and you might take that too, but Energy Punch is almost twice as good as Bolt or Blast.

I might try something like this if I had a lot of inf (it does have one 2 billion inf PvP IO) and wanted to solo AVs:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Blaster
Primary Power Set: Ice Blast
Secondary Power Set: Energy Manipulation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Cold Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(3), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36)
Level 1: Power Thrust -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(11), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(36), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), T'Death-Dam%(46)
Level 2: Ice Blast -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(7), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23)
Level 4: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 6: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(13)
Level 8: Freeze Ray -- UbrkCons-Dam%(A), UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg(15), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg(15), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg(17), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold(17)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Krma-ResKB(13)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(23)
Level 18: Bitter Ice Blast -- Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(A), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(19), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Apoc-Dam%(21), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(25), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(25), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(27), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(40)
Level 22: Aid Other -- Heal-I(A)
Level 24: Energy Punch -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(31), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), T'Death-Dam%(37)
Level 26: Aid Self -- Dct'dW-Heal(A), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(27), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 28: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GA-3defTpProc(33), HO:Ribo(42)
Level 32: Weave -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(34), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(34), RedFtn-EndRdx(36), LkGmblr-Rchg+(40)
Level 35: Bone Smasher -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(43), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(43), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), T'Death-Dam%(46)
Level 38: Bitter Freeze Ray -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(39), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(39), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(39), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42)
Level 41: Snow Storm -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def(45), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(45), RedFtn-EndRdx(45), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 47: Hoarfrost -- Dct'dW-Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal(48), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(48), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Hibernate -- RechRdx-I(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 4: Ninja Run