StrykerX

A gadget based control set would be nice... maybe something that focuses on gas grenades, bolas, stun guns, and so forth. It'd still be very much comic book physics (real nonlethal weapons are actually pretty unreliable) but no more so than Trick Arrow. And I'd like to see a leadership-based buff set: lots of PBAoE buffs and toggles, maybe a fear or to-hit debuff based on demoralizing the enemy, and so on. Unfortunately we already have a ton of buff / debuff sets and you can pretty much make a Leadership Corruptor by playing a VEAT so I don't see the second one happening any time soon. But we're kind of due a new control set (and a new MM pet set, but those take so many resources to develop that I'm not holding my breath) so who knows?

Try an /Energy Blaster. Boost Range is easy to make permanent and can really help out, especially if you have a short range tier 3 blast like Blaze. Archery/Energy is great for hover blasting because you can use everything but the cone from 100+ feet away, and the cone can be extended to 80 feet or so without much trouble. My Archery/Energy Blaster's snipe is so long range I actually have to use another player as a spotter... it shoots further than I can see an enemy!

The way I look at it is that (without IOs) Regen is a bit below average in survivability in pretty much every situation. However, it is only a bit below average in pretty much every situation... most sets are great against some things but have significant holes in their defenses. Regen doesn't care what type of damage you take, or how much to-hit the enemy has, or even if the damage is unresistable. All it cares about is whether you are regen debuffed (a fairly uncommon debuff) and whether you have any -heal on you (probably the rarest debuff in the game). You can use IOs to boost its performance in certain areas but unless you are fighting things that floor regen and have -heal your minimum performance is going to be decent even if you have no set bonuses or accolades / temp powers covering that situation.

The drawback is that you won't reach the extremes of performance more focused sets do when playing to their strengths, so it's kind of a question of whether you want to be almost immortal to some enemies and squishy to others, or reasonably tough to all?

(Note that the above comparison does not include Willpower, since that set is basically a watered down version of old-school non-clicky Regen with resists thrown in. In other words, kind of like Regen but better in almost every way. Sigh. )

Power Siphon gives you a stacking damage bonus while it is active along with the stacking damage debuff you always get. So once you hit Power Siphon, every KM attack you connect with for the next 20 seconds will give you a Fury-style damage buff. I believe the individual buffs last 10 seconds each, so after 20 seconds you stop getting new ones but the existing ones last until they expire... meaning you'll have almost 30 total seconds of increased damage. Assuming you fight non-stop and don't miss much the total buff will ramp up over 10 seconds, stay high for 10 more seconds, then dwindle away over the last 10 seconds.

I can't give you advice on the individual powers because I haven't really played the set to high levels, but I can tell you that it works better on Scrappers and Stalkers than Brutes if you are looking for max damage. Brutes get less out of damage buffs since their base damage is low, and Scrappers can recharge Power Siphon by critting with Concentrated Strike for more pseudo-Fury goodness. And Stalkers basically say "forget that Fury wannabe, I get good old fashioned Build Up and a way to instantly recharge it!" On the other hand, Brutes get to be harder to kill than Scrappers or Stalkers so if you don't mind trading a few DPS for more survivability then they're a perfectly good option.

I was there when one of the Virtue server global channels discovered Titan Weapons were on the market. We were talking about it and then someone reported they couldn't find it and sure enough it was gone... then a minute later Zwillinger pops on and tells us he had been playing on his private account and saw us talking about it, so he logged onto his dev account and fixed it. So just remember that:

(A) The devs are everywhere. In fact, there's one right behind you!!!

and

(B) Zwillinger plays on Virtue! Or at least he listens to out chat channels. Wait... it could be just a case of (A).

I finally got around to playing through First Ward (first time since it came out I was on a character the right level range) and I really liked it but I have one question. Why would the Furies, who punish oathbreakers but more specifically those who defy the Well of the Furies, be after Cole when he's the Well's champion? Isn't the whole reason Cole and his minions have their new Phenomenal Cosmic Powers that the Well considers Cole to be the ideal Incarnate? So why in the world would the Well's hit squad be trashing First Ward as part of a plan to ultimately get to Cole?

I'm sure you could get to 50 doing just DFB, but it would be a long and boring trip. Exemping doesn't negate the increase in XP needed every level so you'd go from multiple levels per trial to multiple trials per level (probably quite a few per level eventually). Compared to the massive XP you get running TFs or large mission teams it would be a much slower and duller ride, though if you only play for short periods at a time the auto-teaming would be nice.

Well, there's the whole "staying alive while hordes of Rikti swarm you" thing too... not all characters that can survive against a single GM / AV can handle aggro-capped hordes or multiple Magi spamming huge AoE stuns on you. Unless your Ill/Cold has mez protection and the ability to survive personal aggro (there are more Rikti than the PA can distract) it's going to be a problem, and I don't think it's possible to softcap and have perma-PA.

There are tons of opinions on what is "easy" to solo with... a lot of it depends on your playstyle. There are definitely a few that are are hard to solo with for anyone, but those are pretty obvious: just avoid combos with lots of team buffs and minimal damage output. For extreme solo power it's hard to go wrong with a Mastermind (Bots/Traps especially), Scrapper, or Brute. Controllers can also be great once you hit the 30s and get some IOs (even just frankenslotting) but they tend to be slow and hard on the blue bar at low levels.

As far as a cheap build goes, downloading Mids Hero Planner (when you can, the website is down right now) makes it a lot easier to plan builds. To start off with I'd suggest ignoring set bonuses and just frankenslotting. Pick cheap set IOs that add up to the enhancement values you want and you'll end up much stronger than you would be just using SOs and it will probably cost less than replacing those SOs every 5 levels. For instance, you can slot Char with:

Ruin - Acc/Dam/Rech
Ruin - Acc/End/Rech
Ruin - Acc/Dam
Maelstrom's Fury - Dam/End/Rech
Paralytic - End/Hold
Generic Hold IO

and end up with 50 - 60% enhancement to accuracy, damage, recharge, endurance, and hold using level 30-ish IOs, making it a good control power that also does extra damage. Slotting all of your powers that way starting in the mid 20s to low 30s makes a huge difference. The key is to just buy what's cheap... if Ruin is a bit expensive go with Maelstrom's Fury or Volley Fire. Just avoid sets that use rare (orange) salvage since that tends to cost a lot and you'll be able to make most IOs for under 100k influence... and as long as you sell your salvage drops on the market you should have a few million inf by the low 30s even if you don't get any lucky recipe drops.

The other thing you can do is hero or villain tips for alignment merits. You can get high end recipes like the Miracle +Recovery IO or Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Recharge IO for two A-merits, so if you need extra recovery or recharge you don't need to be rich to get it. You can also just buy a couple of minimum level LotGs with A-merits, craft them, and sell them on the market for 100+ million inf each and use the profits to fund a mid-range set IO build. Purples and PvP IOs can take a lot of time and effort (I don't bother with them personally) but you can make a very good build using normal sets just by running lots of tips, doing task forces, and running Incarnate trials once you hit 50. The big key is to find a character you really enjoy playing, because there's no sense spending weeks getting a great build only to get bored and shelve the character right afterward.

You'll also notice that in most other MMOs you can rarely craft something that's actually that useful to you before hitting the level cap unless you focus more on crafting than actually playing the game. Crafting tends to be a huge money sink until you reach the high end items so by the time you have the resources to craft a +1 Shiny Bopping Stick for your warrior you are probably carrying around the equivalent of a +2 Shiny Bopping Stick that you got as a quest reward. Actually being able to buy or acquire as loot a recipe that you can then craft to make something you actually want to equip, without having to first craft 500 lower level recipes to build up your skill, is a rare thing in MMOs.

A Claws/Willpower Scrapper will probably never have to worry about the blue bar. The Scrapper version of Claws has reduced endurance (though the Brute version hits harder) and WP can get by with just High Pain Tolerance, Fast Healing, and the occasional use of Indomitable Will until you pick up Quick Recovery. After that you can pretty much ignore your blue bar assuming you at least frankenslot or drop an endurance reducer in your attacks.

If you don't mind pre-planning your build and using an alt to buy IOs then all sorts of things can get by with no endurance issues. Just play an AT with decent damage (Controllers will always have early endurance issues, simply because they need so many attacks per enemy), plan a frankenslotted build using low to mid-teen level IOs with some end reduction, and don't run toggles unless you absolutely have to before using that build. The downside to this method is that recipes that low level can be extremely rare... they're often cheap when they sell, but the low demand means there simply aren't many ever put up for sale. That's why you need to pre-plan and buy the IOs in advance with an alt... doing so will probably take far longer than getting the new character up to SO levels. I did it once on a Brute and while it did make the teen levels a lot easier it just wasn't worth the hassle.

Finally, you can always play a Blaster. No toggles plus massive damage equaled few endurance troubles even before inherent Stamina and almost none now. The downside is that you're a Blaster... you either like them or you don't. Masterminds can also be good at low levels since your pets have their own endurance bars. Just don't overuse the MM's attack powers since those use a ton of endurance for minimal damage.

Of course you can get to 22 very fast if you run a few sewer trials and then join mission teams (where you may have buffs to help your recovery or damage output). Once you hit 22 a lot of ATs can be made reasonably endurance friendly by just dropping an endurance SO in every toggle with a significant cost (no need to worry with Combat Jumping) and every attack except maybe a low-cost tier 1. Oh, and 3-slotting Stamina with EndMod SOs of course. One trick you can do if you have a hero alt that has done the Faultline arcs is to make your new character Technology origin and mail them endurance reduction SOs from Yin's Market. You have to be level 15 to unlock that store but he sells level 13, 17, and 21 enhancements and any origin can buy them (you just can't slot anything but the one for your own origin) so you can mail yourself SO-level endurance enhancements to slot starting at level 10. Or be a Mutant or Natural and use SO-level damage enhancements, since fewer attacks to kill = less endurance used. If you can't get those or don't want to fool with it then level 20 generic endurance IOs are significantly better than DOs and slottable at 17.

Oh, and above all... slot accuracy first. You want your accuracy going up as your to-hit drops: at least one DO at level 12, and possibly two DOs or a lvl 20 IO at level 17 (or just one DO, depending on your AT and power sets). You want to have as close to a 95% chance to hit as possible, especially at DO levels (1-11 goes by so fast it's easy to ignore TO level enhancements entirely). It's not too hard to afford to fully slot DOs at 12 as long as you sell your drops on the market, but I'd suggest mailing yourself a couple hundred thousand inf from an alt and then you don't have to worry at all. Then once that character gets higher level you can use him / her to bankroll your next alt's DOs.

Blasters kill things faster than Corruptors solo (especially Fire Blasters). However, Corruptors can be a lot less squishy thanks to buffs and debuffs and adding a Corruptor will often make a team kill stuff faster than adding a Blaster will since resist debuffs and damage buffs boost the entire team's damage. A Fire/Rad, Fire/Dark, or Fire/Kin Corruptor will do less damage on a team than a Fire/Fire or Fire/Mental Blaster would, but the Corruptor will also boost everyone else's damage while the Blaster won't.

If you want a tech themed fire user then Fire/Traps will be much better than Fire/Devices. Traps are Devices' much bigger brother. Who drives a tank and carries a minigun like the guy in Predator.

Try an Axe or Dual Blades character. If you pick an armor set that doesn't need much recharge then you can easily get a solid attack chain with minimal IO investment. DB does need a ton of recharge for it's top chain, but you only lose a few percent DPS dropping down to Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals and that chain only needs around 30% or so global recharge as I recall. DB/SR can get by on two or three mid-range recharge bonuses and Quick Reflexes, and it's a fun combo to play if you want a swashbuckler type. Axe is similar... you only need modest recharge to get solid DPS because most Axe attacks have almost identical DPAs.

Another good option is a MM. FF gains pretty much nothing from recharge and Thermal works quite well without a lot (though more debuffs and Forges are better). Traps does need fairly high recharge to reach its peak, but Bots / Traps solos GMs on SOs so unless you plan to solo task forces or something you don't really need to reach peak performance.

Oh, and don't forget Stone Tankers. Sure recharge helps offset Granite's penalties, but you're going to be focusing so hard on run speed boosts that you can easily live with low recharge if you need to.

Beam Rifle is another one of those sets that seem made more for Corruptors and Defenders than Blasters. The high ST damage is nice if you want to make a sort of ranged MA Scrapper but the lack of AoE (at least every-spawn AoE) hurts since Blasters tend to use the "kill them all before they can kill me" defense and not being able to quickly wipe minions prevents that. Among Blaster secondaries I would definitely recommend Mental or Energy though... Mental gives you more AoE (which really helps) and some extra utility while Energy gives you Boost Range to maximize your cones and make short range attacks easier to use, as well as giving you very solid melee with decent control built in to fall back on if things do get in your face.

If you go Corruptor instead, Beam/Traps is a natural pairing and will be very useful (/Traps is always very useful). You'll be like a Beam/Devices Blaster that actually has good devices.

Well, I'm not 100% opposed to a Tanker, I'd just rather go Brute or Scrapper if possible since they clear spawns faster. I actually think I'm going to build a Crab next and put the melee monster on hold for a while because I remembered that Titan Weapons is coming up and that's supposed to be an AoE-focused set... since I've been wanting a huge sword wielder for a long time anyway I'll probably make a TW Tank or Brute for this project (unless the set ends up being sub-par numerically).

Thanks for all the advice, I appreciate it.