Valorin

I've done this with my Huntsman and he's a blast to play. I haven't purpled him out (just very cheap ranged and AoE sets, a Steadfast +3 Def, and a knockback protection IO, plus common IOs), but the AoE carnage he can unleash is a lot of fun. And he does it while capped to ranged attacks and having substantial AoE and Melee defense.

I ended up taking the wolf spider maneuvers, assault, and tactics, plus maneuvers from the tactics pool. Mako's patron pool offers some AoE goodness at the end of it (Bile Spray and Arctic Breath). From the Bane Spider tree I picked up Surveillance (handy for hard targets), Bane Armor Upgrade (better mez protection? Yes please), Cloaking Device (for the additional defense), and the pets (distractions for when things get hairy).

Between frag grenade, heavy burst, venom grenade and Bile spray (just hit 47 so I just picked it up), I can almost keep up an AoE rotation. Solo, I have to play him a bit tactically, using WAWG to tie down mobs once they're bunched and then burn them down. On teams though, he shines. Adding to everbody's defense, accuracy, and damage (assuming those pesky min..err teammates stay in range) really keeps things flowing.

Aisynia really said it best in her guide and I think of the quote every time I play my Huntsman:

"They go in guns blazing, they control the situation, deal with it in the most brutal, efficient possible fashion, and leave. Nothing but a few smoldering corpses and charred floor tiles should be left when they and their contingent are done. They are the fire from the hip, grenade lobbing, lead spraying badasses that come in to put down a situation someone else couldn't handle. The strength to work alone, but rarely seen without some really serious backup."

I made a DB/EA brute a while back too, she's parked at level 24 at the moment (Claws/Willpower is taking up much of my bruting time :P). I had asked around here if it was worth continuing with her or trying a different secondary and some folks offered some helpful comments here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=215164

Hope that helps!

Edit: A few more thoughts
-Keep respites and purples around... email them to yourself if you end up with a surplus
-Don't expect /willpower levels of survivability early on
-Plan on building for some smash/lethal defense
-Use your knockdowns to keep the bosses on their backs

I haven't tried /SR on a brute yet, but my Claws/Willpower is a rolling juggernaut of destruction. He's been able to run at +0/x6 since level 22 and if I'm careful +0/x8 at 28 (where he is now). Rise to the Challenge + Spin seems to be such a nice synergy to build and focus with fury is almost unfair He's heads and shoulders above where my Claws/Dark scrapper was at the same level. It'll be interesting to see how much IO sets help him out. I don't think I've ever had a character this powerful on SOs. The only thing that's close is my Fire/Dark corruptor, but she's running a much more ragged edge, so to speak (everything's great until she gets mezzed, then things go downhill quickly).

Deliverance- Keep in mind that not all set IOs are expensive. The ones with the best set bonuses are, but if you ignore the set bonuses, you can get good "value" out of multi-aspect IOs. Look for cheap IO recipes on Wentworth's that enhance the attributes you want (acc,damage,recharge,end redux). Bear in mind that ED is still in play so you may end up against the cap on some aspects if you're not careful. I was able to increase my Wolf Spider Huntsman's ability quite a bit just by going for cheap IO sets in his attacks (I want to say I dropped ~10 million infamy on it). This was villain-side, so the hero market may be different. This is the "frankenslotting" that Werner mentions and can be a fairly decent upgrade.

I believe the conventional wisdom is you can start to do this around level 20-25. I didn't do it until level 40 on my Huntsman (I'm poor as well ) - but after seeing how cheap some of the recipes and salvage are, I kind of wish I had done it earlier.

Person, I play my Huntsman on Virtue frequently, if you want to see one in action, look for "Operative Gant". I just hit level 40 with him. The damage isn't amazing, but I amp up the team damage with buffs and debuffs and provide a fair bit of defense while being reasonably survivable myself.

Telperion, that looks like a great "low cost" build. I've just started IOing my Huntsman with Sets and I'll be trying something similar. Thanks for posting that.

I've just returned to the game too and have a similar play situation. I often have to get up and reach "tall" things or move "heavy" things or whatnot for the wife I knew there was a reason she kept me around. Anyway, hero-side, I think a scrapper is the best soloist. Certain builds of the other ATs can solo decently (subjective) as well, but will probably do so with more risk (blaster) or more slowly (tank, controller, defender).

Redside, I'm starting to form the opinion that just about anything solos just fine if you play to it's strengths. I've soloed a claws/wp brute to 20 (fighting -1/x4 or so), a fire/dark corruptor to 24 (about the same spawn size, it's a little more dicey with mezzes but she can wipe out 2-3 spawns in 2 AoE attack chains), a ninja/poison MM to 26 (he cranks through at +1/x1 or so- focusing on a few "hard" targets to take advantage of /poison's single target debuffs), and a ninja blade/ninja stalker (about the same as the single target MM spawn size wise). Of those, the stalker's probably the slowest if she hits a "kill all" mission. The other three or pretty comparable. Of course the stalker has the advantage that if you get called away, you can leave it idling and Hide will have your back I've never made a dominator so I can't speak about them.

So, TLDR version: Blueside - play a scrapper- any one will solo just fine although I'd bet Willpower is a nice secondary on a scrapper. Redside - play around with each AT long enough to get a sense of what they're about and pick the one that you find the most fun.

Wow, that's impressive. I don't recall ever getting that much agro on my TA/A defender... or on my Bots/TA MM for that matter.

Nice work!

I recently got Team Teleport on my Ninja/Poison MM and it's worked reasonably well. It lets me keep bodyguard on and get everyone into position. Most of the time, my ninja all bust out the melee when they appear close and start to take fire.

Beyond that, the only other advice I can give is the "goto" command and live with the one Genin who won't put away the throwing star or the Jounin who refuses to live by the sword.

Thanks for all of the replies. I'm thinking I'll keep the DB/EA around and play around with her. Just looking at Mids, I could see where you could almost have a hybrid defense/resist build if you build in the fighting pool (looking at ~30ish resist to smash/lethal and 30ish defense to the same- with just SOs). That'd mean no patrol pool, but I'm not seeing much there I really think I'll need.

As for the "is she fun now?" question, I love the fast flashy feel of Dual Blades. And, maybe the biggest problem is that I have a SS/Willpower in the same level range that seems to be on a different planet in terms of power. With him, it's just slow going whittling through each enemy one at a time- but my dear and fluffy lord can he take a beating.

Thanks again for the replies.

Yeah, I had played around with /SR in Mids. I can get all the attacks from DB plus all of SR plus stamina... but no travel power. Which, with Ninja Run, isn't as big a deal as it used to be, but still... makes it tough to concentrate your slots where they'll be doing a lot of good. Thanks for the reply Kioshi. I'll play around with Willpower and see what looks reasonable in there.

Haven't had much end problems with /EA yet, at least since I've had Stamina. The main thing is just plain feeling squishy. (edited) Posting my build, just in case I did miss something.

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

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 23 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Dual Blades
Secondary Power Set: Energy Aura
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Nimble Slash -- Acc(A), Dmg(3)
Level 1: Kinetic Shield -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(5), DefBuff(13), DefBuff(15)
Level 2: Ablating Strike -- Acc(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(11), Dmg(15)
Level 4: Power Shield -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(5), DefBuff(17), DefBuff(17)
Level 6: Typhoon's Edge -- Acc(A), Dmg(7), Dmg(7), Dmg(13)
Level 8: Blinding Feint -- Acc(A), Dmg(9), EndRdx(9), RechRdx(11)
Level 10: Entropy Shield -- EndRdx(A)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 18: Vengeful Slice -- Acc(A), Dmg(19), Dmg(19), Dmg(23)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Energy Cloak -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(23)
Level 24: [Empty]
Level 26: [Empty]
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury
Level 4: Ninja Run

I've got a DB/EA brute that I haven't played in a while. She's up to 23ish, but I could never get past feeling super-squishy (for a brute, anyway). Does EA have better synergy with Dual Blades at higher level? Does it get better or am I better off re-rolling her with a different secondary? If so, what secondaries work best? Willpower? SR? I love the fast, flashy feel of the primary. It reminds me of my claws/da scrapper (who I LOVED once she got rolling).

[ QUOTE ]
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[I am very good veng bait ]

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That you were, that you were.

=. .=

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You guys almost made me wish I had more recharges in Howling Twilight... Either that your we needed to die more together in big clumps rather than one at a time. Also, somehow, I need to figure out how to get Soul Transfer on a defender. It would have gotten a workout last night!

Yep, let me voice my intense dislike for this change as well. 50k of debt for my TA defender, accumulated in half an hour of the new PvP means roughly 2 hours of soloing to wipe away. Bleh. Guess I won't bother trying to PvP on pickup teams anymore.

I was going to say, Disruption Arrow is a much bigger death sentence than Oil Slick. At least some of them are flopping around on the slick and unable to return fire. If I fire off disruption before the tank has got aggro or the controller has applied controls, that's usually the start of a rapid downward spiral.

Which is exactly why I was debating leveling up a TA/Electric defender, but I've run out of stamina for TA for the moment.

Just one thing to note about Dark Regeneration vs Healing Flames, Dark Regen requires mobs around you and a to-hit roll. Yeah, 1 mob seems to be enough to bring you up quite a ways (about 1/3 of your hp bar?) vs Healing Flames' mediocre heal, but it's something to consider. Also consider the endurance cost of Dark Regen. Healing Flames may take heavy recharge slotting to bring it close to Dark Regen's recharge time, but Dark Regen takes quite a bit of endurance cost reduction enhancements to make it useable without bringing down your toggles. With the toggle drain from the other DA toggles, it wasn't something I used unless I REALLY needed it prior to stamina. I'm sure all that's been brought up already, probably stated more succinctly than I have, but I must have missed it.
Not saying HF couldn't use a boost, but these are things to consider if you're going to compare the two powers directly against each other.

The other thing to think about its that Dark/ and Rad/ can pretty much spend the first 5-10 seconds of a fight setting up their debuffs and fight for however long it takes. It's part of why they solo so nicely. As Concern noted in another thread, with my TA defender, I debuff for 5 seconds, fight for 5, debuff for another 5, fight for another 5. It's part of why the set underperforms IMO. You spend a huge proportion of time in animation lock watching your archer draw the bow, nock and arrow, slowly bring the bow up, aim, and then debuff. Changing the animation times would be helpful. And I don't see why TA shouldn't be a bit more powerful than other sets when it stacks with itself. After all, the TA defender "paid for it" by having to spend the animation debuffing twice. Those seconds are crucial in a solo situation. There ought to be a bit of payoff for spending all that time debuffing that other defenders don't have to spend. With the lack of healing/rez, TA should be the "king" of something to make up for the shortcomings elsewhere. Right now, it's "As Good" at some things (control, team damage increase through res debuff, maybe -damage) and "Poor" at other things (acc debuff).

First off, I'm game for another try, assuming schedules and available characters mesh.

On to my observations from the test, but I have to admit most of my attention was devoted to figuring out how to position myself to make best use of cones/pbaoes.

I had Oppressive Gloom, Death Shroud, and quills running for the whole test.

With the stormie, I don't think I took much damage at all. Mostly since Luminara, our /regen peacebringer charged headlong into the spawns and pulsared em. Usually I was a few steps back and by the time my auras had got me any aggro at all, the fight was pretty much over. I recall having to use dark regen once, and it was pretty much a "hrrm, I'm at 2/3s health, plenty of end, guess I'll use it". O2 Boost provided a nice topping off after the fights.

By the second and third missions, I pretty much had a handle on who was going to do what with the team and a fairly good plan on what to do myself. I started trying to follow Lum's pulsar up with throw spines and spine burst, so that may explain the higher damage total on my part. I don't recall being healed much at all and I used Dark Regeneration 4-5 times with the Trick Arrow defender and maybe twice with the dark, if that's any gauge. I definitely had a few panic moments (both times rounding the corner into the Shadow Cyst are particularly memorable ones). One thing I should note, right after I died to the Cyst with the Dark/ defender I took down my xp / min from hero-stats. Came up with 2800 xp / min, identical to the stormie, which put us on pace for a higher xp / min once you take into account the mission complete bonus. Not sure how much learning each other's tactics and the mission itself played into that but I figured it was worth mentioning.

For those running the testing tonight, I have a 30 Warshade I can bring along. Character name is Starshrike. As soon as he's copied over, I'll be playing around on Test. Shoot me a /tell. Oh, and I have a 31 DM/DA Scrapper and a 37 Spines/DA Scrapper as well.