WhyNot

For durability, the only thing you need is some healing. Taking Aid Self will do it, though it is ultimately at the cost of two powers.

You could also go the IO set bonuses route, and try either to softcap your defenses or to maximize your health regen. Depending on how you feel your survivability is by the time you get there, just five-slotting Heath with two Heal SOs, the unique +Regen Regenerative Tissue and both the Heal and the +Regen Numina's puts you at pretty strong passive Regen (even before other set bonuses).

Also, I think this can be a great combo. Claws plus Lightning Reflexes means a potential buzzsaw build (same as you get with the classic Claws/SR), and the End management powers give a lot of flexibility as far as which powers to ultimately take (making it easier to throw in an Aid Self, or something similar).

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Hint: the fastest way to steamroll missions is to not invite brutes.

Corrupters, Dominators, and masterminds all outperform you due to having controls and buffs. Brutes are absolutely useless in comparison.


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I'm assuming that this is hyperbole. If not, then this is very poor judgement and should be taken this with a grain of salt. Brutes are not needed at all for general teaming. But to say they are absolutely useless by comparson is being disingenuous. Brutes have their uses, as do every other AT in this game.

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It was mostly hyperbole. My point mostly was that.

Can brutes be great team members? Yes.

Can a great team be absolutely 100% brute-free? Yes.

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A great team can be 100% free of any given class. If we really want to go there, every class but Defenders is superfluous for maximally-effective steamrolling. :P

More seriously, I have a Brute with Fire Melee. I have some Range enhancements in Fire Breath. Hitting a whole eight-man spawn at full Fury? You better believe I steamroll.

Hey, you're welcome. Glad you found a combo you're loving, too. One hint regarding the bots, if you're planning to take Flight as your travel power it's almost worth taking Group Flight just to watch your bots use their jet boosters. Try it out sometime on the test server (or if you're about to respec, etc.).

Oh, and to add: for Defender or Corrupter blast sets, probably Dark, Radiation or Sonic for the blast set, in that order. Dark has utility and a cool secondary effect, Radiation is a very complete blast set with a cool secondary effect, and Sonic has utility and a cool effect BUT some folks don't care for it.

This started as a QR, I'll have you know. :P

From the OP's question, having skimmed the thread, I'd offer the following:

All classes have at least one or two powersets that fulfill your criteria to varying degrees. You'll find fans of each making some neat recommendations that you should follow up on. But, I would temper their advice with the following:

Defenders, Corrupters, Controllers, Dominators, Tankers: These classes are rather team-oriented. Playing them with even one other person, then having that person leave and playing solo, you will notice a distinct difference in their flow. Fair warning.

Scrappers, Tankers, Brutes, Stalkers: The melee classes tend to be pretty focused, without quite as much versatility in their powers as a class with a support/utility set. There are sets with some interesting "oh s***" buttons and whatnot, but be sure to give some real thought to your primary and secondary here. On the upside, these are the not-so-squishy classes, if you want to have some good protection.

My recommendations would be to try the following:

Blaster: Choose a primary you like, with either an Ice or Mental secondary. I'd suggest Sonic/Mental, myself, for the overlapping cones and Siren's Song. Going Ice/Ice is good too: it may err too much on the side of mob control, but can be pretty rewarding.

Defender: Try Trick Arrow, Dark, Radiation, or maybe Kinetics primaries with whichever secondary you find most interesting. Storm is cool too, though somewhat more challenging to direct. I'd stay away from the other primary sets at first, since you may find yourself too busy re-casting shields to try out the rest of your bag of tricks when grouped (which is why Kinetics gets a maybe, since it has Speed Boost) (oh, and Empathy is maybe more team-centric than you indicated you want to be).

Controller: Each Control primary has its trade-offs, and the only one that you might not like is Gravity (it's a love-it or hate-it set). I'd recommend Plant first, then Mind or Earth, with a note that Fire does the most damage if you try the others and feel they don't have enough. Recommendation of secondary is same as that for Defender's primary.

Scrapper: Dark Melee is the most "unusual" primary, but may not give you what you're looking for. I'd recommend Claws, since you can choose to build for single-target or AoE, and you get a ranged attack (basically, the set's variety is good). IF(!) you like the combo system, I'd more recommend Dual Blades, but some folks don't enjoy how it works. The other sets are by no means inferior picks, either. For secondary, Dark again is the most unusual, and I'd recommend either it, Fire, or Shield as they have more variety than the other sets (and yes, Shield means picking a primary other than Claws or Dual Blades; like I said, all the primaries are pretty good here ).

Tanker: For primary, add Ice Armor to the list from Scrapper secondaries, then pick the secondary that most appeals (and give Ice Melee a look; the added control can add a bit of utility).

Brute: Same as for Scrapper and Tanker, where the sets are there.

Corrupter: Same as for Defender.

Stalker: Pick your preferred primary, then try Ninjutsu for your secondary. This is definitely the most bag-of-tricks secondary for the class.

Dominator: Same as Controller for primary, and pick whichever secondary you like, with Mental Assault maybe being in the lead by a nose.

Mastermind: This entire class will be love-it-or-hate-it, but having said that, I'd say Thugs first, followed by Necromancy and Ninjas as a second-place tie (these latter two require getting your minions into melee, which ups the challenge slightly). Secondary is same advice as Defender primary, though add Poison to the list as it's a real mix of abilities.

I'll add my two cents:

My Ele/Nin Stalker is my highest level character (just shy of 50). I've taken every power in his primary and skipped Caltrops, Smoke Flash and Blinding Powder to do so. I personally get a real kick out of using Jacob's Ladder, but if you're not big on lining up the multi-hit strikes (or not in the middle of large spawns all that often) then between the two I'd almost recommend Charged Brawl. The quick animation and recharge are great for filling in an attack chain and finishing off mobs (and it does a surprising amount of damage if fully slotted). Plus, hey, if you want to load up on procs it's a great power for that too.

Still, in all honestly, I really like having both.

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Stalker - Shields or fire melee

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Shields doesn't mesh with most stalkers sets or the stalker theme. Fire melee functionally double but breaks theme since how stealthy is a man on fire?

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Where there's fire, there's smoke...and smoke hides just as well as being invisible. I could easily see a Fiery Melee or Fiery Aura Stalker work. Especially if Placate and Hide involved vanishing into a swirling mass of smoke and embers, and then reappearing in a sudden blazing flash when you strike, like a backdraft.

That could be pretty darn cool.

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That sounds AWESOME. You MUST do this!

Though, it sounds like you would then need to give Ninjutsu's Smoke Flash to the Fiery Aura set for the Stalker. Also, if you left Fiery Embrace in the Aura set, I can see that working a little *too* well... maybe that should be the power swap to make it work? (In my mind Hide would obviously replace Blazing Aura, though maybe it wouldn't be bad to leave Blazing Aura in... hmm...)

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I don't see how Pain adds much of anything to that team.

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I mainly chose it for three reasons:

1. Not duplicating one of the other sets (because I didn't want to use any twice, for style reasons :P )
2. Providing offense and defense (Force Field would have added the missing defense type, which may have been numerically better, but again for style, decided everything needed to buff damage or debuff the opponents' resistance or defense)
3. Redundant rez, held by the person least likely to faceplant.

Force Field or Poison I could have seen fitting in instead, but the other sets didn't mesh as well. Trick Arrow would bring controls, but this group would likely move too fast to appreciate them; Dark's Tar Patch and Tentacles should be enough. Traps similarly requires a bit of prep and setup, and is further considered a lackluster set overall. Poison is a great mastermind set, Neurotoxic Breath would have added -Rech to the mix of debuffs, but I figured I'd rather stack more Resistance (and add some To Hit) with World of Pain than add more debuffing (plus, it would backfill +Damage if Fulcrum Shift ever put the group at less than the damage cap). Storm, well, to me was great but offered little straight-up synergy with the other sets. Force Field, well, the parentetical near the top covers it.

So, the set adds Heal/Regen, Resistance, To Hit and Damage, and the whole set of four is kinda focused around those two of the three defenses, damage and to hit buffs, and resistance/defense debuffs.

Now, imagine if all four of them decided to run Maneuvers... >

Hmm...

1 Rad/Dark Corruptor
1 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor
1 Dark/Kinetics Corruptor
1 Thugs/Pain Domination MM

That oughta do it. :P

You know, I've found a lot of how cool the powers look depends on the cotume. No lie! I have a Rad/Dark Corruptor whose powers are a constant visual treat, and hooves on a character with Martial Arts is just... painful. In a good way. :P

My vote for visually best primary in each AT:

Blaster: Energy Blast

Controller: Gravity (personal fave, not necessarily recommended)

Defender: Storm

Scrapper: Martial Arts

Tanker: Shield (and go /Mace for the most fun costume options)

Brute: Dual Blades (it will seem very different from any other Brute, a whirling dervish rather than something more... hulk-esque)

Stalker: Electrical Melee (Lightning Rod is a contender for coolest power ever)

Corruptor: Radiation (full disclosure: not a big fan of the red lightning and energy blasts compared to the blue)

Mastermind: Robots (protip: get group fly for bonus visual coolness)

Dominator: Plant

If your Dominator WASN'T Plant/*, I'd actually recommend trying a Plant/* Controller as you owe it to yourself to try the powerset.

If going with the above, Plant/Storm will probably feel very similarly fun to the fun of a Dominator. But, as others have mentioned, Controllers don't really play very similarly to Dominators since they don't have an "attack" set the way Dominators do. Like the other folks have, I'd more strongly recommend an Ice/Mental Blaster (or Ice/Ice, a close second). That gives a mix of offense and control that's tilted much more toward offense.

QR:

Extra end use due to taking longer is partly mitigated by the extra time leading to more total recovery tics before the conclusion of the fight.

Also, consider Rest: a Tanker may well run low on End before a Scrapper, but the Scrapper will likely run low on Health before the Tanker. Do the times at which they elect to use Rest roughly match? Does the number of foes defeated before electing to use Rest roughly match?

On the NPC freak-out issue, I wonder how the NPCs "perceive" a player they are following when said player goes through a door or elevator. Maybe it's something like "Player disappeared, but hey, here's this travel node, I'll use it!" But, when a player dies or stealths, they also "vanish" to the AI, which sometimes starts hunting for which travel node the player "must have" used.

If the AI was sorting through travel nodes in their internal list order (which doesn't have to be related at all to map location), that could also explain why they zoom all over the place. Going from "nearest" to "next nearest" relative to the point the player vanished at is another thing that would cause some zipping around... I've never seen the problem myself, so.

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I really like Super Jump. It's pretty active, although you don't have flights nifty, set your course and go get snacks, ability. I like to jump and try and land right on the top of things just "so". You know, catching that wall top just right, or hitting the skylight on a warehouse building, or bouncing off the power lines - so much fun!

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I'm going to have to agree with the new guy on this. SuperJump is by far my favorite travel power, for exactly the reason he mentioned. Suddenly the entire map is an interactive playground... and I finally get to put all my old console platformer skills to use! :P