moifus1

But why wouldn't you want to be fully stealthed? I think stealthy is especially important for the squishees. Ever been on a TF/SF with a kill the boss mish. I have been on many a TF/SF where all the non-squishees run through the mobs and straight to the boss. All the squishees attempt to run through the mobs to the boss and half of them die on the way there. Being only half stealthy is not always good enough to keep up.

The Bots/FF was my first toon. He was created about 2.75 years ago and is still only lvl 29ish. I recently decided to revisit MM's and created my second one(a ninja/TA). Ninja TA is soooo much more fun and interactive then Bots/FF. For big teams bots/FF may provide something for you to do if you decide to buff team mates, but for solo - so boring. But to answer your actual question of is he survivable - so far yes.

Another advantage of fly is that the stealth proc is cheaper and easier to find than SJ or SS. I was able to find one for my lvl 30ish fire/storm in around 10 days and for a somewhat modest price(around 5 mil).

I also vote for firecages. If the mobs are not locked down and wander off, those bad little imps will chase them down and get you double spawned. At least that was my experience leveling mostly doing solo mishes. I also like to have it for when I am on a team with an overly knockback happy teammate.

My lvl 50 Grav/Rad is very safe to solo and good against bosses and EB's. He is no farmer though. No sir. Nope.

Is his arch nemesis a bar of soap?

I apologize for the above bad hippie stereotype joke, but it had to be done.

My lvl 50 Kin/Arch/DM defender is pretty survivable, and fast(for a defender) at clearing out spawns. The fun thing about a defender compared to most of the other AT's is that they get massive defense and resistance from pool and epic power sets. My non-purpled out 100mil dollar build has over 62%(with tough of course)SL resistance and a hefty amount of defense. I took DM for my epic pool for the Oppresive Gloom. The stun from OP keeps minions at bay and can stack with the stun from Archery to keep bosses perma mezzed. Now this build will be neither tough nor survivable until you pick up some pool powers, and it will not be fast until you get ROA and Fulcrum Shift, but if you like to play a toon after reaching 50 you will find this one to be pretty durable. If you just like to level them up to 50 and then shelve them this may be too much of a late bloomer. I used this build to run +2/x6 farms prior to getting my blaster IO'ed and farm capable.

I have it on good authority that one of the powers(static touch) will be a single target melee attack. The toon must be wearing socks and no shoes to pull it off, and it only works on maps with a carpteted floor.

It would be nice if you could access Wentworths or the BM from the Respec screen. That way no new system would need to be created, and at least you could save like 25 or more instead of only 10 IO's. It would have to be one heck of a respec to have more than 25 IO's that you needed to trade out and were actually worth selling.

I would love to beat down a Rikti drop ship. But I would settle for LGTF only. New to the server. Just moved a couple of fitties over courtesy of the free transfers.

I am currently leveling a Ninja/TA mastermind. He's at around level 24 now. From what I've experienced so far it seems like everything that TA does Dark can do better.

Dark's tar pit provides the same area of effect as TA's Sticky arrow. However -
tar pit has a -30 res debuff which is equal to TA's acid and disruption arrow combined. TA's acid arrow only has an 8 ft radius though, so Tar Pit is mo better in my opinion.

Both have a single target hold. They are equal hold times according to Red Tomax.

TA has flash arrow, Dark has Shadow Fall. Flash Arrow blinds targets and adds -tohit debuff which is helpful to teams and would make it possible to stealth a mish - very very slowly.
Shadow Fall has defense, resistance, and stealth for everyone in it's radius. With a stealth IO you could easily stealth a mish and the +def/res are helpful to you're team. Shadow fall also allows you to slot steadfast protection IO's without having to get tough or wait for patron powers.

Dark has a mag 3 AOE fear cone plus a hefty -tohit debuff in Fearsome Stare. TA has a chance to sleep minions and a rather modest damage debuff(Actually pretty good on the defender version) in Poison Gas Arrow. TA's damage debuff is inferior to the damage debuff that darkest night supplies plus darkest night adds another hefty -tohit debuff.

So what we have covered so far is that added together
Dark's 4 powers
Tar Pit, Shadow Fall, Fearsome Stare, and Darkest Night are better than
TA's 5 powers
Glue Arrow, Flash Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow, Acid Arrow, and Disruption Arrow combined.

You could make the arguement that TA's Glue Arrow also provides a small amount of -recharge and that Acid Arrow does a small amount of damage. Acid Arrow also comes with some -defense in it's rather small 8ft radius. I'll take the large -tohit debuff provided by Dark over the above mentioned things any day.

Now TA get's a single target Immobilize power at level 1 that does no damage and a small amount of -recharge. Dark doesn't get one of these, but Dark does get a pet at later levels that comes with a AOE cone immobilize that does a modest amount of damage and provides a small -tohit debuff. Now I'm not actually going to say that one is better than the other in this case, as the TA immobilize power has some utility that you may not be able to get out of Dark Servant, for example immobilizing an EB.

To be fair TA does have something good going for it. Oil Slick is a rather nasty Damage doer from what I understand. TA also has EMP Arrow which is situational and will certainly not be up for every spawn.

What Dark comes with that TA doesn't provide are massive AOE heals, massive -tohit debuffs, and a group rez. It could also be mentioned that Dark has Black Hole but I don't think many people actually get or use it, so I certainly wouldn't say that Black Hole is to Dark's credit. In addition to the above mentioned heals and immobilize Dark Servant also adds some -dam and -tohit to the mix.

So in conclusion. In my opinion, the only benefit TA really has over Dark is the damage of Oil Slick. Other than that it is completely inferior to Dark.

Rad/En may be a good combo also. By lvl 26 you could have 3 AOE's. You will easily be able to clear the room of all the minions fairly quickly. You will of course take damage doing so but if you are fight spawn sizing of 5 or less at lower levels these encounters shouldn't be deadly. At lvl 22(provided that you take stamina at 20) you will have 2 stackable stun powers for the bosses, not to mention a couple of "chance to stun" powers and power push. You should be able to keep most if not all bosses permastunned. The only downside I see to this combo is no buildup.

From the perspective of someone who did a good mix of solo and team play up to 50 with a ice/dark I can say that /dark is very survivable. Even at lower levels the combo of darkest night plus shadow fall can make you very hard to hit, and if you are hit it will not be for full damage as shadow fall provides resistance to some damage and darkest night comes with -30% enemy damage debuff. You can also slot the steadfast protection IO's in Shadow fall giving you even more defensive goodness. Throw in fearsome stare at level 20 or later and you get an additional -15 tohit debuff. This was the only villian toon(was not soft capped) that I have played that was able to solo Recluse with little damage taken or close calls.

I think wormhole for me has some serious comedy potential. Try finding a hiding spot in PVP zone and then wormhole a group of badies on another players head. All though it has no practical purpose as the badies will be stunned, the idea itself to me is very funny. Water Spout it pretty cool also. Another one of my favorites is dropping singy in the middle of a tightly packed mob. Counter productive, yes, but also funny.

I went with the Mace mastery on my fire/earth. Mainly for the added defense of scorpion shield. The added defense plus the -tohit of your smoke grenade stack nicely. I like the poison ray for the boss killing -res also. If you are determined to take only Mu or Leviathon I would go with Mu. You get your resist damage at 41 instead of 44. You get the godmode power of Surge of Power rather than the o-bleep! power of hibernate. Most importantly I think is that Leviathon has a cone AOE which does not mesh as well with all of your sphere AOE's. I would rather have Ball Lighting and not have to worry about angling myself with a cone. Maybe I am just lazy though.

Just as a side note. On the redside the Corrupter, Dom, and possibly the Brute can lay down some very nice AOE damage depending on build. So it seems to me that redside has many AOE options. Even the MM’s can bring some AOE to the table. On the blue side however, you have the defender who by himself will have pretty weak AOE damage with any primary short of a Kin post lvl 32. The PB’s and Warshades do have some decent AOE’s but their damage is also low and you need to have a lvl 50 to unlock them. Scrappers may have 1 or 2 high damage AOE’s but these are usually limited to an 8-10 foot radius and 10 targets max. So the Blaster seems to be the only one in most circumstances that can really bring some nasty high, large radius, 10-16 targets per attack damage. Now some of the roles may change post lvl 38 but until then the blaster is truly the bane of minions everywhere.

Currently at level 49 and I love my Fire/earth. He was a slow starter but really started to pickup at around lvl 29. For my PP powers I took the mace mastery rout for the added defense of scorpion shield. I also took poisonous ray(-resistance) which is awesome against bosses/EB’s. I can honestly say that my boss killing speed easily rivals that of some of my blasters(or at least it feels that way).
From a mostly solo perspective I would add some of the following recommendations.

Get both of the AOE/PBAOE attacks in the secondary and hot feet. Between the 3 of them you can quickly and easily clear the minions from the spawn. Some people sneer at the 3 second animation but if you are hitting at least 3 people with it then it is worth it.

Get the AOE immobilize. Some people say not to, but I can’t tell you how many times hot feet has scared off an unmezzed minion who then ran into another spawn. And of course my imp would follow and double spawn me.

I’m really up in the air between Ring of Fire(ROF) and Hurl Boulder. Hurl Boulder has very mediocre damage for such a long animation. Ring of Fire(ROF) can keep that pesky EB immobilized until you can lock him down with holds which is nice. The thing I don’t like about ROF is that the damage over time takes 9.2 seconds to complete and it has a high endurance cost. If you really think about it, no minion or lieutenant is actually going to live long enough to feel the 9.2 seconds of DOT, so most of the damage is wasted unless you ROF target A and then move on to target B. It is useful obviously against bosses/EB’s who will live long enough to feel the burn. That being said I don’t usually slot ROF heavily. I would recommend getting either ROF or hurl boulder because between your single target hold, ROF/hurl boulder, and the first power from your secondary you will have 3 ranged attacks. You will want these in boss/EB fights if you are not comfortable jumping into melee before the boss/EB is thoroughly held.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Good day sir.