Heraclea

Heraclea, Impetua, and most of my later tankers handle all of those things fairly well. They handle ITF and DA Pantheons without frequent resort to incarnate poweers. Heraclea has T4 Barrier for Reckuse and T3 Ageless for Hamidon. She can also fire-farm at 4/8 despite being Invulnerability, but it does get slow. What keeps her going as much as Invulnerability is Dark Melee. The constant -tohit of DM makes her practically softcapped even if her raw figures of defense only get to the high thirties, and the self heal attack means she is always topping off the tank.

Ricky Valance - Tell Laura I Love Her RIP Ricky Valance

This build is very close to what I am currently running; the fourth slot in Stamina is actually the new Chance for Heal endmod proc. I am quite happy with the results.

The costume comes first to mind. Horizontal striped shirt and beret, definitely. Don't really have a cigarette, so use the cigar. Most of the character's banter binds would be en français. And call him or her La Résistance, and start out of Praetoria, where their choices have been set. Take a theme close to my own heart. What would you make for Strong and Pretty?

The truth is that some powersets are in fact worse than others. Some deserve praise, others should come with warning labels. And likewise some combinations work better than others. If somebody intends to roll an energy melee brute, I wouldn't try to talk them out of it. Maybe they've seen it in game and like the look. This was the chief motivation for my poor Fire/Energy Melee tanker back on Victory. But if they asked in a public channel for advice about which secondary to pair with it,, I would tell them quite forcefully that Willpower would serve them well and that Regen would be a poor pairing. The animation traps would become a problem eventually. Willpower is not made less effective by animation traps. Regen is. And likewise, if somebody had their heart set on Regen and asked me for advice, I'd steer them towards the traditional pairing with Claws, or maybe Savage Melee, something with mostly brief animations. Or maybe, a controlly set like Stone Melee, which is not fast but might give the Regen some breathing room. And I'd also tell them that if they really wanted to run Regen they need to stoke recharge, use various powers proactively, and have fast reactions and a fast Internet. I am definitely not a fan of either Regen or Energy Melee right now. If someone was asking if they're any good my report will indeed be negative. But if someone had their heart set on either set I would tell them about the problems they'd be facing and suggest workarounds. I'm not entirely negative about everything. Earlier today, I started a thread specifically touting the virtues of a Plants/Poison controller, and how worthwhile all the powers in both Plants and Poison seemed, and how remarkable this seemed. These are two sides of the same coin. There are powersets and combinations that I have enjoyed, and combinations that tripped over their own shoelaces. And if asked for an opinion about them I will give it.

My TW/WP scrapper is 8/9 for both sets; didn't take Provoke or the self-rez. There were powers I put off on the plants/poison; was not in a hurry to take the Confuse, and put off Poison Trap for probably too long. It does help keep too friendly mobs at bay. Burnt most of my stockpile of unslotters when I realized I should not put the controller sets in powers that take damage enhancements. Like I said, this character is a bit out of my comfort zone.

Yesterday I managed to get a second controller to 50. She was a pure concept build, a plants/poison controller, Circe of Aeaea. She isn't built for soloing and I will admit, I have very little notion what to do with a controller, but I'm currently reading a book about Circe and I decided to make a character based on her. Game needs transmogrification control where you get to change mobs into Rikti monkeys and the like. But at any rate, when I took the final power it dawned on me: I took every single power in the primary and everything in the secondary. I still had room to take Super Jump, Hasten, Stealth and Invisibility, Conserve Power and Energy Torrent - and those are the only pool powers in the build. Everything else is core. She has painfully slow DPS but just about any kind of debuff you might want. And it struck me as unusual. There's almost always something, a Provoke or a Time Bomb, that you just don't feel a need for. Not here: every power I signed up for seemed worthwhile, or at least, better than a pool power. Wondering if anyone else had a character like that.

Cimerora is my in-game hub, where most of my 35+ characters go to auctioneer, dump salvage, and log out. St. Martial is my favorite villain zone. Decrepit and sleazy don't really say 'villainous' to me, they say 'depressed and impoverished.' St. Martial is more what I'd expect from a place where everybody's on the make and take. King's Row is probably the most uniquely atmospheric city zone. I would really expect more of Paragon City to resemble it given how bad the local government is (Birch! Rabinowitz!! Alderman!!!) and how infested with crime the place is. Founder's Falls is second. Croatoa is the most atmospheric, and I remain fond of Echo Dark Astoria.

I defeated you while you were logged out. It's my favorite way to PvP.

For me, it's simple. If I'm choosing these powers to learn what a defense set can do, I make a Tanker. If I'm more interested in exploring the attack set, that will be a Brute or Scrapper. One way or another you get to the parts you wanted to try out sooner.

My unscientific impression is that most purple sets provide very similar bonuses. Orange and even yellow sets, by contrast, tend to be more unique in the bonuses they give. Purple sets are most useful to squishy characters that need to build for recharge over all. I seldom slot purples in my melee builds. When I do, it tends to be an afterthought, when I've found and crafted several from the same set. I slot a lot of under-50 enhancements; Kinetic Combat is a mainstay of my melee builds and it caps at 35. That's good enough, though you'll need to frankenslot for more accuracy. For squishies with holds, Basilisk's Gaze is a godsend. It caps at 30. Purples, of course, can't be slotted below 50, by which time I've usually decided which sets I'm going to chase. So I just don't consider them. Whenever I consider slottng purples, my first thought is 'what would this compromise"? And too often the answer is 'something I'd prefer to keep'.

Well, that's just it. Nothing wrong with Battle Axe. It too is a middling, older melee set. War Mace is now better when it used to be worse. My only point is that Martial Arts is newer and shinier and that if your concept calls for a character attacking with hands and feet, doing mostly smashing damage, it's better in the AoE and debuff department.

No, but all of the holds have a Lockdown Chance for +2 Mag slotted in them.

Sam Cooke - A Change is Gonna Come

This is why I slot Judgment and Interface with something when they unlock, but save all the geemies I collect during the unlock process for Lore and Destiny. That way they may well be ready to take to tier 3 when they finally open.

I have already started prepping my TW/WP scrapper for retirement and exile, and levelled a new character to take her place in my roster. Nobody's coming after Psi Melee any time soon.

Tanker: Willpower/War Mace. Set and forget primary. Nuthin' fancy but satisfying secondary. Scrapper: Stone Melee/Wlllpower. Stone gets good early and its knockabout power is a lot of fun. /Bio or other recovery based secondaries also work. Blaster: Archery/Devices. I have a controllish blaster (Ice/Plants) and a defendish blaster (Electric/Electric) but when I just want to rain down death from range this is my choice. And /Devices rules the Halloween event. Brute: Dual Blades/Fire. Fire has one simple trouble button that just works. It gets good early. Dual Blades may seem gimmicky but it's just a matter of putting your buttons in the right order and going 1-2-3 etc. Mastermind: Beasts/Time. The beasts are one of the less annoying pet sets, and Time is full of friendly and straightforward debuffs. Controller: Plant/Poison. No gimmicks here, just straight up control and debuff. Does not solo well, or at least not to my preferences, but that isn't why you came. No 'anchors' so no snapping at the team or worries about firing them at whatever your target is.

Scrapper gives you more random damage and no lead time to build up Fury. Scrapper also gives you more build freedom: nobody takes Provoke. Scrapper has lower resist caps, at 75% vs. 90% for the brute. Should not be a major issue thanks to the self heal.

This is continuing to happen, this time with a Plants/Poison controller. Attacking Rikti on a Numina, she's got one of them held. But rather than her vines from the ground, she sometimes gets an Electric style ball cage. I don;t often play this kind of character beut it seems to have arrived with the new electric buff set.

On a stealther, I always put a stealth IO, either Celebrity or Unbounded Leap, into Sprint. I use the prestige sprint when I don't want it on, which isn't very often.

Black Mountain - Sadie

This is exactly the niche my regen scrapper lives in also. The set is simply great when you're level 20. And when you have precious little resistance or defense in your primary, damage is damage, mostly. Limitless endurance at the Synapse levels is regen's advantage over other primaries. And there are advantages to having a character built to run this sort of material. Mine even has all her incarnate unlocks. Got them all farming Original Posi and Penny Yin.

Biggest issue with MA isn't the set itself. It's an older, middling melee set. Probably better than Battle Axe. It's that now we have Street Justice. That set occupies the 'punching and kicking character' niche quite well. It has better debuffs, better AoE, and better control. Martial Arts need some reason why a character would prefer it to Street Justice. Right now it's got nothing.

Fields of the Nephilim - Chord of Souls

This is an important point too. Regen is just not well suited to run Incarnate content or Dark Astoria missions because of its issue with eating every debuff and not resisting them. It starts going bad with those endless Marksman plinkers and Galaxies on Council missions. Every large spawn will have several. The constant -recharge hurts Regen where it is most vulnerable, taking away the ability to use the self-heals it is supposed to depend on. Regen needs the same kind of resistance to recharge slows that Electric has against endurance drains. As for the incarnate stuff, those mobs and encounters are just badly designed and need a pass to make them more melee friendly.