Coyote

Leaving aside Hibernate or other tricks, you can make Blasters, especially with Water or Dark primary, who can tank AVs at range. And you can Hover or use Immobilize, and therefore make sure that the fight IS at range. Straight-up tanking versus an AV... I bet that at higher levels you wouldn't have to use Lucks, either. I used them at lower levels, but you also have no set bonuses then, or Weave. The Skulls AVs were easy, and so was Vahzilok.

Mostly I agree with Doomguide except with one thing... if you take the slots out of Invisibility, put them in Maneuvers and add a pair of IOs there. I don't see Kismet or the +Resist IOs in any Defense power. They're expensive, but they're still only 3 IOs that add up to about a single purple or so. I would prefer them to just another 1% or so in Invisibility.

I agree with BG... Impeded Swiftness in the Prince, nothing else.

Yeah, I'm waffling between a 5-set and Overwhelming Force to get knockdowns also, or Defiant Barrage for the nicer set bonuses and the ability to open every fight with status protection. Granted, I could get both, but I like the 6-slot bonus from Defiant Barrage.

Pretty much what Carnifax said, though I wouldn't put Dark there. I think Dark does well with Energy, and a bright-colored Dark/Energy may be a disco dominator

It's kind of difficult, since they're both secondaries 😛

I would think that for Control powers you would only look at the cycle time, not the animation time. So a power with 8 recharge and 1 activation has a 9 cycle time, while one with a 2 activation has a 10 cycle time. So the one that has a 10 cycle time maybe could get a 11% increase to its duration, but not more. The reason is that for damage powers, you can easily get into a situation where you always have a relevant damaging attack to use, so animation time is really the DPS limiter. However, for control powers, you're not chaining mezzing power back to back without a break, so the Control/Second limiter is the cycle time, not the animation time.

Bots kill slowly even in the best of /Times. Sorry, couldn't -RESIST that. 😛

It's not possible, Dark Regen already starts off below 90%, so any Recharge will lower the chance to proc. It's not only because it's 30 vs others at 90 or more, it's also due to a large radius.

Wait, it's 70% chance per attack? Does this transfer to pet attacks? Because if so, then someone with a lot of pets like a Robot MM can get very consistent Immobilize results to keep pets in burn patches. Why don't I read about it on the MM forum, because it doesn't transfer to pets?

That's right, and you're not an outlier. Almost everyone agrees that it makes sense, it's just a question of whether the team is willing to take the lots of time to go through it.

Energy Assault, because it's sparkly? Martial Assault, because you do spinny kicky things? Ice Control because you'd be so cool? Darkness might be colored bright and be like disco lights? Ice/Martial and Dark/Energy are both good combinations. Well, "good" is a relative term if you're talking Ice Control 😛

Every one of my suggestions will work at lower levels, though of course almost no one is doing +4 AVs before Incarnate powers. Not all of them necessarily start the AV soloing at Positron TF level, but all can do early. The Stalkers, like most melee characters, may take the longest to mature since they need solid slotting for attacks, solid slotting for defenses, AND set bonuses to add to defenses, and it's hard to get all that before you start getting extra slots in the 30s. But none of them depends on Incarnate powers or even on epic power pools. Edit: as will the Plant/Psy suggested... once you reach 20 you can solo AVs with /Psy Assault. Also, both Rad Emission and Sonic Blast get their important powers pretty early so that should also be solid in leveling.

It's my main, I've soloed lots of AVs at +4. In general it's just AVs who like to flee that are a problem, but even there I beat Romulus and Director 11, and they're both happy to run around all the time, and the pair of Durays (that was probably the hardest fight) even though one of them just teleports away every few seconds. So the chase-down is sometimes annoying, but it's almost never impossible. Madame of Mystery is probably impossible at +4 for several reasons, but every character will probably have some weakness. If you slot up Heart of Darkness as an attack (4 damage procs), you can throw Psy Scream, then run in for HoD and Psy Shockwave, and Scream/Shockwave will recharge pretty fast. This opens every spawn with about 600 AoE damage, plus two reasonably fast-recharging AoEs. You also have the option to add a pair of damage procs to Fearsome Stare and add another hundred or so damage to that. It's not farming level, but IMO it's quite solid for general play. And, while damage-wise it's just okay, not great, it does do this with the advantage of an AoE Immobilize so you don't have to chase-down stragglers. Add in the AoE damage from a Confused Boss before aggroing the spawn, and you should clear spawns actually faster than the Ill/Storm, who does more theoretical damage but will spread the spawn around 😞

I'm not even sure that would help, since proc damage will also be crushed by the level modifier, unless you meant to slot a lot of damage procs in a higher tier to turn it into a damaging tier (like adding Cloud Senses to Lich). I think Bots can only put 1 damage proc in their T2 to try to squeeze out more damage out of them, and not all of their attacks do knockback. I totally agree, Bots are NOT a high-damage set. Their only "high damage" is against AVs, due to the heavy -Regen out of the Assault Bot... against Bosses they're really slow to grind them down.

I also like slotting up the -ToHit in it. If you're making a Ranged Defense-oriented build, adding some effective defense is useful. However, one IO to always put into it is the Force Feedback: Recharge IO. It procs at 90% upon dropping EQ, and you will drop EQ every fight if it's recharged. Oh, and while 2 Accuracy in Heat Exhaustion may be reasonable for other primaries, Earth puts out so much -Def already by the time that you throw out Heat Exhaustion that you can easily get away with just 1 Accuracy.

Okay, I tested it, not with a high amount of data points since it should be easy to determine whether it's on a 90 second recharge calculation (procs at 90%), or not. I'm not sure what the radius is so I can't calculate the expected proc rate if it's NOT on a 90 second, but it should be around 30% or lower if it's treated like a pet spawn making the attack (10 second cycle time). So, in making attacks with a single damage proc in it, I saw between 20 and 30% proc rate (at fewer than 20 targets)... this seems about right for a pet summons attack, so it's what I expected: if you can max out damage/recharge with enough accuracy in 5 slots, and you're not chasing a set bonus that needs 6 slots, then putting a damage IO in there will net about 20 damage at max level. Given that you can use it 3x in a spawn that's not too bad for a single IO, but it's not especially impressive 😞

You will have several problems to overcome: First, the obvious: you need high damage single-target to beat the regen of AVs, and solid defenses to survive them, and solid AoE damage to go through /x8 spawns reasonably fast. Second, the not as obvious: if you're looking to do all types of story arcs, you need to have plans with dealing with mobs that have high +ToHit and so overcome Defense-based builds, and with mobs that resist different types of mezzing, and with mobs who drain Endurance or give large -Recovery. I would suggest some of the following: Demons/Traps or Thugs/Traps. Traps has enough -Regen to floor AVs, Demons and Thugs do good damage, and having henchmen disperses nasty debuffs away from you. You may have to get used to resummoning the lower tiers, though at +4/x8 Illusion/Traps. Same idea except that it has less overall damage but PA is indestructible. Electric/Electric or Electric/Energy Stalker. High damage both in AoE and single-target, and defense sets that can be made very sturdy and with resistances to a lot of nasty debuffs. I also like Ele/Shield, but it doesn't have as good debuff resistance. And Electric can be slotted with Chance to Heal to help regain health in AV fights. Dark/Psy Dominator. A varied set of controls with a lot of -ToHit gives you defenses against all mob types, and you can avoid AV issues by perma-Confusing them. Good pet damage and the -Regen from /Psy makes up for the DPS loss from spamming Possess. TW/Ele or TW/Ene Brute or Tanker. Like the Ele/x Stalker, but using TW which Stalkers don't have access to (and avoiding Electric Melee which is much better on a Stalker), and the Endurance management powers from Electric or Energy Armor to handle TW's endurance costs. Kind of like the Katana/Dark build from Werner, but with more DPS since you have -Res from the set directly rather than only from IOs. With a lot higher Endurance cost, which is why TW should be paired with a secondary that can really help with Endurance issues. Fire/Dark Controller. High damage from Fire, and Dark neuters any single target. You have a mez protection hole which can be filled with Clarion.

No real power changes, but big changes to the AI for ranged pets. They are far more tethered to a spot if you give them a GoTo command, and more closely tethered to the mastermind if they are on Follow... basically, the "chasedown" of mobs on their aggro list only has them going out to about the edge of Supremacy so you don't get nearly as much henchman scatter. Edit: oh, and part of that change is also that they will still use melee attacks, but not make a move in order to use them. So they will punch someone if the opponent comes into range, but you don't have the Medic running forward to smack a Warwulf in the fangs with their emergency aid kit and yell "Bad doggie! Bad doggie! Stop eating my leg! Bad Do-aaaaaah!!!!!"

Thugs or Demons primary. Dark, Time, or Thermal secondary (Thermal with Demons, not sure it's so good for Thugs). Also Demons/Storm, although Storm is such a different style that it's hard to compare directly with the others. But adding the -Res from Demon attacks to the direct damage from Storm's powers is nuts damage, enough to make up for the weaker defenses.

Does it proc? I thought Bopper tested it and found that it does NOT proc... if it does, that's a game changer, as it becomes brokenly powerful with multiple damage procs. I love it, though... it has a 1 second "cooldown" between uses, so I use it to close, then throw another AoE (starting with Dragon's Tail for a good Knockdown chance and Force Feedback), then BoS again, then another AoE (Bullet Rain for me), then BoS one last time. 5 AoEs, available by 20, and I've never seen a low-level Blaster clear spawns faster. Granted, it's a on pretty long timer, especially at low levels where you don't have great Recharge, but it's still very effective AND a lot of fun. Then you add in the Ki Push -> shoot, shoot, REPEAT fun with bosses, and it's a very fun set.

What Dauntless said, with a few additions: some sets have plenty of ranged attacks like Dark Assault, while Earth and Savage are both limited in ranged attacks... if you wish to play more at range you may be forced to use a weaker attack like the T1. They're usually not that far behind in DPA. Also, especially while leveling, it may be more useful to use more attacks even if they're weaker since it builds up Domination faster. Once you get to perma-Dom, that's less of an issue since you don't have to build the bar too often, but when you're on/off with Domination, getting the bar up faster can be worth a slight loss in DPS.

Dark/Savage. Uses Barrier to soft-cap Ranged D, but it would be easy to take a power that is frankenslotted with damage IOs and convert it to a set that will give Ranged D. Fire/Psy. Also uses Barrier, but manages to softcap both Ranged and AoE. You could change the winter set and Scirocco's to something with Ranged D and end up with capped Ranged D without Barrier, though you lose the AoE capping. Note that this relies on Link Minds so you're locked into the Psy epic. Mind/Energy. Ranged D is capped without Barrier.

Tactical Arrow looks really good. Plant is really good. Martial Combat is a bit iffy compared to those two, but is a lot more fun. On the blast side, I really like Water, it has a lot of tools. Also Ice. DP is solid and a lot of fun. And I'll add that DP/MC is double goodness doublefun 😉

I'm going to put out a theory from what I noticed on an AV... I had the AV drained, and he started running and didn't stop. That actually made it hard for me to drain him, so he regained Endurance, came back and attacked. I re-drained him, and he stood there for a minute getting bashed by all of my toys, although he could have run. So I'm wondering if, maybe, a mob with 0 Endurance doesn't make any more AI choices. Like, what's the point of spending processing time figuring out actions when you have no Endurance? May as well break off the decision-making (and AI decision making can be a VERY calculation-intensive process), and return FALSE, and go to the next cycle. So perhaps if you drain them when they are trying to run, they won't change that until they regain Endurance? Conversely, if you drain them when they are in attack option, they may not reconsider? I don't know if this explains why I've seen mobs at 0 Endurance stay there and get beat on, while others just take off for the hills. Warwolves do run like crazy. I wonder if it's because they're almost never Immobilized, so they're either in an attack animation or moving. So they're likely to get drained mid-move, at which point they just don't stop. I don't know. I agree, though, that's it's pretty annoying to combine the ISMs with endurance draining, without having an Immobilize to keep the mobs from running. I'm seriously considering getting the winter IO with chance to Immobilize and add that to the Stun chance to Immobilize IO and using them in Photon Grenade.