Crysis

Fastest solo'er from 1-50 is likely going to be melee (less need for support), but I've felt like I moved just as fast with a Stalker rather than the more typical Scrap/Tank/Brute. I have a dual blades/energy armor stalker that was a buzzsaw from level 15 onwards and could scrap better than my scrapper with all the ATO procs doing their jobs. I find +DEF builds to be preferable to +RES builds for soloing. You quickly learn which critter groups can debuff from ranged vs. melee attacks and to target them first. But my solo library is filled mainly with Stalkers, Scraps or Tanks. Brutes work fine also, but harder to get to their +DMG caps solo outside of farms. PVE spawns just aren't that big.

You can build a very potent Fire/Kin solo toon on nothing more than SO’s or, for very little extra, IO’s. Yes, adding in the ATO’s and slotting in sets will make them far more capable, but when Homecoming launched, there were a TON of new Fire/Kin’s built purely because they can solo +4/x8 maps as budget farmers. I used one with nothing but IO’s to build my first Spines/Fire fire farmer just running PI maps. Made my first couple of billion along the way. You don’t need a bunch of influence to build an effective controller or any other AT for that matter. But by the time you build on to 50 and get all your T4’s, you’ll have far more money than you’ll need to build your next one and outfit it entirely with IO sets. Rinse/Repeat.

Three or four posts up the thread, full build posted. I've perma-shelved the toon, just not for me. But if you kept the replacement power for Soul Drain (not sure what its called now, and don't care), and six slotted it with Artillery, you'd have well over softcapped for Range.

Once the data mining says that Regen scrapper population is <4, procs are next.

I play Arsenal with Storm, and I have so many knockdown powers in the rotation that LN does a great job as a ghetto immobilize that deals damage. Heck, I even have the Ragnarok knockdown proc in Enflame to add more injury to the spawns flopping. Stuff just melts when you are running +250% recharge and have your END under control. Really have enjoyed this pairing, haven’t had this ability to rapidly clear +4/x8 spawns since my Ill/Storm.

If I cannot solo a +4/x8 mission reasonably fast by my mid 40's, that toon either needs a respec or gets shelved. That's just me. That said, up to that level, I find +2/x5 for ST oriented AT's and +2/x8 to be the best XP per minute for just about all AT's minus maybe Controllers and Defenders. If built offensively, even they work out fine that way. The only time I'll do +0 or -1 is speedrunning a TF, like Heathers' Arc in DA.

I never did the math, I’ve never really crafted more than 2-3 different T4’s for each of the 6 incarnates. And honestly, never really had the need to switch between them other than a few times swapping out something like Destiny>Barrier for Destiny>Clarion. Once you hit T4, and are running with other T4’d IO’d out characters, there’s not much other than maybe Hamidon, Mothership Raid and Magisterium/Tyrant that requires a lot of coordination or ‘special tactics’ in this game. For a long time, just farmed Emps from Heather’s mission by speedrunning it over and over again. That’s usually been earlier on when I made some bad choices for T4’s before I really understood there’s a meta thing and only a few really matter.

I always thought a zone where the AV’s powers have gone berserk existed. Like a Volcanic zone where there’s patches of Hot Feet, Rain of Fire, etc mixed in with Lightning Storms, Fire-nados and constant Sleet and Freezing Rain storms falling intermittently. The hero’s would have to carefully choose the correct ever-changing paths to the AV/GM in the middle and “free them” to stop the violent powers in the zone and win the TF. In effect you’d be fighting both the denizens of the zone as well as all the powers unleashed at the same time and it would be timed that if you failed that entire zone would be destroyed (until a timed respawn obviously). That out of control supervillain in the middle? That would be me. That’s how I’d fit in the world. Powerful but highly unstable and losing control of my powers as I lost my mind.

Perma-MOG was a highly recommended build back in the day before Regen was rage-nerfed by the Devs for destroying all those monkeys in AE.

Did some street testing in PI, even leveled minions, Lt's and Bosses. You are right, the training dummies are auto-immobilized. I can see that if I flash bang or smoke grenade a spawn, the Tri Cannon is repeatedly doing Containment damage. Seems lower base than I recall TBH than before this change, but they are doing it, not creating the Containment condition themselves.

I’ll test it again some this AM. I have a Soulbound proc in there and I can see the soulbound up the damage when it procs (which is frequently), and that may be throwing off my ability to see it -always- proccing Containment damage. Will test some more. EDIT: Weirdness. I'm lvl 50. In RWZ against even-conned training dummy, if I do nothing, just summon the Tri Cannon inside the area with the training dummy, it will trigger "CONTAINMENT" three times over the dummy consistently. It throws out 13 damage 3x each time. Often, the Soulbound Proc I have in there will trigger and it will do 18 damage 3 times. Then back to 13. Not sure why the pet is triggering containment by itself? I'm not throwing out any holds, etc. If I do throw out holds, Cryo Freeze, Flash Bang, Smoke, whatever....I'll see the damage from THOSE powers get the Containment boost, but the Tri Cannon keeps throwing 13 damage per round x3...unless it procs Soulbound again, then it throws out 18 damage. Maybe I need to go test on live critters. BUt for me, TriCannon is creating it's own Containment. And 13 damage isn't any different than what I was seeing when I was testing this a week or so ago, before the latest change. Again...could just be I'm a bad tester and not understanding what I'm seeing.

This is also why /Storm is quite potent on a Thugs/ or Demons/ MM built for high +Recharge. All those FF +RCHG procs can easily bump the MM itself up to 250% recharge and sustain that. This allows you to get out not only all the storm powers twice as often (I’ve easily had 3 Tornado’s on the field at once, and always double Lightning Storms), but also lets you throw out the additional DPS of Gang War and Hell on Earth twice as often. Throw in Burnout and double Gang War on a Thugs MM with high recharge is possible every third spawn. I’ve firmly arrived at the camp that the one remaining tweak needed for MM’s isn’t to up the recharge of our pets powers, or even up their damage. Just eliminate the silly level shifts and make them play like they do in Incarnate content. Tie it achieving both upgrade powers if you want. But you get rid of that level shift and MM’s will become highly potent throughout the entire game.

Just had a chance to log in and try out new Tri Cannon Containment. So from what I can tell, it now has a -chance- to proc Containment. It doesn't get Containment damage automatically? Maybe I'm just reading results incorrectly.

Yeah sorry, I meant it’s cool to get containment double dmg from Tri-Cannon after this patch for -its own damage output- on top of the sweet Enflame damage (which is standard proc’d damage output, regardless of containment status). Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

I saw this just as you were posting. This is SWEET. I’ve already been using Enflame on the taunting Tri-Cannon, and slotted it with a couple of different procs, including the Soulbound proc. That was already firing off noticeably and since it draws aggro, it was spreading the procc’d out Enflame a bunch (and each target gets a chance to re-proc as it spreads). Throw in Containment damage, and this is a -meaningful- contribution to my DPS now. (to be perfectly clear, yes, I know that Enflame doesn’t do any containment bonus damage…just that this upcoming change adds to the neat DPS tricks I’ve already gotten out of my trusty Red Ryder BB Gun buddy).

Tri-Cannon changes are REALLY nice! Throwing Enflame on a taunting sturdy pet that can proc double damage and dragging it’s rickety butt into the middle of a contained spawn…..yesssssssssss please and thank you!

Really enjoying my Arsenal/Storm/Ice. With so much knockdown and slows you don’t miss an AOE Immobilize, the extra damage from procced out Freezing Rain, Tornado, Lightning Storm and Ice Storm plus procced out Enflame, all while getting out almost everything double to triple thanks to sustained +Recharge in excess of 250% is pure carnage. One of the higher DPS controller builds I’ve played.

Don’t forget with all this number crunching that MM Supremacy adds +25% damage and +10% ToHit as long as henchmen are in range of MM.

All of this is why the level shifts pre-Incarnate need to be adjusted. T1 henchmen should be perma boosted up a level so they are -1 to the MM and the T3 should be even leveled to the MM. Then boost the lot of them to even leveled to summoner in Incarnate content as it is right now and call it good. I really feel the nerfs to Freezing Rain after this last patch on my MM’s. They dealt enough -Res or -Def to help me offset the big level shifts native to primary henchmen right now. Taking that away made it harder to hit stuff and when they do it’s not much damage. I hope the Devs are listening and will just remove a level from the level shifts from MM’s and call it good for PvE.

I always wanted Malta as a replacement for Mercs. But Crey would be a fun alt power set as well.

OMG this was me also until like level 10 of my first ever character during Live days. I felt sooooo stupid once I realized the button was there.

On my controller, soloing, I did likewise. I often found myself with a transformed Dark Wolf following me for two additional spawns until fully downed, and by that time, the second spawns boss was joining in so I’d end up with three bosses to deal with by third spawn. It’s not difficult, I was never in any danger, but it is annoying. As others pointed out…the implementation here needs some work, but I’m fine with the changes, even at +4/x8.

I respec every alt at least once, sometimes twice, during their initial run up to T4’s. First, take them from a leveling build to their late game build. Then, depending on Incarnate powers chosen, their end-game build. For example, I play a lot of Stormies and they are all END thirsty so there’s a build with just about every possible +Recovery power I can take then there’s a build once they have achieve Destiny>Ageless and no longer need all those +Recovery powers. But once they are T4’d out, they get shelved for the most part and even if some of their powers no longer function the same after a fresh round of nerfs, I just leave them be, nothing more than another alt in the library. I can think of a few times where a really deficient powerset got tuned up and I’ll go through the process of a respec on even a T4’d retired alt. But that’s super rare, mainly because the devs tend to tune down more than tune up. I have a handful of Sentinels I’m likely to respec if the class ever gets tuned upwards. Likely the only ones I’m watching closely for potential respecs. I find the respec process takes quite awhile though unless you are slotting most powers with same IO sets more or less.

*Edited because I misread @Uun's post above. Yes, Soul>Soul Drain got buffed to 10 targets from 7. Given how much this last patch worked hard to basically water every epic pool down to be identical to each other, I'm not sure why Spirit Drain was nerfed to 5 targets vs. Dark's Soul Drain to 10. But whatev's....just makes me choose a different pool entirely since they gutted Dark Mastery's signature power.

I’ve respecced out of Soul Drain in every build that had it. Spirit Drain is not worth the effort to attain/slot it now. If you have no other choices to make, sure maybe. But it went from top-tier for Corrs to pretty much just a yawner now. I know that was the Devs intention as Soul Drain was more OP than they wanted. But it really took a bit out of damage for most of my builds that were built around perma-Soul Drain, and caused me to rethink proc’s in some of my damage powers as I can’t count on Soul Drain to allow me to follow creative slotting strategies for damage, knowing it would easily give me two-three slots’ worth of +DMG to every damage power while it was up. Sniff…..the good old days.