Without_Pause

+1 for going brute. /fire needs the most help in terms of being able to survive due to being the most offensive defensive set.

Still the number one combo for controllers and corruptors. Controller's combo being easily more than double the #2, Ill/rad.

Spectral Terror and then Tar Patch since it won't break the fear.

I believe the first 50 in the hardcore SG back on like was a Dark/sr. Numbers in terms of player counts for Dark/shield is really good. Dark and /dark on controllers are incredibly good. /dark is the best version of the support set. Ill/dark is just awesome. Dark on tanks is quite sturdy. I had a brute one back on Live and I was impressed with it. Getting the proc in the heal helped a lot. I gamed with a troll who was non-stop about how Khelds sucked while a PB was on the team. I global ignored them and made a WS shortly after. This world is full of idiots. The internet just helps you find them quicker.

Part of the problem for me doing a server switch is conflicting names. I'm not willing to rename certain characters. More so since I had that character in some form since Live. I had Sneakers on Freedom for years. This led me to do roughly a 50/50 split between characters when I transferred some out. I also don't sweat too much about what someone would say about me in a negative way online. They are one person or a very small group of people. Easy enough to simply global ignore someone you don't like and call it a day.

I'll point out /ea does exists. While it is the second least used for scrappers, it is the most used for stalkers(likely PvP), and I have a /ea stalker with it and even with common IOs I like it quite a bit. Theme wise it works for a cyborg and its defense isn't on the level of /sr so Kat can still be useful for it once you pimp out the build.

Maneuvers is good for your own personal attempt at increasing/capping defense. I think it is of lower desire on a team level in the end game phase since a number of players have their own defense so high as well. Assault is good by default if you have room for a power needing a single slot. I think in the day and age of IO sets, it losses out a little bit. I would rather dump it for Hasten. Tactics with +4 content being such a norm works for me. I haven't tried the others as I don't find a lot of builds open enough to take three Leadership powers. Once I grab from primary, secondary, travel, fighting, epic, and Maneuvers as a template, there's very little room for anything else.

Anything not caves. Been working on soloing some content and in all honestly anything with a lesser or uniquely used map.

Likely due to theme more than anything. At least Regen had a moment of glory. *ahem*

Rad/shield scrapper. It made sense on paper despite not being talked about on the forums pretty much at all. Between the initial and current data for level 50s, it actually went down 15+ spots.

My namesake here was a Claws/regen scrapper on Live. I thought it was more than fine 1-40. 40-50 was a bit of a chore, but this was on common IOs. If I had dumped currency into the build and gone Incarnate, I see no reason for that build to not work rather well at least for what I wanted out of it.

I'm guessing a perma Dom isn't needing to build up. They can have Sleep cranked and ready from the start.

Per recent data, Regen is still popular. If nothing else, it is popular for PvP.

Depends on the blaster though. I have a Water/temp/cold and even without Incarnate abilities or IO sets yet that's a rather rock solid build.

You'll need more than Short Circuit, Just going to restate what I said above. I was running on my Elec/kin controller and got nowhere on runs against a number of AVs. I don't have Power Boost, but even on my defender version back in the day with Power Boost, it was hit and miss.

Have you soloed them on lower settings? I find certain AVs a slog to take down even on teams with a high enough difficulty setting.

+1. I ran an En blaster into the 40s. KB wasn't issue with common IOs and Hover. Nova has been a bane to my Kins though.

In terms of builds I got to 50 and more so the ones I care enough to play afterwards. Water/temp blaster - 14 Claws/wp brute - 71 Plant/storm controller - 13 Dark/dark controller - 3 Rad/shield scrapper - 64 StJ/ea stalker - 7 Sonic/sonic defenders being 14 is surprising to me.

One of the factors in certain sets being popular is for PvP so that is my guess as well. Farming and theme are the two biggest. Elec/shield for how well those two work together. I haven't looked at some sets to see if they had gone up or down, but I did see Rad/shield scrappers go down 15+ spots in popularity despite how well that build has worked for me.

You are asking for something which would only happen if the game was official.

Kat/willpower in either scrapper or brute form. Willpower is a defense set for newbies and Katana has a utility attack which adds to the character's defense. Broad Sword would also work but is slower. Claws is also awesome. Street Justice might be my favorite, but not as newbie friendly and honestly better as a stalker. Kat/wp is pretty much "I don't want to think too hard." War Mace would also be good.

Squishy builds with a damage aura. Yes, it works in the end when you are 50 and can pimp out the build. The rid to 50 just isn't fun. I'm seriously debating if my Fire/time controller won't get the axe in the end despite knowing the build as a lot of potential. Slotting a recharge in /shields mez protection, setting it to auto, and still getting mezzed. I'm keeping the build because I like it overall, but it looks like I need more recharge than a level 25 IO which is frustrating.

I don't think one stands out over the other so if DPS is the goal, go scrapper. I'm kind of surprised how well my Rad/shield scrapper is doing.

One issue is defining "work." Even something as bad as Ice/ff controller can be deemed workable depending on the intent.

I feel like Shadow Maul was the only power which needed to be tweaked. The set is already solid.