Best Builds for Solo

[Scarlet Shocker]

7 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Whenever I see a question like this, my first thought is, "What do you mean by 'solo'?"

 

The answer is obvious, Napoleon was the original, Han was a cheap knock off 😄

 

to answer the OP's comment, it might have different meanings. I've soloed a few TFs notably the ITF a couple of times on different characters and I've had a few goes at the Lady Grey which I much prefer, but the reduced Hami is a significant pain due to a lack of holds.

 

If he's asking for one character to "solo all the things" I'm not completely sure it's possible but Titan/Bio might be one of the best current options. For content at greater range, my Huntsman spider is one of the must durable and creates a sea of numbers, while his pets give him significant boosts (but needs a lot of temps)

[Vea]

Here is a list for each AT i'd recommend.

 

Blaster: Ice/* (the secondaries are dealers choice. You can go for more damage or more survivability) Drain Psyche on mental was known to be needed for solo GM/AVs.

Brute: TW/Bio maybe? I'd probably vote for Ice/Bio due to a personal bias.

Controller: Ill/Cold.

Corr: Dark/Dark or Ice/Dark.

Defender: Same as Corr.

Dominator: Mind/Psy or Plant/Psy (for drain psyche). /firey or /energy or /earth would also be top contenders for pure dps/relying on envenomed daggers.

Mastermind: (not too sure here) .. only played bots/nature. I imagine it would be bots/something.

Scrapper: TW/Bio (leveling is meh), Ice/Bio (personal bias) or Dark/Shield.

Stalker: STJ/Bio

Tanker: Unsure with changes but I imagine its the same as Brutes/Scrappers.

SoA: not sure.

Widow: I'd go fortunata.

PB: Don't bother.
WS: Don't bother.

Sentinel: Fire(or Beam or Sonic)/Rad or Bio.

 

For safe and steady go for a scrapper.

For fun and challenging go for a blaster.

For pet-based go Controller.

To get a better understanding of game mechanics and overall more fun go for a dominator. 

 

 

 

[DR_Mechano]

2 hours ago, Vea said:

SoA: not sure.

For SoA Crabbermind (pet focused Crab build) is pretty much the best Solo at level 50. Tons of Pets, Tons of AoE and also currently putting out the best pylon DPS times (even beating TW/Bio scrappers) with sub 1 minute times. They cost a LOT to IO out but once they're IO'd out and fully incarnated there isn't much that stands up to a Crabbermind.

Edited March 9, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Vea]

16 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

For SoA Crabbermind (pet focused Crab build) is pretty much the best Solo at level 50. Tons of Pets, Tons of AoE and also currently putting out the best pylon DPS times (even beating TW/Bio scrappers) with sub 1 minute times. They cost a LOT to IO out but once they're IO'd out and fully incarnated there isn't much that stands up to a Crabbermind.

That clears that up! How dependent is it on pet damage though? I always thought perma-pets was needed to reach the top-tier performance?

 

For my own personal use, do you have a build to share?

[Chris24601]

My best solo results have been with;

 

A) Archery/Tac Arrow Blaster: Range + high to-hit lets you fire off sniper shots at near full strength every five seconds. Tac Arrow adds a number of damage types to the set, with electrified net arrow adding energy, which many things strong against lethal are weak to (ex. robots and ghosts) and which has a 1 second recharge time so you can immobilize ANYTHING.

 

B) Street Justice/Willpower Scrapper with Mu Mastery. Air Superiority replaced Initial Strikes in my build for better control, all three leadership buffs rounded it out. It’s soloed every Task Force needed for the TFCommander badge while IN the level range for it (i.e. not exemplared down).

 

C) Grav/Storm Controller: It takes a little time to mature, but once you have Hurricane it just gets easier and easier. I call it Chaostrolling because wormholing enemies onto your singularity with your hurricane pushing them all into a corner and a permanent tornado and thunderstorm blasting them... it abuses the game physics so badly it has literally pushed mobs through the geometry and into other sections (most recently from the upper level of a warehouse map through the corner and down into the hallway that looped around behind it). Solid debuffs like freezing rain and snow storm help a lot against AVs and between hurricane’s debuff, mist + hover you’re nearly softcapped before you even add set bonuses.

[DR_Mechano]

28 minutes ago, Vea said:

That clears that up! How dependent is it on pet damage though? I always thought perma-pets was needed to reach the top-tier performance?

 

For my own personal use, do you have a build to share?

Sadly I don't have a build to hand but I'm sure someone in the VEAT forums would be more than willing to part with a high DPS crab build.

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, Vea said:

Here is a list for each AT i'd recommend.

 

Controller: Ill/Cold.

Corr: Dark/Dark or Ice/Dark.

Defender: Same as Corr.

Dominator: Mind/Psy or Plant/Psy (for drain psyche). /firey or /energy or /earth would also be top contenders for pure dps/relying on envenomed daggers.

Mastermind: (not too sure here) .. only played bots/nature. I imagine it would be bots/something.

 

Ill/Traps for Controller due to the -1000 Regen from Poison Trap.

For the same reason, I would bet on some */Traps for Corruptor/Defender, also. Probably Dark for the increased defenses.

Dominator: Dark/Psy over Mind/Psy, for extra damage from pets.

Mastermind: Robot/Traps.

[Vea]

9 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Ill/Traps for Controller due to the -1000 Regen from Poison Trap.

For the same reason, I would bet on some */Traps for Corruptor/Defender, also. Probably Dark for the increased defenses.

Dominator: Dark/Psy over Mind/Psy, for extra damage from pets.

Mastermind: Robot/Traps.

I always thought ill/cold was better mainly due to the synergy of high recharge builds complementing illusion (perma PA) and cold (double stack sleet and perma benumb). Traps does seem more solo friendly however?

 

I chose Dark for Corr/Defenders just kind of based on the -tohit beefing up your defenses to softcap throughout the entire game. You can stack howling twilight too! Traps seems micromanagy where as dark is fire off once and then focus on your attack chain.

 

I'm still kind of new to Dominators, but Dark doesn't have a sleep. Sleep allows you to build up enough mez on AVs to go into melee range and generally be safe. That would be my strategy anyway..

 

Gonna stay quiet on the mastermind front.. but I have a funny feeling you like traps!

 

[Coyote]

3 minutes ago, Vea said:

Sleep allows you to build up enough mez on AVs to go into melee range and generally be safe.

 

I'm not sure I understand... what mez are you building up? If it's Holds, then they damage the AV so the Sleep is broken. If it's Confuse, then Dark has a Confuse also, and I think with a slightly faster animation, so it can stack Confuse better. And if you're stacking Confuse, which does no damage, you're better off with the pets adding no-animation-time damage.

 

The Sleep IS useful, but not for stacking mez... it's for sleeping OTHER AVs in case you're fighting multiple AVs. Sleep them all, then wake one up and pull it, then sleep that one and stack Confuses on it. But for single AV situations, it's just as good to go straight to the non-aggroing Confuses.

 

I like Traps, but it's a bit finicky so I don't usuall play it. However, it's hard to beat great personal defenses with mez protection, AND stackable -Res, AND the best -Regen in the game, for fighting AVs. Dark Miasma is definitely great, though, and it can stack enough -Damage to neuter AV damage. For Defenders, it would be my 2nd pick since they do have to worry about personal defense against AVs while Illusion Controllers can take Cold instead since they're protected by PA.

[Without_Pause]

2 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I'm not sure I understand... what mez are you building up?

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

[Vea]

4 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I'm not sure I understand... what mez are you building up? If it's Holds, then they damage the AV so the Sleep is broken. If it's Confuse, then Dark has a Confuse also, and I think with a slightly faster animation, so it can stack Confuse better. And if you're stacking Confuse, which does no damage, you're better off with the pets adding no-animation-time damage.

 

The Sleep IS useful, but not for stacking mez... it's for sleeping OTHER AVs in case you're fighting multiple AVs. Sleep them all, then wake one up and pull it, then sleep that one and stack Confuses on it. But for single AV situations, it's just as good to go straight to the non-aggroing Confuses.

 

I like Traps, but it's a bit finicky so I don't usuall play it. However, it's hard to beat great personal defenses with mez protection, AND stackable -Res, AND the best -Regen in the game, for fighting AVs. Dark Miasma is definitely great, though, and it can stack enough -Damage to neuter AV damage. For Defenders, it would be my 2nd pick since they do have to worry about personal defense against AVs while Illusion Controllers can take Cold instead since they're protected by PA.

I tend to sleep > hold > sleep cycle til I build enough mez (being the hold). Out of preference I prefer holds because its in my attack chain and doesn't cause random running around. I'm still getting use to Dominators mind!

Edited March 9, 2020 by Vea

[Coyote]

3 minutes ago, Vea said:

I tend to sleep > hold > sleep cycle til I build enough mez (being the hold). Out of preference I prefer holds because its in my attack chain and doesn't cause random running around. I'm still getting use to Dominators mind!

 

Oh, I see. With a Mind Dominator, I would stack the Confuses until it breaks magnitude (also causes the AV to clear out its area of other mobs), and then start alternating Holds with Confuses until the Hold is also stacked. It's safer than the Hold/Sleep cycle since a missed Sleep can have the AV attack you, while missing a Confuse once you started the Holds isn't a problem since you can easily over-stack the Confuses. Then you can switch to the Hold-attack cycle, and the AV never has a chance to attack you.

[Neiska]

I can also +1 for a "Crabbermind" Arachnos Soldier, it is good at both solo play and team play.

 

The Good -

1. Buffs - We get very strong buffs, which affect yourself, your robospiders, and your team. The Tactical Training Maneuvers provides around 15% defense, while the Leaderhip version only provides 5%. But the crabbermind can in fact take both, and multiple Arachnos buffs stack with each other.

2. AoE - most of our attacks are area attacks. You can pick single target powers, but most attach chains for groups is something like Venom Grenade - Frag Grenade - Suppression - X pool of choice.

3. Debuffing - Most attacks have -def or -res built into them, and many also slot powers for an additional -res proc as well, making us relialable debuffers.

4. Tough - Crabbers can be quite tough. Not brute levels of toughness, but compariable to Scrappers. When surrounded I am not paniced at all, unlike other ATs. 

5. Pets - They are recharge pets, but you can get them down to perma. They are a mixed of ranged and melee, and can be softcapped with the right IOs and Incarnates. Tactical and Leadership Maneuvers alone give them roughly 20% defense, before any IOs are counted. They are an overall "balanced" pet, with no particular strong or weak points as far as I can tell.  

6. Playstyle - it feels like a more active and involved Mastermind, where you arent passively pre-buffing or healing, but taking a more active, aggressive playstyle by contributing to the damage and debuffs, not having to rely on pets alone like Masterminds. (Nothing against masterminds, I like them too!) A big difference is a Mastermind without their pets can find themselves without damage or having difficulty recovering, A Crabbermind can still function just fine without pets. If I had to desribe the playstyle, I would describe it as feeling like a moble piece of artillery, moderately tough, great aoe damage, some debuffs, and pet helpers all in one package. 

7. Utility - Personally I can play any map type of any mission type, and the damage type doesnt really impact my playstyle all that much. Paper/radio missions, ITF's, Solo farming, whatever activity I want to do, I can do on a crabber. It wont be the "best" at any of those roles, but just the fact i can do them all effectively on one AT is a big plus for me. If i want to play some missions, I can. If i want to solo some S/L farms, I can do that too. A friend is fire farming? I can lend a hand and not worry about getting 1 shot. Its just an overall balanced AT for multiple activities.

 

The Bad -

1. Single target damage - Alone (without pets) our single target damage vs bosses/etc is lackluster. When pets are active they all pounce on the same target, which is a great help. But without them you might have difficulty.

2. Late bloomer - This isnt unique to Crabbers, but any Arachnos soldier can have difficulty getting to 24 where they can pick a specalization. But once you get your main abilities it starts to get fun fast.

3. Pricey - A fully IO'd Crabbermind can be a bit pricy, but this can be said for many ATs. But they are definately in the upper price range for a fully geared out character.

4. Farming - I can farm for myself just fine, but the AT lacks effective killing power to "powerlevel" friends in farms. (I am still running tests, but at this time this remains true, for me at least. Other crabbers out there certainly have more experience than I do!)

5. Lack of "oh pewp!" options - Unless you take pateron pools, your only "oh poop" button for emergencies is Serum. The AT itself has no real CC, no hold/immobilize, and no -regen. If you want "oh poopie" emergency buttons, or CC, you have to add them.

 

Either/Or -

1. Crabber Pack - once you take a crab power, you will forever be attached to this piece of visual hardware. Some like it, and some dont. This is personal taste here.

 

And thats about it! If you like being able to do many different activities alone or with a party, give Crabbermind a look. People are always happy to have Crabbers on the team due to our super strong buffs and the debuffs we bring, and if you feel like rolling solo with your spiderbots you can do that too. 

 

For me Crab Soldiers are my favorte AT. I love the playstyle, the pets, the buffs, being able to solo or be part of a team. There are a few bumps I am still ironing out but if i could only ever pick one AT to play, it would be a Crab Soldier!

Edited March 9, 2020 by Neiska

[Shred Monkey]

I think there are many combos that can do well.  Coming up with your own solution is where the fun is, right?   But here's some detail on what you'll need that combo to do.

 

First the basics:

- You need good damage.  I would aim for soloing a pylon under 2 minutes.  The lower the better.

- You'll need good survival.  I went with soft cap'd defense plus hover-blasting to completely eliminate incoming melee.  I'm sure you can succeed with phantom army or a tricked out defense secondary.

- Having -regen is pretty much a must, but basically this goes into that sub 2-minute pylon time requirement we already discussed.

 

Now, above and beyond that, Here's some stoppers that you may want to plan for before you select a combo: 

- The two most difficult GMs are Lusca and the Council Goliath War Walker.  Lusca's tentacles are easy.   But the head will out regen your damage unless you have what I would estimate at around 500 DPS.  (thus the 2 minute kill time on a pylon).  If you are going to use envenomed daggers, These two GMs are where they're most needed.

- Tin Mage and Apex are hard, but basically their AVs have 25% tohit boost, so a stack of purple inspiration on top of your soft-capped defenses will negate them and turn them into regular level 54 AVs.

- Market Crash.  I don't really know the exact mechanics of the final fight, but I know what worked.  Hovering over the final boss's head at ranged avoided the debuff, and aoe'ing the shield generators eliminated his buffs.  After that, he's just another AV and not really that hard since his level is just whatever you're running the TF at.

- MsLTF.  This is a hard one.  I've not done it succesfully yet, though I am sure it is possible.  There are 2 stoppers.  Dr Aeon, and then Recluse himself.  I think the answer to Aeon is just a bunch of purple inspirations and some luck... and Recluse probably takes some geometry tricks.

- ITF.  Soloing this is pretty common, but I want you to know the issue so you can be sure you have a counter.  One of the nictus has an auto-hit AoE attack.  Fighting from ranged makes this trival, but others beat it regularly using melee toons.  Just make sure you can out-heal that damage or have a way to stay away from it.

- Level 54 AVs are in many cases harder than GMs.  Once you finish soloing the GMs, I would try the AV arcs at level 54 for some more challenge.  Siege, for example, has a heal.  As does the Goliath War-Walker in the New Praetorian arc.  This puts them both at about the same "required DPS" level as Lusca's head.  Marauder can be tough.  Malaise and Mother Mayhem have attacks whcih ignore most common defense builds.  Most of the redside AVs are harder than blueside AVs.  Many have -defense attacks, which means you need to be able to counter this.   Also, with AVs you sometimes have to deal with runners.  They don't beat  you, but they might make it extra difficult to beat them.  

 

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[DR_Mechano]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

- MsLTF.  This is a hard one.  I've not done it succesfully yet, though I am sure it is possible.  There are 2 stoppers.  Dr Aeon, and then Recluse himself.  I think the answer to Aeon is just a bunch of purple inspirations and some luck... and Recluse probably takes some geometry tricks.

Dr Aeon was the first AV in the MsLTF where I would recommend splashing some cash and getting an 'ultimate' insp (which boosts your combat level by 1 during combat) and bringing in a truckload of large purples and large oranges. This is what I had to do in order to bring him down on my TW/Bio scrapper.

 

Recluse I've still not bested, managed the four AVs but Recluse is a massive pain in the arse and I keep getting blasted by him when Solo.

[Olly]

On 10/3/2019 at 1:15 PM, Lockpick said:

 Would you be able to do Lady Grey TF with a scrapper?  Seems like the Hami couldn't be done without some holds.

 

Did it by using the Fire Mastery Epic Pool hold.  It took... a long time.

Edited March 11, 2020 by Olly
spelling

[Olly]

 

5 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

Dr Aeon was the first AV in the MsLTF where I would recommend splashing some cash and getting an 'ultimate' insp (which boosts your combat level by 1 during combat) and bringing in a truckload of large purples and large oranges. This is what I had to do in order to bring him down on my TW/Bio scrapper.

 

Recluse I've still not bested, managed the four AVs but Recluse is a massive pain in the arse and I keep getting blasted by him when Solo.

I managed Aeon without the ultimate insps by occasionally spamming the stun grenade and knockback temps from P2W store. All the P2W and SG base buffs, too. Also on TW/Bio.  

 

How did you take down the towers? I managed red and green (the two back ones), but could not take out the front ones on account of flier re-spawn.

 

[Olly]

8 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

Stuff

 

 

Some other TF's:

1. Khan (I read you need about 1000 dps to counter his elude? dull pain? some power that cycles every 6 minutes. Would love to know if anyone's gotten past the last boss.
2. Sutter TF -- a little easier than Market Crash, but was challenging on account of the level restriction. Similarly, Mary McComber #10 in the Katie Hannon TF. But I did those two solo with no P2W buffs or temps, iirc, except Envenomed Daggers.

On Market Crash, the robot has a debuff that stacks on you. You get enough stacks (2? 3?) and your def and res hit the floor. The tactic I used was running away towards the hosp to let the debuff wear off (he has a hard time climbing the cliff), then re-engaging him. He regens slow enough that this tactic works.

[Sovera]

5 hours ago, Olly said:

Some other TF's:

1. Khan (I read you need about 1000 dps to counter his elude? dull pain? some power that cycles every 6 minutes. Would love to know if anyone's gotten past the last boss.
2. Sutter TF -- a little easier than Market Crash, but was challenging on account of the level restriction. Similarly, Mary McComber #10 in the Katie Hannon TF. But I did those two solo with no P2W buffs or temps, iirc, except Envenomed Daggers.

On Market Crash, the robot has a debuff that stacks on you. You get enough stacks (2? 3?) and your def and res hit the floor. The tactic I used was running away towards the hosp to let the debuff wear off (he has a hard time climbing the cliff), then re-engaging him. He regens slow enough that this tactic works.

It's the HP that gets debuffed, not the def/res. If you monitor your HP at some point it reaches 300 HP where the slightest sneeze from the bot will kill.

[DR_Mechano]

7 hours ago, Olly said:

 

I managed Aeon without the ultimate insps by occasionally spamming the stun grenade and knockback temps from P2W store. All the P2W and SG base buffs, too. Also on TW/Bio.  

 

How did you take down the towers? I managed red and green (the two back ones), but could not take out the front ones on account of flier re-spawn.

 

Yeah I've still not managed to beat old Lord Recluse with the towers up. I know people have done it but I can't seem to get it to work in my three attempts so far.

[Corruption]

12 hours ago, Olly said:

Some other TF's:

1. Khan (I read you need about 1000 dps to counter his elude? dull pain? some power that cycles every 6 minutes. Would love to know if anyone's gotten past the last boss.
2. Sutter TF -- a little easier than Market Crash, but was challenging on account of the level restriction. Similarly, Mary McComber #10 in the Katie Hannon TF. But I did those two solo with no P2W buffs or temps, iirc, except Envenomed Daggers.

On Market Crash, the robot has a debuff that stacks on you. You get enough stacks (2? 3?) and your def and res hit the floor. The tactic I used was running away towards the hosp to let the debuff wear off (he has a hard time climbing the cliff), then re-engaging him. He regens slow enough that this tactic works.

Khan is doable with a TW/Bio. You just need enough DPS to take Reichsman down while his unstoppable recharges. That and hope he doesn't use his heal.

[Lockpick]

On 3/9/2020 at 7:21 AM, DR_Mechano said:

For SoA Crabbermind (pet focused Crab build) is pretty much the best Solo at level 50. Tons of Pets, Tons of AoE and also currently putting out the best pylon DPS times (even beating TW/Bio scrappers) with sub 1 minute times. They cost a LOT to IO out but once they're IO'd out and fully incarnated there isn't much that stands up to a Crabbermind.

 

Have you solo'ed TFs/AVs/GMs with this combo?  I have a SOA Huntsman build I could switch to a Crab, but then I think it messes up my costume.  Might be willing to make the sacrifice though.  Do you have a build you could share?

 

[DR_Mechano]

16 hours ago, Lockpick said:

 

Have you solo'ed TFs/AVs/GMs with this combo?  I have a SOA Huntsman build I could switch to a Crab, but then I think it messes up my costume.  Might be willing to make the sacrifice though.  Do you have a build you could share?

 

I personally have no experience with Crabbermind builds, I'd suggest asking in the Widow/SoA section of the forums I'm sure someone will be able to help with a high end build for it.

[PartyKake]

I remember way back in ye oldene dayse there was some video of someone soloing one of those end game incarnate trials as a mastermind.

Robotics/Dark Miasma.

 

I was super hyped because that's what my mastermind was, which was quite by accident because I was not powergaming.

 

I can confirm that the build is very strong, lots of fun, and has very few things that irritate it.

Robots have so many cool little perks in their kit that it's hard to find an area where they're deficient.

 

If nothing else, it'll be fun.

[Frosticus]

I like sav/shield for solo as a stalker.

Lots of aoe for x8 settings. Stalker st dps for AV's. Shield is very robust

 

I personally don't consider it a "solo" unless it is no insp/temp/lore given how strong those aids are. But if you are willing to use them there isn't much a sav/shield would falter against.

 

no insp/temp/lore

4x8 ITF

0x8 Katie Hannon

54 goliath warwalker

54 director 11

52 silver mantis

lots of 54 AV's

 

I haven't taken down crimson prototype with it yet (without insp).  And dr Aeon stomped me bad.

I was slowly making headway on Reichsman, but there would be no way when he uses dull pain.