What Combo(s) Surprised You?

[roleki]

While we all hope that new alt works out, the fact is some builds are better than others.  What builds worked so far above/below expectations that it left a notable impression on you?

 

My most recent example of an unexpected success was my Mind/Poison Controller, Dr. Jonas, who is some kind of heroic CIA spook who terrifies and poisons villains for... justice?

 

Alternating between Mass Hypnosis and Terrify to control the bulk of the mobs, the debuffs out of /Poison allow my limited cycle of ST attacks to hit like a freight train; it's not uncommon to unload a Seismic Smash for over 1200 damage on an orange-con boss.  

 

This has really amped up my appreciation for the /Poison secondary, and I look forward to making a few more of that brand in the future.

[Heraclea]

Back on Victory, it was a Spines/Willpower scrapper.  This character was rolled entirely as a joke for a Fourth of July contest.  So I created 'Betsy Ross' and gave her a flag themed costume.  I made her Spines because why not,  not that such a fugly thing would make a difference in a costume contest; and Willpower for the minimal FX and endurance recovery.  Because this was old live and inflation was out of control, I used a slotting strategy based around cheap stuff like Pacing of the Turtle.  She became a proc monster before there was such a thing. 

 

Here, a Kinetics/Radiation scrapper.  This was built to be a speedster, which really doesn't work so good on many maps.  But the combo is another one that can milk the debuffs, and turned out to be surprisingly strong, replacing a Titan Weapons/WP at the top of my list for scrappers. 

[Frostbiter]

I like the regular cheese and pretzel ones but the buffalo wings ones were surprisingly good.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Frostbiter

[skoryy]

Rad/StJ.  Combat Readiness -> Ground Zero with the Achilles Heel proc -> Spinning Strike turned out far far better than I initially has thought.  Even more now with the tank buffs.  Rad Armor is just so good.

Edited March 6, 2020 by skoryy

[ShardWarrior]

I was hesitant to try it yet eventually feel in love with my Kinetic Melee/Ninjistu scrapper.  Once I fully IOed her out, this toon is an absolute beast!  Very fun combo.

[Bill Z Bubba]

My newest surprise is my staff/bio scrapper. Whole lotta +damage goin on there with the staff form and bio's adaptation.

[Nemu]

Staff/regen brute with whirlwind - Princess Spinaroonie

 

Now she preaches the Gospel of SPIN on Excelsior, soon Torchbearer too.

[Coyote]

Plant/Savage Dom. I didn't expect it to be so fun to play. And I expected high AoE damage for a Dom, but not enough single-target to beat a Kronos Titan. Surprisingly fun and effective.

[Grouchybeast]

I really enjoyed Dual Pistols on live and had a couple of characters, but I never found a pair I really liked with it for either Defender or Blaster.  I just rolled a Dual Pistols/Martial Combat blaster and OH MY GOD.  It is AWESOME.  I have no idea how the damage is relative to other sets and I don't care because it's SO MUCH FUN to Ki Push a mob, Storm Kick them while they're still in mid air and then finish them off with Dual Wield.  I'm honestly disappointed when mobs die before I get to finish the sequence.  I haven't even got to Hail of Bullets and Eagles Claw yet.

[Coyote]

2 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

I really enjoyed Dual Pistols on live and had a couple of characters, but I never found a pair I really liked with it for either Defender or Blaster.  I just rolled a Dual Pistols/Martial Combat blaster and OH MY GOD.  It is AWESOME.  I have no idea how the damage is relative to other sets and I don't care because it's SO MUCH FUN to Ki Push a mob, Storm Kick them while they're still in mid air and then finish them off with Dual Wield.  I'm honestly disappointed when mobs die before I get to finish the sequence.  I haven't even got to Hail of Bullets and Eagles Claw yet.

 

Don't Dual Wield them. Set up a macro for activating a power at the target's location with Burst of Speed, and use that as the finisher. It's like Hidden Penny, Crouching Infernal, but running Hasten. And you can do it to 3 mobs in succession before Burst has to recharge. I actually named a character "Burst of Fist" after trying that combo... Fist Burst sounded more like a real hero monicker after reconsidering it, but the impulse remains. Because the character was made literally to deliver a fist to the distance. Heh, maybe I should have named it "Crouching Norris".

[Sailboat]

1 hour ago, Nemu said:

Staff/regen brute with whirlwind - Princess Spinaroonie

 

Now she preaches the Gospel of SPIN on Excelsior, soon Torchbearer too.

Seeing a lot of Staff users mentioned here.  I made a Staff/Radiation Scrapper.  I chose Scrapper because I wanted to see Staff at its optimal damage level, yeah, I know the resistance secondary would be better on a Brute.  She recolored /Rad into water (the little bubbles help), picked the trident Staff weapon, and goes by the name "The Atlantean Princess," so I guess there's a princess theme going in this thread as well.  🙂

 

Staff's good cones and PBAoE are really solid for fighting groups.  I defeat 5-10 Council goons in just about the same time as I would one.  So far (29, using common IOs and not fully slotted) the Rad armor keeps her alive long enough to chew everything down before she dies...if I time my heal and my absorb right, I can heal back to full just before flattening everyone with an AoE.  Timing that is kind of a mini-game. 

[Nemu]

You...NEED...whirlwind with staff.

 

Trust me.

 

Preach the Gospel of SPIN!!!

[doc_miller]

9 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

My newest surprise is my staff/bio scrapper. Whole lotta +damage goin on there with the staff form and bio's adaptation.

Try a brute.  With Perfection of Soul and Efficient Adaptation, your End never even budges. You can just go from group to group without pause, keeping that Fury up.

[Nayeh]

7 hours ago, Nemu said:

You...NEED...whirlwind with staff.

 

Trust me.

 

Preach the Gospel of SPIN!!!

If Whirlwind didn't spin my character around and make me nauseous during moments I wasn't mashing buttons I'd get it.

[lokpyrite]

My rad/ sd scrapper is an aoe machine. The endurance issue kinda sucks but I'm hoping it gets better when I get an epic power choice 

[Gulbasaur]

44 minutes ago, lokpyrite said:

My rad/ sd scrapper is an aoe machine. The endurance issue kinda sucks but I'm hoping it gets better when I get an epic power choice 

I think Radiation Siphon can take the Theft of Essence IO, which gives you back 10 or 15% of your endurance (can't remember) when it procs. Might be worth looking at as it's a useful power anyway. 

[Saikochoro]

One of my first toons on homecoming was a staff/bio brute. I chose staff because I wasn’t able to try it on live and I liked the costume options for it. I didn’t know anything about bio, but liked that it had stances. 
 

With offensive adaptation, form of the body, and fury all going this thing is a damage machine. Chews through anything and everything. And looks cool doing it.
 

It is so versatile with being able to combo any two of the three staff forms and bio adaptations. 

[Frunobulax]

Savage/invulnerable stalker

My first stalker to 50+, I picked the powers purely to go with a character concept and was surprised with how powerful it is

 

I wasn't even sure what a stalker could accomplish, and as it turns out that answer is everything

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Frunobulax

[Call Me Awesome]

One of the combos that surprised me with how functional it was is my Fire/Regen Stalker.  I'm not sure why I started the character but by the time I'd reached 50 with a good IO build that provided a bunch of S/L defense she was a very survivable and powerful character.  The latest statistics showed that I'm one of only two with that combination at 50; it's much better than you'd expect from no more popular it is.

 

I will admit that a bone standard SO build would be lacking; we all know the current state of Regen.  Still, with high defenses it's very effective.

[Snarky]

I just rolled a Dark/Dark Blaster for theme and was way shocked by how good the non melee powers are in Darkness Manipulation. I hate blapping but jumping into close range when it is smart to fuel an entire spawn kill?  Yes please. And the hidden gem is a ranged attack that kicks your regen and recovery into high gear for a short time. How did i miss that looking at this set so many times?  Add that to the hard hitting ranged attack that heals you and a PBAOE end recovery and PBAoE attack/buff and you have something which is .... pretty dark

Edited March 9, 2020 by Snarky

[Wintercat]

I made an illusion/rad controller because I've never really done fotm, and wanted to see what it was all about. I found it a tad dull, but one way to make characters more interesting for me to play is to write a backstory.
And then I thought, "well, what if she had a slightly different Praetorian twin?". And so Bright Amy's "twin", Dark Amy was born.

I made her ill/dark and reversed the colours of the costumes, and boy, did they play differently. /dark filled the lack of controls on illusion so wonderfully, and Fade? Damn, it's powerful! In the right conditions I'm running around with huge regen and recovery, just short of 60% smash/lethal resist, (thanks to the shield in Soul Mastery) and about 15% defense.
didn't prevent her from dying a gazillion times during an ITF, because she was running behind the team, and council shotguns HURT!!!!

[Scarlet Shocker]

Back on live I had Hunstman Strauss, and when I got to respec I eschewed the paths and continued with his "bloke with bullets" philosophy. Aside from anything else I hate the look of the crab backpack and mace seems pretty feeble as a weapon set and he has proven to be really tough, effective at taking down even tough enemies such as bosses, EBs and occasionally AVs and his pets add great mayhem and a sea of orange numbers.

 

I also have a dark/poison controller that turned out to be truly excellent, especially in PvP but currently having a load of fun with my Demons/Cold MM which has buckets of survive and reasonable damage output. She's slightly limited to the level of AV she can solo but she can eat a pylon with one arm behind her back which I personally think is a good enough achievement.

[Without_Pause]

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.

[SeraphimKensai]

Water/bio sentinel is probably the creme de la creme of sentinel. Lots of stuff going around n there plus the knockdown helps with the Regen. The thing is a literal beast, even soloing two AV's at once.

[loyalreader]

On 3/6/2020 at 11:47 AM, Nemu said:

Staff/regen brute with whirlwind - Princess Spinaroonie

 

Now she preaches the Gospel of SPIN on Excelsior

I've teamed with you (think it was a Citadel TF... I remember lots of Council) and laughed my @$$ off the whole time. Keep spinning, Princess.