Solo story arc squishy. What works?

[Snarky]

I am flirting with the idea of starting another Redside run.  Every contact/every story arc.  I usually do this with a Brute.  I tried it with a Tank a couple months back and got to around low 30s.  Then the Tanks were updated and I wanted that thing incarnated asap.  Also, the kill alls were killing me.  So slow. But....A squishy?  I have never tried it before.  But, with I/os, temp powers, and every trick in the book (mine and the ones you folks show me) I am pretty sure it can be done.  The only question is...what AT and powerset.

 

Thoughts on possibles:

 

Blaster AR/Dev.  Things get nasty can always build a fort pull and watch the fireworks.  I am half tempted to do this.   Or Dark/Psi Or Fire.Fire.  The pure Blap-happy killer

 

Trollers: I hear Grav is super powerful on a Troller, and I love Grav conceptually and in game.  Plant Troller.  Here those are mad powerful.  Not an easy concept for me to work with though.  My thoughts keep going to poison ivy from Batman.  I got nothing character wise. I have never run trollers and those bits of info is everything I know about them

 

doms:  I have had a couple 50 doms.  Okay, not since live, but I ran them.  I ran Grav / Nrg.  I think Fires/Psi, Dark/Dark would also be strong possibilities

 

I am not sure a Corruptor is a good choice.  They really shine in teams.  I think some of the power sets are still decent solo though

 

I am not sure I could do Defender.  I am not sure I have ever even rolled one.

 

Sentinel.  The odd Duck.  Impossible to min max, yet soloing +0/x1 1-50 may be the ATs sweet spot.

 

I guess the outlier here is Stalker.  I have never seriously ran a Stalker. Not really a squishy.  I suppose Sentinel isn't either.  Kill alls on a Stalker?  I know they excel at glowie runs like 1 min later done.  But it is like Brute lite on kill alls.

 

Any thoughts would be great.  I will probably be percolating this for a few days unless lightning strikes or I haven 7 cups of coffee tonight. 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Snarky

[Redlynne]

Huntsman

 

If you're going to play redside ... Do It Right™ ...

[Snarky]

interesting.  I have played crabs, never a huntsman.  had to delete my crab and opull a couple other tricks as well.  that backpack started showing up on ALL my characters.  like a virus.  sad.  But Huntsman?  Thank you.  Will put that in the hat.

[MTeague]

Plant Control is mad crazy fun. You will not go wrong with Plant, either as a Dominator or as a Controller. 

Corruptor, maybe if you used Water Blast or did a Dark/Dark. But still, better on teams. 

Blasters, I would look at either Archery/TacArrow or Something/Martial.  But fair warning, I have not gotten either one up past 20 yet. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about on them.

 

Stalkers are not squishy. Stalkers are every bit as scrappy as a Scrapper. 

ESP if you get the Stalker ATO's.  And really, you should, at LEAST the procs, even if you got no others.

[Redlynne]

20 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I have played crabs, never a huntsman.

Soldiers of Arachnos (the way I build them) play a lot like a Sentinel, with double leadership auras (all 3 of them).  There's remarkably few things you can't manage to pick apart and gun down even while solo.  Hope you like standing ankle deep in spent brass!

22 minutes ago, Snarky said:

that backpack started showing up on ALL my characters.  like a virus.  sad.  But Huntsman?  Thank you.

If you take ANY Crab powers ... ANY OF THEM ... then the backpack will permanently appear on the character and CANNOT BE REMOVED.  This means alternate builds.  If you want to NOT have the backpack you MUST choose Soldier and Bane powers ONLY and can NEVER take ANY Crab powers on ANY build on the character.

 

Fortunately, I've got you covered on a Bane Huntsman build (see link above).

[Sailboat]

Defender.  Hear me out.

 

You want squishy -- don't compromise, go full squishy!  The cheat, and make a Storm Defender.

 

Secondary is optional -- Dark Blast, Sonic Blast, Fire Blast, Water Blast, Energy Blast all have their advocates.  Personally I'd lean toward Dark or Water if you're soloing, but they all have good points.

 

You're soloing, so you'll get the Defender's +30% damage boost while solo.  That offsets a significant amount of the lower Defender damage.  Then drop freezing rain on everything!

 

The biggest soloing tool you'll get, however, is Hurricane.  A knb-to-kd converter will make it less chaotic, but really you don't care, since you're solo.  Slot it up and everything you tag will be essentially unable to hit you, even after it's out of the hurricance for 10 more seconds.  Touch foes every 10 seconds and you're all but invincible (except against AVs, EBs and Giant Monsters, who resist the debuff).  Carry a few break frees for the occasional mezz that leaks through and you'll be fine.  Meanwhile it's thrilling dominating enemies with Lightning Storm and Tornado knocking them down and beating them up while you debuff and blast, knowing you're only staying alive because you're actively taking it to the enemies aggressively.  As long as you keep them rocked back on their heels you will crush...as soon as you get timid or slack off, you're in trouble.

[Redlynne]

Storm/Water Defender ... or a Water/Storm Corruptor would work out decently well.

I've got a Water/Ice Corruptor build that you may want to pillage for ideas if you're heading in that direction.

 

Back on Virtue, before Time Manipulation was announced (let alone released), I made a Storm/Dual Pistols Defender that had multiple other Players on a Moonfire Task Force thinking they would need to "carry" me through the Task Force while we were waiting for everyone to join and then had 3 out of 7 of them turn around and ask me what my build was before we got to the final mission because I was just Deftanking everything we'd been fighting and had turned every mission into a cakewalk.  More than one other Player, after having seen how aggressively I was playing, announced that they were going to be starting Storm/Dual Pistols Defenders to play themselves since the build was just so overwhelming.

 

So there's that (too) ... 😎

 

Here on Everlasting, since I had the opportunity to reroll from scratch, I went ahead and reached for the Time/Dual Pistols "No Escape" builds that caused a minor sensation last year.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Redlynne

[Without_Pause]

You can dump a number of procs into a Storm/water and /water has a heal which fills a need on a Storm. It is one of the few builds I don't do as I have those sets at 50 and Storm twice via controllers. Storm/dark also has nice potential. Plant/storm again adds healing and is a freaking beast when it comes together. It was one of my initial three builds I deemed I would make sure to invest in once it hit 50. I, uh, got distracted as per usual. I think my pick for a solo blaster would be Ice/time with Water right there. Dark/shield stalker will be great as is in current form and even better once the Dark changes go live. I have no qualms soloing on my StJ/ea. The ATO with a chance to Hide helps a lot. 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Without_Pause

[Display Name]

6 hours ago, Sailboat said:

Defender.  Hear me out.

 

You want squishy -- don't compromise, go full squishy!  The cheat, and make a Storm Defender.

 

The biggest soloing tool you'll get, however, is Hurricane.  A knb-to-kd converter will make it less chaotic, but really you don't care, since you're solo.  Slot it up and everything you tag will be essentially unable to hit you, even after it's out of the hurricance for 10 more seconds.  Touch foes every 10 seconds and you're all but invincible (except against AVs, EBs and Giant Monsters, who resist the debuff).  Carry a few break frees for the occasional mezz that leaks through and you'll be fine.  Meanwhile it's thrilling dominating enemies with Lightning Storm and Tornado knocking them down and beating them up while you debuff and blast, knowing you're only staying alive because you're actively taking it to the enemies aggressively.  As long as you keep them rocked back on their heels you will crush...as soon as you get timid or slack off, you're in trouble.

Wow!  Reading this was so much fun!  I have a Storm Defender!  I love 'em!  I'm going to try Storm out on a Controller next!

[Yomo Kimyata]

If you are playing at +0/x1, the only question is whether or not you are playing with EBs or AVs.  If the former, I think you can play just about any combination you want that you find entertaining.

[Shred Monkey]

Hover blaster is always an strong option for solo survival.  It can be done on any ranged AT, too.

[Snarky]

Yeah. Hover Blasting with some ranged defense is fun.  I keep coming back to AR. Huge range on that   Then if the map forces you to be tight You can set up the death fort and watch the madness. My problem with AR is i dont like weapons much. I do have one concept for it based off “Sarge” from the movie “Frighteners” played by R Lee Ermey.  Ghost AR/Traps. Which explains disappearing weapons why the weapon does so much damage. Underlying logic really helps me with keeping character interest

[Heraclea]

The safest blaster I've played is Ice/Plants.  3 ranged holds, going to take this one to Hamidon.  You also get a rain power that somewhat works like Caltrops, making mobs flee slowly.  Your nuke is a rain that periodically knocks down mobs in its AoE.   I took no melee attacks in the secondary; instead I took Concealment to Invisibility.   If you're trying to do as much content as possible at even level this one will work well. 

 

If you're willing to twink the character a bit, I recommend Defiant Barrage Chance for Mez Protection in a  t1 or t2 attack. 

[Snarky]

I will be heavily i/o building the character. I have run and i/o’d a lot of squishies on Homecoming and only 50d one dark dark blaster. The parts from everyone else is lying around in a base. Full sets of blaster dom and sentinel atos. Lots of ranged sets hold sets immob sets etc

[RiotAce]

Doing something similar  with an AR/Time Blaster. Lvling through story arcs both red/blue at the same time-no double XP. Once I realized it was damn near impossible to nail every story arc simultaneously, shutting my XP on and off and such I decided to just nail all the badges associated with my lvl range. As far as Blasters go the real challenge was getting thru 15-20 arcs, endurance issues are near unbearable. Recovery serum and inner inspiration are life savers. Make sure you reject small inspirations and it will only drop better ones,when you punch it. Currently 23 about to oro my way through Goldside arcs I skipped, I want those sweet resistance titles unlocked. Good luck though, id highly recommend a blaster to do it with.

[Snarky]

I may have to do Blaster.  I rolled a Dark Dark Dom. Then did the buildout on mids. There us just about every purple set on the thing. So The thing us not viable for leveling

 

i will level it and build it out. I want to see what it plays like

 

but back to the drawing board on the story arc project

[Redlynne]

On 3/27/2020 at 6:02 PM, Redlynne said:

Huntsman

 

If you're going to play redside ... Do It Right™ ...

 

[EmmySky]

@Snarky

 

I have read many of your threads and posts and feel like you might become bored with slower playstyle toons.  I will recommend a DP/martial combat blaster because they can dish some damage and be very entertaining.  If you go super squishy like defender, stave off the boredom and frustration with a stormie.  They will definitely entertain you even though the going will be slower than what you are used to.

 

Good luck!