Strongest Matched/Thematic Character....

[Galaxy Brain]

Hey everyone! Just an open discussion as to who you all think the strongest thematic pairing is with each AT, or just in general?

 

For example, we all know a fire/fire/fire blaster is very potent, or a mind/psy dom. But what other thematic pairings do you feel like they designed to be together? Which do you feel were likewise disappointing when put together?

Edited April 24, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Peacemoon]

Well I’ll start with Dark/Dark/Soul controller. Absolutely amazing amounts of control, buffs, debuffs and good damage.

Thematically it all fits together well, but gameplay wise especially:

 

You have lots of PBAoE, Heart of Darkness (stun), Soul Absorption (PBAoE that gives +regen/recovery to all allies nearby for every enemy or enemy corpse hit), Soul Drain (+damage/tohit, but just for you) for every enemy hit. 
Also goes nicely with the void judgement power which is also PBAoE.

 

With soul absorption you easily cap regen and recovery on just 7 mobs.

Fade, PBAoE buff will give you good defence and resists, which helps a lot reaching the caps. Shadowfall also helps and can be layered on top, and gives you stealthed for getting close undetected.

That coupled with the massive amounts of -hit, and all set bonuses, means mobs rarely hurt you, and when they rarely do your regen covers i.

Your heal is PBAoE so it helps to be amongst the action.

 

You have some good AoE’s in the form of location hold, Howling Twilight (-500% regen) and Soul Obliteration. 

 

So many pets you are basically a mastermind. 2 haunts (made perma with final build), wolfie and dark servant. The dark control pets help with killing and the servant assists you with debuffs.

All together you can jump into a +3/8 spawn and completely lock them down, suck out everything good about their souls for your own power, and obliterate them with blasts, pets and if needed, the nuke. You then take all those lovely bonuses and jump into the next spawn and refresh!

 

So what are the negatives? I always like to give a balanced review. Well,

 

Single target damage can be lacking against tough targets,  bosses but especially EBs and AVs. You can do good AoE damage with the above skills, particularly if you slot things like the purple damage PBAoE proc in Heart of Darkness, but it’s a struggle to focus down the tough targets. Particularly since pets like to do their own thing and aren’t focused. (Haunts sort of are on initial cast, but they’re only minor pets). I mean it’s not too bad, but you’ll often find bosses and the like can take as long to finish off as it took to decimate the entire rest of the spawn, which can be frustrating.

 

It has amazing buffs and drains, but they don’t last long. Fade and Haunt pets last 60 seconds so constantly require recasting. If you rely on Fade for defence it can leave you vulnerable if you forget to put it back on.

Soul Absorption will give you unlimited end and regen, but lasts only 45s with a 3s cast. 
Basically, it’s nothing too bad but you can easily spend a good portion of your time maintaining buffs and pets unfortunately! I find it quite fun that beneath all my powers/spells there is actually a very squishy caster! It keeps you on your toes too.

 

Pets - love them or loathe them, they can be a great help and a great hindrance. On paper they always work better than in reality. Wolfie likes to play fetch with a fleeing mob, and will often fetch back an entire spawn (he doesn’t respond to his name no matter how much I’ve tried to train him) Which is nothing you can’t handle, and you can choose to intercept the spawn or wait for them to enter the Tar-Patch-Of-Death, where they will join their comrades. Unfortunately though mobs aggroed in this way usually wipe out your minions and they will require resummoning.

Wolfie is also very aggressive protective and will often leap into the fray and promptly die before you can cast your first lockdown.

The Dark Servant is prone to EPIC 2 MINUTE BATTLES against a single minion on the outskirts of combat. Since he is full support, it is a battle that will rage in for all eternity, unless you intervene by killing off the minion, or slap him with a resummon into the middle of the group. Incidentally he works best  in amongst the enemy group, as his Chill of the Night PBAoE aura debuff is another amazing layer of -hit.

Haunts are actually very buggy. Once they’ve killed their focused target and you’ve finished off the spawn and moving on to the next, they often get stuck and will spend their final moments stuck in a back and forth loop. Fortunately in a way, they don’t last long so are often about to expire anyway when this happens.

Once you start fighting +3s/+4s all the pets become ultra squishy, even with all the buffs you can muster. Anything that isn’t locked down or substantially debuffed will destroy them.

 

On the flip side Dark/Dark brings great debuffs, -regen as discussed, -res from tar patch, so much -hit its unreal (especially combined with Servant’s natural PBAoE aura, chill of the night, and his own version of darkest night layered on yours), and lots of - damage. Pets might be squishy in chaotic fights, but with all your debuffs in play even Wolfie can tank +3 AVs.

 

Speaking of AVs, Dark/Dark definitely can solo AVs. A +3 AV can take 5-10 minutes to kill, which I’m not sure how good or bad that is, but eventually they give up trying to hit you and you win! I have soloed the Pandora’s Box SSA at +3/8 and with AVs. I could do +4 technically, but the slower kill speed means it’s less rewarding than +3 for me.

 

Anyway, hope that’s a good write up! I love my Dark/Dark/Soul Controller. Made just from concept ideas and unexpectedly realised how powerful he had become.

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Peacemoon
Lots of typos because I post from my phone...

[Coyote]

I'm not sure how thematic you would consider them since the MM sets don't pair so clearly, but I've found the following combinations to be good:
Demons/Thermal

Robots/EA

Necro/Dark

Mercs/Traps

Beasts/Nature

 

I hear Earth/Earth on Doms is solid. Plant/Thorns or Plant/Savage (depending on your theme) should also be good on Doms.

 

For Controllers, Dark/Dark would have been my pick also, but Earth/Thermal seems thematic and would also be solid.

[Peacemoon]

24 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I'm not sure how thematic you would consider them since the MM sets don't pair so clearly, but I've found the following combinations to be good:
Demons/Thermal

Robots/EA

Necro/Dark

Mercs/Traps

Beasts/Nature

 

I hear Earth/Earth on Doms is solid. Plant/Thorns or Plant/Savage (depending on your theme) should also be good on Doms.

 

For Controllers, Dark/Dark would have been my pick also, but Earth/Thermal seems thematic and would also be solid.

I’m a big fan of Earth Control and think the hard controls or Earth pair wonderfully with the soft controls and chaotic damage and debuffing of Storm, both thematically and in play style. I’m not so sure about it’s solo capabilities though.

[Chance Jackson]

Bots/Traps MM is by far one of the strongest thematic pairings it can solo AVs on SOs without temps with smart power selections.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Chance Jackson

[fitzsimmons]

Nature/water defender is one of my favorites.  Synergistic and a beast at 50 with the right build.  Softcapped to melee and ranged with good resistance, end recovery, buffs, debuffs, Regen, heals, blah blah blah.

 

Hands down, the best toon in my roster.

[Without_Pause]

Depends on what you are looking for. Ill/dark to me fits theme wise and could be deemed better than Dark/dark, but something like Earth/storm while not a AV/GM killer on the same level, is an absolute beast in ways Ill/dark can't touch. I've been on a team which split three ways and had zero deaths because of my Earth/storm. 

 

Melee can be difficult since you are more looking into stereotypes. SS/inv for tanks, TW/wp for brutes. A scrapper might be StJ/shield.  A stalker could be Nin/nin although from a min max stand point, it might be rather similar to a scrapper. Dark/sr might be the most doable.

 

Defenders and corrs might be something like Storm/water or the reverse. There's not a lot of thematic max/min options for them. 

 

Fire/fire blasters are again depending on what you want. Ice/fire is a legit top tier build.

 

Mind/psy versus Earth/earth doms. Again, how are we defining strongest?

 

MMs would be something like Bots/traps or Demon/thermal.

[Gremlin]

I have a fire/fire/fire brute called External Combustion that's absolutely awesome. He has reasonable defence and does a horrifying amount of damage. The fire everywhere theme fits the character concept well.

 

I'm currently working on a Plant/Thorns dominator. She's a mutant plant/human thing so the powers fit the concept. I don't how she compares to other doms but she seems pretty potent.

 

I had a Psy/Mental Manipulation blaster on live. He was horribly weak for a blaster. I think he was my first toon and I didn't know that Psy was both the lowest damage and most highly resisted damage type. Bah!

[Shred Monkey]

I'm going to vote for Cold/Cold corruptors.  Good Damage, Great stacking controls, Great debuffs, and Great ally buffs.

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

I'm going to vote for Cold/Cold corruptors.  Good Damage, Great stacking controls, Great debuffs, and Great ally buffs.

I have a Cold/Cold Corr who is great fun and always feels useful, but I admit I did take Fire as an Epic, so I could make an ice-coloured Rise of the Phoenix.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Most of my alts have some sort of theme or backstory so I can justify their power set choices.  I'm saddest with the ones where I really had to stretch for, say, a Psy Melee/Energy Aura scrapper because I just wanted to try out the sets.

[MTeague]

Minor quibble on the use of the term "Thematic".  I have a Plant / Psi dominatior with a 1023 character backstory that fully justifies both powersets and explains how she came to be what she is today. Many combinations may be thematic for the character you create without being low-hanging-fruit of sets to pair together at first glance. 

 

I can create a Mercs / Dark MM and have it feel entirely thematic based on character backstory, even if you might consider Necro/Dark or Mercs/Traps to be the more obvious combinations.

 

That said.

• Blaster:  Archery / Tac Arrow has been much stronger than I anticipated. It was a breeze going through Praetoria 1-21 soloing vs +2/x1 missions with bosses.  I expected to faceplant left and right on a blaster.  And I did die a few times.  But it proved extremely strong in being able to burst down bosses, in being able to lock down lieuts while dealing with minions, and in being able to fairly safely retreat and come back later if I bit off more than I could chew.  Glue Arrow gets you a massive lead if you need to make tracks and lose aggro as well as helping you kite things that want to melee and make them waste all kinds of time trying to get to you.
• Brute:  Energy Melee / Energy Aura:   painful at low levels.  Don't even try to tank for a team unless you have several buffs or really enjoy debt.  You will be winded and out of END fairly quickly, and at low levels a defense set just doesn't have enough defense.  However.  Around lvl 20 this combo starts to come into it's power and rolls through baddies fairly quickly.  Some attention will still be needed to END management, and the more +END procs you can slot in Health or Stamina, the better.  At lvl 25, my Brute rocks and just doesn't stop and this should only get better as he get the Energy Leech/+Def PBAE. and while it may not be the fastest attack ever, damn but Total Focus is glorious to see in action.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by MTeague

[RobotLove]

Rad/Rad anything. 

 

Defender will always have a special place in my heart as my first 50 on live. Still holds up as one of the best 'all-rounder' support pairings. 

 

On the melee side, rad/rad has everything dark/dark wishes it could. Quick, hard hitting AoE. Plenty of proc opportunities, with easy access to -res. More relevant resists (energy notably) that are just as easy to cap. And most importantly, endless endurance.

[Galaxy Brain]

16 minutes ago, MTeague said:

Minor quibble on the use of the term "Thematic".  I have a Plant / Psi dominatior with a 1023 character backstory that fully justifies both powersets and explains how she came to be what she is today. Many combinations may be thematic for the character you create without being low-hanging-fruit of sets to pair together at first glance. 

I feel you, but at the same time nothing else really popped into my head to describe like.... Ice/Ice and Energy/Energy as pairings other than "Thematic"! 😄 

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I feel you, but at the same time nothing else really popped into my head to describe like.... Ice/Ice and Energy/Energy as pairings other than "Thematic"! 😄 

 

Matched.

[Menelruin]

5 hours ago, MTeague said:

Minor quibble on the use of the term "Thematic".  I have a Plant / Psi dominatior with a 1023 character backstory that fully justifies both powersets and explains how she came to be what she is today. Many combinations may be thematic for the character you create without being low-hanging-fruit of sets to pair together at first glance. 

 

I can create a Mercs / Dark MM and have it feel entirely thematic based on character backstory, even if you might consider Necro/Dark or Mercs/Traps to be the more obvious combinations.

 

That said.

• Blaster:  Archery / Tac Arrow has been much stronger than I anticipated. It was a breeze going through Praetoria 1-21 soloing vs +2/x1 missions with bosses.  I expected to faceplant left and right on a blaster.  And I did die a few times.  But it proved extremely strong in being able to burst down bosses, in being able to lock down lieuts while dealing with minions, and in being able to fairly safely retreat and come back later if I bit off more than I could chew.  Glue Arrow gets you a massive lead if you need to make tracks and lose aggro as well as helping you kite things that want to melee and make them waste all kinds of time trying to get to you.
• Brute:  Energy Melee / Energy Aura:   painful at low levels.  Don't even try to tank for a team unless you have several buffs or really enjoy debt.  You will be winded and out of END fairly quickly, and at low levels a defense set just doesn't have enough defense.  However.  Around lvl 20 this combo starts to come into it's power and rolls through baddies fairly quickly.  Some attention will still be needed to END management, and the more +END procs you can slot in Health or Stamina, the better.  At lvl 25, my Brute rocks and just doesn't stop and this should only get better as he get the Energy Leech/+Def PBAE. and while it may not be the fastest attack ever, damn but Total Focus is glorious to see in action.

 

 

I've been off for a couple weeks, did they finally fix Energy Melee?

[Seigmoraig]

Do a Final Fantasy spellcaster type that has the 3 main elemental magic schools from the game to play with.

Something like an Ice  / Electrical / Fire Controller

or a Fire / Ice / Mu Blaster

Edited April 24, 2020 by Seigmoraig

[MTeague]

21 minutes ago, Menelruin said:

I've been off for a couple weeks, did they finally fix Energy Melee?

I never considered it broken, so take some grains of salt there.  

It's still very serviceable as-is, but if you're yearning for the days of oldschool Energy Transfer, no, I do not believe they'd reinstated that.

[Uun]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the classic dark/dark/dark defender (or corruptor if you're so inclined).

[Seldom]

Nobody has mentioned fire/fire/fire dominators yet? All their attacks benefit from fiery embrace, you can do bonfire+rain of fire+fireball+firebreath+combustion while running hot feet. The AoE on is ridiculous.

 

Robots/force-field is probably one of the (if not the) most survivable 'tankermind.' Almost to the point of boredom, but then you just start pushing the boundaries.

[Twisted Toon]

I have a Grav/Time Controller that seems to have pretty solid crowd control. 3.5 holds, a couple of immobs, slows, heals, +end, +recharge, recovery. Not to mention pool tables and cars.

 

If we're going thematically, then I guess Black Holes are gravity wells that warp space and time, so...

[PartyKake]

3 hours ago, Barneysaurus said:

...

Robots/force-field is probably one of the (if not the) most survivable 'tankermind.' Almost to the point of boredom, but then you just start pushing the boundaries.

The bots themselves cast force fields on each other, so there's a little bit extra thematic bleedthrough there.

 

Prior to incarnate stuff, bots/ff was very strong. You just don't need all that defense anymore since everyone can softcap now without the help.

But that's a mechanical quibble.

 

As is, they are a good choice for a strong theme, based on tech applied for strong defenses.

 

To add to the thread, I propose Demons/Sonic Resonance.

The theme: driving people crazy with pure NOISE

[Heraclea]

Super Strength/Invulnerability is in a better place now than it was when HC started.  It's the one combination a comic book game has to have.  For tankers, I prefer Dark Melee with Invulnerability, but oddly, at least on paper Dark Melee does not do all that much for Dark Armor.  

 

Archery/Devices always seemed an obvious combo; it can make a very solid blaster.   Electric/Electric sapping blaster is interesting, but I would not call it world-beatingly strong.  It does one thing, that doesn't work when you need it to.

 

The corruptor I got to 50 is Psy/Dark, which seems an obvious pairing as well, at least until you remember you can have a Dark/Dark corruptor. 

 

[Myrmidon]

Kinetic Melee/Anything. The combo is the closest to MCU spell casting that can be found in this game.

 

Especially with the second KM option in this:

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Myrmidon