Collection: solo-friendly builds

[Olly]

Collection: Solo-friendly AV/GM/TF Builds

Hi all. I've grown an interest in soloing in CoH, and did a fair bit of playing and reading up. I've collected what I've found and my own experiences playing a titan/bio, ill/rad, and ill/traps (incomplete) controller.  I've also broken it down by content difficulty level, based on my experience. It's incomplete, so I'm hoping people will respond here to add in their experiences with builds I haven't listed.  I'd especially like to know about MM's, ill/storm|cold, and fortunatas for harder & near-impossible content -- these are mentioned often but ppl don't say what content they can solo. Also, I don't play villain-side, so those are unknown. Without further ado:

 

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Hard to solo:
AV's for Accolades (Maria Jenkins, etc.)
Most hero-side GM's

ITF, regular setting

 

Known viable builds: Ill/traps|rad|cold, Fire/ice blaster, @Chirikiti's mind/psy dominator, titan/bio scrapper
Speculated: @Werner and@Bill Z Bubba's brute builds, @nihilii's fire/rad sentinel, Fire/fire blaster, empathy/? defender, Masterminds, Fortunatas, ill/storm, ill/cold, most scrappers, most brutes, @Elmyder's fire/fire blaster

Harder:
Sutter: Ill/rad unknown
Katie Hannon: Ill/rad unknown
Babbage (level-limited): Ill/storm known
LGTF: Ill/traps unknown
ITF +4/x8: empathy/? defender, brute builds below, ill/rad, Dark Armor/Martial Arts Tank, fire/rad sentinel, fire/ice, fire/time, dev/time blasters, sav/shield stalker, ill/therm, ill/traps are known
AVs +4/x8: brute builds below, fire/rad sentinel are known
Market Crash:
Apex: empathy/? defender, demon/cold MM known
Tin Mage: empathy/? defender known
Jurassik:
Goliath War Walker: 

 

Known viable builds: Ill/rad | cold, titan/bio scrapper, Elmyder's fire/fire blaster
Speculated: Ill/traps, Werner's and Bill Z Bubba's brute builds, Nihilii's fire/rad sentinel, empathy/? defender, Chirikiti's mind/psy dominator

 

Near-impossible:
Kahn TF: corruptor (fire/cold) known, Frosticus' ill/cold controller (MoKhan), ill/therm, cold/sonic defender
STF / MLTF: Nihilii's fire/rad sentinel known

 

Known viable builds: titan/bio scrapper, Elmyder's fire/fire blaster

 

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Sources:
- Search for posts in the Brute AT sub-forum from @Werner & @Bill Z Bubba
- Search for @Nihillii's post on "Silly Sentinel Tricks" on Sentinel AT sub-forum

- Search for "Solo" and "AV/GM killer" posts 
- Titan/bio scrapper guide on Scrapper AT sub-forum
- Ill/traps vs. Ill/rad threads on Controller AT sub-forum

- Frosticus' Crazy Controllers 2021 edition post on Controller AT-sub-forum

Edited February 27, 2021 by Olly
added cold/sonic def to Kahn, ill/therm to +4/*8 itf

[Werner]

My Katana/Dark Armor Brute and Dark Armor/Martial Arts Tanker have each done a solo MoITF +4x8 with enemies buffed, no temps, no insps, no Lore, no P2W, no base empowerment buffs, no deaths. Both have the DPS and survivability to solo many level 54 AVs with the same restrictions. I think the Brute could also solo some giant monsters with the same restrictions, but that's speculation, as are any other task forces with either build. I don't think that Dark Armor is the best choice for this sort of soloing, even if it's a nice, solid armor set, and I made it work. I just have a sentimental fondness for Dark Armor from the before times, so I wanted to see how far I could push it. Now I'm fiddling with Shield Defense and Invulnerability builds to try to push even further.

[nihilii]

Why am I "speculated"? 😄

 

@Dark Bladed and @Bloodom are posters worth following for challenge stuff. Speedrunners really, but by virtue of speedrunning being extreme optimization, they knocked out some impressive feats on TW/bio scrappers and fire/fire blasters. Including a solo Lambda trial from Dark Bladed.

 

I think Demon/Cold is a strong MM contender for super hard content. Personal DPS for this combo can reach 200+; with the demons staying alive it climbs to great heights. Demons boost your own resistances to the point it's viable to shoot for high overall res through a Rune of Protection + Melee Hybrid rotation. And if you want to go that route, there's insane performance you can eke out of team inspirations. But this is "mostly" theorycrafting - I have a Demon/Cold of my own that performs well (she can solo Apex for example) but haven't tried pushing her to the STF/LRSF level.

[TygerDarkstorm]

6 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Why am I "speculated"? 😄

 

@Dark Bladed and @Bloodom are posters worth following for challenge stuff. Speedrunners really, but by virtue of speedrunning being extreme optimization, they knocked out some impressive feats on TW/bio scrappers and fire/fire blasters. Including a solo Lambda trial from Dark Bladed.

 

I think Demon/Cold is a strong MM contender for super hard content. Personal DPS for this combo can reach 200+; with the demons staying alive it climbs to great heights. Demons boost your own resistances to the point it's viable to shoot for high overall res through a Rune of Protection + Melee Hybrid rotation. And if you want to go that route, there's insane performance you can eke out of team inspirations. But this is "mostly" theorycrafting - I have a Demon/Cold of my own that performs well (she can solo Apex for example) but haven't tried pushing her to the STF/LRSF level.

Just out of curiosity, how do you keep your pets alive with /Cold? Or do you have to do a lot of resummoning? Use the medicine pool? I've seen that /Cold might be pretty good for soloing for MM's, but not having a heal feels awkward for me, personally (thinking from a leveling up perspective, not at 50 and kitted out as I don't PL through fire farms typically). I don't delve much into theorycrafting, but I love MM's and one that isn't /Traps that can solo hard content is appealing.

[nihilii]

9 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Just out of curiosity, how do you keep your pets alive with /Cold? Or do you have to do a lot of resummoning?

Demons use AoE heals on their own, which coupled with your Cold shields, the Cold defense aura and every unique resistance and defense pet IO, help them survive a fair bit. I also make it a point to jump in first and take aggro. There are situations where "goto" positioning is inevitable lest they swarm into enemy AoEs.

 

Despite all that, they will still die often. This is where having strong personal damage comes in handy. When all my pets are dead, dealing about 200 DPS I'm basically a slightly weaker Corruptor.

 

Granted, talking about high personal damage and unique IOs is mostly a level 50 thing. But at low levels, if you stick to "reasonable" reputation levels (say, +1 or +2, maybe just +0 for AVs), I feel your pets ought to survive decently. Cold brings defense but also slows enemies significantly. You can crank the rep to x8 provided you don't raise the con too high, this way your debuffs have full effectiveness and generally the mobs you face while leveling don't bring enough damage output to pierce through Cold shields + demon shields + demon heals on their first salvo... and the -recharge makes that second salvo really, really slow to come.

 

I dislike resummoning too, even if custom macros can help. Demon/Cold is one of the combos that felt the nicest on that front for me.

Edited August 23, 2020 by nihilii

[Elmyder]

I actually don't have a fire/ice blaster, you must be thinking of either my fire/fire blaster or my fire/cold corruptor. I have soloed a lot of content on both of these. I've done solo speedruns of most endgame task forces on the fire/fire. I also mained an ill/rad for a while when I first joined Homecoming, and successfully soloed a lot of content on this, including speedruns of LGTF (27 mins).

 

As for MLTF and Kahn, I have soloed both. I did MLTF in 31 mins on my fire/fire and Kahn in 16 mins on my fire/cold, and I know Bloodom soloed Kahn on his fire/fire in a faster time. Long ago I soloed both of these on my ill/rad in much slower times.

 

Edit: I actually asked myself before what content would be impossible for me to solo on my fire/fire. So far, I don't have an answer. The best contender in my mind is Barracuda. The question is whether I can summon enough pets to out dps his regen during his invulnerable phases. Another one is LGTF, but I'm pretty confident I can solo LGTF if I respec into char and slot it for hold. I was going to make a new build to try this but haven't gotten around to it yet. (Some itrials probably too, I actually haven't thought too hard about those because they're not easy to enter solo.)

Edited August 23, 2020 by Elmyder

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Werner said:

My Katana/Dark Armor Brute and Dark Armor/Martial Arts Tanker have each done a solo MoITF +4x8 with enemies buffed, no temps, no insps, no Lore, no P2W, no base empowerment buffs, no deaths.

I still have yet to pull this off with any character I've built. But if memory serves, and it usually doesn't, did you say that it took you a damn long time on both? I'm pretty sure impatience gets me killed more than anything else these days.

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

Demons use AoE heals on their own, which coupled with your Cold shields, the Cold defense aura and every unique resistance and defense pet IO, help them survive a fair bit. I also make it a point to jump in first and take aggro. There are situations where "goto" positioning is inevitable lest they swarm into enemy AoEs.

 

Despite all that, they will still die often. This is where having strong personal damage comes in handy. When all my pets are dead, dealing about 200 DPS I'm basically a slightly weaker Corruptor.

 

Granted, talking about high personal damage and unique IOs is mostly a level 50 thing. But at low levels, if you stick to "reasonable" reputation levels (say, +1 or +2, maybe just +0 for AVs), I feel your pets ought to survive decently. Cold brings defense but also slows enemies significantly. You can crank the rep to x8 provided you don't raise the con too high, this way your debuffs have full effectiveness and generally the mobs you face while leveling don't bring enough damage output to pierce through Cold shields + demon shields + demon heals on their first salvo... and the -recharge makes that second salvo really, really slow to come.

 

I dislike resummoning too, even if custom macros can help. Demon/Cold is one of the combos that felt the nicest on that front for me.

Thanks nihilii for the detailed answer. I was thinking of demons healing when I made the post but forgot to mention it, d'oh.  Didn't realize it was good enough to run without any sort of healing from the MM (my demons/storm MM is only level 20ish and I still toss O2 boost out to them). Once I get my farmer going I may try your demons/cold concept; seems like something that will need good enhancement investment at/around 22 to make sure it stays powerful.

[Werner]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I still have yet to pull this off with any character I've built. But if memory serves, and it usually doesn't, did you say that it took you a damn long time on both? I'm pretty sure impatience gets me killed more than anything else these days.

Yeah, I think 4-5 hours. But I’m not in a rush to complete things usually. I just like fighting.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Werner

[Olly]

3 hours ago, nihilii said:

Why am I "speculated"? 😄

Based on what I read on the "Silly Sentinel Tricks" and a few other posts you've made =)

 

Known = I read you post about it somewhere 

Speculated = Heck, if Nihilii posted about X, I'm pretty damn sure they can complete Y.

[Olly]

3 hours ago, Elmyder said:

I actually don't have a fire/ice blaster, you must be thinking of either my fire/fire blaster or my fire/cold corruptor.

Updated the post. Thanks for that and also the additional info!