Character for Soloing Praetoria

[Darmian]

As can be surmised I've gone through all of Praetoria, from Precinct 5 to the Eternal Prison, and it can be a mad and rough ride but it is a hell of a lot of fun. Get your foundations in across Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis, go loaded for bear (ghouls) in the Underground, and then on into First Ward and Night Ward via the Imperial Underground,  These two Wards have very rewarding story arcs and are, as @MTeaguesays, tough enough. 

 

Once you've finished as far as Neutropolis circa 20, pop into Pocket D via Studio 55 and see if there's a Summer Block Buster going, you can do those and an Overwhelming Force will slot in nicely somewhere. At the least you can get up to 8 mill for it depending.

 

I don't know what shard you're on but it might be worth seeing if there is a Praetorian-centric SG around.  The Praetorians SG on Reunion is semi-part time, given the nature of Gold, but we will (if able!) answer the call for help on something from a member. 

[Apparition]

I started my journey soloing every single story arc in Praetoria on a Time Manipulation/Dual Pistols Defender last night.  Currently at level 7.8 with experience disabled.  Let's see how all of those Praetorian ambushes like all of the -speed debuffs between Time's Juncture, Distortion Field, and Cryo ammunition.

[Apogee]

If it helps, you can disable xp at levels 10, 15, and 20 to complete all missions. Getting the extra powers at 10 and 20 can make a difference.

[Icono04]

On 11/25/2020 at 10:30 PM, Mister Mass said:

My latest issue is a Plant/Thorns Dom, & she has been the easiest of all.  The ability to turn your overtuned enemies into your allies is priceless! 😎

 

Do you mind sharing your build for this, please? A solo plant/thorn domi is a "project character" I have been wanting to make for a while, and making it a Praetorian makes a lot of sense. Many thanks in advance.

[Mister Mass]

6 hours ago, Icono04 said:

Do you mind sharing your build for this, please? A solo plant/thorn domi is a "project character" I have been wanting to make for a while, and making it a Praetorian makes a lot of sense. Many thanks in advance.

I’ll try to remember to post this for you when I get home from work tonight.  But really, take & slot the confusion power.  Everything else is gravy.

[Icono04]

13 hours ago, Mister Mass said:

Everything else is gravy.

Gravy is the most important part of any meal. A great gravy turns even a boring piece of meat into a feast. 🙂

[Hew]

fire/dark/mu(fences)/teleport pool (ct, tt, fs) tank

 

Why? If you are soloing the high end of praetoria, you need something that is tough as nails and still put out damage. Soloing the upper (and final) praetoria content is pretty rough, especially if you are playing with avs on solo...

[Darmian]

6 hours ago, Hew said:

fire/dark/mu(fences)/teleport pool (ct, tt, fs) tank

 

Why? If you are soloing the high end of praetoria, you need something that is tough as nails and still put out damage. Soloing the upper (and final) praetoria content is pretty rough, especially if you are playing with avs on solo...

Tough is good, but you don't actually need it to survive, you just need to be smart or you'll get overwhelmed. Did it with my Mind Control/Empathy troller, and yes, you sacrifice XP because you don't hit as hard but you don't get killed as much, "you and you fight to the death while I run away and snipe you".  And when mass confusion drops it's just fun times!

[Oubliette_Red]

22 hours ago, Darmian said:

Tough is good, but you don't actually need it to survive, you just need to be smart or you'll get overwhelmed. Did it with my Mind Control/Empathy troller, and yes, you sacrifice XP because you don't hit as hard but you don't get killed as much, "you and you fight to the death while I run away and snipe you".  And when mass confusion drops it's just fun times!

^^ This.

 

You can solo all Praetorian content an any combination, the difference will be on how fast you can dispatch mobs and whether you can just jump in a faceroll fight or have to fight smart, using pulling techniques, sniping, etc.

 

My currently most played Praetorian is an ex-Shredder Destroyer Savage/Dark Brute that had no issues in the 1-20 content. She's currently 20 so I've not dropped her into any First Ward missions yet.

 

[Tahliah]

I'm another vote for an MM, just about any kind will get you through without too much trouble.  I think you can probably manage on many others, but the thought of slogging through Praetoria on a freshly-rolled blaster/troller/dominator/etc. makes me cringe. Doable, but ugh! I would never have the patience for that kind of "challenge."

 

I've solo'd through on a variety of demon/bot/beast MMs both on live and Homecoming and have had a lot of fun.  In fact, that's my go-to AT for Praet since I mostly play trolls and blasters and had a horrible time soloing those Goldside back on live.  I ended up having to get my SG mate to help me get out of there (he tends to run tanks, brutes, etc., so it was a great duo combo to get my squishies out of there).

 

That said, my ice/ice blaster has solo'd it all (she's my main and my badger), but she was 50+ and tricked out, so of course that was easy, but a new roll--even on my fave ice/ice blast combo?  Shudder.

[Apogee]

The 1-20 Praetoria content really is not that difficult and is very solo friendly. You can run through most maps bypassing trash fights and seldom will anything follow you. There are a few missions with ambushes that can see through any stealth but only one that I can think of that is a legit faceplant threat (Bobcat I'm looking at you).  My advice is to play whatever you want and enjoy the ride. If you find a mission is too tough either lower the difficulty to -1 or autocomplete.

[Lines]

Just finishing a run of Power, first since i27, on an NRG/Rad Scrapper. Low level SOs make ALL the difference; it was a breeze.

 

I imagine most characters will be able to make it through now.

[Murcielago]

I rolled a Fire/EM Blaster and had a hilarious time. I love Praetoria, its really the best place to live. Our benevolent leader watches over us, loves us, and tends to our every need. It's the best place on earth to live!

[Apogee]

I am curious as to why people find Praetoria (1-20) difficult. The enemy groups are generally easier to deal with (clockwork are ranged only, no Vahz toxic damage, no CoT/Tsoo annoyances), the sewers are way easier to navigate, there are no 'layer cake' caves (no caves at all for that matter), and the xp gain is so much faster. The story lines in Praetoria are so much more engaging and better written than most anything in the original game. What is causing people grief Gold-side? Let us know, maybe we can help you through it.

[Twisted Toon]

5 hours ago, Apogee said:

I am curious as to why people find Praetoria (1-20) difficult. The enemy groups are generally easier to deal with (clockwork are ranged only, no Vahz toxic damage, no CoT/Tsoo annoyances), the sewers are way easier to navigate, there are no 'layer cake' caves (no caves at all for that matter), and the xp gain is so much faster. The story lines in Praetoria are so much more engaging and better written than most anything in the original game. What is causing people grief Gold-side? Let us know, maybe we can help you through it.

In my experience, the Praetorian clockwork are annoying because they spread out all over the place and fire at you from range.

Making any AoEs I have practically worthless.

That's really about the only issue I have with them.

[Coyote]

The Ghouls are fast melee enemies who are resistant to Immobs.

Seers put out a lot of mezzing for low level mobs.

Destroyers have a lot of mez-resistant Bosses and Lts who do high damage.

Clockwork are actually the easy guys, heh..

[Ukase]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I have done this before, and it really doesn't matter which AT/powersets you pick. It's kind of like a rock/paper/scissors thing, in my opinion. You go with rock, you find a lot of scissors, but a little paper here and there. Go with Paper...there's a lot of scissors, but more than a few rocks. 

As for me, ice/ice blaster is just about as old school, but as balanced as I can find. No snipe, but the ability to hold most targets by level 8 with a nice AoE which either gets 'em running or bouncing is fairly nice. Ice is mostly single target, which is fine because they are usually spread out. 

Hmm...come to think of it, ice/ice blast is my answer for just about any question on AT/power set choice. 

[Ignatz the Insane]

On 12/5/2020 at 7:50 PM, Apogee said:

The 1-20 Praetoria content really is not that difficult and is very solo friendly. You can run through most maps bypassing trash fights and seldom will anything follow you. There are a few missions with ambushes that can see through any stealth but only one that I can think of that is a legit faceplant threat (Bobcat I'm looking at you).  My advice is to play whatever you want and enjoy the ride. If you find a mission is too tough either lower the difficulty to -1 or autocomplete.

I don't know man, I just went through with a Scrapper, and had a difficullt time.  Enemy groups are much tougher and in larger numbers.  Did you go through with a Stalker?  I can see stealth and placate being huge advantages with some of those fights.

[Gulbasaur]

59 minutes ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

I don't know man, I just went through with a Scrapper, and had a difficullt time.  Enemy groups are much tougher and in larger numbers.  Did you go through with a Stalker?  I can see stealth and placate being huge advantages with some of those fights.

I did it with a rad/rad stalker and found it pretty easy other than one mission where ambush spawns seemed to be infinite and not have a gap between them... that was rough. I dealt with it by just running to the objective and hoping for the best. There was also a mission where you had to take down 50 enemies that kept spawning on a timer - I didn't have any AoE so that was a bit precarious.

[Twisted Toon]

9 hours ago, Coyote said:

The Ghouls are fast melee enemies who are resistant to Immobs.

Seers put out a lot of mezzing for low level mobs.

Destroyers have a lot of mez-resistant Bosses and Lts who do high damage.

Clockwork are actually the easy guys, heh..

They do like to social distance though.

[Coyotedancer]

There are a *lot* of player-targeted ambushes in the Praetorian content... Almost all of them that you run into there, or in the Wards, will ignore Hide. It's the default setting for them in those missions, and it basically means that for any ambush-heavy arc, Stalkers end up having to pretend they're Scrappers. (It's something that absolutely *was* pointed out to the old devs when Praetoria was still in beta... I was one of the people who pointed it out, myself, since I went through it with the first version of Shade. But they completely dismissed it as being a problem.) 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Coyote]

Yeah. Stalkers can't stalk, Dominators and Controllers have to eat the alpha before they can lay down controls, etc. It's nasty. The mobs are tough enough, but the real problems are the lotsa-ambushes missions. Still, it's better than the mobs just sitting around waiting to be taken out one spawn at a time, in every single mission, like the older missions.

[loyalreader]

56 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

There are a *lot* of player-targeted ambushes in the Praetorian content...  Stalkers end up having to pretend they're Scrappers. 

This thread is so timely. I just ran my (first) stalker Goldside and followed the Loyalist/power arc the whole way (also a first)

 

I couldn't believe the mobs I had to fight at level 12. At one point I'm sure I was surrounded by 30+ enemies. At. Level. 12. Insane!

 

I died a few times but... it was still fun 😉

[Umagon 23]

my first character on homecoming was a gold controller. metronome fight like that was just silly 🙂

[Ignatz the Insane]

1 hour ago, loyalreader said:

This thread is so timely. I just ran my (first) stalker Goldside and followed the Loyalist/power arc the whole way (also a first)

 

I couldn't believe the mobs I had to fight at level 12. At one point I'm sure I was surrounded by 30+ enemies. At. Level. 12. Insane!

 

I died a few times but... it was still fun 😉

Indeed!  I didn't convey that in my earlier post, but the danger was thrilling...quite unlike most regular content.  Early Vahz fights come the closest as far as incoming damage, but the enemies are faster, more aggressive, and more numerous Goldside.  I went almost entirely Resistance-Warden last time.  Gonna try again with a Mind Controller Loyalist next time.  Should be fun.