What would be the best soloer from 1-50 blue-red-gold side? Using SOs only.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

PF, you've stated TWICE now and attributed to me something that I have not stated and that isn't true. You should quit that.

 

Yeah, that was me.

 

But I think BillZ got what I was saying when he said:

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I am saying that low level tanks have so much mitigation that they will get to crank up the diff more and far earlier than scrappers and brutes and spend far less time running back from the hospital or even between missions because of it.

 

Without_Pause gets it too:

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

The cases I can see it being true is based on mob size and the melee set with a Tank being able to hit more targets.

 

Because tankers are tougher and have bigger AoEs, they can run at higher difficulty levels before other ATs using similar power sets.  They will almost never be able to compete with stalkers and scrappers on raw damage, especially single target damage.  But on an SO build they can stay in the fight longer, safer, and doing more AoE and whittling the critters away.

 

And my offer stands: If anyone wants to run a side by side test of an SO tank against an SO scrapper or stalker, I just need to coordinate a where and when.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

PF, you've stated TWICE now and attributed to me something that I have not stated and that isn't true. You should quit that.

Apologies. It has been stated in this thread, but no, you did not say that. Sorry, I should have been clear about that.

 

And while the numbers for SR are normal, it's an end hog in my experience. The increase in attack speed coupled with its lack of end mitigation or recovery, and MA's near lack of AoE, is probably the cause of the end problems that I've experienced.

[Ukase]

I can't speak too much about melee for this question, as my "challenge" characters were all non-armor ATs, like blasters, corruptors & defenders. Also, my characters went without the use of p2w for anything. So, that added to the "pain" of each character in the leveling process, so take that into account. Also, I didn't want to be a burden to anyone, so 99% of what I did was solo. I wouldn't ordinarily want to team with someone purposely handicapping themselves, so I felt it would be hypocritical to do so. 

You mention you can't stand being mezzed, but blasters are never truly mezzed as the t-1 & t-2 attacks will fire when mezzed...which is a bit crazy, but not complaining. 
Even so, for SO only, I found the blasters hitting a bit of a wall at level 20 or so. Not impossible, but without the corruptor secondary to help mitigate things like endurance, recharge & defense, for me it was just easier with the corruptors & defenders. 

I read through the forums, and my take-away was that if solo, when choosing between corr & def, go defender. Anecdotally, some powersets the opposite seemed true, but for some, the adage held true. 
Dark/Dark/Dark defender was probably the most painless, as I rarely got hit, and the damage, while not as fun as a blaster, was passable. 

2nd for me was the water/sonic corruptor. Even with just SOs, once I got Sonic Dispersion - an endurance using resist toggle, combined with the knockdown/Knockback of water primary, this character was also rather painless. 

I had thought Dark/rad corruptor & Defender versions would be good, too, but the radiation secondary, while excellent on teams, when solo, the use of the big three - enervating field, Lingering Rad, and Radiation Infection - the animations and toggle costs were just too high to eke out the attacks required. 

 

 

[Sovera]

Brute instead of tank will make early levels fly. Martial arts for the free 7.5% defense but this will mean no AOE until 26. Something defense based to stack the 10%. Maybe Stone since it has strong early level defense and a bunch of goodies like damage aura that will pair well with Fury, more recovery, more recharge.

 

There is no point in talking about a Tanker extra defenses if it takes long enough to kill that mobs have time to retaliate. That was my experience soloing half slotted with Shield/EM. The character was much more durable, but killed so so much slower that mobs had time to whittle me.

 

But It all depends on intentions. If soloing at 0x1 then Blaster and hover outofthe way. Not much survives at 0x1 when AoEs backed by BU are unleashed. Same token for the rest.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Sovera

[ScarySai]

Shooting from the hip, I'll probably forget a few things, but brevity is probably best here.

 

Savage brutes can pretty much do +1x8 the minute they get shred at level two if you just keep pumping the purps/reds as they drop, and it stays strong at 50. Ice/fire is also another strong brute (or scrapper) to try.

 

Claw/bio scrapper is a monster in pretty much every aspect of the game, including leveling.

 

Khelds can't start as gold, but if you slot out those nova AoEs and go tri-form, you'll be blasting through the game at a fairly respectable pace. Once warshades get dwarf mire, it's GG. You'll see people meme on khelds on occasion, but a well played one pretty much is a godlike character until they get outscaled by incarnate level stuff.

 

KM/EN is probably the best exemping stalker, you get your attack chain as early as level eight, and stalker KM is not bad at all,  unlike the other AT's.

 

Everyone loves those /fire blasters, but mental will level and exemp better while not being too far behind on damage. You're also nigh-unkillable when drain psyche is saturated. 

 

Beam/tac and beam/dev (I prefer tac, but both are good.) is a pretty good blaster, the pure ranged playstyle is also relatively unique to these combos. Beam should carry early game, and your secondary gets some fun toys as you inch closer to the 30s. Remember: glue arrow is love, glue arrow is life.

Edited January 24, 2022 by ScarySai

[Snarky]

I would look hard at an Energy Melee Willpower Brute. At +0 using SOs and no P2W I would guess 600-700 hours.  I am nearing the end on a Dark/Invul Brute using I/os and P2W temps and am over 400 hours in, closing on 500.  This left out any contacts that could be put off to 50 (35-50, 40-50, 45-50)

[Spaghetti Betty]

Dark/Rad Scrapper. Some would argue Tank, but Scrapper would give you a little bit more extra DPS in situations that a tank would find itself struggling and/or needing to pop reds. There's a lot of layers to this combo. It's a Resistance-based armor, but you have Beta Decay and attacks from Dark Melee laying on -tohit to act as pseudo-defense. Between Radiation Therapy, Dark Consumption, and Siphon Life, you will never have to worry about HP or Endurance. Particle Shielding also adds a layer of absorb on top of that. Once you get into your upper 20s, the combo really starts to bloom and thrive in large group scenarios.

[nihilii]

On 1/11/2022 at 6:48 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I don't think survival will be the problem though, I think the blue bar will be.

 

I think it's easy to underslot for end when on SOs, which causes problems. With 2 end reduction per click, things go a lot smoother.

 

I'm not ashamed to use amplifiers and recovery serums and insps personally. But it's not a necessity, more me wanting to go go go at reckless speed from the moment I step inside a mission to the very end.

Edited January 27, 2022 by nihilii

[KC4800]

I am playing a Dark Armor/Katana scrapper on SO's only. No seed money, selling all recipes and white or yellow salvage. (keeping the orange salvage and rare recipes that drop) I don't even allow her to combine enhancers.

 

She'll never do +4/8, but that not the reason to play her.

 

She is currently lvl 38 with all lvl 40 SO's, about 1.8 mil in reserve influence. She plays it safe at +1/1.

 

At level 40 she will first enter Ouro and then the university, then start building recipes. She has been stealing Hero Merits out of email storage so she can purchase full scrapper sets with them post the lvl 40 change up.

[Saikochoro]

Depends on the difficulty you plan on using. Pretty much all the melees are great soloists. 
 

- EA stalkers are great, but you are going to have to heavily invest in end redux until you get energize, but once you do get energize you’ll be golden and can reallocate slots to other goals from end redux. Pretty much any attack set will be fine (though maybe not claws or ma due to lack of AoE). You’ll get to pick your fights and stealth when you want to. Can take out the priority targets before the fight even starts basically. 
 

- WP or SR tanks. While I believe shield to be the best armor that is with IOs. I think SR or WP will provide a smoother experience on SOs. My main back on live was EM/WP brute and it did beautifully on only SOs (didn’t use IOs back then). I think a tank would do even better.  I think EM would be a good attack set to use as well, particularly on WP where you won’t care about the self damage. On SR, I would definitely choose dark melee. It fills the healing and recovery gap and is good damage.

 

- I’m also going to throw a vote in for regen sentinels. I do think EA is the best sentinel armor, but since sentinels have lower modifiers it weakens the defense aspect and you can’t stack resist bonuses with IOs. Although regen isn’t the toughest armor, staying at range provides a lot of mitigation to allow your regen/heals/and absorbs to do their thing. I’d pair it with electric blast. Might want to avoid caves though. My 5 year old daughter plays a fire blast/regen sentinel on SOs and does fine with it. It’s simple and effective even if it doesn’t have the extreme potential of other combinations. 

[MTeague]

My picks. 

 

Option #1:   Willpower / Staff FIghting Tanker:

• You'll get a good AoE cone attack at level FOUR, far before most tanks have any AE. And that attack, Guarded Spin, is a Parry-like attack, giving you +Melee/Lethal defense.
• Quick Recovery for less End issues.
• Staff Mastery / Form of the Soul gives you Endurance Discounts, too.
• Plus, Spinny fighting is FUN. 
• I'm somewhat hedging on Willpower though, because I don't know how well it's mix of mitgation methods gel how fast with only SO's.  I've only ever used it tricked out with attuned IO's. 

Option #2:   Fire Blast / Super Reflexes Sentinel: 

• Skip your T1 blast, take your T2 blast.  With only SO's, you're going to want every use of Opportunity to be a Defensive Opportunity for the endurance recovery. The heals don't suck either, but really the endurance recovery is what I'm going for here. 
• You can hoverblast with mez protection. That alone can allow you to pull off some tricks melee can't always do. 
• SR will take awhile to mature. It does need some slots devoted to it before your defenses will mature. But hey, it'll still beat the hell out of the days when you had to slot Training Enhancements and Dual-Origin Enhancements, and your defense simply wasn't good enough for the entire first half of the game. 
• Most importantly, by covering Melee / Ranged / AoE positionals, you won't have to care much about Damage Types.  Most tank sets have a big hole to at least Psi, and without IO's to patch that, that can become.... painful, in places like First Ward (Awakened, anyone?).  There are a FEW damaging attacks that have no assigned position, but *very* few. 
• The Sentinel version of SR gets an absorbtion shield to go with it, allowing for some soaking of hits you don't dodge. 
• The Sentinel version of SR also gets some +Recovery in Enduring that melee version of SR does not yet. This plus Defensive Opportunities, I'm hoping would cure the End woes most other SO builds might face. 

That said, even for both above, I would avoid Defend the Midnight Mansion unless you have your heart set on soloing absolutely every mission. 

If you must do it solo with only SO's, at least go to Bloody Bay first. Earn yourself a Shivan Shard from the meteor collection. You'll need it.