Help me decide what to play solo -- but no melee.

[RooGirl]

My main on Live was RooGirl, an MA/Regen scrapper, and I'm currently having fun recreating her. I know it's not the OP combo it used to be, but it's my fun build, with stealth and other extraneous toys.

 

I'm also playing a fire/fire tanker with my mom, we used to play together on Live and we're having fun with it again.

 

I'd like to play something completely other than melee DPS, which is what I always gravitate to in MMOs, because most of them don't have the flexibility of CoH's power system. Something that's great at soloing and would also have utility in the endgame/TFs/etc. No MM, because while they're fun, they're fiddlier than I want. I'm thinking along the lines of blaster or controller, but open to almost anything other than brutes, stalkers, tankers, etc.

 

I'm asking for advice largely because there are so many more powersets now, I'm kind of paralyzed by choice. So if there's a combo you particularly like, and it's a strong soloer, tell me about it. I don't need to solo AVs or crazy numbers of +2s, just a fun soloing experience. I'm also looking forward to creating a costume concept around a brand new AT/powerset. Thanks for your suggestions!

Edited June 14, 2022 by RooGirl
clarification and typo

[Errants]

Beam/EnA Sentinel.

Or Water/Regen Sentinel.

[Erratic1]

There is a certain joy to Fire/Dark controller.

[Lyrium]

Time/ or Dark/ defender!

[Nemu]

The recommendation depends on a few things:

 

How much inf do you have/ or are you willing to invest into this build?

Would you rather have something that blooms early or something that matures later? (ultimate potential vs consistent leveling experience?)

How fast do you want to arrest stuff?/Are you more interested in exploring non-damaging options like controls/debuffs/buffs?

What's your attention span and skill level relative to how busy some sets and playstyles can be? For example:

Are you more of a "I stand/hover in one place and hit stuff" person or a "I'll move around to position my attacks and take advantage of movement/terrain kind of person?"

 

People will say all ATs can solo that that's true, but some are more of a pain to solo than others. Some have a higher skill ceiling than others, and some require quite a bit of investment to shine.

[RooGirl]

1 hour ago, Nemu said:

How much inf do you have/ or are you willing to invest into this build?

Would you rather have something that blooms early or something that matures later? (ultimate potential vs consistent leveling experience?)

How fast do you want to arrest stuff?/Are you more interested in exploring non-damaging options like controls/debuffs/buffs?

What's your attention span and skill level relative to how busy some sets and playstyles can be? For example:

Are you more of a "I stand/hover in one place and hit stuff" person or a "I'll move around to position my attacks and take advantage of movement/terrain kind of person?"

Thanks for your questions!

 

Inf: not really thinking about that yet. I hope not to use expensive enhancements until at least 40. 

 

Looking for more of a consistent leveling experience. I don't feel the need to be ULTIMATE SOLOER at 50 since I want to be teaming more at that point.

 

I'm more interested in AoEs than quick kills right now, coming from my scrapper. So yeah, I'm willing to play with controls and debuffs. I do like burning mobs down slowly but efficiently, but things like /devices and /traps might be a little more fiddly than I want right now.

 

Since my scrapper is stand-and-hit, I'm open to moving around more. I do love to line-of-sight and move enemies around.

[Bill Z Bubba]

No melee but easy soloing with AoEs? My Fire/Bio Sentinel is one of my most played characters. He was an absolutely breeze from 1 to 50 and now fully kitted out, he can hang well with blasters, not so much on kill speed but his extra survivability means he spends far less time running away with his tail between his legs.

[Doomguide2005]

     I'm looking forward to many non-melee types once I've got a functional computer again.  But one I was having a blast with was an Electric/Fire Blaster.  An absolute ton of AoE potential.  I believe it was 7 PBAoE attacks potentially.  And I last played him before the changes to Electric Blast and the Shock mechanics so curious and looking forward to trying it out.

[JJDrakken]

23 hours ago, RooGirl said:

My main on Live was RooGirl, an MA/Regen scrapper, and I'm currently having fun recreating her. I know it's not the OP combo it used to be, but it's my fun build, with stealth and other extraneous toys.

 

I'm also playing a fire/fire tanker with my mom, we used to play together on Live and we're having fun with it again.

 

I'd like to play something completely other than melee DPS, which is what I always gravitate to in MMOs, because most of them don't have the flexibility of CoH's power system. Something that's great at soloing and would also have utility in the endgame/TFs/etc. No MM, because while they're fun, they're fiddlier than I want. I'm thinking along the lines of blaster or controller, but open to almost anything other than brutes, stalkers, tankers, etc.

 

I'm asking for advice largely because there are so many more powersets now, I'm kind of paralyzed by choice. So if there's a combo you particularly like, and it's a strong soloer, tell me about it. I don't need to solo AVs or crazy numbers of +2s, just a fun soloing experience. I'm also looking forward to creating a costume concept around a brand new AT/powerset. Thanks for your suggestions!

 

Dominator - Gravity Control - Savage Assault.mxd   This should give you nice variety. It's ranged based, has control, offense, & when recipe up.  Great Defenses.

[Nemu]

16 hours ago, RooGirl said:

Thanks for your questions!

 

Inf: not really thinking about that yet. I hope not to use expensive enhancements until at least 40. 

 

Looking for more of a consistent leveling experience. I don't feel the need to be ULTIMATE SOLOER at 50 since I want to be teaming more at that point.

 

I'm more interested in AoEs than quick kills right now, coming from my scrapper. So yeah, I'm willing to play with controls and debuffs. I do like burning mobs down slowly but efficiently, but things like /devices and /traps might be a little more fiddly than I want right now.

 

Since my scrapper is stand-and-hit, I'm open to moving around more. I do love to line-of-sight and move enemies around.

Early AoE potential and consistent leveling experience typically means you'll want to go with an offensive primary. If you want to pair that up with debuffing and some controls I'd recommend a corruptor.

 

Water blast is all around consistent, and all attacks keeps you at range. Pair that up with trick arrow and you'll have a pure ranged combo where every level up brings meaningful additions to your toolkit. Alternatively you can try the blaster variant, trick arrow and tactical arrow share some similarities, and most blasters don't have to worry about running out of endurance too much when they hit level 20, I'd recommend the water blast/trick arrow corruptor if you are looking to explore playing with more debuffs though. Water blast has a self heal, so the only thing you really need are some breakfrees for mez protection. The combo also doesn't need heavy IO investment to do well.

 

If you lean more towards the control route I'd go dominator, but perma dom is expensive and there's a steep performance difference between perma dom and not perma dom.

 

Controllers just don't kill all that fast, containment helps but most combos won't do a lot of damage without heavy IO investment or late game powers like fulcrum shift. You can certainly still solo with them but I think you will find it tedious after a while.

 

Defenders suffer from having their attacks as a secondary powerset. Some combos can be front-loaded with buffs/debuffs from your primary that you want to get ASAP such that you can find yourself with only 2 attacks in your mid teens. That doesn't spell a consistent solo leveling experience.

[MoonSheep]

i’m probably a bit biased but a mind/fire dom has everything at range, very high damage and a fun soloing experience. i’ve done most of the games content several times over on mine, a lot of it solo - currently at around 9600 merits

[SeraphimKensai]

Ice/storm/dark, ice/cold/dark, or ice/dark/dark are all excellent choices of corruptors. You can sub in fire blast over ice blast as well.

 

You can build them to have softcapped melee/ranged/energy/negative energy defense and perma soul drain and they all work extremely well.

[RooGirl]

Wow, thank you all for such varied and interesting suggestions! I have a feeling my altaholism is going to be triggered by wanting to try all the builds...and what's wrong with that?? I look forward to giving these ideas a spin. I really appreciate your help in moving me out of decision gridlock!

[Armaaz]

To give you another thing to ponder... may I suggest plant control. It is a smooth levelling experience with seeds coming so early. Mine is a plant/storm controller but I imagine many other secondaries would work well. Or a dominator for faster killing out the gate.

[Zepp]

Ill/Storm troller...

[Riverdusk]

15 hours ago, Armaaz said:

To give you another thing to ponder... may I suggest plant control. It is a smooth levelling experience with seeds coming so early. Mine is a plant/storm controller but I imagine many other secondaries would work well. Or a dominator for faster killing out the gate.

 

I'd second this, since you said you are more interested in aoe.  Plant controller with almost any secondary of your choice.  It blooms early (sorry pun) and gets better and better. 

 

Edit: Tip, pick up your single target immob and/or arcane bolt from sorcery pool.  Helps a ton with getting an actual single target attack chain going early.  It isn't going to be a blaster or scrapper of course, but always seemed plenty fast enough to me.  

Edited June 16, 2022 by Riverdusk