Whats a good combo to solo with ??

[MoonSheep]

3 minutes ago, lemming said:

Problem with most of those tests, they're set at +4/x8.    At +0/x1 it barely matters.   Honestly, the biggest obstacles are some of the EB fights and outside that any AT is fine.

 

i think at +0/x1 a scrapper would be a much better choice than a brute. having to maintain fury with limited battles is tough

 

at the start of each mission the brute would be starting with a significant disadvantage compared to the scrapper and spend the first few battles “catching up” in terms of damage output

[drbuzzard]

Heck, if you want to be deliberate and take your time, it's hard to beat a stalker. 

[Without_Pause]

33 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

in game tests seem to suggest tanks outperform brutes across almost all powersets. can you link me to your tests?

 

edit: for x1 missions i would imagine brutes would be further disadvantaged by not building sufficient levels of fury, giving further advantage to a tank or scapper

Do note, I find Trapdoor tests irrelevant on a certain level. If nothing else, Trapdoor is so not what the person is going to do diff wise and the size of AoEs do matter in a Trapdoor test. Also, I've never had an issue of generating Fury on a Brute. They literally get an IO for it. Saying that, a Stalker or Scrapper is going to blow through these faster than either a Brute or a Tanker.

[A Cat]

24 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i think at +0/x1 a scrapper would be a much better choice than a brute. having to maintain fury with limited battles is tough

 

at the start of each mission the brute would be starting with a significant disadvantage compared to the scrapper and spend the first few battles “catching up” in terms of damage output

Personally, even at x1, I've never had problems with fury. It builds to "max" (it's never at 100 even in a farm, but at the max realistic amount) in like, one mob. Brute's fury is also a huge boost in damage output compared to anything else in the earlyish levels. I'm a scrapper main myself, but Brutes have a large advantage early on before enhancements start getting good. 

 

22 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Heck, if you want to be deliberate and take your time, it's hard to beat a stalker. 

One fun thing to consider also for the same reasons is a /nin scrapper. You get a large chance of crit for your first attack out of stealth. That was some of my favorite solo play. At x1 stalkers would not suffer much from many of their sets losing AoE's for their AS. 

[Go0gleplex]

I pretty much solo exclusively and I've found the easiest to solo with are Sentinels and Brutes. A little more challenging are Blasters, Corruptors, and Master Minds. More challenging still are Scrappers and Stalkers. Opinions of course will differ. 😉  Tankers can do it, but the damage output is lacking so it turns into a slog-fest which just bores the heck outta me. The 20-35 content grind is bad enough without adding to it. 

 

Currently running:

Red side: A Fire/Rad Brute, A Fire/Dark Corrupter, and just started an Ice/Time Blaster

Gold side: A Energy/Invul Sentinel and Savage/Elec Brute

Blue side: Elec/Rad Sentinel, Rad/Elec Sentinel, Water/Rad Sentinel, Storm/Time Blaster, Street Just/Dark Brute, Street Just/Will Stalker, and a Claws/Dark Brute

 

I rarely  ever face plant...maybe a dozen times spread out over 30 toons +/- since I've came back; outside of the red side Infernal arc and Clone arc...and only start popping inspirations when dealing with orange/red or boss mobs. 

 

 

[Snarky]

52 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Heck, if you want to be deliberate and take your time, it's hard to beat a stalker. 

A Blaster is faster than a Stalker for me solo.  It can kill the Boss Lt minion groups faster and it can mow down any large spawns.  At least in my testing of all Dark Dark archetypes 

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

Do note, I find Trapdoor tests irrelevant on a certain level. If nothing else, Trapdoor is so not what the person is going to do diff wise and the size of AoEs do matter in a Trapdoor test. Also, I've never had an issue of generating Fury on a Brute. They literally get an IO for it. Saying that, a Stalker or Scrapper is going to blow through these faster than either a Brute or a Tanker.

 

i think in general a scrapper is a great all rounder, not seeing as many on teams thesedays though - not receiving enough hype?

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

A Blaster is faster than a Stalker for me solo.  It can kill the Boss Lt minion groups faster and it can mow down any large spawns.  At least in my testing of all Dark Dark archetypes 

Admittedly I don't have a dark melee stalker, but there's a number of stalker builds which are not bad for AOE. Given that they're set for min diff, you don't really need much AOE anyway. AS the Lt, placate the minion and kill at leisure. 

[cranebump]

6 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i think in general a scrapper is a great all rounder, not seeing as many on teams thesedays though - not receiving enough hype?

Good question. I tend to agree, though I somehow ended up in a team with 3 scrappers last week. 
 

Just when you think ‘X,’ freakin’Y’ shows up…:-)

Edited October 3, 2023 by cranebump

[WumpusRat]

5 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

this is outdated advice - tankers now outpace brutes in gameplay due to the wider AoEs their inherent provides

He's talking about soloing, not running at x/8. The larger tanker aoes are irrelevant if you're not fighting enough mobs to make the bigger aoe matter.

 

Also, I think you underestimate how fast fury builds. Even running at 0/1 it's incredibly easy for a brute to maintain 85% fury for nearly the entire mission, unless you're literally moving at a walk and stopping to go afk every couple minutes.

[smnolimits43]

Thanks alot for getting back to me.  There was alot to read.  Since Halloween is approaching, and my Birthday is coming up, I have decided on a Fire/Fire Sentinel.

[ScarySai]

1 hour ago, WumpusRat said:

He's talking about soloing, not running at x/8. The larger tanker aoes are irrelevant if you're not fighting enough mobs to make the bigger aoe matter.

 

I really wish people would stop confidently saying wrong things on these boards, tankers blow brutes out of the water even when soloing.

 

To answer the OP: I'll just throw all the best options off the top of my head and you can pick what vibes with you best.

Blasters: AR/ta, Fire/fire, Water/atomic

Scrappers: Claw/bio, Energy/rad, Ice/fire, DB/energy

Corruptors: Can't go wrong with ice, water and dark paired with dark, cold and storm. Storm is also really good if you play around it's strengths. Psi/kin is also probably the new best kin pairing.

Defender: Poison paired with fire or procced DP.

Controllers: Illusion+cold, dark or rad. Plant/storm, gravity/storm.

Dominators: Plant/psi, Dark/earth, Mind/dark.

Tankers: Anything with SR, shield and bio will be effectively unkillable in most content. Martial is probably the strongest output set right now overall, a bio/martial is disgusting, but dark melee will be extra good on shield and SR.

Brute: Same as tanker, but they are inferior to tanks in essentially every way. Regen becomes an option, just because tanks don't have it.

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by ScarySai

[Gobbledigook]

Fortunata

 

[rolandgrey]

24 minutes ago, smnolimits43 said:

Thanks alot for getting back to me.  There was alot to read.  Since Halloween is approaching, and my Birthday is coming up, I have decided on a Fire/Fire Sentinel.

That's a good build!  I've got one that looks like a dragon!

[GM Crumpet]

20 hours ago, smnolimits43 said:

well i'm not really looking to run +4x8, perhaps an easy -1x0.  I was thinking of playing my ghost character Spookyboo.  Especially now that Halloween is around the corner.

You really don't need to run at -1 most of the time. I play a lot of solo and once I get some slots and SO's I run at +1 without much difficulty. I'll -1 if there is a really hard boss like Veles, but apart from that it's pretty much anything goes. If you seem to slicing through mobs with ease it's easy enough to go up a notch, if you struggle then down a notch. Early game especially you can do default with little difficulty

 

[Without_Pause]

3 hours ago, ScarySai said:

 

I really wish people would stop confidently saying wrong things on these boards

 

Says a person who confidently offered up min/max options for soloing on the min diff setting the game has. I just find it hilarious to offer up things like a procced out build as something to use for soloing at the minimal diff setting or a Shield/dark or SR/dark Tanker. Again, there is zero advantage to the AoE size of Tankers when you are facing all of 3-4 targets. You would have to waste time herding up multiple mobs for it to matter and a Scrapper/Stalker/Blaster would have simply destroyed the mobs as they encountered them and moved on.

 

Do note, if Tankers simply outdo Brutes regardless of the size of their AoEs, then that's just begging for Tankers to get nerfed. There's zero reason for a Tanker to out damage a Brute limited to the range of what a Brute can reach.

 

Other things which would have worked well, any build which offers up two holds or some sort of stacked mezz. I have enjoyed soloing my TA/ice defender. I can't recall where I left off soloing it in terms of diff setting, but even +0/x1 would be a cake walk. I also have a few /ta Controllers who I like. 

 

(Who has deleted multiple tanks which I was soloing due to boredom)

[A Cat]

I'm guessing that it also has to do with brutes getting repeatedly nerfed also. As someone who occasionally farmed, I am part of the problem, but it is a shame that the whole AT got nerfed for such a niche activity. A lot of my brutes (used to main brutes) got rerolled as scrappers and tanks. Tanks are a bit slow getting off the ground due to a low number of attacks though. 

 

One thing that should be established is if the OP is going to use a self funded leveling build, or a Gucci bling bling build funded by their trust funds. 

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, smnolimits43 said:

Thanks alot for getting back to me.  There was alot to read.  Since Halloween is approaching, and my Birthday is coming up, I have decided on a Fire/Fire Sentinel.

my condolences

[MoonSheep]

3 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Do note, if Tankers simply outdo Brutes regardless of the size of their AoEs, then that's just begging for Tankers to get nerfed. There's zero reason for a Tanker to out damage a Brute limited to the range of what a Brute can reach.

 

Other things which would have worked well, any build which offers up two holds or some sort of stacked mezz. I have enjoyed soloing my TA/ice defender. I can't recall where I left off soloing it in terms of diff setting, but even +0/x1 would be a cake walk. I also have a few /ta Controllers who I like. 

 

(Who has deleted multiple tanks which I was soloing due to boredom)

 

i’m happy to add some data to the conversation this weekend through testing a few tank and brute builds, i’m curious to see what the difference is at x1

[drbuzzard]

12 hours ago, smnolimits43 said:

Thanks alot for getting back to me.  There was alot to read.  Since Halloween is approaching, and my Birthday is coming up, I have decided on a Fire/Fire Sentinel.

This should work out well (I have one). It's a pretty easy build. I suggest hover blasting, though at low difficulty, it won't really be necessary. 

[Shred Monkey]

While anything can solo, I find I strongly prefer higher damage toons... the big difference between soloing and teams is how quickly you clear a mission.  If you have a damage toon, you can clear missions quicker and keep things moving forward.

 

Personally I really enjoy playing a blaster with high ranged defense from IOs.  This gives me an added challenge of staying out of melee while hitting from range.  It's also an extremely powerful setup for endgame play.

[tidge]

8 hours ago, A Cat said:

I'm guessing that it also has to do with brutes getting repeatedly nerfed also. As someone who occasionally farmed, I am part of the problem, but it is a shame that the whole AT got nerfed for such a niche activity. A lot of my brutes (used to main brutes) got rerolled as scrappers and tanks. Tanks are a bit slow getting off the ground due to a low number of attacks though.

 

I'm going to offer my (personal, internal) perspectives on the whole Tanker/Brute ruckus.

 

On Live: Whatever debate/discussion folks have about TvB... I remember almost the exact argument being had about Tankers v. Scrappers ... long before Brutes were even in the game. Among Tankers;, there was an extraordinary imbalance in favor of Fire Tankers, because of enemy AI (and to some extent the aggro rules).  At certain points, there were many loud voices proclaiming "Tankers are irrelevant", with exceptions made for "map herding". Many of us will be able to think of both specific and general content where a Tanker was preferred to relying only on Scrappers; my point is there were many loud voices making the earlier comment.

 

Some changes (noticeably the AI changes, then the aggro cap) had a big effect on what those loud voices though "Tankers were good at"... so cumulative changes (CoV, Blueside Brutes, AE) resulted in (my PoV both of Live and early Homecoming) loud voices proclaiming "Brutes are superior to Tankers in every way". As near as I can tell: this "Superiority" was being measured in x8 map clearing times. Again: my point is not to argue that, it's just that this always appeared to be a cornerstone of loud arguments of players who really wanted to confidently say "Brutes are superior to Tankers".

 

I don't personally believe Brutes ever got nerfed. I am bracing myself for a long litany of follow-up posts informing the world how wrong my perception is. I can see how some power set changes affected HC AE Fire Farms. I can see how AI changes "slow down" farming. I can see how altering XP (and Empyrian merit) rewards affects the Inf-building bottom line for some activities. I can understand how the revision to defense/resistance attack typing can have altered the performance (and perception) of specific defense/resist builds. None of these changes were targeted at Brutes IMO. Boosting the AoE radii of Tankers was not a swing of the nerf bat at another AT.

 

Full disclosure: I generally do not enjoy ATs (or builds) that require constant button mashing or enemy engagement in missions. During play I try to pay some attention to General chat, and who knows what I might be doing with open inventory/auction house windows. Dominators I can tolerate once "perma-domination" is achieved... all discussion about that can be found elsewhere... but Brutes and the Fury bar mechanic has never really appealed to me. This player (points to self) is far more likely to roll a melee concept as a Scrapper, Tanker, or Stalker sacrificing what the Fury bar can do, simply because I don't enjoy building/maintaining Fury.

 

Fundamentally, my perception of the combat part of the game comes down to "how many button mashes do I need to clear this spawn/enemy?"... so requiring two attacks instead of three attacks is obviously fewer clicks, but I start to lose interest in min-maxing when the difference is seven clicks instead of eight.

[ScarySai]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I don't personally believe Brutes ever got nerfed. I am bracing myself for a long litany of follow-up posts informing the world how wrong my perception is.

 

Dam cap was hit before HC got around to it, I forget how many times between then and now, but brutes took a few hits and were still basically on top by virtue of how bad critless scrappers, pre-HC tanks and pre-rework stalkers were.

 

Brute sort of coasted by due to being the least awful melee, which over time - as functionality was fixed for other melee classes - highlighted more of the issues with brute on HC.

 

11 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Says a person who confidently offered up min/max options for soloing on the min diff setting the game has.

 

Should I be recommending bad character combos because it's -1 diff? Spare me.

[Frostbiter]

6 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 

Dam cap was hit before HC got around to it, I forget how many times between then and now, but brutes took a few hits and were still basically on top by virtue of how bad critless scrappers, pre-HC tanks and pre-rework stalkers were.

 

Brute sort of coasted by due to being the least awful melee, which over time - as functionality was fixed for other melee classes - highlighted more of the issues with brute on HC.

 

 

Should I be recommending bad character combos because it's -1 diff? Spare me.

 

You can recommend anything you want, as can anyone else. The problem lies in trying to gatekeep. You can leave that at the door.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Frostbiter

[ScarySai]

I don't think you know what gatekeeping means.