Best AT / Powerset to Solo content

[jprewitt73]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:58 AM, Go0gleplex said:

I'm strictly a solo player. Easiest to solo with are Sentinel, Brute, MM, Blaster, Scrapper/Stalker...in that order. Of course power set selection will affect things as well...

Agree with this as well. 

 

Sentinel is almost solo easy mode. Brute is easy mode lite. MM is boring easy mode. Blaster is sphincter closing easy mode. Scrapper/Stalker are easy mode but with some occasional difficulties depending on the mission. 

[Sovera]

5 hours ago, JCServant said:

Well, I'm just hoping to hear from you all what builds YOU have found most usefull/successful in solo'ing the most amount of content possible. Which, I would imagine, would be those characters capable of tackling a variety of AVs since without that, one cannot solo task forces.  Nearly any character can solo story arcs, though some a lot slower than others. Speed isn't my main question here, however. It's more of capability. Which ATs / powersets can take on the most content in the game solo.  If possible, link builds as well 🙂  

 

The (near) immortal build in my signature gets you an early start. It soloed all the AVs as I did my leveling at +1x8 once getting and that was on the exemplaring/leveling build using Scorch. Switching Scorch for Incinerate will be a damage boost making whittling the AVs faster.

 

 

Most of the advice in this thread is perfectly on point, but I will add my own opinion that it is better to sin by oversurvival than overdamage. Overdamage is fine for a good chunk of the game until we hit the really tough situations and then we are dependant on inspirations of which we only have so much room for (we can mail them and take them from the mail mid-fight though).

 

Oversurvival means surviving at all times and for most things the damage is enough. When we hit a super hard enemy, well, we can whittle it down stubbornly (the way I did as leveling but between being a Tanker and still using Scorch it made things like the AV at the end of Numina's TF a 15 minute fight but I was perfectly safe during that time) or using Envenomed Daggers (which would have taken a large chunk out of those 15 minutes and which we can carry 300 (if I recall correctly) of).

 

You can also have both (in a manner of speaking) by doing things like a Fire/Fire Tanker which will muller large spawns of enemies with triple PbAoEs (another thing it takes playing for a while to appreciate when we can skip cone AoEs and take PbAoE instead and how much better the second one is) and is still high up in the stratosphere in terms of survival compared to most other ATs (I soloed the ITF at +4x8 with enemies buffed and inspirations disabled with no deaths allowed and only died at the last boss when it stunned me and made me drop my toggles, so 'Fire Armor is squishy' is relative).

 

... now I feel like leveling another Fire/Fire, it was good fun the first time around. But the Stone/Fire Melee was definitely easy mode compared.

 

 

Reiterating what I earlier said the agro aura is also lovely to have but it will take solo with and without to give it the proper appreciation, but it's not a huge deal until getting jaded and cranky *cough*.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:16 AM, JCServant said:

Ah... I think I need to clarify.  In my humble opinion, nearly any class can solo most story arcs at default settings. But which class can solo the most content - i.e. task forces - which would require taking on full arch villains and the like? Since if one solo's a task force, that is likely to be the hardest part to get through as there's no way to turn off A/Vs in task forces.  That's why I mentioned AV in my original post. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if one solo's a task force, they are facing AVs, right?

 

It sounds like you are geared towards doing TFs/SFs.  Depending on what you mean by "default settings" then there are two primary goals for a build and then for me an important secondary one.

 

1.  Defeat all the cannon fodder.  Generally, TFs are going to have a lot of opponents, although generally not particularly difficult ones.  In this case you are going to want to focus on AoE damage and surviving the waves of cannon fodder.  Of course, this is where your choice of how many heroes you want to fight as becomes important -- by endgame I'm running x8 but I'm not going to run a Synapse at x8.

 

2.  Defeat the end AV/AVs.  Now you need a build capable of defeating an AV.  Not all AVs are alike, and a +0 AV is significantly easier than a +4 AV.  In this case you are going to want to focus on ST damage, some debuff (particularly -regeneration), and maybe some crowd control, like immob.  There are some AVs you will spank at +0 and you will find "unbeatable" at +4.  

 

3.  For a long while, this game has been modified to make it easier for players to build extremely powerful characters, and the devs have responded by making tougher enemy groups.  To me, my third characteristic for soloing story arcs at a high level means I need to be prepared for massive debuffs.  

 

My game play is to play pretty much whatever until 50, and then I will run the characters I like at +4/x8 through the endgame arcs I like.  In lots of those arcs, you are dealing with enemies who are going to crush you with sheer numbers of debuffs unless you are able to assess your threats.  A mission of +4/x8 Crey nowadays is no cakewalk, and in comparison someone like Countess Crey is a welcome diversion.

 

 

[Marshal_General]

I really need to find a list of power sets that have reliable -regen and -resist, preferably both.

[vibal]

Yomo's spot on. You have to find the right balance of mitigation, damage, and sustain. For any content/any level/any difficulty the answer for me is still ill/rad. I've tried a lot of the recommendations in the thread which all run fine right until the moment they don't. A ton of toons feel great in the best case scenario write up, but catastrophically worse in the opposite.

 

Illusion has all the solo bits directly in the kit, and rad brings debuff/sustain/and an underrated buff. Some swear by cold for it's superior debuff but solo you're sacrificing the self heal which is a tool that doesn't matter until it's literally the only button that will solve your problem. Dark gets more interesting tools, but it's heal is tied to a hit check and it lacks +recharge. The gap controllers need to fill is damage and illusion is admittedly poor at utilizing containment.

MM's feel great until some x8 longbow drop 4-5 autohit -res grenades directly onto your pets who are currently being blasted by 5-6 flamethrower AoE's. You can keybind, position, set up, babysit, etc. etc... but the juice just never felt like it was worth the squeeze. 

 

Willpower (or insert your favorite here) is a great secondary for melee until you soak 2 mask of vitiation's or miss a sapper and get 115-0'd on your blue in a matter of moments. Or two master illusionists summon x3 illusionists and 9 flashes go off in ~2 seconds. Exotic resists are present in sets like dark and electric, but then you're sacrificing mitigation in other areas. Electric doesn't want to play with 3 +4 toxic tarantula's and dark certainly isn't going to enjoy a bunch of carnie non positional psi damage.

 

There's ways around a lot of the hurdles in game though. Envenomed dagger gives everyone access to -regen and isn't all that pricey. The p2w boosters are also underutilized, but give significant bumps to survivability. 

[JCServant]

Indeed Vibal & Yobo. So my question is, do you all have favorite ATs and Powersets that allow you do all of that?  Essentially, what are your best choices for being able to solo all of the content. Or, better yet builds you're willing to share?  

 

On the topic of difficulty, I'm not looking to ace everything on x8+4 or anything. I just want to see how much of the content in-game I can experience solo on one character.

[Zect]

16 hours ago, JCServant said:

On the topic of difficulty, I'm not looking to ace everything on x8+4 or anything. I just want to see how much of the content in-game I can experience solo on one character.

 

Okay, now that you've refined your question a little, I can provide the correct answer, which is a dom with confuse.

 

Specifically, ill/ mind/ or dark/ (note dom's PA has no taunt, you need the confuse), ideally with a 2ndary that has some sustain in it (/psi being the classic with its -regen as well, anything with a selfheal will do fine though).

 

Now my days of doing anything for forum clout or epeen are long over, but this thread (not by me) has some nice video examples at the bottom. And if you follow the thread of crumbs I'm sure there is a build or three as well.

Edited March 21 by Zect

[JCServant]

Thank you for that.  My psychic (mental) dom has a problem with quite a few maps on solo.  Arachnos in particular seem to be rather immune.

 

But yea, Like I said, I'm just looking for ideas, powersets, and builds that can experience the most content possible.  I never said anything about soloing the highest-difficulty options. That would clearly restrict which content most builds can experience and trying to solo things at +4 is much tougher than -1.  

[Yomo Kimyata]

22 hours ago, JCServant said:

Indeed Vibal & Yobo. So my question is, do you all have favorite ATs and Powersets that allow you do all of that?  Essentially, what are your best choices for being able to solo all of the content. Or, better yet builds you're willing to share?  

 

Yobo?  YOBO?!?

 

My answer is generally always going to be scrappers, because that’s how I roll.  But in general I’d say play something you like and figure out how to make it work.  Soloing an AV becomes easier if you throw the kitchen sink of the P2W vendor at them!

[shortguy on indom]

no advice as per the 'best' AT or power combo.  no idea.

got most every contact arc completed solo..... with my defender, but could only complete a few of the tfs/sfs... tried many of them many times, some taking 7 hrs., just to fail at final boss. lol.

only help (if it can even be called that), is to run multiple builds on the solo toon.

without multi-build, i would have stood no chance when my current gear does not work so well against a particular foe/faction...  i just pick a safe spot to in the mish to 'select build x' and try again with a more defensivee or aggressive build or possibly one with a different epic/patron pool.

 

 

[DoctorDitko]

My Bots/Traps MM was the quickest to 50 for me, though not the most fun. That would be my Storm/Ill Defender, she has such a bag of tricks there is almost always something she can do. Good on teams, too, at least once the PUG realizes they didn't hire a HEALer, they hired a DEFENDer.*

 

 

* Favorite feedback at the end of a TF during which nobody but the bad guys took much damage.

"Good heals, BTW!" Didn't have the heart to tell them...