What are some of your most effective weird builds?

[EniEni]

I really enjoy playing archetypes "wrong", playing against type. Like melee dominators, scraptrollers, blappers, that sort of thing. I basically only solo so I'm also not burdening anyone with my weirdness. Anyway, that made me wonder what weird builds other people are playing/have played and which were also pretty effective.

 

I think my most effective was a scrapping fire/kin controller I had back on live. As you can imagine she used fulcrum shift with containment and pp melee powers. Nobody seemed to mind all that much on teams either given everyone gets fulcrum shifted and she ran a bunch of leadership toggles.

[Zect]

Define effective. Everyone thinks their builds are effective - that's human nature for you.

 

But fire/kin/earth trollers were definitely extremely strong and very meta in the sunset days of Live, the age where controllers ruled the world.

 

I find that in general, melee is usually good because this game is still strongly biased in favor of melee: most of the best attacks are melee. (It's not a coincidence that all the examples you list have a melee focus.) Playing against type is also nearly always good in coh, because in this game, 80% of 2 things is a lot stronger than 100% of one and 0% of the other, unless you have some specific task you need to specialize heavily for, e.g. farming, no-insps no-temps AV soloing. Doubly so if one of those two things you have 80% of is dps.

 

For this reason, I play against type fairly often. I build tanky blasters, blasty fenders, and scrappy tankers. I build a lot of rainbow blasters, which are blasters with nearly-permahasten and 45% def to all except psi; they can't compete with the top dps builds, but the loss in dps is considerably less than I imagined (the biggest loss tends to be sustained ST damage, so they suffer more on pylon times, but much less so on clear times of regular content where aoe is involved). I also build a lot of DPS tankers and while they aren't as survivable in challenge content, they completely demolish anything the average casual player will encounter.

 

The build that I found most unexpectedly effective is my Superman build. You know, the inv/ss tanker with flight and laser eyes. While both powersets are fine in their own right and SS in particular is a top 3 powerset, this specific combo has never been considered especially powergamey for a variety of reasons. However, a few years ago I managed to get a build that has

• perma-double rage (actual double rage, as in the crashes line up fully)
• permahasten
• 40% def to all but psi with 1 foe in range
• perma 90% SL res
• 90% non-SL res including psi with 75% uptime (In the quarter of the time the defensive buffs are down, it drops to 72% non-SL res)

It is less tanky than a full turtle invuln is due to the rage crashes, and it doesn't compete with the best SS builds due to the lack of good epic attacks - it will never do 5 mins trapdoor runs. But it's remarkable how much of each it has, which is very fitting. When you need someone to be fast you call the Flash, and when you need someone to be strong you call the Hulk, but when you need the hero who can be both, it's Superman.

[Uun]

I don't play against type so much as I often pick combinations that are unpopular. I've got a Rad/Dark corruptor, Dark/TA blaster and Beast/Traps mastermind, all of which quite effective.

[lemming]

I'm not sure on effectiveness, but my Seismic/Nature Blaster is a bit different.   That and Meteor is built for knockback.

[SeraphimKensai]

Some pairings I've made that have worked out really well over the years:

 

1. Plant/trick arrow troller, built with damage procs, this thing does damn near blaster level AoE damage it seems.
2. Elec/ninja blaster with softcapped typed defense to all except psy/toxic with a res shield. It's a pretty sturdy blaster.
3. Ice/plant blaster built around control and damage. Plays like a petless dominator that never runs out of endurance, does great damage, and has a very fast AoE hold.
4. EM/EA/Mu stalker that gets to incarnate level typed defenses. It's very survivable.
5. FortNight - it's a widow/fortunate that uses buildswap macros while playing to leverage 3 full builds, one designed around melee damage, one around ranged psi, and the other as a support/pet esque controller.
6. I do something similar with my Peacebringer as well cycling between two builds during gameplay as the case might require.

Most of my toons are a combination of multiple powersets, and I like to come up with interesting builds to suit what synergy I can find. They might not be winning trapdoor, combat dummy, or office simulator clear times, but they tend to be more effective than the majority of random pug team members I find in game (not trying to sound elitist or the like, but a lot of that could be the driver behind the toon. I just happen to have 20 years experience at this point).

 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

When people think "dominator" they think "strong controls." Making a dominator with a different key strength is possible, though. 

For example, a gravity / dark dominator can take both wormhole and fold space. It would be the indisputably best character for deciding where mobs will be when fighting them. That would probably offer the most utility when teaming. But, there could also be a zen-like feeling from soloing with that kind of character, as you could head to the center of a room and then "invite" all the spawns in the room to a place, one after another, in which you'd like to fight them. 

Dark assault offers a self-heal and some to hit debuffs that help for coping with damage that trickles through defenses. It also facilitates having a "mobile doom portal" theme to a character that would be focused on managing where mobs will be when fighting them. 

[EniEni]

18 hours ago, Zect said:

I build a lot of rainbow blasters, which are blasters with nearly-permahasten and 45% def to all except psi

 

I'm curious how you're managing such high defense. Is this through IOs and incarnate stuff?

[EniEni]

15 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

FortNight - it's a widow/fortunate that uses buildswap macros while playing to leverage 3 full builds, one designed around melee damage, one around ranged psi, and the other as a support/pet esque controller.

 

This sounds like really good fun and I would like to learn more 😄

[Zect]

6 hours ago, EniEni said:

 

I'm curious how you're managing such high defense. Is this through IOs and incarnate stuff?

 

Yes. There is very little that is innovative about this kind of build. The SL def comes from scorp shield, the FC def comes from winter sets, and the EN def comes from a combination of ATIO's, winter sets, and misc other sets, depending on your power layout. These are all conventional options for blasters.

 

The only incarnate power necessary is barrier, for the last 5% def: without barrier you cannot get close to permahasten. Which means such a blaster can slot musculature and assault like the dps blasters. You see what I mean when I talk about having 80% of two things?

[SeraphimKensai]

8 hours ago, EniEni said:

 

This sounds like really good fun and I would like to learn more 😄

You make a macro that uses /selectbuild to hotswap between builds during a mission.

 

There are a couple of drawbacks though in that it has a 60 second cool down and when you activate it it activates the cool down on every power you have that's not on a current cool down including things like TT, hasten, etc.

 

So I typically time my use of it to shortly after hasten has freshly fired off, or I just reapplied mindlink.

[Krimson]

I have a widow who is neither a Fortunata nor a Night Widow, who uses poison darts, dart burst, and the experimentation pool, combined with Mu Mastery, as the attack chain. 

[Lusiphur Malache]

My weirdest build would have to be my human only warshade.  Very happy when I slotted that last T4.  So don't let them tell you uniform shade is impossible, because if I can do it, anyone can.  Have a ice^3 blaster that is the strongest controller in the game.  Don't know if it is weird, but I have a elec/time controller that is as exciting as watching paint dry on growing grass is very interesting to play.

[Rhymere]

On 4/11/2024 at 9:36 AM, Lusiphur Malache said:

My weirdest build would have to be my human only warshade.  Very happy when I slotted that last T4.  So don't let them tell you uniform shade is impossible, because if I can do it, anyone can.  Have a ice^3 blaster that is the strongest controller in the game.  Don't know if it is weird, but I have a elec/time controller that is as exciting as watching paint dry on growing grass is very interesting to play.

Do you happen to have the ice^3 build? I'm always looking for non-troller trollers to play

[Lusiphur Malache]

Never had anyone ask for a build before.  Did my best with Mids.  Hope it help.

Less than Sub Zero.mbd

[Rhymere]

Thanks!

[Thraxen]

Claws/rad scrapper. Has two healing badges just from /rad. 
 

ice/psi/mind dom is fun. Doesn’t actually hold anything just chills in melee and confuses everything and blasts. 

[StarseedWarrior]

On 4/8/2024 at 8:41 AM, Zect said:

Define effective. Everyone thinks their builds are effective - that's human nature for you.

 

But fire/kin/earth trollers were definitely extremely strong and very meta in the sunset days of Live, the age where controllers ruled the world.

 

I find that in general, melee is usually good because this game is still strongly biased in favor of melee: most of the best attacks are melee. (It's not a coincidence that all the examples you list have a melee focus.) Playing against type is also nearly always good in coh, because in this game, 80% of 2 things is a lot stronger than 100% of one and 0% of the other, unless you have some specific task you need to specialize heavily for, e.g. farming, no-insps no-temps AV soloing. Doubly so if one of those two things you have 80% of is dps.

 

For this reason, I play against type fairly often. I build tanky blasters, blasty fenders, and scrappy tankers. I build a lot of rainbow blasters, which are blasters with nearly-permahasten and 45% def to all except psi; they can't compete with the top dps builds, but the loss in dps is considerably less than I imagined (the biggest loss tends to be sustained ST damage, so they suffer more on pylon times, but much less so on clear times of regular content where aoe is involved). I also build a lot of DPS tankers and while they aren't as survivable in challenge content, they completely demolish anything the average casual player will encounter.

 

The build that I found most unexpectedly effective is my Superman build. You know, the inv/ss tanker with flight and laser eyes. While both powersets are fine in their own right and SS in particular is a top 3 powerset, this specific combo has never been considered especially powergamey for a variety of reasons. However, a few years ago I managed to get a build that has

• perma-double rage (actual double rage, as in the crashes line up fully)
• permahasten
• 40% def to all but psi with 1 foe in range
• perma 90% SL res
• 90% non-SL res including psi with 75% uptime (In the quarter of the time the defensive buffs are down, it drops to 72% non-SL res)

It is less tanky than a full turtle invuln is due to the rage crashes, and it doesn't compete with the best SS builds due to the lack of good epic attacks - it will never do 5 mins trapdoor runs. But it's remarkable how much of each it has, which is very fitting. When you need someone to be fast you call the Flash, and when you need someone to be strong you call the Hulk, but when you need the hero who can be both, it's Superman.

In my research it is human nature it comes down to how one is raised.

Edited April 18 by StarseedWarrior

[Oubliette_Red]

I love playing my Water/Poison Corruptor. Not sure how effective it is, but call it my 'Debuffet'. It was the second character I made after joining HC, but doesn't see the light of day much since the pandemic started, too worried that people would consider it's name 'Hemorrhagic Fever' inappropriate.

 

[Sanguinesun]

On 4/19/2024 at 12:48 AM, StarseedWarrior said:

In my research it is human nature it comes down to how one is raised.

 

What you're describing is nurture. 

[Lazarus]

For me that would have to be my Arachnos Soldier

 

His only attack chain is the 6 ranged attacks from base soldiers.

He is a team buffer and debuffer,..with dual LEADERSHIP ,..

 

very fun and an extremely low stress play style.  

[MizuUeumatsu]

Hi! My unusual mix is a rad/elec brute I know rad/rad is supposed to be better but I had fun way back when with an ss/elec brute and while the taunt cap is less the rad/elec brute is still a blast!

 

Have fun out there...

[StarseedWarrior]

On 4/20/2024 at 11:48 PM, Sanguinesun said:

 

What you're describing is nurture. 

Its all by design and manipulated there is no set in nature for humanity when we have been lied to for eons.

[ShimmerDoll]

I enjoyed reading this thread, keep it going! This is the kind of thing that interests me more than all the other typical builds.

[ZorkNemesis]

Effective is still up for debate since i'm only level 28, but I've somewhat recently remembered I have a Radiation/Martial Blaster where I was going all-in on Blapping.  The setup has me skipping most of my ranged attacks; X-Ray Beam and Cosmic Burst are the two I did take (X-Ray was a necessary pick and Cosmic is just really good) but I still took Irradiate, Aim, and Atomic Blast.  Meanwhile i'm getting everything in Martial Combat (except maybe Throw Sand, haven't decided) and dipping into the entire Fighting pool eventually.  This has given me sort of a speed brawler feel as I can zip into combat with Burst of Speed and deliver hard hitting melee attacks, or when everything's active i'm essentially a tactical nuke being able to drop a heavily proc'd Irradiate and Atomic Blast as soon as I enter the fray.  It's dangerous as I die quick but it's fun as hell.

[MonteCarla]

I had a Rad/Fire Blaster who was very melee-centric.

Hot Feet, Cauterizing Aura, Irradiate and Neutron Bomb, Combust and Fire Sword Circle all providing area damage. 
Defensively I relied on Melee Defence from Obliteration sets in all of them, and slows in Hot Feet so enemies spent longer running away without attacking.

I doubt I skipped Cosmic Burst - it is really good, but the emphasis was on melee attacks.

 

I also made a melee Elec/Elec blaster with the aim of using Thunderstrike with the Knockdown IO and end drain to keep enemies close but harmless. (And Electric Fences to keep them there once drained.) I also started slotting heal procs wherever I could, both Power Transfer and Call of the Sandman in the melee attacks. It wasn't super-effective, but a fun experiment.