Best powerset combo/AT for "Power Armor"?

[Technopathic]

Looking to make an Iron Man inspired character and having a bit of trouble finding powersets and ATs that work well. Was thinking Energy/Devices blaster but that seems to have too many outside animations not contained within the suit. Would prefer to stay ranged as I'm new and not comfortable with "blapping" any suggestions welcome!

[FupDup]

This is pretty much what Sentinels were created for, having an armor set as a secondary. Invulnerability or Energy Aura are good choices for a power armor theme. Invulnerability is more of a "wall of steel" heavy armor kind of vibe while Energy Aura is more like a forcefield generator vibe. EA takes a bit more investment to reach its defense caps while Invuln is a fair bit easier to build, especially if you stick to range (EA benefits from slotting melee sets that have smash/lethal defense, which are rare/nonexistent in ranged sets). 

 

For your primary, some thematic choices include Radiation Blast, Energy Blast, Assault Rifle, and Beam Rifle. A breakdown of each:

 

     *Energy Blast: Didn't translate to Sentinels very well (not unplayable but certainly below average), and it has one melee AOE attack (the nuke)

 

     *Radiation Blast: A solid set but it has two melee AOEs in it (if you mind that)

 

     *Assault Rifle: Good set, pure ranged, but it might give more of a "War Machine" kind of vibe than Iron Man

 

     *Beam Rifle: Good set, pure ranged, but you said you want the animations "contained within the suit" so holding a laser rifle might disqualify it

 

Ultimately, you may need to compromise on either the animations (carry a Beam Rifle) or melee (use Rad Blast). The good news is that if you go with Rad, your armor secondary will make things fairly safe once you're built out. 

 

Now that I think about it, Electric Armor might be thematically workable for this (if you don't mind surging with electricity) and it's a good set too. 

 

Edited June 24 by FupDup

[Cheveyo]

Closest you'll get to Iron Man is probably an Energy/Invuln Sentinel or an Energy/* Blaster. Sent Ancillary and Patron pools don't really fit an Iron Man archetype.

 

Energy/Energy Blaster could fit. Although, my favorite secondary for Blasters is Temporal Manipulation because it's more low-key while being very useful. And it can fit basically any kind of character depending on which powers you take. For example, I made a Dark/Temp Blaster. Basically everything in the set fits. However, on my Fire/Temp Blaster, I don't feel like the attacks in the set mesh, on top of the fact that fire's damage output is high enough without needing help... so I ignored all the attacks.

 

Blasters have the additional benefit of having a couple of Ancillary Pools that can fit an Iron Man type character. Force Mastery, for example has force fields and Temp Invuln. Arsenal Mastery has a passive smash/lethal res and a single target debuff called Surveillance. Arsenal Also has gadgets like Cryo Freeze Ray, LRM Rocket, and Sleep Grenade, but they're not "built in" like Iron Man's stuff is. Your character pulls stuff out of hammer space to use the attacks.

Edited June 25 by Cheveyo