What do you think is the strongest two-person duo?

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Uncle Shags said:

Gravity/Poison to tank and make tight packs of debuffed sardines, fire/kin to damage cap, sb, and BBQ. 

Ya lost me at sardines... BBQ...   😜

[Uncle Shags]

Just now, biostem said:

Ya lost me at sardines... BBQ...   😜

Ha!  Yes, not the best mix of metaphors... 

[Nostromo21]

Me as necro/dark MM and the other one is my army of minions! 🤣

[Nostromo21]

On 1/3/2025 at 11:33 AM, Doc Spectre said:

I think a Widow and a Soldier of Arachnos would do well together.

I was just thinking along similar line - Peacebringer + Warshade! They could mooch team buffs a little bit off each other, but would also be a formidable dps/dps combo. If they need a tank, either can drop into dwarf form and jump forward, taunt, etc - when they get low, switch around, so you have a kiting/rotating dps/tank combo!

[VortexMaster]

11 hours ago, mistagoat said:

I wanna play one of those all VEAT TFs so badly, I bet its amazing fun! Unfortunately, everytime I see one advertised I'm either in the middle of a TF or about to log off... I'll catch one eventually!

 

When my buddy and I leveled out Veats, we paired them together (Widow and SoA, then we swapped) and it was very smooth leveling, VEATs really compliment one another!

 The Victorious VEAT events are amazing! Would love to have you along sometime! We have an In game chat channel for events "Victorious VEATS" or shoot me a msg on the Forums or a tell in game @the vortex master. I will make sure you get in one!

[Scarlet Shocker]

9 hours ago, biostem said:

TBH, no - With 2 'trollers, containment won't be an issue, so you can really leverage the extra damage - maybe throw in a pool attack if you want to fill in some gaps - Toxic Dart is a surprisingly good choice, because unless I've misread the power info, it deals the extra containment damage up-front as lethal damage, instead of an additional toxic DoT...

 

The issue there is that you lose one set that's great for de/buffing and secondary effects. As @biostem points out you can get damage from pool powers to supplement your perceived lack of damage.

 

I do agree that some trollers lack significant damage - I have a Stone/Thermal that I've had since live that is my go-to for teaming. Really solid holds, good buffs and debuffs but solo he can lock stuff down and tickle it to death. Other control sets do have a bit more oomph hence my suggestions. I might even change out the Ill/rad for a Dark/Rad or Dark/Poison

[Mack008]

We ought to pick a Task Force (or may be a farm map) and have duos race to finish it.  Fastest time wins.

[Scarlet Shocker]

That's an interesting idea.

 

One of the things I absolutely love about this game and it's real strengths is there are many different ways of "doing it right!"

 

I am pretty sure that any test of TF/Farm would produce a lot of different two-player combos and once run a few times there would be a pretty close finish with a wide range of duos.

 

I also bet that if the top five duo teams played different combos they'd also come out in roughly the same order regardless of the duos they picked.

 

If anyone is interested in doing something like this in EU compatible times I'd be up for it. I love gigs like this.

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

That's an interesting idea.

 

One of the things I absolutely love about this game and it's real strengths is there are many different ways of "doing it right!"

 

I am pretty sure that any test of TF/Farm would produce a lot of different two-player combos and once run a few times there would be a pretty close finish with a wide range of duos.

 

I also bet that if the top five duo teams played different combos they'd also come out in roughly the same order regardless of the duos they picked.

 

If anyone is interested in doing something like this in EU compatible times I'd be up for it. I love gigs like this.

 

There's also the factor that familiarity with the powersets involved is going to play a big role in duo performance.

 

For example, I'd get much better performance out of a Scrapper than I would out of a Controller, simply because I play Scrappers a lot (and have played numerous Scrapper powersets) and have never actually played a Controller.

 

Similarly, I'd bet the person from Repeat Offenders who posted earlier in the thread (forgot their name, and I'm too lazy to look) would probably get better performance out of Defenders than anything else.

 

So ultimately, the "best" duo for a particular pair of players is probably going to involve an AT (and particular powersets) they are well familiar with.

 

My two currently running duos are a Kin/Psi defender with a Dark/Dark scrapper, and a Storm/Electric blaster with an Electric/Storm defender (which were created for theme reasons more than powerset synergy).  I wouldn't list either of those among the "best" combinations; the former does have excellent synergy since Kin solves pretty much all of Dark Armor's problems, but Dark Melee's lack of AoE damage output is still an issue, and the latter was chosen more for theme than synergy (and they're still fairly low level so I am waiting to see how this develops).  Both have been even more effective than I expected (and I had high expectations), which gives me a sense that with proper powerset selection Defender + Scrapper and Defender + Blaster can both be legitimate contenders.

 

I haven't thought that hard about what powersets would be best, though, because I usually choose for theme.  That said, I can tell you without hesitation that the primary for the Scrapper in an optimal Defender + Scrapper combination would be Claws.  It has more going for it than any other Scrapper primary, both in terms of damage output AND added mitigation (from the KD in Focus and KB in Shockwave, ideally slotted for KB -> KD).

 

I suspect the Blaster Primary would probably be either Fire (for raw damage) or Ice (for utility with still very solid damage), and which would be better would probably depend on the Defender set chosen.

Edited Thursday at 05:48 PM by Stormwalker

[Scarlet Shocker]

15 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

 

There's also the factor that familiarity with the powersets involved is going to play a big role in duo performance.

 

For example, I'd get much better performance out of a Scrapper than I would out of a Controller, simply because I play Scrappers a lot (and have played numerous Scrapper powersets) and have never actually played a Controller.

 

Similarly, I'd bet the person from Repeat Offenders who posted earlier in the thread (forgot their name, and I'm too lazy to look) would probably get better performance out of Defenders than anything else.

 

So ultimately, the "best" duo for a particular pair of players is probably going to involve an AT (and particular powersets) they are well familiar with.

 

My two currently running duos are a Kin/Psi defender with a Dark/Dark scrapper, and a Storm/Electric blaster with an Electric/Storm defender (which were created for theme reasons more than powerset synergy).  I wouldn't list either of those among the "best" combinations; the former does have excellent synergy since Kin solves pretty much all of Dark Armor's problems, but Dark Melee's lack of AoE damage output is still an issue, and the latter was chosen more for theme than synergy (and they're still fairly low level so I am waiting to see how this develops).  Both have been even more effective than I expected (and I had high expectations), which gives me a sense that with proper powerset selection Defender + Scrapper and Defender + Blaster can both be legitimate contenders.

 

I haven't thought that hard about what powersets would be best, though, because I usually choose for theme.  That said, I can tell you without hesitation that the primary for the Scrapper in an optimal Defender + Scrapper combination would be Claws.  It has more going for it than any other Scrapper primary, both in terms of damage output AND added mitigation (from the KD in Focus and KB in Shockwave, ideally slotted for KB -> KD).

 

I suspect the Blaster Primary would probably be either Fire (for raw damage) or Ice (for utility with still very solid damage), and which would be better would probably depend on the Defender set chosen.

 

This kind of feeds into my point about good/experienced players coming out on top regardless of the AT because they will know how the ATs play and understand the finer points of their playstyle.

 

And you really should play a controller. They are a lot of fun and you need not go chasing after your enemies, just lock 'em in place and deal with them as you wish 😃

[Stormwalker]

1 minute ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

This kind of feeds into my point about good/experienced players coming out on top regardless of the AT because they will know how the ATs play and understand the finer points of their playstyle.

 

And you really should play a controller. They are a lot of fun and you need not go chasing after your enemies, just lock 'em in place and deal with them as you wish 😃

 

I'm not patient enough for Controllers.  I'm barely patient enough for Defenders (and not patient enough to solo with one).

 

Dominators I can manage in small doses.

[Gobbledigook]

A Marine/fire or Time/fire defender or Corruptor with a Bio/BA Tanker or other secondary would do quite well in all content.

[Krazix]

Axe/bio scrapper + illusion/kin controller would be my pick I think .