Best "do everything" character?

[AcceptsCookies]

I have less time to play than I used to, so I'm looking for recommendations for a character that can reasonably do everything, into which I can put the bulk of what time I do have. 

 

My goals are to have enough personal defenses to survive groups, enough damage to defeat them, enough buffs and/or debuffs to aid a team, perhaps even the odd control ability. Not necessarily to be the best at any one thing, but adequate at as much as possible. I'm more interested in being able to exemplar well than to excel at incarnate content, but at a bare minimum, I'd like to be able to fill in any gaps while not being a detriment to the team. 

That probably leaves quite a few options available. What would be your go-to for this, and why?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Triumphant]

Kind of depends.  Are you someone who likes to level slowly over time?  Or are you like me, and just prefer to powerlevel to 50, so you can immediately access all the powers and mission content?

 

If the first, I think maybe a Defender or Dominator might be your best bet.  If the latter, I would go for a tough melee AT (Brute or Tank) or a Sentinel and dip into your epic/patron pools for some ranged/buff/control powers.

[Psyonico]

good personal defense paired with good buffs/debuffs? not really all that much of a thing.

 

Maybe Dark Blast/Force Field Corruptor?  you can build for decent self defense and you'll provide good defense for your team.  You also get a self heal.  Dark Pit and Force Bomb will be your control.  Going Corruptor will give you a little better soloability.

 

Alternately, a /Shield Brute would provide good self defense and a tad of team support between Grant Cover and Taunt.  Again, going Brute instead of Tank for better soloability.  Take Darkest Night from epics and you even have a good AoE debuff.

[Gerswin Jr]

Fortunata. Does everything. Sink a few hundred million inf into her and she does everything well.

[AcceptsCookies]

5 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Kind of depends.  Are you someone who likes to level slowly over time?  Or are you like me, and just prefer to powerlevel to 50, so you can immediately access all the powers and mission content?

 

If the first, I think maybe a Defender or Dominator might be your best bet.  If the latter, I would go for a tough melee AT (Brute or Tank) or a Sentinel and dip into your epic/patron pools for some ranged/buff/control powers.

 

I usually go through the leveling process, hitting the main task forces on the way up. I don't always make it to 50 and frequently start a new character when/if I do. I'm hoping to stick to a single character a bit more rather than having dozens of mid-level characters that never get played. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

good personal defense paired with good buffs/debuffs? not really all that much of a thing.

 

Maybe Dark Blast/Force Field Corruptor?  you can build for decent self defense and you'll provide good defense for your team.  You also get a self heal.  Dark Pit and Force Bomb will be your control.  Going Corruptor will give you a little better soloability.

 

Alternately, a /Shield Brute would provide good self defense and a tad of team support between Grant Cover and Taunt.  Again, going Brute instead of Tank for better soloability.  Take Darkest Night from epics and you even have a good AoE debuff.

 

I'm not expecting to find Tanker durability, Blaster damage, and Defender support all in one package, but something that can do enough damage and maybe throw out a decent heal/buff/debuff occasionally while not constantly faceplanting is what I'm hoping for. Dark/FF Corrupter sounds doable, as does a /Shield Brute. I never quite clicked with a Brute, though, but the Corrupter sounds intriguing. 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Gerswin Jr said:

Fortunata. Does everything. Sink a few hundred million inf into her and she does everything well.

 

Truly? I'll have to give one a try. I made a Crabbermind years ago and enjoyed it for a bit, but keeping the pets alive became more chore than challenge so I left it. If Fortunata ticks the same boxes, that may be what I'm looking for. 

 

 

Thanks for your advice, everyone. I have some reading to do. 

[Lunar Ronin]

Mastermind.  Masterminds do a ton of single target damage, and between that and potentially debuffs from your secondary, you'll be an asset against AVs and GMs (even solo AVs depending on power sets and build), and be helpful to your team.  Other than that, I second Gershwin's Fortunata recommendation.  Great buffs, great defense, good damage.  Just lacking on debuffs, but no character can truly do it all.

[Psyonico]

I forgot about Forts.  I've got one at 50 but it never really clicked with me all that much. 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Just lacking on debuffs

Don't they get access to Darkest Night in Soul Mastery?  I legit don't remember. 

[Without_Pause]

Ill/dark. I really do like my Fort, but as per description, Ill/dark every time. 

[Uun]

/Marine, /Nature or /Time corruptor. 

[Icono04]

19 hours ago, Gerswin Jr said:

Fortunata. Does everything. Sink a few hundred million inf into her and she does everything well.

Obligatory referral to @Gulbasaur's recipe for a do-everything hybrid fortu-widow: 

 

[AcceptsCookies]

15 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Ill/dark. I really do like my Fort, but as per description, Ill/dark every time. 

 

I've started a Widow for now, but I'm intrigued by this suggestion. Do you have a build you like? From a few minutes of searching it seems there's quite a bit of variety for this. 

 

1 hour ago, Icono04 said:

Obligatory referral to @Gulbasaur's recipe for a do-everything hybrid fortu-widow: 

 

 

Hey, thanks! I'll look that over. I won't start leaning on a build plan until after the 24 respec, but I'm pretty torn at the moment between going Night Widow or Fortunata. At first glance, this looks like a promising compromise. Have there been any significant VEAT changes since this was written, or is this likely to be good as-is?

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, AcceptsCookies said:

I'm pretty torn at the moment between going Night Widow or Fortunata.

You could always use your 2nd build slot to go with the other option. 

 

Night Widows are more like Stalkers while Fortunatas are more like a dominator that also has some team support.

[Warshades]

9 hours ago, AcceptsCookies said:

Hey, thanks! I'll look that over. I won't start leaning on a build plan until after the 24 respec, but I'm pretty torn at the moment between going Night Widow or Fortunata.

 

Widows can be built in so many different directions that it really depends on your preferred play style and how you want to play them. You can build both by switching between build slots whenever you want, though obviously will increase cost significantly as you're building out 2 chars.

 

Fortunatas are like a mixture of Scrappers, Corruptors, and Dominators imo, it really depends in which way you want to lean into more on the build. You can still take the Widow Training attacks to have a high ST attack chain with FU, Strike, and Lunge (along with proc'd out Dominate). You can also go with a range build instead and use Hover to largely stay out of range of enemies. Fortunatas also get access to Aura of Confusion and Total Domination along with a mag 4 ST stun in Scramble Thoughts and spammable Confuse, so they can have several control abilities. Like all VEATs, the Tactical Training powers support teammates and Widows take this a step further with Mind Link. You also get Indomitable Will which provides you with mez protection and Psychic Wail is a fast recharging nuke that's also a mag 3 stun. 

 

Night Widows are a little more durable thanks to Pain Tolerance and have higher ST damage potential, basically play similar to Stalkers and are largely melee with similar team support abilities from TT toggles and Mind Link. 

 

Widows can get really high positional defense, well beyond soft cap, but this is also partially needed/wanted. Unlike SR or Shield, Widows don't have high DDR so the additional defense beyond soft cap helps to act as a buffer to prevent cascading defense failure. Generally, you want to build Widows for high recharge. This will help with maximizing your ST damage rotation, increasing the availability of crowd control powers/nuke, and getting Mind Link and Hasten perma. They perform very well both solo and on teams.

 

Tanks also exemplar really well, though obviously are less directly supportive unless you go with something like Shield. You likely won't have to worry about face planting with most tanks when they are built well. Personally, I rather like electric armor with a high recharge build. It exemplars extremely well all the way down to lvl 18 when Power Sink becomes usable (can be picked up as early 22 and you have access to powers up to 5 levels above exemplar lvl) and does extremely well against large mob groups. There's a topic on the brute forum on ss/elec - I prefer the combo on a tank. 

 

[Icono04]

13 hours ago, AcceptsCookies said:

Have there been any significant VEAT changes since this was written, or is this likely to be good as-is?

Major changes were made to several Widow powers a couple of years ago: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_7#Arachnos_Soldier_/_Arachnos_Widow_Updates_&_Power_Customization. I *think* @Gulbasaur has updated the build in the thread since then, but since I am not sure and in any case I won't pretend to speak for someone else, he is hereby summoned to answer 🙂

 

Other than that, @Warshades explained everything really well, so I don't have anything to add. Except to give a +1 to the suggestion earlier in the thread that you use your 2nd build on the Widow to make a tanky Night Widow build. Not necessarily right away, but whenever your inf situation allows.

 

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go think about making an ill/dark controller. "Thanks" for triggering my ever-lingering altitis, @Without_Pause 🤒