Bizarre Character

[Norcane]

After making 267 alts, training a primary and secondary just like normal, I decided too try a different type of character. He is a corrupter with Fire Blast and Pain Domination, but he's not a healer. He has his self heal (Nullify Pain) just like several other types of characters. And uses Soothing Aura to help maintain his health.

 

If a DPS character has healing powers, how do they cast blasts and heal others too? You really can't do both well. So I did it this way. He's currently 25 and doing quite well as a DPS character. I will train "World of Pain" because it does increase my defense as well as others on the team. Will also train "Anguishing Cry" as it increases my ability to do more damage (especially with my AoE's). All of the other powers will be skipped.

 

Have you ever made such a bizarre character?

 

Edited Friday at 06:11 PM by Norcane

[Bill Z Bubba]

Took a Claws/Inv scrapper to 50 using nothing but swipe.

Have a Street/WP brute that follows boxing rules so no kicks or illegal hits.

There have been other oddities.

[skoryy]

I have an Ill/Sonic controller that barely uses her secondary and somehow she's still one of my favorites.

[Six-Six]

I have a few in my stable.

One is a Psy/Fire Blaster. He's shapeshifter. In human form, he uses Primaries (+ a few utility secondaries). Every now and then he morphs into a griffin -- complete with costume change emote -- that runs like a beast, uses the fire secondaries with Sorcery Flight/TP powers. He's not my strongest, but he can hold his own. I was inspired by the Kheldian changeling gameplay... which I suck at. but this one is fairly entertaining.

Another is my Psi/Bio Scrapper. He only uses the 3 psi blade powers and boggle, primarily because I don't like the animation of the other primary powers. I made him before Psi Armor was released. He was tough to level up, so I don't think I'll roll a psi/psi version of him.

Then there are my limited MMs:

Whip/Traps, pistols/traps
Wolf/Storm (no lions)
Lions (only)/Dark
Bots/Traps with only the Assault Bot (Appleseed homage)
Bots/Dark poolboy challenge

Last is my Supes/Homelander -- human only PB with eye beams and melee attacks including Cross Punch and Kick

[Clave Dark 5]

8 hours ago, Six-Six said:

Lions (only)/Dark

I found Lions/Storm worked really well for a semi-petless MM.

[Six-Six]

@Clave Dark 5 Haha, yeah. My lions/dark is Savannah, a (South) African -- because she's obviously caucasian -- priestess that commands two lions. I adjusted her dark power colours as much as I can to simulate dust or dirt for the thematic feel. 

My wolf/storm is a Native American shaman with the power of wind (and weather???) + willpower tertiary pool disguised as auxiliary wind powers. He controls the 3 T1 wolves and only calls on the spirit of the dire wolf in certain instances.

Neither could be classified the strongest, but they thematically kick buttocks. Concept is king!

Currently levelling up my whips/traps at 25. Some bloke who has his right arm replaced with a mechanical one, and is thus able to generate "energy whips" like that Russian bloke Ivan Vanko/Whiplash from Iron Man 2. Under the hardcore permadeath rules, he's having a tough but incredibly enjoyable time getting through missions.

[MonteCarla]

16 hours ago, Norcane said:

If a DPS character has healing powers, how do they cast blasts and heal others too? You really can't do both well.

 

We shall have to disagree on that point. 🙂

[Clave Dark 5]

@Six-Six Maahes Lord of Lions - based loosely upon a real Egyptian deity with that name!  I loaded up on recharge so I could get two lightning storms out at once to make up for the ;loss of DMG from the other critters.  Not the best MM, but he was fun to play and I swear to this day, no one ever batted an eye when I'd roll up into a team and tell them I was a semi-pettless MM. 

 

I should pull him out again for the heck of it.

[twozerofoxtrot]

17 hours ago, Norcane said:

Have you ever made such a bizarre character?

 

You basically described my Pain/Dark Def.

 

Just the AoE heal and the Aura. That's enough healing. The rest is blasts, buffs, and debuffs.

 

Doesn't sound Bizarre to me at all. Seems like a good character build.

[Snarky]

17 hours ago, Norcane said:

After making 267 alts, training a primary and secondary just like normal, I decided too try a different type of character. He is a corrupter with Fire Blast and Pain Domination, but he's not a healer. He has his self heal (Nullify Pain) just like several other types of characters. And uses Soothing Aura to help maintain his health.

 

If a DPS character has healing powers, how do they cast blasts and heal others too? You really can't do both well. So I did it this way. He's currently 25 and doing quite well as a DPS character. I will train "World of Pain" because it does increase my defense as well as others on the team. Will also train "Anguishing Cry" as it increases my ability to do more damage (especially with my AoE's). All of the other powers will be skipped.

 

Have you ever made such a bizarre character?

 

my Dark Dark Corr is arguably similar.  it has a great pbaoe heal, .... that i only use about 5% time to help teammates,  i am much more effective at dps and debuffs

[Chance Jackson]

I'm (barely ever) working on a demon/time mm that is intended to be whip & PP melee focused with eventually just 2nd tier henchmen for the resistance buff & extra DPS.

[CoeruleumBlue]

On 12/19/2025 at 11:10 AM, Norcane said:

After making 267 alts, training a primary and secondary just like normal, I decided too try a different type of character. He is a corrupter with Fire Blast and Pain Domination, but he's not a healer. He has his self heal (Nullify Pain) just like several other types of characters. And uses Soothing Aura to help maintain his health.

 

If a DPS character has healing powers, how do they cast blasts and heal others too? You really can't do both well. So I did it this way. He's currently 25 and doing quite well as a DPS character. I will train "World of Pain" because it does increase my defense as well as others on the team. Will also train "Anguishing Cry" as it increases my ability to do more damage (especially with my AoE's). All of the other powers will be skipped.

 

Have you ever made such a bizarre character?

 

 

Why wouldn't you be able to do both well? Maybe I make an underwater character and the water drowns the enemies and feeds my fish. If you want a self-healer who can't heal just play a Sentinel, that's what they always feel like to me, except Sentinels actually get stuff from their armor and the one debuff from Pain Domination is basically what Vigilance is anyway. Pain Domination has a lot of stuff where it explicitly explains how you heal and damage too, you take the pain away from your ally and re-inflict it in your enemy, so that's one weird set to do that with. 

[CoeruleumBlue]

On 12/20/2025 at 3:23 AM, MonteCarla said:

 

We shall have to disagree on that point. 🙂

 

On 12/20/2025 at 4:38 AM, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

You basically described my Pain/Dark Def.

 

Just the AoE heal and the Aura. That's enough healing. The rest is blasts, buffs, and debuffs.

 

Doesn't sound Bizarre to me at all. Seems like a good character build.

 

Yes. You can definitely heal and damage conceptually and the game even explains a lot of the mechanics, but at the same time, it's a perfectly valid build to just use Pain Domination mostly for buffs and debuffs. That's literally what's wrong with Pain Domination, Empathy, and Thermal Radiation that we talked about in another thread. The healing in those sets is not super good because there are no barriers, people like Marine Affinity and Nature Affinity because there is absorb. Healing is actually still the most popular support, just being able to over-heal is better than not being able to over-heal. Thematically it would make sense for these three to have absorb, they just don't because it wasn't in the game yet and people scream at change.

[Gerswin]

I made a DP/Devices blaster that completely skipped all but the initial primary power picks and just doubled down on devices, taking and slotting every power.  He was situationally pretty decent.

[KC4800]

I made a Radiation/Water Blast defender that did not take the healing aura. Soloed very well. Even turned off all green inspiration drops. The debuffs cast from invisibile state give enough time and protection to waltz in with a choking cloud and just melee battle for the win. If I do rarely take damage, I just rest to heal up.

[Ukase]

On 12/19/2025 at 11:10 AM, Norcane said:

After making 267 alts, training a primary and secondary just like normal, I decided too try a different type of character. He is a corrupter with Fire Blast and Pain Domination, but he's not a healer. He has his self heal (Nullify Pain) just like several other types of characters. And uses Soothing Aura to help maintain his health.

 

If a DPS character has healing powers, how do they cast blasts and heal others too? You really can't do both well. So I did it this way. He's currently 25 and doing quite well as a DPS character. I will train "World of Pain" because it does increase my defense as well as others on the team. Will also train "Anguishing Cry" as it increases my ability to do more damage (especially with my AoE's). All of the other powers will be skipped.

 

Have you ever made such a bizarre character?

 

My second character on retail was very much like this. 

My first character was an elec/elec blaster. I was so clueless, I had no idea how clueless I was. Didn't know there were forums. I'd just gotten the game, punched in the 16 digit code, made a couple of characters, and the elec/elec blaster seemed the more fun of the few I'd tried out. 

I'd noticed on a hunt into Terra Volta that Tank bosses would stun me, or one of the others would sleep me, and then I'd be defeated in short order. This happened to me ....10? 15 times? All trying to take out the same Freaks in TV. I didn't know what a pull was, let alone how to do it. I didn't know break frees existed, or if I did, I didn't have any. And there was no /AH to get some. And I was probably pretty broke, too. If there had been an AH my guess is they would have cost 1M or something. 

So, my inexperienced naive brain said, "I need a blaster with heals". CoV didn't exist, so a corruptor or MM wasn't an option. I made an emp/elec defender. 

I didn't take heal other until I'd taken all my attacks from the secondary that I could. I never took absorb pain. I read the description and was like "Why would I want to weaken myself? What idiot would take that power?" 
I have a clear memory of seeing Adrenaline Boost and Clear Mind and wondering why I couldn't use these on ME. I needed them more than anyone else! 

It was around level 30 or so I discovered the forums and realized how ignorant I was. (still hold on to a part of that ignorance!) 

So, yeah, I've done the bizarre. And that was by sheer accident of inexperience. 

 

Took me 540, or 570 hours to get to level 50. I can't remember. It was a LONG time. My first 50. I think when the doors shut, I had maybe 8 50s. The others went much, much faster. I think my spines/regen scrapper got there in 39 hours or something.