Way back at issue 0, some friends and I decided to play a theme group--black suits & ties and assault rifles. They went with blasters (devices, natch), but I was concerned about survival. I decided to go with an Emp/AR defender. Do not want. In fact, I never played an Emp again. I remember joining a TF with a FF defender and being bored out of my mind.
If I had it to do again, I'd go with FF. Well actually, I'd make a blaster also, because blasters (and later dominators) were my favoritest ATs ever, but assuming that I went 'fender, it would be FF.
Come to think of it, we'd have been better off if I HAD gone AR/Dev, because issue 0 smoke grenade was boss. Broken, yes, but awesome, especially stacked.
Edit: Actually, it was most likely just a team running mission story arcs. I never got that character high enough for the interesting empathy powers, and I think that not even a FF defender could keep up with the damage in the original Posi TF. Whatever. Point is that I never liked playing empaths.
I think there was a lot of 'elastic' in using a 'force multiplier.' Defenders were good at this. With two FF/Energy Defenders you could 'walk' the game right up to L50. Nemesis snipers included. AR/Devices. A team of those would be interesting. I never got past L8 with mine...but my duo partner got his to L50 and he constantly complained about not having build up despite have a rinse repeat 'nova' and several high damage dealing powers. And all that stealth. And the targeting drone. And the smoke grenade... And the bombs. And web grenade... Maybe he should have rolled an IO build. I saw Assault/Dev blaster devour L50 Council maps. (you know the one, THE 'don't touch the glowie' Council power leveller map...
And he was hardly touched with aggro'. Flame thrower...those mobs with caltrops..?
Yeesh. For the alts I think I did roll...I have a disproportionate amount of ones I'm now curious about. Eg. Force/Gravity Controller, Ice/Ice tank, Ice/Fire tank, Ice/DM tank, Plant Dominator(!), Assault/Dev blaster, an IO'd turbo Hasten En/EN blaster build...all the auto snipe and self buff blaster builds...IO'ing my Ice/Ice/Ice Blaster...Incarnating my En/Invul tank...
I have so many questions?
What Incarnate should I have picked for my L50 Invul/En tanker?
What Incarnate would I have picked for my L50 En/En Blaster? How much would it have costed to create Arcana's En/En turbo build?
(The most I ever spent was 4.5 billion on my Elec/Elec/Elec Domi...perma Domi and Hasten but I only got about 2/3rds of the way on the Defence Cap...)
What would my Dark/Dark defender have 'looked' like if I'd got him to L50? Would I have gone for Dark epics? Could I have solved the huge end problem and got some 'meZ' protection? What incarnate would I have chosen?
What I have ever got a Rad/Rad Defender above L10?
I rolled an Illusion/Emp Controller x3 times. Would I ever have got one past L8 and onto L18 to get Phantom Army. Did I miss out?
Could I have made my elegant Ice/Ice/Ice blaster even more deadly by IO'ing it? Could I have improved the defensive aspect of the epics by tricking out the IO build? What Incarnate would I have picked?
What about my L41 Warshade? Could I have got it to L50 and creating an AOE killing machine? Would I have had enough slots for my Tri-form build?
What about my L44 Peacebringer? Could I have got perms-unstoppable on it and finally slotted a knock back protection IO in it?
Did I miss out on my Gravity/Energy Dominator by not getting to L32 and getting 'Xen' the gravity pet. That may have helped. It was slow going on the way up to those late 20s. I just missed out on having the time to 'take it to the next level.'
Could I have got my L41 Elec/Elec stalker and part time Palpatine...to L50 and become even more deadly and insidious?
What about my Katana/Willpower scrapper? L38. Would it have been a salami slicer at L50?
Or my Dual Blades/Willpower scrapper? L38. Could it have been an arachnos slayer at L50?
...and my only Mastermind. Beastmaster/I can't remember the name of the 2ndary. L38. Direwolf. IO'd out. Could it have been anymore awesome? What Incarnate for that? Could I have made Bees perma sting?
Or my pets more robust?
Could I have tested the much lauded Willpower 'tank' all the way up to L50 with Stone Melee as my guide? I'd heard it was 'thee' tanker primary to have. ie. Willpower.
Could I have created a chain saw build of my Dark Melee/Energy brute?
Would I have had the time to test all of the above?
I guess I got into IOs late in the game. But I tried them with excellent builds for a tank (though I didn't get perma Dull Pain on that... :/) , brute (all capped out on all damage at range, melee and AoE!) and dominator (didn't reach the soft cap...).
Bah. See?
All those years of playing. And only 'in the end' did I see the depth of the buffs. The combinations. The untold builds. The untold combinations. ...and a frustrating amount of questions left 'unanswered' for my many alts who looked sadly on as the game closed.
Azrael. :/
If I had it to do again, I'd go with FF. Well actually, I'd make a blaster also, because blasters (and later dominators) were my favoritest ATs ever, but assuming that I went 'fender, it would be FF.
Dominators. *lust. Once I discovered Dominators (in Going Rogue...) they became my favourite types succeeding blasters (though I still had a soft spot for En/En blastblapper and my Ice/Ice blastoller...) Domination button. Mez protection and end bar fills up. 'It's going down!' Great feeling of the 'come back kid' after soaking up the rope-a-dope.
My duo-partner (yes, him again...) tried an elec controller and didn't like the 'race car' sounds and thought damage was feeble. I tried to get him to roll an Elec Dominator. Control. Scrap. Blap. Blast. What's not to like?! I rolled Stone/Stone and Elec/Elec. They were a masterpiece of strategy...and what was cool about them was mastering when to 'stay long' to establish mob control and when to close to melee for the 'take out' punch. Stone had awesome control and brilliant 'take out' melee. Typified Dominators at their best for me. And the electric was elegant compared to Stone's brute force. How many ways to pull the legs off spiders?
Confuse. Sleep. Drain. DoT from Chain Fences. Knockdown. Thunderstrike. Havoc Punch. Static Charge AOE . Electric Ball AOE. Imps. Mu. Mitigation? Too tired or too asleep or end drained mobs to fight back. So many pets to fight for me. Complete chess board battle field for the dominator to mastermind the fight. Who's the daddy, right?