That One AT...

[srmalloy]

See, I think the reason I could never get into Masterminds was because I was the kind of player who NEEDED to get into the action. I wanted to be the one diving in (even if, in the case of blasters, it meant I kept going to the hospital). As a Mastermind, I just felt I couldn't do that as much as I wanted to.

I don't know if you tried one with /Dark as a secondary, but the restricted area of your heal meant that (at least, as I tended to play mine) you were almost always riding right behind the front line of your pets so that they would be in your heal aura, dealing out support as needed.

[Kyriani]

See, I think the reason I could never get into Masterminds was because I was the kind of player who NEEDED to get into the action. I wanted to be the one diving in (even if, in the case of blasters, it meant I kept going to the hospital). As a Mastermind, I just felt I couldn't do that as much as I wanted to.

I feel the same way but the way I dealt with it for my masterminds was to actually take their attacks and... well... attack! My Demon/Pain/Soul was awesome to play. I charged in with my demons in bodyguard mode and engaged the foes very proactively :) I slotted him up to get as much personal damage as I could out of him without neglecting my demons (I still had leadership powers) and he became quite formidable. Maybe not "optimal" but I was not afraid of any specific type of content. I also had enough recharge to have perma world of pain and painbringer so my pets were always sturdy and two of them were usually big damage dealers thanks to painbringer and hell on earth.

[Lightslinger]

Oh man, Street Justice. I think that might have ended up going down as my favorite power set. I played it on a SJ/EA Scrapper and freaking loved it. I solo'd a lot and leveled crazy, crazy fast. Energy Aura (or was it Armor?) post buff was an amazing, very active defense set, it probably contributed to how much I liked that character.

[Phaetan]

Likewise, because Time Manipulation had a four PBAoEs (three for allies, one debuff that could take some vicious IOs,) my MM was right in the middle of the brawl with his demons, liberally applying all sorts of pain to anything nearby.

[CycloneCyan]

Tankers and Brutes. I usually found myself soloing so these something with a high defense and HP should work for me but they feel really slow. (Especially Tankers.) That said I have one fifty who's a Scrapper and another who's a Stalker so I do like melee classes, but Brutes and Tankers aren't my idea of one.

Archetypes I'm a bit iffy about are Dominators, Controllers and Kheldians but this is mostly because I could never find a good concept for them. But, Controllers are the most difficult of this bunch because they are severely lacking in attack powers (which would be no problems if they were, say, Masterminds).

[Ladders]

I never really had any problem with any of the archetypes, I did perfectly well with all of them. That said the only archetypes I really enjoyed playing were Controllers and Dominators, being able to stop a mob in it's tracks was one of my favourite parts of the game.

[HEATSTROKE]

Scrappers and Stalkers.. hated em.. boring..

[Phaetan]

Scrappers and Stalkers.. hated em.. boring..

OUt of curiosity, did you try Stalkers after their buff?  Made a big difference in how much I enjoyed them, especially with the ATO proc...

[Safehouse]

I don't know if you tried one with /Dark as a secondary, but the restricted area of your heal meant that (at least, as I tended to play mine) you were almost always riding right behind the front line of your pets so that they would be in your heal aura, dealing out support as needed.

Hmmm I should've given that a try. If/when it comes back, I'll keep it in mind and check it out :)

Oh man, Street Justice. I think that might have ended up going down as my favorite power set. I played it on a SJ/EA Scrapper and freaking loved it. I solo'd a lot and leveled crazy, crazy fast. Energy Aura (or was it Armor?) post buff was an amazing, very active defense set, it probably contributed to how much I liked that character.

SJ is definitely my favorite, at least of the melee sets. With invulnerability or regeneration it turned out to be a pretty amazing set.

[srmalloy]

Likewise, because Time Manipulation had a four PBAoEs (three for allies, one debuff that could take some vicious IOs,) my MM was right in the middle of the brawl with his demons, liberally applying all sorts of pain to anything nearby.

I regret not having the time to do much with my Ice/Time Corruptor; I think that the combination of two powersets loaded with ways to slow your opponents would have been amazingly fun. But I had too many other characters that I wanted to engrain firmly into my memory after the shutdown announcement...

[Yoru-hime]

Tankers - I just couldn't do it. Never even got one out of single-digits.
Brutes - I was starting one when the curtain came down and there wasn't anything wrong with it, just didn't get around to it until late.
Peacebringers - Got one to 41 before the raw mediocrity of it all just got to be too much.
Spiders - Never tried one.

I was learning to love Masterminds, Widows and Warshades, with one of each well on their way to 50 at the end.

I found my Dominator to be hard to play, but perhaps that was because I tried the Praetoria/First Ward path on him.

Stalkers, Blasters, Controllers, Corruptors, these were all good fun.

Of course Defenders and Scrappers were what I loved best.

[Mistress Urd]

I leveled all 14 ATs to 50.

Here is my "didn't click" list.

Lolstalkers - Well it took a long time for the devs to admit how fail the AT was. They got small buffs which testers said fell short and time and again were proven right as lolstalkers were shunned from teams. Then after years of begging were finally given the buffs to make them fun. I had 1 level 50 stalker until the final change and I then had 3 level 50s when the servers went dark.

Peacebringers - Oh gawd this was my 3rd 50 and it was a terrible struggle to 50. Back in the old days when void/quantum bosses could 1 shot you and it didn't you'll die on the 2nd shot since the first did KB and by the time you stood up you were dead. The problem with the PB is simple, AoE KB sucks royally in teams and made worse by designing the AT to team.  :P  Again, the problem was reduced by the nerfing of voids/quantums and KB to KD IO \o/

Blasters - Yep, too much glass and too many other ATs with cannons. Even I24 was going to fall short. That said, I still had 4 level 50 Blasters. If you want to see a proper "Blaster" look up Diablo 2 sorceress.

Dominators - If you think Blasters were bad, they were just then 2nd worst Hero AT, only PBs were worse. Villainside had outright shunning of ATs because they suck. It took awhile for devs to admit they fell short with Dominators too. They started out with the "Happy Fun Button" then it would go down and you were left with a gimped blaster. The removal of damage from Domination helped but even when the servers went dark I only had 1 level 50 Dominator. I was working on a 2nd one when news of the shutdown happened.

[HEATSTROKE]

OUt of curiosity, did you try Stalkers after their buff?  Made a big difference in how much I enjoyed them, especially with the ATO proc...

Hated em.. just found them boring.. I had a level 50 Spines/Fire Scrapper.. I deleted every Scrapper or Stalker I tried.. even when I would make them my SG mates would take bets on what level I would delete them by..

[Olde Glory]

I may be one of the few players who really didn't take to any sort of damage ATs. For me, the idea of of being the one who brings DPS or just straight damage dealing in general was rather boring. Tanking wasn't much of a thing for me either (especially because so many of you had it down to a SCIENCE). I really, really, enjoyed playing as a defender. The only character that I reached level 50 with in 7 years was my energy kin/def. I had many alts of various builds but when the mission went south and we were backed against a wall I would bring him in and find a way to help turn the tide. He was the most versatile build that I have ever had in a game. More than once I ended up having to tank or wade into a mob to save the tank. Of course that also meant hitting the debt ceiling more times than I care to remember. I've said it before, but that character ruined support classes in every other game for me.  :P

[Sailboat]

I may be one of the few players who really didn't take to any sort of damage ATs. For me, the idea of of being the one who brings DPS or just straight damage dealing in general was rather boring.

I certainly liked doing damage personally, but I can see what you're getting at.  Sometimes my Blasters and Scrappers felt like the "manual laborers" of the team; everyone else set things up and we had the task of just plowing through the hit points.

[LaughingAlex]

The Arachnos soldier, particularly the soldiers themselves.  I've played a widow to 50, and had a duel build, one for the night widow and another for the fortunata, but on the other spectrum I didn't play the arachnos soldier, I had neither a crap spider nore a bane spider.  Admittedly I couldn't get into "rifles" in city of heroes, because of the fact that it's like they made shotguns and assault rifles the same weapon in general.  On hero side, I had issues making a peace bringer, evne though i had a warshade.

Other archtypes, well, it's hard for me to say, but I had played all but stalkers to 50 of the "villain" archtypes..  Hero side, I never got a tanker to 50, because they were to defensive for my playstyle(I was rather aggressive).  I did get one into the low 40s however.  So peacebringers, arachnos soldiers, stalkers and tankers.  Would I make a tanker again?  Very likely, just cause it's funny seeing mobs wail on you in vein.  Or sneak up on badguys to assassin strike them.

[Sailboat]

i had neither a crap spider nore a bane spider.

Well, nobody liked the crap spiders.  ;)

[General Idiot]

I still remember running an all spider team through a redside respec trial a couple of days after they came out and just completely ruining it. All spider or even mostly spider teams in general were just made of so much murder it wasn't even funny.

[Lightslinger]

I still remember running an all spider team through a redside respec trial a couple of days after they came out and just completely ruining it. All spider or even mostly spider teams in general were just made of so much murder it wasn't even funny.

I had a Huntsman build that was amazing on teams. I focused on the AOE attacks and debuffs, took every VEAT Leadership Toggle and every Leadership Pool toggle. Just by standing around, I gave a team +Def, +Tohit, +Damage +Perception in spades all the while packing some very potent debuffs. Not a great solo build but when teamed VEATS were a great force multiplier.

[JWBullfrog]

I still remember running an all spider team through a redside respec trial a couple of days after they came out and just completely ruining it. All spider or even mostly spider teams in general were just made of so much murder it wasn't even funny.

Sort of reminds me of all Controller/Dominator teams. They were like being part of an avalanche. You could see it coming but there wasn't a thing you could do to stop it.