Talen Lee

Being fair, he might find endurance costs more prevalent because he's killing faster.

Mind control costs less end, has more mez types, is more useful against cimerorans and is pinker. I heartily endorse this service and or product.

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Seriously, it has lost all usefulness as a player tool.

[/ QUOTE ]Spoken like someone who doesn't think outside the borders of his own experience.

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Ice/Ice is horrendously End intensive in the low levels.

[/ QUOTE ]Especially since /ice's endurance costs were left alone (unless this guy's attack chain is ISC, ISC, ISC).

The word 'should,' you say?

Fire/SR would work just fine. But the three-breath stunt would be exactly that, a stunt. The animation times on those three powers are not quick, and that would probably lead to fury degeneration.

Flashfire lasting more than what, twenty seconds is a waste. By that point, the group is a pile of ash and I'm moving onto the next one.

'It's not as good as it can get' is not underperforming. That's performing.

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Synergy maybe not...

Powerboost plus Flashfire....pwnage.

[/ QUOTE ]You have different definitions of pwnage to me. Flashfire's problem isn't its stun duration, it's its recharge.

/Fire, Elec, Energy.

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Okay, then RttC needs to be fixed so it is not Off all the time. The other powers in Willpower almost never get detoggled. Neither does Integration in Regen. Right now RttC is either Bugged or purposely nerfed.

[/ QUOTE ]Uh, no, it's working exactly the way it's supposed to, as per the rules of how such powers should react and interact.

There are going to be people coming in here to say to you such valuable things as pick what you find fun, or just do your own thing. Assuming that these people might read this before they post: The Op is asking for power advice, not platitudes.

Now.

For my fire/fire, I've found that the higher level he got, the less he needed any melee. Around about level 32 is when I started to embrace being in close range, but not melee range. From the control set, the powers (thus far) I definitely would not skip are Flashfire, Char, Fire Cages, and Hot Feet. These powers form the core of fire control's control and damage proclivities.

In the secondary, I found I could get by with Flares and Fire Blast as my primary attacks, because I'd always have room to throw controls while I waited for attacks to recharge. Fiery Embrace is useful to whatever /fire style you go for. Combustion used to be a power I really liked, but nowadays it has become highly dubious as to its usefulness - the damage is all DoT, it's long animating, and it doesn't have the same punch it used to.

I would therefore recommend dropping Incinerate and Combustion. You could pick up a travel power with one of those slots, or Hasten, or Consume, if you find endurance is a problem.

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I know Mids' will be updated soon

[/ QUOTE ]You do? Cool. I thought the next update was a nebulous maybe.

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I dont see why people complain about Devices. Devices are awesome for a tactician player!

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I've tried time and time again to like Devices. It's designed in a weird way that's unlike other Blaster sets. Almost all the powers are skippable or situational, making it hard for Devices to contribute to a Blaster's build. These replies aren't to try to shoot you down or prove anything; just going to try and explain why me and many others dislike Devices.

[/ QUOTE ]It's different. It's not the same. Therefore, it's different to build, and doesn't build like normal blasters.

Did I accurately summarise?

Me, I'm interested in this because it's easier to know what to delete. I've wiped out stacks of 20 of a naturally-gathered type of salvage without realising they're worth a spiked amount.

Back then, it was. I'd hit the damage cap with any real buffing, and it's not like the damage enhancement was that big a deal.

I'm trying to think...

You know, I think you could - and I'm speaking on an interface level - you could make a time bomb a toggle? You click the power and it sets the bomb, toggle goes on, costs very little to run but costs a lot up front... then it has a duration before it toggles off. When it toggles off, pet dies, power explodes.

I wonder if that would work...

(runs off to PM people who know more than himself)

I did it once, but hey, I was desperate and KCrash was cheap. Sounds like starring in a porno. But seriously.

Depends on the dom. I don't see incinerate as a good enough reason to close on my fire/fire, and I don't see Power Push as a good enough reason to not close on my mind/nrg. All I can really offer as overall advice is that Assault sets are weird.

I disagree with Altoholic's advice.

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Until that happens, Energy Melee is broken as a tanker secondary.

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Actually, I would say that's it's LEAST broken on tanks and moreso on Brutes where fast animating attacks actually MEAN something to their overall efficiency.

[/ QUOTE ]You must bear in mind 'broken' means something different for Heraclea than it does for, well, me and I suspect a lot of other people. 'Broken' means 'I don't like it, and wish to state such things with an air that makes me sound like an absolute authority.'

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I actually agree with Talen on this.

[/ QUOTE ]It can happen!

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1. Yes

2. Yes

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I want to contribute to this thread, but perhaps not how you think.

See, I solo a lot. And I don't just mean the way a scrapper will solo with seven other people on the map, I mean, I go into missions with nobody in them but me, and do things by myself. In this regard, I gained a bit of a different perspective on powersets. Specifically, not being good on a large team is something that many powersets might have as a delibenrate design decision.

Consider Energy Melee. I've been teaming with my wife's WP/EM tanker a lot lately, and it's amazing. Would she perform as well offensively on a team of 8? No, probably not. My EM/Nin stalker doesn't do as much on an 8-man team as my fire/fire blaster does, either.

Thanks to the Stalker, and many buff sets, it's pretty clear that even if players don't think so, the developers do design some sets to be great on big teams and some sets to be much more solid soloing. In this regard, I think a lot of the complaints about devices are a bit skewiff. It's a great set for a small team of three or less.

Another element is to consider the leverage of skill. A long time ago - wow, three or more years - a very smart man named Patrick Chapin told me something (he told a few hundred thousand other people who were reading the article, but I like to pretend Pat still loves me). He told me that skill-driven players are drawn to choices. The more choices a playstyle offers you, the more chance you have to utilise your greater skill. You could tell the better players in a tournament environment, because they were playing the complex, slow, intricate methods, while players who were more aware of their lack of skill were playing fast, aggressive, and choice-light, knowing that they had to get a little bit lucky to win the tournament anyway.

This perspective shift is, in my opinion, important. I think this is the area where sets like Devices pay off. Willpower offers very little choice - you toggle on, you take everything (more or less), and you charge into the combat. Electrical Armour, on the other hand, offers a lot of skill-based elements - Power Sink does not just offer you a large slab of endurance, it also can be used as a PBAOE control. Conserve Power offers you constant endurance, meaning that there are situations (lone AV) where that is preferable and other situations (large packs of whatevers) where Power Sink is preferable. Is it necessary? Probably not. But these sets which have a lower baseline of performance compared to simpler, choice-light sets, seem to exist to be used well by exceptional players.

Of these sets, I don't think any of them are bad or unplayable. I have quite a few of them, or helped play or build some of them - I helped a friend craft a flying AR/Dev build that has soft-capped ranged defences, and /dev is instrumental to that build. My electrical blast blaster loves the set he has, because it does its job and later on will let him synergise with other powers. Is it amazing? Not really. Will I outperform others? Probably not, but I'm not sure I'm all that good at the game. I love my energy melee stalker to pieces, and he was made after the ET changes. The set's great for pouring out single target damage on big slow targets. On a co-op team that's hunting bosses or AVs, I've found few characters I have who do so well as him.

Do I think some of these sets could merit buffs? Yes. I definitely think Gravity needs a buff or two - I'm of the firm opinion that Gravity offers pretty much nothing that another set doesn't offer and more. I think that Martial Arts merits some more meaningful controls or something else to differentiate it from just being a worse version of Super Strength. I also think Sonic Resonance for controllers could use some adjustment, that Burn's animation could be faster and that the stalker Resistance armours could use some concept attention.

But a lot of 'bad' sets are just 'not easy.'

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Definitely more bosses. We had a thread going on it in another spot. Let me see if I can find that.

Edit - got it

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....part=1&vc=1

[/ QUOTE ]I thoguht this was just my perception. Sweet.