Most Underperforming Powersets.

The question is simple. In your opinon, What do you think are the 5 most underperforming powersets? It can range from all AT's. Please take into consideration how it actually performs compared to other powers in the set. Please don't put in things like "Regen, because fully IO'd the other sets are better". Things that have serious holes and just dont perform up to par.

I'm interested in seeing the responses.

Gravity, Force Fields, Devices, Assault Rifle, Martial Arts

Three sets stand out for me, I'll resist the urge to dig around to find another two.

Gravity Control (Dominators)
Trading off area control for extra damage works for Controllers, it doesnt work for Dominators who have a damage oriented secondary.

Electric Blast (Blasters and Defenders)
Trades damage for control via End Drain. In practice, end drain is difficult to use, and requires combination with specific other powersets or superteams to have any significant effect.

Psychic Blast (Blasters)
Have a single AoE instead of the usual two, in exchange for a mediocre extra single target blast. Originally this was cautiously set up due to PvP repercussions, Psi damage no longer has an advantage in PvP and is more often heavily resisted in PvE than most types.

RANGED: Blaster Psi blast. No brainer.

MELEE: Fiery Assault. Castle's new damage formula hits fire's AoE hard, and doesn't account for fire's lack of a debuff or mez side effect.

BUFF/DEBUFF: Empathy. But it won't see a buff because 1) devs buffing a buff/debuff set? HA!, and 2) if the majority of the playerbase is deluded into thinking Empathy is a great set, the devs might be too.

DEFENSE: Super Reflexes. The source of the problem is passive defenses being weak (especially now that toggles suppress rather than dropping). SR ties with Invul for most weak passives, but at least Invuln's work fully even when your health bar is OK.

CONTROL: Gravity Control. Controller Lift deals inexplicably low damage compared to the dom version and compared to Levitate. Both controller and dominator -movespeed debuffs have potential but need boosting to at least double Ice Control's -movespeed levels (since Ice also does -rechargespeed).

Electric blasts should do more damage accross the board for Blasters, corruptors, defenders. They feel really weak.

Electric Armor also could use some +HP/Regen/+hit Points with it some where. As well as some more S/L resistance Currently the S/L resistaiance is near 41% without tough and 53% with tough. This simply feels low since many of the foes do S/L damage late game. Also Power Surges crash is brutal 1 hitpoint, no endurance no recovery and no regen, the chance hold almost never hits .

Gravity for Doms and Trollers needs to have there animation times adjusted it takes to long.

Energy Melee for Tanks and Brutes need something done about there lousy animation times

Psi blast for blasters
Electric armor for stalkers especially
Gravity control for dominators
Traps for corruptors
Sonic for anybody who could take thermal instead

AR used to be on this list, but it's been buffed quite nicely now. Well enough to be good.

My opinions on this subject are subject to change on a whim.

Blaster Psionic Blast is very meh, if only because everyone and their mother has a horde of psi-resistant robots in their enemy group. Also because it really doesn't have anything spectacular about it. Good -recharge, and that's all you get.

Blaster/Defender Electric Blast suuuuucks. It's supposed to suck Endurance, but it really doesn't. It just sucks. Its damage brings a tear of sadness to my eye, and really the only power that lives up to the endurance-draining part is Short Circuit.

Martial Arts does damage that is nothing to write home about, and almost exclusively to single targets. The ONLY power in it that affects more than one foe is the Scrapper tier 8. And I must reiterate, its damage is just unremarkable.

Super Reflexes because not all of us are BillZBubba. I personally can't stand the set, because it is nothing. but. defense. The autopowers' "resistance at low health" crap doesn't even count as mitigation. No. I like my protective powersets to have more than one way to keep me alive.

Electric Armor is killin me here. I love the set, I really do, but... only five of its nine powers actually protect you. Let me reiterate. Electric Armor. With 4/9 of its powers not protecting you from harm. I think that's its problem. Conserve Power is pointless; with Power Sink around and nigh-immunity to hostile EndMod effects, you should NOT need another endurance management skill. NO. One down. Replace it with like.. a synaptic recharge power- heals you by refreshing your mind's zappity pulses or whatever.
Lightning Field can stay- many armor sets have a damage aura, and this is the coolest-looking one there is.
Lightning Reflexes is nice to have, but.. maybe we could get even a little bit of +defense in there? After all, we have lightning reflexes here. Let's use them to dodge.
Power Sink rocks. It doesn't need a change, though it would be sweet if using it also temporarily charged up your armor too. Something like 20ish seconds of increased resistance based on the number of targets you power sunk. Similar to Energy Absorption from Ice Armor.
I really wish I was in control of changing Electric Armor.


Fiery Assault gets an honorable mention. It is.. a conundrum. Flares, one of my favorite powers, got the living [censored] nerfed out of it compared to everything else in dominator assault sets. Sooooo weeeeak. But then you have Fire Blast and Blaze, both ridiculously good, Fire Breath, which is good but not great, Combustion which is a disappointment no matter how many times I look at its numbers... Incinerate is decent.. overall it seems to be underperforming for a *fire* set. You know, FIRE. The damage type that sacrifices secondary effects for more damage.

- Gravity Control.

- Sonic Resonance.

- Psi Blast on a Blaster.

- Energy Blast on a Defender.

- Energy Melee.

Oh let me add this, I have said this a lot in the past. "IF" Electric Armor ever gets a heal, I would like the animation of the heal (what ever kind it is) to look like an electric version of Healing Flames.

I emailed BaBs this months ago lol

I've a feeling at least half the answers in this thread are going to be completely wrong. So unless four or five people list the same set, take it with a grain of salt.

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BUFF/DEBUFF: Empathy. But it won't see a buff because 1) devs buffing a buff/debuff set? HA!, and 2) if the majority of the playerbase is deluded into thinking Empathy is a great set, the devs might be too.

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I'm "deluded" into thinking Empathy is a great set. It has a fantastic single target buff you can put on several players simply with SOs. Fortitude is monstrously powerful.

The two Auras, Recovery and Regeneration are beastly good. Instant Healing to the whole team? Yes, please. Infinite endurance to the whole team? Sure they cannot be permanent from a single Emp but so what? Strategically used they are incredible tools. Adrenaline Boost is Instant Healing and Speed Boost mashed into one single target super buff. "Target player is awesome".

Can you compare Empathy to Pain Domination for me please? I want hear why you think Empathy is weak and Pain Domination is not. What does Pain Domination have that puts it ahead of Empathy?

I'll cautiously agree with DrMike about Grav control for dominators, I think the full extent of the Dom changes have yet to feed through, so there maybe some further tweaks down the line.

Electric armour for stalkers, where it gets capped to 75% resists. (4 fold increase in surviability) Brutes can at least be buffed by allies to 90% for some effective mitigation. (10 fold incraese in surviability). Stalker Def sets can reach 20 fold increase in survivability just from the +def for comparison.

Electric blast, when the -end drain chamnges went through this set lost its main trick. Compare mob enddrain in the AE to players, and remember the glory days. It used to be very effective, maybe overly much so, but now its almost entirely ineffective in to many situations

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Electric blasts should do more damage accross the board for Blasters, corruptors, defenders. They feel really weak.

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The single target blasts already DO deal more damage than most other sets, probably to make up for the fact that Electric doesn't get a third one.

My list:

Psionic Blast for blasters. Played one to 28 and it was just "meh" the whole time. Defender version is fine.

Electric blast for any defender except Kinetics. Kinetics is the only defender set that can make this dog of a powerset worth taking on a defender. Blaster and corruptor version are okay in my book.

Sonic Resonance on a Defender or Corruptor, it's a horrible soloing set if you don't have a pet to put Disruption Field on, And on teams it is outshined by Force Field and Thermal respectively. Controller version is alright.

Fiery Aura for scrappers. The 75% resistance cap really hurts this set on scrappers, since it is pretty much all resistance and damage powers. Tanks and brutes can both get up to 90%, which makes it a little more worthwhile. Not saying it's a bad scrapper set, just underperforming in comparison to the rest.

Electric Armor for stalkers. 75% resist cap, low HP, and zero defense in the entire set make for a bad mix on stalkers. Add in the fact that the hardest hitting attack stalkers have is interruptible and you have a losing combination.

icy assault (secondary) on dominators.

I understand *why* it has less damage (as it does slows).
But that does sweet-F.A. to benefit my dom, when everything is already held/confused/mezzed to begin with, the extra slow has no benefit to me whatsoever.

I've only picked Ice assault for my "concept" themed dominator.

If I were looking for a build for a kick-[censored] dom damage wise, ice is the last assault set I'd ever pick.

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Then there's Energy Aura.
The sheer lack of players using it makes the set display how bad it is.
In the years I have been playing, I have seen maybe 3 players tops with EA. (all brutes).

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Gravity control.
Propel is such a long, long, long animation.
Wormhole is incredibly messy (takes a lot of experience to get it to work right, even then it can go wrong).
Singy can be a PITA with all the KB it does. *boing boing boing* repel-o-matic-pet* Although it is a situational thing.

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Forcefield.
It's not that it underperforms, it is that it has powers that piss off the team.
The bubble shields are great.
But there are a heap of other powers in that set, which tend to piss off 90% of the team members.
Eg - forcebolt, detention field, repulsion field, repulsion bomb, and force bubble.

Whilst all the KB-protect-my-team-mates-bubbles are nice, its rather overkill with having 3 of them. I've only ever found force bubbles/repulsion etc enjoyable on a ranged mastermind on team. Hero side I rarely find it useful at all.

Everytime I see Diabolique, she disgustlingly reminds me how awesome her bubble set is compared to my sad bubble defenders set. Cow.

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Electric blast.
I'm not sure whether its the actual numbers damage wise, the animation, or the sound (or combo of all 3), but this set just makes me feel weak (in comparison to my other blasters).

Every time I use lighting bolt, it sounds like there is an angry mosquito dieing. *fizzle*.

Wow... ok.. where to start....

Gravity for Controllers ( and I assume Dominators share the same issue )

- All hard controls. No useful soft control powers mixed in to help deal with foes.. Earth has Earthquake and Quicksand, Ice has Ice slick, Arctic Air and Shiver. Gravity has the utterly USELESS Dimension Shift and the difficult to use ( takes practice ) Wormhole... I have suggest for YEARS that Dimenshion Shift be removed and add a power called Anti Gravity field that works like Ice Slick and Earthquake to know foes down.. And Gravity should have some kind of slow field that reduces movement speed. flight and recharge speed..( not slow as an effect when you control doesnt work )...

OH and not to mention that Propel is the slowest freaking attack on the planet and usually doesnt hit a foe until AFTER its already dead due to the excessive tine needed to animate and generate an image.. I would make ONE image.. make it look like a mini singularity ( which I have suggest several times as well ) it would look cool.. It would still knockback and I assume it would animate faster..

The WARSHADE has better Gravity themed Powers than the Grav Controller does.. thats a shame IMO....

----Electric Blasts. Let me start out by saying that I LOVE Electric Blasts. But they definitely feel very underpowered compared to other sets and End Drain works better depending on which Secondary you choose. Either End Drain needs to work better OR Damage needs a tweak..

-Sonic Resonance... my beef with this set is several things.. One its a straight port of Force Field except with Damage Resistance instead of Defense... Detention Field is crap in PVE and Sonic Cage is crap as well.. and you know why its crap ?? Its not so much the effect( which in itself is annoying ) is that it should be a toggle that I can TURN OFF when I want too...

Sonic Reuplsion.. yes thats what everyone wants.. Mobs scattered all over the place... not a team power..

I also hate the fact that one of my BEST powers Disruption field ONLY WORKS WITH AN ALLY.. the freaking TRICK ARROW defender figured out how to make this power a Location AoE but me the MASTER of Sonic cant figure this out ???!!!!! WTH !!!!! and he gets a 25 foot radius too ???!!!!!!!

Oh yeah.... Liquify.. what a piece of crap.. yes it works... but its still a piece of crap... First off all Sonic is all about -Res... yet my TIER FREAKING has NO -res in it... NONE.... There is a lamo hold that I have seen work like once.. oh yeah and a Defense to hit Debuff thats nice.... but its equal to what a RAD defender does in their tier TWO power.. so the power I have waited 32 0r 38 levels to get is no better than what a Rad defender got more than 20 levels earlier ??????? you gotta be kidding me...

Looks like Its time for me to get to work.. Ill be back later to rant about

Fire Armor.. ( oh yeah you fire Tanks knew this was comin )

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I've a feeling at least half the answers in this thread are going to be completely wrong. So unless four or five people list the same set, take it with a grain of salt.

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well im going to cry now....psi blasters have been mentioned over and over again. waaaaah.
i just got my psi blaster to lvl 30
siggh. guess ill delete it and remake a new one.

so is it just psi blast the primary thats bad?
or is mental manipulation as a secondary ok?

and now im feeling very depressed about my electric armor brute....

Hey, guys, just to let you know, we're not allowed to say Gravity isn't amazing.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Im certainly enjoying my psi blaster, its very nifty for a soloist, and depsite there being mnay resistant mobs in the late game, psi is one of the best sets for certain AV fights (Honoree, Rechsman etc).

You pays your money and makes your choice.

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I've a feeling at least half the answers in this thread are going to be completely wrong. So unless four or five people list the same set, take it with a grain of salt.

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well im going to cry now....psi blasters have been mentioned over and over again. waaaaah.
i just got my psi blaster to lvl 30
siggh. guess ill delete it and remake a new one.

so is it just psi blast the primary thats bad?
or is mental manipulation as a secondary ok?

and now im feeling very depressed about my electric armor brute....

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Why delete it? Keep it around to see if Psi gets a buff - then you will already have a level 30 ready to go. You have other slots to make a different blaster in.

OTOH, keep playing it. "Underperforming" doesn't mean you can't play it, just that it may seem a bit harder to level than if you were playing a different Blaster primary. Until you read this thread, did you know you were "underperforming"? If not, then you can go on as before.

My current experiment (besides playing around with the change to Doms) is to try to find some iteration of Electric Blast that I can really want to play. It's been challenging, and nothing has gone above about level 14ish so far. I have seen some awesome Electric Blasters in the higher levels, but that could certainly be more player skill than something in the set itself.

Gravity Control is not as good as I would wish. My first Troller is Grav/Rad, and after 4 1/2 years, she still hasn't reached 32. Maybe one of these days.

QR

Really? Super Reflexes is underperforming? I know it's personal opinion but two posters noted this set. I'm a bit confused. :/

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My current experiment (besides playing around with the change to Doms) is to try to find some iteration of Electric Blast that I can really want to play. It's been challenging, and nothing has gone above about level 14ish so far.

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Pair it with /elec. The two complement each other in all ways awesomely. /elec helps with the drains quite a bit and its punches are hard-hitting to make up for the ST attacks in your primary. You'll still be a little lacking for AoE damage, but you can take all the time you want to kill those enemies once Power Sink + Short Circuit has sapped them all to 0 in the first few seconds of the fight.

They've fixed most of my old list. (Ice melee for tankers, Invuln, Dark Melee, etc.)

I'll give you three.

Devices for blasters. You can front load the damage in a fight if you take about a year to set it up. Yay? If you had Build Up, you could front load the damage in a fight NOW.

Sonic Resonance for Defenders. It just doesn't do enough of anything for me. Yeah, you don't get Resistance many other places in this game but... it's weak.

Energy Aura on a Stalker- it's got a heal that only works if you're in the middle of 300 guys, it's got a ton of "get your END back" powers, and it's otherwise custom designed for a Brute.

No underperforming problems with Brute EA, it seems. ^_^

Yay!

Assault Rifle, Martial Arts.

Underperforming doesn't mean unplayable. It simply means the set doesnt perform as well as it could or that it performs less than expected.

I think Electric Blast sets underperform but I throughly enjoy playing both my Elec/Elec Blaster and my Kin/Elec defender.

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QR

Really? Super Reflexes is underperforming? I know it's personal opinion but two posters noted this set. I'm a bit confused. :/

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Me to I'm confused too, I have 6 lvl 50 Scrappers 2 of them are /SR and they are not weak at all they are 2 of my best. I don't see how anyone could say /SR under underperforming when you now have Shield Defense. Shield Defense as lower Defense number and as lower Resistance to Defense of Debuff. Two big things a Defense set likes to have high.

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