Pros and Cons of each secondary?

Could anyone post the pros and cons of each secondary? I always see someone say a set sucks, but normally they never say why lol. I would like to basically know the "holes" of each set I suppose? and what they are good at doing? That would be awesome.

Well... to a degree, it's opinion. All of the current brute defense sets will serve you fine
for regular play in different ways, although different circumstances will make different
weakness' stand out more. And the sets that are REALLY good, tend to make the "average"
sets look weak mostly by comparison.

That said, here's how I'd describe them.

STONE

Pro: VERY powerful final defense in Granite armor. Good self-heal/+hp power, status
protection power has high end-drain resist and +regen. Good damage aura that
both slows and immobs many enemies.

Con: Granite has massive Psi hole, and other negatives(-dmg, -rech) that require outside
buffs or massive IO spending to overcome. Set before granite, while rounded(and including
psi defense), is "average" to "meh" protection in most areas. Granite armor overwrites
personal costume/appearance, which may be huge dealbreaker to some.

SUPER REFLEXES

I have little experience with this set, since I hate click mez protection. So I'll skip it
to not talk out my posterior, even though I'm pretty sure I know enough to comment.

WILLPOWER

Pros: VERY well rounded protection. High regeneration, QuickRecovery is better than
Stamina and doesn't cost extra powers to take(although you can still take it for even
more endurance recov.) Self-rez for less dependance on others if you die on a team,
mez protect power covers fear and confuse. +Tohit debuff in aura power.

Cons: Very few. Although since it lacks debuff resists, combos such as longbow
nullifiers + spec-ops can cause complete and /total/ defensive failure in all ways,
very quickly, if care is not taken.

SHIELD DEFENSE

See super reflexes. Can probably comment, but will leave to someone more qualified.

INVULNERABILITY

Pros: Also very well rounded set, good resists with respectable defense. Defense aura
gives +tohit. Excellent "godmode" power to survive unexpectedly tough encounters. Good
self-heal/+HP power.

Cons: Requires taking passive powers to make the most of debuff resists and resistances.
No fear/confuse protection in status protect. Zero Psi protection, even in godmode.

FIERY AURA

Pros: More offense-geared set(the "spiked shield" of defense sets.) Excellent self-heal,
excellent self-rez, second "build up" power that boosts fire attacks more. Good endurance
recovery power.

Cons: Resistance based set without defense, resist numbers are fairy average except
for fire(which is at the resist cap.) Slightly low Cold resist. Status protect lacks immob
and KB protection, requiring extra powers or IOs to cover.

DARK ARMOR

Pros: Toolkit set - gives you straightforward protection and various utility aid. Extremely
powerful(if costly) self-heal. Very powerful self-rez, high neg/psi resist. Status protect
covers Fear protection.

Cons: Utilities and damage aura add VERY high endurance use, oft requiring much more
active maintenance of toggling powers on/off as needed. Self-heal likewise has large
end cost, and must be minded. Low en/tox resist, avg resists otherwise. Status protect
lacks KB and Immob protect, requiring extra powers or IOs to cover(although +stealth
power in set does provide the immob.)

ELECTRIC ARMOR

Pros: Excellent resists, good self-heal/+regen/+enddiscount power. Lightning reflexes
gives large +rech boost to all powers. Nearly invulnerable to endurance drain, +
excellent endurance recovery power. Excellent "godmode" power. Energy resist is at
maximum.

Cons: Immob/KB protect come on a power requiring you to be "on the ground"(hello
grandville webnade brigade! /ELA on the menu!) Pure resistance, no defense. Average
negenergy resist. Zero toxic resistance outside of godmode power.

ENERGY AURA

Pros: Status protect power has Teleport protect(if this is a concern to you. Useless in
PVE.) Good +stealth power, OK self-heal/+end power. Excellent "godmode" power. Some
OK resists tossed on top of the defense. Endurance discount power.

Cons: Defense is Typed instead of Positional, which may be harder to expand on with
IOs(though efforts have been made towards balancing this.) Actual defense numbers are
"average." +stealth power may hinder fury buildup for some.

That's about my take on stuff, anyway. Other's mileage may and will vary.

I'd agree with Puppy for the most part, although I think we differ quite a bit on how much of a pro or con a particular hole may be. For example I think Puppy underemphasizes the cons of -rech and -spd in Stone's Granite Form, but it is largely an opinion as to what benefits outweigh what negatives. Not really a suprise for me since I'm a fan of Fire Armor and will happily trade +damage for surviabilty. Small wonder then that I think a set that does the exact opposite is a big negative. No two people have the same playstyle obviously.

I'll take a shot at Super Reflexes, someone else will have to fill in Shield Defense.


Pros: Quickness provides a nice +rech. Easy to soft cap defense with IOs. Excellent Defense Debuff Resistance greatly reduces the risk of cascading defense failure. When the random number generator is in your favor you are untouchable. Excellent god mode. Only three toggles makes it pretty light on your endurance bar.

Cons: Starts slow. You'll be weak early on and just have to ride it out. Needs nearly every power in the set to really reach it's full potential, which can limit power picks you'd rather use for power pools or even your primary. Some psionic damage powers have no positional tag, meaning you have no defense against them. When the random number generator is not in your favor you are dead, there is no inbetween with this set. Lack of self heal can be a problem if you are hit. God mode is not all that useful once you reach the soft cap.

Click Mez Protection: Mostly a con now, it used to be a big pro before the change to holds meant they didn't detoggle you anymore. Can be frustrating to those who like to keep another power (such as Hasten) on autofire.

This was exactly what I wanted! This seriously needs to be a sticky for everyone! TYVM!

STICKY PLEASE!

Something I don't really see mentioned that should be IMO and that's the presence of damage auras (or lack thereof). On most characters I'd rather not waste the endurance, but on Brutes, with Rage (and other damage buffs, self or otherwise), damage auras actually really begin to make a difference, even if you only toggle them on while your fury is high and your surrounded by 3 or more foes.

They are effective enough on Brutes to be considered when determining which secondary you want to play. A Super-Strength/Fire Brute for example, would be crazy not to have a fury-fueled, en-Raged Blazing Aura running.

One con puppy didn't mention about Willpower: horrible taunt aura. Don't expect to use your taunt aura to grab and hold aggro if you go WP.

Shields
Pros: Self damage buff/enemy debuff in Against All Odds. Huge damage AoE in Shield Charge. Grant Cover includes noticeably helps teammates (if they're close). If you can afford to soft-cap, high survivability.

Cons: Incredibly expensive to soft-cap defense. Weak defense debuff protection so cascading defense failures can happen fast if you're not quick to pop a purple.

Shields is a great choice if you are a min-maxer but for the average player I wouldn't recommend it. It's pretty squishy without serious investment in set bonuses.

I'll throw in from my own personal experiences with ALL the sets.

Dark Armor:

Pros: Has the most utility of all the secondaries. Has a fear aura, damage aura, disorient aura. Has a heal that draws from multiple targets. 2 targets are enough to heal to full if slotted correctly. And has a stealth move that when paired with Super speed can make nearly full invisibility in PvE.

Has the highest Psi and Neg energy resists of all the melee armor sets (within their respective archetypes of course). It also comes with a very handy endurance drain resist to help against sapping. It has all the regular protections against Mezes and adds in Fear as well.

Has a very effective self-rez that can keep you and your allies out of danger for a brief while.

Cons: Does not handle large mobs easily, granted the large mobs do not do neg or psi damage. Has a weakness to Energy and toxic damage, being that that is their lowest resists.

It's very toggle-heavy without any endurance management powers.

How it plays: The set on the whole will FEEL weak at first. That's if you are used to a set that just waltzes in and soaks up S/L damage. On my experience this set is very technical, and the reason people shrug it off at first is because it's just not their run-n'-gun style.

You'll be switching toggles based on what you're fighting and playing strategically. The thing is the vast majority of mobs do some sort of S/L damage, so S/L is some of the most common damage in the game... and Dark Armor does only average against it. People pick up Tough just to cover that, but without Tough, you can get dropped pretty quick.

So if you enjoy a technical game, this is the set for you.



Electric Armor:

Pros: Has the maximum energy resists, has the highest common-damage resists of ALL the armors. Has a decent Self-heal and a good amount of Regen attached. Has a moderate resistance to speed debuffs, and a recharge bonus the same as Super Reflexes Quickness. It also has teleport resist, which is only useful in PvP, seeing as no npcs have tp foe.

Has hands down the best endurance management of all the sets (I.E. Even using SO's you can still have limitless endurance). Nearly unsapable for endurance, as if a Malta Sapper tries to sap you, he'll only total out a half an endurance point per hit.

Has a very good Tier 9, which can max out all resists except Psi and toxic. The tier 9 power grants toxic resist where you had none, and no psi resist where you already had it.

Cons: The same as dark armor, it CAN get overwhelmed in large mobs. Its weaknesses are toxic damage and negative energy damage, being the lowest resists it has (It actually has no toxic resist at all).

Part of it's usefullness as an immob resist and knockback resist requires you to stay on the ground. If you want any Neg energy resist whatsoever you need to stay on the ground. If you even take an inch off the floor while you are getting hit with a knockback, you will go flying.

How it plays: It does not have the utility of the dark armor, or the offense of Firey aura. It's uniqueness lies in the endurance managment. If you can get a set that compliments this secondary, you won't have too many problems.

It does feel squishy at times, like dark armor and firey arua it gets overwhelmed by a lot of S/L damage, since S/L is it's common damage resist. However it does exponentially well vs energy damage, which is also pretty common, so there are particurlar mobs where you shine brighter than all the other sets (ahem Rikti).



Energy Aura:

Pros: Pretty high defense, and excellent defense debuff resists. Like Electric armor, it has very good endurance management. The sapping power gives you HP as well as endurance, which is key in survival. It has a stealth power like dark armor, but this one enhances your basic powers as well since it does not lose its defense bonus when you attack.

Has some interesting mez resists, including Teleport resist, which is only good in pvp though, and Repel Resist, which is used a good number of times in PvE. It also comes with some auto resist powers to soften the damage that does make it through.

A very useful tier 9 power, which gives +HP on top of other things.

Cons: Recognising the problems the set had, the devs put in a self heal in the energy drain. This works, but you have to slot it for both now to keep both uses up.

The defense is not quite as much as Super Reflexes so you will get hit, and the resistances offered are very minimal, so when you get hit, you really feel it. Debuffs and other things that require a hit check are not always damage-type based, so there are times where there is no defense to them.

The thing I thought was the strangest is that seeing how this is energy aura, you'd think energy defense would be the highest... well it is, by 1.8%. Which is to say, very very minimally.

How it plays: In perspective it will probably seem as though you are getting hit a lot more than dodging. Well truth be told you are dodging quite a bit, but since your defenses aren't as high as SR, you were given resists. For that reason, you will take a good number more hits than a SR.

I feel that IO sets and bonuses really help this set out a lot. And this is a pretty late-blooming set. I'm sure others can vouch on how much they like this set... or how much they WANT to like it but can't.



Firey Aura:

Pros: Often called the most offensive set, no not because it comes with severe body odor, but because it comes with a 2nd build up. It offers maximum fire resist, and average levels of common resists. It now has resistance to recharge as well. Healing flames is very good. People can get it's recharge so fast you can keep it on auto and not worry too much about taking sustained damage.

Strangely enough it has a click resistance to immobilize in Burn. When you lay down the fire, you get 100 seconds of immob protection.

It does have one endurance recovery power, and a self-rez tier 9 that makes you invincible for a while.

Cons: Out of all the elemental armors it has the lowest common resists to damage. It has NO resist to psi damge at all. Granted it has healing flames high healing and fast recharge, but inbetween that, if whatever hit you hard is still hitting you hard, you're going to be in trouble.

The other problem is knockback. It has no knockback protection, therefore you must either cover it with IO bonuses, or take acrobatics.

How it plays: Well at first you're going to be doing ok, you get healing flames very early, and it needs to be used very often. After a certain point, like when you get SO's and put your resists in your 2 toggles and slot healing flames... that's about as good as it gets, defensively. After that, everything else comes from pool powers, IO bonuses, ect.

So your late-game play focuses more on offense, and how much you're going to increase your damage. People tend to use this to farm, seeing the damage potential in the set. Only thing is, the set needs a bit of outside help sometimes, depending on what they're farming.



Invulnerability:

Pros: A set with high potential. A common misconseption of this set is that it's a straight up resist set. Not so, it's actually half and half.

It offers you a moderate ammount of resist all but Psi, and it's highest resist is S/L. For example if you had the auto power and unyielding you'd get around 15% resist to fire/cold/energy/neg/toxic (unenhanced).

So to compensate for that, it offers Invincibility, which gives you a greater defense per person around you. This stacks with the defense auto power. So therefore Invulnerability has a good defense potential.

You also get Dull pain, giving you more HP and a good heal as well. On top of that you get resist to a good number of debuffs, such as endurance draining, recovery, movement, recharge, and defense.

It's tier 9 is superb, and also offers a recovery bonus on top of potentially maxing all but psi resists.

Cons: Well there's the obvious gaping Psionics hole. No defense or resist to psi at all. If something is a ranged npc, you'll have to goad them into your Invincibility taunt aura.

It has no endurance management powers, so you may find yourself running short on endurance often.

How it plays: This is the run-n'-gun set, for those who love to run in there and be able to take em all at once. As I mentioned, endurance management may be a problem if you don't know what you're doing yet. This is where IO sets come in handy.

It's a very active set, and good for beginners and experts.



Shield Defense:

Pros: This is another set similar to Invuln as it's both defense and resistance. It has a high ammout of vector defense (Ranged, Melee, AoE), and it offers a higher natural HP like Willpower does. It has resists to fall back on like Energy arua does, only shields has a lot higher resist than energy aura.

It has a taunt aura that like invincibility gets better the more npcs that surround you. Only this one increases damage potential. Yes it stacks with fury.

It has 2 interesting defensive moves, one that increases your defense (Up to 3 people), for allies that are nearby you, and another that does NOT increase your defense, but gives all your teammates a good defense bonus around you. It's mez protection is click based, which means you don't have to worry about another toggle, and it offers repel resist.

Some people like this one more than firey aura in it has a good ammount of offense abilities, such as the Shield charge, which is only equal to lightning rod.

The tier 9 is by no means uber, it's just very very good. It ups your resist by a good ammount, gives you recovery, and gives more HP. The good part is it has a crash like hasten, which is not something that will cripple you if you crash mid-combat.

Cons: You can't enhance Phalanx Fighting for some reason, your tier 9 is good but won't save you in some situations. Like Invuln it has a huge Psi weakness.

It has no form of self-healing, so enemies can whittle away at your HP without aid-self. It also has no form of endurance management or end recovery debuff protection. Again, that is something that needs to be covered with something else.

The tier 9 is not enhanceable for recharge whatsoever. Not even by outside buffs.

How it plays: It's actually very fun to play. This is a pretty active set. Defensively, you play it and you will take hits about as much (or sometimes even less than) as an energy aura. The difference being that you have a lot more natural HP, and a substantially higher resistance than an energy aura.

One tip to remember is that when you wanna AoE bombard them, remember to get them all around you first, that way you get the damage bonus from Against all odds before you activate your power. Otherwise the damage bonus does not count.



Stone Armor:

Pros: Has an interesting mixture of defense and resistances. Has Dull pain and a built in slowing/immobilizing aoe.

The tier 9 is the best armor of them all... in any of the armors on any of the secondaries. No other single toggle is gonna give that much defense and resist all at once.

Cons: It's SLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWW! Very slow. Teleport is pretty darn essential to make it functional. Speed boost is another alternative if you have a kin with you.

The thing is, most the armors are simply overshadowed by Granite Armor. You'd need 5 of the inferior toggles just to do what the 1 toggle does, and it does it better than all 5.

1 of the 5 is Rooted, and then you can activate that while in Granite Armor.

The only thing the smaller armors have going for them is the defense to Psi toggle. In the vast majority of the cases that's not enough to justify not using granite over the other 5 toggles.

How it plays: Well, pre-granite armor you'll definately feel slow, seeing how your important mez protection is in Rooted. So pre-granite armor you'll have a decent mixture of defense, resist, and regeneration. Enough to feel pretty solid though. (Pun intended)

After Granite armor, It would take a LOT to bring you down. But you can be taken down.



Super Reflexes:

Pros: Very high defense, and a strange ammount of resist. You get resistance added more and more dependant on how low your HP is.

It has very high defense debuffs, some movement, and recharge resistance. Quickness adds in speed and recharge. It offers a click mez protection, freeing up a toggle spot, and offers confuse resist on top of that.

The tier 9 power adds in a vast ammount more defense than you possibly need. It adds in recovery and movement speed as well.

Cons: Being straight up defense, a few lucky hits in, or some high accuracy bounuses will tear you a new one. Certain Psi attacks can get in, too, bypassing defense completely.

Unlike Stone armor, this doesn't have an overwhelming tier 9, but more like one that will not impress much. Some people have worked their super reflexes so that they have incredible defenses without elude, and elude doesn't add much to their already soft-capped characters.

This set has is no endurance management. And a set based on quickness tends to use a lot of endurance, fast. It also has no form of +HP or self healing, so you need to find a way of covering that.

How it plays: Some might say it's probably the most boring of the armors. It's the least active secondary armor next to Stone armor, just turn on 3 toggles and you're done. There's nothing else to these armors, they just provide defense, no utility at all. As a matter of fact because of this they had to add in a small range taunt aura in Evasion, which does not buff, debuff, or damage like other taunt auras do.

The click mez protection is the only thing in the set that requires your attention. Even then you can auto fire it.



Willpower:

Pros: This is a moderate all-around set. The jack of all trades. It has a lot of HP, moderate ammount of resist-all, moderate ammount of defense, and good regen.

I would call this a 'pro' because adding on any kind of buff to a willpower adds on a lot to them. I mean outside buffs, like a good forcefielder, sonic, pain dom, ect... adds a lot to this set. No buff is overshadowed because of how high one status is... like a forcefielder buffing an already maxed super reflexes.

The willpower can face a vast majority of mobs and do equally as well against most. The self-rez is also a self-buff. The set has very good endurance managment, and high regen as well.

The tier 9 adds a good ammount of resist, it is by far not uber, but does a good job. It's crash is minimal because of that. More like the crash of Hasten.

Cons: Being master of none, a willpower can get overwhelmed by things other armors have very high strengths in. It's defense and resistance numbers aren't as high as the other armors. They are by far the lowest in comparison.

Sometimes regen isn't enough for taking high damage, single targets. Self healing isn't an option for willpower, so that may get ugly.

The tier 9 is not enhanceable for recharge whatsoever. Not even by outside buffs.

Unlike some of the other self-rezes, this one still leaves you open to attack. If you self-rez while you are still surrounded, you may find yourself faceplanted again, fast.

How it plays: This one is also pretty fun to play. With it's good endurance management, you can rock a lot of toggles and keep on ticking. As far as taking on things that deal a heavy ammount of damage, it's not actually willpower's strong suits. But it is kinda the fun part of playing a willpower.

This set has a lot of room for any style of play. It's very good for both beginners and experts.

Shield defense does not have a huge psi hole. Most psi powers possess a positional component that /shield defends against. Even though most of the powers that don't have a positional component are psi powers, it's still only a handful and not often encountered.

Also /Shield with HOs and some descent recharge can almost reach the defense debuff resistance cap.

Stone:
Post 38 it has awsome survivability. Prior to that you kind of suck. The set is some what fugly which is why I cant play it to 50. Maybe with some more custimazation I might be able to.

Willpower:
Its nearly the perfect set. Its plays like the way regeneration and invulnerability played back in issue 2. Back in the days when we were heroes. Oh how I miss those days when I felt super. Willpower pretty much gives me that feeling back again. With IOs and accolades its gets even better. The one misconception I see alot of is folks saying WP cant take alpha strikes but thats just a lie and they are doing it wrong. I never had issues with anything in pve with WP aside from Ghost Widow but who doesnt have problems with Ghost Widow?

Firery Aura:
A complete waste of a powerset. It just isnt worthy it even on tanks. The only way I would play this is for character concept only. Its just not survivable enough. The build up on a 3 minute timer and the squishieness the set has does not justify the lack of knockback protection. Yeah I know we have IOs but I would rather not need to slot for that.

Dark Armor:
Complete was of time. I hated that I leveld this character. The endurance drain the set has is what made it not worth. You basically are playing a character with asthma the entire time and your cabs are your fast acting inhaler. The survivability thats gained from the fear power doesnt justify the massive endurance drain the set has. Its just not fun to me. The heal it gets is nice but again it should not be as big of an end hog. The squishieness prior to that does not justify the endurance drain either. If the devs were to cut the end costs of the set by almost 2/3rds I could see playing it again. Just be prepared to get end+ IOs to make it playable.

Energy Aura:
Lol at non-positional defense. This set could have been so much better but they choose to pre-nerf it out of the box like so many villain powersets. Essentially it was supposed to be ice armor but the devs claimed the -recharge was counter productive to fury building so brutes were given EA instead. Its funny how the -recharge was not ok but yet the fear in cloak of fear is ok? Not playing this set to 50 till the defense values are higher and it gets a real heal and not that gimmick they gave us with end drain.

Electric Aura:
Would have been a nice set had castle just moved the heal down to the same level that scrappers get it. I played this set once to the 40s and hated prior to aid self. The set is only good for one thing and thats dealing with energy damage. Outside of that its epic phail till you get a heal. The endurance management goodies are nice but I would rather have the heal earlier when it matters.

Super Reflexes /Shields Defense:
Both these sets play similar in terms of defense but both will need Ios if they want to be godly in the end game. Claws paired with SR means you become a blender of destruction. SR paired with the new ninja power means no travel power is needed at all.

Invulnerability:
Saving the worst for last. Its just a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of its former self. It was such a mighty set back in issue 2 and still good some what for scrappers in issue 4 but its been garbage ever since issue 5. The little tweaks here and there its gotten have done almost nothing to make this set worth playing again in my eyes. I loved invulnerability, it was my first love in CoH but after the nerfs I just cant play it. It requires too much IO investment to get to similar levels of survivability WP gets out of the box. That to me is where the problem is. I think at the very least they should have allowed us to cap smashing/lethal damage without outside help or power pools so that we could focus on all the other issues the set has. At least now the gapping psi hole is gone. I remember back in the day you were more likely to die on a team than anyone else when facing psi whelding critters now you dont, so thats really the only plus thats come out of all the changes.

This thread made me play my Invul again. It is a cheap way to soft cap and basically makes a Invul tank or Brute a premiere farming toon. Its like Granite without the slow or -damage/recharge.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=126983