Powersets

Hey all. I've been playing CoX on and off for a little over 3 years. This is the year that I got a little more serious or in depth shall I say with building and tweaking a toon. The other day I was looking to create a new scrapper toon and I was a bit undecisive due to the nature of some power sets. I don't mean to seem like a whiner, but why are some powersets SEEM more doable than others? Like I see way more /sr /wp /inv and /SD running around than lets say a /FA or /DA. ElA is probably a running around more because it's fairly new. Or like why are more baddies more resistant to lethal and smashing while fire is one of the more less resisted attacks out there.

I could be wrong in the above mentioned statements, and I'm sorry if I am or sound totally n00bish or something. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of the choices we have.
Is CoX an even playing ground for the many different combination of toons we can create? Like are there just as many lethal resistant baddies as there are negative resistant? Do you guys get what I am saying? I mean, this wont make me stop playing CoX. I think this question kinda came about when I found my DB/Elec taking longer to chop down enemies my DM/Sr. And my DM is mostly single target.

Ok, precautionary flame suit on.

GO!

All powersets aren't created equal. Fortunately, even the weakest powerset can be made strong enough to take on team spawns and solo some AVs.

<shrug>

I dislike both DA and FA. They aren't good sets for the way I play which is at the far edge of insane and solo. DA is higher on my list of "usable" than FA is.

For my playstyle, the scrapper secondaries go like this:

WP
SR
Inv
Shield
Regen
DA
Elec
FA

SR is actually higher than it should be because I know what it feels like tricked out to the gills. It's downright painful for the first 21 levels.

That list is NOT based on hard data. It's based on nothing but my opinion of the sets.

CoX is a mature balanced game, so that the overall performance gap between powersets is probably no worse than 80%. In other words, any well-built post-SO scrapper can mow through crowds of bad guys with at least 80% of the efficiency of the best combo, whatever that is.

This goes for all archetypes, not just scrappers.

I've seen a spreadsheet detailing average enemy resistances. Lethal came out slightly worse, but was doing something like 92% full damage across the board compared to 96% or 97% for fire and smashing.

So when people say "lethal is more resisted" or "fire armor is squishy" its true, but not like twice as bad as the alternatives.

Pretty much all of the sets are equal. I think it is actually very difficult to make any powerset more durable than another if they are both completely pimped. Granted, on small to medium budgets, the disparity can be quite large.

Well, which sets do you think are weak? It sounds like you're saying something smashing or lethal combined with Fire Armor or Dark Armor sounds the weakest to you? Hmmm, maybe. Martial Arts is arguably the weakest primary, but if you pair it with Dark Armor, you get to stack stuns, which might be pretty useful. So that's out. So maybe Martial Arts/Fire Armor? Well, you have a moderate damage mostly single target set. It has some secondary effects, but with nothing to stack them on, they probably won't gel into anything very useful. Fire Armor would really benefit from some mitigation from the primary, and for the most part it isn't going to get it. Hmmmmmm, well, it IS sounding kind of low end to me.

But I don't think it would be BAD. Just less good than some of the alternatives.

Also, SOME combination has to be worst. I think what's important is that even if that is the worst combination (and I highly doubt you'd get any consensus on what the worst combination is), that it's still perfectly playable, and if built right, would even let you feel pretty strong. And I'm betting it meets those criteria. If I suddenly had a concept for flaming kicks of doom, I wouldn't hesitate to roll one.

As for WHY some combinations seem more doable, more powerful than others, I think it is mostly because balance is very very hard. Not only do you have to balance the primaries with each other, and the secondaries with each other, but also the combinations of both with each other, plus handle everything from lowbies on TOs to level 50s IO'd to the gills. Not easy. And given how difficult a task it seems, I think the sets and combinations have pretty amazing balance.

I'm no CoX experts so I haven't tried alot of combos. I did run an Ma/Fa to like 24 I think and "scrapped". Him. Had a Ka/Da a few years back and scrapped that too, but I may give it another go since it improved. Maybe even fire/da. I guess that's the beauty of the game...to try out the many combinations and see what works for for me.

If we go by my Character selection screen...
Then the worst ones would be Dark/* and */Dark :P




But like others had said... Its All Good!!!

MA/FA... that does sound freaking painful.

Unless you REALLY leaned on dragon's tail and burn. And plugged the KB hole. And cranked up melee defense. Soooo, massive recharge and melee def build. Cycling through FocusChi, Buildup, Dragon's Tail, Burn, Healing Flames.

I'd probably delete it before level 30.

Maybe I should start one. I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the amazing builds that are possible. Maybe I should play something that I'm pretty confident I'll never purple out. I've never done Martial Arts. I've never done Fire Armor. I could go to the school of hard knocks by doing both at once. Heck, I could play it with only SOs just to be core.

(Good lord, I think I'm really going to do it. But not tonight. Must sleep tonight. Must not make new Scrapper.)

In my opinion, any combination if played a certain way can be quite devastating. There are certain combinations that compliment each other very well which is why you see those more often than the ones that meld together quite horribly.

More often than not, personal opinions of combinations are based off what you see not what you play. Therefore, if you see a bad combo played poorly you think less of it. If you see a bad combo played well then that may change your opinion. It's more about how you play it and how you build it than anything else. Although, even with carefully thought out builds certain things do shine through more than others. DA and FA can be quite an @$$ kicking secondary if you form your build around it's weaknesses and strengths. That being said, FA and DA don't quite fall into line as well due to a simple fact that being a scrapper means having the scrapper mindset when you play (which would be to destroy everything you see) Power selections for DA and FA are just not up to par with some of their competitors. End of story. Not that they aren't fun or good, but purely resistance based sets without +def or +regen really tend to be lacking. Yay we'll give you a neat heal because your REALLY going to need it...


I believe the other topic of smashing/lethal in comparison to the exotics has been covered effectively enough to leave that one alone.

Replying to nobody in particular. In my opinion, there is a great disparity between powersets, the thing is there is an even greater disparity between player builds, player skill, and last but not least, self-imposed rules ; use insps as they drop and I guarantee you you'll be a god on any character as soon as level 22-25ish.

Ultimately, the most important thing is, as _Force_ says, any combination played a certain way can be devastating. Having large differences between powersets isn't much of a problem because the amount of punishment and damage any combo can potentially dish out is so absurdly high you'll hardly notice the differences unless you look for it specifically. I'd argue apart from a few oddities here and there balance is pretty damn good in this game considering the build flexibility we have.


Oh, and I'd love to see Werner making a MA/FA. Just because you know a dozen of MA/FA would come out of the woodworks.

Werner, you should try MA/FA up to 50. It might be a different experience. But maybe part of my ignorance to the lesser used sets could be do to me reading these forums all the time. I hear horror builds left and right about this and that. I had a fire/stone tank up 36. Just wasn't working out well for me. Not that i was dying alot, but I had the keep the ground shaken in order to keep the baddies occupied. I think it just wasn't tanky enough though. It almost felt like a glorified scrapper minus the damage output.

Oh and my bad for referring to Katana as Ka. I was on my Iphone and I got lazy and complacent. lol.

It depends a lot on the playstyle and what you're going to do with the build.

For me, MA/Fire would be awesome. I love to fight just one tough enemie and always stay at /X0.

On the other hand, spines/ and elec/ wouldn't be for me, even if it's with /invuln or /WP. For me, they'd be horrible sets. I don't fight huge groups 99% of the time.


Are all the sets equal at everything? No.
Are all the sets good at something, making them equal for different style? Yes.

It's a big discussion, i think mainly to put my points down simply, even the most powerful combinations ain't all the grass is greener on the other side sorta thing.

When you see someone play a toon well, making it look like the toon is awesome, i bet the owner of the toon is having a harder time than you think.

Every powerset works if built right. But even the powerful sets have problems, at the moment toons like DM/SD forexample, it'll look really strong in a big mob, you think lots of damage you'll see the self heal, but things like the mez/debuff toggle not activating or the fact the toon needs 2 bill to be anygood, are major factors

MyFM/SD is very strong at 50, it's 2 sets that are very strong put together. But i have drawbacks.

Firstly to soft cap it cost me 1.5 bill, an let's face it a SD needs to soft capped to be anygood.

Secondly if i'm below level 47 i loose my set bonuses which makes me useless in ANY TF etc below that level. Without being soft capped i get owned. thus i never play below 50.

the defence debuff toggle, it's a pain in the ***, have to have it on auto and when on an ITF if it doesn't fire off in a mob agaist cinemoras i get owned.

Even the powerfull combos have weaknesses. some of the so called weaker sets in game are alot better than they look on mids, an lets face it everyone builds on mids before they roll a toon.

The only powerset is Willpower, it has no drawbacks and can be made cheaply or insanely powerful with money.

The reason there's so many toons in the bame is because no toon can do everything.

As a basic rule i've noticed the best toons are only good once at 50and slotted, And damage isn't everything. Higher resisted attacks have def debuffs in the attacks which at times is better than straight damage from like fire/

lomng post i don't feel i've made my point because i't would take me all day to come up with a proper reply. As apart from 1 or 2 combos most sets are very fair.

I'm not so much worried about the clickyness of a power, although I have tried regen and scrapped him. NOT because it was clicky, but at an earlier level i just didnt have the patience for dying so much. These days though I am more patient because I'd like to give each and every secondary a go-round and make my own declarations about each of them. So currently I have a DB/Elec and an Elec/dark. My DB/elec is up to lvl 19. So Im looking forward to the lvl 35 and lvls.