Powersets that you won't play?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2010-02-05 14:34 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I love the idea of Tankers... the idea that you can render an enemy powerless by tricking them into attacking a target they cannot hurt (in theory.) In play, they just feel so... dull. I was on a Trick or Treat team with a Invul/SS tank I was messing around with (mid 20s). I had to go AFK, so I targeted through the scrapper and set Taunt to autofire. And my tank performed his role, if not perfectly, well enough for the rest of the team to perform theirs. Sad.
Mind trollers. I love love LOVE controllers, but I despise Mind controllers. I can't even recall how many times I've sat down with a concept & name ready to finally give Mind a shot and then I read the powers list and give up in disgust.
Kheldians. I HAAAAATE Knockback. Every time I see a Kheld scatter a nicely packed mob, I think of that Stuart character from Mad TV-- "Look what I can do! Look what i can do!"
Stay Gold, Paragon. Stay Gold.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
I always found tankers in general to be incredibly boring. I essentially grab as much aggro as the game will allow me, stand around with no fear of death what so ever, and do very mediocre damage. Occasionally things will go badly for someone and I can hope that enough of the enemies that were focused on me have died so that my taunt can grab the things on whatever is in trouble. Or usually, it's better to just let the controller handle it, since he doesn't have some arbitrary hold count.
The only tanker I have enjoyed was Willpower/Super Strength, and I think that was mostly because I could cut loose a bit more with my damage output. I probably should have gone Shield/SS in that regard, but it wasn't out and I'm sure as hell not going to start over.
I don't really like defenders either. Perhaps I'm not really a team oriented person, but I find it easier to be the guy who is self sufficient, rather than hoping that my team has any ability to survive without me holding their hands. That said, I did like Kin, especially after I stopped giving Speed Boost to people. Seriously, it doesn't matter how quick your tier 9 recharges after I went ahead and made ALL your powers a tier 9 when I used Fulcrum Shift. You're WELCOME, by the way. Not that you ever thank ME, you're too busy praising the stupid empath every time green energy shoots out of it's orifices.
That and Corrupters outclass them in every way. My sole Kin defender is very likely going to become a Corr just as soon as GR comes out.
Same thing for any scrapper/brutes I had...
And controller/dominators...
I wonder if villians are balanced by having crappy epic pools, sometimes.
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Villains are balanced by the Devs hating them |
Originally Posted by Warkupo
I always found tankers in general to be incredibly boring. I essentially grab as much aggro as the game will allow me, stand around with no fear of death what so ever, and do very mediocre damage. Occasionally things will go badly for someone and I can hope that enough of the enemies that were focused on me have died so that my taunt can grab the things on whatever is in trouble. Or usually, it's better to just let the controller handle it, since he doesn't have some arbitrary hold count.
The only tanker I have enjoyed was Willpower/Super Strength, and I think that was mostly because I could cut loose a bit more with my damage output. I probably should have gone Shield/SS in that regard, but it wasn't out and I'm sure as hell not going to start over. I don't really like defenders either. Perhaps I'm not really a team oriented person, but I find it easier to be the guy who is self sufficient, rather than hoping that my team has any ability to survive without me holding their hands. That said, I did like Kin, especially after I stopped giving Speed Boost to people. Seriously, it doesn't matter how quick your tier 9 recharges after I went ahead and made ALL your powers a tier 9 when I used Fulcrum Shift. You're WELCOME, by the way. Not that you ever thank ME, you're too busy praising the stupid empath every time green energy shoots out of it's orifices. That and Corrupters outclass them in every way. My sole Kin defender is very likely going to become a Corr just as soon as GR comes out. Same thing for any scrapper/brutes I had... And controller/dominators... I wonder if villians are balanced by having crappy epic pools, sometimes. |
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Any defender. Superfluous class.
Most scrappers. Why play a scrapper when I can play a brute?
The mental/psi powersets for blasters. Weaksauce in the extreme. Have a mind/psi blaster frozen eternally at 34. He will never get higher. Sets both get a D for blasters. Either massively beef up the damage or the mag of EVERYTHING else. Putting WoC in there is just... What are they thinking with that power?
The Empathy set. My very first CoH toon from launch is an empathy/psi def. She has been and always will be frozen at 32. Not only a set that isn't fun to play, but is actively irritating. Both powersets. Not a bad primary, just not suited to my mostly solo playstyle.
Sonic secondary for blasters. Have one frozen at 45 or so. Just too boring and too irritating to solo him the last five levels. I actually like the design and idea, just shouldn't have chosen a team support secondary for my primarily solo playstyle.
Khelidans. Garbage. An excellent idea with such poor and counterintuitive execution that they are deservedly a joke compared to Veats. I have a WS frozen forever at 38 or so. With 3 or four billion inf pumped into him, he'd be an unstoppable bad ***, but why waste three or four billion inf on a WS when I could make two tankers, scrappers, blaster, brutes, or really ANY other AT MORE of a badass?
Necromancy powerset for MMs. Have one frozen forever at 40. Zombies are just too broken and ridiculously underpowered. A melee set with no/minimal defenses and resistances to the most common damage types in the game. Counterintuitive and absurd.
Stand UP.
FIGHT BACK!
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Originally Posted by silas
villains are balanced by the devs hating them
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qft
Stand UP.
FIGHT BACK!
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Villains are more self-reliant but less specialized. A dominator has superior killing power to a controller, but for someone like me who actually enjoys supporting a team it can't match a controller - I keep looking for buffs and debuffs that just aren't there. I just find the buff/debuff sets more interesting than the assault sets, generally speaking.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
That and Corrupters outclass them in every way. My sole Kin defender is very likely going to become a Corr just as soon as GR comes out.
Same thing for any scrapper/brutes I had... And controller/dominators... I wonder if villians are balanced by having crappy epic pools, sometimes. |
Similarly, I have a kin corrupter and a kin defender; the corrupter's values for the buffs just seem halfhearted and his damage never feels like it's sufficiently better to make up for it. I might feel the difference if I was soloing them or playing with groups that never bother to work together (functionally soloing) but it always feels a little like I'm playing a half-baked blaster and a half-baked defender glued to each other instead of a solid AT.
As for scrappers and brutes, it feels like asking whether you'd rather your enemies be trod on by a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros.
They're both absolute beasts, and with GR I expect the key factor in which one I play to be set availability more than anything else.I guess what it comes down to with controllers and defenders is that I have different play moods. With heroes, the ATs play differently enough to suit my different moods. Corrupters and dominators are both "blaster with a side-order of (other AT)" and so don't satisfy my mood whether I'm in a blaster mood, a controller mood, or a defender mood.
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I min/max, so very small incrementally insignificant differences are super important to me. |
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
Villains are more self-reliant but less specialized. A dominator has superior killing power to a controller, but for someone like me who actually enjoys supporting a team it can't match a controller - I keep looking for buffs and debuffs that just aren't there. I just find the buff/debuff sets more interesting than the assault sets, generally speaking.
Similarly, I have a kin corrupter and a kin defender; the corrupter's values for the buffs just seem halfhearted and his damage never feels like it's sufficiently better to make up for it. I might feel the difference if I was soloing them or playing with groups that never bother to work together (functionally soloing) but it always feels a little like I'm playing a half-baked blaster and a half-baked defender glued to each other instead of a solid AT. As for scrappers and brutes, it feels like asking whether you'd rather your enemies be trod on by a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros. They're both absolute beasts, and with GR I expect the key factor in which one I play to be set availability more than anything else.I guess what it comes down to with controllers and defenders is that I have different play moods. With heroes, the ATs play differently enough to suit my different moods. Corrupters and dominators are both "blaster with a side-order of (other AT)" and so don't satisfy my mood whether I'm in a blaster mood, a controller mood, or a defender mood. |
Oh, and rhinoceros, every time. It's got that friggin' sweet horn. Hippo has a doofy face and a bird affinity. Lame.
There's high pass filter headphones hanging over there - brace yourself, folks. Better yet, find someplace else to be. I can't.
*starts up an entire collection of tiny fans and electric toothbrushes*
*wields an accordion*
*ahem* Mi mi mi mi MEEEEEEEEEEEEHEEEEEE!!!!
*wear earmuffs*
I've discovered, by playing, I don't like listening to being the one playing:
- Electrical Blast or Electricity Manipulation. Or Devices because of one *bzzt* power!. (Strangely, Elec Melee is fine.)
- Energy Blast, but only because Power Bolt doesn't line up.
- Fire Blast, Fiery Melee, Fire Manipulation or Thermal Radiation. (I don't remember trying Fiery Aura with not Fiery Melee yet...)
- Ice (will you -please- go defrost that freezer someplace other than my ears) Blast, Icy Assault, or Ice Manipulation because I'd be obliged to take Frozen Fists.
- Psychic Blast, Psionic Assault or Mental Manipulation.
- Mind Control, and thus the Arachnos Widow.
- Ice Control.
- Trick Arrow.
- Dark Blast or Dark Melee.
- Claws!
- Martial Arts or Katana/Ninja Blade.
- Energy Melee.
(Energy Manipulation is tolerable.) - Gravity Control.
- Dominators. Some secondaries I only half can't stand. Some primaries I only half can't stand. Thus, there is not currently a Dominator I can play. Numerically, I ought to be able to like them at least a bit...
- Plant Control: gives me the, ahaha, creeps.
- There's this Controller and Dominator primary with Fire in the name. It has these neato enthusiastic pets. I found it doesn't seem to have much else. (Maybe I should try a Fire/Rad, though. No Siphons to take up animation time - but no Fulcrum.)
- Cold Domination and Empathy mature too slowly.
Sorry, folks, he should have said "too slowly for soloists". - Pain Domination: Due to being attached to Corruptor's weaker debuff values, I haven't even looked at it closely enough to see how small the solo-useful effects are. (Sonic/Pain? ... nah, I don't like stepping back for cone controls, see Dark Miasma.)
- Force Fields: To get your team to the hairsbreadth from soft cap, you need to stand to catch everyone with Dispersion Bubble. To pile things up with knockback, you may need to stand someplace else. I found the pressure of trying to pick between the two in combat too much.
- Dark Miasma: Some people like being Speed Boosted but hate having to watch the effects bars. I like the massive control of Fearsome Stare, but don't like having to work both it and repositioning for it into my attacks.
- Tankers. Just not for me. Latest anecdote: Tanker to Shield Charge. Got bored with the choice between staring out the window while using the secondary, or keeping PERFECT! track and aggro of an aggro cap's worth of targets.
- Ice Melee, so long as it's not on a Scrapper. Or possibly a Stalker.
- [b]Brutes[b]. Too much pressure.
If not in battle every second, not doing sufficient DPE. Must navigate between spawns perfectly. Must have enough recovery to chain Teleport in Granite. Heh. Eheheh. *twitch* - [b]Stalkers.[b] If it is not Broad Sword or Dual Blades, it either was listed with earmuffs on or uses an AS animation that has a part right at the end I don't like.
All Mastermind primaries have at least one thing in them from the above that bugs me.
*ahem*
It would have been faster to list the sets I do like, wouldn't it.
Meben, 38 Kat/SR NPK Stalker (Defiant)
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There's a sonic secondary for Blasters? Did you mean Corruptors?
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Originally Posted by King_Moloch
Sonic secondary for blasters. Have one frozen at 45 or so. Just too boring and too irritating to solo him the last five levels. I actually like the design and idea, just shouldn't have chosen a team support secondary for my primarily solo playstyle.
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[SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow][U]Virtue Heroes (Serenity's Children):[/U] [B]@Eek a Mouse, The Devil's Mark, Outlaw Sniper, Gas-Soaked Rag Man, Amazon Prime, Friday's Child, Hot Blooded,[/B][B]Flower of the Moon[/B], [B]Rouge Demon Hunter[/B], Stimulated Emission, Animatronic Wench, [B]Lennie Small[/B]
[U]Virtue Villains (Serenity's Orphans):[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [B]Eek a Rat[/B], [B]Bomb Blondeshell[/B], Babe Brute, Jeanne Dark, Fallen Angle[/COLOR][/SIZE]
Any powerset with buffs that need constantly renewed over the entire team (such as speed boost, and all the various shield ally sets). It doesn't matter how much I like the rest of the set, ally shields completely ruin gameplay for me, and make it so I can't even enjoy the rest of the awesome sets. I don't want to play my 50 Fire/Cold Cor just because I know I'll stress out overshielding people... and I LOVE dual rain powers.
"Fascinating. I'm not bored at all, I swear." -Kikuchiyo
thugs, bots, demons, necro.
Tank. It sounds fun in my head but every time I try to start a tank it ends up with me not liking the toon. Too much controlling aggro. I do like to play with defenders though which is strange..
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Then play a Tankermind. Mercs works really well as a tankermind.
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Originally Posted by Spazztastics
Tank. It sounds fun in my head but every time I try to start a tank it ends up with me not liking the toon. Too much controlling aggro. I do like to play with defenders though which is strange..
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I do have both mercs and thugs. I enjoy thugs the most, posse is so darn hilarious but I rarely play on redside nowadays. I still don't like tanking on team with them though. |
Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm
Then play a Tankermind. Mercs works really well as a tankermind.
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Play moar red. Mercs is great because they don't tend to melee and GOTO Defensive works with Bodyguard as well. So they can pew pew from a distance and avoid teh nasty aoes while you taunt |
Originally Posted by Spazztastics
I do have both mercs and thugs. I enjoy thugs the most, posse is so darn hilarious but I rarely play on redside nowadays. I still don't like tanking on team with them though.
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haha |
Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm
Play moar red. Mercs is great because they don't tend to melee and GOTO Defensive works with Bodyguard as well. So they can pew pew from a distance and avoid teh nasty aoes while you taunt
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what I din't like with mercs was their AI. The spec ops isn't really that great and the medic almost never mend his team mates. Healing should be his job not mine, my job is to read the newspaper and drink coffee while they take care of biziniss
I've always been the type to turn my nose up at what's popular.
-Stone Armor
-Dark Melee
-Kin
those are some examples from my pov.
/TA I want want want to like, but I just find it underpowered. Tried it on a MM, was disappointed, but I'm not giving up. I'm trying it on an illusion controller right now, which is weird for me being a full-blown redsider lol. But it takes advantage of containment in a nice way.
/Poison I used to despise, until I bit the bullet and tried to make it work. 2mill inf and several io sets later, I'm loving it. Bosses melt before my mercs now.
what I'll always have beef with is the secondaries that have the timer-buffs. Maybe it's because I would have to team a lot to be good at it, but having a very busy life, I solo a lot. Plus with MM secondaries, /therm and /FF takes too much time to set up imo, and re-applying every few minutes is no fun to me. "hang on hang on, I gotta buff you bots again, wait prot bot I gotta, no johnny 5 NO! JOHNYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"
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I tend to shy away from FotM sets. That means my SS/WP, Arch/MM, and Fire/Kin sit on a shelf getting dusty because I don't want to seem like another one of those people that just made the sets because they're so popular. I stumbled upon the combos independently of the popularity, but still can't justify playing them.
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Originally Posted by beyeajus74018
I've always been the type to turn my nose up at what's popular.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Is Stone Armor super popular on every server except Virtue or something? I've seen several people talking about how many stoners there are running around, but I see about one per decade. Everybody seems to be going Willpower and Shield, from what I've seen. Especially on Brutes... I don't think I can remember the last time I saw a /Stone Brute.
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Originally Posted by beyeajus74018
I've always been the type to turn my nose up at what's popular.
-Stone Armor |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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I mostly play on freedom. lol
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
Is Stone Armor super popular on every server except Virtue or something? I've seen several people talking about how many stoners there are running around, but I see about one per decade. Everybody seems to be going Willpower and Shield, from what I've seen. Especially on Brutes... I don't think I can remember the last time I saw a /Stone Brute.
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The justification for playing them is...do you find them fun to play? |
Originally Posted by Dispari
I tend to shy away from FotM sets. That means my SS/WP, Arch/MM, and Fire/Kin sit on a shelf getting dusty because I don't want to seem like another one of those people that just made the sets because they're so popular. I stumbled upon the combos independently of the popularity, but still can't justify playing them.
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Just because it's a FoTM doesn't mean one shouldn't play it. Some sets will always just be popular. SS/WP for instance is just going to be popular. :P
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
About 4 1/2 years ago my first 50 was an Empathy/Dark Blast Defender. Oh gawd!!! I couldn't solo ANYTHING!!!
At the time I had just started to play the game and didn't know what was good. Luckily, I had a great super group and they always needed a healer. Once I got it to 50, I swore I would never play that combo again!!!
But I still have it around just for nostalgia reasons, the super group is long gone now.
The Cold/Thermal/Sonic/FF buffing sets, because I dislike having to remember to re-apply the single target ally buffs.
Empathy/Pain/Thermal (again) because I would rather debuff/control to mitigate damage than to heal - though I could possibly stretch to playing /Pain on a soloing Mastermind if I was interested in playing that archetype again...
... so I guess you can add all of the existing Mastermind primaries to the list as well as I've not felt motivated to play an MM since I got my Bot/Dark to L50 in I7 (too easy, too dull), though Demon Summoning may make me re-assess (Thugs/ didn't, though).
Dark Blast, because from its numbers it just looks too low damage for me - I may re-assess if Blasters ever get it as I suspect it would get re-assessed and maybe get some replacement powers.
Psionic Assault, because I didn't enjoy it while levelling my Mind/Psi to L50 apart from the last 12 levels (i.e. with PSW), and though the set has been changed now, even if it's really good it would seem bittersweet to me as PSW was nerfed (and it was the only thing that made levelling my /Psi worthwhile at the time), plus I'd rather play a secondary I haven't played before.
Energy Melee, because I've got that set to L50 twice, the last time experiencing the EM nerf while levelling (on my EM/EA stalker - /EA felt pretty terrible as well - so I'll probably avoid that too), and the set is a shadow of its former self, so I don't think I could play it without feeling it was a ruined set.
It's interesting to me that there's about as many people won't play sets based on the visuals as on the effectiveness or playstyle. /Stone seems big for that, though power customisation (which I was initially meh about) has led to me to create two (well one Stone/Stone and one Earth/Earth - which looks great with lava.)
I'm coming to the end of the alt rolling spree that inspired this thread. I've now used every powerset available at least once (albeit so far some of them for not very long) All except two: Ice Armor and Thorny Assault.
Ice Armor I'm having a really hard time with. It's the only powerset I can think of that completely obscures your character 99% of the time. Thorny Assault isn't quite so bad, but I've only had one idea I liked so far for a spiney character and I used that for... well, Spines. More a case of deciding on a costume that I like for that one I suppose.
Other than that the only conclusions I've come to so far are that Stone Melee is much more fun to play than I expected (yay screen shake!) and Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation, whilst thematically consistent, is incredibly boring to look at and play.
I was not raised to use Diplomecy, or use Tact.They are utter wastes of Time for our society to keep using them.