Things you wish you'd known about your powers...

I occasionally find that people don't know things about some of their powers, perhaps because some of these things are Non-Obvious. So, what are things that you know now about your powers, but which you didn't find out until long after you first picked a given power or decided not to?

My first few:

Traps/Devices:
* Web Grenade has a substantial -recharge debuff. It noticably reduces the damage output of many mobs.
* Caltrops has a very high magnitude "fear" effect (makes things run away) which can prevent things from attacking as often.

Traps:
* Poison Gas Trap is autohit, so accuracy is totally wasted on it.

Sonic Blast:
* Shockwave does NOT have the -resist debuff that the other powers do.

Fire Blast:
* Rain of Fire starts out with 2.0 accuracy, so +accuracy in it is relatively unnecessary for most purposes.

I know that I was just recently informed that in PvE, Taunt is autohit, so Accuracy slotting is pointless.

I just read in a stalker thread that blinding powder doesn't break stealth or cause aggro. Next time I feel like playing my nin/nin this will change things a lot (never took it).

Devices>Web Grenade: This power's cast time is about the same amount of time it takes an enemy to run from the maximum range into melee range. (In other words, an enemy running toward you will reach melee range before it is actually immobilized.)

There are a TON of others that I can think of, but most of them I can attribute to either a) I created the character before I had the option to see all of a power's stats before taking it OR b) I was newer and didn't quite understand certain game mechanics yet. My one example above is the only one I can think of right now that you really could not know without playing the game.

Pretty silly on my part, but I never realized that Unstoppable from the Invulnerability set had a +Recovery aspect to it. I didn't notice until about a week ago when I was fighting some EB and I was like "Huh, how come I'm not using any endurance?"

Illusion Control > Group Invisibility does not suppress, even if you start clicking glowies or fighting things. The recharge is twice the duration, too, so it's not terribly difficult to make perma. The only real advantage Superior Invisibility has at that point is that SI makes you invisible to Turrets, Giant Monsters, and Snipers.

I wish I'd known before I rolled my ill/rad that Accelerate Metabolism 1) makes you sterile, and 2) does NOT help you shed unwanted pounds.

On second thought, I'd also wished I'd known that EM Pulse would stop my watch. Yes, even the hardened version that cost ten grand.

Energy Aura and Dark Armor Stalkers have auras with effects that suppress when hidden.

A stalker could run Repulse, be hidden, and the knockback would only start occurring once the stalker became unhidden.

Hurricane can push an immoblized foe around. Hurricane can push a whole lot of immoblized foes around and stack them in a corner. All nice and all in order.

That the Ghost Slaying Axe isn't that great if you want something to add to your attack chain.

Took it once... now I only ever take Sands of Mu.

Cloak of Darkness doesn't actually seem to suppress when you're fighting, but does when you click on a glowie.

It certainly make things interesting for my brute, turning her into something more akin to predator.

I never really run into the issue since I've always been picky on details of what I'm using but I have explained some of the more... "interesting" aspects of powers such as using Benumb on Minotaurs/Cyclops..es/other-similar-mobs before they use their uberShield powers.

Most Fear powers work MUCH better if you slot for To-Hit Debuffs, not Fear enhancements.

Back in the day, I got to where I usually avoided taking Fear powers. The sets seemed pointless (except for acc or end, etc.) and even felt pointless. Then I got a dark defender and slotted all her Fear-inducing powers with only the Debuff sets. Wow! Put a whole new twist on Specters and Cloaks and the like for me - wish I'd figured this out years ago!

I wish I'd know earlier that the kin's & dark's target heals also debuffed the targets regen... Spam City on the EB's & AV's for more than just the healing...

I learned that Howling Twilight the best hold in the game actually can rez people

Tongue in cheek of course, but watching a dark corr or def not using it to prevent deaths instead of saving it to rez is rather silly

The characters who don't need Sands of Mu are usually my melee characters who could one-shot the ghost anyways. Unless it's a boss, but that's not that much more annoying until it turns on that dark cloak thing...




I also wish I'd known that Hasten's +recharge doesn't come with a compensating +recovery...

Full Auto can critical.

Fiery Aura gets stun protection from its first toggle, making it awesome in the sewers against those damned Vahzilok bosses.

Taunt has no end cost.