Is Hover Getting Cobwebs?

Since I've been playing this game for the past two years, the majority of my 13 toons all have Fly or Flight as a primary travel power. Prior to picking flight, you must either pick Air Superiority or Hover. I normally chose Hover as I might need to navigate a few walls or buildings prior to getting Fly, be it ever so slow but still practical.

My big thing here with Hover is once I do get Fly, I never ever use it again. Based on what paragonwiki says: "For hovering and aerial combat. This power is much slower than Fly, but provides some Defense to all attacks, offers good air control, costs little Endurance, and has none of the penalties associated with Fly. Switch to this mode when fighting other flying foes. Hover also grants pseudo-knockback protection; instead of getting knocked down and jumping back up, you just flip over in the air. Hover received a 10% increase in speed in Issue 8." Now I have integrated Hover with my level 50 Enrgy/Enrgy Blaster quite well but normally when I do aerial combat by "hovering" over my foes I will stick to Fly. Why you ask? First, the end drain is not that bad. My Fly will always be quicker than my Hover for quick maneuvers though paragonwiki says: "Fly allows you to travel long distances quickly. If you attack a target while this power is on, your Flight speed will be temporarily reduced to Hover speed. Your top Flight speed increases with your Level. You must be at least level 14 and have Hover or Air Superiority before selecting Fly. Fly will no longer drain Endurance to zero unslotted."

With that being said, it does state that if attacked, Fly will be reduced to Hover speed. So, I want to know who out there is using Hover to its best ability? How are you slotting it? 3 slots, 6 slots? Based on what kind of Set Bonus Categories you can slot this, it does give you Defense as one option which is always nice when playing squishies. I know it comes down to playing style and how many people really use Hover in battle. If you do like to fight from the air, does Hover really give you that extra much needed defensive bonus to justify using it over Fly, other than the fact that you just flip over in the air if knocked down? I also do know that with my Blasters and their massive knock backs, Hovering or Flying directly over the group then pounding them into oblivion is always a joy and a pleasure.

I use hover. I optimally slot it 3 slots: 2 flight and a flight/end (or special), or just 3 flights at level 25+ IOs. The description that flight speed in fly suppresses to hover speed means hover UNSLOTTED, it's darn slow. I can't stand movement suppression, it bugs me to no end.

I use hover when I want to get an aerial view of battle for masterminds and defenders. My stormies use it for positioning lightning storm higher to produce more knockdown, not knock back. Also, I couple hover with teleport (the fastest travel power) so that I don't lag drop into nasties on the ground.

Nearly all my flying characters have hover with a Kismet +6% accuracy proc in it. I don't leave hover. The end drain from fly is a big deal to me still (most of my characters are lower level, and don't have enough endredux or stamina to make up for it), and I find the control of hover much superior.

Well, first off, Flight in combat gets dropped to BASE Hover speed, and last time I checked (it's been a while), this was unaffected by speed enhancements. As such, Hover in combat is actually faster than Flight, if you've slotted it. That, and the fact that it uses about 20% of the endurance that Flight does. Plus the added Defense on it, while not that high, is something, especially when stacked with set bonuses.


Me? I'd much rather be using that 0.8 end per second on blasting the enemies, instead of using it for a slower power than the cheaper one.

3-slot Hover for flight speed if you want. No more than that. Maybe the LotG +Recharge or the Karma -KB proc in addition to it. Then, if you really want to, set up a bind that allows you to quickly change from Hover to Flight. I usually use the side button on my mouse for something like this.

The defense from Hover itself doesn't amount to much unless you already have (or plan to have) significant DEF from other sources. DEF becomes more valuable the more of it you have.

That said, Hover is very useful as a combat maneuvering power, and/or as a set mule. Toss two or three Fly Speed IOs into Hover, and you're moving basically at base Sprint speed, in three dimensions, at less end cost. If you want ranged DEF, you can slot a couple of Blessing of the Zephyr's. If you want recharge, you can slot Luck of the Gambler.

Or both. Kismet's also a good one if your build lacks for accuracy.

Personally, I usually take both Hover and Fly on my characters where Fly is concept-appropriate, but if I had to drop one of them, it would probably be Fly most of the time. On a melee character, Hover is obviously less useful; my Tanker for instance only has Fly. On a ranged character, Hover is ultimately more useful to me than Fly. If I had to, my ranged characters could get by on Temp Powers/Ninja Run with the Jump Pack for occasional travel-speed boosts. I can't replace the combat and slot utility of Hover.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Prior to Fly getting suppression, I used the Hover/Fly bind on almost all my characters with both powers. That gave me the flexibility of Fly's speed on demand, while retaining Hover's low Endurance cost, and Defense, for while I was hovering in place blasting. Just as I don't normally fight with the End cost of Sprint running in the background, I see no need to use Fly while in combat. Most of the time while you are fighting, you are not moving, and so spending Endurance for speed you aren't using is to me a waste.

After suppression was added, though, Fly's slow speed while suppressed became a problem. I couldn't fly as fast during combat any more, and the added difficulty of powers queued up dequeing, which had always been the reason I never made a Sprint on demand bind, became more noticable. It finally got to the point where I switched my main, Jade Dragon, who has always used flight off and on during combat to stay out of range of meleers, to a Hover/Fly toggle, so he could stay in Hover while fighting and then toggle to Fly to move to the next spawn.

I still have characters that still use the Hover/Fly bind for convenience, but over time I will likely switch them all over to the one or the other toggle. There are some characters I have created that likely would have had both Hover and Fly back in the day, but I only take one of the other now.

In short, I usually take one of three options:

1) I choose Fly, and slot it heavily for Endurance efficiency. Typically this will not be an AT I use flying with in combat, such as my Tanker Blue Diamond. It is a travel power, but I keep it efficient enough that it can be used for short fights in the air, or as an "air charge" where I will shoot at a foe and punch him from across the room.

2) I choose Hover, and slot it heavily for speed. Hover keeps getting faster, and honestly I think the devs are still thinking of making it faster still. Sprint got a boost recently, and now Swift will be Inherent in all characters, and so it's getting to the point where you don't need a Hover/Fly bind to have reasonable speed in combat. The days when you would hit Hover and be pinned in the air are over, although of course you've got to spend the cost in slots. But you have to slot Fly to get its End cost down too if you want to use it in combat, so as far as I'm concerned that's a tradeoff. If I take Fly, it will be used only as a travel power, and more often I'll make use of Ninja Run or the Jet Pack/Jump Pack to get around. (Of course, Peacebringers get both for free, so I don't have to worry about a travel power to supplement Combat Flight. And Nova form comes with an extremely cheap and agile Fly built in, as well. So honestly I get both at once, or all three with Warshades)

3) If I choose another travel power, I will always take Hover over Fly. It's extraordinarily useful for Teleport, of course, and Sandy, my Blaster, has Super Jump and Hover as well. She can leap into the air, and then stop and "hang" there, which is useful either in combat, or when travelling if I want to stop and look around. I actually have her Hover slotted about like with case 1), she is able to move quite quickly in the air if she has to, although conceptually she is only supposed to have the ability to hover. (She can counter the force of gravity, but needs something to kick off of to move very fast)

I don't think either Hover or Fly have become obsolete. Both specialize in their own thing, and they are both different enough where situations where one is useful, the other isn't.

One concept a lot of people use for thier blaster types is to build for all ranged fighting, with hover to stay at range while maximizing ranged defense. If you're going for soft-capped to ranged (or anything else), hover slotted with defense is worth quite a bit. Also, as mentioned, it can hold the LoTG +recharge IO and the Kismet +tohit IO.

It also hold Blessing of the Zephyr set, which, although recently nerfed is still a nice way to pick up ranged defense at the cost of only 2 slots.

Nearly every non-melee character I have uses Fly/Hover. I use a very simple bind that uses one mouse button to switch between the two, which serves me well with only rare exceptions. I never intentionally keep Fly on in combat. I always switch to Hover. Often I use the transition from Fly to Hover as a form of breaking, since Hover has extremely high "friction" compared to Fly.

I typically slot Hover with two Blessing of the Zephyr - one Travel Speed and one Speed/End. (I usually put the KB protection piece in Fly.) I typically add a third slot - the most common enhancement in this slot is an LotG:Recharge global. If I had no other place to put it, I would probably add a Kismet unique here, though I do not always add one of these, depending on how much +toHit the character has access to from other sources.

If I have a character that takes Flight, then chances are they perma-hover. My Rad Defender and Human PB both perma-hover throughout my missions. With just the one slot it moves along at a good clip. When I get a large outdoor map I begin to switch beneath Hover and Flight.

It gives some defense, stops knockback and, when the ceilings are high, allows me to stay out of melee range if I so desire. Also gives me a good view of the action.

I use Hover on ranged attackers like Blasters and Controllers.

On my nrg/nrg blaster, I have it slotted with the full Freebird set and LotG +Rech. The +Stealth IO stacked with Stealth (the power, slotted with LotGs) gives full invis while allowing me to attack, plus a good chunk of cumulative Def.

I can position myself for PB + BR + Aim + BU + Sniper Blast in tight locations at leisure. I can glide up to a Boss and drop a boosted Snipe + Total Focus. And, of course, PB + Aim + BU + Nova.

And while Boost Power is in effect, Hover gets a nice speed boost for quick combat maneuvering. By the time it wears off, I generally am ready to drift over to the next spawn group as my bars refill and my buffs recharge.

I use hover a lot.
With it Three Slotted for Flight Speed and Swift with a Flight Speed, it is comparable (Or... was... before the sprint speed increase) with other characters sprinting.

They boosted Hover's speed a few times and it's been a wonderful thing.

I'm not saying it is the fastest option or anything, but I rarely mind being in hover with E-K on mission maps.

If it is a big team, rushing and racing sort of situation (In a wide open CoT Cave or outdoor map or something) I will sometimes move around with Flight and switch to Hover.
I've never had any problem quickly pressing a key to switch between them, so I never set up any special binds for it.

Let's see... actual numbers... Hover is 24.1 MPH with EK's level 50 Standard IO build of 3 in Hover plus the small bonus from Swift.

ahem...


AIR hammer....

My older characters have both. Hover slotted for defense and Fly for flight. However I've noticed over time that I've stopped using Hover at all unless I'm on an outdoor map. Mainly because those characters also have wings (like my namesake) and flying or hovering in an indoor mission with wings obscures too much of the battlefield.

However... I recently created a shield tanker that uses hover for combat. It started as an experiment but I've grown to like it a lot. It adds a little to her all-round defense and she looks darn elegant hanging in the air fighting in all 3 dimensions with apparently little or no effort.

My only complaint is that F (Follow) doesn't work well. It'll get you moving in the enemy's general direction but always stops just short of melee range. I've gotten used to it and have compensated (mostly by just not using it) but it's the only downside I've found so far.

I have a few characters who always hover. With them, I slot 3x FlySpeed, which brings you up to 28.4mph. Add Swift with 1x FlySpeed (I'm never running or jumping anyway) to bring it up to 32.1mph. For comparison, Ninja Run is 39.4mph.

For my other characters who I want to Fly, but only for travel, I pick up Air Superiority (easily the best pool power attack) instead.

Hover-blasting is my mantra. Stick a Fly IO in Swift and I end up hovering faster than I would normally run (without any sprint power active).

I currently have Winter's Gift slotted there, so I hover as fast as anybody hoofin' it on the ground. Once the i19 mass-respec begins, I'm considering swapping that out for a LotG +Recharge, and adding Winter's Gift to Fly or something. (Although, with Fly's recent error-turned-buff, I don't need any further enhancements, considering at lvl 50 I'll be flying at the top flight speed with nothing slotted.)

I like Hover for several reasons:

• Lower endurance cost than Fly
• No travel suppression so much faster in combat than Fly once slotted
• Hover has some protection from -fly effects
• You can slot Kismet 6% Accuracy, Karma -KB, and LotG recharge in Hover
• Hover does offer some defense, which can be handy when softcapping

I like me sum Hover. I usually three slot it, either three flight speed or, depending on the build, 2 flight and a karma.

My main, a blaster, has super speed for travel, but I use hover for combat. It was even better when power boost used to increase its flight speed as well, but I guess ya can't have everythin ^^

I love hover. I really love hover. My tank with hover is, I believe, the most effective one I have at tanking, particularly large team tanking. Why? Because I have a great aerial view! The mobs are clustered just below my toes, and I can see what's run off, or what I've missed. That toon also has fire blast and fire ball from the epic pool, and because of hover and her ranged attacks, whatever room they're fighting in, she effectively owns (Another tank is almost 7 ft. tall, and still ends up seeing mostly... smoke and combat effects. Hovering is better!).

Trying to do the same things with fly is an exercise in frustration. I stop flying at the correct spot, yet glide right past the target. If I turn, I slide some. If I stop early, then I either still slide past, or don't get all the way there. Trying to attack something, or navigate a cave or twisty corridor, sliding back and forth and forth and back, until you hit just the right spot....aarrggh! Just THINKING of flying in a cave is gives me a nervous twitch! Hover gives you control. When you stop pressing the button, you stop moving. And, if you get combat jumping to use with hover, you get stop-on-a-dime control, along with extra defense. Not important in a corridor. But real important when you're trying to line up a cone attack.

Slotting? Depends on the toon and what they need. At the most basic, 3) fly, plus 1) in swift. If the toon has a pivotal power I need to be up often, I stick in an LotG +rech. in it. Kismit +acc is great on lower level toons. On melee toons, I usually slot a pair of BotZ (not the KB one, which is ungodly expensive, and unneeded on most melee toons) for a little defense, and the end reduction (most ranged and/or support toons don't have the end issues a melee toon does). A few also have the Kismit KB resist IO (far cheaper than BotZ) - kins, and some other support toons who have to get in close, sometimes end up getting flipped around a lot.

Also helpful for hover are the set bonuses that give you +5% movement increase. Perf. Shifters (end mod) and Aegis (resist) are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. My hovering toons are typically faster than about half the team, ones who are presumably running/sprinting without speed modifiers.