When discussing complementary sets for /Devices, it's worth pointing out the synergy between Assault Rifle.Ignite and Devices.Web Grenade. Ignite creates a small, extremely high damage burn patch with an Afraid effect so enemies will tend to leave it rather than taking damage. Web Grenade prevents enemies from leaving the burn patch. Hilarity ensues. Particularly notable here: AV-class enemies have poor protection from immobilization and can be immobilized with two applications of Web Grenade.
Of course, the synergy is also present for AR and Traps.
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Actually Seebs if you get your global recharge from IO's and throw hasten on top you can stack gun drones to have two out at once. That and if you watch the drone after it's been summoned they appear (but unsure if they're affected) to come out with any buff or insp activated on you activated on them as well. Seen it for a fact when my gun drones come out with the hasten glow around them, or circling purples after popping a luck. Course this was pre I19, I'd have to double check it again now.
Granted it takes a lot of work, my 50 ice/dev has her alpha uncommon incarnate recharge, and virtually every power from LRM rocket to web grenade slotted with a set that offers a recharge bonus of some kind. That and a Lotg global recharge bonus in cloaking. No purple sets yet though.
But it is doable. I've got about 20-25 seconds now where I can summon double drones before the first explodes. And I'll need to test this too, but I think they'll offer double defiance buffs not only to you but themselves as well.
Now on teams? Yeah it's slow and the end cost is HORRID. If you're steamrolling it's just above trip mine on not adding much. And you'll probably take flack for wasting all that time to summon a drone when you could be blasting. But as I play that character more like a blastroller (having ice's double holds with munitions freeze ray is fun!) or as i jokingly call her "A tactical weapons platform" it doesn't bother me much. I'm not as flashy as a fire, but all that ST damage from drones and the 3 ST attacks in Ice piles up when you're dealing with the harder AV's.
As an example I remember an ITF where the double drones actually really helped us to do a number on Rom due to a team high on defense and low on damage dealers. A team that actually complimented me on all the firepower. Hehe not every day you see gun drone get that. =p
One other mostly solo use? With cloak it's great for ensuring that the drone does take that alpha/sapper/hold/whatever as you lure it over to mobs, then pop from cloak and go to town on them. Usually it's got the HP to pull it off too.
Also good first draft, looking forward to the formal guide. 
Huh, someone had told me that the gun drone was like FFG, where trying to summon a new one dispels the old one. I haven't got quite enough recharge to see -- I would have about two seconds to complete the animation. Maybe in a couple more set bonuses.
Good thought about having the gun drone take the alpha, I hadn't thought of that.
I've used Gun Drone in that manner before also. While invis summon drone in the center of a mob. It's worth making a note of it. I learned this from playing Traps. A low lvl trapper before they have access to Posion Trap and Seeker Drones can actully summon his FFG into a center of a mob and have it tank the alpha.
yes you can have two gun drones up and it is wonderful. Of course my rech sucks but I have 2 up for about 15 secs
Traps trip mine on corruptors does the same damage as blaster trip mine. Likely does the same damage on defenders.
I like putting a damage proc in web grenade. It's not much, but it is a chance for damage, particularly if you are spamming it for -recharge anyway,
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
Good observations and well written. The FAQ section objectively presents the pros and cons of the set so players can make an informed decision about whether to choose it.
Your suggestions also made me reconsider certain powers that I had previously rejected, like Smoke Grenade and, dare I say it, Time Bomb.
I'd like to suggest that you mention Teleport Foe in conjunction with Caltrops and/or Trip Mines. As you pointed out, /devices excels in the area of preparing the battlefield ahead of time. Teleport Foe gives you the option of playing divide-and-conquer against problematic enemies and bringing them to you. For example, I have laid down minefields, covered them with Caltrops and then teleported Malta Sappers and Carnie Illusionists into the zone of death. When you're using Cloaking Device, it's relatively easy to get a teleportation lock on the bad guys without drawing aggro yourself in the process. (excluding certain enemies you already mentioned) Because mines don't always blow up when an enemy enters their detonation radius, the caltrops slow down their escape efforts and give the mines more chances to go off.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Looking forward to reading the completed guide.
Should also probably mentione that Gun Drone is a very nice DPS boost when it only has ONE target to shoot at, like in an EB/AV fight.
Also worth mentioning, in passing at least, that if your primary is Sonic, you don't need a stealth power at all for Time Bomb, as long as there is no boss in the mob. Siren's Song will sleep the entire mob, and it lasts longer than the set up time for Time Bomb.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
(Please don't move this to Player Guides yet. This is a draft, for which I'm seeking feedback. I'll post a finished guide in Player Guides when it's done.)
CaltropsLeft to your own /devices: A guide to the Devices secondary
It was the best of sets, it was the worst of sets. The /devices set has long been regarded as the weakest of the blaster secondaries, and that's because it is. However, "weakest" doesn't necessarily mean "weak"; the set is viable, playable, and even (for some people) fun. This guide gives an overview of the set, some notes about how to use it, some historical review of why the set is the way it is, and some notes for people coming from a traps set, or considering giving up on devices in favor of traps.
I'm starting, not with the review of the powers, but with the FAQ. The powers are only interesting if you like the feel of the set; if you don't like how the set feels, it doesn't matter what the statistics are.
Who should play /devices?
If you are looking for the best set for steamrolling content, look elsewhere. The /devices set's strengths are all about setup and preparation. If you're steamrolling content, the set is marginal, and you generally won't use it. You don't get a "Build Up" power. You don't get hard-hitting melee attacks. Your immobilize doesn't do damage.
If you're soloing, /devices can be an amazing set. It's not always fast, but there is something wonderful about watching a x8 spawn melt away without getting to make a single attack against you. No, I'm not exaggerating. Now, it'll take a few minutes to set up, and it won't work every time, but you can do that.
If you want to play a Natural origin blaster with a secondary that makes sense, /devices is your only choice. All of the others would require some kind of amazing technology, magic, mutation, or whatnot; only /devices is built around things that are at least conceivably within the realm of non-superhero technology. If you want to play a superspy, half blaster and half stalker, you might like /devices.
Here is what I do for a typical spawn, when soloing. I find the spawn. I find a nearby corner. I spend a couple of minutes laying down a field of trip mines between the spawn and the corner. I smoke grenade them. I set up a time bomb in the spawn. I walk around the corner. If any of them actually survive (usually they don't), I might have to actually use one of my primary powers. Otherwise, I have just killed them all without them even being able to target me once. I move on.
If that sounds fun, you might want to play a /devices blaster. If that sounds tedious and unfun, you probably ought to look at other sets.
Why is /devices weak?
The /devices set has never really been updated to fit the modern CoH game. Before ED and IOs, Targeting Drone meant that you could put one more damage enhancement, and one less accuracy, in most powers. That translated into a substantial damage increase -- figure about 10-15% compared to a blaster who had to slot for more accuracy. Now, most people will have damage at the ED cap, and with set bonuses, they may well have plenty of accuracy without even explicitly slotting for it. Targeting Drone went from a pretty decent power to a sort of mediocre power. It's still better than nothing, but it's not at all obvious that it's better than a pool power, or better than not using it and saving your endurance.
Similarly, Cloaking Device was a really nice stealth, back when there were no Stealth IOs. Now, it's not great. It's not awful, and it helps that it stacks with Stealth IOs, but it's a mediocre to pitiful amount of defense (especially since only part of it is available when you're in combat), and stealth is not in and of itself all that useful most of the time.
The big central flaw, though, becomes clear when you look at time bomb and trip mines. The powers that ought to be among the set's star players are utterly useless once combat starts; they are essentially impractical to use except by setting up before combat. On a fast team, the average spawn will be dead in the time it takes you to set up a time bomb, rendering the power completely pointless.
Quite simply, /devices was not built for CoH the way it is actually played.
How does /devices compare to traps/ or /traps?
The traps/ defender set is widely regarded as an amazing set. The reason is clear if you look at a few of the powers that traps/ has and /devices doesn't. Look at Triage Beacon, Acid Mortar, Force Field Generator, Poison Gas Trap, and Seeker Drones. Do you know what they have in common? They aren't interruptible. You can use them in combat. And that means that you can actually get substantial utility from them. Furthermore, with the better defense of FFG, a traps/ defender can toe bomb with a reasonable hope of success even after a fight has started; a /devices blaster has to build very, very, carefully to get enough defense to be able to use any powers in combat.
Defenders get less mileage from Trip Mines and Time Bomb than blasters; for blasters, at least it does enough damage to be potentially worth the hassle. For defenders, it does very little damage. (Corruptors, however, might consider it as a situational power.) Masterminds replace Time Bomb with Detonator, but Trip Mines is pretty useful everywhere.
If you really want to use the /devices powers actively in combat, on teams, consider going with a traps/ defender, or /traps corruptor, instead.
Why would anyone play /devices, then?
Because this game is not fundamentally about efficiency of builds. It's about building a character that looks cool to you. It's about awesome super heroes doing amazing things and being stunning. If you have never seen a /devices blaster wiping out a spawn with mines, it's hard to appreciate just how awesome it looks; the ragdoll physics in CoH really shines on handling large numbers of enemies hitting mines with decent knockback.
I play /devices because I love the way it plays, and don't care that it's inefficient. I sit around watching TV while I set up nests of trip mines. I wander through missions arranging to one-shot the one and only enemy on the map I need to kill, without bothering to kill everyone else. Sure, I get less loot and XP and inf. But my superspy stealth infiltrator is playing like a superspy stealth infiltrator, not like a muscle-bound idiot. So I'm happy.
So about those powers.
I'm not gonna lean too hard on what powers you should or shouldn't take. With I19, blasters are no longer paying the three-pick "fitness" tax, and it's now quite possible that it's reasonable for you to take everything in your primary and secondary without feeling like you're missing out too much.
Web Grenade
Taser
Targeting Drone
Smoke Grenade
Cloaking Device
Trip Mines
Time Bomb
Gun Drone
So, Primaries
The /devices set can be useful with any primary. Thematically, it goes especially well with archery, assault rifle, and dual pistols. Here, you will find the one benefit of the pre-combat setup aspect of /devices: Less redraw in combat. Most of your /devices use was done before the first shot was fired. If your primary has a stun, that will give synergy with Taser, allowing you to keep a typical boss locked down.
The dual pistols set has no aim. This is, well, annoying. A dp/dev blaster has no good options for boosting primary damage output.
Assault rifle, unique among blast sets, gets a damage bonus to its snipe from targeting drone. No one has any idea why that applies only to AR.
Energy's knockback can be much more useful coupled with your ability to set up trip mines and defenses; you can knock people into mines, or back over caltrops. Lots of potential there.
Fundamentally, though, if you pick /devices, it is your primary; it is the set which defines how you play, and your "primary" is going to be used in ways consistent with /devices, or you're going to hate your character. The other secondaries tend to be used to support your blast set and maybe give you a bit of flavor. They have comparable basic functionality; some sort of immobilize, some melee attacks. None of them will encourage you to spend five minutes setting up for a fight. None of them allow you to wipe out an entire spawn without using a single attack from your primary.