Most Overhyped Power Set Combos?
By
Aaron Islander,
Posted on: 2010-12-12 07:06 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
On the boards? Storm. Its cold's retarded brother, scattering nice AE ready clumps all over. Sure, there's people who will always say you just need to know how to use it, position, corners, etc. But outside of City of Theory, it seems no one is ever willing to do that to get the to hit debuff in hurricane, damage in tornado etc without making a mess. Add in that to hit debuffs are grossly inferior to defense buffs against AV's, and given equal player skill, I'll take a cold over a storm. I'd rather have a mediocre cold player than a skilled storm player. A mediocre storm player is at best a draw, and a poor storm player is someone Id rather see just go afk. I know, every poster on these boards is the most amazing stormer ever (at least in their own opinion). Generally, I'd rather you be amazing with a different powerset.
In game? Debuffs in general once you get a good steamroll going. People don't understand how AV's resist them on top of the "purple patch" effect, and buffs last for multiple spawns. There's been a lot of talk in this thread about regen debuff, but that AV is going to resist 85% of that. A single sonic blast will typically yield more bang for your buck on a team.
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First, I do. I *love* Earth, Ice, Plant, Mind... I have multiples of each. (Not as much fire, but enough.) Those fit my idea of *control.* And when someone asks about a Control set, I'll point to one of those. (Can't forget Electric.... too new to remember when rattling those off.) |
Originally Posted by Arbegla
You want control? Play a earth/ controller or dominator. Every single one of your powers is either single target control, or AoE control. Be it just slowing, or -def, or mass holds, or KB..
Illusion is about damage, and distraction. While spectral terror does do AoE fear, fear is easily broken by damage. Each time you attack a person under fear, they have the option to either 1) attack back or 2) run. If your spamming attacks on a feared mob, they basically are unaffected by said fear, due to the way it works. I think thats why spectral terror got its nice -tohit debuff as well, cuz fear is so easily broken. |
Like I said, though, my beef with Illusion is it being hyped as a *control* set, and "why" should be clear with what I said above. (And with what you said.) I agree, it's a damage set. 100% agree there. Which is why it really irks me to have it held up as this great *control* set.
Eh, while AVs do have 85% resistance to most debuffs (but only while the purple triangles are up i think) 85% of 500, or 1000, is still a pretty hefty debuff.
-resistance is actually only affected by the resistance of the AV, which may not be very high for some damage types.
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As Arbegla said before me, a typical -regen debuff does -500% regen to the target, which with a single application is almost enough to zero their regeneration. Say you have a Cold and a Therm in your team? yeah, they're enough to completely shut down an AV's regeneration even through their 85% debuff resistance. A Dominator's Drain Psyche or a Trapper's Poison Bubble is enough to halt an AV/GM's regeneration by itself, the latter being autohit and easy to perma.
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Originally Posted by MindmasterZero
In game? Debuffs in general once you get a good steamroll going. People don't understand how AV's resist them on top of the "purple patch" effect, and buffs last for multiple spawns. There's been a lot of talk in this thread about regen debuff, but that AV is going to resist 85% of that. A single sonic blast will typically yield more bang for your buck on a team.
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I think Colds are better for teaming and Rads are better for soloing. Although both of those sets certainly perform well in both situations.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Not to argue your personal preference, but watch a permadom using Plant control going spawn to spawn and you might change your mind! :P|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Controls. Troller or Dom, I've never seen the appeal that brings people to either of these archetypes. Controlling just doesn't seem to be nearly as powerful as everyone says it is.
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My picks:
SS/Fire - Rage crash sucks. Hard. /Fire provides terrible damage mitigation. It's great when you can survive, but squishy and end heavy most of the time. Expect to invest hundreds of millions into one of these.
Anything/Traps - Traps is a set that has decent debuffing and a good FFG but the powers themselves are badly designed. Long set-up times don't mesh well with fast paced gameplay. Several powers in this set are useless.
Trick Arrow - Doesn't get a lot of love, but every now and then someone will come along and rant about how great it is.
/Poison - Great. You debuffed the crap out of one dude.
Controllers for control. Doms are so much better at it.
Illusion is not that overhyped if anything its a moderately popular choice, I have seen more storm and mind controllers then anything, until plant was released for controllers anyway, now I see plant all the time, I play on virtue, also you do not see many fire controllers anymore for some reason, I am also seeing quite a few ele controllers.
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This forever times.
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Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Healers.
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T. Hayes
@The Cleansing
Willpower. Anything with Willpower. Yes, it can have monstrous survivability, but the thing people generally leave out when talking about that is that certain pool powers and IO set buffs really, really contribute to that. Out of the box, it's just sorta 'pretty good' in my experience.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Umm, storm isn't a control set.
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Originally Posted by Angelofvalor
Illusion is not that overhyped if anything its a moderately popular choice, I have seen more storm and mind controllers then anything, until plant was released for controllers anyway, now I see plant all the time, I play on virtue, also you do not see many fire controllers anymore for some reason, I am also seeing quite a few ele controllers.
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Too many alts to list.
As for the most overhyped combo, I'm going to go with Electric Melee/ Shield Defense. This is pretty much purely because of the former and not the latter. Electric Melee is a vastly overhyped set (speaking as someone with 2 ElM characters at 50). The set does pathetic single target damage, and the AOE is flashy, but nowhere near as good as people think. Hell, War Mace trumps it hard.
Too many alts to list.
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That's only because the LRSF is full of "cheating damn computer" set-ups and confuse allows players to take advantage of the computer's cheating for themselves. |
Originally Posted by Nicro
So far Dominators are the only AT capable of soloing the LRSF which to me is 'as powerful as everyone says it is'.
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Control sets without confuse cannot do this.
I'm going to narrow the definition of "overhyped" to mean, power sets I see getting called out for teams when they really can get by with something else. You know "STF forming, need Stone Tank". Seriously, I saw that just days ago in a channel.
With that, for me, it comes down to
"healer"
Stone Tank
Rad. Heck, I've even seen Rad/Rad called out.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
Super Strength.
I hate the fact that you almost -have- to take Hasten if you're making a Super Strength build, and the dependency on Rage and its crash are just so incredibly annoying to me.
Willpower.
I personally have 2 Willpower characters, both Scrappers. I like the set in terms of stats and numbers and everything. But come on. The entire set looks so boring. xD
Archery.
Like Super Strength, I just don't like it when one or two powers define an entire set. Archery is almost in the same boat with Rain of Arrows.
Empathy and Pain Domination (A.K.A. H3a1z0rx)
Buffs and DeBuffs are almost always more effective than "Heals". Enough said!
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If anything that just shows how Empathy is underrated(Note I said Empathy, not healers). Fortitude and AB are amazing. |
Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
Super Strength.
Empathy and Pain Domination (A.K.A. H3a1z0rx) Buffs and DeBuffs are almost always more effective than "Heals". Enough said! |
I think I can speak on behalf of all the good empaths out there, that I cringe a little every time I hear good heals, even though my hard work at prioritizing+using my buffs while blasting was much more beneficial to the team. Compliments are compliments though, can't be choosy.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
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Its always up, its why to hit debuffs are nearly useless against AV's. Lingering radiation is only a 75% debuff, which doesnt even halve the regen. If you want to kill an AV fast on a team, bring -resist. Debuffing regen is definately required for solo, but hihghly overrated on any decent team. |
Originally Posted by Arbegla
Eh, while AVs do have 85% resistance to most debuffs (but only while the purple triangles are up i think) 85% of 500, or 1000, is still a pretty hefty debuff.
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AV's can resist it, but no more than an attack. And many -resistance effects are untyped.
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Regen is a subtractive debuff, AFAIK. So that 75% (really 500 * 0.15) is cutting the AV's regen by three quarters, unless the AV in question has some sort of additional regen buff.|
Originally Posted by MindmasterZero
Its always up, its why to hit debuffs are nearly useless against AV's. Lingering radiation is only a 75% debuff, which doesnt even halve the regen. If you want to kill an AV fast on a team, bring -resist. Debuffing regen is definately required for solo, but hihghly overrated on any decent team.
AV's can resist it, but no more than an attack. And many -resistance effects are untyped. |
It makes a pretty massive difference, either solo or teamed. The only caveat about team play is that regen debuffs only stack up to a point, whereas you're unlikely to have your resistance debuffs entirely marginalized by teammates.
Both debuffs are extremely useful against hard targets.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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AVs regeneration about 5% of their hitpoints every 15 seconds, so about .33%hp/second|
Originally Posted by MindmasterZero
Its always up, its why to hit debuffs are nearly useless against AV's. Lingering radiation is only a 75% debuff, which doesnt even halve the regen. If you want to kill an AV fast on a team, bring -resist. Debuffing regen is definately required for solo, but hihghly overrated on any decent team.
AV's can resist it, but no more than an attack. And many -resistance effects are untyped. |
Lingering radiation is a -500% debuff, which after AV resistance, is doing -75% -regen, which is about -.2475%hp/second, turning an AVs regen to .0825%hp/second.
Resistance resists resistable resistance debuffs. Which basically means that your damage will always be increased by the value of the resistance debuff, but due to the resistance left over, you could just be turning a 1 into a 2. While your doing 100% more damage then before the debuffs, your still only doing 2 points of damage.
Which is exactly what happens with statesmen and honoree in the RSF and LGTF. Once they pop unstoppable, their resistance becomes greater then 100%, and any resistance debuffs will only increase your damage by the value of the debuff, which a 20% increase of 1 damage, is really only 1.2 damage.
In other words, -regen > -resistance, as long as the value of the debuff is 500% or higher. (poison trap is -1000% regen, which after factoring in AV resistance is a 150% -regen, thus halting AV regeneration completely)
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.... why do you think you have to take hasten? I assume you're talking about Rage's recharge, and it's easy enough to stack with itself without using that many slots (think I've got two in mine.) |
Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]Super Strength.
I hate the fact that you almost -have- to take Hasten if you're making a Super Strength build, and the dependency on Rage and its crash are just so incredibly annoying to me. |
I do understand some people not liking the Rage crash, especially Def based sets. (The damage debuff doesn't really matter to me - thank you vet reward Sands of Mu.)
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Just to clarify, only Mind Doms can do this (You should you have played with mine enough lol). Don't know if Mind or Illusion trollers can lay enough Mag to do it, I know with Mind doms you get a Mag 6 ST confuse that lasts about a minute, since mine is /Energy with Powerboost (with is up quite frequent on a permadom) it last close to forever even with the Purple patch and PToD.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That's only because the LRSF is full of "cheating damn computer" set-ups and confuse allows players to take advantage of the computer's cheating for themselves.
Control sets without confuse cannot do this. |
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
I do not deny that you do awesome things with Dominators, Binju. I just have no idea how you do it. I think it's magic. 
Most overhyped combos?
Hmmm...
Got a couple.
1) and a duh... Fire/kins easy to own with, to much of a one track pony.
2) Anything Fire. I'm sry, but if balance wasn't the issue, I think other sets should be more damaged based, not just fire.
3)Stalkers. Never liked them, and never will play them. Scrappers can do everything a stalker can.
Every combo in the game is over-hyped and underpowered.
Why?
Rooted attacks.
Stop, fire, run. Stop, fire, run.
No.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
I'd personally have tucked it away in its own "AT." I'd almost throw it in as a Defender set, and take TA as a Controller primary - TA has more direct, reliable control. Adeon, IMHO, is right in saying it's more a damage set than a control set. I don't care that people like playing it - that's fine - but holding it up as the be-all, end-all of *control* sets, IMHO, is just wrong.
Illusion is about damage, and distraction. While spectral terror does do AoE fear, fear is easily broken by damage. Each time you attack a person under fear, they have the option to either 1) attack back or 2) run. If your spamming attacks on a feared mob, they basically are unaffected by said fear, due to the way it works. I think thats why spectral terror got its nice -tohit debuff as well, cuz fear is so easily broken.