Worst of the Worst
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2010-12-31 15:35 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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I'll take either/both of those toons in one of my blitz RSF/STF runs, and I'm a 'minmaxer' (or whatever term people use around here)
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Originally Posted by Starflier
I like threads like this because it usually turns out that the 'worst' combos are ones I'm playing. As it happens, I've got a Grav/Sonic and a Merc/FF. MA/Fire came up in the last thread like this while I was working on mine before the buffs.
That said, the Merc/FF is kinda bad, even with the synergy between the sets. Thankfully he's more of a concept/rp character, so effectiveness is a secondary concern. |
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While all this is true, it is still the worst control set. Most of the control is in Singy and you get alot of backup control (and debuffs) with Rad.|
Originally Posted by KayJMM
But... But...
Grav is soooooooooo nice... I love my Grav/Rad... And no Powerset has powers so unique as Propel and Wormhole! |
Propel is indeed unique and while you finish animating it and corpse blast your intended target, I'm all ready halfway done with the next spawn.
While Wormhole is indeed unique it is one of the powers that allows the Grav to grief his/her own team. This can be through malicious intent or through sheer newbieness.
I once teamed with a player that used wormhole and insisted on teleporting the entire spawn out of debuff patches and into the back amongst the squishys.
Add in the ITF newb that accidentally wormholed part of the Minotaur's spawn off of the edge of the cliff and down in the water (where it took the team roughly 15 extra minutes to find all of the displaced mobs) and you have just the tip of the iceberg of how bad grav can actually be.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I don't think a set should be called bad because you could misuse it, but because you can't use it well.
That said... Grav/storm was what I picked for Helpy McHelperson, the character who is Helping You. (He will start teams, but will not invite anyone who doesn't understand the intent of the character. It's actually a ton of fun, and surprisingly safe, just takes forever.)
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It is hard to use well. Not only because it is much different that other control sets but because the controls it has are comparatively weak.|
Originally Posted by seebs
I don't think a set should be called bad because you could misuse it, but because you can't use it well.
That said... Grav/storm was what I picked for Helpy McHelperson, the character who is Helping You. (He will start teams, but will not invite anyone who doesn't understand the intent of the character. It's actually a ton of fun, and surprisingly safe, just takes forever.) |
Add in the fact that it is the easiest control set to grief with and you have a set that gets a double thumbs down from me.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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And it makes a good distraction for if you over-aggro. The alpha strike was the big one for me, though. I can see where a tankermind build with Taunt might not have much use for it, but it was gold on my Thugs/Poison.|
Originally Posted by BugeyeJack
Most of the MM level 18 powers are kinda worthless. I mean, Gang War is kind of funny but it doesn't do much except get in everyone's way, and maybe eat an alpha strike.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Psi is a decent blast set for defenders and a decent Dominator secondary but is horrid as a blaster primary. All the things that make Psi good from the defender version (extra range, the cone attack, etc) were removed from the blaster primary when it was released.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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I'm a little tempted by repair (I could certainly use a giant heal occasionally), but...|
Originally Posted by BugeyeJack
Most of the MM level 18 powers are kinda worthless. I mean, Gang War is kind of funny but it doesn't do much except get in everyone's way, and maybe eat an alpha strike. And serum and repair are beyond worthless.
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I have to say, Gang War and Hell on Earth are totally justified by the 5% defense and 10% resistance procs from the recharge-intensive-pets sets.
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I use repair regularly. I've thought about speccing into aid other. It would work well to top off my bots, but the protectors already do that. Usually, when I need to heal a bot, it seems he's close to death and a little top off won't help. Repair has range, and always heals to full. Then again, repair can't be used on teammates. Then again, who gives a crap about teammates, I am my own army. Then again again, 10 second base recharge is much much better than 120. Then again again again, Aid Other is interruptable. Then again again again again, I have defense buffs coming out of my ears...|
Originally Posted by seebs
I'm a little tempted by repair (I could certainly use a giant heal occasionally), but...
I have to say, Gang War and Hell on Earth are totally justified by the 5% defense and 10% resistance procs from the recharge-intensive-pets sets. |
See my dilemma?
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don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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For Controllers I'd rank Grav ahead of Ice Control, Singy and the ranged AOE hold put it ahead for me. I've never found Wormhole any worse than say Telekinesis when teamed with one (TKing mind controllers have annoyed me more in the past in fact, at least with Wormhole I know they're going to be stunned for 30 seconds). Ice Control has too much of reliance on Ice Patch (which can easily be completely negated, unlike Quake which at least does a ToHit debuff too)|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
While all this is true, it is still the worst control set. Most of the control is in Singy and you get alot of backup control (and debuffs) with Rad.
Propel is indeed unique and while you finish animating it and corpse blast your intended target, I'm all ready halfway done with the next spawn. While Wormhole is indeed unique it is one of the powers that allows the Grav to grief his/her own team. This can be through malicious intent or through sheer newbieness. I once teamed with a player that used wormhole and insisted on teleporting the entire spawn out of debuff patches and into the back amongst the squishys. Add in the ITF newb that accidentally wormholed part of the Minotaur's spawn off of the edge of the cliff and down in the water (where it took the team roughly 15 extra minutes to find all of the displaced mobs) and you have just the tip of the iceberg of how bad grav can actually be. |
For Dominators Gravity is easily the worst though, any single target damage advantage it might have for Controllers is just worthless on a Domi. Ice Control on the other hand dovetails nicely into a number of the Assault sets (although not Ice Assault particularly).
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Originally Posted by Silverado
I'll take either/both of those toons in one of my blitz RSF/STF runs, and I'm a 'minmaxer' (or whatever term people use around here)
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Don't get me wrong, Having force fields on your team is quite nice. I can see how it would be a godsend on certain teams. However, actually playing it 1-50 (God help you if decide to solo) is the most boring thing I've ever played in the game. Most teams however loved the fact I actually kept the bubbles up.
There, if we can hit that bullseye the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate! -Zapp Branigan
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Ice is like fire, you control just behind the melee guys => here you see the utility of a wide AoE hold.|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
For Controllers I'd rank Grav ahead of Ice Control, Singy and the ranged AOE hold put it ahead for me.
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2 of the ice main control power don't need hit check to be effective and this make the set really good for me.
Top of that, those 2 powers are mixing control from kb, confuse, slow and the recharge on those two power is inexistant / fast.
This ensure you to have a tool for nearly any situation, while a lot of other set only have 1 stapple power (and furthermore 1 form of control) to rely on.
Sure you won't lock down pop like earth set, but ice is really a good control set.
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Hi Carnie,|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
For Controllers I'd rank Grav ahead of Ice Control, Singy and the ranged AOE hold put it ahead for me. I've never found Wormhole any worse than say Telekinesis when teamed with one (TKing mind controllers have annoyed me more in the past in fact, at least with Wormhole I know they're going to be stunned for 30 seconds). Ice Control has too much of reliance on Ice Patch (which can easily be completely negated, unlike Quake which at least does a ToHit debuff too)
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I imagine that you'll be in the minority on that one.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
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I have the same powersets and I never get PLed. I hated (and still do) this toon, but I have this OCD-ish need to finish things to 50. And so he sits and I deliberate deleting, but never have a need for a slot, so I don't. Electric blast is so pointless (the end drain is only significant if you are teamed with other end drainers) and enough has been said about devs. I am just happy my attempt to use devs was accidently paired with my least favorite blaster primary.
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Originally Posted by Deacon_NA
We're on the 3rd page and still no mention of Electric Blast?
I have a lvl 50 Elec/Dev blaster I consider my greatest achievement, or at least my most determined effort (no PLs while leveling up). Solo, end drain and caltrops made things moderately safe, but still... This was my first blaster. When I made my next blaster, I was amazed how quickly mobs could actually be killed. |
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers
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I went with Aid Other. My experience has been, in a rough fight, topping up three bots in a minute works very well, while a full repair on one of them might not have. A full repair on a battle drone isn't that much. I'm /traps, so if I'm worried at all I have a triage beacon out, so occasional extra heals (protector bots don't always have it recharged) help a lot. I also sometimes heal non-bots when teaming.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I use repair regularly. I've thought about speccing into aid other. It would work well to top off my bots, but the protectors already do that. Usually, when I need to heal a bot, it seems he's close to death and a little top off won't help. Repair has range, and always heals to full. Then again, repair can't be used on teammates. Then again, who gives a crap about teammates, I am my own army. Then again again, 10 second base recharge is much much better than 120. Then again again again, Aid Other is interruptable. Then again again again again, I have defense buffs coming out of my ears...
See my dilemma? |
The interruption thing does suck, especially when there's a ground effect that auto-interrupts things. Luckily I mostly hover, and getting about another foot off the ground seems to be enough.
So far, I'm finding the ability to just patch things up whenever quite useful. Since /traps involves a lot of I Already Did Everything (except web grenade), I can spend 20 seconds during which I have nothing to do but:
1. My origin power.
2. Aid Other.
Like most players who have been around a while, I have tried every powerset except one (stone melee). I have to agree with the posters who say the worst is the players, not the power. I have ATs, powersets, and powers that I do not like (Khelds, Electric Blasters, Time Bomb, Repel...), but overall I don't see the huge disparity that many mention. I have no issues with my energy/energy tank--I kinda like him. I love my energy/energy stalker.
It just seems that if you know how to play, you can make any set work for you. To the point that your team will like any power that you bring.
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers
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My Bots/Traps' Aid Other heals for over 400 - that's more than a "top off", that's life-saving levels of heal for any of her bots. It works quite well to keep them alive most of the time. |
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I use repair regularly. I've thought about speccing into aid other. It would work well to top off my bots, but the protectors already do that.
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I used to have Repair, but I dropped it because it recharged too slowly, took too long to activate (it's not interruptible, but the animation has to reach the bot before the heal hits, which often leads to the bot dying before getting healed) and really never paid off. Aid Other, on the other hand, makes her useful to teams as something other than "the other team teaming with you guys", gives me something to do between traps, and overall works better at keeping bots alive. It's also nice for keeping the Protectors concentrated on healing Battle Drones and not each other.
Yeah, I wanted to love Repair but Aid Other is just too sexy.
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I've made second Gravity Dominator now. One is lvl 43 Grav/Icy and one is lvl 40 Grav/Fiery (all ranged damage using Lift, Fire Blast and Blaze). |
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
For Dominators Gravity is easily the worst though, any single target damage advantage it might have for Controllers is just worthless on a Domi. Ice Control on the other hand dovetails nicely into a number of the Assault sets (although not Ice Assault particularly). |
Wormhole is a very interesting power and it can be quite satisfying if you can wormhole a group to a corner and unleash all your aoe on them.
The problem wit WH is that you don't always have that special corner to teleport the foes to and if you don't use it out of sight, you can get hurt a lot before the mobs even get teleported.
I basically only enjoy my Gravity dom when I am the leader and with a few friends. This way they can wait for me to tp foes to a corner. WH is not very team-friendly if you have brute/tanker that run in first to herd/group mobs closely together.
Gravity also has two very badly designed powers: Propel (for Dominator) and Dimension Shift. 9/10 times DS is just counter-productive because teammates are so confused by why mobs are "unaffected" and you spend more time trying to find targets that are not phased. Another problem with DS is that the mobs actually "GAIN" something during phase shift. They still regenerate health/endurance! The net gain is not in your favor.
It would be so nice if they can redesign Dimension Shift and make it like Ice Patch but instead of knocking down, it knocks up! Mobs walking through the Gravity Patch has a chance to get knocked up/lifted up. That will make Gravity set so much more interesting. Or if they really don't want to change the phase shift part, they should put huge -regen in DS so the mobs that get phased can't regenerate health.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Even with regeneration, taking half of a spawn out, even if they come back at full health later, is probably a net win for the player characters. A spawn that could probably cause a wipe being split into two spawns half that size would usually be, well. Not as bad.
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The problem is that you reduce the incoming damage, but reduce the outgoing damage as well while people try to figure out what they can hit and not hit with single target attacks and/or tab through them. So you're not really buying a whole lot. And if you have enough AoE damage that you don't have to worry about it, all it does is prolong things as you wait for mobs to start taking damage again.|
Originally Posted by seebs
Even with regeneration, taking half of a spawn out, even if they come back at full health later, is probably a net win for the player characters. A spawn that could probably cause a wipe being split into two spawns half that size would usually be, well. Not as bad.
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I'd still say it's Time Bomb, though.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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My Ice/Rad/Ice controller would disagree with this statement.|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
For Controllers I'd rank Grav ahead of Ice Control, Singy and the ranged AOE hold put it ahead for me. I've never found Wormhole any worse than say Telekinesis when teamed with one (TKing mind controllers have annoyed me more in the past in fact, at least with Wormhole I know they're going to be stunned for 30 seconds). Ice Control has too much of reliance on Ice Patch (which can easily be completely negated, unlike Quake which at least does a ToHit debuff too)
For Dominators Gravity is easily the worst though, any single target damage advantage it might have for Controllers is just worthless on a Domi. Ice Control on the other hand dovetails nicely into a number of the Assault sets (although not Ice Assault particularly). |
My Ice/Ice/Fire Dom would also disagree. /Ice has the some of, if not the, fastest activating powers of all the Dom attack sets. The -rech and slows in the primary and secondary combine nicely (when properly enhanced) to keep even +4 mobs at the -Rech Cap. Ice Slick is then merely a tool to mitigate the Alpha.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
It's funny while Grav/, Psi/ blasters, and stalkers are consider kinda bad in PvE they are some of the top performers in PvP land.
Storm/Elec good concept toon but the damage just isn't there. I could never finish anything dark armor related. Pretty sure sonic resonance is suppose to do something, that set need a buff bad.
PBs are too cool to make the list. 
@Intro lolPvP
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
My Bots/Traps' Aid Other heals for over 400 - that's more than a "top off", that's life-saving levels of heal for any of her bots.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I went with Aid Other. My experience has been, in a rough fight, topping up three bots in a minute works very well, while a full repair on one of them might not have. A full repair on a battle drone isn't that much.
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Originally Posted by seebs
The interruption thing does suck, especially when there's a ground effect that auto-interrupts things. Luckily I mostly hover, and getting about another foot off the ground seems to be enough.
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
I wouldn't say it SUCKS, but Dual Pistols can use couple minor buffs and tweaks, IMO.
Devices I rather like, it has some useful powers and offers Stealth with Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade. Can use some improvments though.
Energy Aura should be, in my opinion, adapted to have positional rather than typed defenses.
But I haven't seen anything that I can say outright SUCKS.
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This thread isn't about anything sucking, it is about the worst. Mercs is considered the worst MM set, but it is still a strong set.|
Originally Posted by DoctorWhat
I wouldn't say it SUCKS, but Dual Pistols can use couple minor buffs and tweaks, IMO.
Devices I rather like, it has some useful powers and offers Stealth with Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade. Can use some improvments though. Energy Aura should be, in my opinion, adapted to have positional rather than typed defenses. But I haven't seen anything that I can say outright SUCKS. |
They also won't make EA positional. The devs use positional for dodging, and type for absorbing, and EA absorbs damage like ice does. The only reason ff, cold, and and such powers is so that the stack with player abilities instead of buffing some and not helping others.
Dirges
Grav is soooooooooo nice...
I love my Grav/Rad...
And no Powerset has powers so unique as Propel and Wormhole!
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