Weakest AT/powersets

Hmm.

Elec/dev blaster.

It may not be the weakest powerset combo out there, but it's certainly not going to be winning any awards.

Dual pistols/devices blaster. I have one

I'm not much of a powerset snob. That said, Sonic Resonance is truly bottom of the barrel. And yes, I would say it is worse than Force Field. A few Resistance debuffs do not fix the 4 of 9 powers that accept no IOs at all, the massive Psi hole, the unreasonable recharge on Liquefy, the complete lack of resistance to meaningful debuffs that even Defense sets like Cold Domination gets, or the inability to utilize Power Boost in a meaningful way. The set feels like it was built to settle an argument about whether Buff/Debuff set could have no heals and still be useful. And interestingly, every single set in that category released prior to City of Villains--Force Field, Sonic Resonance, and Trick Arrow--is now on the list of "worst of" power sets. It almost feels like when a set gives up healing or regen capability in this game, it's punished extra hard for it. (Cold Domination, however, is an exception.)

Prior to the invention of incarnate abilities, rock bottom status would have gone to Ice Control/Sonic Resonance as a special contender for worst-of. It's rare for me to label a combo "unplayable" but if anything was, this was it. Sonic's runaway endurance costs combined with horrible damage mitigation capability combined with a nearly defenseless pet, all wrapped in a neat package of never seeing your blue bar again. I cannot possibly exaggerate how awful this combo truly was.

I will give honorable mention to Force Field on Defenders as a truly struggling power set. Now that you can cast AoE Power Boosted shields, there is very little to recommend FF on a Defender any more. My FF/Ice character was the only one of my heroes who was unable to solo Trapdoor in the incarnate mission. And any power set where people routinely take 4 powers and skip everything else can't really be said to be operating at capacity. I still give this one higher marks than Sonic only because in the 10-45 game, it actually is pretty good. It only falls out once IOs enter the picture. However, the set is also the victim of the collective fantasy that knockback is a comparable debuff to something like -Regen or -Resistance when wielded by players with infinite levels of skill. Meanwhile powers like Force Bolt are so unimpressive that they provide the template for Veteran powers with slightly longer recharges and much increased damage.

Peacebringers
Elec/dev blasters
Grave/emp controllers

Pool Power Man!

I think:

Stalker: Energy Melee / Regen (I give MA an edge over EM for the team critical buff). Regen is just not good on Stalker because Stalker's HP Cap is so low and both EM and MA have no aoe attack all, in a game where aoe shines, you have two negatives going for you.

Peacebringer: The current form of PB is just frustrating.


Controller: Mind/something. Mind control just doesn't work as well on controller as it does for Dominator. Mind lacks aoe immb for containment and it doesn't have domination to make it an excellent control set. It's very good but other primaries have controls and good damage potential with containment.


Mastermind: Petlless MM isn't what I consider a logical build that just sucks. If you want to use the pets, then Merc is the weakest because Merc doesn't excel in anything. Controls? I would vote Ninja, Necro and even Demon having more good controls than Merc. Merc has the worst ST damage, lack of aoe potential with narrow cones, weak resistance with only S/L and a minion Medic that I don't want talk about. If he heals you in time, or put anti-mez on you, consider yourself lucky. The weakest secondary on MM is definitely /Poison. Funny, my first villain ever is 50 Merc/Posion! lol /Poison lacks aoe protection for your pets. If you get any kind of aoe damage, you can't heal the pets in time with that slow moving Green Ball.


These are the ones that are noticeably weak IMO. Those powers should be improved for the AT's need's.

MA is soon to be the weakest powerset for Scrappers, once Street Justice comes out

IMO, of course.

Interesting thread.

Probably would be best to preface each combo by AT, because even the worst Tanker combo will solo better than your average defender combo.

So my picks for the Hero ATs would be;

Defender: Empathy/*any* with Sonic/*any* possibly worse

Controller: this one is too Easy ; Grav/Empathy

Blaster : Radiation / Devices (never liked the low damage / fast recharge powers much)
Probably why I cannot get a Peacebringer past the low levels.

Scrapper/Tanker : The Attack sets are all decent, but the Electric Armor defense seems a tad weaker than the rest. The set is solid, but has similarities to Dark and Fire, but those sets both have self-rez and better healing.

This would come down to soloing potential.

I'm guessing Empathy/Radiation.

Radiation Blast shines on Blasters.

Neutrino Bolt and XRay Eyes are indeed normalised to 4s and 8s. 3 area attacks and having your status effect baked into your heavy hitter with Cosmic Blast blast make for a very effetcive set.

I found it a bit lacking on my Defender, but love it on my Blaster.