What sets do you never see anymore?

I took a break from the game when shield, pain and some other sets were newish, returned in i18 or something.

I play on Freedom, Virtue and some on Champion, and I see people using all kinds of powersets since I've been mostly playing iTrials or 30+ content (and usually if you're doing TFs with other 30+ toons, it means they are probably going to keep them unlike the bunch you see doing dfbs till level 10).

I see quite a few of the so called 'underrated' powersets (TA, Grav control, Battle Axe, Elec and Energy Blast, Energy Melee, Sonic Resonance, Devices etc), especially on Virtue since so many people favor concept there (I do that sometimes too).

But one set that I don't think I ever saw again (when I left there were plenty since it was new) is Pain Domination. I was almost going to mention Broadsword but I saw a few Stalkers lately with it. Thorns is kinda rare too, but I also saw some.

So, is there any set you barely (or never) see nowadays? I can only think of Pain, I see all the others with some frequency.

I'll second Pain Domination. They used to be all over the place but that seemed to be little more than the "new shiny" effect. I've never played the set myself so I can't say if people aren't playing it because it's not very good or for some other reason.

Also, I never see Sonic Blast or Sonic Resonance. Resonance I can understand since it's a bit of a wonky set but Sonic Blast is awesome. The look, the feel, the sound, I love it all. Guess the same can't be said for everyone.

Aside from myself, I never see Mercs anymore.

One of my VG leaders uses a Mercs/pain so there you go. Saw a thorns yesterday as well and I played my Sonic/Sonic yesterday as well.

I never see Warshades or Peacebringers anymore though, or even soldiers! Widows are the only Epic Archetype I see these days. Don't see mind control either these days as well.

Ok maybe we should change it to 'sets that we barely see' lol (except for DFB because you see every kinda combo there).

Vexen777 my Mind/Emp is one of the toons I played the most so I tend to notice when someone is using Mind... And I have the same impression, I was actually a bit surprised to see one yesterday on a Pug. I've been seeing quite a few PBs on the 30-50+ range, but for me it looks WSs are much rarer. I see the occasional VEAT but my impression is that I see more PBs than any VEAT.

Come to think of it, the toon I've been playing the most lately is my db/elec scrapper, and from level 30 (where I left her more than 1 year ago) to 42 I haven't teamed with another DB toon. I still see a ton of dual pistols tho.

Other set you never see is poison on a Mastermind!

But I've been picking back up on my playing, and have only seen One PB in my time playing and One Warshade. Should we call the APA? (Archetype Protection Agency)

I haven't played red side in a looong time so take this as you will.

I rarely see widows, I've never seen a Pain Dom Corr since Beta though I have seen a couple Pain MMs.

I've seen 2 Psi blasters since they were ported, both were under level 20.

I haven't seen a FF defender other than my own in 5 months.

I haven't seen an Empath of any kind (outside of a Hami raid or an STF) over level 30 in about 6 months.

Been a couple months since I've seen a Fire/Kin controller. There are other things that farm faster now.

I hadn't seen a grav any thing in about a year, at least until they announced the grav tweaks. I've seen 1/2 a dozen since then.

Can't recall the last time I saw a ForceFielder of any AT...

I always hate these, and the 'what's super gimp' threads, because it reads like my character selection screen. Grav/Sonic, Emp/AR (solo toon), FF/DP, Necro/Poison, Merc/Storm... I could go on.

Oh yeah, I also just rolled up a Sonic/Poison last weekend. Take that!

Milady's experience seem to match mine mostly. On Freem I still see 50 Fire/Kins but the rest is basically the same (almost no Widows, one or two FFs in the last... 6 months?), and of course Psi Blasters, I completely forgot they existed

Empathy seems to be down on popularity - perhaps one of the reasons is that it's a set that most people don't want to replay. I played the hell out of my mind/emp (first toon and one of the most expensive builds I have) and although I still take her out once in a while, I have absolutely no desire to level the set again - unlike, say, Traps, Rad or Kin.

Maybe the buff-onlys sets (Emp, FF, Pain in all but one power) are less popular nowadays... Even though Pain looks so good imo and has a very nice debuff and +res +tohit +dmg team buff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodion I've been playing a Kinetics/Sonic defender and a Fire/Pain corruptor off and on in the past couple months. Sonic Blast has a lot of useful tools for a solo Kinetics defender -- slept mobs don't wake up when you use Siphon powers or Fulcrum Shift on them. /Pain is a lot like Empathy, with a little more offense and a different kind of self-buff. It's fine, but I favor debuffing over buffing power sets; I've already played nearly everything else, Pain is one of the last few left to try.

I think Sonic Blast is not popular because of aesthetics/sound. My defender is shelved because I got bored with the blasts, even knowing how great Sonic Blast is (kinda the same reason I gave up on Beam and regret buying it, but I also didn't like the Disintegrate spread mechanic being 100% only with the snipe). OTOH, I rolled 3 DP toons until I found one I liked the combo, and mainly because I wanted it to work for me due to loving the animations, that may be why I see so many DP toons although it's no outlier (maybe the opposite according to some, but I'm not discussing what is 'gimp' or not - the only blaster I had enough fun to get to nuke level is Energy/Ice).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starflier Oh yeah, I also just rolled up a Sonic/Poison last weekend. Take that!

Ok I lol'ed IRL now but you can kill gms! I deleted my BR/Poison out of utter frustration with redrawing every 5-10 seconds.

... I use half of these sets. Now, for not counting me, these are the sets I rarely see:

Sonic Resonance: My first toon was this, and I still use her. However, the rarity of a "double sonic", despite all it's power, is still one of the rarest events to ever happen. I think I've seen it happen maybe 3 times in all the time I have played.

Gravity Control: I know now why they are sprucing it up a bit, but that Singularity is the second rarest pet in my experience. Which is unfortunate, because wormhole is completely unmatched in the Incarnate Trials. Need to move IDF away from Techs in the TPN? Wormhole them and solo the terminal. Need Voids closer to Penny in MoM? Wormhole. Need WW away from terminals in Keyes? Wormhole.

Ice Control: And this is the rarest pet. Ice Control's lower damage output has put it on the level of "stay away from this" for trollers, and doms usually take something else. Which is unfortunate since I get a kick out of Ice Slick.

Energy Aura: this is one that I myself don't use yet. When I look around, I see all forms of defenses, but it is never Energy Aura. I remember the first time I saw EA used by a Brute, and that distinctive AoE power of it had me confused for the whole mission.

Force Field: Though Double Bubble is a bit more common than Double Sonic, these still don't show up. It's unfortunate, since it makes a nice compliment to the sonic bubble. A good "here is a safe zone" thing.

War Mace: This counts as the only melee set that I have *never* seen. Each time I think I have one, and it always turns out to be a Bane Spider.

Trick Arrow: 'Nuff said.

Pain Domination: I think sometime after Going Rogue this power just kind of vanished.

Dark Armor: Even with all toggles now capable of overlapping, that signature "dark armor" stealth effect is strangely absent for most of my game time.

Energy Blast/Energy Assault: These two go together, since I could probably count on one hand all of the toons who had these powers combined.

Ice Armor: With all the cold domination out there, I'm not sure if I've ever seen one of these, either.


Really, a lot of the powers in the game fall into the rare category IMO.

Ice Armor. Every now and again I'll see one, but it's so rare!

Sonic Resonance is just as rare!

Havent seen a Broadsword user in a long time either.

Stop talking about all the sets I play

I also never see any Pain Dom' corr, except mine. Maybe because powersets that were redside only are not well-known, and healing sets are totally outshined by Empathy which is still THE healing set for a lot of players (and THE support set for some of them - did I tell you about this recent MoReischman I made, where there was something like 2 tankers, 2 stalkers, 2 scrappers, 1 blaster and my /Thermal corr' because-we-need-a-heal? Mo that obviously failed against Reischman). Even after corrs were available blueside, I saw players immediately choose an Empathy defender as their first support character.
The set is nice to play though, especially on iTrials where there are so many buffs floating around that Empathy's powerful ones feel like teardrops in an ocean. With a /Pain character, you can blast with your primary (or let your minion do it if you're a MM), debuff res/def for even more offense and still provide strong heals because you share Absorb Pain with Empathy.

I also don't see /Thermal as played as it should And since it has been available on both sides for a long time now, I don't really understand why. It's a nice balanced set after all: heals, shields, buffs, debuffs...

I think I see "healers" more often (understand: defenders with like 2 blasts that whine on global channels they can't solo because they are defenders and also took the Medicine pool for a reason I still have to discover).

Don't see a lot of War Maces too, except my Brute (who can benefit from the last CoL set and its shiny awesome new maces even if he's a male). The animations are quite longish and its attacks do smashing damage but all those KD and stuns saved my life a lot of times. And some maces look soooo random

On Vigilance I often see Sonic Blast though, especially on Defenders.

I don't really see Time Manipulation characters at lvl 50 o_O There was like a ton of them when the powerset was launched, and then nothing.

I rarely see Dark Blast and Darkness Manipulation on blasters.

One set that apparently used to rul but is now rarer (for me) is Spines on Scrappers.

My toon is the only Broadsword I see most weeks.

I have one Pain MM but the set is all reactive...there's not much pro-active buff. Maybe that's why it fell out of favor.

Sonic is rarer than I'd like because it's a great set

One that really stands out to me is Ice Blasters. I NEVER see those anymore.

Energy Melee. Some sets are just underplayed, and more or less have always been underplayed. Energy melee on the other hand went from one of the most played melee sets in the game to the least played from the time it was changed to now. Nothing has had such a plummet like EM had, at least from my viewpoint.

Pain Domination is a set that I really want to like, but can't. If I could get it on a Controller, I think I'd love it. But until then...

Other sets that I rarely see are resistance-based Stalker secondaries.

Broadsword - I think I've seen 2, besides my own, in the last year.

Sonic Resonance - About the same as Broadsword.

Trick Arrows - I see a couple, but never any over level 30-ish. I think I've seen two other level 50 TAs in the last year or so.

Battle Axe - I think I've seen 3 in the last year.

Ice Armor - I have mine, that's about all I see.

Mercenaries - I haven't seen these in forever. I only even knew one person who used them.

This is all with the addendum that I mostly solo on Protector.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

My Merc/Time MM, Grav/Time Troller, Dark/Dark Stalker, Plant/FF troller, and Ice/Ice Dominator say hello.