Which power sets need the most help?

aka Which power sets, in your opinion, should be next in line for updates/revamps (ala i22 Gravity)? I'm interested in hearing what people have to say and why. For the purposes of this discussion, we're not considering epic ATs. Even if, say, PBs are in dire need of help, this is more a discussion about parity of options within each AT, and PBs only have the one option.

So it's probably easiest to separate via category. My own opinions:

Ranged sets (Blaster/Corruptor primary, Defender secondary):
The one I see brought up most often is Electrical Blast, since it sacrifices some damage for a secondary effect that is difficult to leverage and arguably not all that effective even when you can.

Melee sets (Scrapper/Brute/Stalker primary, Tanker secondary):
Energy Melee seems pretty high on a lot of lists, although I'm not experienced enough with the set personally to say why. My own choice would probably be Dual Blades, primarily because its gimmick of attack chains is actually better off ignored at the highest levels of performance, and chaining your highest DPS attacks will always be better than playing "properly". I'm not sure if it's underpowered as a result, but it doesn't seem like that's WAI.

Control sets (Controller/Dominator primary):
Ice Control is begging for a niche pretty badly. It's got a fairly random grab-bag of tools that don't quite fit together, and although you can manage decently with what you're given, it never really seems like there's any reason beyond concept to recommend it over the other choices available.

Buff/debuff sets (Defender primary, Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind secondary):
In end game content I can't see much to recommend Force Field. Its primary goal seems to be leveraging defense and KB to mitigate incoming damage, but in incarnate trials there are so many things which simply ignore all of that and autohit anyway.

Defensive sets (Tanker primary, Scrapper/Brute/Stalker secondary):
Probably Stone Armor? I honestly don't think there are any true underdogs in this category, but Stone Armor (especially Granite form) is a bit of a relic of a byegone era. It gets results, but it makes sacrifices that none of the other sets are subjected to.

Summon sets (Mastermind primary):
Opinion seems fairly divided between Mercenaries and Ninjas. Personally I think Mercenaries are awful even in ideal circumstances, whereas Ninjas are actually (for the most part) ok if they get a chance to do their thing. Primarily I think it's because Spec Ops don't hold up their end of the deal, they do insignificant damage but don't really control/debuff well enough to make up for it.

Manipulation sets (Blaster secondary):
No idea, I have less experience with blasters than any other AT, and zero experience with them in endgame activities.

Assault sets (Dominator secondary):
Not really sure about these either, to be honest. The only AT I have less experience with is Blasters.

So yeah, I'm interested in opinions here. Let's hear yours.

Just a comment about Energy Melee, there is a very good reason why Kinetic Melee is sometimes referred to as Energy Melee 2.0.

My top 2 are trick arrow and force fields. Main reason are there are other sets that do what those sets do and have either better numbers or other powers that make them more playable.

I would either make those 2 sets top of there game on what they do (ie Trick arrow top debuff set, FF top defense set) or I would rather them become more of a mix buff, debuff, and control.

Ice control, energy melee, mercs, ninjas could use some love as well.

Energy Melee, Electrical Blast, Devices, Battle Axe, Mercenaries, Force Field, Assault Rifle.

Energy Melee: When you look at the raw numbers, it is still one of the highest ST DPS sets you can take while having one of if not the lowest of AoE capabilities. The problem stands with how unwieldy the animations are, especially in a team environment. It is almost always better for an enemy to be defeated sooner than later and when there are other characters throwing around fast animating, high damaging attacks, an Energy Melee character can be seen just punching at the air.

My proposed change is for Energy Transfer's animation to my effectively reverse. You immediately strike your enemy with both hands for incredible damage, but you reel back and catch your breath from the self damage. The animation time does not have to change, but the damage needs to be out there sooner. Stun can also do with a similar change to Warmace's Clobber and have moderate-high damage added to it, but the stun half of the power changed to a chance, thus heightening this set's niche even more.

Electrical Blast: As brought up, the issue with this set is that it's damage has been effectively traded for 'superior' control and/or debuff potential. While good on paper (I'm looking at you, Ice Melee) and sometimes practise, the debuff and control offered in this set is weak at best when put into practise. This leads to a powerset lacking in damage and also needing to be paired with a select few sets to maximise the Endurance Drain potential so that it can be considered useful.

It needs damage. There is no way to get around this, buff the damage of Lightning Bolt, make Ball Lightning's DoT front-loaded, make Short Circuit do worthwhile damage to support being in melee range and, my personal favourite idea; Tesla Cage would add a marked proc effect against a target, so long as Tesla Cage is in effect (doesn't have to hold), then Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt will cause a minor damage AoE chain effect from the enemy, this includes from Voltaic Sentinel and any other Electrical Blast users.

Devices: This set has a special place in my heart, but that doesn't jade me in the fact it needs to be looked at. Only available to Blasters, the supposed damage kings of the ATs, Devices is very lackluster for what damage or even support it can bring to a fight while keeping numbers which have been reserved to Power Pools. Targetting Drone vs Tactics; Targetting Drone offers the user slightly more tohit for a slightly lower endurance cost, Tactics however is a team wide buff. Smoke Grenade offers a reasonable tohit debuff in an AoE for a set (and AT as a whole) which offers next to no in-combat defense, the -perception only useful for stealthing a mission, something which I find wrong for a damage-centric AT. Don't get me started on Time Bomb.

First, Targetting Drone needs it's endurance drain/sec reduced from 0.31/s to 0.21/s to be more in line to a defensive toggle. Smoke Grenade needs to have -defense added, allowing for greater combat usefulness, plus a chance to slot in an Achilles Heel -resistance proc, increasing the usefulness of the set from early to very late game. Cloaking Device, like Targetting Drone, needs it's endurance drain/sec reduced from 0.26/s to 0.21/s. Trip Mine's animation and interrupt time need to be reduced by 1 or 2 seconds each, the way most people use Trip Mine is to be fully invisible and drop it at an enemy's feet, all that the long animation/interrupt do is make this slower since there is no risk of it being interrupted, it'll also allow us to quickly blow up a nice little cottage because..

Time Bomb and Gun Drone. From what I understand, the cottage rule would have to be broken to do the following; Swap their levels and make Time Bomb an effective clone of Omega Maneuver, allowing reliable (read: fun) use and support to the Blaster by having a temporary distraction and stun.

Battle Axe: Since the Warmace changes, Battle Axe has been left behind slightly. It's not specifically underpowered, but I believe it needs some love to be Warmace's effective brother once more.

Give the following powers additional lethal DoT: Chop, Gash and Cleave. This is a thematic increase to overall DPS.
Increase the knockdown chance of Whirling Axe from 50% to 80%, add -defense.

Mercenaries: Technically this should be an overpowered set, with reliable AoE DPS and powerful AoE mezzes, but because of the AI it falls behind by wasting powers on single targets, or using all of the long cooldown powers at the same time, while also having a pet support which overall doesn't really help.

This can be fixed by a change to the pet support power at level 18, Serum. The new Serum, on use, would add a small resistance, tohit and recovery buff to all summoned Mercenaries, thus letting it have the same IOs slotted. What this would also do is trigger or allow the use of the long cooldown powers for a short period of time, putting more control of these fight-changing powers in the hands of the player.

Force Field: While this set is great for adding defense and offering some cover for range characters, it is a very passive one-trick-pony set in need of some more active powers which aren't potential griefing tools like Force Bubble and Repulsion Field.

Combine Repulsion Field and Force Bubble, set it at level 35. It would have two PBAoE effects, enemies within 14ft would be knocked back and enemies within 9ft would be repelled.
Force Bolt should have a -def debuff added, plus a chance to stun, giving it greater use beyond "Outta my face!"
Similarly, Repulsion Bomb should have a -def debuff added, again adding greater utility.
The new level 38 power would be an ally Forcefield toggle, giving the defense/resistance of Personal Forcefield to a single ally with a 30 second timer on a 120 second recharge.

Assault Rifle: Having leveled an Assault Rifle Blaster to 50 and teamed with some many times, I found it clear that while they do have some respectable damage, upon coming across an enemy strong against Lethal damage, the likes of Flamethrower and Ignite are either too heavy or unreliable to use.

Flamethrower needs to have it's endurance lowered. According to Mids, at level 50 it's 121.1 damage over 7.1 seconds to enemies in a 45 degree 40ft cone, it's a 20 second recharge and costs 23.92 endurance. So, for nearly a quarter of your endurance bar, you can deal a little less damage than a Scrapper's Fire Sword Circle in a zone in front of you, but it takes 7 seconds for this to happen. Fire Sword Circle costs roughly the endurance amount of the power Fire Blast less than Flamethrower, so I think it would be okay to lower Flamethrower's cost to 18.51 (the cost of FSC).
Ignite can use a change too, I feel. As learnt from the changes to Burn, it's a lot shinier to have a true attack than a fear patch, so I suggest that Ignite be turned into a short range ST attack, dealing average damage for a Blast set's short range hard hitter, but also putting down a very low DoT fear patch to allow it to be used for CC still.

Ice Control.

Chilblain and Frostbite: Remove the -KB so it doesn't ruin Ice Slick.
Arctic Air: Reduce its Endurance cost, make it work with Domination.
Shiver: Give it a -Range debuff, give it stun. Anything would make it better.
Ice Slick: It's currently worse than Earthquake from Earth Control because it doesn't have a useful debuff. Don't know what can be done with it. Maybe immobilised targets take damage.
Flash Freeze: Remove damage, make it a pulsing sleep.

The other three powers are fine. It just strikes me as odd that Ice Control doesn't have much control when other Ice themed sets are lauded as being Control-centric.

Ranged: Dual Pistols
Swap Ammo isn't great utility in my experience. And it's ST damage is lacking. I'm not going to say it's AOE is the best, but for me anyways, it's fine.

Melee: Energy Melee
There's a reason we hardly see anyone with Energy Melee running around. I'll see the other melee types quite a bit (not as popular as Super Strength mind you) but not Energy Melee (or Ice Melee but I'll just pick one set).

Buff/Debuff: Hmmm...
I want to say Time Manipulation because I still think it needs it's -Regen bumped to a useful level.

Buuut...I'll go with Force Field. It needs something. I like my suggestion of making it a buff and damage set. In the thread I suggested that, I don't recall anyone saying it was a bad or good idea, but I like the idea of turning a few of it's powers into serious damage (in line with Blaster Damage) attacks.

Control: Ice Control
I love it, but I think it's gotten to the point where those who do play it, decided they wanted to use more than Ice Slick, so they cast Ice Slick then cast Frostbite which negates the KD.

Defense: Regen
Don't know what it needs exactly, but it's another set that seems to be last picked and it could use a little more toughening up, so people don't go "Yeah, if you go Regen, go with a weapon set with +Def" at which point people are "But make sure you're okay with redraw"

I think IH being turned back into a toggle would fix this, but really no idea on it.

Assault Rifle is fine as is given it is a master of cones. :P

Sonic Resonance on the other hand needs help, because you look at Time for example and see how diversified it is when it comes to buffs/debuffs. Sonic Resoance is very limited and needs an expansion of its tool kit, or needs to have its supposed strengths (eg -Res/+Res) shored up even more.

Energy Melee needs to go back to being the single target king because the lack of AoE is terrible.

There are 2 sets that I can think of at the moment to put on this list. Energy Melee and Devices.

Energy Melee:
Take numbers and toss them out the window.
Single target damage? Who cares.
AoE can AbC its way out of here.

None of that matters. I just cant make the set fun to play due to its long boring animations. I couldnt care less about damage potential as long as its fun to play. The ET "fix" ruined the fun factor of energy melee for me overnight. Long boring animations over and over while I beat up dead corpses on my team? No thanks. I miss my old inv/em tank, but I can't force myself to play the thing. Its just too dull when I have so many better options to choose from.

Then when I take all of that and look at the numbers there really is no reason to play the set other than concept. And I'm sure there are people that do have fun with EM, but from what I see in game they are almost non existent.

Devices:
I have a 50 dev blaster that's been around since about issue 9 and it seems to get weaker and weaker as the issues progress.

• Caltrops is pretty lackluster.
• Smoke nades aren't as effective as they once were.
• Cloaking device is a end hog that doesn't even give full invisibility. Why choose that when you could just go super speed for the same effect along with a travel power? Not to mention any blaster can get something similar with the concealment power pool.
• Trip mine is very situational and almost worthless on teams.
• I'm not even going to get into time bomb...
• No buildup

Multimedia Genius Submission

Devices:

Use the new power tray for toggle powers with Taser. Once it's clicked and hits the target, keeping it toggled, while in range of the target, keeps the target stunned.

Targeting Drone: add + range to it (at the very least). I'd also dare say it should have a constant low + damage component.

Cloaking Device: make it true invisibility and give it a decent + damage buff for the first attack used while invisible.

Trip Mines: shorten the animation significantly from 5 to 2 seconds - animation should be to set and toss. Make it a toss / thrown animation. Remove the interrupt. Give it a 20 foot range. Now it can be used mid-combat or out of combat to law down a field.

Timb Bomb: either allow it to be attacked to blow up (which maybe dangerous with confuse powers given to npcs) or use the new power tray. When the power is summoned, a toggle activates in the new tray, once the toggle is turned off, the bomb explodes.

Let's see.

Trick arrow
Force Field
Sonic Resonance
Devices
Ice Control
Dual Pistols
Regeneration
Spines
Energy Melee

A basic issue with powersets is that they are almost all fine with SO's up to level 50. IO sets and incarnate powers are just so game breakingly overpowered that they screw everything up. As long as the devs just balance for SO's, few powersets need help.

battle axe, electrical blast, and devices are about the only ones that are really lagging

there are plenty that are not top tier, but very few that are noticeably below average.

Just to add a couple more, though they might not be as big a priority as some other sets.


Gravity Control: Yes, even with the recent changes the set still has problems. Dimension Shift while better is still highly situational. The set also lacks good AoE control options before Wormhole.

Martial Arts: This is specifically in regards to Stalkers, but the other versions could probably use some boosting as well. I would like to see Storm Kick become a Cone similar to Shadow Maul. I think this would be a good boost to the sets potential and would make it more appealing compared to sets that can match it's St while having better AoE than MA does.

Some of you know exactly what I will say before the post is even read, but just have to keep saying it; EMPATHY

There are very, very, few powersets in the game that have as much trouble solo as Empathy.
For a controller, it is less noticeable due to the amount of Miitgation the primary can afford, but on a Defender, Empathy has ONE power to preserve itself for the early levels. And only 3 of the 9 Powers in its arsenal have any benefit solo.

Understandably, powersets will all run the gamut of success solo, and Empathy (in practice and in theory) comes across as a very group oriented powerset. But to take such a hard hit solo, whilst many of its support set brethen solo extremely well and still provide great benefits to a team is rather "unsupportable". Especially when you look at the most recent addition to the "support" family of Time Manipulation. Its time to look at Empathy again. I cannot even remember the last change to the set. The last one I can think of is the change to the Auras to a longer recharge, followed very soon by ED and GDN. Both of which kicked Empathy right in the *pancakes* as a solo set.

many, many threads have been discussed by the players of how to help Empathy, so no need to re-hash these ideas here. Bottom line, to change Empathy would, most likely, involve breaking the 'precious' cottage rule, so this is why it has remained largely unchanged. I would like this set to get a review and revamp that maintains its desired goal of support, but allows an Empath some "realistic" solo-ability closer to the middle of the support pack. Am not asking for Radiation or Time level survivability, but something better 'can' and should be done to the set.

Poison still needs help, and pretty badly.

Poison probably needs the most help of any set in the game. Honestly, it has horrid AoE mitigation, forces you to enter melee range to use its tier 8 and 9 powers while offering no personal buffs or heals, and is designed as a single target debuffing specialist with a whopping -50% regeneration. Oh yeah-- you are also forced to take the worst single target heal in the game at level one, making this the only skill set that is pigeonholed into a team-only power right out of the gate.

Someone above posted that Time Manipulatin needed a buff because it "only" offers -250% regeneration. I couldn't help but laugh about that in the context of the current state of Poison.

Caveat: this entire post will ignore concept/theme as a reason to select a powerset. My thoughts are purely in regard to mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Mokalus Ranged sets (Blaster/Corruptor primary, Defender secondary): The one I see brought up most often is Electrical Blast, since it sacrifices some damage for a secondary effect that is difficult to leverage and arguably not all that effective even when you can.

All ATs' Electric Blast, Energy Blast, Dual Pistols, and Assault Rifle could stand for serious improvements.

Blaster Psi is awful compared to to all other versions of the set and pretty bad compared to other Blaster sets for no compelling reason.

Non-Blaster Radiation is terrible. Blaster Radiation is okay for AoE.

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Melee sets (Scrapper/Brute/Stalker primary, Tanker secondary): Energy Melee seems pretty high on a lot of lists, although I'm not experienced enough with the set personally to say why. My own choice would probably be Dual Blades, primarily because its gimmick of attack chains is actually better off ignored at the highest levels of performance, and chaining your highest DPS attacks will always be better than playing "properly". I'm not sure if it's underpowered as a result, but it doesn't seem like that's WAI.

Ice Melee is just awful.

War Mace, and Battle Axe could stand to be given a little bit more personality, but they're not necessarily bad, just somewhat bland and pretty similar.

Energy Melee, Spines, and Broad Sword probably need mechanical help the most after Ice, as a guess.

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Control sets (Controller/Dominator primary): Ice Control is begging for a niche pretty badly. It's got a fairly random grab-bag of tools that don't quite fit together, and although you can manage decently with what you're given, it never really seems like there's any reason beyond concept to recommend it over the other choices available.

Ice Control definitely needs the most mechanical help now.

• Shiver is practically useless.
• Flash Freeze is entirely useless.
• Ice Slick is useless for hard targets (EB, AV, GM) and almost everything in Incarnate content.
• Glacier has a needless restriction (can't be cast in the air).
• Jack's damage and control are both mediocre.
• Arctic Air suffers from a personal identity crisis, and would lose its 50%/50% terror/confuse and its recharge slow in favor of a 100% confuse chance and a damage component if I had any say in it.

Mind Control could stand to be made more group friendly, mostly due to it's heavy reliance on Sleep, but it does well solo. Specifically I'd look at making Mass Confusion equivalent to Seeds of Confusion. I'd say better, because it's a Tier 9, but SoC is pretty ridiculous. Telekinesis could definitely be made better, too.

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Buff/debuff sets (Defender primary, Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind secondary): In end game content I can't see much to recommend Force Field. Its primary goal seems to be leveraging defense and KB to mitigate incoming damage, but in incarnate trials there are so many things which simply ignore all of that and autohit anyway.

Force Field needs a massive broadening of it's utility kit to be made relevant again. Cold Domination, Time Manipulation, and Dark Affinity stomp all over it.

Sonic Resonance and Trick Arrow could handle some improvement.

Poison is still pretty mediocre in my opinion, considering its formerly-single-target debuffs only splash for half effect and have pretty small areas. I don't see a mechanical reason to ever use it over Rad or Cold, for example.

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Defensive sets (Tanker primary, Scrapper/Brute/Stalker secondary): Probably Stone Armor? I honestly don't think there are any true underdogs in this category, but Stone Armor (especially Granite form) is a bit of a relic of a byegone era. It gets results, but it makes sacrifices that none of the other sets are subjected to.

Super Reflexes is dead-in-the-water now. Energy Aura's new shiny recharge aura killed the last reason anyone had to roll SR. The ONLY thing it has going for it is 95% DDR, and that isn't worth picking it over anything else.

Stone could handle some rebalancing of its tier 1-8 powers to make the choice between normal toggles versus Granite a good one.

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Summon sets (Mastermind primary): Opinion seems fairly divided between Mercenaries and Ninjas. Personally I think Mercenaries are awful even in ideal circumstances, whereas Ninjas are actually (for the most part) ok if they get a chance to do their thing. Primarily I think it's because Spec Ops don't hold up their end of the deal, they do insignificant damage but don't really control/debuff well enough to make up for it.

Mercenaries are unforgivably bad.
Ninjas have a strong point (ST DPS), but that's offset by the fact that Demons are still better at it, an order of magnitude or three more durable and have significantly better AoE.
Necro pets are also annoyingly squishy but otherwise do fairly well.
Beasts suffer because they have numerous long-recharge, partial-uptime buffs that the AI isn't programmed to use decently.

The pet sets all really need to be brought up to the consistent durability levels of Demons/Bots/Thugs, and Masterminds as a whole need some time devoted to bug fixing, AI improvements, proliferation of Recharge Intensive Pet IO powers, and improvement of personal attacks.

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Manipulation sets (Blaster secondary): No idea, I have less experience with blasters than any other AT, and zero experience with them in endgame activities.

Everything but Mental Manipulation could be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up for all I care. Blaster secondaries suffer from the most design flaws in the game, in my opinion. Even MM basically rides on 3 powers, one of which is WILDLY OP.

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Assault sets (Dominator secondary): Not really sure about these either, to be honest. The only AT I have less experience with is Blasters.

Dom secondaries suffer from a bit of a have and have-not syndrome. Fire, Dark, Psi, and Earth all have compelling reasons to be chosen. Electric, Energy, Icy, and Thorns do not.

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Originally Posted by BrandX Buff/Debuff: Hmmm... I want to say Time Manipulation because I still think it needs it's -Regen bumped to a useful level.

...I really hope this is a joke. High magnitude +Damage (which is notably only brought by Kin, and is the major selling point of the set) and -Regen are just about the only things Time Manipulation DOESN'T have from the huge Support toolkit.
It's one of the best support sets in the game and without question the most well-rounded one. It does a bit of everything, it has the best personal +Defense buff, the best personal +Recharge, and probably the best Control, MAYBE matched by Dark Miasma.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

Actually Draeth, I think Mace is really good. Bland? sure, but a really good set.