Afterburner?

Hiya folks,

Can anyone who's trued this power tell me if it's worth it? It sounds nice for zipping around the city faster than regular flight, but is it really worth losing a more useful power?

Thanks!

I took it for one of my lowbie flyers- hit a level with no 'must have' power and thought "why not?"

It's pretty cool for just flying around- it's like Fly with the air control of Hover. I didn't notice it being appreciably faster (but then I didn't have it slotted) and have no idea if its defensive bonus is worth while or what the end use is like.

But it was fun and I didn't regret taking it.

Afterburner lets you fly way above the flight speed cap (which you hit when using fly even with no fly speed enhancements) even if you only slot afterburner and fly with a single +fly speed in the original slot. Fly actually becomes a pretty decent travel power!

As the Goat said, Afterburner also gives you the same fine control you get with hover (funny how I'm so used to the flying inertia by now that this control often messes me up) as well as some extra defense that comes "affecting only self" and you can maybe use as a panic button, but it's not nearly as good as PFF. I see the control and especially the extra defense as just nice details, though, what sells the power is the increased speed cap (the animation is pretty cool too, if you turn it on when you're already flying).

I feel like taking this power for every flier I have, but it's usually very low priority in my builds since, cool as it is, I can't use it while destroying the opposition, so I end up taking it close to 50... or not at all on tighter builds.

I love Afterburner. Not so long ago every build got 3 extra power picks to play with due to inherent Fitness, but no extra slots, so most builds look for 1-slot wonders. Afterburner is perfect for that.

It can also take a LotG, so it's not even a terrible choice for performance. And hey, getting everywhere faster is a benefit to performance too.

The speed is nice, another place to put a LotG recharge is nice, and the added defense can come in pretty handy if you already have some defense but you aren't capped.

Two uses I've found for it are extra control and defense while stealthing missions, and as a sort of mini tier 9 on an invuln tank: if i've got a good handle on aggro already, I can throw out one last taunt, then hit Afterburner and take less damage for a bit while Dull Pain recharges and regeneration does its thing. Also would be useful for occupying one AV while the rest of the team fights another.

On my one toon I have afterburner with it active like 75mph with just a single fly IO in fly and swift and when I activate the GvE jetpack it boosts it to 85mph.

Great for Traveling and getting some nice set bonuses.

The +def can let you tank stealth as well, you can even click glowies with the power active.

Basic slotting lets you move as fast as SJ, with additional you get close to SS - more of an inbetween of SJ and SS

I love it, conceptually.

Gets me up to 86+ mph...and as previously stated...another place for a LotG.

If I opt for flight as my travel power, I always take afterburner. The exposure to it makes flying without it unpleasant since it is so much slower.

Truth be told afterburner has lead to many more of my alts using super jump simply because if I can't fit in afterburner, I don't have any interest in fly anymore.

I like it. It's not a must-have by any means, though. If you've reached that point where you're standing there at the trainer staring at all the available powers and not really wanting any of them, you could do a lot worse than Afterburner. It's better speed, no "drift" like with normal Fly (it handles like Hover and turns on a dime), a place to stick another LotG global recharge IO, so it's hard to complain, though the value of the added defense from it is questionable since the "only affecting self" aspect makes it largely useless in a fight.

The power lets me travel faster and acts as a set mule. It's pretty good.

I love it! I just wish that we had more space...and now with the new Power Pool... *sigh*.

With Afterburner my main went from flying at 58 mph to about 80 mph, without additional slot investment. I think that's worth it.

I've never had a problem fitting Afterburner into a build, and usually have a second slot to give it for that little extra burst of flight speed. My only problem with it is I forget to turn it off and then wonder why none of my attacks are working.

And last year I got all the ski badges with Sprint + Ninja Run + Afterburner, so it's good for that, too. Well, I didn't get the badges because the character I ran the slopes on already had them, but the point is, I made the badge times.