The worst powersets in the game?

Last night, I kind of surprised myself in the Bio Armor feedback thread, in talking about Regen. I realized that, at least in my internal logic, Regeneration is the worst defensive set in the game.

That doesn't mean it's bad, and people told me in that thread that it's still capable of great things. I just cannot, for the life of me, think of a situation where Regeneration is the best choice for the job. Yes, it can regenerate better than anyone, but at this point I'm not certain that really manages to make it the best at any particular job.

But hey, I'm still thinking about it, so I might as well hear other opinions: What are the worst sets in the game? Ideally, I'm talking about like, 'worst ranged damage set' or 'worst Dominator secondary', not 'absolutely the worst thing you could possibly pick', by that point we're getting subjective.

I should note, this doesn't mean the set is bad. It's just that something has to come in last place. I'm sure this isn't too hard a call for the damage sets; with a goal of DPS, it's pretty clear-cut who ends up the lowest.

As for some other sets... Aside from Regen, I have some less arguable things to put forward. Which, I now, are obvious.

-Beast Mastery is the worst Mastermind primary, which makes it a bit worse that we had to pay for it. It's got the worst DPS, which honestly wouldn't be so bad since the damage isn't too terrible and like I said someone has to come last. The real problem is that they have no range, and super speed. Which means that unless you're responding really fast, you'll probably actually be a detriment to your team the moment a runner or worrying amounts of knockback become involved. And because of the low DPS, you won't have the raw killing power to cover up for that issue.

-And Trick Arrow is the worst support set. I know, that's like saying the sky is blue, but it's still true. It tries to do too many things, and to compensate for having that much at its disposal, it's terrible at all of it. Unfortunately, I don't know how you'd fix that without either changing it to the point it's unrecognizable, or making it too good at all of the things it does instead of too bad. All that said though, I've heard that surprisingly its amount of immobilizes, slows and stuns make it as good a partner for Beast Mastery as you can get.

So what does everyone else think the worst set in a particular category is? I'd love to hear someone's grounded opinion on the worst DPS sets, but at the same time subjective opinions on other sets are good too.

Well for solo play Dual Pistols/Empathy defender might be top dog.

I have a Forcefields/somethingorother defender named RNG, but wouldn't dare try to solo with her. hitting the brick wall at 22 on the emp/dp character was enough of a deterrent.

How about when there is untyped damage? Or unresistable damage? Regen is the best for the job. Thinking of Hamidon, various trial AV AOE's (Like Marauders fist AOE), etc.

Thanks for tuning in for this episode of The Bottom 5! I'm your host, Guy Perfect!

5. Electrical Blast - With its focus on utility and Endurance Drain, Electric Blast lags behind for damage like a witty comeback three months later.

4. Trick Arrow - Nothing says "we can beat Tar Patch" quite like drawing a weapon and using three different powers.

3. Ice Control - Question: What do you call a debuff set disguised as a control set that focuses on aspects that won't do much to lock enemies down? Answer: Better than Ice Control!

2. Charge Mastery - Is your Mastermind looking for a lack of protection, an unreasonably weak hold and the ability to utterly exhaust himself with a single click? Look no further!

1. Mercenaries - So derpy and ineffective that an upgrade power has to explicitly revoke a power from one of the henchmen, this set takes the crown for the most terrible of them all!
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Soooo.... I guess what I'm trying to say here is, if you want the worst character imaginable, roll a Mercenaries/Trick Arrow/Charge Mastery Mastermind.

The one place Regeneration shines above all others is the Hamidon raid.

As far as worst powersets go, in my experience Psychic Blast, Ninjas, and Umbral Blast are pretty high on the list.

Blast: Electrical - Dual Pistols - Beam Rifle
Defender Primary: Trick Arrow - Sonic (I STILL hate the graphics on this set)
Corruptor Primary - Pain ... I never could get into this set
Melee: Kinetic Melee - NrG (sooooooo slow)
Control: Ice - uhmm yeah no thanks; for a control set it's pretty lacking in hard control.
HEATS - in general make me nauseous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Peacebringers and Warshades... they are a pain to solo, mostly because of the Voids who kill you in 2-5 shots.... I never gotten past level 24 with them

For powersets I don't compare them unless I die alot.

Well other then Fire defense for tankers.... that could be different now.

Ice Blast does the less damage, if I am right.

Dual Pistols is pretty mediocre until you the nuke. It really is ridiculous what a change Hail of Bullets makes.

That may not necessarily save it from being 'the worst', that's not really my call since I've only played a few ranged sets. Actually of the ranged sets I've played I'd probably peg electrical blast. It's gimmick is sapping, which is entirely binary in usefulness and relies largely on short circuit to pull off. I will say I don't hate thunderous blast as a crashing nuke, having it's end drain based on targets means I can use it against a lone boss ok and not gimp myself.

melee... I've gotta go with Dual Blades. I dunno if the numbers support it, but just the feel of the set was unfun. I just felt like I couldn't kill minions that fast, much less anything higher, and it was really annoying to miss a combo.

I would put Mercs lower than Beast though. I dunno what the numbers say, but I know from experience my Beast/Time -shreds- elite bosses. Mercs... saw me in the hospital more than a couple times >>

But ya again worst doesn't mean 'bad'. Masterminds in general are still a whole level of awesome. >>

I cannot give a truly fair comparison, because there are still plenty of powersets I've not gotten around to.

However- as far as defenders go, I think the Elec secondary is as weak as you can get.

The defender primaries - they each do what they do - one will heal better - but one will not miss.

For controllers -- Well -so much of being a controller is defined by the pet or pets. In my thinking - there is no pet worse than the gremlins. Their damage is meh, the recharge is meh, and they are every bit as squishy as fire imps.
electric control - whether as a controller or a dom is just woefully inadequate base ONLY on my experience with them. Some folks, I would imagine make the set shine. I just can't see it, though.

For tanks - I've only playe fire, electric, stone and invuln to 50. Of the 3, I cannot imagine any other tank primary being as miserable to play as stone. With the new ATOs, and IO bonuses, my fire tank is at s/l resist cap, with well over soft capped s/l defense. And it can kill a whole lot faster than my stone/fire could - - a level 50 tank that I deleted with pleasure. Can't jump? There never was a tradeoff to make the movement penalties worthwhile. Just a horrible set to play. Again - some folks think they're awesome - and more power to ya - but I think they're trash, which is why I deleted mine.
A fire tank can do anything any of the others do and kill faster.

Scrappers- I've never been too big on scrappers - I hate having to hit F to follow the baddie that's running from me. I don't feel qualified to comment, I've only got three that are level 50, and two are so close to the same..... kat/invuln and BS/invuln - that they are pretty much the same thing. I also have a spines /regen - and although the regen is clicky - it is easily more survivable - IF I can remember to click every 20 seconds or so.

Blasters- So far, I've got ice, fire, mental manipulation and energy.
I had an electric - and when I compare Tesla cage to freeze ray .....or freeze ray to anything in energy primary or secondary...
a toss up between ice and MM for the best, but for the worst, I'll pick electric again. I deleted my level 26 elec/elec blaster - the hold is slow, attacks are just horribly weak. Foes that have their end drained still seem to squeeze off attacks - it's a totally useless thing to drain their endurance - draining their health is far more effective.

So, electric is my vote for dog of the blaster set. Near second place is dual pistols because of the drunken cowboy animations. Totally spastic some of them - and they really ruin the fun for me.

Someone said Beast Mastery was the worse of the MMs - I can't agree, because I like Beast Mastery - but I have to be fair and admit it's the only kind of MM I've played, and still only level 26 - but he's never been defeated since I rolled him.

Corruptor? I don't think you can really have a bad corruptor. The option to act like a blaster or a defender means that you can do both roles - just not as good as a blaster in the damage role, nor as good as the defender in the buff/debuff role. But, what you lack in those areas, you make up for by being able to fill both roles.


Brute? -- Kin melee/shield armor was the absolute worst experience I've ever had with a brute. To be fair, I didn't put as much time into his build as I should have. I deleted him at level 40. I loathe kin melee with it's stupid sounds and it's even more ridiculous animations.


Worst overall? Stone armor on a tank or brute.

Spines and Kinetic melee. Blah

1. Electric Blast. This is by far the worst set in the game, in my experience. Horrible.

2. Peacebringer/Warshade. No.

3. Beast Mastery. And to think I paid for this hot mess of awful! I'm embarrassed even to think of it.

4. I have tried 3 times to play a Necro MM and I just cannot get past about level 15. Its the incessant fight against what feels like 50 aggro-monkeys.... cool set, I cannot hack it. Which makes me sad. How many pets do you have at level 15? Three...? They act like 50.

5. Spines anything. No.

.... But Claws Stalkers.... are wonderful. There is very, very little my tricked out Claws guy fears. He's a badass. I love him.

Wow, so many votes for Electric Blast!!
Okay... Go ahead and buff me up!
I don't mind!

(Not saying anyone's picks are wrong)

Ice Control is pretty bad and thoroughly outshined by Earth Control in nearly everything it can do.

1) Chilblain vs Stone Prison - Chilblain is faster at activating.
2) Block of Ice vs Fossilise - Block of Ice is, again, faster at activating.
3) Frostbite vs Stone Cages - Stone Cages wins because it can be stacked with Stalagmites to create a pseudo-hold.
4) Flash Freeze vs Salt Crystals - Salt Crystals is better, despite being a PBAoE sleep, simply because it activates over twice as fast and doesn't have to delay the sleep for meaningless damage.
5) Ice Slick vs Earthquake - Earthquake is better because it debuffs to-hit and defence rather than speed.
6) Shiver vs Quicksand - Shiver's area coverage is huge compared to Quicksand's. However, Quicksand does do a nice -25% defence debuff. This, along with Quicksand being able to be placed around corners for mitigation, makes it the superior power.
7) Glacier vs Volcanic Gasses - Volcanic Gasses is the best AoE hold in the game so it wins by default.
8) Jack Frost vs Animated Stone - This deserves its own miniature breakdown.

a) Jack's Ice Sword vs Stone Fist - Stone Fist wins because it can stun. Damage-wise they're both easily resisted, but at least stunning is useful.
b) Jack's Ice Bolt vs Hurl Boulder - Whilst Hurl Boulder does do a lot of damage it is very slow, especially when compared to the speed of Ice blasts. Jack's Ice Bolt wins.
c) Jack's Freezing Touch vs Seismic Smash - The damage is around the same, one is DoT the other is up-front. Freezing Touch's hold lasts quite a bit longer and doesn't rely on RNG. Freezing Touch wins.
d) Jack's Greater Ice Sword vs Seismic Smash - Jack's attack does more damage but it doesn't hold. Can also fire Seismic Smash off twice before you can with Jack's attack, increasing DPS. A draw.
e) Resistance vs Resistances - Jack is still pretty fragile, even with the buffs. The Animated Stone is pretty resistant to all damage and is excellent when given resistance buffs. Animated Stone's Resistance wins.

All of them.

The non-MA and non-Regen power sets seem kinda weak

I'm not sure I completely understand the "it's so SLOW!" complaint about Energy Melee. Because, for example, Electric Melee has two attacks that are just as slow as Energy Melee's slowest attacks, one even using the same animation, and Jacob's Ladder isn't exactly speedy, either. Yet I've never heard any complaints about Electric Melee's speed. Is it just because Electric Melee's slowest attacks are AoEs instead of single-target?

The same goes for Kinetic Melee, which can't be explained by single target vs. multiple targets. Kinetic Melee's second-slowest attack (Burst, which has the same animation time as Energy Transfer) is also a PBAoE, and none of its attacks (even Concentrated Strike, its slowest) are as slow as Total Focus / Thunder Strike. Is it the elaborate animations that make the set feel slower than it is?