The worst powersets in the game?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-29 21:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
<opinion>
Worst support set: Sonic Resonance
* Bad at soloing because many sonic resonance powers require a teammate, almost none are useful solo. (This makes it worse than trick arrow, another favorite for "worst support" set.)
* Bad at teaming because teams expect you to keep them alive, and sonic does a poor job of doing that. No heals whatsoever, and the resist buffs are less mitigation than the defense buffs from FF, cold or emp (this surprised me, because my gut feeling was that +RES should be good, but I found that +DEF was nearly always better mitigation for anyone who wasn't already at the DEF soft cap; this makes sonic worse than FF, another candidate for worst support).
* The RES debuffs from sonic are arguably the set's strong suit, but the sonic disruption anchor is horrifically END costly, and rad, dark, cold, and possibly storm and TA are all preferred over sonic dispersion for RES debuffs, due to the other things they bring to the table.
* As a bonus, your visual effects can make your teammates feel physically ill when looking at them.
I've gotten a trick arrow mastermind and a force field defender to level 50. I tried a grav/sonic controller and a sonic/sonic corruptor and ended up giving up on both by level 30.
</opinion>
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
To be fair you can spam Sonic Siphon for a little -RES, but yeah it's basically a team-based set. People love having sonics around though.
Hmmm...not sure about WORST but there are obsolete ones.
Force Field has taken a backseat to Cold Domination, Trick Arrow is fun but you can get a lot more out of Radiation Emission, Thermal Radiation or even Cold Domination. Ice Control? It's okay...but the slows just don't come up enough for it to matter on a consistent basis.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
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how about listing worst of each type
Blast: Electrical Blast
Manipulation: Devices
Control: Ice
Buff/Debuff: Force Field
Defense Sets: Super Reflexes
Melee: Battle Axe
Pets: Mercs
Quote:
Blast: Ice Blast|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
how about listing worst of each type
Blast: Electrical Blast Manipulation: Devices Control: Ice Buff/Debuff: Force Field Defense Sets: Super Reflexes Melee: Battle Axe Pets: Mercs |
Manipulation: Devices (They seem pretty even but the fact this one you can turn invisible)
Control: Ice (They are about even too me)
Buff/Debuff: Ice Domination
Defense Sets: Fire Defense
Melee: Titan Weapons ((I only played to level 4 but you swing so freaky SLOW))
Pets: Mercs
I am going to throw in Mastermind Pets in the general sense that the AI is derp as crap and the mix of range/melee powers that most pets have is a very awful thing to have with Derp AI.
also Spec Ops are horrible horrible pets that need to be brought out to the back of the shed and shot.
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I got to ask you are kidding about some of these right.|
Originally Posted by Power_NA
Blast: Ice Blast
Manipulation: Devices (They seem pretty even but the fact this one you can turn invisible) Control: Ice (They are about even too me) Buff/Debuff: Ice Domination Defense Sets: Fire Defense Melee: Titan Weapons ((I only played to level 4 but you swing so freaky SLOW)) Pets: Mercs |
Ice right now is number 2 or 3 best set, it will quickly drop to near last place when the snipe changes hit, but for now its one of the best.
Cold domination..... really.... really.. its forcefeild mixed with storm and the suck taken out of both.
Fire armour.... its weak defensivly but burn is one of , if not the highest damage power in the game.
Titan weapons is slow, and pre 30 is BLOWS, post 30 it turns into a monster of destruction, the slow swing is only for the first swing, all swings after that in a certain time period are all 1 second.
So if you can get enough +rech and +rec to actuallly chain these and not run out of end.... wooowweee
Mercs.... well... yeah.. its that bad.... though beast is pretty darn bad too.
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
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Really horrible policy with MMs. They don't get their T3 pet til 26, which is a game-changer in most cases. Then there's the second pet buff at 32, which changes the game yet again.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I laughed all the way through deleting my TW Brute and Tank, too.
I am an extremely hard taskmaster [or taskmistress....?], and if I am not feeling the love for a set by no later than level 24, that toon is GONE. |
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I guess I should try one again... My Ice blasters never kill fast, at last not comparing to my fire, energy, radiation, pistols, psyche guys have.|
Originally Posted by Shubbie
I got to ask you are kidding about some of these right.
Ice right now is number 2 or 3 best set, it will quickly drop to near last place when the snipe changes hit, but for now its one of the best. |
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Cold domination..... really.... really.. its forcefeild mixed with storm and the suck taken out of both.
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Fire armour.... its weak defensivly but burn is one of , if not the highest damage power in the game.
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Mercs.... well... yeah.. its that bad.... though beast is pretty darn bad too.
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There's a lot more to Cold Domination than the three shields - there's Sleet, Arctic Fog, Benumb and Heat Loss. Lots of useful debuffs and buffs among them.
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It doesn't? Funny, burn tankers used to be able to herd entire maps, sit there and take a beating, and slowly burn down the masses with little to no worry. Between resistance and self-heal, they were mass farming machines. They were one of the primary reasons for aggro caps and AOE caps. Burn had been nerfed for a long time to scare mobs out of its patches ( I hear that's changed, I haven't played the set in ages, though ) to try to cut down on burn-herding, but that kind of over-fixed the problem.
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Originally Posted by Power_NA
On a Scrapper yeah it helps, brute it would help as well. Tanker it don't burn enough to kill them before ihey kill you.... but I haven't played a fire tank in 2 years could be wrong
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Quote:
Playing regen is actually very engaging. It's like driving a car with a stick shift. I have an electric/regen stalker, and with the changes I am more survivable than many brutes out there. Granted I have a ridiculous build aided and abetted by forum min/maxers - ~215% recharge, Shadow Meld on auto. But it's not just that... |
Originally Posted by Ein_Dose
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. |
1) For iTrials, many people end up choosing Destiny: Barrier. This is going to push your defense #s up. Combined with large amounts of regen, this starts to make you more effectively "layered" than other builds who are inherently focused more on defense, etc.
2) The new proc / AS change drives you into hide frequently, which bumps up your AOE defense #s to ridiculous levels. Many of the "new" enemies spam AOEs, which you become effectively invincible to
3) Moment of Glory is extraordinarily effective if you can anticipate when you are going to get into trouble. It's basically a God mode phase power which still leaves you with the ability to do damage.
4) Revive with new untouchable duration (especially for stalkers) essentially removes the "death" penalty. Your teammates are getting wiped while you go back into action. This becomes particularly effective if paired with MoG.
It took me awhile to create my current playstyle. It's actually more clicky than my Fire/Time Corr (who is a survivability beast), but I enjoy "active" play. Essentially, it goes like this:
1) Whenever Dull Pain comes up (it's perma) hit it. Same thing with Instant Healing.
2) Whenever I take any damage at all, I hit Reconstruction. I have high defense #s with Shadow Meld, so damage getting through means the threat is significant and likely will stack.
3) If I've just hit Reconstruction and I take more damage beyond ~25% I hit MoG.
4) If, after MoG wears off I haven't wiped out the threat, I break line of site, go into hide, and then crit the everliving **%* out of whatever comes around the corner.
I don't really die on iTrials anymore, except due to occasional "invisible purple patch of doom." When I do die, I'm back up in seconds. Standard game content, particularly with incarnate powers, has become laughably easy.
Overall, /Regen is a lot more work than Invuln on my Dark/Inv scrapper, but, overall... it's actually more survivable. Part of this playstyle, part of it is being a stalker, but really, a lot of it comes down to the fact that the set has more panic buttons. It's nimble. If you are nimble too, you and /Regen can go far.
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it before in this thread, but my vote would go to Electric Blast... what?
My opinions? Hrm...
Mind Control. I hate the everloving ************ out of it.
Regen. Yeah. It's a purely reactive set.
Elec blast. I don't hate it, but it is really, really sub-optimal.
Otherwise... I kind of like all the powersets we have.
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
Quote:
Blast: Dual Pistols. Cool looking if you like gun-fu, but the damage is pretty low. |
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
how about listing worst of each type
Blast: Electrical Blast Manipulation: Devices Control: Ice Buff/Debuff: Force Field Defense Sets: Super Reflexes Melee: Battle Axe Pets: Mercs |
Manipulation: As much as I love it, I have to agree Devices is the worst one. Not by a whole lot though.
Control: For me, it's Ice. My wife says Mind.
Buff/Debuff: Trick Arrow.
Defense Sets: Stone Armor. Other sets can attain equal survivability, without the drawbacks of Granite.
Melee: Energy Melee or Ice Melee.
Pets: Ninjas or Mercenaries.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Yeah, Cold is AMAZING.|
Originally Posted by Snowzone
There's a lot more to Cold Domination than the three shields - there's Sleet, Arctic Fog, Benumb and Heat Loss. Lots of useful debuffs and buffs among them.
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Benumb? Sleet? Heat Loss?
It's about the only buff/debuff set I ever roll outside Poison.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
Quote:
Yeah. And unlike Poison, Cold Domination doesn't suck in PvE. The only part of Cold Domination that sucks is that Dominators get Sleet at the same level as Corruptors and Controllers. |
Originally Posted by Neuronia
Yeah, Cold is AMAZING.
Benumb? Sleet? Heat Loss? It's about the only buff/debuff set I ever roll outside Poison. |
As for my "worst powersets in the game"... I haven't played all of them to 50. Some I just got sick of, some I don't like aesthetically and never tried. So of the ones that I've played:
Melee: Energy Melee. The best thing that it does is hit corpses of single targets after your teammates kill them, and it pays for being able to do that by doing damage to you while not damaging your target. It's arguably last in AoE damage only because Tremor's animation is so long (but Tremor's AoE is much larger so I'd personally put EM at last), has no reliable AoE mitigation, and is in the middle of the pack for single target damage if you use Energy Transfer as often as it recharges and deal with the self-damage penalty.
Defense: Super Reflexes. Not because it's bad, because it's not. But its sole focus (more defense) can be compensated for with IOs by every other set and what the other sets can do is harder, if not impossible, to compensate for with inventions.
Ranged: Beam Rifle. I wanted to like this set and had some points to spend but I guess I should have tried it out more when it was on beta. But even though I managed to get two Dual Pistols characters to 50 (a /MM Blaster and a /Traps Corruptor) I just can't bring myself to play the BR/DM Corruptor.
Manipulation: Electricity Manipulation. Because it's not Energy, Fire, or Mental and those are the other ones I've tried.
Buff/Debuff: Trick Arrow.
Control: Gravity Control. I haven't played it since the changes, but the power order is painful and I never managed to get past level 16 on any of the three that I've tried since Wormhole never struck me as being worth the pain of leveling one any further when every other set offered the same powers I was taking (because let's face it, Propel is fun but - unlike Phantom Army or Seeds of Confusion - it's not going to prop up a set on its own).
Summoning: Demons, because I've tried Bots, Thugs, and Demons and they just make too much noise. >.>
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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And the other problem? There's just soooo much that can totally tear apart your defense rating. And a few things that outright nullify it.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
Defense: Super Reflexes. Not because it's bad, because it's not. But its sole focus (more defense) can be compensated for with IOs by every other set and what the other sets can do is harder, if not impossible, to compensate for with inventions.
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Turn off your speakers then. Or turn the game sound low enough they don't bug you. |
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Summoning: Demons, because I've tried Bots, Thugs, and Demons and they just make too much noise. >.>
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They are the best sets in the game
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Yeah I kind of wonder what the heck the devs were thinking when they gave Dominators Sleet as the first power in an epic pool especially since they didn't even reduce its effectiveness. Oh well I guess I can't complain, I love using it |
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Yeah. And unlike Poison, Cold Domination doesn't suck in PvE. The only part of Cold Domination that sucks is that Dominators get Sleet at the same level as Corruptors and Controllers.
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So ... you based your entire opinion on a powerset after reaching a level that takes like 30 minutes of play at most to reach? |
Originally Posted by Power_NA
Melee: Titan Weapons ((I only played to level 4 but you swing so freaky SLOW))
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Of course, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I will grant you that TW is both a very late-blooming set (until you have 5 or 6 attacks so you can take full advantage of Momentum) and can be rough on End. But it's by no means THE WORST melee set in the game. Plus, I think it's fun. That might not matter to min/maxers, but it matters to me.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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30 minutes if you're VERY slow playing.
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Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
So ... you based your entire opinion on a powerset after reaching a level that takes like 30 minutes of play at most to reach?
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At least in my experience.
1. Force Fields - Obsolete with all the +def in IO sets
2. Trick Arrow - Buffed multiple times and still sucks.
3. Mercenaries - Leeroy Jenkins Medic and Spec Ops with poor power choices. Nevermind AI issues.
4. Peacebringers - Need teams for self buffs but teams don't get any benefit and the KB is awful.
5. Poison - Radiations little brother
Dishonorable Mentions: Ninjas, Gravity Control, Ice Control, Blasters (yes a whole AT) and Electrical Blast
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Quote:
Eh, that's assuming the team you're on has all spec'd for defense in their IO build. And not every AT/power combo can softcap defense with IOs. There's also the entire pre-50 game.|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
At least in my experience.
1. Force Fields - Obsolete with all the +def in IO sets |
Then there's as an MM secondary. IO set bonuses don't help your pets.
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Sigh. This thread makes me sad/laugh/cringe at my play for years now Lets see: My toons of shame, boredom and mistake-laden trails. All level 50 and dusty. Many kept mainly due to concept but after the work I don't have the heart to delete. Many are now simply outdated...at some point many of these toons were powerhouses and in demand in some way for a while or briefly.
Grav/Empath 'troller. My first level 50 and name sake. I loathe playing him now. I don't think I remembered to log on to him for last years anniversary badge. I try but I just can't do it anymore. Maybe the 1.5 yrs of leveling him and handing out buffs for a living did me in on empath. Not to mention Grav's previously weak impact. Propel. I did it for Propel. Damn animations get me all the time.
Sonic/Kin Corrupter. What can I say...I love punishment. Mainly on myself.
Ninja/TA MM. I honestly love TA other than I am without end by each mob...between twanging away fancy arrows and respawning dead ninjas....I just can't force myself to re-roll the toon. Unless we get Cim pets on MM. then he is toast.
Having hated my namesake, I made Mr. Kanoosh. A Dp/Devices blaster. My only blaster to see lvl 50. Sigh. The game suddenly got REAL quick around lvl 20 and I knew he was outdated with devices. I plugged on. Dusty dusty dusty toon.
A FF/Psi Defender. Powerleveled to help be a pesk during Base Raids. About 3 months after I had him fully slotted and somewhat survivable...base raids went away (and won't come back 
). Neither will this toon.
A Rad/Rad Defender. Invented to help our SG with...the new super hard STF. He lasted about 1 STF and everyone had the mechanics down, I got tired of hover, toggle debuff, oh you "arrested" my anchor already hang on lemme find another tarrrgett. Huh? Oh we moved to next mob? K brt. On an up note: Still hands down best sound for a power in game IMO is the Rad snipe.
A DB/SR stalker. Lately he has been a lot more fun to play after the latest lil' set of tweaks. I enjoyed running him through DA when soloing. Handled mobs pretty well.
Stone/EM tank. I never see the Stoney's that much anymore. It is a ship that has sailed it seems. I still want to make a video of all stone tanks set to the dsong of ELO "Turned to Stone." So I haven't deleted him in hopes I will make this video one day. FYI I first said this in 2007.
Dark/Elec Blast Def. 50% awesome and 50% waste of power set. Spent majority of time realizing why use any electric power on this toon? Still I plugged away to 50 waiting to see an upswing. Now he sits.
Not hated but of note:
MA/Shield Scrapper. Does MA do damage? I went heavy on level 40 Touch of Death sets to beef up the set bonuses maybe that is my problem with the DPS on MA. But I love this dude. I don't get hit while I slowly chip away when soloing. On teams, he is great. But I just don't see the bang hit of scrappers with MA.
A couple of hits in my book:
I will vouch for my Night Widow. It was an expensive build but I beefed up the Def and have perma-Mind Link and he rocks some serious hits in melee. LOVE LOVE LOVE my NW. Tanks many times until we get to the lvl 54+5 stuff out now.
I made a Dark Melee/Fire Shield brute and he is a chainsaw. Some mobs are problematic, but for the most part, awesome fun toon to play. Keeps me awake to manage him but well worth the fun.
I went FoTM and made a Thugs/Traps MM way back when and thoroughly enjoy him. No issues here.
Hands down my favorite: Plant/Thorn Dom. Three-tier perma and loving him each year I play with each change and advance made in game.
Currently working on a TW/WP brute and really see no issues but only playing small teams at lvl 30. Time will tell. I tend to ride it out to the bitter end. I have rolled Beam rifle and Beast MM. Wanna hear the punchline? I intentionally went Beast/poison. After seeing 75% of my toons shelved I figured why break the trend
I have fun trying no matter what. I think this game is at its peak for game play right now. I love the last 4-5 issues. Good times. I think many old power sets have just been outdated. Nice thread no trolling but just solid reads on perspectives.
"Oh NO! I'm so sorry baba! you and your wife will be sorely missed...s#@!, i did it again, didn't I?" - mintmiki
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When Alts Collide: 134432
I saw a post with someone saying duel blades sucked....... All I'll say is your doing it wrong then! :0 and I'm sure a lot of sets can be good if done better or differently to not make them suck...
That's all :3