The worst powersets in the game?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-29 21:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yup, you're wrong. Especially the bolded part. Then again, considering you spent maybe 10-15 minutes playing the set before giving up according to your own calculations i guess it's no surprise.|
Originally Posted by Power_NA
No, but TW is like a Blaster sniping need to wait about 5 seconds for every swing. Then I need to wait until the power comes back, that part I don't care since I have to deal with that in all of the powersets....
30 minutes to hit level 4? It takes me about 10-15 minutes unless I am a controller/defender then it takes a while. |
Once you have more than 2-3 attacks from the set Titan Weapons plays nothing like what you described.
Waiting for you to follow up with "I only played Traps to level 4 on a Corruptor and it sucks!"
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Heheh, yeah I guess I should get a few more powers.... I wish I could skip to level 33 on the Beta so I could try it. |
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Yup, you're wrong. Especially the bolded part. Then again, considering you spent maybe 10-15 minutes playing the set before giving up according to your own calculations i guess it's no surprise.
Once you have more than 2-3 attacks from the set Titan Weapons plays nothing like what you described. Waiting for you to follow up with "I only played Traps to level 4 on a Corruptor and it sucks!" |
Oh, I played Traps I like them.
It is almost like Devices few different powers but traps are good. Why would you think Traps they aren't slow like TW.EDIT: Ok, so I got on beta to try TW, I was being crazy it takes 1-3 seconds to swing thanks for putting that out. :P It is cool.
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Electric Assault used to be good, before the devs practically gutted it in their misguided attempt to make Energy Assault king of single target assault sets.|
Originally Posted by Snowzone
I'm not going to go into huge detail about this, but if Electric Blast is awful then that means Electricity Assault is too. It misses out on a number of things that are standard to Assault sets, such as a Utility/Survivability power (e.g. Drain Psyche, Chilling Embrace, etc), a PBAoE (e.g. Engulfing Darkness, Tremor, etc), and a Tier 3 blast (e.g. Blaze, Power Burst, etc). The lack of these things hurts the set quite considerably.
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Really Electric has barely any more AoE damage than Energy, and now has terrible single target damage to go along with it.
The only plus to Electric Assault is that come issue 24's sniper changes, every once in awhile they can use Build Up and hit insta-Zapp.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
To name a few in no particular order...
- Dual Pistols feels fairly slow to animate and doesn't really pack much of a punch. The set's feature, the swappable ammo, is barely worth the loss of extra damage from the incendiary ammo.
- Electric Blast. Too little damage and a janky secondary effect. I could see it being kind of useful if the end drain was really cranked up and maybe it floored enemy end recovery as well, but it's not really enough for me.
- Stone Armor. More or less a one tricky pony with Granite, and probably won't be changing. Granted, it does its one thing very well, but the penalties feel "cheap", and using teleport to get around all the time or building for run speed or whatever you need to do seems like a hassle.
- Mind Control. Just can't get into this one for whatever reason, not sure why.
- Spines. Set felt slow. The addition of a potential 2nd damage aura is awesome, but not so awesome when it's not on a Brute.
- Peacebringers. Same deal with Mind Control, could never get into them. Supposedly the way to go is human form only, but that seems to be against the idea of a shapeshifter AT to me.
That's mostly it for my "I can't play this set no matter how hard I try" list. There are a handful of others I generally avoid mostly for thematic or playstyle reasons (regen, stone melee, energy blast, empathy, etc), but I don't really consider them bad.
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Keep in mind that people's experience will vary based on how they play and who they play with. If you team with people who love to IO set their characters then they will have capped def. If you random PUG alot in the 1-30 range then yes, FF is pretty good. However, with the game moving to the level 50 focused incarnates stuff, then yes FF is weak. Force Field like blasters suffer from getting weaker as the character levels. |
Originally Posted by Tyger42
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.
Then there's as an MM secondary. IO set bonuses don't help your pets. |
Any AT can cap just not cap to everything. It might also require taking sub-optimal powers to do that.
Anyways, you can make your own list and you'll find people will disagree with it because their experinces differ from yours.
YMMV
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
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Oh, I don't mind the performance of any of the MM primaries that I listed. But those sets are the only MM primaries that I've tried, and of those I rank Demons last solely because of the noise. |
Originally Posted by Power_NA
Turn off your speakers then. Or turn the game sound low enough they don't bug you.
They are the best sets in the game |
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
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
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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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Because at level 4 you basically only have Web Grenade and Caltrops, and if your opinion of the entire set was based on only using those two powers Traps wouldn't seem very good. It was a reference to you only playing the set for a few levels and then deciding it wasn't any good. (Traps is actually one of my favorite support sets.)|
Originally Posted by Power_NA
Oh, I played Traps I like them.
It is almost like Devices few different powers but traps are good. Why would you think Traps they aren't slow like TW. |
Titan Weapons generally deals a lot of damage in rapid bursts with pauses in between. While some players don't enjoy the more pulsed nature of the set it does put out AoE damage rather well. Build Momentum is available fairly early on and pretty much negates any worries about teammates nuking the entire spawn while your first attack is winding up because you can start nearly every fight with Momentum and start out fast.
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As far as support sets go i tend to rank Trick Arrow near the bottom in effectiveness. Which is a shame since i like the animations and theme.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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I took a /TW tank to 25... then I made a TW/ brute. YAY attacks! I do regret TW, but I also regret leveling a PB to 50.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Yup, you're wrong. Especially the bolded part. Then again, considering you spent maybe 10-15 minutes playing the set before giving up according to your own calculations i guess it's no surprise.
Once you have more than 2-3 attacks from the set Titan Weapons plays nothing like what you described. Waiting for you to follow up with "I only played Traps to level 4 on a Corruptor and it sucks!" |
For a Human Form PB to be... functional... you need a number of slots that you just don't have until you're dipping into the 40's. I love my Warshade Triple Changer though.
@bpphantom
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Thought it might be interesting to go through the thread and tally up all the votes.
Notes:
- If you voted for one set, I marked a vote for that set. If you voted for multiple sets, I marked a vote for each set. If you voted 'X or Y', then I randomly chose one of the two to get your vote.
- I tried not to mark multiple votes for the same set from the same poster, but I can't be 100% sure I succeeded -- this isn't like voting for Congress, after all.
- If I couldn't identify the powerset you were referring to by checking the Meek Hero Browser, I identified the closest one that I could find in MHB (for instance, someone's vote of "Umbral Blast" became "Dark Blast" - it was the only vote for either, so not a huge deal in that case). If I could find multiple possible meanings for your vote that seemed equally viable, I didn't record that vote at all (so the guy who voted "Energy" for Blaster powerset didn't get a vote, since I wasn't sure if he was talking about Energy Blast, Energy Melee, or both).
So with all the caveats out of the way, the winners are:
Electrical Blast - 11
Trick Arrow - 11
And it wasn't even close:
Dual Pistols - 6
Ice Control - 6
Force Field - 6
Mercenaries - 5
Sonic Resonance - 5
Devices - 4
Energy Melee - 4
Kinetic Melee - 4
Stone Armor - 4
Beast Mastery - 3
Electricity Assault - 3
Poison - 3
Regeneration - 3
Spines - 3
Stone Armor - 3
Super Reflexes - 3
Titan Weapons - 3
Beam Rifle - 2
Cold Domination - 2
Dual Blades - 2
Empathy - 2
Ice Blast - 2
Ice Control - 2
Ice Melee - 2
Illusion Control - 2
Mind Control - 2
Ninjas - 2
Psychic Blast - 2
Shield Defense - 2
Battle Axe - 1
Charge Mastery - 1
Claws - 1
Dark Blast - 1
Demon Summoning - 1
Electric Control - 1
Electricity Manipulation - 1
Fiery Aura - 1
Gravity Control - 1
Ice Armor - 1
Icy Assault - 1
Martial Arts - 1
Necromancy - 1
Pain Domination - 1
Stone Melee - 1
Thermal Radiation - 1
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Pauper
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Mind Control and Devices are the only ones I'd set as outright bad. The rest are more subjective. Devices is pretty tragic, because it used to be brokenly awesome. When the bugs that made it overpowered were fixed, they went WAY too far with the fixing. It got nerfed into uselessness. ED kinda put the last nail in its coffin. Targeting Drone kept it afloat barely up until that point.
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
Anyways, you can make your own list and you'll find people will disagree with it because their experinces differ from yours.
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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
devices is actually a fine set for people who want to play devices. It is a terrible set for people who want to play a natural character and use technology but want it to play like the other secondaries.
the people who like devices swear by it. The mines let you do amazing things.
the problem really is people who expect all sets to be vanilla and perform the same way with the same play style.
No, the problem is that Devices is a tattered remnant of what it used to be. And, no, it doesn't play like other Blaster secondaries. Trip Mines are far less useful than they once were, even. Trip mines are also unreliable. They don't trigger way too often, even when a mob walks right over the top of them. It absolutely does not perform up to snuff with other secondaries. Targeting Drone was supposed to be its concession to losing Aim, and it did that job well up until ED. Now it's not worth losing the damage buff portion of Aim. Smoke Grenade? Went from being brokenly powerful due to a bug to absolute rubbish. Cloaking device? With the defense and stealth suppressions, it's pretty "meh" now. Gun Drone is more trouble than it's worth to even bother summoning it. Admittedly, though, it's more useful than its previous stationary version was. Time Bomb? Meh. Can't really drop it in a fight ( Interruptable and seems to draw aggro laying it down ), stealth suppressions make dropping it in a pack before a fight all but impossible, and trying to pull a pack of mobs across it right when it blows is way too finicky to work.
Caltrops is really the set's only saving grace, and that's not worth the rest of the garbage.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
Obviously the thread is subjective...as strongly as some feel a set is totally worthless, others love it and find value in it. I cant play at the moment, but I still enjoy my /devices blaster. With Burnout and high recharge I can get out 2-3x Gun Drones and then goto town. Could the set use some love? Sure, but I wouldnt call it tragic.
And Mind Control? It no longer at the top of the pack for min/max types that solo TFs and AVs?
"Forum PvP doesn't give drops. Just so all of you who participated in this thread are aware." -Mod08-
"when a stalker goes blue side, assassination strike should be renamed "bunny hugs", and a rainbow should fly out" -Harbinger-
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Umbral Blast is not Dark Blast. It's the Warshade primary.|
Originally Posted by Pauper
Thought it might be interesting to go through the thread and tally up all the votes.
<snippage> - If I couldn't identify the powerset you were referring to by checking the Meek Hero Browser, I identified the closest one that I could find in MHB (for instance, someone's vote of "Umbral Blast" became "Dark Blast" - it was the only vote for either, so not a huge deal in that case). |
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Originally Posted by Pauper
So with all the caveats out of the way, the winners are:
<snip> Devices - 4 Energy Melee - 4 Kinetic Melee - 4 Stone Armor - 4 Beast Mastery - 3 Electricity Assault - 3 Poison - 3 Regeneration - 3 Spines - 3 Stone Armor - 3 Super Reflexes - 3 Titan Weapons - 3 |
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Originally Posted by Pauper
Charge Mastery - 1
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And like I said in my post listing things, I only included the ones that I've played. There are some that I don't even want to play, but since I didn't even try them I didn't feel I could in good conscience list them. So you end up with some things skewing the numbers (like putting Demon Summoning on it
).
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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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I'm not going to try and make the claim that TA isn't as bad as everyone is saying. I can't argue that it has a lot of problems. But it does have one aspect about it that I really appreciate: no toggles, every debuff is aoe. Get mezzed or run out of end? the debuffs stick around. No worries about your debuff anchor dying. Fire, debuffs hit (except for the powers that aren't autohit), no worries. It's particularly nice when soloing, too.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
As far as support sets go i tend to rank Trick Arrow near the bottom in effectiveness. Which is a shame since i like the animations and theme. |
Does that make up for the large number of powers you have to hit and the subpar magnitude of the debuffs? Maybe not, but it is a nice feature that nothing else (except, sorta, for poison) has on every power.
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Patch-based powers have advantages and disadvantages, especially against mobile opponents. TA is hardly the only debuff set to use pseudopets/patches, and not all the powers even work that way anyway (Acid Arrow, Entangling Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow, Flash Arrow). Traps also has many of its debuffs/attacks as pets/pseudopets, and in addition they also have to be summoned at the user's feet or at very close range (well, except for Seeker Drones).
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Originally Posted by Guinefort
I'm not going to try and make the claim that TA isn't as bad as everyone is saying. I can't argue that it has a lot of problems. But it does have one aspect about it that I really appreciate: no toggles, every debuff is aoe. Get mezzed or run out of end? the debuffs stick around. No worries about your debuff anchor dying. Fire, debuffs hit (except for the powers that aren't autohit), no worries. It's particularly nice when soloing, too.
Does that make up for the large number of powers you have to hit and the subpar magnitude of the debuffs? Maybe not, but it is a nice feature that nothing else (except, sorta, for poison) has on every power. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
My elec/dev blaster does pretty damn well. Especially now that she's fully Incarnated out with all T4 abilities, and is in the process of getting fully purple'd. So there. 
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Yep all us old timers remember Smoke Grenade. The old Pre-ED days when you just had to slot 6 damage and use targeting drone. Just be glad Jack is gone and when the new i24 blaster changes happen it will be city of /dev for blasters. It still isn't the worst powerset considering how many blasters avoid melee range.|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
No, the problem is that Devices is a tattered remnant of what it used to be. And, no, it doesn't play like other Blaster secondaries. Trip Mines are far less useful than they once were, even. Trip mines are also unreliable. They don't trigger way too often, even when a mob walks right over the top of them. It absolutely does not perform up to snuff with other secondaries. Targeting Drone was supposed to be its concession to losing Aim, and it did that job well up until ED. Now it's not worth losing the damage buff portion of Aim. Smoke Grenade? Went from being brokenly powerful due to a bug to absolute rubbish. Cloaking device? With the defense and stealth suppressions, it's pretty "meh" now. Gun Drone is more trouble than it's worth to even bother summoning it. Admittedly, though, it's more useful than its previous stationary version was. Time Bomb? Meh. Can't really drop it in a fight ( Interruptable and seems to draw aggro laying it down ), stealth suppressions make dropping it in a pack before a fight all but impossible, and trying to pull a pack of mobs across it right when it blows is way too finicky to work.
Caltrops is really the set's only saving grace, and that's not worth the rest of the garbage. |
Mind Control is certainly a great solo controller set from 1-17. At 18 when Illusion gets PA well...that's when all of the other sets fall behind until 32.
However, its not the worst control set, Ice and gravity have more issues.
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
Mind Control on Controllers is IMO in quite poor shape. For me it's much worse than Ice or Gravity.
But I also think Ice's badness is somewhat overdramatized. It's just not that much worse to me than Electric Control and in some ways IMO better, or at least a draw. Both sets do fairly comparable damage, and Jack Frost easily outtanks the Gremlins. Electric doesn't have the knockdown conflict, but it also has powers like Synaptic Overload which I might charitably call "difficult" to leverage in a team environment. Ice's main issue is you pretty much have to build for anti-mezz to make Arctic Air do its job.
(Well, actually maybe part of its issue is that people skip Arctic Air. Probably 50% of the Controllers I see lack this power, and spend the fight casting Shiver. As if an Earth Controller would skip Volcanic Gasses and just throw down Quicksand everywhere. )
Ice could use some adjustments, but Mind Control is flat broken at top level. The recharge on Mass Confusion is ridiculous given how much that set gives up to get that power, and Confusion really really really really needs to set Containment (which incidentally would also slightly help Ice Control).
IMO the business about Mind Control soloing 1 particular Task Force has done the set a lot of harm. That particular trick is so edge case that I'm always surprised that people put stock in it. To me it's no more relevant to the set's power than someone finding out that Personal Force Field can allow you to stand in melee with a dangerous AV.
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Originally Posted by Pauper
So with all the caveats out of the way, the winners are:
Electrical Blast - 11 Trick Arrow - 11 |
ARRRGH I JUST ROLLED AN ELECTRIC TA NAMED HICKEELMEHNAU
"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
O_T: As been said, people's opinions differ.
If Gravity was not given its improvements, then it would be the clear "winner" of the worst control set. Since it was buffed up it closer to par with ice control.
If you are wondering, its very close between Gravity, Ice and Mind for worst (at least for me) but the fact there is some debate about it suggests the low end is "balanced".
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
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Gravity:|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
O_T: As been said, people's opinions differ.
If Gravity was not given its improvements, then it would be the clear "winner" of the worst control set. Since it was buffed up it closer to par with ice control. If you are wondering, its very close between Gravity, Ice and Mind for worst (at least for me) but the fact there is some debate about it suggests the low end is "balanced". |
AoE Immob - Good
AoE Hold - Good
Targeted AoE Stun - Good, but kinda jerky as it comes with Wormhole
Lift - Meh, but does some damage
Propel - Meh, even with Buicks coming out of your hands
Dimension Shift - Situational, meh.
Singularity - Great pet but can KB occasionally, has some nice holds though.
Single target Hold + Immob = Average
Control elements: 4.5 out of 5.
Damage: 2 out of 5, at that. Can't really complain when all the mobs are immobed or held or stunned or...it just takes forever and a day to finish them.
Mind:
AoE Sleep - Handy on some SFs and as a panic button
AoE Hold - Always nice to have
Confuse - Broken power, proc with Contagious Confusion for hilarity.
Mass Confuse - Absolutely over the top on Dominators, excellent on Controllers
Levitate - Meh, it's damage and some KB.
Dominate - Nice single target hold
TK - Good in PvP, very situational in PvE...handy on those Minds of Mayhem runs.
Terrify - Nice status effect, a little damage too
Mesmerize - Meh, single target sleep with piddly damage
Control elements: 3.5-4 out of 5. No Stun, no Immob but boy is Confusion an excellent tool at all levels. Just grotesque at times. TK is a bit of an anomaly in that it can be super broken in some situations and the rest of the time...sits in your tray unless you herd with it.
Damage: 2 out of 5. Terrify, Dominate, Levitate...and Mass Confuse to soften up. Not great here.
Ice:
Ice Slick: Knockdown patch is handy...as long as you don't follow up with an Immob.
Shiver: Might save you from a consecutive series of hits but oftentimes seems mysteriously inefficient.
Single target Hold and Immob: Nothing to see here, SOP for Control sets
Arctic Air: Nice toggle, another area to slot that Contagious Confuse proc...and some nice movement/recharge debuffs too.
AoE Immob and PBAoE Hold: The Player-based isn't too bad...but can still be a pain to maneuver. Since you're knocking down mobs constantly, adds some nice alternate control.
FlashFreeze: It's a sleep, huzzah.
Jack Frost: He's smarter than Animate Stone, in the way Donald Trump is smarter than a hobo.
Control: 4 out of 5. No stuns but you have immobs, holds and knockdown and a sleep. Should cover most of your bases. The -Recharge and - Speed unfortunately don't add to much early in the game as you just plow through mobs like tissue paper. Later on they CAN be useful, but you'd have to be in quite the protracted fight...
Damage: 1 out of 5. Excuse me while I laugh uproariously at this powerset.
Be patient if you build one, I got an Ice/Time to 50 and it was like watching paint dry, slowly. So slowly the paint started chipping.
Preference:
1.Mind - Confusion and more Confusion, nice other tools as well.
2.Grav - Nice hard controls, nice pet and a few damage powers, meager as they are.
3.Ice - I can't believe I actually accoladed and IOd an Ice/Rad Controller, Ice/Time Controller and Ice/Kin Controller. I need help.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
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What sort of arbitrary scoring system are you using? Mind has vastly superior tools available to it than Ice Control will ever have and at least Mind can set up containment with Mass Hypnosis or Total Domination - Ice Control has to use Frostbite or Glacier, the former of which can be suicidal, because Flash Freeze sucks compared to Mass Hypnosis.
I personally think that Frostbite, Crushing Field and Electric Fences should grant enemies +95% knockback resistance, much like the Overpowering Force IO. The latter two immobilises don't have any knockback resistance which can also prove to be a hindrance to the users, for example a Gravity Controller may be in a position where they can't mitigate Wormhole's knockback easily whilst an Electric Controller's Gremlins often stack their Jolting Chains together to cause chaos. It would make Gravity/Storm less chaotic, which some may not like, but at least they would be more team friendly whilst still taking advantage of knockdown.
The AoE hold, single target hold, AoE immobilize, and single target immobilize available in most Control sets are more similar than they are different. Aside from the animation speed and secondary effect attached they all do the same things.
The issue with damage and Ice Control isn't that you can't get Containment at all, its that you can't spam cages because that resets the -kb timer. The lack of damage is circumstantial; it has to do with an inability to easily combine cage spam with knockdown.
Mind misses out on immobilize for its dodgy Terrify power. It's Containment allegedly comes from Hypnosis. However, all the extra damage powers from Incarnate procs are Damage Over Time. And they break the your (single target) Hypnotize power, so you get no containment on Elite Bosses and up at all, unless your secondary allows it or you use temp powers.
The lack of Containment situation on Mind Control is so acute that my end game builds took Power Boost just so I could power boost the (standard) AoE Hold.. once per minute on a heavily IOed build or every twoish minutes with SOs. Mass Confusion is fine when it's up, which is 1/4th to 1/6th as often as staple powers in other sets.
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.
30 minutes to hit level 4? It takes me about 10-15 minutes unless I am a controller/defender then it takes a while.