The worst powersets in the game?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-29 21:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Please keep complaining about Mind Control. My Mind Control Dominators don't want to be nerfed! (Who needs softcap when nothing on the map is attacking you?)
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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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Most of the complaints about Mind seem to come from Controllers. Not surprising, Mind Control has less damage than other sets and no AoE immobilize to set up Containment. This is basically a death sentence for the already damaged-starved Controller. It's not a bad set, but its design is a bit outdated when Plant Control gets a slightly weaker version of its signature power 24 levels earlier and much more offensive power.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Please keep complaining about Mind Control. My Mind Control Dominators don't want to be nerfed! (Who needs softcap when nothing on the map is attacking you?)
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For a Dominator, it's a viable set. The sleeps are still underwhelming, but the rest of the set is sound and really benefits from Domination. Dominators get most of their damage from their secondary anyways, so trading away some of the damage on their controls is a reasonable trade for the sheer variety they get from Mind. It's a good middle-of-the-pack Dominator primary, but underwhelming for Controllers.
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Fixed that for you.
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Originally Posted by Grendar
It's not a bad set, but its design is a bit outdated when Plant Control gets a [significantly better in the vast majority of situations] version of its signature power 24 levels earlier and much more offensive power.
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@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
Mercenaries and Ninjas are some of the worst sets in the entire game, and though I haven't played it (I refused to buy it based on the numbers alone), I have seen many compelling arguments for Beast Mastery being just as bad. Mastermind primaries as a whole could stand for a serious tune-up, especially considering that the only mechanical reason to take any of their personal attacks is for the (mostly meager) debuffs associated with Demons' and Beasts', and several of their tier 7s are borderline useless as well.
Ice Control is definitely in need of resuscitation. I honestly wouldn't be opposed to more adjustments for Gravity, either. I have never put serious effort into Mind Control either, but it could definitely use some improvements to make it more competitive, as Plant has long since stolen its thunder.
The Assault sets are another group which I feel could handle an overall balance pass, since some of them are just outrageously better than others.
Electrical Blast is the epitome of bad design. It may as well have no secondary effect in most situations and on top of that has bad-to-mediocre damage. Dual Pistols is pretty bad too, tragically, but is supposed to be being looked at for i24 (Yay!).
Regen and Super Reflexes have been largely trumped by newer, better sets (and IOs) at their own games, and should probably be made more viable as choices.
I'd say the melee sets could handle some leveling-out for damage output, but, honestly, the melee sets already get the most attention out of any powerset group in the game, and I find them the least interesting group personally, so, whatever.
Sonic, Force Fields, and Trick Arrows need help. The former two have been totally usurped by sets that do their jobs better than they do, and the latter one has never had a strong niche. Poison is still pretty bad in my opinion, too, since its debuffing potential is mostly single-target and it doesn't even have an advantage in that realm, while it's buffing/healing is terribly subpar.
Most of the manipulation sets straight-up suck, but those are getting looked at for i24, so we'll see how that stands afterwards.
Oh, yeah, and Bane Spiders and Peacebringers still wish they were nearly as good as their EAT cousins.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
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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.
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Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
Oh, yeah, and Bane Spiders and Peacebringers still wish they were nearly as good as their EAT cousins.
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*Watches his Triform PB romp around the map stomping stuff, while his gun-bane chews everything up in a hail of lead*
I'm still tempted to respec the gun-bane back to Mace, because it's incredibly nasty. PBs might not be as awesome as WSs, but that's because there's a lot of awesome to catch up with there
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Just a guess, but I'd say the same subjective scoring system that any "reviewer" uses when reviewing something.
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Originally Posted by Snowzone
What sort of arbitrary scoring system are you using?
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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
My opinions are almost entirely based around looks/sounds of a set rather than performance. With that said, my least favorites:
* Ice Armor - I like the set itself, but it looks just awful. One of the worst representations of ice powers in any game I've seen.
* Earth Armor - I think this looks as terrible as Ice Armor, but it also has the benefit of having all sorts of unnecessary penalties that have failed to evolve with the rest of the game. But mostly, it's very very ugly and nowhere near what I'd think a superhero with earth-based powers would look like. Granite would be okay if it didn't look exactly like a DE monster, but the rest look like you just have the power to fall into a mud pit and not care about washing it off.
* Sonic Attacks - I hate this set purely for the sound effects. Beyond annoying.
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Yeah, tell that to the bane in my SG who can solo missions with all the settings maxed out in his sleep... Seriously, you almost feel sorry for the mobs watching him.
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Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
Oh, yeah, and Bane Spiders and Peacebringers still wish they were nearly as good as their EAT cousins.
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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
Not sure I consider any powerset really the worst. There are some under preforming sets. But nothing bad.
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Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Actually, barring the horrendous recharge and the slightly lower accuracy (though I can't remember the last time I had any issues with accuracy post level 22, regardless of the power's accuracy modifier), Mass Confusion is better than Seeds of Confusion. It has a longer range, wider area, and doesn't cause aggro. SoC is only better because its recharge is short enough to be up for every pull, while MC is more of an every-other-pull power. Equalize the recharge in either direction and MC is a better power. Plant Control is still probably better than Mind Control is most situations, but its T9 isn't completely outclassed by Plant's T5.|
Originally Posted by Oathbound
Fixed that for you.
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That's probably another reason why Dominators find Mind Control more palatable than Controllers, they tend to build much more heavily for recharge. Once you have the recharge down to 30 seconds or so you can have it up for every pull or so, and with a reliable mag 6 confusion you don't need to worry about trying to get it double stacked to stop a Boss.
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I agree that minus the recharge Mass Confusion is better than seeds... but ultimately it is the recharge that matters. If the recharge difference weren't AS big then I'd give it to Mass Confusion anyhow, but the difference is FOUR TIMES over. That's simply too large a hurdle for area/agro advantages to overcome in my mind.
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Originally Posted by Grendar
Actually, barring the horrendous recharge and the slightly lower accuracy (though I can't remember the last time I had any issues with accuracy post level 22, regardless of the power's accuracy modifier), Mass Confusion is better than Seeds of Confusion. It has a longer range, wider area, and doesn't cause aggro. SoC is only better because its recharge is short enough to be up for every pull, while MC is more of an every-other-pull power. Equalize the recharge in either direction and MC is a better power. Plant Control is still probably better than Mind Control is most situations, but its T9 isn't completely outclassed by Plant's T5.
That's probably another reason why Dominators find Mind Control more palatable than Controllers, they tend to build much more heavily for recharge. Once you have the recharge down to 30 seconds or so you can have it up for every pull or so, and with a reliable mag 6 confusion you don't need to worry about trying to get it double stacked to stop a Boss. |
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
Oh, and I had so blissfully forgotten about the garbage set I didn't mention it earlier, till someone in game reminded me.
Dark Armor sucks. Well it does for the non-math nerds who don't run quadratic sawtooth elliptical equation correlation exercise calculations to determine survivability tangent causation standard loops.
Yes, with IO's it becomes decent. But without them, it's a horrible not fun at all set.
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Pair it up with Staff and it rocks hardcore. The end reducer form makes it perfectly plausible to run stacked armors without running out of end. |
Originally Posted by Haetron
Oh, and I had so blissfully forgotten about the garbage set I didn't mention it earlier, till someone in game reminded me.
Dark Armor sucks. Well it does for the non-math nerds who don't run quadratic sawtooth elliptical equation correlation exercise calculations to determine survivability tangent causation standard loops. Yes, with IO's it becomes decent. But without them, it's a horrible not fun at all set. |
Just need some KB protection.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Its not the armors that kill your end, it's the set's crutch, Dark Regeneration. The entire functionality of that set is leveraging that sole power into a situation where it's usable on demand and doesn't drain your end out in the process.|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
Pair it up with Staff and it rocks hardcore. The end reducer form makes it perfectly plausible to run stacked armors without running out of end.
Just need some KB protection. |
And yeah, there's sets that perform well with it, and there's IO combos that make it pretty good. It's just, on it's on, in a vacuum, it's the worst "in functioning reality" defense set.
Ice Control and Electric Blast top my "Thumbs down" list.
Ice Control very happily eats my entire blue bar just to inconvenience the enemy somewhat.
Electric Blast is largely a victim of the nature of Endurance Drain.
PBs and WSs aren't the worst in my eyes, but they are VERY late bloomers compared to most sets. The Voids spawning from the very beginning don't help. Once you're into your 20s, you have tools to handle them. At level 6 you really don't.
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I don't get what you're saying here. The set has great resists. Best psi resist of any of the armors, I believe. Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are both great situational utility abilities. Hell, Dark Regen is just icing, not a crutch by far. Honestly, it's an "ohpancake!" button. And the end cost isn't that prohibitive.
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Originally Posted by Haetron
Its not the armors that kill your end, it's the set's crutch, Dark Regeneration. The entire functionality of that set is leveraging that sole power into a situation where it's usable on demand and doesn't drain your end out in the process.
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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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I think that the reason Dark Armor has a bad rep is that Dark Regeneration is somewhat odd compared to self heals in other sets. Powers like Reconstruction and Healing Flames are generally intended to be used pretty much whenever you take a little bit of damage. They heal about a quarter of your health (ignoring slotting and MaxHP boosts) but have a low end cost and recharge fast so you can pretty much spam them.|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
I don't get what you're saying here. The set has great resists. Best psi resist of any of the armors, I believe. Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are both great situational utility abilities. Hell, Dark Regen is just icing, not a crutch by far. Honestly, it's an "ohpancake!" button. And the end cost isn't that prohibitive.
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Conversely Dark Regeneration heals about 30% of your hit points per target and has an even shorter recharge than other self heals. It's endurance cost is, however, through the roof because of this. The end result is that DR is not a power you want to use immediately, it's a power you wait to use until your health is relatively low since you know it's going to bring you back to full health pretty much no matter what (assuming you slot for accuracy). The problem is that while DR has about the same HP/End ratio as other powers (assuming three targets) it's a lot more likely to over-heal since unless you're down at about 20% health you probably aren't actually getting three targets worth of healing. Add in that is has a short recharge encouraging people to use it a lot more and you have a power that is perceived as having an unreasonable endurance cost.
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Originally Posted by Tyger42
I don't get what you're saying here. The set has great resists. Best psi resist of any of the armors, I believe. Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are both great situational utility abilities. Hell, Dark Regen is just icing, not a crutch by far. Honestly, it's an "ohpancake!" button. And the end cost isn't that prohibitive.
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Great resists compared to what, Super Reflexes? It's pretty much got the lowest resist numbers across the board on resist based sets, tying with Fire Armor.
Cloak of Fear and OG are Mag 2 controls. Hardly "great".
1/3rd your endurance bar is not prohibitive? And point me to a guide/build for Dark Armor that doesn't have DR six slotted and doesn't sing it's praises. It's the only worthwhile power in the set, but it's way over the line, and prevents the rest of the set from getting the adjustments it needs.
There are these wondrous things called "endurance reduction enhancements" that most of us use... Not to mention, as said above, it's the highest self-heal of armor sets and fastest recharge. Add in that more targets make it even better, and its end cost is a bargain.
Mag 2 isn't great for a controller, but for a melee class who doesn't often have access to such things, especially in the form of a PBAOE toggle? ( Expensive toggles, perhaps, but, again, in the right situations, more than worth it )
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After ten pages of this I not only think it is the place for folks to vent about sets "they" don't like, but also a place where people show they know "just" enough about a set that they can speak on the topic, but unfortunately not really from an "educated" perspective.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Welcome to the Internet.
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Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
After ten pages of this I not only think it is the place for folks to vent about sets "they" don't like, but also a place where people show they know "just" enough about a set that they can speak on the topic, but unfortunately not really from an "educated" perspective.
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I'll second (third, fourth, twentieth!) Electric Blast. I'm playing with a character whose concept relies on it, and though it does look really good, it feels like trying to beat the enemies into submission with a foam bat. It's a little bit better against a single boss, where the endurance drain can stack up, but get a mob together and the damage trade-off really starts to hurt. On the bright side, relying on EB's certainly given me a crash course on making money at Wentworths, optimizing the enhancements and making sure I'm using inspirations. |
Originally Posted by Yoru-Hime
Ice Control and Electric Blast top my "Thumbs down" list.
Ice Control very happily eats my entire blue bar just to inconvenience the enemy somewhat. Electric Blast is largely a victim of the nature of Endurance Drain. PBs and WSs aren't the worst in my eyes, but they are VERY late bloomers compared to most sets. The Voids spawning from the very beginning don't help. Once you're into your 20s, you have tools to handle them. At level 6 you really don't. |
I can't say much about the numbers, but as a scrapper, Katana/Dark Armor has at least been all kinds of survivable and fun.
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
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Ice Control is one of the few control sets that actually doesn't suck *** in Incarnate content. Ice Patch is better than Earthquake, and Arctic Air is a perma-confuse button with the purple proc. Meh, to each his own but Ice Control is not the worst control set by a long shot: Gravity Control LOLOLOLOL|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
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! __________ 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. |
Force Field: Obsolete set that gets replaced in higher end content due to IO sets.
Energy Melee: Do pitiful AoE damage as a down side for your... mediocre single target damage. Pom-poms of death indeed
Electric Blast: Watch as your electric ball tickles your enemies! So much better than a tier 3 blast! Oh and Endurance Drain is so useful /sarcasmoff
Super Reflexes: Not bad, just outmatched. Take every power in the freaking set just to match the defenses of Shield Defense. Poor, poor super reflexes
Fiery Aura: the only thing it's good for is farming. The extra damage it puts out is not worth dying over. I don't care what people say, I hate this set and I'm tired of seeing crappy farmers thinking they can handle normal content with a defense set that is only good for dying and getting the team killed.
Mercs: Poor mercs. I can't be mad at this set.
Poison: Devs hate this set. They had a chance to make it not suck and they only put a bandaid on it. A tiny AoE effect on the set's two main debuffs didn't do squat to put this up to atleast Thermal levels of debuffage. Radiation, Cold, Thermal, and Dark outmatch this set by a longshot.
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
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I leveled the set to 50 with SOs. Linearly. The set is a monster with a high learning curve.
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Originally Posted by Haetron
Oh, and I had so blissfully forgotten about the garbage set I didn't mention it earlier, till someone in game reminded me.
Dark Armor sucks. Well it does for the non-math nerds who don't run quadratic sawtooth elliptical equation correlation exercise calculations to determine survivability tangent causation standard loops. Yes, with IO's it becomes decent. But without them, it's a horrible not fun at all set. |
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Others don't like the Confuses in Mind.
Mind doesn't have an AoE Immob, which turns some off.
I personally love Mind, have a Mind/Bubble, Mind/Cold, Mind/Fire, Mind/Kin, Mind Energy....list goes on. Reading these threads though, it's pretty clear it's perceived as "Weak". Whether it's the lack of certain status effects is unclear, but there you go.
Edit: What Oedipus Tex said. Other sets probably set up Containment/extra damage much better. For my sub fee though, I'll take Mind just for Mass Confusion, which can be up substantially quicker with IOs...on SOs though I can see it not being TOO overpowered.
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