Powersets that need review

Give a general description of sets that could get some attention - ones that just seem worse than other options for the same archetype. You are allowed to mention one bad power in a good set also if you want to go that way, but I was hoping to compile a simple list of actual sets that could use a balance review.

NOTE: I actually want fresh opinions to be posted too and not discounted - I do not think experience outweighs first impressions in this case - we all love a smooth leveling set.

My own general opinion, take it or leave it:

Energy Melee: Make either Total Focus or Energy Transfer into Sweeping Cross from Street Justice when it comes to implementation. Play with the numbers to make it fit the set.

Poison: Make the splashes do the full effect but make it unstackable and adjust as needed. Adjust Noxious Gas and make it a toggle for Masterminds - or give it Venomous Gas.

Sonic Resonance - adjust Liquefy's recharge to be up every other spawn on standard slotting. Have Sonic Cage become a toggle.

Trick Arrow - Trickshooter's Thread here.

Force Field - have Force Bolt work like Jolting Chain. Have Detention Field become a toggle. Force Bubble - not sure, seems like something could be done with this to make it more desirable - seems like it is just an aggro magnet for the most part.

Storm Control - raise Gale's accuracy a bit.

Thermal Radiation - lower Melt Armor's recharge a little.

Dark Blast - Make Umbral Torrent do knockdown. Raise Dark Pit's accuracy to 1.00.

Assault Rifle - Widen Full Auto and make it less deep.

Beam Rifle - set plays kinda slow for being single-target focused. Not sure on this one.

Electrical Blast - Raise Short Circuit's damage.

Radiation Blast - Electron Haze animates too slow and the random kb seems out of place - could be eliminated or turned into a higher chance for kb, or altered to kd.

Traps/Devices - Time Bomb... ugh - it's not designed to be used in a way that this game plays at all. It's all been said before. I think Hawk was looking at this one recently.

Ice Control - the set is a mess. Eliminate the knockback debuff from Frostbite and Chillblain. Arctic Air is considered skippable without the Contagious proc by some. Up the chance for kd on Ice Slick a small amount.

Darkness Control - could be just me, but it seems I eat alpha strikes with this set more than any other control set, perhaps due to a delay for the effect from Fearsome Stare kicking in or something - it was briefly discussed on the forums awhile back.

Mercenaries - Serum is a freaking joke - the recharge is insane and is only for one pet. The entire set seems to do the least damage of all other primaries, but it would be tough to balance right. A straight damage buff might work just fine in this case. See the MM forums for this set.

Necromancy - Zombie Horde pets die way too easily, other than that, it isn't too bad.

Ninjas - Would a heal be out of the question?

Beast Mastery - maybe speed up recharges or give them an additional attack or soft control (stun/fear)

Regeneration - sigh, good old Regen. I think turning IH into a toggle again wouldn't be a bad idea. Brutes and (eventually) Tankers have a hard time taking aggro with this set compared to others for teams. You get hit for (nearly) full damage and take all debuffs constantly and it's difficult to keep up for the average Joe.

Dark Armor - still not convinced Dark Regen needs to take such a massive amount of endurance, but the forum exploded in rage at the idea of touching this set at all. Cloak of Fear's accuracy is a pain and makes no sense to me.

Battle Axe - up Whirling Axe's damage just a little bit.

Ice Melee - buff Freezing Touch's damage a little and make it a burst or lower recharge. Make Frost do more burst up front perhaps - could play around with this set - awhile back I thought it was shown to be the lowest damage melee set in the game when it comes to real-world play.

Psychic Blast - Blaster version in particular, maybe raise Psionic Tornado's damage or play with the soft control to make up for it. Will Domination could use 100% chance of sleep (how do you explain Cosmic Burst otherwise for Rad?) Other than Psionic Tornado, this set isn't as bad as some make it out to be.

I think Physical Perfection should be available to ALL ARCHETYPES.

My own personal opinion:

Blast sets and blaster secondaries:
With the various changes coming I'll reserve judgement on any blast sets or blaster secondaries.

Melee sets:
Energy melee for starters, for obvious reasons. Stalker martial arts post AS changes as it's ST over-focus has just gotten ridiculous. Axe could use some tweaks to differentiate it further from mace, since at the moment it's basically just a lethal damage version of mace with slightly worse numbers. Super strength badly needs an overall rebalancing so that it's not made up of a couple good-to-ridiculous powers and a bunch of trash. And I'm sorry to say it, but titan weapons could probably use a slight toning down.

Armor sets:
Stone armor - the design of the set is just obsolete and doesn't mesh with the game as it's actually played. It's not weak, but it could use a rebalancing to level out the performance a bit. SR feels rather overshadowed by shield, and really doesn't seem to have much going for it these days, especially for a set that has no throwaway powers.

Buff/debuff sets:
As usual, trick arrow comes to mind. For a debuff-only set it really doesn't deliver very impressive debuffing, especially with how many powers you have to use each spawn to get what debuffing it has. Force field is another relatively one-dimensional set that could use some tweaking, and for the love of god stop going back and rendering enemies immune whenever some new encounter actually provides a good use for repel or cage effects! Sonic could probably use some tweaking too. I haven't played poison, but I haven't really heard much good about the set even after it got buffed. And pleeeeease fix whatever it is that causes absolutely everything to run away from acid mortars?

Control sets and dominator secondaries:
Ice still desperately needs help. For a control set it's got inexcusably weak control, and flash freeze is just ridiculously bad. Gravity could still probably use some tweaking, but it's better than it was. And I hate to suggest it, but plant probably should be rebalanced a bit - not necessarily an overall nerf, but way too much of the powerset's overall effectiveness is over-concentrated in seeds.

Electric assault needs some looking at - its melee attacks got rather over-nerfed back during the dom rebalancing, and its poor ranged and aoe capability don't make up for it at all. Thunderstrike in particular is awful. Ice and psi assault could use the same sort of looking at for their melee attacks too, and subdue should be a 10s attack. Fiery assault is fine overall, but flares is *still* missing its secondary effect and has been ever since the changes.

Summon sets:
I don't have any personal experience with these, but I've heard that mercs are still bad, that ninjas are still way too fragile for their damage output, and that beast still does much less damage than they should given their melee/ST nature.

Sonic Resonance: Turn Sonic Siphon into a true siphon. Have it apply a non-stacking +Resist buff to the caster for say 30seconds.

Use the new redirection tech with Disruption Field and Sonic Repulsion so that you can target an ally and get the current effect, but can also target an enemy and use it as a standard anchor toggle debuff (Have Sonic Repulsion do a reduced chance of knockDOWN when enemy targeted).

Reduce Liquify's recharge to 120s.



Force Field: Increase Force Bolt's damage to 1.0scale (from 0.1scale).

Condense Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield into a single power, "Force Barrier."

Add a "Force Redirection" power in Insulation Shield's old spot; PBAoE Foe -Damage, PBAoE Ally +Damage +Absorb/target. This gives FF a more thematic way to increase damage, in lieu of a -resist buff which doesn't seem to fit the set concept-wise.

Reduce Repulsion Bomb's animation to 1.67s (same as Neutron Bomb, which uses the same overhand-toss animation, just faster).



Electrical Blast: Raise Short Circuit's damage or considerably reduce it's activation time (the 2.03s Healing Aura animation would work alright, or the Engulfing Darkness one works too).

Convert Tesla Cage into a Tier3 blast a la Cosmic Burst.

Cut Voltaic Sentinel's activation time and end cost.



Ice Control: Increase Arctic Air's chance for confuse by a sizable amount.

Add flags to Frostbite and Ice Slick so that if one of other power is used on targets already under the effects of the other power, they get added functionality. Using one power on targets flagged by the other power will stun the affected mobs for a short time (3mag for 5ish seconds, non-stacking).

I suggest something like this because I don't want to remove functionality that existing Ice Control characters already have (Frostbite negating potential scatter from powers like Gale or Tornado); but so that should they be on a team where someone keeps throwing out an immobilize that breaks their Ice Slick, they themselves can use Frostbite to re-establish mitigative control.



Ice Melee: Fix Freezing Touch's damage! There is ZERO reason for this power to have DRASTICALLY reduced damage when other sets get powers like Seismic Smash and Crushing Uppercut, which get hard control WITHOUT suffering massive damage reduction. Increase it to 2.76scale over 3.1s (from it's current 1.68scale/5.1s).

Honestly I feel like if Freezing touch would just get fixed, Ice wouldn't be that bad off. Between Frost and Frozen Aura it has pretty decent AoE, but Freezing Touch is the crown jewel in Ice Melee's joke of a single target chain.



Gravity Control: Yes. Still. Dimension Shift will never be anything more than a niche power, and the set's actual "every spawn" control power is hamstrung by it's own ridiculous secondary effect. Wormhole's massive knockback turns a critical control power into an at best situational use control tool, when the set is completely lacking in other control options already. Seriously. Convert it to knockdown.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Yeah, I agree with most of what you guys are saying.

Assault Rifle:

- Normalize the cone depth and range for FA and FT.

- Increase Full Auto target cap to 16 (when the nuke changes go into effect FA is going to be markedly worse than every other nuke)

-Reduce KB from Buckshot to KD. With the OF proc being able to improve M30, turning BS to KD can truly streamline ARs AoE chain. I might even suggest adding a small amount of -res to Buckshot. Thematically, the power knocks enemies off their feet and shatters their armor.

-Frontload 75% of FT damage.

-Increase radius of Ignite patch from 4ft to 8ft. Ignite still isn't going to be a great power, but giving the power a larger radius will better reward players who are willing to jump though the hoops necessary to set it up.

Regen: - Turn IH into a toggle, add a taunt aura to it.

Elec: Turn Voltaic Sentinel into a toggle, VS targets through player.

Devices/Traps:

Web Grenade - 4ft AoE

Trip Mine - 5 ft range summon, un-interruptable.

Time Bomb - Long Range summon - player controlled detonation - un-interruptable - Basically turn this power into an Omega Maneuver clone with the option to detonate early.

Smoke Grenade - change to Flashbang - same to-hit and perception debuff with 50% chance for mag 2 stun. Still no aggro.

Gun Drone - No need to resummon.

Some things I don't agree with in the original list (like, for instance, Arctic Air - I think for what it does, the END cost is too high, and that's its main problem. Drop the cost some, increase the chance/duration of confuse.)

Energy Melee - I like the old energy transfer, not for numbers (though it's nice having a fast, high damage attack,) but part of the fact you'd need to think about using it because it has a cost *on you.* Frankly, if "too fast for too much damage" was an issue, well, then have it cost me more health - unhealable, for 5 seconds or so or something.

Overall... I loved it (pre-changes) on my brute, and wasn't... particularly impressed with it when trying to tank (fire/EM) with it. On the tank, it felt like it needed "something." On the brute, I played it like a "heavy stalker" (and got cussed out more than once back in the old zones as one.)


Electric Blast's an old favourite for me - first 50, play the heck out of it on new characters still. Numbers aside, I like it. Numbers included, I did what I could to push damage up on my Dark/Elec.

What I'd like to see is a thematic update. Electric Blast (and manip, but I'm not as worried there) is the only Electric attack set that has nothing that chains. (OK, and assault - but assault has a cone as well.) Yes, IIRC there's a change to Volt. Sentinel coming up - but here's the thing. I have to recast it unless I have something following me. I don't see that changing. So... let all the (non-snipe) single-target blasts chain. Or at least have a chance to. Tesla cage? Let it turn into one of those novelty-gift plasma balls - hold one guy, have it be a source of shocks to everything else around him. Sparky? Chain. Because, frankly, unless you have a *few* elec characters around, the end drain secondary effect just doesn't do it.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Agree with pretty much everything here..what needs fixing and the fixes. Good to see nothing too crazy is being proposed.
Everyone has there 'pet sets' and their pet sets that they want FIXED now, as the most important. An unbiased and pretty accurate list like this would would.

Energy Melee: Take out one of the ST attacks, replace with a cone or AoE.

Controllers/Energy mastery APP: Energy Torrent. Increase the range and size of the cone. Right now it's kind of pathetic compared to all the other APP AoEs, and is somehow an even worse damage AoE cone than Terrify. As it stands, having a 40 foot range makes it incompatible with a controllers' other ranged powers.

Maybe do a balance pass on Mind Control. It's a nice middle-of-the road set, and is very good in the hands of a perma-Dom... but for many controller builds, it's not that great post 32 compared to other control sets. All I know is that whenever someone asks "What Controller set should I play", "mind control" isn't on anyone's list. It's always Fire, Plant, or Illusion. It might be easier to bring those three DOWN as oppose to bringing the other six sets UP, but I don't think that would make anyone happy. (I do recall on the most recent coffee talk that Hawk said that if they were making the game from scratch, Phantom Army would never be made, so obviously that's more an issue with Illusion than it is the other sets under-performing, but the Devs would have to pry PA from a lot of players cold, dead hands before they could change it)

I'm thankfull for what I got. I could list countless sets and powers that are not as good as others, but I have them all and like them all. Our flaws define us from the rabble. I like my trick arrow cause it's not powerfull; It means more to have a lvl 50 TA/A than several other sets. What needs to be fixed? Only what's broken... not what's "under-performing".

This is easy and does not take a novel to answer. ALL of the sets need to undergo a periodic review period end of discussion.

Empathy:

- The set relies heavily on "Healing" with the 1st 3 powers and the last 2 all nudging the green bar upwards. The simplest and smallest change here would be to maybe add some of the new Absorption mechanic to Absorb Pain and change the recharge/end/heal factors accordingly.

- Clear Mind is a great anti-mez buff but there are better things to be doing as an Empath than cycling through the team (No fun on a league!). I'd either make it last longer (for increased End/recharge), or have the same buff as other shields got (1 cast gets the whole team) with any subsequent levelling factor applied. (Dreams of CM as a PBAoE buff!)

- Ressurection has the same End cost and recharge as Rad & Poison's offerings but none of the benefits. I'm getting more mileage from carrying store bought Ally rez's + Heal Other & using the power pick for something else. (snide comments & tells aside) Just looking at NA's "Rebirth" makes me think this is how it should have been done.

-H

/Regen has a taunt aura...Integration...and it's Mag and duration are the same as invuln on a brute...

Ice Control - Too little immediate mitigation, too little synergy, too much endurance for too little return.

Empathy - Definitely showing its age. Grows increasingly irrelevant as level increases. Perhaps the Injection/Arrows of Jealousy dual function power-definitions could help. Adrenalin Boost sends a teammate's Regen, Recharge and Recovery through the roof, or it can knock down an opponent's Regen, Recharge and Damage.

Gravity Control - To be saddled with Wormhole's awkward mechanics AND an intangibility power is just unfair.

In my opinion.

Blast Sets

Assault Rifle
Dual Pistols
Electric Blast
Radiation Blast
Dark Blast

Manipulation Sets

All need work

Melee Sets

Battle Axe
Broadsword
Street Justice

Armor Sets

Regeneration
Super Reflexes
Stone Armor

Buff/Debuff

Storm Summoning
Force Field
Sonic Resonance
Empathy
Pain Domination
Thermal
Trick Arrow

Control

Ice Control
Gravity (still sadly)

Assault

Thorny Assault

Henchmen

Beast
Necromancy
Ninjas

Peacebringers

Luminous Blast
Luminous Aura

Most of these have already been mentioned but in any case:

Assault Rifle: I'd like to see Full Auto get a 16 target cap since it is a Tier 9 power and it should get to break the rules a bit. The rest of the set I'm honestly fine with, I never found the knockback in either buckshot or M30 to be a problem (since they're very low mag). Similarly regarding the suggestion someone made about a longer cone on Flamethrower, I wouldn't welcome the increase in recharge that would accompany it, personally I just slot for range (plus Cardiac or Radial Intuition for my Alpha) and use that.

Electric Blast: Personally I don't have any problems with this but I play it on a Time Defender which means I can use my Time powers to compensate for the inadequacies of the set. In general though I think it would be good to up VS's damage a bit and change Short Circuit so that it has a shorter cast time and front-loads the damage a bit.

Traps/Devices: Personally I'd like to see both Trip Mine and Time Bomb revamped but I'll settle for just Time Bomb getting a revamp. Other than that I think the sets are pretty decent, I've complained about Devices in the past but with the changes to Gun Drone a few issues back and the upcoming changes to Cloaking Device and FastSnipe most of my issues have been addressed. All that's left is Trip Mine and Time Bomb.

Trick Arrow, Empathy, Force Field, Sonic Resonance: Basically all four of these sets are really starting to show their age. Trick Arrow is a pure debuff set in a game that is becoming increasingly buff focused for mitigation. Empathy is a single-target focused set in a game that is becoming more focused on large leagues. Force Field is basically a one-trick pony and doesn't really do that trick well enough to compete with newer sets like Cold Domination and Time Manipulation. Sonic Resonance suffers from a number of weird power mechanics plus a couple of poor power choices.

Stone Armor: Ideally I'd like to see this set get a complete overhaul but at the very least change things around so that Rooted behaves more like Grounded instead of having a speed/jump debuff. Basically make the non-Granite option appealing so that it's competitive with other Armor sets.

Pain Domination: Personally I think this set suffered to much from trying to be Evil-Empathy. It was a neat idea but Soothing Aura and Painbringer are a poor substitute for Empathy and Adrenalin Boost. I'd like to see the duration of World of Pain increased to 120s (so that it's permanent with SOs) and Anguishing Cry given a shorter recharge (I'd say 90s at the most, and ideally 60s) since it has the worst duration/recharge ratio of any -resistance power in a buff/debuff set and is a PBAoE making it harder to use.

Dual Pistols: The cast time reductions in I24 should help quite a bit here. I would still like to see the -res in Piercing Rounds work with all ammo types and the damage from Hail of Bullets changed to a fixed number of ticks rather than 12 x 60% ticks.

Ninjas (too fragile) and Mercs (spec ops) definitely need looking at, maybe beast and necro. Though I do have a problem with saying over half the sets for an AT are under performing

Electric blast... I'd wait till i24 hits beta so we can see how much of a difference to draining TB with no crash makes. Though Tesla Cage does need to become as powerful as a T3 blast, and Voltaic needs adjustments.

Do have to ask, Gecko.. how does Street Justice in need of a looking at? Its one of the best melee sets, flat out.

Traps is fine, but Devices needs work. Time Bomb needs to be completely replaced.

Ice Control definitely needs work, Gravity is a bit more iffy. Dimension Shift needs to go. The 'fix' was cool an interesting but it doesn't really help. However, the devs have stated that there will be a non-damage KB-KD proc IO. This will fix wormhole for the people that have a vendetta against KB, and keep the KB for the people who like to have fun.

Ninjas need to be reviewed. They are too fragile. They need something to increase their survival.