Powersets that need review

It's been five years, guys, IH as a toggle is gone, for ***** sake.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

As for Ice Control:

The ST hold is standard
The ST immob is standard
The AoE Immob is standard

Arctic Air needs to get the End decreased. The confuse is so short and spotty that it isn't worth it. If they made the confuse a constant toggle instead of a chance to hit, I can see it being a power that I would use on a regular. Right now on my Ice/Dark Dom I am using it as a debuff.

Shiver should have a secondary effect that is more useful...every power in that set has -Rech/-Spd How bout a -Acc/-Dmg.

Ice Slick should have the the ability to knockdown even tho you are Immobile...you cant move but you sure can fall. I also say that this power receive another secondary effect like -Dmg to help between pulses. It would also help to remove the fear from the Dom version.

Flash Freeze shouldn't do damage. If they had to add a gimmick to this I would like to see a degrading debuff on it. Start with a high -rech/-def power and have it lose effect over time.

Glacier is a PBAoE hold and it I will be ok with this if it was a toggle hold. Anything that came in your perimeter is held.

Jack Frost is an ok-ish pet, I usually just summon pets to absorb the aggro and alpha while I set up controls. Visually is more of my problem. Make those chunks of ice a bit more streamlined and visually pleasing. I would remove the ranged attack in place for something else.

While I agree with the general sentiment that all powersets need review as the game evolves, there are certain sets that need love more than others.

Of all the complaints I'm aware of, I believe Mercenaries deserves attention the most. I say that because at no point in the development of the game was that powerset performing at an acceptable level. Ninjas might be able to make a similar argument, but at least their unique power is useful. Mercs are saddled with Serum, which is among the most useless powers in the game. It has a ridiculous recharge time and serves the purpose of turning one of your henchman into a tank. Then it neuters that henchman with a crash. The problem is none of the Merc henchman are worth putting it on. The set is actually much better served playing as a "Tankermind" anyway. Serum would be much more useful as an AoE survival buff (possibly +Resist/+Regen) that affects henchman at full strength and the MM at half strength. That change alone would make Mercs acceptable to me. Changing the Spec Ops would just be gravy.

Other sets that could use a look are Energy Blast, Ice Control, Dark Control (surprising since it's new), Energy Melee, Broadsword and Battleaxe (inferior versions of Katana and Warmace respectively), and Trick Arrow.

Honorable mention goes to Ice Armor, which is an ok set except for Hibernate. I think Tankers should get Icy Bastion instead. The thing is, Hibernate would function better on a Stalker (they can get it anyway) because they are more about hiding and healing to come back for round two. Maybe Hibernate could be an intelligent toggle? It could give a moderate regen/recovery boost until you hit 20% hp and then activate its current effect? That would require it to be like the WP and SD T9s though and not consider attack rate changes. Otherwise, Ice Armor Tankers would be literally unkillable.

On the topic of T9s, they all need reworked. Nukes are becoming crashless, so that's a good sign that the devs know that crashes have no place in the game now. I really hope that all T9s get a tweak. Especially Elude, which is almost unarguably useless. It does, however, still provide some benefit to SO purists that want to hit the incarnate softcap.

The devs have adopted the rather soft approach that as long as some people still have fun with a set they can't change it. I think that sometimes a nerf is needed. Some sets are just unbalanced, and they need to admit that and fix it. Some people might get angry, but a larger portion of the player base might now feel more relevant since they aren't being totally outclassed by a perma-PA illusion controller for example. Sets I would nerf/adjust include Super Strength (probably just rebalance, nerf some powers while buffing others) and Illusion (make PA like the Dark Control equivalent). I'm sure I could think of more if I sat here, but this post is in danger of becoming a rant.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

Make Timb Bomb useful, either convert to Hand Grenade or Omega clone.

A PBAoE sleep is Ice Manip's highest power? Seriously, how about a PBAoE Hold to fit with Ice Blast?

Gun Drone and Dark Servant that you don't need to resummon, but can only have one out at a time sounds very reasonable.

Great thread, thanks for starting it.

Here are my suggestions for Ice Melee:

Tanker version:
Frozen Fists: reduce activation time to around 0.87 seconds.

Frost: Increase range to 20 feet.

Ice Patch: Increase radius to 15'

Greater Ice Sword: Increase damage by around 10%, turn into a narrow cone range 10'.

Frozen Aura: Increase radius to 15'. Add Immobilise with -KB. Add lots of slow and -recharge.

Stalker port:
As above, but Frost Replaced by AS. Remove all damage from Frozen Aura but add a brief (2 second) mag 2 hold. Reorder: Freezing Touch (3), AS (4), BU (5), Placate (6), Ice Patch (7).

Scrapper and Brute ports:

As for tanker, but swap order of BU and taunt/confront. Completly replace Frozen Aura with a PBAoE Footstomp clone, doing very high cold damage with slow secondary effect. No sleep.

So Praf, you were okay with the nerf to EM, because it worked out well for YOU. But yet, when other people point out that it didn't work for them, they're somehow wrong, or wanted to be overpowered?

Sets have changed in the past, both for good and bad, so sets aren't always the same as when you chose them. EM got nerfed pretty well, and those who liked the set before got told that they had to get used to changes. If the set is looked at, and is found to be needing buffs, people who like the set as is may need to get used to the changes as well. Current performance is no indication of future performance of a set when MMOs are concerned.

I'm not for 'boosting just to boost" The upside with energy melee, in the beginning, was that you had fast, strong single target burst damage, with control vs. single targets as well. The downside was that you were bad vs. crowds and could damage yourself. Then they slowed down energy transfer, and reduce the magnitude of total focus. Now you have a slow burst damage set with reduced control.

Is the set good? Yes, I still like it. But it isn't as good at the things it was good at at first, and while the adjustments were necessary, the 'overperforming' portions were downgraded without anything else bing upgraded. This would be fine if the set were overperforming in all areas, but the set had definite weaknesses along with its strengths, and its strengths were brought down without anything done to normalize its weaknesses.

The set is good at:

• delivering large chunks of damage in large portions
• single target minion/lieutenant control
• continuous control over time (stuns layer well)

• AoE control
• AoE damage
• quick damage delivery
• staying healthy (hurts itself)
• fast control

Folks play the strongest sets. The preponderance of SS/Fire brutes should indicate that. The lack of EM across the bulk of the meta points to its inability to compete.

I honestly think that energy melee was nerfed due to PvP and the fact that it was ported to stalkers. Castle himself said the change was due in part to the fact that people were getting laughed at for choosing other sets in PvP. For stalkers, where many AOE powers were removed, Energy Melee was truly dominant in its single target damage. No One ever argued about its dominance among tankers and brutes in PvE, since other sets far out shined it in overall game play.

The change to energy transfer was truly disfiguring to the set. Though it may have been necessary for balance issues, the resulting horrid animation and long cast times of its heavy hitters made it feel wrong to me and I haven't played it since. You can argue all you want that it's designed to take down "hard" targets but everyone knows that others sets do the job better and faster. Now that there are mechanics to make powers different in PvP and PvE I think it should get looked at again. I would much rather have a shorter animation and a larger chuck of health removed than be a corpse smasher on a team in PvE. Do whatever you want with it in PvP since no one I know plays it anyway. I'm sure it's far down on the devs list of stuff to look at though and it's probably just wishful thinking.