Support Set Overview

Intended as a very brief overview of the support sets to help select the right one for you.

For a more detailed (and snarky) read, I recommend "I Need Healing!" (written for Defenders, but good summaries for most sets).

Thanks, nice breakdown!

I of course disagree about Force Fields. They can solo just fine. In fact, my current version of PK on Excelsior I'm running to 50 entirely solo and with NO team powers (yes, no Insulation or Deflection Shields!) as proof of concept, and he's doing SPLENDIDLY. With Force Bolt from Level 2, and Repulsion Field at level 18, it's almost RIDICULOUSLY easy to stay alive solo as a bubbler. I almost feel bad for the mobs.

I disagree entirely with your assessment of time. Time has one power (Temporal Selection) that requires targeting an ally and it's a minor part of the kit (it's nice to have but ultimately skippable). The key powers are either PBAoEs (that affect you) or focused on enemies. As a consequence Time Manipulation can solo just fine, it's a bit fragile at lower levels but once you get Farsight slotted up you're off and running.

I disagree with a few things and see this as mostly being confusing to anyone trying Support for the first time.

First, I don't like the way it's tiered. While I agree that Rad would be near the top and TA would be closer to the bottom, the other sets seem all kinds of out of place. Time and Dark should definitely be top tier with Rad and Kin. Storm I would probably consider right under those 4; it's incredibly potent, just too chaotic for some people. But the rest of the sets are pretty much on equal footing except TA and Poison, which are like Support Hard Mode.

Second, the Targeting column is not really intuitive. What is the real difference between "Friendly" and "Mobs"? And why are sets like Time, that only have 1 power that targets an ally, considered "Ally Focused", but Poison, a set that has 3 powers that can only target allies, is considered "Friendly"? I think it would just be easier to just state the number of powers that require an ally to be activated, so 1/9 for Time or 3/9 for Poison.

Third, for the Solo Rating, maybe the categories would be simpler to understand as "Solos Easily" or "Better with Allies", that way you aren't defining a set as un-solo-able, just suggesting that it's not the best choice if that is someone's playstyle.

I of course disagree about Force Fields. They can solo just fine. [...]

"Safe but slow" would be a more accurate rating, yes.  :P  I wavered on FF because it's pretty amazing on masterminds, but it really shines in groups. May be more of a "Pets/No" than a "No". Thanks for the feedback. :)

I disagree entirely with your assessment of time. [...]

Thanks for the feedback! Temporal Selection looks like the same kind of "this is a very worthwhile power" as Forge/Painbringer/Fortitude/Speed Boost(/etc) to me, powers that aren't the reason why a set is good and you might skip them if making a solo-exclusive build but which ought to be considered must-haves otherwise. With that being an overestimate, it should get a "Friendly" rating instead since unlike Thermal/Pain/Empathy/Kinetics there aren't other ally-only powers in Time.

I never doubted its soloing potential, though, but with several PBAoE buffs it's blatantly more effective with some targets for them.

I disagree with a few things and see this as mostly being confusing to anyone trying Support for the first time. [...]

Thanks for the feedback! Some of this falls in the "it's an overview, not a detailed guide" pit of not giving enough details, but some of the rest:

(First) The tiering is definitely arguable. I stand by it, but I don't intend to say that Trick Arrow is useless (it's not!), and Poison and Storm Summoning are actually among my favorites - but grading sets collectively on a mix of broadly applicable usefulness + ease of use + overall popularity, I'd put them low.

(Second) The "number of skills that require a friendly target" thing is a great idea, thanks! As is, it's a pretty vague summary based primarily on whether or not the powerful skills in the set require an ally or not, leaving some less powerful skills out of the consideration. It's accordingly rife with bias, and listing skill numbers would be either a better way of doing it or a very good supplement (I'll try to edit it in later). And as detailed above, I have almost certainly misjudged Time. My bad. :(

(Third) You're right - the "No" rating for soloing might give the wrong impression, and maybe just writing the "Meh" in the list would be better to avoid that (another likely edit). All support sets can solo, but those 3(/4) sets are sets I would assume a newcomer (especially to the game as a whole, but also especially to support sets) would have a bumpy ride with solo because their non-party powers are few and/or late in the set.

Thanks for the feedback! Temporal Selection looks like the same kind of "this is a very worthwhile power" as Forge/Painbringer/Fortitude/Speed Boost(/etc) to me, powers that aren't the reason why a set is good and you might skip them if making a solo-exclusive build but which ought to be considered must-haves otherwise. With that being an overestimate, it should get a "Friendly" rating instead since unlike Thermal/Pain/Empathy/Kinetics there aren't other ally-only powers in Time.

Yeah I can definitely see why it might come across that way but when you look at the numbers it's just not as good as those powers. Unlike Forge or Fortitude it has a base recharge equal to its duration which means you can only put it on two people at once, maybe three if you have a lot of global recharge (as opposed to Fortitude and Forge which can do four with just basic slotting). The power level is about the same as Speed Boost (less recharge but you get a damage buff and some healing) but the lower uptime makes it a lot weaker in terms of overall team impact.

I personally like tier lists, a lot of people see them as "dumbing the game" for people as they can just pick whatever is at the top, but it leads to a lot of thinking and understanding for those making and discussing said list.

That being said, Top and bottom tiers are very clear, but mid tiers kinda need a bit more shuffling i'd say.

I'm not sure what the actual criteria each set is being judged on, but i'll comment based on party utility:

Pain Domination)

I feel like this should be at least one tier higher than empathy, it has overall lesser heal numbers and is definitely not as attractive while leveling as empathy's burst of endurance is loved by underenhanced and underslotted players,  i still feel pain brings a lot more to the table at 50+ and incarnate levels. Painbringer giving +damage instead of +recharge stacks a lot better as most players will set up their builds towards making whatever powers their need perma-active. And the +end is kind of pointless when at least half your team is spamming ageless, And the heals even when reduced in power are enough to keep tanks up in incarnate trials.

And oh, anguishing cry. no such thing as enough -res.

Trick arrow)

I dont have much to say here as i have very little experience with the set, but the major gripe everyone has with it is "REDRAW!" not sure if you noticed but i25 now has no-redraw options for most weapons(sadly not arachnos maces), including bow/trick arrow.

Think it is worth taking another look at this.

Poison)

Kinda feel like poison deserves a bit more love, with powerset proliferation and this thing being now available to defenders, the debuff numbers are juicy.

Debuffs are massive, surpasses other more popular sets in raw potency, downside being the way the powers work, as it only affects your target in full and everything around it only gets about a third of the effect. but on the flipside, cooldowns are short and the powers are spammable.

Trick arrow)

 

I dont have much to say here as i have very little experience with the set, but the major gripe everyone has with it is "REDRAW!" not sure if you noticed but i25 now has no-redraw options for most weapons(sadly not arachnos maces), including bow/trick arrow.

Well the redraw was always mitigatable by pairing it with Archery. Overall I would say the main weakness of Trick Arrow is a lack of Alpha strike mitigation, most sets have some combination of defense, resistance and healing that can mitigate an alpha strike but Trick Arrow doesn't really. You've got Flash Arrow but it's a bit weak on it's own and EMP arrow but that's got a long recharge.

Combining Flash Arrow, Glue Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow actually gives TA decent damage mitigation overall but it's not great at handling that large burst of initial damage.

The most useful bit of TA is Flash Arrow, because it doesn't aggro.

It makes it a little easier to pull slightly smaller groups of mobs out of big groups.