What ATs require their Epics?

[Replacement]

Just curious about what the community thought.

 

I don't mean specific sets - I more mean do any particular ATs suffer greatly by skipping Epics entirely?

 

Example: every Blaster Ancillary/patron has an armor power. No matter which one is your jam, you're losing a lot of survival skipping out. Is that ok for a lot of builds?

 

What are your thoughts on assorted ATs and how would you rate their Epic Skip-ability?

[DougGraves]

Controllers need their epic for aoe damage.

[Broken_Prey]

Controllers would suffer the most IMO. It gives them a shield and an attack. 

[Heraclea]

Most of the old school tanker armor sets (and some ports of old school scrapper armors like Super Reflexes and Dark Armor) benefit very strongly from Conserve Power and Physical Perfection.  The rest are rather meh. and most tankers get more from non-epic pools like Fighting. 

[Gulbasaur]

I can tell you the least: Soldiers of Arachnos - they get the tanker/brute pool, containing ranged damage (which they have) and a pet (which Spiders have, Widows get confuse, which is a similar deal). I genuinely don't see any reason why you'd want of the other than flavour.

[Omega-202]

15 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

I can tell you the least: Soldiers of Arachnos - they get the tanker/brute pool, containing ranged damage (which they have) and a pet (which Spiders have, Widows get confuse, which is a similar deal). I genuinely don't see any reason why you'd want of the other than flavour.

Going to strongly disagree on Soldiers.  Widows, I agree with you, but Crabs love their epics.

 

Sure, they have ranged attacks, but Gloom and Mu Lightning have better DPA than any of their primary attacks.  The AoE immobilizes are also great to help enhance the already great AoE damage because it keeps enemies clustered so they take all of the incoming damage.  Finally, if you're playing a Crab, you want all of the pets.  You'll be building for perma Disruptors any way and they have the same recharge as the PPP pets.  More pets = more allies benefiting from all of your leadership buffs and more chances to proc Gaussian's in Tactics.  In fact, I'd say Crabs, Defenders and Controllers are the only ATs where I think you should even consider the PPP pets.

 

Go check any Crab build in the subforum.  You won't find any top build that skips the PPP.

 

To the OPs question, I think Widows and Corruptors/Defenders are plenty doable without the epics.  Def/Corr depends on the power sets, because some have plenty of options while others don't.  

Edited November 5, 2019 by Omega-202

[Haijinx]

Any AT without an Armor set Primary or Secondary really needs the Epic/Patron Armor selection. 

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

9 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

Widows, I agree with you, but Crabs love their epics.

That's a really good point about the pets... I take it back!

[Nyghtmaire]

Masterminds can benefit greatly from both the additional control powers in the patron/epic pools, as well as the aforementioned res/Def shields. As an aside, my MMs have been perennially jealous of the patron pet choices other ATs have access to. Lillies need gilding sometimes...

[mcdoogss]

On 11/5/2019 at 4:42 PM, Gulbasaur said:

I can tell you the least: Soldiers of Arachnos - they get the tanker/brute pool, containing ranged damage (which they have) and a pet (which Spiders have, Widows get confuse, which is a similar deal). I genuinely don't see any reason why you'd want of the other than flavour.

Mace Mastery is pretty good for a Bane Spider, Shatter Armor is another big ST hitter that adds -res, and the aoe blast is better than the bane version if you dont like cones.  Most importantly, no redraw for any of the Mace Mastery powers.

 

I like Leviathan for an aoe monster crab build.  Bile spray hits harder than all other aoes after venom grenade’s toxic debuff.  For a crabbermind, the one of the pets is essential

Edited November 7, 2019 by mcdoogss

[tidge]

On 11/5/2019 at 2:29 PM, Replacement said:

Just curious about what the community thought.

 

I don't mean specific sets - I more mean do any particular ATs suffer greatly by skipping Epics entirely?

My MM certainly could have skipped an Epic Pool but the extra shield and ranged attack from Mace Mastery was a better fit for making him slightly more 'Tankery'

 

My Controller opted for all five powers from the Soul Mastery set. She'd be pretty dull at higher levels without those powers.

 

My Tank certainly appreciate the Ranged attack from the Epic pool, but he didn't really need much else.

[Replacement]

So in these instances where it was helpful and/or build-defining, like @Nyghtmaire was outlining... how necessary would you say they are?

[Chris24601]

I enjoy having the ranged attacks on my scrappers. It really helps nail those runners with a sliver of health without having to run after them (the patron snipes like the one in Mu Mastery that turn into regular attacks but keep their 150’ range once combat starts are exceptional for this).

 

On the other hand, Kheldians don’t get ancillary/patron pools at all and while I don’t particularly miss them, I kinda wish they’d be available if only to represent a character who was another type of hero before bonding with Kheldian.

 

There’s also the question of what pool powers would even be appropriate for the Kheldians. They already have potent melee and ranged attacks, armor and can break mez with dwarf form. PBs have a heal other and some soft mezzes, WSs have some control already.

 

Frankly, the epic “power” I’d want for my khelds would be a pool where each power in it granted you 3 extra enhancement slots, but that’s almost certainly beyond the scope of the game’s engine.

[Carnifax]

1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:

There’s also the question of what pool powers would even be appropriate for the Kheldians. They already have potent melee and ranged attacks, armor and can break mez with dwarf form. PBs have a heal other and some soft mezzes, WSs have some control already.

Team buffs / debuffs and maybe some 'other' mezzes (fears, confuses and sleeps). Possibly pets like the villain pools. 

 

To be honest though slot starvation is bad enough without adding epics into the mix.

[Corruption]

I'd say almost every AT requires an epic pool, with some exceptions. My TW/Bio Scrapper has no epic pool while every Corruptor I have automatically takes Mace Mastery for Scorpion Shield. 

[Rathulfr]

31 minutes ago, Corruption said:

I'd say almost every AT requires an epic pool, with some exceptions. My TW/Bio Scrapper has no epic pool while every Corruptor I have automatically takes Mace Mastery for Scorpion Shield. 

Almost.  I've yet to take any of the Epic Power Pool powers on my Sentinels because they're just not that good useful to me.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Rathulfr
Changed "good" to "useful"

[Chris24601]

Also, my Thugs/Traps managed to skip the Epic Pools entirely... there were just so many good options in the primary and secondary sets plus needing medicine (since traps has no built-in heal) and leadership that I just flat-out ran out of room for epic pool powers (not to mention the theme of pretty much ordinary guys using tools scavenged from the guys they've fought; ex. the force field generator was scavenged and rebuilt from one they got from a defeated Sky Raider; didn't work well with any of the pool powers... maybe the mace if there'd been room for it, but there just wasn't).