Most useless powers in the game...

[Goddamage]

New to the forums here (first post, actually), and I was just wondering if anyone could tell me (or point me in the right direction) what powers in the game are the most useless. Like, I've seen a ton of things suggesting different builds and what the best powers from different archetypes/power sets are and whatnot, but for homebrewing purposes, I think it would be easier to just see a list of powers that basically you should always skip and never bother with. Ya know, powers that just really aren't worth wasting that space in your build, no matter how much you try to buff them with enhancements or whatever. I figure most of these are Pool powers, but maybe there's some others, like in a specific power set or whatever, where you'd always be better off choosing maybe some Pool power instead of one within that set. I'm not really talking about stuff where it depends on how you plan on playing the character. I know team/"other" buffs are useless to someone who mostly solos. Just things that people with tons of experience in the game would almost universally tell you, "That power's just not worth it." Like, powers that just don't have a lot of opportunities to get used properly, or maybe the effect just isn't worth sacrificing a better power that could've been in that space. Thanks!

[roleki]

I would say, Confront on a Scrapper is pretty useless, but not as useless as say, Black Hole and similar 'mob phase' effects.  I mean, the worse that can happen with Confront is you lose a little DPS trying to aggro something that's already dead and doesn't know it.  Phasing a mob is just, ugh.  Worthless.

[drbuzzard]

The cage powers in sonic and forcefield are pretty damned useless in most cases. Yes, I suppose they could be handy in rare instances of a single critter that needs to be put in time out, but most of the time, they just annoy the crap out of your team.

 

 

[Broken_Prey]

25 minutes ago, roleki said:

I would say, Confront on a Scrapper is pretty useless, but not as useless as say, Black Hole and similar 'mob phase' effects.  I mean, the worse that can happen with Confront is you lose a little DPS trying to aggro something that's already dead and doesn't know it.  Phasing a mob is just, ugh.  Worthless.

Touch of fear on a Scrapper is pretty useless. Why, as a scrapper, would I waste time using fear on one for instead of killing it. 

 

Jab is pretty useless, as a lot of t1 attacks, but jab is by far the worst. 

[Uun]

In terms of pool powers: Flurry (you can get Sands of Mu from the P2W vendor for free), Phase Shift, Team Teleport (it literally has a range of 25 feet). Not sure they're all useless, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone with anything from the Presence Pool. Not useless for masterminds, but Group Fly is guaranteed to piss off your teammates.

 

[Goddamage]

Thanks for those replies. Just wanted to jump in real quick and point out a specific example I thought of that applies to this...

I've seen a lot of builds that include Boxing, Tough, and Weave. Now I don't know how useful Boxing, itself, is, as I assume that's picked just to have access to Tough/Weave. And I practically never see Kick or Cross Punch chosen. Is Boxing that much better than Kick/Cross Punch? Is it incidental, and it's strictly just the better of those 3 choices? Does it even get used, or is it just to unlock Tough/Weave? Does anyone ever pick everything from that Pool?

Edited December 5, 2019 by Goddamage

[Broken_Prey]

6 minutes ago, Goddamage said:

Thanks for those replies. Just wanted to jump in real quick and point out a specific example I thought of that applies to this...

I've seen a lot of builds that include Boxing, Tough, and Weave. Now I don't know how useful Boxing, itself, is, as I assume that's picked just to have access to Tough/Weave. And I practically never see Kick or Cross Punch chosen. Is Boxing that much better than Kick/Cross Punch? Is it incidental, and it's strictly just the better of those 3 choices? Does it even get used, or is it just to unlock Tough/Weave? Does anyone ever pick everything from that Pool?

To get tough and then weave you need to take boxing or kick. Cross punch isn't available till after you have taking more powers from the fighting pool. 

 

Now between kick and boxing most people will take whatever one they like more. Most people I assume wouldn't use the power unless thier recharge is slowed. People also will use it as a slot mule, like slotting kinetic combat to get higher s/l defense. 

[Fan Mail]

The challenge with answering your question is it's subjective - that is, someone's opinion.  If I say the entire power pool of Presence sucks donkey balls, someone will come around and provide some obscure situational reply to refute.  And maybe they'd be right and I would be wrong.  Or vice-versa.  

 

I guess to answer the question as best as I could, I would take it upon myself to try each power.  If you don't like it, respec.  Or try things out on Pineapple/Test as that's fairly simple to do.  Probably not the answer you were looking for....

Edited December 5, 2019 by tafilr

[ThrillMill]

Hey, I rather like Cross Punch! Especially on any Dark Melee character. Great proc mule as well. 

[loyalreader]

2 hours ago, Broken_Prey said:

Touch of fear on a Scrapper is pretty useless. Why, as a scrapper, would I waste time using fear on one for instead of killing it. 

Besides the -to hit it effectively takes a lt/minion out of play for a decent amount of the fight. This strategy works extremely well in mobs - especially as dark melee is more single target focused. YMMV but this is a decent power. 

[eknudson]

7 hours ago, Broken_Prey said:

Touch of fear on a Scrapper is pretty useless. Why, as a scrapper, would I waste time using fear on one for instead of killing it. 

 

Jab is pretty useless, as a lot of t1 attacks, but jab is by far the worst. 

It's not a priority, but I've found Touch of ToHit debuff to be a handy power when my build wasn't soft-capped. Useful against hard-hitting bosses, out of the box it's 90% accurate, and does 22 seconds of 11% ToHit debuff on a 8 second timer.  Not an every fight power, and I commonly respec out of it once the build is fully grown but it's useful when levelling.  Every dark melee power does some -ToHit but ToF is the big hammer and can be a useful way to start a fight.

 

The fear side effect can be nice against annoying minions and lieutenants like sorcerers and sappers.

 

Jab should be better than Boxing. 

 

Minor edit-- ToF is a 22 second fear, but 20 seconds of -11.25% ToHit. 

Edited December 6, 2019 by eknudson
Wrong debuff length

[ZekeStenzland]

3 hours ago, Goddamage said:

Does it even get used, or is it just to unlock Tough/Weave? Does anyone ever pick everything from that Pool?

Almost every AT has better attacks than those in the Fighting pool. There are exceptions. MM attacks are generally equal to or worse than Fighting attacks. So if you were planning on taking Tough/Weave anyway, skip your lame MM attacks to take and slot better Fighting attacks.

 

The other case I can think of would be Controllers having primaries and secondaries that are light on actual damage, or have their big damage abilities on long recharges. Electric/Empathy, perhaps? (It’s been a while...)

[drbuzzard]

The fighter pool gets better the more of it you have (in attacks), so if you use all, it's +30% damage to boxing and kicking. I'm not sure if it's enhancement or base than changes though. If enhancement, that's fairly underwhelming.

 

The ice melee tier 1 is truly awful. It makes jab look choice. It's really slow, for really bad damage.

[Myrmidon]

8 hours ago, loyalreader said:

Besides the -to hit it effectively takes a lt/minion out of play for a decent amount of the fight. This strategy works extremely well in mobs - especially as dark melee is more single target focused. YMMV but this is a decent power. 

It can also disable a boss when stacking with Cloak of Fear.

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, ZekeStenzland said:

Almost every AT has better attacks than those in the Fighting pool. There are exceptions. MM attacks are generally equal to or worse than Fighting attacks. So if you were planning on taking Tough/Weave anyway, skip your lame MM attacks to take and slot better Fighting attacks.

So, THIS is the one that I try out the Fighting Pool attack chain on.

[Redlynne]

7 hours ago, ZekeStenzland said:

Almost every AT has better attacks than those in the Fighting pool. There are exceptions. MM attacks are generally equal to or worse than Fighting attacks.

Mastermind personal attacks are ranged and can be used to "pull" $Targets from groups (and/or entire groups).

Fighting pool attacks have a melee range "reach" to them.

[Shred Monkey]

15 hours ago, loyalreader said:

Besides the -to hit it effectively takes a lt/minion out of play for a decent amount of the fight. This strategy works extremely well in mobs - especially as dark melee is more single target focused. YMMV but this is a decent power. 

Leveling up, touch of fear is great, especially solo.  But once you have an endgame attack chain and power, I agree that it is better to just do damage.  A lot of control powers are like this.  Useful at low levels, but eventually you gain enough toughness to just stand and trade blows... and anything you can't trade blows with is immune to or highly resists controls.

 

Boxing, as other have said, is just to open up tough and weave, which are essential to a lot of builds.  I do often use boxing as a set mule but I don't even have it loaded onto my powers bar.  The only advantage I see for boxing over kick, in terms of set mules is boxing could use stun sets, which has some useful positional defense options.

 

 

[tidge]

19 hours ago, tafilr said:

The challenge with answering your question is it's subjective - that is, someone's opinion.  If I say the entire power pool of Presence sucks donkey balls, someone will come around and provide some obscure situational reply to refute.  And maybe they'd be right and I would be wrong.  Or vice-versa. 

Hold my beer.

 

I have a couple builds that go wide and deep into the Presence pool and another that is narrow.

 

The narrow build is simply to get to Unrelenting for the self heal. On high Recharge builds I have found that Unrelenting is available more often than I want a green inspiration. The Preventative Maintenance IO set is a good fit here. I've been a fan of the Medicine pool but Presence is a better 3-power path to a self-heal IMO. YMMV

 

The deep build includes both Intimidate and Invoke Panic 5-slotted on the way to

6-slotted Unrelenting. I appreciate the extra control these provide at low levels, and in Mayhem missions both can be used to destroy objects! At higher levels (and larger team sizes) the single-target is less useful, but as a follow-up to the AoE you can get the magnitude needed for bosses.

 

The two initial choices are very situational, but neither is completely useless and both are fine candidates for single-slotting.

 

The most truly useless power in the Homecoming configuration is Long Range Teleport. There are so many better options for getting to the zones accessible to LRT that there is no need to waste a power pick on it.

[Haijinx]

Once you slot the chance for hide ATO proc, placate is pretty much useless. 

 

 

[cheeseninja]

22 hours ago, Broken_Prey said:

Touch of fear on a Scrapper is pretty useless. Why, as a scrapper, would I waste time using fear on one for instead of killing it. 

Because ToF has a hefty to-hit debuff and reduces incoming DPS from the target.     Some sets benefit from this.   I know ToF saved my DM/SR from those nasty Warriors bosses more than once. 

[ZekeStenzland]

11 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Mastermind personal attacks are ranged and can be used to "pull" $Targets from groups (and/or entire groups).

Fighting pool attacks have a melee range "reach" to them.

True. But on my Beast/Nature mm, my pets are all melee, so melee is where I want to be. The lack of range doesn’t cost me much. The rare case where I want range to pull, I can use Blackwand or Nemesis Staff. 
 

Not saying other MM sets have this issue, but it worked out that way for me. And to be fair, I didn’t take the other fighting attacks because I like the animations for the hawk attack. 

[Heraclea]

23 hours ago, Broken_Prey said:

Touch of fear on a Scrapper is pretty useless. Why, as a scrapper, would I waste time using fear on one for instead of killing it.

Touch of Fear has the biggest -tohit debuff in Dark Melee.  Useful against tough foes and foes with attacks you just don't want to hit at all. 

 

That said, Group Fly and Team Teleport are pretty useless.  What would be nice is a Leaping power that worked like Group Fly; would be totally worth wasting a pick on it for the lolz.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Heraclea

[Blastit]

23 hours ago, tafilr said:

The challenge with answering your question is it's subjective - that is, someone's opinion.  If I say the entire power pool of Presence sucks donkey balls, someone will come around and provide some obscure situational reply to refute.  And maybe they'd be right and I would be wrong.  Or vice-versa.  

 

I guess to answer the question as best as I could, I would take it upon myself to try each power.  If you don't like it, respec.  Or try things out on Pineapple/Test as that's fairly simple to do.  Probably not the answer you were looking for....

I think it's fair to say that a power kind of, or outright, sucks if the best that can be mustered in its defence is an obscure situation.

 

Understanding why the most generally useful powers are the most generally useful is a much better first step towards mastery than going in-depth on the most unusual builds.

[srmalloy]

21 hours ago, ZekeStenzland said:

The other case I can think of would be Controllers having primaries and secondaries that are light on actual damage, or have their big damage abilities on long recharges. Electric/Empathy, perhaps? (It’s been a while...)

My Controllers all make extensive use of the Nemesis Staff and Blackwand prestige powers, and somewhat lesser use of Sands of Mu, regardless of their powersets; they're all significant additional DPS.

[ZekeStenzland]

Seems to me there’s also a self-phase power as well. Would be a pretty useful ability when things go pancake. But the cast time is so long, that by the time you realize you need to use it, it’s too late to activate it. 
 

cant remember the name.