Let’s talk about Titan Weapons

[Mantidae]

I’ve played the set for about 12 levels and my opinions are mixed at best.

 

Pros

A high damage attack at lvl 1;

A combination self Defense buff and enemy Res debuff at lvl 1;

Access to a high damage knockup cone at lvl 2 (4 for Tanks);

A sometimes-available superior damage knockdown and possible stun at lvl 6 (16 for Tanks) ;

The coolest-looking weapons in the game. You can use a chunk of concrete on a stick, a rocket powered hammer, chainsaw on a stick, a railroad crossing sign… They’re all bad-ass.

 

The powers work as advertised. TW offers huge burst damage: a Scrapper’s crit with a tier 1 attack will either one-shot a white mob or leave it with a sliver of health you can Brawl away. I’m guessing a Brute with high Fury could lay down glorious amounts of damage. The knock effects are strong and no other set gives you a knockdown cone that early. Plus it looks awesome.

 

Cons

Sssssllllooooooooowwww. It’s like being debuffed constantly. I shudder to think about what the set is like when actually debuffed. See what I said about Brawl above? You have time to get 3 of those in while waiting for an attack to recharge. In teams I find that my target usually dies before the wind-up is finished. Solo I can take a beating in between swings. A missed attack is heartbreaking.

 

Momentum is tricky to manage. It’s like Fury but not. I suppose getting used to it requires time. The set has a build-up which grants Momentum on a click but I haven’t used it much yet.

 

I don’t know what the set is like for Brutes or Tanks. It seems like a Brute might suffer a net Fury loss with the slowest attack chain in the game, but I don’t know if the extra shots enemies get during the wind-ups would make up for it. I think managing both Fury and Momentum would be quite a juggling act. For Tanks I think that waiting until 16 for that 3rd attack would be bothersome since it offers good control that might be needed in early levels.

 

I don’t know if TW’s trade-offs are worth it in a game where speed can be so important. Slotting would surely help but would it help enough? What are your experiences?

 

 

[Nightsjester]

Titan is a late bloomer, once you have all your attacks + the buff that immediately gives you momentum then it plays smooth as butter. It REALLY comes into its own with IO's and recharge redux. I will admit the early game feels real bad though.

[Veracor]

I'm a level 50 Bio/TW Tanker.  It's an amazing powerset and I am demolishing content with it, but Jester is right in that it sucks at low levels.  A combination of needing multiple attacks as well as the best attacks coming in late will do that, as well as the set eating many enhancement slots and much endurance.

 

Titan Weapons has its own unique set of challenges from any other choice in that it relies specifically on an attack chain you invent based on a specific amount of global recharge you're willing to get.  It is entirely possible to have a Rend/Arc chain without Hasten, but you have to be comfortable with activating them at different points during your Momentum (i.e. no closed-circuit ~6 second cycles).  And you also have to be comfortable with the idea of missing your Momentum-causing attack every once in a while.  Some people come to rely on Build Momentum, but I find the ability fairly unnecessary.

 

A lot of people get turned off by how the Titan Weapons works but I personally love it now that I've learned to live with it.  The designers definitely nailed how the powerset should look and feel.

[Zolgar]

Titan Weapons is, quite frankly, a superbly powerful set. I dislike it on brutes, personally, but on scrappers and tanks it's amazing (those crit numbers...)

 

It takes a while to come in to its own, and you have to learn to play with the momentum mechanic. As far as melee sets go, it has the steepest learning curve of any of the melee sets (not that most melees have any learning curve). It also does need a good pairing, Bio and Fire are good partners for it, because dear god is it an endurance hog... but this makes it no less amazing, and worth every drawback to the set.

 

 

[Rhinoxx]

Like others before me, I will have to say Titan Weapons is an absolute killer powerset - but just like the attack chain needs to build momentum before the hurt puts the pedal to the metal, so you need to build a chain of powers before you get to the golden point of absolute devastation. Which I frankly feel is very much in the spirit of a powerset - as you get more experienced, your options open up whole new ways of doing things.

Getting into the flow of the attack chain - finding out what works for mobs and what works for single targets - that makes a difference. And then when you get to the IOs and the juicy sets of those, things go crazy.

 

Get it. Learn it. Love it :)

[Heraclea]

My chief issue with Titan Weapons is animation lag.  It would not work all that well with defense sets like Fire or Bio Armor, or Regen, anything that relies on click powers for survival.  The slow animations also mean that after you've positioned yourself and queued up your Build Up and big AOE, the blaster has killed most of the mobs you had targeted. 

[jubakumbi]

My chief issue with Titan Weapons is animation lag.  It would not work all that well with defense sets like Fire or Bio Armor, or Regen, anything that relies on click powers for survival.  The slow animations also mean that after you've positioned yourself and queued up your Build Up and big AOE, the blaster has killed most of the mobs you had targeted.

 

So, your role in that case is comic relief? ;)

[marcussmythe]

Im running it with Dark Armor.  Pray for me.

[JnEricsonx]

I used to run a Spines/Dark Armor....the stuff I had to use for Endurance....

[Vanden]

The animations are also just bad. They don't synch well with the hit FX, and your character's speed seems to change at random, rather than feeling like you're wielding a truly massive weapon.

[Rhinoxx]

My chief issue with Titan Weapons is animation lag.  It would not work all that well with defense sets like Fire or Bio Armor, or Regen, anything that relies on click powers for survival.  The slow animations also mean that after you've positioned yourself and queued up your Build Up and big AOE, the blaster has killed most of the mobs you had targeted.

 

Gotta say that is not my experience at the higher levels, sure the Blaster can scratch some minions but there is a lot of enemies still left - that is just the damage part of it of course.

Also don't experience any lag - it's slow to do build-up sure, but that is just how the set works - I find you adjust to how to best use this over time.

 

On the defense side, I am running Titan Weapons on a Fire Tanker and I can say for sure he has no problems surviving, rather he's an inferno of blades and well, fire :)

[Pixie_Knight]

Can it possibly be worse then a Ice/Mace tanker? They suck down endurance like it's going out of style at any level.

[Zolgar]

My chief issue with Titan Weapons is animation lag.  It would not work all that well with defense sets like Fire or Bio Armor, or Regen, anything that relies on click powers for survival.  The slow animations also mean that after you've positioned yourself and queued up your Build Up and big AOE, the blaster has killed most of the mobs you had targeted.

 

This is why you play a Titan/Bio scrapper and just ignore the rest of the team until you get to the AV ;)

[Clave Dark 5]

As someone with a 13 tank running Titan Weapons, yeah, it's a rough starter.  But I have so far three of my attacks and I'm already seeing a light at the end of the tunnel there.  Being a tank, I'm mainly there to wave my hands in a mob's face to keep them distracted from the blaster in the corner anyway, so even if ithe set's a bit slow, the bigger the weapon the better the distraction, right?  Plus when it does finally work out, I expect it's going to be a lot of fun.

[Mantidae]

I think you make some good points about this set's uses for tanking since these attacks must draw a lot of threat.  The animation speed still gets me though.  I wonder if a heavily-slotted Chilling Embrace would slow the mobs' attacks enough to bring some sort of parity in attack speed?

[Yuro]

I think you make some good points about this set's uses for tanking since these attacks must draw a lot of threat.  The animation speed still gets me though.  I wonder if a heavily-slotted Chilling Embrace would slow the mobs' attacks enough to bring some sort of parity in attack speed?

 

Slotting Chilling Embrace will increase the movement speed debuff, but the recharge rate debuff isn't enhanceable.