Power Pools, Again

[Arnabas]

Any chance we can rebalance Power Pools?

Once upon a time, I was of the opinion that Power Pools should be weaker than primary/ secondary powers, but these days I am not so sure anymore.

By my reasoning, if we are giving up a standard power for the sake of a pool power, we are "paying" a price for it. If the issue is play balance (which, you know, barely exists anyway) then the fact that we are surrendering either a primary or secondary power should be enough. I don't think we need to make pool powers essentially just cosmetic.

 

Now, I admit, I am not a big numbers guy, but I am going by feel. I have one character for whom I picked up the Force of Will powerset because it was thematically a great fit... on paper. In play, there is no point in using it because it is so weak. An attack (Project WIll) that I "pay" for feels weaker even than Brawl. Not only doe s it not really do anything, it is painfully slow. And yet, other pool powers (Leadership pool, Hasten, etc) are useful enough that a number of people consider them essential. 

 

Some other powers are possibly more powerful than they should be, like Mystic Flight. I thought that would be useful to me because I have a character who teleports, but has a tendency to take damage when falling out of the sky between jumps (not when travelling in a straight line, but you don't really have time to turn and look around). I figured Mystic Flight would save me from buying Hover, because it has a mix of flight/ teleport. I expected it to be similar to hover but the flight component is pretty fast, and in my mind, makes the teleport component redundant.

 

So, I don't really expect pool powers to get a huge bump, but it would be nice if we could have them all be reasonably useful instead of a mix of essential and pointless.

 

Also: I would love to be able to customize them more. I would love to be able to have Boxing and Kick animate as sword strikes, for example. I wouldn't care about the damage type or anything, but thematically, I would love my DB/ Ninja Training Blaster to have an extra "sword" attack or two.

 

[kiramon]

Power pools are set unless you specifically build against them

 

leaping

speed

fighting

leadership

 

you can sub in concealment or flying in place of  leader or leaping, but most characters are confined to the above. Sad really. 
 

you do see some builds with sorcery so that’s okay 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by kiramon

[Arnabas]

15 minutes ago, kiramon said:

you do see some builds with sorcery so that’s okay 

 

I have Sorcery on two characters. It is just useful enough for me to not respec it out, but just barely. 

I would actually be interested in seeing a breakdown of which pool powers are being used.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Arnabas

[Twisted Toon]

2 hours ago, kiramon said:

Power pools are set unless you specifically build against them

 

leaping

speed

fighting

leadership

 

you can sub in concealment or flying in place of  leader or leaping, but most characters are confined to the above. Sad really. 
 

you do see some builds with sorcery so that’s okay 

 

 

I have several characters with none of those pool sets.

I'm not adverse to using Ninja Run as a pseudo-travel power.

 

2 hours ago, Arnabas said:

By my reasoning, if we are giving up a standard power for the sake of a pool power, we are "paying" a price for it.

 

Except that you will be forced to choose a pool power by level 24, and again at level 30.

You'll simply run out of options in the primary and secondary pools at that point.

By the time you've reached level 38, you'll have exhausted all the options in the primary and secondary sets (if you took them all when they were available) and have to resort to pool sets (including epic pools) to fill out the remaining 4 power slots.

 

That leaves you with 6 power slots total that you have to take a pool power to fill.

 

Many people have figured that the build they are working on would benefit more from a pool power than one or more of their primary/secondary powers.

 

[kiramon]

1 minute ago, Twisted Toon said:

I have several characters with none of those pool sets.

I'm not adverse to using Ninja Run as a pseudo-travel power.

 

Except that you will be forced to choose a pool power by level 24, and again at level 30.

You'll simply run out of options in the primary and secondary pools at that point.

By the time you've reached level 38, you'll have exhausted all the options in the primary and secondary sets (if you took them all when they were available) and have to resort to pool sets (including epic pools) to fill out the remaining 4 power slots.

 

That leaves you with 6 power slots total that you have to take a pool power to fill.

 

Many people have figured that the build they are working on would benefit more from a pool power than one or more of their primary/secondary powers.

 

That’s cool, but travel is the least relevant part of ANY of those sets. 

[DrInfernus]

Think it’d be nice if, instead of taking an epic power pool, you could choose to take a fifth standard one. 

[Arnabas]

13 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

Many people have figured that the build they are working on would benefit more from a pool power than one or more of their primary/secondary powers.

True enough, and yes I do realize that we are forced to choose power pools, but much of what I am saying is that it would be nice if we had a selection of equally-viable powers to choose from, rather than some which are extremely useful to most characters, and others that are largely cosmetic.

 

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, kiramon said:

Power pools are set unless you specifically build against them

 

leaping

speed

fighting

leadership

 

you can sub in concealment or flying in place of  leader or leaping, but most characters are confined to the above. Sad really. 
 

you do see some builds with sorcery so that’s okay 

 

 

... I have *few* characters with speed, fighting or leadership. I don't "build against them," I just don't want or need them, so I don't know what you're talking about here.  Leaping, I take on a good number simply because I *like* Super jump, not because of any overpowered-ness or whatever you're getting at here.

 

So, no, power pools are not "set."

[Heraclea]

I will take a travel power.  Boils down to Flight or Leaping, because Super Speed won't get you there, and Teleport costs way too much endurance and needs Fly or Hover anyways.  The more time a character spends redside the likelier they are to take Flight. 

 

Apart from a travel power other pool powers are definitely optional.  I take Fighting on most of my melees, all but for a regen scrapper, to help top off resistance and defense.  Hasten is vital for control oriented characters, skippable on most melees.  I will take one or two Leadership toggles if a character has endless endurance to run them with.  If a character prefers to be out of melee, I take Caltrops or Tashibishi, to cast at my own feet as a trouble button, if it is available. 

 

Scrappers have more build freedom than other melee  ATs if only because all scrapper primaries contain one clinker power in the form of Provoke.  And then there's usually something like Boggle as well.  I took leadership toggles on my Psi/WP scrapper because she could run them, they are team friendly, and help resist otherwise poorly resisted mez.  On my WP/Mace tanker I have Salt Crystals and Quicksand, which are handy debuffs that slow down mobs and attack in a wide AoE.  I bothered to run to redside on a couple characters to unlock patron pools; what I haven't done is to take them on any of them.  For ancillary pools the question really is, 'does this character need Energy/Body Mastery, or not?'  If I need to mule a couple more Performance Shifters I take them; otherwise no.

 

I generally prefer primary and secondary powers to any pool powers.  I even gave serious thought to taking Boggle over Hasten as the last pick on the Psi/WP scrapper.  Decided against it in the end.  May never know what I missed out on. 

[Twisted Toon]

3 hours ago, kiramon said:

That’s cool, but travel is the least relevant part of ANY of those sets. 

In your opinion. Also, that opinion doesn't make you right either.

Out of the dozens of characters that I have, I use Leadership on, maybe 4 of them.

I haven't picked up the fighting pool on any of them.

I have a whopping 1 character that uses Hasten.

I have 1 character that uses the Leaping pool. That's because he uses Spring Attack.

You're opinion that most characters are confind Leadership, Fighting, Leaping, and Speed pools is flat out wrong.

3 hours ago, Arnabas said:

True enough, and yes I do realize that we are forced to choose power pools, but much of what I am saying is that it would be nice if we had a selection of equally-viable powers to choose from, rather than some which are extremely useful to most characters, and others that are largely cosmetic.

 

As opposed to some pool powers that are more useful to the character than powers in their own primary and secondary sets?

[kiramon]

3 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

In your opinion. Also, that opinion doesn't make you right either.

Out of the dozens of characters that I have, I use Leadership on, maybe 4 of them.

I haven't picked up the fighting pool on any of them.

I have a whopping 1 character that uses Hasten.

I have 1 character that uses the Leaping pool. That's because he uses Spring Attack.

You're opinion that most characters are confind Leadership, Fighting, Leaping, and Speed pools is flat out wrong.

As opposed to some pool powers that are more useful to the character than powers in their own primary and secondary sets?

I bet we could get metrics proving your builds are pretty common on the new players. Doesn’t make it wrong, we’re talking people with some brain work put into their builds here, not the people that don’t use mids or try to soft cap

[kiramon]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

... I have *few* characters with speed, fighting or leadership. I don't "build against them," I just don't want or need them, so I don't know what you're talking about here.  Leaping, I take on a good number simply because I *like* Super jump, not because of any overpowered-ness or whatever you're getting at here.

 

So, no, power pools are not "set."

it’s not easy to make up the layers of defense you get from the power pools on a lot of ATs. Feel free to share your elite builds tho: I’ll wait 

[Greycat]

8 minutes ago, kiramon said:

it’s not easy to make up the layers of defense you get from the power pools on a lot of ATs. Feel free to share your elite builds tho: I’ll wait 

I don't need to softcap or perma anything. Completely uninterested. I find them boring. I never said anything about "elite builds." Nice try, though.

 

If you *choose* to make that kind of build, that is... your choice. It's not necessary in any form. Those choices might be "set" for that sort of build. That does not make them necessary for anybody else. Putting it another way -  If *I* choose to go racing and require my car to be stripped down, have a rollcage added, etc, it's because that's what I want to do, and those are the costs of that choice. It does not mean that Grandma's luxobarge or someone's minivan or classic car also need to be stripped down and have a roll cage and other modifications added. Understand?

 

No power pools are required for any AT or powerset to play the game. Stating that they are is a fallacy.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Greycat

[kiramon]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I don't need to softcap or perma anything. Completely uninterested. I find them boring. I never said anything about "elite builds." Nice try, though.

 

If you *choose* to make that kind of build, that is... your choice. It's not necessary in any form. Those choices might be "set" for that sort of build. That does not make them necessary for anybody else. Putting it another way -  If *I* choose to go racing and require my car to be stripped down, have a rollcage added, etc, it's because that's what I want to do, and those are the costs of that choice. It does not mean that Grandma's luxobarge or someone's minivan or classic car also need to be stripped down and have a roll cage and other modifications added. Understand?

 

No power pools are required for any AT or powerset to play the game. Stating that they are is a fallacy.

That’s true. You can beat the game using only brawl.

 

you do you 

[Gulbasaur]

4 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

I have a whopping 1 character that uses Hasten.

Yeah, outside of novelty builds I don't bother with Hasten. My storm/water defender was built to see how much I could abuse recharge from Hasten and knockdown procs to make Storm into something even sillier than it already is (turns out, a lot, but it's very repetitive).

 

"You need Hasten" is up there alongside "anything less than 45% defence is pointless" (watch me solo AVs with 35% on a low HP AT, bucko). There's a lot of Generic Forum Wisdom in the game that I think needs to be debunked and people often read "X is helpful" as "if you don't have X, it will be literally impossible".

 

At the back of my mind, I'm brewing up a build that has fun with the presence and fighting pools but I haven't decided on the AT yet.

[Greycat]

1 minute ago, kiramon said:

That’s true. You can beat the game using only brawl.

 

you do you 

I wonder if you understand how you just pretty well destroyed your own argument about those pools being "set."

[kiramon]

10 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I wonder if you understand how you just pretty well destroyed your own argument about those pools being "set."

I wonder if you understand my argument never applied to people that click random powers in the power select screen. 

 

As I said, you can build against it if you want. But I’ll clarify If you’re trying to optimize your build, and take the path of least resistance, they’re pretty set. 

Edited June 6, 2020 by kiramon

[Greycat]

43 minutes ago, kiramon said:

I wonder if you understand my argument never applied to people that click random powers in the power select screen. 

 

As I said, you can build against it if you want. But I’ll clarify If you’re trying to optimize your build, and take the path of least resistance, they’re pretty set. 

Wow, bit of an attitude from you there? No, I do not "click random powers in the power select screen." Nor do I "build against" anything. And I have plenty of experience with pretty much every AT and combo.

 

But, you're obviously not worth continuing a conversation with. so I won't.

[Zombie Hustler]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played a character that primarily relies on Power Pool powers and not their primary/secondary powers?

Edited June 7, 2020 by Zombie Hustler

[Twisted Toon]

1 hour ago, Zombie Hustler said:

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played a character that primarily relies on Power Pool powers and not their primary/secondary powers?

I believe several people have tried builds like that back before shutdown.

I also know that several people tried builds using only powers that a regular person would have access to.

Namely Brawl, and temp weapon powers.

Hasten, travel powers and 99% of all power-set powers were not allowed because they were deemed unfit for the "Man build"

4 hours ago, kiramon said:

I bet we could get metrics proving your builds are pretty common on the new players. Doesn’t make it wrong, we’re talking people with some brain work put into their builds here, not the people that don’t use mids or try to soft cap

Going back and reading the OP's post, I didn't see a single mention or even a serious hint of elite builds, other than "And yet, other pool powers (Leadership pool, Hasten, etc) are useful enough that a number of people consider them essential."

 

Just because a number of people consider something essential, doesn't mean that all players that "put some brain-work into their builds" think the same thing.

 

My Grav/Time Controller only uses Hover from the flight pool. Does not have Hasten, doesn't have Leadership, Doesn't have Fighting. Yet, is able to Tank for a team of 3 in missions set for 8.

I'm not trying to make a character that can Solo a MSR either. But, I have put some brain-work into that character. She's been doing very well for 47 levels.

 

[Six-Six]

2 hours ago, Zombie Hustler said:

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played a character that primarily relies on Power Pool powers and not their primary/secondary powers?

I have a friend who did a Mu character. Started out with a spider, had to pick primaries, but never used them... as mules at the most, and only used the Mu Patron powers. if that counts.

 

11 hours ago, kiramon said:

Power pools are set unless you specifically build against them

 

leaping

speed

fighting

leadership

 

you can sub in concealment or flying in place of  leader or leaping, but most characters are confined to the above. Sad really. 
 

you do see some builds with sorcery so that’s okay 

 

 

I don't think anything is "set". Yes we are forced to take power pools at certain levels; and the 4 you mentioned are quite popular among players, but they are hardly set.

I've never taken speed on any of my toons. 
I do take Leaping's Combat Jumping on almost every toon I make because it can take travel and def IOs at almost no end consumption. On one toon I think I took all 5 powers from Leaping because that's his fighting style.
Fighting and Leadership depends on what I need. I've used Fighting's Box, Kick, and Crosspunch (which are usually not what people take fighting for) as my "epic" pool for one or two toons. Leadership is not all that it's cracked up to be--more of a double edged sword.
I often take one or more of Sorcery, Flight, Experimentation, and Teleport because they offer more than just travel powers if one cares to try them out. I tried Force of Will on a toon once, but spec-ed out of it. Didn't fit my toon at the time. I've also taken Concealment at low levels out of necessity, but spec-ed out of it as soon as it became redundant.

I have yet to design a toon/build that uses the other pools I haven't tried.

 

To think that it is pertinent to take the 4 pools mentioned above is to admit that there is a certain "recipe" all players must follow or perish. That, good sir, would be narrow-minded and unimaginative.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Six Six

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Zombie Hustler said:

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played a character that primarily relies on Power Pool powers and not their primary/secondary powers?

Yep. I haven't, but there were several pools-only characters on live. Which do take a bit of planning and creativity.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Greycat

[kiramon]

I can’t really speak in something that doesn’t come off as offensive here- so forgive me.

 

Understand that “set” doesn’t mean “only way to do anything” but rather “path of least resistance to be optimized” with power pool picks. You can absolutely play the game with teleport, mystic flight, mighty leap, and speed of sound for all your power pool picks. 

 

ill be  12% defense, 28% (+70%)recharge ahead, but at least that other player would be in theme... they could get there, but I wonder if it would be as easy? I guess they’d have the ability to get 5% ranged and aoe defense for 8’slots.

 

mind you, as always, nobody that ever suggests someone “has to do something” is referring to the people that aren’t trying to optimize their character — if you’re playing for theme, likes, dislikes, graphics etc — that conversation probably doesn’t affect you.

 

there is no power that anyone has to have to play the game or enjoy it. None. Not even stamina, which was made baseline despite the thematic people claiming they didn’t need it so they could take spore seeds in their plant dom build for RP. 
 

and yes, your stone tankers can get defense capped super easily without the power pools XD 

Edited June 7, 2020 by kiramon

[Grouchybeast]

7 hours ago, kiramon said:

Understand that “set” doesn’t mean “only way to do anything” but rather “path of least resistance to be optimized” with power pool picks. 

You could have saved a lot of aggravation if you'd started off your post with 'If you are a dedicated min-maxer who refuses to compromise to any degree on character performance, then power pools are set unless you specifically build against them...' etc etc.  I don't think people would have disagreed with that.

 

It's a self-imposed problem for a small subset of the playing population.

[kiramon]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

You could have saved a lot of aggravation if you'd started off your post with 'If you are a dedicated min-maxer who refuses to compromise to any degree on character performance, then power pools are set unless you specifically build against them...' etc etc.  I don't think people would have disagreed with that.

 

It's a self-imposed problem for a small subset of the playing population.

🙂