What Is the **WORST** AT/PowerSet Combination?

[PainX]

for me Energy blast combined with anything oh and lets be clear not saying you cant play it just saying i wont infact i swear if i ever want to blap cue KB then next i get into team and im like i should fire im a blaster then im like but i dont want to annoy the scrapper he hits like a truck then ofc i do he moves to the next pack two bosses chase me and im like mr scrapper HLEP! they holding me

Edited June 16, 2020 by PainX

[Redlynne]

41 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

For melee ATs at least I'd say Martial Arts is definitely up there for the worst primary. It has a mixed bag of secondary crowd control meaning none of them really ever get applied, its ST damage is mediocre and AoE is pretty garbage.

[killigraphy]

1 hour ago, kosten07 said:

I mourn Energy Melee on pretty much every AT. =(

 

Total focus for me,  is purely aesthetic.  On my Invul its always fun, I love whirling hands and TF, but thats about it....

[DR_Mechano]

My own personal vote is AR/Invuln Sentinel. AR on a sentinel is just straight hot garbage. With its the lower target cap, the narrower cones and lower damage it took what was already a suffering primary on Blasters and just made it straight up god damn awful. Combined with Invuln offering very little to help buff its primary or add any secondary damage out put (at least SR gets the recharge boost...). That combo was the one that single handedly killed my interest in sentinels stone cold dead and since that point I've refused to make one.

[killigraphy]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

For melee ATs at least I'd say Martial Arts is definitely up there for the worst primary. It has a mixed bag of secondary crowd control meaning none of them really ever get applied, its ST damage is mediocre and AoE is pretty garbage. For secondary, I'd say either Ice (the Scrapper version is ok) or Stone Armor, but with IOs I'd say Stone takes the cake as Ice's shortcomings are easier to deal with. Basically the worst melee AT I can imagine is MA/Stone Brute that doesn't even get the +Def from Storm Kick like Tankers.

It(MA) was always pretty trashy, even on release, the moves look clunky/corny, and it was only really used by SR scrappers who wanted that huge def buff from Storm Kick. Martial combat looks better, we just need it for Tanks.  As for the CC and AoE....pretty much agree there, if you're an MA main (like I once was), you're really just a LT and Boss killer, you don't just trash mobs....ever.

[gromartwo]

Ice/Ice Dominator - with a caveat. I made an Ice/Ice villain dom and he started out okay but when I got to Arctic Air and Shiver he became frustrating. The powers seemed lackluster and ENd heavy. I respecced him and took Sorcery and Presence powers to replace ice powers I didn't like. He is fun now.

 

My current frustration is an Electric/Kin Corruptor. Electric is great on a blaster but weaker on a Corruptor so the secondary powerset has to help it out. Kinetics heal is great - if it hits and if you are close enough (but if you are close enough things hit you because Elec doesn't kill them. When you finally get a good hit and heal yourself you don't have enough End to kill the enemy.  I also have an Electric/Storm Corruptor who has End problems but the powers work together better and he is easier to play and more fun.

 

Spines/Dark Scrapper and Dark/Ice Tanker. Both of these were due to the end cost of dark. I have used Spines in other combos and liked it but the Spines?dark was a frustrating mess so i deleted him.  I managed to get the Dark/Ice to 50 but it was a struggle. Ice has no ooomph so combat takes longer and dark is End heavy and your toggles drop and... you get the picture:)

[SlaveDawg]

On 6/10/2020 at 10:11 AM, Rathulfr said:

 

I beg to differ with this statement.  My most recent level 50+3 is an Energy/Devices Blaster, and he's the most fun I've had in a long time. 

 

IMO, Devices is probably one of the best Blaster secondaries: Targeting Drone gives over 97% ToHit for bonus damage on every snipe, and Field Operative is defense, endurance recovery, and stealth all rolled into one tidy power.  When combined with Smoke Grenade and/or Celerity +Stealth in Sprint, there isn't any mission or almost any mob I can't completely ghost with impunity.  Gun Drone is a great pet for ranged-only Blasters, as it serves as a great distraction and aggo magnet.  The available set bonuses for it are also pretty useful.

 

IMO, Trick Arrow is still the most useless secondary in the game -- at least until it gets the love I hear is coming Soon™ to HC.

 

I leveled an Energy/Devices Blaster on live. I made him around Issue 3 and slogged all the way to level 50, almost all his levels were before IOs, Back then Devices was really bad and Energy was shunned by almost every team. I would get kicked a lot until some random Hero introduced me to "hover blasting" where you hover above the mobs and shoot them down so they just fall over instead of knocking them into next week. It was not easy, but for some reason I stuck with it.

 

In contrast, I remade that character on Homecoming and leveled him to 50 again, but the changes to Devices, KB to KD IOs, soft capping Ranged Def, increased range on Power Burst, and fast snipe have all made him very easy to level and very, very fun to play. So, I can easily see why you love yours because I love mine too.

 

As for the worst, I have a few:

 

MM / Necro/Dark

     - Necro is just a bad set. I keep reading all the stuff about the ninjas being paper targets, well.... yeah, that is Necro too. Even with /Dark and heavy IO slotting it was painful. The only reason I even leveled him to 50 was because he was the very first MM that I made during the CoV Beta.

 

Blaster Dark Blast/anything

     - I leveled a Dark Blast/Energy Blaster to 50 and the only thing that saved it was the Energy secondary and because it was a theme (not intended for min/maxing). Now it is parked in the Abyss for doing Hamidon Raids and pretty much nothing else. As a side note, I think Dark Blast is awesome on Defenders, and I have a L50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender that I absolutely love!

 

Kinetic Melee Brute

     - I am not sure if the set is just bad, or if I just hated it. I played one up to around level 24 and could not take the animations any longer, not to mention the attacks felt very slow and weak.

 

Assault Rifle

     - I have rolled a couple of these over time, but I have never been able to play one past level 20. I just don't like it.

[Zeraphia]

Not being theoretical here, going to actually discuss some of the toons I've personally made and "hated" and had the enhancements on them shattered:

 

1. Robots/FF Mastermind... This combo is boring, honestly weak, not really even *that* tanky, and not great team utility either honestly. The defense is always nice, but beyond that, it's just harder to control DPS via pets and... I don't know I've just made bigger and better things than this many times over, it's super bland.

 

2. Fire Control/Kinetics Controller... This is a really popular combo that has (from many charts and statistics) taken a nosedive in popularity. On live many moons ago, this was a powerhouse and excellent combination, and I think the other thing wrong here is that Controllers are just not bringing what's needed anymore. You have Defenders and Corruptors dishing out better buffs/debuffs to leverage themselves with higher damage over your controls. I think it does fine solo and it does work for farming but in general, this one was a hard pass, especially against harder AV's.

 

3. SS/Shield Brute... Not a terrible combination, just overall should've probably been rolled as a Tanker in light of the recent changes (I made her way before them) and unfortunately just didn't work out to be what I had hoped for (I kind of wanted a character that could just farm any and everything in the game). Perhaps I gave up on her too easily because I played through a shadow shard TF and she just kept getting wrecked by Nemesis and Rularuu so bad I stopped playing her. To be fair, I really don't think this is a bad combo I just probably didn't give her a fair shake.

 

4. Ice Blast/Atomic Blaster... It's just not my favorite. I don't care for Ice Blasts' T9, I really dislike how it's a low damage over time (technically it is high damage at the end but still). She was safer, I guess, but she was... definitely not fire.

 

5. Plant/Empathy Controller... It's just a weird combination in general, it was supposed to be a "heal bot" before I realized that healing really isn't that valued in this game as much as I believed (for like regular content). 

 

6. Rad/Fiery Aura Scrapper... Everything just runs, there's no taunting at all, Burn just scatters everything. It was a nightmare, I really don't recommend this one. Hit hard, but was a failure overall (sorry to this who enjoy this).

 

7. Assault Rifle/Atomic Blaster... Do not recommend, even with Atomic "helping" the primary. I thought it would be "OP" due to Ignite and the Sniper and various other great tools but... boy was I wrong about that one. I will never make another Assault Rifle toon again, sorry to those who enjoy it but... no. I'm sure AR/Ninja is quite horrific.

 

There are many more that I'm just not thinking of that are potentially worse but my memory escapes me, or were just so "meh" I got bored of them rather than they were outright "bad."

 

I'm not saying any of these combinations are outright awful and the worst combos you can make, but I've found them to be either really over-hyped for what they are or just massive underperformers in so many regards. I think lots of these may be that I didn't build them properly and now that I know more I could "make them work" but some of these I just wouldn't touch, there are much better combinations out there that work fabulously. 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Zeraphia

[SlaveDawg]

6 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

4. Ice Blast/Atomic Blaster... It's just not my favorite. I don't care for Ice Blasts' T9, I really dislike how it's a low damage over time (technically it is high damage at the end but still). She was safer, I guess, but she was... definitely not fire.

I laughed when I read this because I am playing up an Ice/Atomic Blaster right now. He is around level 40. And the thing that actually works with this combo is that I can run in and AoE hold the majority of the group using Radioactive Cloud, use my other holds to lock down any bosses, and then drop Blizzard and Ice Storm on them (works even better if you have a Brute or Tank to round them up first). And with my IO sets (for Defense) and Beta Decay they have a really hard time hitting me.

 

But, I can see why some people would not like the combo. I mainly took it for the synergy with all the holds (I have 4 of them), slows, and ToHit Debuffs. It makes it a very safe combination to level solo and on teams.

[DSorrow]

On 6/16/2020 at 6:10 PM, Chance Jackson said:

Brutes do get the +def from Storm Kick 7.5% def to be specific where as tankers get 10%

 

*Blasters, Dominators, Scrappers & Stalkers do not get any def bonus

Huh, never knew this. Unfortunately I'm still not sure if it improves (imo) MA's bottom position for Brutes, but at least it's then a closer competition between MA and EM.

Edited June 18, 2020 by DSorrow

[Carnifax]

Ice/Thorns domi on Live. Pre-buffs to Ice to make Jack worth a damn. Ice gets little from domination, Jack was made of paper, any AoE immob broke your main control and Thorns provides little mitigation. Happily reinvented as a Bio/Spines tank (who was actually happy about all the hate he attracted, unlike the Dom).

[loyalreader]

On 6/16/2020 at 1:32 PM, SlaveDawg said:

Blaster Dark Blast/anything

     - I leveled a Dark Blast/Energy Blaster to 50 and the only thing that saved it was the Energy secondary and because it was a theme (not intended for min/maxing). Now it is parked in the Abyss for doing Hamidon Raids and pretty much nothing else. As a side note, I think Dark Blast is awesome on Defenders, and I have a L50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender that I absolutely love!

I'm running one of these now doing duos with my brother. Like you, theme drove it for me (cool toon, cool name, etc.). I'm enjoying it so far but it's certainly not the hardest-hitting set. What about it turned you off? At 28 now and hoping Boost Range and Power Boost make Dark Blast shine (heal, hold, to-hit debuff). Am I in for a  world of disappointment?  

[Uun]

2 hours ago, loyalreader said:

I'm running one of these now doing duos with my brother. Like you, theme drove it for me (cool toon, cool name, etc.). I'm enjoying it so far but it's certainly not the hardest-hitting set. What about it turned you off? At 28 now and hoping Boost Range and Power Boost make Dark Blast shine (heal, hold, to-hit debuff). Am I in for a  world of disappointment?  

I just took a Dark/TA to 50. Dark needs some love, but it's far from the worst. Needs a KB>KD in Umbral Torrent. I slot Tenebrous Tentacles with procs (and +range) as the DOT is really weak. 

[Eoghnved]

I have a level 46 Kinetic/Psychic Blast Defender who is instantly sent to the hospital from any attack.  I ended up with about 20 hospital trips on the Imperious task force.

[ForeverLaxx]

5 hours ago, Uun said:

I just took a Dark/TA to 50. Dark needs some love, but it's far from the worst. Needs a KB>KD in Umbral Torrent. I slot Tenebrous Tentacles with procs (and +range) as the DOT is really weak. 

The DoT isn't weak, it's just slow. It does the same, or more, damage as other blast set's AoE (barring Fire). The real problem with Dark Blast is that their cones don't line up very well and TT doesn't automatically convert KB into KD like most of the cone immobilizes in Control sets.

[FourSpeed]

The most frustrating AT that I ever managed to get to 50 was a  Rad/Elec Defender back on Live. How I hated that toon by the time he finally got there.

 

The meh damage output of Elec as a Defender secondary coupled with the hit or miss rad anchoring mechanic (ie. cast on one guy in the middle of the pile and (hope to) keep the rest of the guys in it while I killed them with the equivalent of 1000 9V shocks on the tongue) was ... brutal, and usually pretty dicey.  Oddly enough, when it *did* work, it seemed like I could kill red-con mobs with impunity, but when it didn't (much more often), even green-cob mobs would faceplant him sometimes.  For me, the entire crapshoot roller coaster was utterly hateful.   By contrast, I absolutely loved my BiForm PB, because he was so steady, and knew what he could handle, and that was *always* consistent. That defender? - roll a d8 ... 1-5 is a faceplant , 6 & 7 are OK, 8 was a god-mode encounter.  Yuck!  Give me a Blaster, any blaster any day, and I'd be much happier, and a *lot* safer as well...  😉 

 

I did try a Sonic something or other, and after about 3 levels of the wretched sound effects, I deleted it, and have never even looked at a sonic anything ever again...  Nails on a chalkboard - pure awful.

 

YMMV  🙂      Fun Topic!

 

Cheers,

4

 

 

[ClawsandEffect]

Interesting how many of the combos mentioned are things that either me or my wife played, and played well. 

 

Illusion/Storm Controller and Necro/Poison MM were 2 that jumped out at me as 2 that my wife played extensively and loved. 

 

I played a Sonic/Devices blaster to 50 and regularly afterward. He was probably my best blaster, as dead blasters deal 0 damage and he rarely died. 

 

Currently I'm playing a Dark/Mental blaster and really enjoying her. I built her for the sheer number of cone attacks that combo has access to. I play it as a hover blaster and kill mobs with impunity. 

 

For me the worst set is Stone Armor. Tank or brute, it doesn't matter. Sure, it's great for survivability, but you should never be FORCED into a certain travel power just to be able to function normally. 

[Uun]

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

The DoT isn't weak, it's just slow. It does the same, or more, damage as other blast set's AoE (barring Fire).

You are correct. My point is that the procs do more damage than you would get if you slotted TT for damage, and they're front loaded.

[ILIWAPCT]

Corruptors that aren't Rad/Kinetics. 

Back when we had Red/Blue side, they were our only choice for a "healer"

Everyone loved you and wanted you on your team.

 

I don't remember my  3rd combination was.

Just that it was so painful that I never touched the set again.

 

Today I can make Arachnos Soldier's fun but non-Rad/Kinetics Corruptors forget it.

[VV]

Fire/Kin back on live

Maybe 32?

It just felt so papery. Something would look at it and it would die. All of everyone loving on it, I could not see why. I had to give up before I ended up just hating the game, in general. 

 

 

[Palladiamors]

On 6/7/2020 at 9:08 AM, Peacemoon said:

I always think MMs are suppose to play more like an illusion controller. Throw in it’s pets to distract the mobs and cause chaos while buffing/debuffing/supporting. But it never quite worked, at least for me. To much emphasis is placed in the pets (5 out of 9 powers). Another 3 out of 9 are wasted on personal attacks that are not allowed to function properly. I think the original devs got carried away with the pets and lost sight of the player.

I often think I’d prefer it if the pets just followed and attacked like controller pets, and you didn’t need to equip them. It’s such a gimmick. You could drop the equip powers and repurpose them, with the personal attacks, for some control-type powers or attacks that actually do damage. Oh well! I’m sure some people like MMs, but I’m not a fan.

Oh heck no.  Masterminds are dang near PERFECT.  The focus isn't on the player by design,  you are there to ferry your minions from one target to the next and you are there to supplement their damage and keep them alive/the target debuffed.  I do wish they'd go with passive equip buff other servers have going on but no,  they do not need to be replaced with more personal powers.  If you want more focus on the player go play a archetype that doesn't rely on or even HAVE minions,  geez.  Plenty of blasters,  scrappers, ETC out there for you to play as without trying to change a playstyle other people like.

[killigraphy]

2 hours ago, Palladiamors said:

Oh heck no.  Masterminds are dang near PERFECT.  The focus isn't on the player by design,  you are there to ferry your minions from one target to the next and you are there to supplement their damage and keep them alive/the target debuffed.  I do wish they'd go with passive equip buff other servers have going on but no,  they do not need to be replaced with more personal powers.  If you want more focus on the player go play a archetype that doesn't rely on or even HAVE minions,  geez.  Plenty of blasters,  scrappers, ETC out there for you to play as without trying to change a playstyle other people like.

 

Yeah he's definitely playing the class wrong, and needs to implement defensive stance. My MM can take alpha strikes from groups at 50+, with regular IO's, with set pieces, its just ridiculous.