Why take leadership?

[Satanu_Reeves]

Hello Everyone,

 

I'm back to City of Heroes after not playing for a very long time, like years before it shut down even. There's a lot of things I still don't understand since coming back and I was hoping you could help. So, I'm playing a defender and have been looking around for builds. One thing I noticed is that all of the builds I'm finding include the leadership power tree. Back in the day, I always remembered these as being a huge endurance suck with disappointing returns. Maneuvers and Tactics were not needed by most level 50 teams and Assault was a nice bonus if you had the end but not necessary. It really seemed like not a lot of builds included the powers when I was playing last.

 

Do people take them to use special sets and gain access to procs? Cause that's something I don't really understand yet, I'm not sure which sets I'll be using. If so, can that be achieved with other powers? I really hate these powers is what I'm getting at but I will use them if it means making an effective level 50 defender.

 

TLDR: I don't understand why people take the leadership powers so I don't know if I should include them in my build.

[Frosticus]

A few factors are at play.

Maneuvers and veng = 2 lotg spots

Maneuvers might be important to reach soft cap def

Tactics+global acc bonuses can permit skipping acc slotting directly into powers allowing for more efficient slotting of attacks/procs

There are more options for recovery than back in the day. P2W buffs and easier access to incarnates make endurance (if you so choose) a minor speed bump.

 

So the pool offers decent incentive for a solo player and has always been valuable in team settings. As soon as a couple people show up running leadership it is a solid indication that the team is going to cruise through content. 

[Doomguide2005]

+11 to everything just said by Frosticus.  The key take away is team play, stacking Leadership is extremely potent for the team.  For example 8 Maneuvers enhanced  and everyone with no other effort is now at or exceeding the defense softcap.  Similar benefits to Tactics and Assault (8 of each is like everyone with Build Up and then some  running 24-7).  And defenders get the largest buffs from the pool.

 

But it does require everyone to take it for the team to reap the benefit.  A couple members is nice, 8 doing so is going to shred most content.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Doomguide2005

[LiquidBandage]

6 hours ago, Satanu_Reeves said:

Hello Everyone,

 

I'm back to City of Heroes after not playing for a very long time, like years before it shut down even. There's a lot of things I still don't understand since coming back and I was hoping you could help. So, I'm playing a defender and have been looking around for builds. One thing I noticed is that all of the builds I'm finding include the leadership power tree. Back in the day, I always remembered these as being a huge endurance suck with disappointing returns. Maneuvers and Tactics were not needed by most level 50 teams and Assault was a nice bonus if you had the end but not necessary. It really seemed like not a lot of builds included the powers when I was playing last.

 

Do people take them to use special sets and gain access to procs? Cause that's something I don't really understand yet, I'm not sure which sets I'll be using. If so, can that be achieved with other powers? I really hate these powers is what I'm getting at but I will use them if it means making an effective level 50 defender.

 

TLDR: I don't understand why people take the leadership powers so I don't know if I should include them in my build.

Before the Snipe changes last summer, a player needed over 22% ToHit to make Sniper attacks instant. With a Defender you could push Tactics slightly above that threshold so snipes were always instant. That was one reason.

 

If you are looking for a cookie cutter build, then just go ahead and copy someone else's work. Not all primary/secondary sets use endurance in the same way, so Leadership could be a lesser or greater burden. Open up the Combat Attributes dialog and look at how buffs stack in a team. Look at your powers and decide whether it is important to slot END reduction so you can spam and have Leadership powers running, or display some restraint and not spam your END hog powers on that white con minion that some Blaster is just going to brush aside anyways. You have to decide what is important to your effectiveness and how you perceive your worth in a team or solo. If you don't like Leadership, then don't take it. 

[Justaris]

Pretty much agree with everything previously said regarding the way Leadership stacks up nicely, the opportunities for slotting LOTGs if going for high-recharge build or edging up closer to softcap if going high-Defense build with Maneuvers.     I'd just add that Vengeance is also an incredibly powerful buff, even more so if you have access to Power Build Up.    Granted, someone has to die to use it, but I've turned certain teamwipes into successful combats using Vengeance.    So that's another factor in favor of Leadership.

[Satanu_Reeves]

@Frosticus Thank you, your post was really informative. Pretty much answers why I see it everywhere. @Doomguide2005 and thank you for following up with more detail.

 

@Justaris I did usually avoid powers that required someone to die and I'll probably try to do that again this time around. Will probably get combat jumping instead. That may depend on how often I find myself in groups where people are dying. I dunno, hopefully not a lot. Thank you for your input.

 

@LiquidBandage Whatever.

[Justaris]

2 minutes ago, Satanu_Reeves said:

@Justaris I did usually avoid powers that required someone to die and I'll probably try to do that again this time around. Will probably get combat jumping instead. That may depend on how often I find myself in groups where people are dying. I dunno, hopefully not a lot. Thank you for your input.

That's a fair point.    Generally I look at it as a good choice for a minimal slotting power.     If you have space for one power and you don't have slots to spend on it, Vengeance is ridiculously powerful out of the box.   Even if you don't take Vengeance, there's still a lot to be said for Leadership in the toggles.   I'd venture to say it's probably one of the most impactful choices of any of the pool power options - so individual utility ultimately depends on how much room your build has for powers beyond the primary and secondary sets.

[Ankhammon]

Sounds like all of CoH is waking up to the power of multi buffs. Of course, you all realize it's a Nemesis plot to get rid of defenders from all groups. 😨

 

 

Wonder how long it will be before every says. "Hey, lets all take Invoke Panic and we'll have everything rooted in place and skiert"? 

[Satanu_Reeves]

I got some good feedback and it looks like I have a lot of research to do on the crafted enhancement sets. They didn't have these when I was playing my defender.  It's true that when I played people didn't take these powers much. I tried them and I was usually the only person in the group that had them. Didn't seem like we face rolled across the content any faster but it made my experience more stressful because it caused an endurance problem.

[Hjarki]

On 7/27/2020 at 6:42 PM, LiquidBandage said:

If you are looking for a cookie cutter build, then just go ahead and copy someone else's work.

I think this tends to be 'bad advice' in the sense that virtually all builds are incarnated level 50 builds that cost 250+ billion influence or more. They're not very accessible to the average player.

 

Moreover, many of those builds 'peak' at different levels and may be brutally difficult to level up or exemplar very badly.

 

I think a better strategy is to find something you look and study the build. Try to figure out why someone did what they did and if it doesn't make sense to you, ask. Even if the original build designer isn't around, most of the decent ones know perfectly well why power X was slotted with enhancements Y and can answer your questions about builds they've never seen before.