Ignoring IO sets - what ATs and powersets have a different playstyle?

[DougGraves]

I'm soloing with a stalker.  It plays totally different than my dominator. 

 

With my stalker I can skip most of the spawns and a fight is very quick - with some downtime between fights waiting for recharge.

 

With my dominator (plant) I can confuse a spawn and then take them out one by one.  Fights can be slow because I am safe.  But I don't skip spawns.

 

I know traps normally has a different playstyle, brute is all about maintaining momentum.  What are the various playstyles that ATs and powersets inherently have?

[Black Zot]

Illusion with its pet shenanigans is WAAAAAY different than any other control set.  Rather than staying safe by reducing chaos, you're keeping safe by increasing it.

 

Masterminds play quite a bit differently depending on whether you're running a buffing or debuffing secondary.

[Snarky]

very Deep question.  Take Blasters.  Billed as "Ranged"....still angry over this.  They are built from the ground up as blappers.  Then you have sets with a ton of cones and some PBAoE, they jump back and forth to correct range 'jousting'  and then there are the AR and Beam Blasters.  Actually ranged.  

 

That is one AT.  The examples are endless.  And i am sure I missed the finer possibilities just in Blasters.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I'm confused. I thought every AT and Powerset Combo ended up being Tab, F, 1, 2, 3 (or more) repeat until everything that shows up with a red box is dead.

[gamingglen]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

very Deep question.  Take Blasters.  Billed as "Ranged"....still angry over this.  They are built from the ground up as blappers.  Then you have sets with a ton of cones and some PBAoE, they jump back and forth to correct range 'jousting'  and then there are the AR and Beam Blasters.  Actually ranged.  

 

That is one AT.  The examples are endless.  And i am sure I missed the finer possibilities just in Blasters.

No they aren't.  I never "blapped" until Martial Combat became a secondary and I still use mostly range attacks. If I really want to use melee attacks I'll play a scrapper or stalker. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, gamingglen said:

No they aren't.  I never "blapped" until Martial Combat became a secondary and I still use mostly range attacks. If I really want to use melee attacks I'll play a scrapper or stalker. 

One can easily argue that thanks to all the melee attacks in the secondary, blasters were always designed with blapping in mind. And one can easily argue how swell that is to give us so many powers to skip so that we can instead focus on ranged mitigation.

 

But then we can also argue that sentinels are better thanks to built in mez protection but that ignores the love of I Win buttons we can buy from the P2W vendor.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Myrmidon]

6 hours ago, gamingglen said:

No they aren't.  I never "blapped" until Martial Combat became a secondary and I still use mostly range attacks. If I really want to use melee attacks I'll play a scrapper or stalker. 

Most Blaster melee attacks are places that Kinetic Combat goes into to finish capping  Smashing/Lethal Defense. You’ll infrequently use them on teams (because almost everything is dead), however, then can come in handy while solo.

 

Martial Combat, on the other hand, is so much crazy fun that you may find yourself sometimes using your range attacks as a secondary.😁

[Shred Monkey]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm confused. I thought every AT and Powerset Combo ended up being Tab, F, 1, 2, 3 (or more) repeat until everything that shows up with a red box is dead.

No.. some AT's don't F.

[Coyote]

1 minute ago, Shred Monkey said:

No.. some AT's don't F.

They don't F with the enemy?

What do they do, just Tab with them?

😄

[Snarky]

I guess I shouldnt even bring up the ranged (short, but still ranged) Brutes "Tank-Mage" I used at 50 for a month based around Kinetic Melee - Invulnerability?

[Grouchybeast]

43 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Martial Combat, on the other hand, is so much crazy fun that you may find yourself sometimes using your range attacks as a secondary.😁

Ranged attacks are very important with Martial Combat.  It's vital to have a variety of stylish ways to shoot the mobs who are slo-mo flying backwards through the air after Ki Push.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

Ranged attacks are very important with Martial Combat.  It's vital to have a variety of stylish ways to shoot the mobs who are slo-mo flying backwards through the air after Ki Push.

“Ki Push-Kick of your choice-lots of bullets” is the preferred method, yes.😁

[Flintlock Burnfur]

8 hours ago, gamingglen said:

No they aren't.  I never "blapped" until Martial Combat became a secondary and I still use mostly range attacks. If I really want to use melee attacks I'll play a scrapper or stalker. 

Blappers have been around since live, since before the MA.  Two of the big time blapper combos was /NRG and /ELEC.  For a time, the majority of blappers were some combo of Energy Blast/NRG, AR/NRG, Fire Blast/NRG, or any of those combos with /ELEC.

 

Back on live, I had a Sonic/NRG and an AR/NRG blaster, and they could survive really well.  Now, with /MA and /NIN, you've suddenly got two more blapper types.

 

And of course, that doesn't even talk about the fact that, yes, you can be a FIRE/FIRE blapper.

 

I admit that with my DP/MA blaster I blap way more than I do with my DP/NRG blapper.  To be fair, my DP/NRG blaster is built to be ranged, whereas my DP/MA blaster has the fighting power pool worked into the build for some defence and resistance.

[Grouchybeast]

26 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

“Ki Push-Kick of your choice-lots of bullets” is the preferred method, yes.😁

DP/MC is the combo where I keep asking my duo partner, did you see that, did you see what I did?  Did you see how cool I looked? 😄

[Flintlock Burnfur]

I do like the combo of Storm Kick and Ki Push.

[Flintlock Burnfur]

While there's has been a huge amount of discussion about blasters, I think I'm gonna go back to the topic at large.

 

Kin Melee and Energy Aura - Who does it better?

 

I started a kin melee and energy aura scrapper and was absolutely frustrated by the number of times I would get caught and faceplant.  I've since rebuilt my scrapper as a stalker, and boy! What a difference.

 

Both are melee builds, but there's a bit more freedom with the stalker version than the scrapper version.  Even for, what could be called, tankiness.  The stalker, shock and amazement, fairs far better than the scrapper.  My stalker, who is level 47, can go toe to toe with a Fake Nemesis, War Hulk, Nemesis Lieutenant and two jaegars.  My scrapper, albeit I changed her over at level 20, could barely stand up to Circle of Thorns guides.  And the stalker, is facing those at +2, while the scrapper was facing them at even con.

 

That's an experience with kin/energy.  I still have a scrapper (who is awesome) with Street Justice/Will Power, the concealment power pool and super speed.  She can easily sneak up on mobs then clean the floor with them due to how tanky she is.  She's level 50, and I often solo content at +2.  I even have a Brute with MA/WP who's very fun to play that way as well.

 

Now, back to blasters (blappers) for a minute.

 

I have many blasters (blappers) that I play.  The first toon I made on HC was a DP/NRG blaster.  She's awesome!  I use a very strategic and tactical plan when playing her. She's definitely one that can hold her own but is not going to rush into something like my SJ/WP scrapper will.  I also have a DP/NIN blaster (okay, I don't just have a lot of blasters, I specifically have a lot of dual pistols blasters).  She is far more stealth, strategic and tactical than my DP/NRG blaster.  She's not as tanky (if I can use that term).  And finally, I have my DP/MC blaster.  She is very much a blapper.  Far more tanky that either of the other two blasters, but still uses caution in a fight.  When I got Reaction Time with her, the game seemed to change, far more in her favour.  End and Health were no longer as much of an issue as before.  Having five distinct ranged attacks with five distinct melee attacks was a huge help, only beefed up with boxing, tough and weave from the fighting power pool. This blaster, totally could go +2 solo, whereas my DP/NRG might do +1 and my DP/NIN would have to be even con or even -1 to survive.

[gamingglen]

22 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

One can easily argue that thanks to all the melee attacks in the secondary, blasters were always designed with blapping in mind. And one can easily argue how swell that is to give us so many powers to skip so that we can instead focus on ranged mitigation.

I know blapping existed in the beginning, but "in mind" is different than "They are built from the ground up as blappers".  If blapping was designed as the primary damage attack of blasters, then melee attacks would have been in the primary sets instead of the secondary sets.  

 

I never cared for blapping, there's other ATs that melee much better. But I do like Martial Combat as a secondary for WHEN the mobs get close. And there's other powers in that set that are useful.

Edited February 13, 2021 by gamingglen

[the1egend1ives]

On 2/11/2021 at 6:19 PM, Snarky said:

very Deep question.  Take Blasters.  Billed as "Ranged"....still angry over this.  They are built from the ground up as blappers.  Then you have sets with a ton of cones and some PBAoE, they jump back and forth to correct range 'jousting'  and then there are the AR and Beam Blasters.  Actually ranged.  

 

That is one AT.  The examples are endless.  And i am sure I missed the finer possibilities just in Blasters.

Blasters were the most confusing AT for a long time. I just couldn't figure them out.... Why does a ranged character have melee attacks? Once I figured out that they're not ranged, they made a lot more sense to me. They're all about doing the most amount of damage in the least amount of time. You don't have any defenses, so you're priority is killing everything before they kill you. It's definitely a unique AT that's a lot of fun to play.

[the1egend1ives]

A traps corruptor, IMO, has the most unique playstyle. Because you have to set up each power, it does feel a lot more strategic than other, more spammy abilities. It's a powerful set and it's always fun to see the cascading effects of all your traps pile on top of one another.

[Coyote]

Storm and Traps are different.
Illusion Control, Mind Control.
Psy Melee, Stone Melee.

Dark Armor, Regeneration.

Psy Assault, Savage Assault.

Electric Blast.

 

These have some differences in how they play versus how other sets of the same type play. Usually large differences.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I have a Dark/Rad scrapper with Fold Space and it's probably my most fun toon right now. I can aggro, do a (very) tiny bit of herding, and then Fold Space to create a nice and tight group to cap Soul Drain. With Soul Drain capped, Ground Zero ends up doing a respectable amount of damage. Lots of active mitigation between the two sets as well, and you get a lot of freedom for slotting.

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

Dark Armor, Regeneration.

 

How do these play differently than other defense sets?

[Coyote]

Regeneration is a very click-oriented defense set, and not only reactive clicks. For example, I had a Regen character who had planned a "defense rotation" mix of IH, MoG, Melee Hybrid, and Shadow Meld to fill holes. All my other melee characters just toggled armors on, and occasionally ran a self-heal... but the self-heal was reactionary to attacks. I never worried about what defensive rotation of powers I would use to have some kind of varying improvement to my baseline survival, on other armor sets. And that's without even counting in Dull Pain and Reconstruction, which were reactionary. Running a defensive rotation side by side with an offensive rotation made things much more complex, which made it more interesting for me than Invuln or Willpower: toggle up and don't forget to hit Dull Pain when it recharges.

 

Dark Armor is very oriented on enemy position. Not only for the self-heal, but also for Stunning the enemies with OG. And if you add in stun effects from the primary, you can keep Bosses stunned. But this means that you have to chase them around. While this happened at times with melee characters with Stuns from the primary like Stone or Energy Melee, having so many dazed enemies staggering around (and depending on that as a major part of damage mitigation) played very differently than the usual "I plant my flag HERE, Taunt you all, and all of you come and Burn" of a lot of other melee characters. I also like it more because it requires paying more attention to mob positioning than just throwing out a Taunt and expecting the mobs to self-arrange around me for the beat-down.

[Doomguide2005]

17 hours ago, gamingglen said:

I know blapping existed in the beginning, but "in mind" is different than "They are built from the ground up as blappers".  If blapping was designed as the primary damage attack of blasters, then melee attacks would have been in the primary sets instead of the secondary sets.  

 

I never cared for blapping, there's other ATs that melee much better. But I do like Martial Combat as a secondary for WHEN the mobs get close. And there's other powers in that set that are useful.

Okay roll up an Electric/Fire.  I can respect not caring for it,  looking at concept first, theme and all but if that pairing was designed from the ground up for ranged combat someone's elevator not only didn't reach the roof it barely left the ground floor.

 

Afterthought:  And as I said in another thread characters do not at any point exist as a single power set but as two until level 35 when another is added.  Yes the primaries are vastly set up with ranged powers but that's one half a character.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Afterthought

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, DougGraves said:

 

How do these play differently than other defense sets?

My current main is a Dark/Dark Brute.  For years I mained SS/Will and SS/Inv Brutes.  They play similar, in that all three are Brutes that jump into combat and kill stuff.  Dark Armor is completely different.  ESPECIALLY pre I/O.  Invulnerability and Willpower live by the rule Defense>Resist>Heal.  Without I/O Invul comes out at least slightly ahead because it has better Defense and Resist.  

 

Dark Armor throws out that playbook and wanders off on it's own.  Left unaltered at the tailor a Dark Armor character becomes an amorphous smudge of purplish black in a vaguely elongated shape.  Perfect to illustrate what the enemy "sees"  

 

Dark Armor has stealth.  On a heavy melee class. (Brutes and Tanks!)  Not being seen > Defense.  Dark Armor has 3 "Aura" powers.  One Damage, One Stun, and one Fear.  Enemies that are Feared or Stunned do not attack.  Without the I/O the accuracy on the Stun is crap, but it is there.  Not Being Seen > Mezzzed Opponent > Defense > Resist >Heal.  Dark Armor is a Resist set.  But it has what is without argument the best individual heal in the game.  If you cannot kill the thing in one shot it is back to full health.  Oh, you killed it?  Dark Armor has one of those Resurection powers that stuns the crap out of EVERYONE around.  So, so much for killing it.  It is back.

 

In play (especially pre I/O where you need to use tactics more) A Dark armor will float to the group it wants and run in to get the alpha strike. Heal, then start destroying what it has agro'd.  If any mobs are not immediately in it's area (Point Blank!) they ignore Dark armor eating their friends.  It is funny and cruel and way different than any other armor set i know of on a heavy melee.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Snarky