Worst builds?

[AbaddonIV]

I have a Granite/Broadsword frodo themed toon named Filthy Hobbitses hes not great. lol

[Ironblade]

On 7/26/2019 at 10:10 PM, Primantis said:

A freaking blast from the past, holy cow!

Thanks for that xD

 

I do wonder, with IOs etc. If it would be possible to make a modernized Toggle Man that didn't go "OOM" in 5 seconds. xD

 

I can't believe I didn't reply to this five years ago.  (Someone liked my post today so that drew my attention here.)

 

Yes, Toggle Man can absolutely be a viable build.  I made him on Everlasting, he's level 50 and fully tier 4 incarnate, and runs . . .  I think 17 toggles in combat.  He doesn't have quite enough +recovery to be able to run Whirlwind while actually attacking.  He does have Lunge, Jump Kick and Boxing.  He has Hasten (to unlock Whirlwind), which helps his attack chain since he only has the 3 attacks.  Well, also Sands of Mu.  It hits pretty reliably when you're running Tactics and Focused Accuracy.  He has damage procs in Quills, Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear so he does quite a bit of damage while just standing there.  He has +53% recovery and the Panacea proc and two Performance Shifter +END procs - it's not a unique, so he has it in Stamina and Physical Perfection.

[Horiksson]

Based on all the complaining I see its apparently whatever build you are currently playing. 

[Shin Magmus]

     Illusion / Empathy is generally pretty terrible: this is my choice for the worst build.

 

     On top of the sets not having any meaningful synergy, the sets have significant active anti-synergy, and you are playing Empathy which is already dead-last in its category: Support sets.  Illusion Control on Dominators has a regular AoE Stun and de-emphasizes the importance of Phantom Army a bit, but Illusion Control on Controllers is 100% about Phantom Army and getting enough Recharge to make them permanent (Perma PA).  Phantom Army also cannot be affected by most powers in the game, which means you can't cast buffs on them.  This means that when playing Illusion Control, the only things you want from your secondary are +Recharge on yourself, and debuffs on enemies.  Illusion/Radiation was a FotM build on Live for a long time, for good reason.  However most sets give something of value.  Even FF, which is definitely mostly a buff set, gives the user some helpful mez protection and survivability, while giving 2 -Res debuffs to use on enemies.  Those debuffs also knock down, and getting any knock powers means you can slot Force Feedback Chance for +Recharge in them to help out with reaching perma PA.  You can use this logic to find some value in most sets, even otherwise bad pairings like Thermal will at least still give you 2 debuffs for the target you're fighting.  Then there's Empathy: the entire powerset is designed to do something that doesn't work on PA or on enemies... all 9 of the powers are useless for your core functions.  The only things you can do are use a weak heal on yourself, and give yourself Regen/Recovery Aura (which can't even be perma'd).  It is in a league of its own for bad builds: do not recommend.

[Kaika]

2 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Illusion / Empathy is generally pretty terrible: this is my choice for the worst build.

 

     On top of the sets not having any meaningful synergy, the sets have significant active anti-synergy, and you are playing Empathy which is already dead-last in its category: Support sets.  Illusion Control on Dominators has a regular AoE Stun and de-emphasizes the importance of Phantom Army a bit, but Illusion Control on Controllers is 100% about Phantom Army and getting enough Recharge to make them permanent (Perma PA).  Phantom Army also cannot be affected by most powers in the game, which means you can't cast buffs on them.  This means that when playing Illusion Control, the only things you want from your secondary are +Recharge on yourself, and debuffs on enemies.  Illusion/Radiation was a FotM build on Live for a long time, for good reason.  However most sets give something of value.  Even FF, which is definitely mostly a buff set, gives the user some helpful mez protection and survivability, while giving 2 -Res debuffs to use on enemies.  Those debuffs also knock down, and getting any knock powers means you can slot Force Feedback Chance for +Recharge in them to help out with reaching perma PA.  You can use this logic to find some value in most sets, even otherwise bad pairings like Thermal will at least still give you 2 debuffs for the target you're fighting.  Then there's Empathy: the entire powerset is designed to do something that doesn't work on PA or on enemies... all 9 of the powers are useless for your core functions.  The only things you can do are use a weak heal on yourself, and give yourself Regen/Recovery Aura (which can't even be perma'd).  It is in a league of its own for bad builds: do not recommend.

I don't disagree thats its a bad combo, but I think you're looking at the set entirely from the lense of a solo player, it would still be fairly good as a support, I'm not trying to say that emp is a great support set I agree with your sentiment that its the worst support set atm, but I don't think that particularly makes it bad. Being the worst set in arguably the strongest type of sets still makes you plenty good. Emp has fortitude, which while it needs to be applied to all teammates individually is still a very powerful buff and AB which IMO is the best single target buff in the game(100% recharge goes hard) and can be maintained on two players. Due to a ton of Illusions effectiveness being tied to autonomous pets, you actually end up with alot of time to manage these buffs and the occasional reactive heal while still providing the full benefit of your primary, there is some synergy. This is just talking about max level where empathy is at its weakest, the set tends to do alot better at lower levels where most players are on SOs or unenhanced as reactive healing tends to get more use. I'm not saying its a good combo, but its not awful as a support focused toon. I still wouldn't roll one though.

 

As to what I think the worst combo is, MA/Regen Stalker, and I say that as a stalker main. MA on stalker comes with 0 AoEs, none, nadda, and before people say that "Stalker isn't AoE focused" even with a single AoE most stalker can output fairly OK to even very good AoE damage, without really sacrificing single target damage. Lacking one really holds back the set as it's forced to take out enemies one at a time in a game where its more common for enemy numbers to be in double digits. On top of that, the single target damage MA brings is only about average*, slightly above at best, falling well behind of sets like EM, Fire, StJ, DB and likely a few more, all of which have at least one or multiple solid AoEs, and the same if not better damage typing. Regen needs no introduction here but stalker regen is the worst type due to stalkers having the lowest base HP of the melee and as regen is percentage based this holds it back quite a bit. Just as the cherry on top, stalker regen does not provide any auto recovery unlike every other variation and it's very common for stalkers to have endurance issues in general. If you can't rely on team buffs in order for a high end regen stalker to reach the same level of surviablity that other sets can manage it needs to rely on rotating IH, MoG and Shadowmeld, which limits you to soul mastery which also lacks a AoE. Both MoG and Shadow meld have long activation times and need to be activated enough that it can cut into the DPS making the combo actually lose DPS as opposed to other sets like invun which do not have to rely on constant actives.  On teams, at best you can kill bosses and thats really it, and EVERY stalker already excels at that. You bring no AoE, no utility, no support, at best you can be a alpha taker, and the only real thing you have is single target damage which every stalker has and you aren't even the best at, all with the worst version of the worst armor set in the game. Can you make it work, sure, but you can do that with just about anything.

 

*Edit: I took a bit of a closer look and I wanna correct myself by saying MA stalker is a little bit more on the high end of single target then I initially thought, it still loses to sets like EM/StJ/Fire pretty handedly but I wouldn't put it too far behind them. I still feel my point stands regardless.

Edited October 22 by Kaika

[NotsoevilDM]

On 6/5/2019 at 5:56 PM, Man_From_AUNTIE said:

AR/Dev...That Frankenstein gun*shivers*.  Lethal damage, most resisted type of damage in the game.  Don't get Flamethrower until late teens so you get something other than Lethal and of course it is a narrow cone and has craptastic accuracy.  Then caltrops is required for the tripmine to fire off since it keeps the mob close enough to trigger the mine.  Only benefit is beanbag and taser, with those two you can mez a boss as long as you don't miss with one.  I believe TD was nerfed like i23 or i24 so it didn't provide the accuracy it use to, making slotting accuracy in the powers now.  At least until you have IO sets installed in the powers.

I love my AR/Dev. At lower levels caltrops is your defence: drop it just in front of you to keep the melees away. With Hasten, attacks recycle fast so you can keep up a stream of 'short controlled bursts' combined with the M30 Grenade for some knockback. Flamethrower needs a different slotting approach that includes range IOs. Accuracy comes from your Targeting drone. At higher levels, you have Full Auto on a quick cooldown, LRM from the munitions epic pool and a turret or two out permanently. Biggest issue is 'accidentally' aggroing the entire room, not that I ever do that.

 

If you don't like the Frankengun, you can swap it out for something more appropriate for your toon. Personally, I still use the coloured version of the Frankengun, but have Field Operative up in missions so you never see it.

[NotsoevilDM]

On 6/9/2019 at 8:00 PM, Balanced said:

TA/AR is slow and difficult solo, but it's not actively self-defeating, and it can be a substantial team contributor. It's definitely not great, but I wouldn't call it the worst combo. (I had one at 30 on Live, and soloed the Old Posi TF with him at-level. It was an interesting puzzle/tactical challenge, but it took forever.) I really wish the devs hadn't panicked while TA was on Test and stomped all over it, though.

I am slowly levelling a TA/AR defender. Like most defenders, you want to be on a team. Soloing is slow and painful. Depending on team makeup, I might focus more on debuffs or attacks depending on how we are doing. If we are struggling, I will stick to debuffs to help mitigate damage. But if we are steamrolling content, I will focus on the attack chain, which does include the oil slick/explosive arrow combo. 

[NotsoevilDM]

On 7/27/2019 at 2:51 PM, pattycake said:

Oh and mind control in my opinion is the Best worst set in the game. Don’t hate on me 😛

Mind/Storm controller. Great control, not so great DPS. Stuck at 40. 

[Story Archer]

On 6/4/2019 at 4:41 PM, Branr said:

There are a ton of threads out there with many ideas of “best” builds, with the general consensus being “play what you like”, which I completely agree with. My question is are there any combinations of archetype/power sets out there that many people think are the worst builds?

 

I didn't see this mentioned, but it always seemed to me like SS/SR (or SR/SS) was the only 'bad' power combination for melee types, because one of the core powers of the Primary (Rage) specifically counteracts the Defense provided by SR. It would theoretically be a bad combo with any Def-based set, but the other sets at least have some bells and whistles like higher resists and/or healing/absorb to help mitigate the negatives caused by the conflict.

[Ridiculous Girl]

i looked at the list for some of the least used powersets and settled on a mind control/trick arrow controller... couldn't do a damn thing on his own. great fun on teams though. 😄

[BazookaTwo]

On 6/6/2019 at 1:43 AM, jubakumbi said:

Energy Blast/Kinetics or Kin/EB...

 

I mean, I love me some chaos and KB, but I tried this one and even I have my masochistic limits...

 

I ran kin/energy on live all the way to 50. Pinball Wizard. I definitely disagree... But my Kin now is a Kin/Water Blast. Silver Tsoonami

[BazookaTwo]

The one I hated but tried so hard to love was Dark/Savage Dom. The concept is cool but it fails hard. At least for me.