What do you guys think of Trick Arrow?

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, CaptTastic said:

My TA def is no more squishy than any other of my characters whose AT wasn't specifically designed to take aggro, and he can solo fine.

 

I didn't state my point strongly enough, I suppose... because TA Defenders ARE more squishy than other characters whose AT isn't specifically designed to take aggro. Specifically, they are more squishy than Time Defenders.

 

..

 

And Storm Defenders. And Rad Defenders. And Dark Defenders. And FF Defenders. And Nature. And EA. And Sonic. And Traps. And Pain. And probably Poison. Not sure about Empathy.

 

Yes, every characters has some weaknesses when soloing... but TA Defenders really have a lot of them. They do fold hard to mobs that have ToHit Buffs... but that's with a GOOD build that is capped against Ranged attacks and also has good AoE Defense. With an average build that has 25-30% Defense, well, things get ugly against a lot of opponents who don't need to have ToHit Buffs. The reason is that TA doesn't stop enough hits from hitting the characters, and has no mez protection, and also doesn't limit damage very much, with just a relatively weak -Dam power, and has no way to recover from damage (no Regen or healing). So they're vulnerable to mezzing opponents... and also to opponents who don't mez much, but do high damage. Basically, every opponent who does SOMETHING unusually well will be able to do it to a TA Defender who isn't near the Defense softcap.

 

This isn't much of an issue when teaming. It also is less of an issue when you can run Clarion and remove at least one major problem. But leveling up while soloing, compare that to a Rad Defender (let alone Dark or Traps), and the Rad is so much better. It really works better on Controllers (who have another set that they can use for defense) or MMs (who can at least use Bodyguard to survive incoming damage, and henchmen will pull aggro if you're mezzed). But for Defenders it's one of the worst soloing sets.

[CaptTastic]

5 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I didn't state my point strongly enough, I suppose... because TA Defenders ARE more squishy than other characters whose AT isn't specifically designed to take aggro. Specifically, they are more squishy than Time Defenders.

 

..

 

And Storm Defenders. And Rad Defenders. And Dark Defenders. And FF Defenders. And Nature. And EA. And Sonic. And Traps. And Pain. And probably Poison. Not sure about Empathy.

 

Yes, every characters has some weaknesses when soloing... but TA Defenders really have a lot of them. They do fold hard to mobs that have ToHit Buffs... but that's with a GOOD build that is capped against Ranged attacks and also has good AoE Defense. With an average build that has 25-30% Defense, well, things get ugly against a lot of opponents who don't need to have ToHit Buffs. The reason is that TA doesn't stop enough hits from hitting the characters, and has no mez protection, and also doesn't limit damage very much, with just a relatively weak -Dam power, and has no way to recover from damage (no Regen or healing). So they're vulnerable to mezzing opponents... and also to opponents who don't mez much, but do high damage. Basically, every opponent who does SOMETHING unusually well will be able to do it to a TA Defender who isn't near the Defense softcap.

 

This isn't much of an issue when teaming. It also is less of an issue when you can run Clarion and remove at least one major problem. But leveling up while soloing, compare that to a Rad Defender (let alone Dark or Traps), and the Rad is so much better. It really works better on Controllers (who have another set that they can use for defense) or MMs (who can at least use Bodyguard to survive incoming damage, and henchmen will pull aggro if you're mezzed). But for Defenders it's one of the worst soloing sets.

Well, that’s one opinion. Have to say though, that it’s not one I share, and I’ve levelled up at least a dozen defenders. 
 

TA has some very strong AoE damage, and things being dead is pretty good damage mitigation as far as I’m concerned. And it’s got AoE knockdown, and AoE -recharge, both of which keep them inside the strong AoE damage. 
 

I wouldn’t call it the best defender set, but it’s certainly not a ‘weak’ one either, solo or otherwise. It has its weaknesses for sure, but that’s where the player comes into it to play to it’s strengths instead - just the exact same as any other set on the game really. 

[Monos King]

Trick Arrow is bad, but I have it on good authority it's to be replaced with "Die Arrow" next update. Every arrow backfires and kills you, but in an exciting and enjoyable way. The t9 even extends this to your teammates!

[TNT]

 

2 hours ago, Monos King said:

Trick Arrow is bad, but I have it on good authority it's to be replaced with "Die Arrow" next update. Every arrow backfires and kills you, but in an exciting and enjoyable way. The t9 even extends this to your teammates!

Tricksy Arrowses!

[kiramon]

10 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

Based on my experiences current and past, solo play starts to get difficult as early as the mid twenties, and is nearly impossible in the forties.  I love the set, but if someone wants to solo, they might want to consider an Archery/TA corruptor.

Although I play an Archery/TA corruptor, I have to say - it's definitely not anything related to Archery that does damage on that set. It's procs. And more procs.

 

And Def does it better because of that. I don't think my the 80-200 rain of arrow damagex3 compares to my pain's 1k Atomic Blast BEFORE scourge.  Primarily an issue with archery though... 

 

 

THAT BEING SAID... I enjoy TA a lot A LOT. It's very fun. Can I solo with it? Sure. Do I run off on my own and take on groups? Sure. But I wouldn't specifically make the character to solo, nor would I want to... it takes so long to kill a boss it's ridiculous at 50+4x/8. But it does clear a room (of everything except bosses) nicely. But what doesn't? 

 

Sometimes I think the people that are super happy about some of their builds damage have never played a maxxed out Stalker. THAT is ridiculous damage. Or a blaster - also Ridiculous damage. 

 

Do I think it makes the others bad? No - not at all. I feel plenty strong, contribute plenty a lot. But it's definitely entirely different levels (which in and of itself is different than the Brute/Tanker overall levels). I still play my Arc/TA a LOT, and enjoy it A LOT. And I think I play it quite well, too.

 

I would NOT spec into a healing arrow though even if it had it, lol. I'd treat that just like Alkaloid on poison, lol (which I also play at 50+4/x8). Does remind me of Natalia from Tales of the Abyss though.

[Luminara]

I find the comments about TA being awful in a vacuum very interesting.  I've always found that exercising the options available to everyone else - the primary/secondary paired with TA, pools, IOs, etc., makes the game much easier, regardless of what set(s) I'm playing, and compensates for issues in just about every set.  Including TA.  But if you're trying to play with TA by itself, yeah, it's going to be rough.

 

TA has a problem with end-game viability, in that it lacks sufficient -Regen to make it worthwhile in long AV fights, and doesn't bring enough -Res to the table to shore up that weakness (even with gross abuse of global +Recharge), but pairing TA with another set which provides -Regen/Res closes that hole.  This is, by the way, the only "real" problem with TA.  If it debuffed Regen comparably to other debuffing sets, it would certainly be more popular, because for everything else, it's fine.  It's just the AV fights where it really falls behind.

 

TA lacks the specificity of most other sets, but there are sets like Traps and Devices, and they don't have a specific focus on one thing, like Radiation Emission or Dark Miasma.  Sets similar to TA are treated as "acquired flavors", though, while TA has negativity piled on it, amusingly.  No-one says, "Oh, just do this, and this, and this, and it's awesome", like they do for those other sets, they just bitch about TA.

 

TA doesn't buff or heal, but it does debuff ToHit (unresisted debuff, numerically superior to the strongest ToHit debuff available in any other power versus AVs), offers both a single-target and AoE Hold (one of the best available to any set), has a reliable Sleep (minions only, but that's significantly more than half the enemies you'll face), can keep most enemies at a distance without effort (Slows), and it provides excellent KD with OSA.  What TA doesn't do is everything at a single key press, like some sets, which puts some people off.  I don't know, maybe interactivity in gaming is dying and people really do like auto-play shit like the mobile market has become infested with.  If that's your "jam", TA isn't.

 

TA isn't reliant on toggles.  There's no continuing endurance cost for any power in TA.  There's never an issue with corpses despawning and powers suddenly shutting off, or endurance running out and leaving you defenseless because none of your toggles are usable.  Unlike some sets.

 

There is no redraw penalty for TA.  The activation time with or without the bow is the same.  The activation and animation times of all existing sets were equalized (on a power by power basis, meaning each individual power was examined and adjusted accordingly so the times matched) in Issue 11.  It's been a decade since that change, might be time to get off the "TA only works with Archery" schtick.  It's far more effective with other sets, like Dark Blast.

 

TA's animation times are fast.  All of them.  You're not stopping to make a sandwich and coffee while you're waiting for an animation to end.  You aren't stuck in a 3.3s animation while critters are hammering your health bar, you're getting the job of debuffing or controlling (or both at once) done and moving on to attacking.

 

TA doesn't solo any worse than most sets, when played in conjunction with a primary or secondary (a real build, as opposed to imagining situations in which TA powers are used by themselves, that vacuum thing i mentioned above).  Any given player's capability to solo isn't limited by a set, but by that player.  I soloed a TA/A to 50 before I7.  I've soloed almost a dozen TAs to 50.  I've farmed, at every difficulty setting, with TA.  Anyone who says TA can't solo well, or at all, is really saying they have a problem, not that the set does.  Jesus on a pogo stick, I soloed a defender to 50 using only Kinetics and pool melee attacks, and TA is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more powerful and versatile.  How much easier does this game have to be?

 

The recharge times on some powers are, seemingly, prohibitively long, but that was by necessity, not malice.  Many of TA's powers spawn pseudo-pets.  Pseudo-pets can stack with one another.  And there was no way to limit that when the set was designed.  I don't know if there's a way to limit it now.  But the recharge times were the only decent limitation available to prevent, for example, players from stacking 5-6 Disruption Arrows while solo.  Yeah, it sounds heavenly, but it's bad for the game.  Especially in the post-IO age, when -Res procs and massive global +Recharge are available.  Allowing players to stack 200% -Res solo is not a good idea.  Maybe the HC team has figured out how to limit stacking, and will reduce recharge times.  Maybe not.  But it's a fact you learn to live with as a TA player.  We'd all love to have OSA available every 15s, but anyone with an ounce of sense realizes how broken that would be.  Some limits are necessary.  This, higher recharge times on some powers, is TA's necessary limitation.

 

TA for masterminds needs some attention.  It works for the other ATs with access to it because their primaries or secondaries can be used to complement TA.  Masterminds have very little of that available to them, they're reliant on their pets to work with TA, and some of them just plain don't.

 

And as for what I think of TA... it's good.  It could do with some improvement to make it more palatable to teams in end-game content, but this isn't WoW or Everquest, there are no predefined team paradigms which have to be followed and, considering that almost every set debuffs and/or controls in some way, it's rarely, if ever, doing the job of supporting a team by itself, even in the unlikely case of being the only "support" AT on the team.  It could also do with shorter recharge times on some powers (within reason), and a fix to the mistaken 10 target limit on Disruption Arrow, but those can be worked around easily enough (especially in the post-IO age).

[killigraphy]

Worst set in the game, right next to kinetic melee...and even that gets a pass.

 

Only taking 4 powers....one of which is useless unless you ignite the oil. Its pretty troll, though the debuffs are there, you're initially skipping the single target immobilize,  Flash arrow,  Ice and Emp.

 

The debuffs are strong, but a Rad has much more enjoyable time, with stronger debuffs early on and a much more fun set.

[kiramon]

32 minutes ago, killigraphy said:

Worst set in the game, right next to kinetic melee...and even that gets a pass.

 

Only taking 4 powers....one of which is useless unless you ignite the oil. Its pretty troll, though the debuffs are there, you're initially skipping the single target immobilize,  Flash arrow,  Ice and Emp.

 

The debuffs are strong, but a Rad has much more enjoyable time, with stronger debuffs early on and a much more fun set.

 

Why are you skipping Ice and Emp?  lol. Or flash even. 

[Zeraphia]

I'm of the opinion that I do not think TA is the "worst set imaginable" in many situations, but I think overall for what it does it is lacking or far exceeded in comparisons to its neighboring support sets.

 

On teams, the debuffs of Cold, buffs of Kinetics, Nature, etc. far exceed what TA really does unfortunately. If I'm going to be honest, in a weird way it plays to me a lot like a soft-control version of Storm. It has quite a few debuffs like storm does, and it has lots of soft-control. TA doesn't provide the heavy-duty damage buffing, the very high -res in comparison to Cold, the defense even FF provides, or resistances that Sonic and Nature provide. IMO, it just doesn't provide enough "bells and whistles" to set itself apart, especially when we have Cold Domination that is so good. Is it a "bad" set? No, it is a fair set, but it has nothing that truly sets it apart other than IMO, going a bit overboard on control.

 

Solo, I feel it is better-than-average, but overall IMO Storm is just the better deal. The knockdowns instead of sleep, the actually higher damage, etc. kind of make TA seem rather tame in comparison. However, certain support sets like Empathy for example are not the best solo and feel infinitely worse than TA does. 

[roleki]

2 hours ago, kiramon said:

 

Why are you skipping Ice and Emp?  lol. Or flash even. 

For a community of people so obsessed with soft-capping defense, it's weird to see everyone wave off -ToHit so casually.  Sure it's resistible, but in sane situations it will always be above the 3% you get from the Steadfast/GladArmor uniques that everyone finds room for in their build.  

 

But I agree that, as much as I like /TA as a controller secondary, it is hamstrung a bit by not having -Regen where every comparable secondary does.  Even though /TA makes your primary more effective, there are many secondaries that will literally carry you farther just because they bring the -Regen that you need against hard targets.

[kiramon]

1 minute ago, roleki said:

For a community of people so obsessed with soft-capping defense, it's weird to see everyone wave off -ToHit so casually.  Sure it's resistible, but in sane situations it will always be above the 3% you get from the Steadfast/GladArmor uniques that everyone finds room for in their build.  

 

But I agree that, as much as I like /TA as a controller secondary, it is hamstrung a bit by not having -Regen where every comparable secondary does.  Even though /TA makes your primary more effective, there are many secondaries that will literally carry you farther just because they bring the -Regen that you need against hard targets.

Throw it in Poison Arrow. Thx devs.

[roleki]

Just now, kiramon said:

Throw it in Poison Arrow. Thx devs.

If that was literally the only thing they did to shore up /TA, I would still consider it a massive improvement.  Then maybe they won't laugh at me at the MSR because my only visible contribution is a comically giant net ensnaring the pylon.  

[Haijinx]

evidently its good for hunting zombies ... 

[srmalloy]

On 7/13/2020 at 7:11 PM, cranebump said:

One of my favorite characters back in the day was a TA/Archery Def

While mine back on Live was a lot of fun, and I could see the difference in clear speed and survival in teams, the one thing that drove me up the wall was how useless Rain of Arrows was during a fight. Unless all the mobs were locked down, by the time the animation, then the 'flight time', finished, the entire fight had moved out of the AoE. On Homecoming, that's been addressed, but at the cost of my fully invisible character activating Rain of Arrows... and immediately pulling aggro from everyone in the target area, even before the arrows fire.

[Chris24601]

Having tried an Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor, Trick Arrow/Archery Defender and an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster I can say without reservation that Tactical Arrow does everything Trick Arrow needs to do, only better and with personal survival buffs on top.

 

Net Arrows? Check, plus they're electrified so they do energy damage, helping you deal with ghosts and robots, the two mob types most resistant to your bread and butter lethal damage.

Ice Arrows? Also check, plus they deal cold damage over time and fast enough on recharge you can double stack them with little difficulty.

Glue Arrows? Check, plus toxic damage over time (you noticing a theme yet?)

Flash Arrows? Check... basically the trick arrow version.

EMP Arrow? Check, but faster to recharge and you get it 3 levels earlier.

 

Self-buffs include strong regeneration, so much recovery you only need a single End-mod SO in Stamina to never worry about endurance again, to-hit/perception buffs, knockback and immobilization protection and a 20% recharge buff to what is already a fast recharging pair of power sets.

 

In short, you deal exceptional single target damage, have solid off-controller (like off-tank only a controller) level lockdown ability, solid debuffs and ridiculous survivability for a squishy class (tactical arrow being all ranged with multiple immobilize/slow/hold attacks and a good base regeneration can prioritize IO slotting for ranged defense and more regeneration to deal with what little actually does get through).

 

And it can't be cited enough... Archery + Trick Arrow gives you lethal damage, one attack with some fire damage and one attack with some smashing. Archery + Tactical Arrow gives you all that plus a T1 scale energy DoT you can get down to a 1 second recharge time, a cold DoT attack and an AoE toxic DoT attack. In short, all those things you were weak against with Archery + Trick Arrow are much less of a problem for Tactical Arrow.

 

Trick Arrow needs a hard optimization pass to bring it more into line with Tactical Arrow's capabilities.

[kiramon]

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Having tried an Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor, Trick Arrow/Archery Defender and an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster I can say without reservation that Tactical Arrow does everything Trick Arrow needs to do, only better and with personal survival buffs on top.

 

Net Arrows? Check, plus they're electrified so they do energy damage, helping you deal with ghosts and robots, the two mob types most resistant to your bread and butter lethal damage.

Ice Arrows? Also check, plus they deal cold damage over time and fast enough on recharge you can double stack them with little difficulty.

Glue Arrows? Check, plus toxic damage over time (you noticing a theme yet?)

Flash Arrows? Check... basically the trick arrow version.

EMP Arrow? Check, but faster to recharge and you get it 3 levels earlier.

 

Self-buffs include strong regeneration, so much recovery you only need a single End-mod SO in Stamina to never worry about endurance again, to-hit/perception buffs, knockback and immobilization protection and a 20% recharge buff to what is already a fast recharging pair of power sets.

 

In short, you deal exceptional single target damage, have solid off-controller (like off-tank only a controller) level lockdown ability, solid debuffs and ridiculous survivability for a squishy class (tactical arrow being all ranged with multiple immobilize/slow/hold attacks and a good base regeneration can prioritize IO slotting for ranged defense and more regeneration to deal with what little actually does get through).

 

And it can't be cited enough... Archery + Trick Arrow gives you lethal damage, one attack with some fire damage and one attack with some smashing. Archery + Tactical Arrow gives you all that plus a T1 scale energy DoT you can get down to a 1 second recharge time, a cold DoT attack and an AoE toxic DoT attack. In short, all those things you were weak against with Archery + Trick Arrow are much less of a problem for Tactical Arrow.

 

Trick Arrow needs a hard optimization pass to bring it more into line with Tactical Arrow's capabilities.

the dots also open them up to ranged damage and ato sets

[Parabola]

I'd love trick arrow to get a little polish up. As others have said it does lack a little mitigation and sometimes it takes several arrows to achieve effects that other sets have in a single power.

 

However I do have a soft spot for trick arrow in it's guise as a fantastic vehicle for procs. Ice arrow and acid arrow in particular turn into great attacks. Also it has oil slick arrow which is basically a nuke if you can get it lit.

 

This means that trick arrow does have a place as an agressive support set but it does need to be paired with something that can shore up its survivability. This makes archery sadly one of the worst options. I've had a lot of fun with a ta/dark offender and also rate trick arrow as a controller secondary.

 

I also think the comparisons with tactical arrow are a little unfair as it stands. Cap P has already said that he overtuned tactical arrow and some correction is on the way. I'm just hoping esd arrow takes most of the flak and the rest of the set survives more or less unscathed. Of course the comparisons between the immobilize and the slow patch are unflattering for trick arrow but tactical arrow has nothing like acid or oil slick arrows. I'm certainly not saying trick arrow couldn't do with some love but it should be judged on its own merits rather than comparing with a different kind of set that is in something of a beta state.

[killigraphy]

12 hours ago, kiramon said:

 

Why are you skipping Ice and Emp?  lol. Or flash even. 

If you want to soft cap defense.....as a a defender, go Maneuvers and Weave/hover route. A single target hold, isn't appealing to me, unless it was mag 5 or more. As I see it, I won't be using it much anyway. I made a TA defender a very long time ago, not only was it boring, but I only saw it really open up during group play, and even then, Rads, Storms, and Darks, were more impactful.

[kiramon]

2 hours ago, killigraphy said:

If you want to soft cap defense.....as a a defender, go Maneuvers and Weave/hover route. A single target hold, isn't appealing to me, unless it was mag 5 or more. As I see it, I won't be using it much anyway. I made a TA defender a very long time ago, not only was it boring, but I only saw it really open up during group play, and even then, Rads, Storms, and Darks, were more impactful.

Its a fast 4proccer. 

 

[Parabola]

6 hours ago, killigraphy said:

If you want to soft cap defense.....as a a defender, go Maneuvers and Weave/hover route. A single target hold, isn't appealing to me, unless it was mag 5 or more. As I see it, I won't be using it much anyway. I made a TA defender a very long time ago, not only was it boring, but I only saw it really open up during group play, and even then, Rads, Storms, and Darks, were more impactful.

That rules out every single target hold in the game unless you are under domination. Seems an unnecessarily high standard to set. As mentioned ice arrow takes procs really well. I view all single target holds these days as blasts that happen to hold and ice arrow is great for this purpose.

 

Flash arrow is a useful little utility power. It doesn't notify so you can fire it prior to engaging with a spawn, making its activation time practically free. The perception debuff can be useful in situations when two spawns are close together and you only want to engage one of them. And the tohit debuff is flagged as unresistable so it may not be a huge number but it is very reliable. All that and it works perfectly well with only the base slot.

[Parabola]

6 hours ago, kiramon said:

Its a fast 4proccer. 

 

5 actually. The purple one, the pvp one, both psionic hold procs and impeded swiftness. I like to use the last slot for either an acc/end piece or if my global acc+tohit is high enough the end/hold from the purple set.

[kiramon]

1 hour ago, parabola said:

5 actually. The purple one, the pvp one, both psionic hold procs and impeded swiftness. I like to use the last slot for either an acc/end piece or if my global acc+tohit is high enough the end/hold from the purple set.

I think that's what I meant.

lol xD

[killigraphy]

4 hours ago, parabola said:

That rules out every single target hold in the game unless you are under domination. Seems an unnecessarily high standard to set. As mentioned ice arrow takes procs really well. I view all single target holds these days as blasts that happen to hold and ice arrow is great for this purpose.

 

Flash arrow is a useful little utility power. It doesn't notify so you can fire it prior to engaging with a spawn, making its activation time practically free. The perception debuff can be useful in situations when two spawns are close together and you only want to engage one of them. And the tohit debuff is flagged as unresistable so it may not be a huge number but it is very reliable. All that and it works perfectly well with only the base slot.

 

Or I could pick a rad....and have a much better time.

[Parabola]

46 minutes ago, killigraphy said:

 

Or I could pick a rad....and have a much better time.

Well of course you do you, rad is a great set (although the cast time on the toggles is a bit of a drag these days). I think the thing that I have been trying to address is that several of the powers you earlier wrote off as useless are far from being so and for the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the set it's worth talking about the utility of those powers. Trick arrow could do with a bit of a buff up, I think we are all in agreement about that, but leaving half its tools on the bench isn't the way to get a balanced view of it.

[Luminara]

22 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Having tried an Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor, Trick Arrow/Archery Defender and an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster I can say without reservation that Tactical Arrow does everything Trick Arrow needs to do, only better and with personal survival buffs on top.

 

Net Arrows? Check, plus they're electrified so they do energy damage, helping you deal with ghosts and robots, the two mob types most resistant to your bread and butter lethal damage.

Ice Arrows? Also check, plus they deal cold damage over time and fast enough on recharge you can double stack them with little difficulty.

Glue Arrows? Check, plus toxic damage over time (you noticing a theme yet?)

Flash Arrows? Check... basically the trick arrow version.

EMP Arrow? Check, but faster to recharge and you get it 3 levels earlier.

 

Self-buffs include strong regeneration, so much recovery you only need a single End-mod SO in Stamina to never worry about endurance again, to-hit/perception buffs, knockback and immobilization protection and a 20% recharge buff to what is already a fast recharging pair of power sets.

 

In short, you deal exceptional single target damage, have solid off-controller (like off-tank only a controller) level lockdown ability, solid debuffs and ridiculous survivability for a squishy class (tactical arrow being all ranged with multiple immobilize/slow/hold attacks and a good base regeneration can prioritize IO slotting for ranged defense and more regeneration to deal with what little actually does get through).

 

And it can't be cited enough... Archery + Trick Arrow gives you lethal damage, one attack with some fire damage and one attack with some smashing. Archery + Tactical Arrow gives you all that plus a T1 scale energy DoT you can get down to a 1 second recharge time, a cold DoT attack and an AoE toxic DoT attack. In short, all those things you were weak against with Archery + Trick Arrow are much less of a problem for Tactical Arrow.

 

Trick Arrow needs a hard optimization pass to bring it more into line with Tactical Arrow's capabilities.

 

So your conclusion is that TA doesn't meet your expectations when paired with Archery, and rather than look for the synergy you'd prefer by pairing one or the other with another set, TA has to be drastically altered from a team support set to a fan-created blaster support set (which is clearly over the top and in need of it's own balance pass).  By that logic, almost every defender primary has to be completely revamped.  Damage dealing T1s across the board, AoE damage in place of debuffs and controls, etc.  Yeah... that's likely to be the least worthwhile thing I've lost time reading this week.

 

Perhaps if you'd leveled one of those TA characters out of the single-digit range, you would've been aware that Archery/TA does not only have "one attack with some fire damage", or overlooked that most of TA's powers can be slotted with damage procs to round out your need for greater variety in damage types.  Or missed the two -Res powers which would've helped you deal with those ghosts and robots much more effectively (one at level 12 as a defender).

 

You don't understand AT design, or game balance, that's apparent.  And you not only don't understand TA, you couldn't even bother to look the powers up in Mids' or PWiki before complaining about the set.  Lame.