finally trying the new pool sets - what is good, what is great and how to slot them if at all?

[DougGraves]

I just haven't cared about pool powers other than movement.  But they revamped the pool sets so I finally decided to check them out.

 

Acrane bolt looks like a great attack for my controllers who are low on damage.

 

The ward toggle seems good for my controllers and defenders who do not buff an ally, to make someone a pseudo tanker when we don't have a real tanker.  Is it good enough to be worth slotting for healing?  

 

What other powers should I be looking at for filling gaps?

[The_Warpact]

I think I've only taken the Sorcery pool, I'm digging the changes to travel powers more than sorcery, experimentation, etc.

I've always like Epic and Patron powers for better attacks.

[MTeague]

 

Experimentation: Speed of Sound / Jaunt is quite nice.  But caveat, I do not treat Hasten as a must-have. Only about 1/3 of my characters pick it up. So for a character who was never going to get Hasten, Speed of Sound is a perfectly viable alternative for travel powers. And Adrenal Booster is *quite* nice. Toxic Dart / Corrosive Vial are "meh" however.  They don't impress me. 

 

Force of Will:  Mighty Leap / Unleash Potential is another good set of powers. Unleash makes for a nice 20% defense boost if slotted, and the Regen it provides is quite nice. Necessary? No. Could do the same with misc inspirations. But it's nice to have them "on tap" as it were, via the cooldown power. 

 

Sorcery does seem most versatile, if it can fit your character's concept. Flight and Teleport for one point is nice. Arcane Bolt is nice if you need a blast, Arcane Ward is nice fi you don't. Rune of Protection is Resist, not defense, but if you will reach softcaps or close to it, having some resist on tap may be of more value to you.  I like Enflame. It's probably never going to be a giant damaging power, but visually it's awesome, and on a character with a taunt aura it's nice extra damage for not too much of an up-front cost.  Probably Enflame is better for Solo vs being on a murderball team that's just going to melt everything in 3 seconds or less, though.

Edited March 13, 2022 by MTeague

[brasilgringo]

40 minutes ago, MTeague said:

 

Experimentation: Speed of Sound / Jaunt is quite nice.  But caveat, I do not treat Hasten as a must-have. Only about 1/3 of my characters pick it up. So for a character who was never going to get Hasten, Speed of Sound is a perfectly viable alternative for travel powers. And Adrenal Booster is *quite* nice. Toxic Dart / Corrosive Vial are "meh" however.  They don't impress me. 

 

Force of Will:  Mighty Leap / Unleash Potential is another good set of powers. Unleash makes for a nice 20% defense boost if slotted, and the Regen it provides is quite nice. Necessary? No. Could do the same with misc inspirations. But it's nice to have them "on tap" as it were, via the cooldown power. 

 

Sorcery does seem most versatile, if it can fit your character's concept. Flight and Teleport for one point is nice. Arcane Bolt is nice if you need a blast, Arcane Ward is nice fi you don't. Rune of Protection is Resist, not defense, but if you will reach softcaps or close to it, having some resist on tap may be of more value to you.  I like Enflame. It's probably never going to be a giant damaging power, but visually it's awesome, and on a character with a taunt aura it's nice extra damage for not too much of an up-front cost.  Probably Enflame is better for Solo vs being on a murderball team that's just going to melt everything in 3 seconds or less, though.

Arcane Ward is a good one-slot power for the Preventive Medicine Unique.  People say Enflame (proc'd) can be really good on Singularity but I've never seen damage reports on what "really good" means.

[DoctorDitko]

I was underwhelmed by Mighty Leap/Takeoff for an SS Tank, but it tided him over until he got his real Stomp power.

(I means you likely won't be taking CJ, so make sure the other FoW powers make up for it, for you.)

 

Sorcery is pure win, IMHO:

• Mystic Flight is END-hungry, but is easily the best personal Teleport in the game. Oh, it lets you fly, too.
• Rune of Protection is one of those powers I keep in my back pocket and seldom use, but it's nice to know I can pop that, put my aura heal on auto-fire, and survive one more fight that I shouldn't be able to.
• Arcane Bolt let my character stop using Blackwand as part of my attack chain. (The agony of the Ill/Rad controller!)

I understand the pool has two other powers, but I've never tried them.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by DoctorDitko
effing typo

[Naraka]

I'd say, once you start reading more into pools and sets, you can start broadening your concept characters besides coloring powersets.

 

I managed to make a unique Sith build that is actually pretty fun by taking my Elec/Nin Blaster, building for a bit of defense and then using Presence and Force of Will power pools. Force of Will has Weaken Resolve to act as a kind of Shatter point force ability, you can pick up either Project Will or Wall of Force as your Force Push ability, Mighty Leap can also work as a force jump/force push combo but I skipped it. Unleash Potential is a nifty +def bump that, when stacked with some IO bonuses, can get you capped for a short time when things get hectic. Then Presence has Mind Trick, Force Terror and your Force Grit abilities to get yourself up after a defeat.  Leaning on the Sword skills + the Force Choke and a mass mind trick in Blinding Powder, and you have a whole cataloged of Lightsaber attacks + Force abilities to make you feel like you're playing The Old Republic.

 

And you can do that with a multitude of other ATs, changing around some of the force abilities to make a Jedi Scrapper or a Sith Tanker.

 

Another concept build using sorcery is combining my Peacebringer's heal and sorcery's absorb to create a pseudo-support while in human form and swap to the squid or lobster for alternate playstyles. It works for him because I'm trying to make a "magic android" given life and being piloted by a kheld so sorcery helps get across some of that concept.

 

Another build I aimed for as many click buffs as possible so my Kat/Regen has a lot of pools to use Unleash Potential, Unrelenting, Shadow Meld, Moment of Glory, etc. Conceptually, he has "Golden Potential" which shines when in dire situations. 

 

 

[Mezmera]

11 hours ago, MTeague said:

Force of Will:  Mighty Leap / Unleash Potential is another good set of powers. Unleash makes for a nice 20% defense boost if slotted, and the Regen it provides is quite nice. Necessary? No. Could do the same with misc inspirations. But it's nice to have them "on tap" as it were, via the cooldown power. 

 

I'll add on to this one a bit.  I compare this to the Leaping pool.  Combat Jump is nice with the constant 3% defense and movement, instrumental?  No.  Now Unleash Potential nets you upwards of 20% defense well slotted and if you power boost it oh boy.  You're getting high defense/regen/endurance in key moments when you likely most need it for a minute and with good global recharge you can get use out of it quite often. 

 

Unleash Potential > Combat Jump. 

 

Then you have your travel with Mighty Leap which are almost the same.  Also there's Weaken Resolve which is a sneaky good ST debuff, drop an Achilles Heel in there and you have a 90% chance to get your team 25-30% -resistance on an AV.  

 

Most of my characters go with the Force of Will pool.  I slot Weaken Resolve with the Achilles proc, you can add an accuracy but I usually get good global accuracy.  Mighty Leap gets either a 53 Microfilament or 2 of the Winter's Gift for that -rech res if I have an extra slot.  Unleash Potential gets 4 Shield Walls all the ones with recharge and all +5, if this is my only set of Shield Wall I'll also slot the unique somewhere in there or 5th and or add a lotg +rech if I have the extra slot.   

Edited March 14, 2022 by Mezmera

[biostem]

I like combat teleport on my stalkers - get behind the group your team is about to fight, and the short tohit buff is a nice bonus!

[tidge]

Weaken Resolve got hit with the Nerf bat a while back, but as written by @Mezmera I still find it useful in limited circumstances.

 

Mystic Flight is one of those powers that is almost too good in some (unfortunate) circumstances. For example: It is common that in the Mortimer Kal TF that the team drags a whole lotta CoT to that back room that eventually become untargetable, blocking exit from the room. I've had to use the Teleportation aspect of the power to get out of the room!

 

Another note about travel powers that involve flying: I've been adding the P2W power Jump Pack to add a +Fly boost. It's a stronger boost than Afterburner for my characters with Fly!

[Gulbasaur]

42 minutes ago, tidge said:

Another note about travel powers that involve flying: I've been adding the P2W power Jump Pack to add a +Fly boost. It's a stronger boost than Afterburner for my characters with Fly!

: O

 

I just tried this - the boost is massive. Nice find!

[Wintercat]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Another note about travel powers that involve flying: I've been adding the P2W power Jump Pack to add a +Fly boost. It's a stronger boost than Afterburner for my characters with Fly!

I'm wondering, if fly and Mystic Flight can be on at the same time, would that give a massive boost as well? And if you have fly, you have afterburner.... 
And fly and afterburner works with the flying carpet/rocket board/disc....

[Gulbasaur]

1 hour ago, Wintercat said:

And fly and afterburner works with the flying carpet/rocket board/disc....

I just tried this: I don't think the prestige flight powers boost Fly, although you can run them simultaneously.

 

16 hours ago, brasilgringo said:

Arcane Ward is a good one-slot power for the Preventive Medicine Unique.  People say Enflame (proc'd) can be really good on Singularity but I've never seen damage reports on what "really good" means.

I actually like them both. Arcane Ward can reliably save an ally and keep a squishy alive. If you've got a blaster on your team who plays by bouncing along the ceiling and out of range of AoE heals, it's a good enough Hail Mary to keep them going a little longer. It's also good for tanks that haven't hit the "functionally invincible" stage yet.

 

Enflame I generally just leave running on a tank for as long as I have the endurance to do so. Enflame is never amazing, but the damage keeps ticking away regardless. It also has a niche use as a control power - slap it on an a boss when you're overwhelmed and often they'll just start running, giving you time to deal with minions and lieutenants.

[oedipus_tex]

The new Stealth is a must-take on any squishy build I create, replacing my old pragma of Super Speed + Stealth proc. New Stealth provides invisibility against most mobs, some Defense (about as much as Combat Jumping in combat), and a LoTG slot. 

[Uun]

19 hours ago, DougGraves said:

The ward toggle seems good for my controllers and defenders who do not buff an ally, to make someone a pseudo tanker when we don't have a real tanker.  Is it good enough to be worth slotting for healing?  

I used to take Spirit Ward when it was a click. As a toggle it's just a waste of endurance. Even though it stacks with itself, the absorb granted isn't enough to keep an ally or pet alive. As stated, it's fine to use as a mule for the Preventative Medicine proc.

[oedipus_tex]

Just now, Uun said:

I used to take Spirit Ward when it was a click. As a toggle it's just a waste of endurance. Even though it stacks with itself, the absorb granted isn't enough to keep an ally or pet alive. As stated, it's fine to use as a mule for the Preventative Medicine proc.

 

 

I'm going to subtly disagree about Spirit Ward and pets. Spirit Ward is really good at limiting "nick damage" taken by some of the stronger pets like Singularity or the Earth Control pet. It's true that it tends to work best on pets that are already pretty resilient, but it makes a real difference. That's useful on Singularity in particular, because you can't directly heal it. Here's how much of the pet's bar gets padded with a single end/heal slot devoted to Spirit Ward.

 

 

  

 

 

I probably wouldn't take the power just by itself, but the fact that it unlocks the Sorcery pool makes it pretty attractive when I can squeeze it in. I especially recommend trying it on certain popular Gravity builds like Gravity/Storm.

[Uun]

2 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I'm going to subtly disagree about Spirit Ward and pets. Spirit Ward is really good at limiting "nick damage" taken by some of the stronger pets like Singularity or the Earth Control pet. It's true that it tends to work best on pets that are already pretty resilient, but it makes a real difference. That's useful on Singularity in particular, because you can't directly heal it. Here's how much of the pet's bar gets padded with a single end/heal slot devoted to Spirit Ward.

I could see that. I tried it on Umbra Beast and really didn't see a difference in survivability.

[Bionic_Flea]

I agree with much of the praise given to sorcery and experimentation, so I won't repeat them except to say that Speed of Sound does not have the -threat that Super Speed has.  That's what allows you to be essentially invisible to most critters with SS and a stealth proc.  So don't be surprised if you pull some aggro while running by with SoS and some stealth.  One other point not made on Rune of Protection is that it provides mez protection, either used proactively or retroactively, meaning that you can get mezzed then click it to "break free."

 

I tried to like the changes to stealth pool.  Infiltration in particular appealed to me -- basically ninja run with some stealth added on.  But the fact that half of the defense suppresses in combat soured the deal for me.

 

Other than Sorcery, my next favorite is the new and improved Teleport pool.  Combat jumping is just a ton of fun to pop in an out of combat -- especially on a Blaster with Burst of Speed!  Combat TP also briefly boosts Tohit so you can slot a Gaussian's proc in it for a chance to boosted damage just as you come face to face with the enemy.  Fold Space is the new star of this pool.  It teleports up to 16 critters from 100 feet or less away to you.  I love it on Traps to drop things into my kill zone and on Tanks/Brutes to pull all the action to me and my AoEs.  They also combined Teleport Foe and Recall Friend into Teleport Target, so that you can teleport one critter or friend to you.

[Apparition]

4 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I agree with much of the praise given to sorcery and experimentation, so I won't repeat them except to say that Speed of Sound does not have the -threat that Super Speed has.  That's what allows you to be essentially invisible to most critters with SS and a stealth proc.  So don't be surprised if you pull some aggro while running by with SoS and some stealth.

 

 

That's half the fun of using Speed of Sound instead of Super Speed.  Speeding through a SF, everyone else using Super Speed, you using Speed of Sound... then when you get to the end, everyone wonders where all of this aggro came from.

[momentarygrace]

My not particularly useful observation: Mastermind Necromancy, Sorcery pool works great thematically, and there is nothing as awesome as sending one of your higher level minions into battle sporting Enflame. I mean, fighting, flaming Grave Knight or Lich, at your bidding. *_*

[SeraphimKensai]

Regarding flight speed stacking from multiple powers granting fly. The game takes the fastest flight speed and disregards the others, you can't stack them up (aside of things like jump pack, afterburner, etc).

 

Makes me miss the old eve online days when we'd put 2 microwave drives on a ship and get really crazy fast subwarp flight speeds, although the transversal would be crazy in the wrong way (think turn radius of you never played it).

[roleki]

I'm a fan of the Experimentation Pool on characters that live in melee; if you can afford to keep Speed of Sound going, the ability to Jaunt to a target off a macro is invaluable.  Corrosive Vial is an auto-hit that can slot either of the -Res procs and about 356 others that will have that 90% chance to fire every time.  If Adrenal Booster were an inspiration instead of a click, those inspirations would sell for millions at the auction house; getting +27.68 Damage, Defense, "Base Defense," Recharge, Travel Speed, Mez Duration, and ToHit for 60s is not a bad deal, especially when you consider you 'get' 1.5 travel powers and a decent debuff along the way.   It's not ALL groovy... I don't truck in Experimental Injection and Toxic Dart is the 'Kick' of this set, but if you can afford a few powers and a small handful of slots, Experimentation is "not too shabby."

 

ETA: the 27.68 +Defense is a multiplier of your Base Defense, which is 0, sooo.... thanks for nothing?  Still a good set on melee types.

Edited March 15, 2022 by roleki

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Wintercat said:

I'm wondering, if fly and Mystic Flight can be on at the same time, would that give a massive boost as well? And if you have fly, you have afterburner.... 
And fly and afterburner works with the flying carpet/rocket board/disc....

 

On my characters: Flight + Afterburner + Jump Pack > Flying speed cap.

 

Since both Afterburner and Jump Pack had limited durations, I will juggle them when flying long distances... otherwise if the distance is not too far...

 

 

[Mezmera]

43 minutes ago, roleki said:

getting +27.68 Damage, Defense, Recharge, Travel Speed, Mez Duration, and ToHit for 60s is not a bad deal

 

I think you're mistaken about the Defense portion.  It's defense debuffing that gets enhanced if your character has those types of abilities along with the mezzing abilities.  If this gave defense like Unleash Potential I would never touch the Force of Will pool.  

 

Experimentation is a nice offensive pool for those already well situated in their survivability and would like to tune up their offense.  I do find this pool a bit more limited than the other two Origin pools though.  

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, Mezmera said:

It's defense debuffing that gets enhanced if your character has those types of abilities along with the mezzing abilities. 

 

It's +Special, like Clarion Radial and Power Boost, so it does also boost defense.  It's not 27.68 extra added defense, but whatever defense you already have gets a 27.68% multiplier boost for a minute.  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.experimentation.adrenal_booster&at=blaster

 

Hmmm . . . Now I want to make a build that juggles Power Boost, Clarion, and Adrenal Booster.

 

See Mezmera's post below:  I logged in a character with Adrenal Boost, monitored defense, and then clicked it . . . nothing.  No change at all to defense.  I wonder if the error is in the description in the game (+27.68%% strength to defense debuff) or on CoD (+27.68% Base Defense)

Edited March 14, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

It's +Special, like Clarion Radial and Power Boost, so it does also boost defense.  It's not 27.68 extra added defense, but whatever defense you already have gets a 27.68% multiplier boost for a minute.  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.experimentation.adrenal_booster&at=blaster

 

Hmmm . . . Now I want to make a build that juggles Power Boost, Clarion, and Adrenal Booster.

 

I did just log in and looked at the detailed specs of what all attributes it does.  Usually a power boosting ability states that it boosts defense by whatever percentage but it does not, the only defense ability it lists is debuffing.  It does look like a quasi power boost but not all things are there. 

 

Comparing the power stats of my Power Up and Adrenal Booster there is data like defense boosting not listed in AB where it's listed in PU.  Unless the internal power descriptions are lying in game I don't think AB works full on like how we know boosting abilities work.  

 

Edit

Yup just went to respec my dom and double confirmed there's the value listed for defense boosting in Power Up and not in Adrenal Booster.  

Edited March 14, 2022 by Mezmera