Pool Powers

[Gulbasaur]

VEATs get absurdly high value out of the Leadership toggles... what other pool powers do you rate?

 

The Provoke AoE taunt had a lot of value when I was running my fortunado as a tank.

 

The teleport ones are fun and Fold Space is a fantastic trick to have up your sleeve.

 

I refuse to take Hasten on principle and Fighting doesn't solve a problem I actually have.

 

I have no love for any of the Patron Pools, and that's partly because having the pools shared with melee archetypes leaves little to play with on a fortunata build.

[Omega-202]

Which pools do I think have value on VEATs?  

 

...Speed, Fighting and patron pools.  Just my honest answer.

 

Hasten is hasten.  All 4 VEAT varieties have a solid number of long recharge powers that appreciate it, maybe except NWs.  

 

VEATs get great value out of Tough, and Soliders at least get great value out of Weave.  For some reason, S/L res is a bit of a hole for Crabs and Tough fills it well.  Widows don't get a lot of resist, so Tough helps supplement their defense. 

 

I wouldn't discount PPPs on a Fortunata.  Gloom is ridiculous DPA and beats out most of the Fort's native attacks.  Mu and Soul also give you more AoE that have great DPA compared to Psi nado.  

 

That said, Fold Space is amazing.  Probably the best aggro management power available in the game in my experience.  100ft radius so you end up grabbing a lot of attention and can stop runners easily.  

 

[Bopper]

Sorcery for Rune of Protection. 25% base resist, enhance to 40%. Perfect for scaling resists on Widows. 

[KaizenSoze]

Folks have covered the obvious pool and I'm sure Tidge will be here at some point to talk about Presence for good reason.

 

One pool I have tried extensively on the beta server with my Banes is Experimentation. I tried to take advantage of the toxic damage in the pool, but it did not work.

 

Experimental Injection - Decent support power, melee range, nice at low level, but not needed at 50

Toxic dot - Low damage, takes awhile for the dot to finish, causes re-draw. Not enough damage considering redraw even with Venom Grenade -toxic resists

Speed of Sound - Perfectly good travel power, it's the rest of the pool is the issue

Corrosive Vial - Procs decently, but if you cannot immobilize the mobs it's next to useless and it has a small radius, 8', takes 14 seconds to delivery it's damage
Adrenal Booster - I don't like boost powers that have a massive recharge, 600, the boosts are good at least.

[tidge]

23 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Folks have covered the obvious pool and I'm sure Tidge will be here at some point to talk about Presence for good reason.

 

 

All good suggestions so far. My advocacy of the Presence pool (primarily for Widows/Fortunata... honestly any Defense-based AT) is based on (both of) the final two options:

 

Unrelenting is the crown jewel, as it offers an offensive boost as well as a "keeps you refilling" that works nicely with scaling damage resistances. It is worth 6-slots (Preventive Medicine) The self-rez may be the lead in the advertising, but it works better if used while alive, IMO.

 

Invoke Panic is a PBAoE mini-nuke (with %damage)/control. Fortunata can have many different control powers, and since they tend to be (positional) defense-based, more subtle control is better. I typically don't have enough slots to really make this sing.

 

I'm less sold on the picks necessary to get you to (either) of the above, as you must choose two of the following:

 

Pacify doesn't trigger any of the "good stuff" (i.e. criticals), but it can be used to get (a little) breathing room in certain content.

Provoke looks good on paper, but the taunt is NOT an auto-hit, and the number of enemies affected is small.

Intimidate ends up being the best of 3 bad choices, at least for VEATs that will have other %fear effects.. or team with players that also have Fear powers

 

I experimented a little with Force of Will, I keep meaning to take a Fortunata and go deeper into it (than just Weaken Resolve) but have yet to do so... I just have to make the commitment to drop one of the other favored pools. I generally don't recommend powers that have crashes (Unleash Potential) but if I was already going to have Unrelenting in the build, I could see Unleash Potential as a mule (Power Transfer %Heal) that only occasionally gets used. I used to really like Weaken Resolve, but when Homecoming nerfed it (not a bad decision, but *sadface*) it did make the power worse. Now it is one of those powers that I don't have many slots for and I typically only use when teaming against AVs/GMs.

[Bopper]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

experimented a little with Force of Will, I keep meaning to take a Fortunata and go deeper into it (than just Weaken Resolve) but have yet to do so... I just have to make the commitment to drop one of the other favored pools. I generally don't recommend powers that have crashes (Unleash Potential) but if I was already going to have Unrelenting in the build, I could see Unleash Potential as a mule (Power Transfer %Heal) that only occasionally gets used

 

Can you clarify some of that? Unleash Potential doesn't have a crash. 

 

Personally, I would recommend Force of Will for Soldiers (as in, I have no problem with taking it, I'm not saying it needs to be taken). The high defense and regen pairs well with the high max HP and resistance of Soldiers. You also can add to your resistance debuff potential via Weaken Resolve and its -ToHit helps with being hit less as a resistance based character. Also it's very procable which goes well with your resistance debuffs.

 

I mentioned it earlier, but I think Sorcery is good for Widows as Rune of Protection's very high base resistance pairs very well with Widow's scaling resists. You can cap your resists (85%) when at ~40% Health. Capped resists and defenses at low health turns you into a very sturdy character.

 

I will also vouch for Presence pool, but it's hard to get both Unrelenting and a T5 from an origin pool. Personally I go with Provoke because it helps with runners, I take Intimidate for utility (but just 1-slot it), then take Unrelenting.

[Gulbasaur]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

I mentioned it earlier, but I think Sorcery is good for Widows as Rune of Protection's very high base resistance pairs very well with Widow's scaling resists.

 

I've never found much need for more resistance, personally. Between the capped defence and ~40% resist from IO sets, you're sitting at early game Tanker levels. It's just not a problem I've ever felt needed to be fixed. 

 

I do agree Sorcery is a good set, though. It has variety and caters to a number of playstyles, plus Enflame is a bit of an AI-breaker, which I have made good use of in solo play. 

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Gulbasaur said:

I've never found much need for more resistance, personally. Between the capped defence and ~40% resist from IO sets

It all depends on how folks build. If you chased 40% resistance to all from set bonuses then you really won't need RoP (unless you want to hit caps with more health). I build for damage via procs and have very low resistance, so I keep RoP and Demonic Aura available for moments when things get dicey.

 

I might try out enflame sometime. I typically skip it due to power tax. Hard to fit 4 powers from an origin pool.

[Gulbasaur]

34 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I might try out enflame sometime. I typically skip it due to power tax. Hard to fit 4 powers from an origin pool.

It's a niche power, but it's a good one. I couldn't necessarily use it on a fortunata, but it seems to create a patch under an enemy... and the enemy tries to run away from the patch... which follows it. Solid AI-breaker power for when you get overwhelmed. Otherwise, you can just splat it on your tank and do some mid-tier damage

[tidge]

4 hours ago, Bopper said:

 

Can you clarify some of that? Unleash Potential doesn't have a crash. 

 

 

I haven't ever chosen it, so the "clarification" is that I may have looked at some old description of the power. 🙂

[tidge]

Re: Force of Will

 

I didn't do this with a Fortunata, but with a Mind/Poison Controller. I should note: This character's entire schtick is that he (unintentionally?) causes mobs to fall down, make mistakes, etc. so the Force of Will pool offered some interesting choices! I removed the Sorcery Pool (Mystic Flight, Spirit Ward, Rune of Protection) and Hasten to replace those powers with Mighty Leap/Stomp, Weaken Resolve, and Wall of Force (from Force of Will) and Aid Other (Healing pool, to replace a lost Preventive Medicine %absorb mule). I rarely used Hasten (it was a level 49 power pick) and between Mind, Poison, Force of Will and Primal Forces Mastery the character is never waiting for something to recharge.

 

Mighty Leap is fine, but the addition of Stomp as a long-recharge "knock 'em down" power fits this character perfectly. Wall of Force is a great cone for %damage powers, I especially like that I can have those two AoE attacks at a relative low level (compared to the Primal Forces Mastery cone attack).

 

The main "compromise" I had to make with the Controller was that the Sorcery pool was primarily mules... that is no extra slots (except weirdly in Mystic Flight), even Hasten was only single-slotted. This meant that dedicating a full 6-slots to Wall of Force and finding a home for the muled ehancement in Rune of Protection.  Ultimately I feel like I didn't have to make serious compromises for the Controller, but with any of my Fortunata builds I don't know that I'd be able to slip Force of Will powers into the build before the Epic levels (assuming I want to keep Presence pool, the Fortunata just doesn't have as many "skippable powers") nor would I be able to have many slots to dedicate to the new powers.

 

I'll keep mulling it over.

[KaizenSoze]

I have been toying around with Fold Space on my Night Widow.

 

Yes, it's very good, not perfect, at densely packing mobs together for Eviscerate and Spin.

 

It makes Eviscerate worth taking. Plus, as noted by others, fold space helps with runners.

 

Combat teleport is also nice for getting right next to a key mob in a crowded spawn.

[Gulbasaur]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have been toying around with Fold Space on my Night Widow.

I've got it on my fortunata as part of my constantly shuffling set of pool powers. It's fun.

 

Am I sure I should have dropped the taunt for it? No. Do I regret playing with it? Also no.

[Dungeoness Eloora]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:10 AM, KaizenSoze said:

Combat teleport is also nice for getting right next to a key mob in a crowded spawn.

 

This is another reason I stick with Sorcery. Since I generally manage my end well enough to keep Mystical Flight going, it lets me use a Translocate macro to port right up on my targets. Not as fast as Combat Teleport, but a handy bonus!