What do you consider the worst power combos?

[shadowrex]

Whether it's horrible endurance issues, thematic nightmares, or power sets that have 0 synergy, what do you consider the worst combos of primary and secondary power sets?

[Gobbledygook]

Anything/Regen

[El D]

Having gotten one to level 50, Illusion/Forcefield for Controller is mind-numbingly boring combo to play. Forcefields is very much a 'buff once or twice through the entire mission, toggle on and forget about' set and Illusion has very few avenues of active contribution. Sure, spamming Spectral Wounds is an option and Phantom Army is good (especially if you can get it perma) but when the best power in the set is 'Click this then watch the game play itself until you have to hit the button again'... it's like being a Mastermind without actually having control over any of the pets. If either were paired with another, more active primary or secondary set it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but together they both reinforce the 'click once, then do basically nothing' passive nature of the other set.

 

Also, any melee secondary where the entirety of the mez protection is A) entirely contained within a single toggle and B) tied to the passive PBAoE taunt. Looking at you, Energy Aura. Especially considering /EA also has a baked-in stealth power. Having to deactivate my taunt aura to sneak around? Fine, that makes sense. Having to also remove all of my secondary's mez protection to do so? Seems pretty counterintuitive. Frankly, taunt auras being intrinsically tied to other powers and not their own separate toggle seems like a synergistic issue in-general.

Edited February 18, 2023 by El D

[cranebump]

  On 2/18/2023 at 8:51 PM, Gobbledygook said:

Anything/Regen

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Anything/regen ain’t too bad on a sentinel. 

[Captain Fabulous]

  On 2/18/2023 at 9:18 PM, cranebump said:

Anything/regen ain’t too bad on a sentinel. 

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Ain't too good either. 🤷‍♀️

[Greycat]

I've played an earth/ff controller. It was fine when I did it, with a team, and pre... various updates, plus sunset. Now, it's just .. slow.

 

Bots/FF - at least on live - nearly bored me off the entire AT since - especially after the "all buffs are AOE" was done to the set, it left absolutely nothing to do other than press two buttons every once in a while.

[shadowrex]

  On 2/18/2023 at 10:08 PM, Greycat said:

 

 

Bots/FF - at least on live - nearly bored me off the entire AT since - especially after the "all buffs are AOE" was done to the set, it left absolutely nothing to do other than press two buttons every once in a while.

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Agreed. This was one of my first MMs and I stopped around lvl 32 because I had nothing to do during fights

[cranebump]

  On 2/18/2023 at 9:40 PM, Captain Fabulous said:

Ain't too good either. 🤷‍♀️

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Perhaps. But I guess that means it doesn't qualify as "worst combo." Having run a few Sent x/Regen chars, I didn't mind having 0 Stamina issues.

[Snarky]

Anything with Dark Armor that is not Dark Melee   you NEED that end recovery power, The to hit debuffs and heal and all the rest round it out nicely.  But before a full 50 build and poss incarnate end help?  You NEED that end recovery power.

[0th Power]

Any Mastermind 

 

I don’t like buffing people. Why would I want to buff NPC’s ?

[biostem]

  On 2/18/2023 at 8:31 PM, shadowrex said:

what do you consider the worst combos of primary and secondary power sets?

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Not necessarily from an effectiveness vantage point, but I just cannot get into thorny assault on dominators - there are no primaries that prevent you from constantly having to pop your spines back out every time you want to use one of those abilities...

[Sir Myshkin]

Dominators, like, all of them. At the end of the day I feel like I've just transformed it into a Blaster with pocket controls and I just can't play 'em no matter how I mash up the power sets.

[shadowrex]

  On 2/19/2023 at 4:55 AM, Sir Myshkin said:

Dominators, like, all of them. At the end of the day I feel like I've just transformed it into a Blaster with pocket controls and I just can't play 'em no matter how I mash up the power sets.

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I haven't made a dominator since live. Every time I think about one I usually end up going controller because I prefer buffs/debuffs and support as opposed to pure dps and control

[Uun]

  On 2/19/2023 at 1:39 AM, 0th Power said:

Any Mastermind 

 

I don’t like buffing people. Why would I want to buff NPC’s ?

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Plenty of options for non-buffing MMs - Poison, Storm, Traps, Trick Arrow. 

[Snarky]

  On 2/19/2023 at 1:08 PM, Uun said:

Plenty of options for non-buffing MMs - Poison, Storm, Traps, Trick Arrow. 

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Dark on MM I have looked at.  It is the exact same Dark Miasma from Corruptors.  You do get a heal. Big AoE that is good for you and props up the pets.  I like it on my Corr because I am mostly strategically debuffing the enemies.  Rarely do I drop into team healer mode unless content got hard fast or I am propping up a random weak player because I am bored.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I tried a Psi/FF controller on live. That was... tedious and hard work. Quite survivable, but slow slow slow

[Tiger Shadow]

  On 2/18/2023 at 9:13 PM, El D said:

Also, any melee secondary where the entirety of the mez protection is A) entirely contained within a single toggle and B) tied to the passive PBAoE taunt. Looking at you, Energy Aura. Especially considering /EA also has a baked-in stealth power. Having to deactivate my taunt aura to sneak around? Fine, that makes sense. Having to also remove all of my secondary's mez protection to do so? Seems pretty counterintuitive. Frankly, taunt auras being intrinsically tied to other powers and not their own separate toggle seems like a synergistic issue in-general.

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Energy Aura was originally a Villains-only powerset, so just be glad Cryptic didn't tie the taunt aura to the stealth power.

[DougGraves]

controller ice/time

 

Almost no solid controls but lots of END cost for your ice toggle + time toggle

 

The enemies will attack very slowly and you will slowly do a little bit of damage to them.

[Yomo Kimyata]

A long while back, I made a few unicorns according to the March 2020 thread and eventually soloed them to 50.

 

Sonic Resonance/Assault Rifle defender was the most awful of the bunch.  I'm still trying to figure out some, any!, synergy across those sets.

[Erratic1]

  On 2/18/2023 at 9:13 PM, El D said:

Also, any melee secondary where the entirety of the mez protection is A) entirely contained within a single toggle and B) tied to the passive PBAoE taunt. Looking at you, Energy Aura. Especially considering /EA also has a baked-in stealth power. Having to deactivate my taunt aura to sneak around? Fine, that makes sense. Having to also remove all of my secondary's mez protection to do so? Seems pretty counterintuitive. Frankly, taunt auras being intrinsically tied to other powers and not their own separate toggle seems like a synergistic issue in-general.

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Are scrappers and brute prone to sneaking around? 

 

Besides, if you are sneaking, you shouldn't need mez protection. 😛

[Zect]

  On 2/18/2023 at 8:51 PM, Gobbledygook said:

Anything/Regen

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While it needs very different build and play styles to be successful, I believe with high confidence that regen brutes (but not other AT's) are defensively comparable to many mitigation sets, and even superior in specific situations.

While regen has not been directly buffed, the meta has been growing increasingly favorable to regen brutes for many years now:

• Addition of multiple high-powered defensive clickies
• Addition of practical means of building for slow resist
• Addition of practical means of building for damage resistance
• Increasing prevalence of +def buffs, due to the softcap meta; my def is regularly over 100+ on a hardmode TF. Rather than even more def, I'd rather have healing.

The regen brute I am currently optimizing has superior survivability (calculated with the help of Bopper's survivability tool) compared to a reference 45% def to all, 90% res to all invuln Brute, against a +3 incarnate AV. And when something is tougher than invuln, that's when you know it's met the gold standard for durability.

 

I am still evaluating the build through actual play, but perhaps when I'm done, I'll post a guide for people like you.

 

* * *

 

Anyway, I still believe that regen's greatest tragedy was being originally given to scrappers, and not just because of how regeneration and healing scale based off HP.

 

When you think of regen, everyone thinks of Wolverine's regeneration. And when you think of Wolverine's regeneration, everyone thinks about rengenerating absolutely massive amounts of damage. And what AT is best known for absorbing massive amounts of damage?

 

Regen is a tanker set. I demand a port!

[rolandgrey]

So far, the worst combo I've had to deal with has been Martial Arts/Super Reflexes.  Both sets are okay on their own, but together they're a ludicrous endurance hog.

 

Which is odd, because they're clearly supposed to work together, with Practiced Brawler's "Bring It!" pose and no redraw on Martial Arts.

[LegionAlpha]

Ninja and Necro MM/ anything else. 

[Mjolnerd]

  On 2/19/2023 at 10:24 PM, Zect said:

While it needs very different build and play styles to be successful, I believe with high confidence that regen brutes (but not other AT's) are defensively comparable to many mitigation sets, and even superior in specific situations.

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I agree, it's good on brutes. My StJ/Regen brute has never had any significant survivability issues. She won't ever be one of those brutes that tanks better than a tank, but she absorbs plenty of punishment and stays upright for lots of SMASH.

 

  On 2/19/2023 at 11:45 PM, rolandgrey said:

So far, the worst combo I've had to deal with has been Martial Arts/Super Reflexes.  Both sets are okay on their own, but together they're a ludicrous endurance hog.

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Strange, my MA/SR scrapper does just fine. Admittedly, with the Body Mastery ancillary pool and a half-decent IO build, but I also don't remember any major endurance problems while leveling on just SOs.

[Wavicle]

  On 2/20/2023 at 12:38 AM, LegionAlpha said:

Ninja and Necro MM/ anything else. 

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When was the last time you tried these? They're pretty baller now.