What do you consider the worst power combos?

[Psyonico]

3 hours ago, 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.

 

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

I had that combo as a tanker and just found it boring because of how safe it was, what AT were you that had so much end issues?

[Cix]

Re: Regen

 

I have a pretty rare (at least as of March, 2020) level 50 Electric Melee/Regen Stalker.  She's a stalker, so of course she's fine in 90% of solo situations--at least if I don't crank the *number of players too high.  But with large groups or anything above EB she can get overwhelmed pretty quickly.

 

I think stalkers really suffer for the low HP cap.

[Major_Decoy]

On 2/18/2023 at 1:13 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?

 

I just tested this on my Claws/ Energy Aura scrapper, and the taunt aura does suppress when not in combat. You don't need to turn off your Mez protection.

[MoonSheep]

6 hours ago, LegionAlpha said:

Ninja and Necro MM/ anything else. 

 

i haven’t played MMs since live but the one i did try until the late lvl 20’s was a necro MM and boy was it awful. the powers looked good but the pets just died a sad death every half minute or so

 

perhaps MMs have improved since then but it was enough to put me off the AT

[Placta]

On 2/18/2023 at 4:08 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.

 

I played my first Bots/FF mastermind to 15 on live and had the same bored out of my skull experience. The one I played to 12 before sunset and the one I have on Homecoming took the blaster rifle attacks. They may not be the greatest damage, but it at least feels like I'm playing and not sitting back and letting the game play itself.

[ZemX]

8 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

I just tested this on my Claws/ Energy Aura scrapper, and the taunt aura does suppress when not in combat. You don't need to turn off your Mez protection.

 

It's related to stealth radius.  The power has this in the fine print:

 

Quote

Target Requires: (source.EventTimeSince>Held > 5) && (source.EventTimeSince>Sleep > 5) && (source.EventTimeSince>Stunned > 5) && (source>kStealthRadius < 36)

 

So yeah, you need to toggle off stealth or enter combat, which suppresses stealth, to have the taunt hit anybody.  To good news is nobody can give you more than 35.5 non-suppressed stealth radius, I think.  So a teammate with Shadow Fall can't turn off your taunt aura in combat.  Brutes might want to be aware of this though as they can't just run through a crowd to herd unless they attack something first, if they have stealth from self or a teammate, that is.

 

I'm not sure if there are any other taunt auras that suppress like this.  Shield Defense doesn't, so stealthy Scrappers would have to shut it off to sneak, or use something like Speed Phase, I guess.

[SeraphimKensai]

I'm eagerly awaiting the players' consensus for worst possible AT and Powerset combo, as I'll roll one and turn it into a god.

Edited February 20, 2023 by SeraphimKensai

[Major_Decoy]

24 minutes ago, ZemX said:

I'm not sure if there are any other taunt auras that suppress like this.  Shield Defense doesn't, so stealthy Scrappers would have to shut it off to sneak, or use something like Speed Phase, I guess.

It does for Stalkers though.

[El D]

9 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

 

I just tested this on my Claws/ Energy Aura scrapper, and the taunt aura does suppress when not in combat. You don't need to turn off your Mez protection.

 

So it does! You are indeed correct. In retrospect, the instances of my /EA Scrapper being spotted have been on teams where we zipped through from mob to mob incredibly quickly, and 'Help, my team steamrolled the enemies too quick for my stealth to reset!' doesn't have quite the same ring to it...

 

Still think it's odd from a design standpoint - and as @ZemX said it makes for some incongruities with how ambient taunt/herding works between sets - but as is it's manageable at least. Having the taunt aura as a separate toggle overall would resolve most of those 'have to manage it' instances though, IMO. Especially if it was packaged with a 'negate stealth radius on self' effect. Admittedly a minor benefit, but taunt auras being a 'direct player control' thing rather than a 'respond and account for variances in mechanics' thing seems like a solid QoL improvement.

[Uun]

7 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

It does for Stalkers though.

Stalkers don't have taunt auras.

[Major_Decoy]

11 minutes ago, Uun said:

Stalkers don't have taunt auras.

Against all odds for stalkers does debuff, and as such can attract aggro, but the debuff (and self-buff) portion suppress while stealthed.

[ZemX]

27 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

Against all odds for stalkers does debuff, and as such can attract aggro, but the debuff (and self-buff) portion suppress while stealthed.

 

Good point.  On Stalkers there are several auras, although not taunting, that suppress based on kMeter.  Basically whether the Stalker is in "Hidden" status or not.  Not exactly the same thing as suppressing on stealth radius, but more or less works the same on a Stalker.

[Scarlet Shocker]

What I'm really taking from this thread is there are no seriously bad combos and power sets it's purely down to preference and play style.

 

If you want to play something truly awful go play World of Warcraft 🤣

[Wavicle]

13 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

What I'm really taking from this thread is there are no seriously bad combos and power sets it's purely down to preference and play style.

 

If you want to play something truly awful go play World of Warcraft 🤣

The absolute worst, and nothing else ever really came close, was Mercenaries, and that has now been buffed mightily. While there are still a few power sets in need of a little help, there are no longer any that are so bad they can’t be made powerful and effective. It’s just not that hard of a game.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I had some fun with Mercs back on live - they weren't amazingly good nor bad but I wouldn't say they were terrible

[Judasace]

On 2/19/2023 at 12:41 PM, DougGraves said:

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.

 

However if you're running a second account and just dragging a second character along with you, Ice/Time is amazing. Cast jack, put the heal on auto, Run the toggles, every so often switch over and click the ST and AoE buffs, drag the character into melee with you. It's Super Effective.

[KC4800]

Energy Blast/ Traps Corruptor is a pretty Bad Combo. Not that you can't make it work solo, but teaming is quite hard. Especially with melee teammates. I have one, in my own personal SG called Bad Combinations. I love playing him, but 95% of the time he's solo working his craft. I have had to answer more than once why I don't use KB to  KD in my blasts. But the KB is too important when soloing. When I run force field generator, that puts my ranged defense over 45%; therefore, I need to keep from getting punched in the face. Knock them back into ranged attacks. Throw caltrops, keep them away. It's fun but it's a lonely existance sometimes.

[Doomguide2005]

On 2/19/2023 at 12:41 PM, DougGraves said:

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.

 

On 2/20/2023 at 10:03 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

I'm eagerly awaiting the players' consensus for worst possible AT and Powerset combo, as I'll roll one and turn it into a god.

Had an Ice/Sonic Resonance on Live who was utterly hopeless solo.  Now granted this was pre-inherent fitness and before they got their pet Jack, but I could run my end bar dry before defeating things at +0/+1.  I thought, mistakenly that the sonic debuffs would help with damage output for Ice.  Well it turns out debuffing to add a really tiny damage number leads to slightly larger but still tiny damage value.

 

I have been wanting to remake the combo and see how it does with the current IO's (it was fairly early IO at the time as well) available.  Teams were better as at least it felt like the ludicrous end usage was accomplishing something.  I could buff them and make their much larger damage output even larger.

[TygerDarkstorm]

18 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I had some fun with Mercs back on live - they weren't amazingly good nor bad but I wouldn't say they were terrible

Mercs have since been buffed and likely no longer really apply to a thread like this.

[kanga]

Assault rifle.. still. once made an emp/ele defender, that remained the only defender I ever made. yuck.

[Gulbasaur]

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.

I like everything about Dominators except actually playing them. Range and melee options? Beautiful. Control? Beautiful. Mez protection? Spectacular. 

Dominators? Utter bumhole. 

 

I will say that kinetics is dire solo. So little of it benefits you apart from a heal, a run speed boost and a small damage buff for much of the early-mid game. 

[BazookaTwo]

On 2/19/2023 at 5:08 AM, Greycat said:

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.

 

I respecced my thugs/forcefield into an active melee toon with the full fighting pool for this reason. 

[Player2]

Regen with either Super Strength or Energy Melee on a tanker.

[Gobbledygook]

12 hours ago, Player2 said:

Regen with either Super Strength or Energy Melee on a tanker.

Challenge accepted!

[Spaghetti Betty]

13 hours ago, Player2 said:

Regen with either Super Strength

This has been my favorite toon lately. I just off-tanked for a 4* ITF with it last night!