What are the WORST Armor sets?

[Heatstroke]

Ice Armor for Sentinels.. definitely one of the worst.. 

 

Other than that.. I would say that Dark requires too many things to make it workable IMO.. 

 

[Snarky]

19 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

My vote is for Willpower.

 

It has zero protection against cascade of any sort. Once its protection fails, it's done.

 

This is not a problem that Regen has, since it heavily leans on active mitigation. I also think people still rate Regen too poorly. Even on a Scrapper, it's still a really strong set!

Scrappers have less health I know.  But on Live my Goto was a SS/Will Brute when they came out.  Remember the days of no inherent fitness?  These things just needed SOs.  And they rocked.  Yes, you had to know what you could rush into.  Maybe eat an inspiration.  But danged, it is solid.  

 

I ran a Beam/Will Sentinel a year? ago to 50.  Danged relaxed play.  With changes to Sentinels I suspect this may be one of the better ST damage dealers in the game now.  Not doing the maths/testing.  

[Uun]

34 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

Other than that.. I would say that Dark requires too many things to make it workable IMO.. 

It really doesn't. Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are entirely skippable (and CoF requires 6 slots to be viable). You can cap resistance to just about everything except energy and toxic, plus it has the best heal in the game available every 10-15s. It's obviously better on a tank or brute due to the higher resist cap and the taunt aura, but it's certainly viable on a scrapper.

[Ukase]

So...we hear/read all this talk about DDR, and that's why Shield is slightly better than Bio. And we hear frequently how Fire is so bad, as it lacks DDR, it lacks KB protection, and Freem certainly likes to take advantage of that! 

It's difficult to pin down a "worst" armor, because while it may be "worst" for your tank, it could be just fine for a scrapper or a brute. Or vice-versa. 

I read/heard someone suggest that because scrappers have a lower resist cap, it made more sense for the scrapper to use a defensive armor. I'm not sure just why they think that, but they have their reasons, whoever they are. (or is it whomever? - Yeah, I think it's whomever. But I'm not gonna change it.) 

Over the years, I've been able to play a stone tank like it was a weak dominator without domination. I mean, I've even had a tank not be able to defeat trap door due to bad tactics. 
I am just not a great tanker, no matter what tank I'm on. 

So, there's your answer. The worst armor is whichever armor is on the tank I'm playing. 

In all seriousness, I'd say regen is the worst because it doesn't have any mitigation aside from more regen and higher hp. 

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Linea said:

Back on Topic

What are the worst armors and why?  

• I want to build one.  Yes I'm crazy.  Sometimes I just like the challenge of making the worst work as well as possible, and figuring out what that means.
• Point out the Why.  Which armors and which points of which armors need attention and why they need that attention.  Aka:  If scrapper fire had a taunt aura it would suddenly be top tier instead of bottom tier.

 

I can get behind this thinking, but I tend to go beyond just thinking about the armor, but can I make the "generally recognized as bad" parts of the armor work?

 

For example: we have recently had rather long discussions about the Dark toggles. I feel like on my /Dark scrapper, I actually have Cloak of Fear working for me, but I have some other crazy Fear stuff happening in the build, plus a metric ####-ton of Accuracy and ToHit to cover for it's horrible waeknesses. Even I wasn't crazy enough to try to also make Oppressive Gloom work.

 

Otherwise, I suspect that each of the "Armors" (for all ATs) has been more-or-less "solved" by lots of players. My personal challenge is pairing an Armor with the other set (primary or secondary) and perhaps leaning into one pool (could be epic or patron, but those come so late!) to make the character sing with a unique voice.

[Spaghetti Betty]

3 hours ago, Linea said:

Back on Topic

What are the worst armors and why?  

• I want to build one.  Yes I'm crazy.  Sometimes I just like the challenge of making the worst work as well as possible, and figuring out what that means.
• Point out the Why.  Which armors and which points of which armors need attention and why they need that attention.  Aka:  If scrapper fire had a taunt aura it would suddenly be top tier instead of bottom tier.

 

I think you are looking for a Willpower Scrapper then. Yes, they can be made tough. I certainly have done it (having 75% S/L RES, 45% Nrg/Neg/Fire/Cold DEF, and a saturated amount of Regen will do that).

 

The problems start showing when faced with debuffs, or against 1 hard target. WP will start crumpling to anything that can outdamage RttC, which is why it's infamous for being weak against alpha strikes. Debuffs are also extremely problematic, since the armor is very frail. On the flipside, Slow has absolutely 0 effect on its performance.

 

Strength of Will also isn't the best T9. Yes, it provides a burst of RES, but most of it is lopsided towards S/L, something WP already does. And it's not for very long and it's on a massive, fixed timer.

 

Some active mitigation will definitely give it a kick in the pants. But what kind? It's hard to say. The usual RoP/Melee cycle will absolutely help dampen whatever gets through defense, but then you'd have to deal with any -Regen killing your only form of sustain. I would be torn about picking Unrelenting here instead, but that's also two burned power picks.

 

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The Stalker version gets a clickyheal IIRC.

 

It does! It gets Reconstruction specifically. I much prefer that over RttC. Although, Dull Pain would be pretty cool.

 

Actually, I think Dull Pain would just fix WP by itself!

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

I'm not sure just why they think that, but they have their reasons, whoever they are. (or is it whomever? - Yeah, I think it's whomever. But I'm not gonna change it.) 

 

'You would not write (presumably), "Whom are they?", but rather, "Who are they?"  Whomever' is objective and used when you would use 'him' or 'her' in similar construction.

[Linea]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Even I wasn't crazy enough to try to also make Oppressive Gloom work.

Typically one slotted? with a purple+5 then add Temp:Stun Grenades.  Works wonders on squishies, not so sure about scrappers.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

'You would not write (presumably), "Whom are they?", but rather, "Who are they?"  Whomever' is objective and used when you would use 'him' or 'her' in similar construction.

When you say "whomever is objective"...that's about 4 feet over my head. And I didn't really come here for grammar/English lessons. But - the latter part IS useful. Thanks. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, Linea said:

Back on Topic

What are the worst armors and why?  

• I want to build one.  Yes I'm crazy.  Sometimes I just like the challenge of making the worst work as well as possible, and figuring out what that means.

 

I hear that, but my advice is that there's no point in playing something that you don't enjoy unless you enjoy the not enjoying of it.

 

For me, my solo standard for scrappers is to run the Mender Ramiel arc as soon as they ding 50 at +4/x8 (no AVs, I'm not taking on AV Hero One at that point!), and then run Heather Townsend's arc at +4/x8 kill all.  I've never had a scrapper that had much of a problem with that, although there is certainly a range of which do it better than others.  I've started working into blasters, and I'm not good enough yet to be able to do this consistently on blasters.  But that said, it's doable.  But THAT said, it is doable running on ANY character at +4/x8 from 2 to 50 right out of Outbreak (I will not do this without Rest, so level 2).  It's just mind-blowingly tedious.

 

Anyway, by my standards, Willpower is one of the worst because you are always going to be out over your skis and WP doesn't have enough to keep you there.  Regen on the other hand is a relative cake walk.

[Sancerre]

6 hours ago, Linea said:

The top Tank* armors in my testing have been:

• 13: SR**
• 12: SD
• 11: Stone
• 10: Inv, SR

*On a scrapper these top armors all get crammed into the 6 or 7 range, which is why I list the Tank ratings instead.

**SR is extremely hard to drive at difficulty 13, failing 95% of the time, but it's also the only armor that EVER passed difficulty 13.  The rest of the time I'd probably rate it a 10.  It should be pretty Cozy in the 10 range.

 

Back on Topic

What are the worst armors and why?  

• I want to build one.  Yes I'm crazy.  Sometimes I just like the challenge of making the worst work as well as possible, and figuring out what that means.
• Point out the Why.  Which armors and which points of which armors need attention and why they need that attention.  Aka:  If scrapper fire had a taunt aura it would suddenly be top tier instead of bottom tier.

 

 

armor sets, on a role that is geared towards damage just need to be viewed from a different lens than durability alone.  scrapper is not about surviving to infinity.  scrapper is about killing them before they kill you.  and the 'better' armor sets will allow you to take on more foes, stronger foes, and with less downtime.

 

to touch on fire armor -- fire armor has the highest potential damage but bio offers SIMILAR damage output with better durability AND a taunt aura.  if fire armor had taunt aura and the consideration was strictly durability (and theme), fire armor would absolutely be considered strong.  fire armor is more durable than people give it credit for (especially with the buffs in the last year) but it currently has too many flaws and there are better alternatives.  the comparisons are always relative to what you can be using instead -- what is this powerset offering that the other powerset is not?

[Sanguinesun]

 

Sadly, statistical information transparency is lacking(and getting worse really), from Homecoming but I would be most curious to know statistically over the last 2-3 months what was the least played  armor sets on scrappers consistently.  I have a feeling that'd be a compelling way to look at a set as being the most lacking.

 

That said, my conjecture in the frame linea has put forth for "worst" in this order(first being worst):

 

Regen (it has virtually nothing giving it comparisons to the overall survivability with other sets pre and post 50)

Will power (its the end of the week table scraps thrown together into a pot to make something to last the weekend sort of amalgamation of regen/invuln).

Fire (intentionally an offensive based set with reistance holes more challenging to cap, and only minor KB help in temp protection)

 

Each has their own reasons for their lacking but regen's sheer volume over all of lacking viability is much more pronounced than will or fire. It essentially laps the two in the race to worst.

 

I agree as well with linea that regen should be virtually -regen immune but it'd still not give the set viability overall.  As the HC devs continue feel the game needs to change mob groups to be "more challenging", regen just continues to be a tricycle with wobbly wheels trying to pedal its way in a NASCAR race.

[SomeGuy]

6 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

That said, my conjecture in the frame linea has put forth for "worst" in this order(first being worst):

 

Regen

 

 

/thread

Edited May 24 by SomeGuy

[Crysis]

On 5/22/2024 at 11:24 AM, BrandX said:

 

Grant Cover doesn't give the user any defense.  So, Shield is only a Positional Defense set.  Grant Cover does give defense to your teammates, so they did put in Positional and Typed Defenses so it works evenly on all teammate builds.

 

What Grant Cover does for the user is Defense Debuff Resistance and -Recharge (not -speed) Resistance.

 

Grant Cover is a bizarre power for Shield.  Thematic, maybe, but for a Scrapper to have a Defensive power that doesn’t benefit themselves just seems….odd.  For a Shield Tanker/Brute, maybe, but I never understood the +DEF for everyone BUT THE PERSON USING IT.  Not even logical, as much as you can find logic in a superhero game.  I mean if the shield is capable of protecting everyone on the team, why am I, the wielder of said shield, excluded from this protection, ostensibly provided via blocking inbound attacks?  I’m thankful they stuck the Defense Debuff resist in there or it would likely be the most skipped power in the set.

 

Dear HC devs, I realize Regeneration was the bad boy powerset for the original COH developers.  I also feel like it got “rage nerfed” too hard after being abused by the playerbase (yes, I was an abuser running around with Perma-MOG and ignoring the rest of the powers of the set).  But the levels of nerf it received were at least to me almost retaliatory.  I really would like to see it buffed ever so slightly, even if it just mimic’d the Sentinel set.  Can’t we just bury the hatchet and restore Regeneration to utility value again?  Not asking for perma-MOG again, but…some love please?

Edited May 28 by Crysis

[Ukase]

On 5/23/2024 at 11:19 AM, Linea said:

The top Tank* armors in my testing have been:

• 13: SR**
• 12: SD
• 11: Stone
• 10: Inv, SR

*On a scrapper these top armors all get crammed into the 6 or 7 range, which is why I list the Tank ratings instead.

**SR is extremely hard to drive at difficulty 13, failing 95% of the time, but it's also the only armor that EVER passed difficulty 13.  The rest of the time I'd probably rate it a 10.  It should be pretty Cozy in the 10 range.

Hey, can you elaborate on this? Is there a spreadsheet or something you used? Don't mean to be a pita, just curious as to what the method of testing was. 
And like..what does difficulty 13 even mean? 

[BrandX]

40 minutes ago, Crysis said:

 

Grant Cover is a bizarre power for Shield.  Thematic, maybe, but for a Scrapper to have a Defensive power that doesn’t benefit themselves just seems….odd.  For a Shield Tanker/Brute, maybe, but I never understood the +DEF for everyone BUT THE PERSON USING IT.  Not even logical, as much as you can find logic in a superhero game.  I mean if the shield is capable of protecting everyone on the team, why am I, the wielder of said shield, excluded from this protection, ostensibly provided via blocking inbound attacks?  I’m thankful they stuck the Defense Debuff resist in there or it would likely be the most skipped power in the set.

 

Dear HC devs, I realize Regeneration was the bad boy powerset for the original COH developers.  I also feel like it got “rage nerfed” too hard after being abused by the playerbase (yes, I was an abuser running around with Perma-MOG and ignoring the rest of the powers of the set).  But the levels of nerf it received were at least to me almost retaliatory.  I really would like to see it buffed ever so slightly, even if it just mimic’d the Sentinel set.  Can’t we just bury the hatchet and restore Regeneration to utility value again?  Not asking for perma-MOG again, but…some love please?

 

Not going to disagree with that, it could even give Combat Jumping level of Defense, so one could feel they're getting more out of it than just DDR.  

[BrandX]

On 5/23/2024 at 7:53 PM, Sanguinesun said:

 

Sadly, statistical information transparency is lacking(and getting worse really), from Homecoming but I would be most curious to know statistically over the last 2-3 months what was the least played  armor sets on scrappers consistently.  I have a feeling that'd be a compelling way to look at a set as being the most lacking.

 

That said, my conjecture in the frame linea has put forth for "worst" in this order(first being worst):

 

Regen (it has virtually nothing giving it comparisons to the overall survivability with other sets pre and post 50)

Will power (its the end of the week table scraps thrown together into a pot to make something to last the weekend sort of amalgamation of regen/invuln).

Fire (intentionally an offensive based set with reistance holes more challenging to cap, and only minor KB help in temp protection)

 

Each has their own reasons for their lacking but regen's sheer volume over all of lacking viability is much more pronounced than will or fire. It essentially laps the two in the race to worst.

 

I agree as well with linea that regen should be virtually -regen immune but it'd still not give the set viability overall.  As the HC devs continue feel the game needs to change mob groups to be "more challenging", regen just continues to be a tricycle with wobbly wheels trying to pedal its way in a NASCAR race.

 

Not sure where the thread is when it last discussed popularity of sets, but I believe Regen was still a very popular set, despite being considered a weak set.

[Troo]

 

Not one mention of electric armor yet for this scrapper list? Do the resist sets avoid being gimped on scrappers?

 

Scrapper secondary list:

• Bio Armor
• Dark Armor
• Electric Armor
• Energy Aura
• Fiery Aura
• Ice Armor
• Invulnerability
• Ninjitsu
• Radiation Armor
• Regeneration
• Shield Defense
• Stone Armor
• Super Reflexes
• Willpower

 

 

Edited May 28 by Troo

[Linea]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

Hey, can you elaborate on this? Is there a spreadsheet or something you used? Don't mean to be a pita, just curious as to what the method of testing was. 
And like..what does difficulty 13 even mean? 

 

 (off topic) Additional info on 801 armor testing:

Spoiler

SR (Tank) Difficulty 13 means that I was able to solo survive about 25 minutes in 801.D.  ... 1 time in 13.  I failed the other 12 times in less than 5 minutes, and usually in less than 1 minute.  SR was by far the most difficult to drive and test.  It is the only armor that had that high of a variance.  SD rates 12, but passed 12 more often than not, but didn't stand a chance in 13.  Hornet (scrapper) passes 6 with flying colors, but barely fails 7 every time even after dozens and dozens of runs.  However, the teeny tiniest bit of support, and Hornet can pass 7.  If you want to rate her either 6 or 7, I won't argue with either, but 6 is probably the most fair assessment.

 

You'd have to search the tank forums, at this point it's mostly in my head.

You'll have to search all way back on the forums to HC release (if not farther back), probably in multiple sections.

You could start here: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/27139-help-with-tank-build-for-801a/#comment-340990

Just re-reading that, I've take armors higher since then, and the actual start is much farther back and probably lost to history.  Originally I never tested anything above a 2, that was good enough for me.  But then when HC came along I was asked to make a more difficult one for tanks, so we got a 5.   Then people asked for Team versions, ... over time It grew to 15.  It's rare for teams to go above 7, so you'll find the most missions in the 0 through 7 range, with only a few each for higher difficulties.

(off topic) This is an old summary quote, not updated, pulled from my archives.  It's still mostly true, but not entirely accurate.

Spoiler

Linea Durability Ratings

               Based on Solo +4x8 AE 801.# capability.   Where # is 0 to F, Hexadecimal, where F is 15. 

EX: 801.2 is the standard armor test.  If you can complete 801.2 then you have enough dps and durability for 95% of the game.

 

Anything rated 2 or above can tank the majority of official content.

Most tanks driven by most players do not even rate 2.

 

Defense Tanks rate 6 to 13.

Resist Tanks rate 5 to 7.

Heal-Amor Tanks rate 5 to 6.  Although I have had other players report BIO on Tanks up to 7.

 

Defense Brutes rate 5 to 10

Resist Brutes rate 5 to 7, but tanks rate higher more easily.

Heal-Armor Brutes rate 2 to 5

 

Defense Scrappers, Stalkers, and Sentinels rate 2 to 6.

Resist Scrappers, Stalkers and Sentinels are unrated, but should rate 2 to 4

Heal-Armor Scrappers rate 2 to 3

 

Veats, Heats, Defenders rate 2 to 5  ... I ran an empath through 2, once and only once.  If you want to discount that, then rate them 1 to 5.

Some truly exceptional Veats or Heats may rate 6.

 

Masterminds, Corruptors, Controllers and Doms are not far behind Defenders, and rate 0 to 5, but are harder to get to rate higher.

Some truly exceptional Controllers and Doms rate 6.  I am NOT that player, mine rate 2 to 5.

 

Blasters rate 0 to 4

 

Regen is Unrated, in this context Heal-Armor means Willpower and Bio Armor. 

If you want to account for build quality, set all low end numbers to zero.

 

Defenses Armors rate up to 13

Resist Armors rate up to 6

Heal-Tank Armors rate up to 5

IO Armor rates up to 2

 

Edited May 28 by Linea

[Uun]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

Not one mention of electric armor yet for this scrapper list? Do the resist sets avoid being gimped on scrappers?

I discussed Electric and the resist armors back on page 1 of this thread. The resist armors clearly aren't as effective on scrappers as they are on brutes or tanks, but I'm not sure that makes them gimped. I don't currently have a /Dark, /Elec or /Fire scrapper (I do have a /Rad scrapper), but I still feel like Willpower and Regen are worse.

[Linea]

While I rarely recommend resist armors on 75% resist cap ATs, I do and have run resist cap builds on the 75% resist cap ATs.  The crucial problem is that while solo, you will take 2.5x damage even on the best build.  Compound that with the lower HP of those came ATs, and you have an exponential problem.   On top of that you'll typically have Zero DDR, although Ageless can help with that.   It absolutely IS doable, and it can be fun, but from an optimization stand point, it gets tricky unless they offer something else meaningful to the specific build you are going for.  

 

OR it's a purely team oriented build.  In the context of a team with buffs, resist builds can really shine.

 

[Azari]

On 5/28/2024 at 8:17 AM, Crysis said:

Dear HC devs, I realize Regeneration was the bad boy powerset for the original COH developers.  I also feel like it got “rage nerfed” too hard after being abused by the playerbase (yes, I was an abuser running around with Perma-MOG and ignoring the rest of the powers of the set).  But the levels of nerf it received were at least to me almost retaliatory.  I really would like to see it buffed ever so slightly, even if it just mimic’d the Sentinel set.  Can’t we just bury the hatchet and restore Regeneration to utility value again?  Not asking for perma-MOG again, but…some love please?

This. 

[Doomguide2005]

23 hours ago, Linea said:

OR it's a purely team oriented build.  In the context of a team with buffs, resist builds can really shine.

 

     This in my experience is also true of the two top contenders for worst armor sets, Regen and WP.   Something only AT powers can provide.  You can't really build for it with sets or pool powers or inspires and that's passive regen.  With buffs Regen and WP with their set powers high regeneration become extremely hard to defeat.

[Psiphon]

On 5/23/2024 at 7:24 PM, Uun said:

It really doesn't. Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are entirely skippable (and CoF requires 6 slots to be viable). You can cap resistance to just about everything except energy and toxic, plus it has the best heal in the game available every 10-15s. It's obviously better on a tank or brute due to the higher resist cap and the taunt aura, but it's certainly viable on a scrapper.

Why would you skip OG?, good damage mitigation for virtually no endurance. 

IMO it's a must have and a cornerstone of the set. 

[Hyperstrike]

On 5/21/2024 at 9:50 PM, GM Impervium said:

Any set can be the worst if you only pick one power and don't slot or enhance it =D

Pretty much this.

Sure, some of them aren't the unkillable "machines" that some sets aren't.

But, with a bit of attention to detail and planning, just about anything is perfectly acceptable.