Nothing good to slot into Energy Torrent

[Machariel]

What's wrong with Positron's Blast? 6.25% recharge from 5 slots, a small range boost (doubly great in cones), and a damage proc... what's not to like?

 

The recharge enhancement it gives is garbage and the accuracy enhancement is subpar. And using the KB-to-KD IO and the proc for the recharge bonus means the enhancement values are even worse.

I suppose that's true.  I mostly have it in powers like Fire Breath and Rain of Fire, which are both inherently accurate and neither of which I use on cooldown, so the lower enhancement values aren't so bad - they're already accurate/fast recharging enough for practical use.  Plus, it's easy to pick up a TON of accuracy bonuses without trying, and also common to build for recharge. 

 

EDIT: Plus sometimes you don't want to slot extra recharge into powers if you intend to use them for procs.  This is not to say that it's a great set, just that its possible to work around it, and it has pretty good set bonuses :)

 

But yeah, for something that you want to make part of your core attack chain it's pretty underwhelming.  I wouldn't want it in Fireball for example.

[SwitchFade]

Yes I get that spreading the mobs is bad, in theory. But I also have to be happy with how my character plays, for me

 

Talk about selfish.

 

"Hey, I know this annoys literally -everybody- else, and makes killing actually slower, but I don't care. Also it'd be fixed if we took three times as long to kill stuff by letting the tank position it against a wall or corner so my annoying powers didn't inconvenience the entirety of the team. Why won't they do that?

 

Yeah, can't imagine why people tend to dislike Energy blasters...

 

First of all if you are playing with a blaster that is causing your team to take 3 times longer to kill anything the problem is NOT the blasters. Secondly IF and I do mean IF on chance I use my knockback in a fashion that spreads out the mobs they are normally close enough to death that I am finishing them off before they have a chance to get up and return to the herd anyway. And guess what, even the mobs not knocked back are taking that aoe damage in the herd also.

 

And finally, guess what pumkins, there is no knockback if you put the mob in a logical place to take advantage of the powers that are on the team you are playing on. So if you are the tanker on the team you know I am there cause apparently I am pising you off with power secondary effects that are essentially a random number roll, then politely ask to not attack the mob until you get it settled into one spot and then settle that mob into a corner or against a wall or something where there is no knockback. See THAT is something you should have control of. the Tank is herding I am killing. You play your role on the team and I will play mine. But if you are being irritated by a blasters knockback it is because you are a shitty tank not because they are a shitty blaster.

 

Homeskillet. Most of your posts are... Pretty cringe-worthy, and beyond that, hard to read.

 

Slow down, brother-man. First, please use just a bit of punctuation, and grammatical structure, because the meaning of your text may be misconstrued. You may not mean to be abrasive, but it sure seems that way.

 

Second, knockback on teams is absolutely terrible, and 8/10 other modes of damage mitigation are not just superior, they are toweringly so. So much of your text is not just misguided, it's clearly wrong. From the most simple perspective, your knockback actually kills your teammates. Here's how:

 

-willpower... Needs foes in Melee to Regen

-invuln... Needs foes in Melee to tank

-brutes... Need foes close to generate fury

-every melee aoe set... Has a range of avg 15 feet, and if they can't kill, they take more damage

-kinetic ANYTHING... Needs foes to heal and end proc, you knock them away as they cast, no one gets healed, no one gets end-->detoggled

-ranged cone powers... KB throws them out of cone.

 

Your insistence that KB is not harmful runs contrary to all facts, all evidence, all actual gameplay testing.... For 16 years.

 

Knockback on teams is generally garbage. An experienced player will use it well and then, only then, is knockBACK ok.

 

Lastly, my earth/storm skips Rock cages because they're visually cumbersome, and USED to invalidate earthquake, so your conclusion that skipping immob is a poor choice, is plainly wrong.

 

Further, controllers that mad spam immob as an opening salvo ON TEAMS are as bad as you are with knockback, for the exact reasons I listed. Don't immob foes to the detriment of your team. Immob foes at the proper time.

 

I could keep going, but I suggest you really stop and think, not only about your ideas but how you present them.

 

As a side note, I'm not telling you not to be a knockback super-spammer, please do if you like it, I would ask you once in mission to stop (same as I would the stupid immob alpha controller) and if you repeated, I would be just as happy to kick and Perma ignore. So, we would both be happy.

[Novacat]

The recharge enhancement it gives is garbage and the accuracy enhancement is subpar. And using the KB-to-KD IO and the proc for the recharge bonus means the enhancement values are even worse.

Just to note that for many Blaster combos accuracy enhancement is HEAVILY overcovered by other sources on the character. It does leave things lacking in terms of recharge if you go heavy, but Positron's Blast is great for frankenslotting 2-3 slots (usually the proc and damage/range for my cones).

Do make sure there's decent recharge in the other set pieces you slip in there.

[Tremalion]

I don't get the hatred for Positron's Blast. I like it because I can slot those powers adequately with only 5 pieces of it while building enough global recharge to Build Up into Nova every thirty seconds. But oh noes my Explosive Blast recharges in five and a half seconds instead of four and a half! That's one second slower! One! ::)

 

Please keep hating on it, though. I like being able to buy them on the cheap.

[Vanden]

I don't get the hatred for Positron's Blast. I like it because I can slot those powers adequately with only 5 pieces of it while building enough global recharge to Build Up into Nova every thirty seconds. But oh noes my Explosive Blast recharges in five and a half seconds instead of four and a half! That's one second slower! One! ::)

 

That one second means you're doing 20% less AoE DPS.

[Tremalion]

]

That one second means you're doing 20% less AoE DPS.

 

I'm really not sure if you are being serious.

[Machariel]

I don't get the hatred for Positron's Blast. I like it because I can slot those powers adequately with only 5 pieces of it while building enough global recharge to Build Up into Nova every thirty seconds. But oh noes my Explosive Blast recharges in five and a half seconds instead of four and a half! That's one second slower! One! ::)

 

That one second means you're doing 20% less AoE DPS.

which is okay, because the Nova killed everything anyway, and you put Posi's into a power that you weren't using on cooldown?

[SlimPickens]

Positrons is a good set outside of purple or ATOs. I would slot energy torrent 5 positrons including the proc, and one force feedback +rech proc IO. I think for a KB cone power thats pretty ideal If you cant get a purple or ATO in the set because you've used them elsewhere.

 

Use the power as a +rech mule to give you the 6.25% form positrons, and the proc from force feedback going off every activation and just deal with the KB in the power.

[QuiJon]

 

 

Second, knockback on teams is absolutely terrible, and 8/10 other modes of damage mitigation are not just superior, they are toweringly so. So much of your text is not just misguided, it's clearly wrong. From the most simple perspective, your knockback actually kills your teammates. Here's how:

 

-willpower... Needs foes in Melee to Regen

-invuln... Needs foes in Melee to tank

-brutes... Need foes close to generate fury

-every melee aoe set... Has a range of avg 15 feet, and if they can't kill, they take more damage

-kinetic ANYTHING... Needs foes to heal and end proc, you knock them away as they cast, no one gets healed, no one gets end-->detoggled

-ranged cone powers... KB throws them out of cone.

First of all most powers that grant any kind of bonus for having enemies in range, give the most benefit for the first few enemies in range. No blaster knockback power is even hitting every enemy. And even if it should, again, those enemies are not attacking anylonger while knocked back therefore you don't have to regen against them or get a damage bonus etc. Brutes generate fury by attacking and being attacked. So by that logic we should never kill mobs because brutes would get no fury? Maybe brutes should finally start to take their taunts if they want to guarantee they get attacked to build fury instead of telling me not to use powers. And again, as far as a kinetic goes, you are talking the difference between understanding power dynamics and not. First of all not all enemies will be knocked away, if the kin is good they are going to target the strongest enemy, which is also the least likely due to their own resistances to be effected by knockback. And I would also maintain if you can not get through a fight without a kinetic to give you end, you made a crappy character and is again not the knockbacks fault.

 

Your insistence that KB is not harmful runs contrary to all facts, all evidence, all actual gameplay testing.... For 16 years.

Hum I must have missed all that testing you speak of. Who conducted these "tests" Where is the evidence that knockback slowed down a team or caused more team deaths or any of the things that people say is true is true. Cause you know as well as I do that they don't exist. What does exist is "opinions" and those opinions are most vocal from melee players who get upset if 1) their perfect little mob is disrupted and 2) if they are not perceived as being the star of the team. Therefore anything that makes it seem like you don't have to have a tank or brute running in and herding 50 enemies into a ball for the team is considered bad. However the game was not designed with the intention that we would ever have people building characters capable of doing that. And frankly on most teams I have been on, herding smaller more manageable mobs that require less defenses from the melee normally are more manageable and killed more quickly by the team then running and taking down the entire room at once. But again that is my opinion I have no tests to show that.

 

Knockback on teams is generally garbage. An experienced player will use it well and then, only then, is knockBACK ok.

I have not once said that you should not care how your knockback effects the team I have said you should not care what people think about you for having it if you want it. Again I don't disrupt the team flow but there are many ways that you can still have knockback on your character for your own use, and still use those powers on a team when the situation calls for them.

Lastly, my earth/storm skips Rock cages because they're visually cumbersome, and USED to invalidate earthquake, so your conclusion that skipping immob is a poor choice, is plainly wrong.

I didn't say a word about the use of stone cages with earth quake. I said it works really well with stalagmites. Just as fire cages works really well with flashfire. It turns your fastest recycling AOE control into a hold instead of a stun. Stuns leave enemies wandering around, and again as you listed how bad that is for the likes of melee that a stunned enemy might wander out of mele range to give a brute their regen bonus or defense bonus or not be a kinetic bait. But more so depending on your build my earth is a earth/fire/fire. Stone cages dropped on a mob that is stunned makes sure they all stay nice and packed for Rain of Fire and combustion, and firebreath and fire ball. Hell frankly since being perma dom I barely use earthquake or quicksand anymore mobs are controlled completely and fall so fast it isn't worth the time to spawn either of them most of the time.

 

Further, controllers that mad spam immob as an opening salvo ON TEAMS are as bad as you are with knockback, for the exact reasons I listed. Don't immob foes to the detriment of your team. Immob foes at the proper time.

Ah but then again, I did not say mad spam or suggest it should be used as an opening shot. I said that controllers and doms that do it before a herd is formed are pissing off melee. However after that herd is formed it keeps them on top of the melee toon, some have other effects like stone cages debuffs defense making mobs easier to hit and if there happens to be a knockback effect on the team, immbl enemies will not then fly away from the melee herd. Or at minimum enough will be left to provide that regen bonus or kinetic target etc. But see again kind of my point tell a controller to take a power  that is useful for the team and they make an excuse for why they don't want it because they want their build to perform a certain way. But hey go ahead and pile on a blaster that wants his build to work a certain way. A controller not having an immbl on a team with how many power choices can knock back enemies could be said to be just as selfish as a blaster that doesn't want to give his up.

 

 

 

[honoraryorange]

LOL imagine writing all that ^  to justify your poor grouping behavior and bad manners.