Curious about temp power utility

[Ukase]

Some of us hoard them, never to be used. 
Some of us earn them and honestly have no idea we even have them until something causes us to click on powers and look at the right side and see all those temps. 
Some of us seek them out and use them repeatedly. 

My question is when do you use them? I used to save mine for PvP. I never felt right about recruiting for pvp badges, because if the party I spoke with wasn't interested, they could easily just intrude and make my badge efforts more difficult. So I often solo'd the RV AVs/Heros. And I can tell you, it can take a lot of them when your build isn't quite right for pvp land. 

I noticed I earned the Enchantment of Serafina. It's a nice little temp. But when to use it? For solo play, say a solo ITF? Or team play? The times when it would come in most handy, the temps are disabled. 

When do you folks use your temps, if at all? 

[Glacier Peak]

Shivans, solo or Master of runs. Amplifiers, solo or Master of runs.

Power Analyzer, when testing.

[High_Beam]

OMG I forget so many of them until I do a respec then suddenly I am like what the everloving effff.

 

The changes to the game coupled with my changes in built and buff means I rarely use temp powers.  I still occasionally lean into the Wedding Ring, especially when flashing back.  In fact that is where I most often use the temps I have.  I still go after the Wedding Ring and the Warwolf Whistle.  I have rarely bought or used things like Envenomed Daggers or HVAS.  More often than not, I just right click and delete unless I am feeling nostalgic, or there is a thematic thing for me (grenades are always kept for use by my gun types) or I am going to flashback a bunch of sub 20 content.

 

I would hazard to guess the lions share of my alts still have the Confiscated Beanbag temp for some reason.

[GM Crumpet]

29 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

OMG I forget so many of them until I do a respec then suddenly I am like what the everloving effff.

 

The changes to the game coupled with my changes in built and buff means I rarely use temp powers.  I still occasionally lean into the Wedding Ring, especially when flashing back.  In fact that is where I most often use the temps I have.  I still go after the Wedding Ring and the Warwolf Whistle.  I have rarely bought or used things like Envenomed Daggers or HVAS.  More often than not, I just right click and delete unless I am feeling nostalgic, or there is a thematic thing for me (grenades are always kept for use by my gun types) or I am going to flashback a bunch of sub 20 content.

 

I would hazard to guess the lions share of my alts still have the Confiscated Beanbag temp for some reason.

HVAS is useful on Hami raids when you want to take Hami down fast in a hamigeddon, and MSR where they last all through the riad unless they die. A Hamigeddon (if you don't know) is where you ignore the Mito's and go straight for Hami. Tanks taunt the Mito's and the league slaps the jelly till it explodes. Most times it's done before the EoE runs out. You can get 4 or 5 hami slaps done in about half an hour.

[Bionic_Flea]

The temps I used the most are the "Prestige" ones, which I always pick up at level 1 after grabbing an email of starter funds:

 

Prestige Attack - Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Sands of Mu, and my origin power get used early as an attack filler and late game when I get slowed to hell, have a rage crash, or just need one more range attack.

Prestige Travel - Base, Team, and Mission Teleporters, Supergroup Portal, Assemble the Team, Jump Pack, and one of the runs, usually Athletic.  I use the teleporters all the time, the portal when they are all on cooldown, and Assemble on TFs.  I would add Long Range TP and Ouro Portal to this list, even though not "prestige."

Prestige Utility - Return to Battle, Inner Inspiration, Mystic Fortune, Secondary Mutation, Reveal, and Portable Workbench.  Return to Battle is hands down the best rez there it.  Not only are you standing upright, but you have a full set of inspirations on you to keep you from face planting again.  Inner Inspiration I use after converting a few to something I need just to fill up again.  The workbench gets used constantly in and out of missions to fill dead time (starting a TF) or when I need to make space because my drops got full.  Mystic Fortune is my way of saying "hello" sometimes or as a little friendly buff during TFs.  I don't use Secondary Mutation too much for fear of becoming a monkey.  And reveal is sometimes necessary to navigate to the end of a mission fast or to find that missing room you just can't seem to find.

 

There's a bunch of other temp powers I always buy from S.T.A.R.T.  In order of usage:  Jetpack, Envenomed Dagger, Recovery Serum, Back Up Radio, Blue Wisp Pet, Signature Summon - Ranged (for Positron), Plasmatic Taser, Hand Grenade and Stun Grenade, Med Pack, Kinetic Dampener.  Probably self evident, but sometimes you need to fly, a little more endurance or heal, extra AoE (especially while leveling), and some help for AVs, especially if solo.

 

All of the powers that you get from missions usually have something to do with the mission or arc you are on.  So I'll use it for that and then relegate them to the hidden power list.  Although they can sometimes be just the thing needed in PvE or PvP

 

A little PvP story:  Back on the retail game my main villain was Atomic Flea, a Sonic/Rad corrupter.  I was in Siren's Call and got TP'd into a trap pile left by a player named Zartain (may he rest in peace).  The first time he caught me completely unaware - held, slowed, then bombed - BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.  Dead.  Now I knew he was around and when I felt I was getting TP'd popped a break free and was ready to hop out.  I wasn't held but still bombed and I only made it a few feet away before I was shot down.  I was getting pissed and frustrated.  Then I remembered that I had [seduction], a temp power confuse.  I pulled that out of mothballs and onto my tray.  I knew where his nest was now.  I put seduction on autofire, targeted him, popped a break free, and headed in his direction knowing he was going to do it again.  As soon as I appeared in his trap pile he was hit by the confuse and all the traps went off on him.   AHAHAHAHA!  Sweet revenge.  He stopped teleporting me.

 

 

Edited September 2 by Bionic_Flea

[Ukase]

Hmm...I remember using up the wedding ring on a character - because I forgot I had it toggled on. So, I redid the arc, and got a 2nd one..which I think only had a 5 minute timer. Better than nothing. 

I always try to ask myself when to make the most use out of these temps. 

Like Enchantment of Serafina. It's interesting. For one minute, it reduces Psionic damage and boosts Psionic Damage. If my math is right, a 25% strength to Psionic Damage on a fire blaster would be ...well...zero. As 25X0=0. I've yet to ever use this temp, as I usually have my visible trays filled with other stuff by the time I earn it. I suppose it would act like a psionic damage proc to all attacks, rather than providing no benefit, but I'll have to use it to find out. 

 

1 hour ago, GM Crumpet said:

HVAS is useful on Hami raids

I should have originally mentioned my curiosity was about temps that cannot typically be re-earned. Like, the Wedding Ring. We get 2 hours of it - and when it's expired, we can redo the arc, and get another for 5 minutes, I think. After that, not sure, as 5 minutes isn't really that long for the duration of the arc to re-earn it. 

HVAS, while fairly inexpensive at 250 vg merits can be reacquired with no penalty, other than the opportunity cost of 8.3 reward merits.  I like the 80 merits. Having it reduced to 71.7...too greedy to deal with that math. 

Other temps, once used - poof - gone. (or gone until you re-earn them by redoing the arc/mission you earned them in. Some only last a couple days of game time, some real life time, some have 20,50 100 uses. 

I recall I made a dark tank that had, flurry, Sands of Mu (prestige power), Shadow Maul, and the Sands of Mu temp earned from Miriam Bloechl or Laura Brunetti. It was as silly as it sounds. 

 

[High_Beam]

38 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

The temps I used the most are the "Prestige" ones, which I always pick up at level 1 after grabbing an email of starter funds:

 

Prestige Attack - Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Sands of Mu, and my origin power get used early as an attack filler and late game when I get slowed to hell, have a rage crash, or just need one more range attack.

Prestige Travel - Base, Team, and Mission Teleporters, Supergroup Portal, Assemble the Team, Jump Pack, and one of the runs, usually Athletic.  I use the teleporters all the time, the portal when they are all on cooldown, and Assemble on TFs.  I would add Long Range TP and Ouro Portal to this list, even though not "prestige."

Prestige Utility - Return to Battle, Inner Inspiration, Mystic Fortune, Secondary Mutation, Reveal, and Portable Workbench.  Return to Battle is hands down the best rez there it.  Not only are you standing upright, but you have a full set of inspirations on you to keep you from face planting again.  Inner Inspiration I use after converting a few to something I need just to fill up again.  The workbench gets used constantly in and out of missions to fill dead time (starting a TF) or when I need to make space because my drops got full.  Mystic Fortune is my way of saying "hello" sometimes or as a little friendly buff during TFs.  I don't use Secondary Mutation too much for fear of becoming a monkey.  And reveal is sometimes necessary to navigate to the end of a mission fast or to find that missing room you just can't seem to find.

I didn't mention those as I do not consider them temporary (I know Flashback challenge settings do), they never go away.

 

But yes, they are super useful, in many cases indispensable.

[Bionic_Flea]

17 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

I didn't mention those as I do not consider them temporary

 

39 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I should have originally mentioned my curiosity was about temps that cannot typically be re-earned.

 

That's fair.  The prestige ones are permanent temporary powers.  An oxymoron if ever their was one.

[JKCarrier]

I usually save them for Bosses. Unless it's one of those that expires after a certain amount of time, in which case I'll just throw it into my regular attack chain and enjoy it while it lasts.

[Hedgefund]

How and when I use temps is buried within several layers of "if..." statements.  At the highest level, if the temp power is in-game time based or charge based.  I'm including something lilke wedding band in the latter category even though it's limited by time, it's time of usage not in-game time.  An example of the former is something like Kama from the St. Martial event which expires in 20 hours of in-game time.  Then further conditions would be "is this useful?"  For a lowbie controller a melee attack like that can come in handy.  For others like melee classes, probably not.  Rune of Warding and Iron Blade are examples of in-game time temps that I usually acquire and can find use for, at least one of them, for most characters at that level (mid 20s to mid 30s).

 

For the temps that have less usage upon reacquiring, I really need to be in a bind to use those (Amy's Ward, Wedding Ring).  Like, I need to be on a third failure of an AV on a solo tf before I'll use those.

 

Easily replenishable temps, like Shivans, I use proactively on solo tfs just to end the AV fight quicker.  I like to have a Warburg bio nuke in my inventory "just in case" but even though that can be reacquired its usage is a real last resort (only happened once on HC).

 

Something like Enchantment of Serafina I'd have to figure if a team is going to need a boost against a psi av/hero like Numina or, well, Serafina.  I'm not sure I've ever actually used it on HC.  The psi resists is about the same as a small orange insp so, meh.

 

The real bummer is you can't use these when you most want.  Upthread it was mentioned using them on Mo runs but you can't, at least not the old school Mo tfs that award with no deaths.  Temp powers (except for some travel) are disabled for those.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Temporary powers are great! When I'm tanking AVs, I like to throw Toy Bat into my rotation to deal extra damage to their pride. My teammates really appreciate me using precious seconds to bonk our adversaries!

 

Hero 1 gets the [Excalibonk] treatment!

[cranebump]

Soloing with old schoolish squishy toons I’ll sometimes make use of stun grenades at lower levels. Might use hand grenades or plas taser if I need a KB bailout.

[Techwright]

If we're talking about limited usage temp powers (and not something like the Nem Staff), I almost never use them unless

• they provide a significant effect, not a minor one.
• I run out of all other powers.  This usually happens when something has significantly slowed my power recharge.  To that end, I usually set one or two of them on a side tray, just in case.
• they thematically boost my character.  For example, I mentioned elsewhere my sky pirate whose main weapons are swords but has a full charge of the pistol power for thematic effect.

 

A good example of a significant effect one is Amy's Ward.   I'll use it sparingly and only for when the team is in a serious bind and needs an additional player in the game.

[Snarky]

you may have heard rumors that sometimes my pugs go sideways.  like....far sideways.  the most common abrupt change in vector is almost always posi 1, city hall steps.  i almost always run this with a "native" level 15-16 or so.  so not a lot of extra powers.  but, for this flustercluck, the temp grenades and other temp powers from p2w are a real help.  seriously, anything, everything, all the time.  and a ton of inspirations in the email.  just to keep things vertical while they slide sideways...

[Digirium]

When one of my characters receives a temporary power, I look at it for a moment think "That's cool!" then remove it from tray and forget all about it until the next respec when they all flood the power tray prompting a /cleartray and then they are forgotten again.

 

The exceptions are powers that help move about like Ouroboros Portal (getting to transit missions), Teleport to Base and Summon SG Portal (day job rewards), or endurance powers like Recovery Serum on characters that use a lot of endurance and need help to keep up.

 

The real trouble is that even despite having all 10 trays open all the time on every character, there is no room to place temp powers on them!

 

 

Edited September 1 by Digirium

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 8/31/2024 at 8:28 AM, Ukase said:

Some of us hoard them, never to be used. 

 

Guilty as charged.  I tend to never use temp powers for the simple reason that unless I can easily reacquire them I don't want to depend on them.  That said, there are plenty, especially from the P2W menu, that get work.

 

I was gratified when the powers that be gave every new character a jetpack and athletic run, since that was always the first thing I do with the P2W vendor unless I'm specifically boycotting them.  I also buy Mission Transporter, Team Transporter, Inner Inspiration, Return to Battle, Reveal, Portable Workbench.  I'll eventually get Envenomed Daggers, and generally I'll keep an XP booster going, at least for the first 35 levels or so.  

 

I'll get Renewal of Light from the Candy Keeper -- it's only 8 days of rez but it's got a different timer than Return to Battle.

 

Other than that, I'm pretty clean.  I just started looking at Smoke Grenade (which you can get from Day Jobs as well as side missions in Mayhem/Safeguards).  My biggest stumbling blocks in what I'd like to be able to do but often cannot is scrapper soloing some of the TF/SFs where I'm mucking around with a bunch of AVs and I'm just not very good at pulling them off one at a time yet.  I hope to give this a whirl over the next few weeks.

[Ridiculous Girl]

the most useful temp power that i never use because i feel that it must be to be hoarded and saved for special occasions is Peebles wedding band, 30% +res (all), and i never use it! it used to be that if you do the ouro arc to recharge it, it only gave you 5 additional minutes, as opposed to the original 2 hours. i cannot remember if they changed it or not, but that is probably part of the reason i never use it. it's too valuable to ever use!

 

there is a temp power, i forget its name, that has 5 charges and will detoggle an opponent, and one of thee days i am going to use it in a PVP zone, if i ever get to one. i want to use it on a PVPer, just to see, figuratively, their face when they lose all their toggles and get held and burned down. 😄

[srmalloy]

On 8/31/2024 at 6:39 AM, GM Crumpet said:

A Hamigeddon (if you don't know) is where you ignore the Mito's and go straight for Hami.

The other term that seems to be popular for the same tactic is "Hamikaze".

[Ironblade]

Many of the temp powers are borderline useless so I typically remove them from my power tray and never give them another thought.

On my main, I collect them and have over 100 - which I don't use.

 

The only ones I do use are the Shivan Shard, HVAS and anything that's going to expire automatically after a set amount of real time (not in-game time).

[GM Crumpet]

11 hours ago, srmalloy said:

The other term that seems to be popular for the same tactic is "Hamikaze".

It's great fun though 🙂 

[Riverdusk]

Plasmatic Taser from START is probably my most used true "temp" power (and not prestige which are perm and free).  It is fun, quick to cast, and does decent AoE damage, and is actually amazingly cheap in inf for what it does.  Especially at lower levels when most character's have limited aoe it really helps clear the early mobs.   I play a lot of controllers and the buyable temp attacks tend to be great for them especially because of their limited attack options, no matter the level.

 

Envenomed dagger of course for AV's and recovery serum for easy big recovery boost when you need it are also high on the list.  Kinetic Dampener also sometimes (the perfect temp power if I ever saw for dark armor characters especially).

 

For non buyable temp powers though I tend to do the same as probably most and hoard and almost never use them. 

 

I have gotten over my hoarding of inspirations though and I am almost always clicking those.  From my observations on a typical team, most people hardly ever even use inspirations, not to mention temp powers.

[Doomguide2005]

     I have 3 virtually every character carries from START.  Stun Grenades, Plasmatic Taser and Envenomed Daggers.  Different characters use them in varying amounts and frequency.  My Nrg/Temp tends to use the Plasmatic Taser for when she wants kb instead of her kb to kd slotted AoEs.  It's yet another stun to stack with my Earth/Storm's several stun attacks (the grenades being the 4th option).  Many of my Empaths will lead with stun grenades.

[Crysis]

Amplifiers are really good if you exemp down and aren’t sporting an optimized leveling build (many of mine are end game builds).  They effectively equate to an “exemp level shift” or two at lower levels.  Critters at lower levels have a hard time punching through the buffs they offer.  Heck, just the mez protection from the amplifiers is worth it.

 

Also always take the temp attacks, at least the freebies.  Sometimes you need a ranged weapon like the Blackwand to do a pull.  Or just because it looks cool just equipping it for magic themed characters.

 

And I rarely take full travel powers these days as between Athletic/Ninja/beast run and sprint plus a flight pack you’ve got that covered.  Between those and built in health/stamina these days those really free up some other useful power picks.

Edited September 5 by Crysis

[Worm_Kalpa]

I collect temp powers whenever I can on my main characters.  For my side characters, I'll go after specific temp powers if they are useful or fit the character's theme.

 

The envenomed dagger is my most consistently used temp power since it debuffs the targets regen which is great for AVs.  I'll also use the amplifier buffs, jetpack, and Shivan shard as needed.  Otherwise, I most often use the use-limited temp powers from the START vendor like revolver or hand grenade to fill in attack chains.  I use the temp powers granted by missions but only in some cases

• I'm able to get the temp power again through flashback or mayhem/safeguard without too much trouble.
• It has a lot of charges/use-time so I won't accidentally use it up.
• It has a limit to how long you can keep the power, which is different than how long you can have it activated.  The original Nemesis staff granted by a mission and some of the zone event temp power rewords work like this.  Might as well use it before you lose it.

I like temp powers since they allow you try out different attacks without having to roll up a different character.  I also like some of my characters carrying an assortment of gadgets and weapons especially if it frees up powerset choices.  Like the web grenade temp power (or more likely day job power) means my stalkers and scrappers can immobilize or inflict -fly on targets without taking Weapon Mastery.  And having the Nemesis staff prestige power and Nemesis staff temp power at the same time was fairly fun and useful when soloing as a squishy character.