A relook at Sorcery Pool's Flight

[MsSmart]

I bought the pool mainly for Rune of Protection for my support alts, so I had to take the sacrifice to buy this power pool to deal with the spammed and abusive use of Status effects in the game.

 

I am grateful that at least they placed flight, so something actually useful besides the rune in this pool was useful and thus make the sacrifice less painful.

 

But when I engage flight, just like normal flight, it has the idiotic ungraceful stop, that gets on my nerves. If you had the flight pool and had hover, then flight works very well when you try to stop and click at a door. 

 

When I engage normal fly, it gives speed boost as a special which is nice and useful, when I use the Arcane version I get the totally useless teleport.

 

My request, is to replace the valueless Teleport with Hover as a choice, this way I can have a maneuverable and controllable flight.

 

Thank you!

 

[tidge]

I have a different take on comparison of the Flight and Sorcery Pool: I think the Flight pool comes up short. The flight pool has 3, 4, or 5 powers that are toggles to use (Hover, Flight, Evasive Maneuvers, Afterburner, Group Fly) and they each (modulo Afterburner) have to be toggled off individually (unless triggering Walk)... and none are particularly fast to turn on. I find this to be a huge PITA, much more so than what Mystic Flight grants.

 

The Mystic Flight's teleport can be used as a poor-man's Combat Teleport, among its many other potential uses.

[Psyonico]

I admit, I don't use the teleport all that often, but I know a guy that takes mystic flight on every character specifically because of the telephoto.

 

Also, the hover would be of minimal use since you'd *have* to have mystic flight turned on to use it and you can't slot it.

[srmalloy]

8 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

I admit, I don't use the teleport all that often, but I know a guy that takes mystic flight on every character specifically because of the telephoto.

I have a strong preference for Sorcery over the Flight pool for specifically this reason. Translocation is a major upgrade for characters wanting to be able to stealth missions — Celerity: Stealth in Sprint to reduce your aggro range, and Translocation can get you past an amazing number of choke points where trying to run or fly past a spawn would get you attacked. And there are some cases where it allows you to skate parts of a map — the 'abandoned office' tileset has places where there is a regular route along several turns and stairs to an end room right next to you, but because of the damage to the walls there is a hole allowing you to look into that room, and careful placement of the teleport destination marker allows you to port through the hole into the room. There are also quite a few places where there would be windows on a 'maintained' office map, but the glass is missing on the abandoned map, and Translocation lets you port through the empty frame without having to try to get yourself lined up right to fly through the window. 

[MsSmart]

Gees folks, I never use the TP that you get with the flight, in fact non of my alts used the clunky hard to use TP, that is why I want to have a choice of something else that is useful, and flight with out hover is a pain, when trying to stop by a door or whatever, it was made to be so lame... I applaud that hover and flight could be combined to avoid the stupid flight made stupid by the developers who thought they were being so cute.

 

Frankly why do I have to buy two powers to get to the one, I really bought the pool for Rune of Protection?

 

Seems rather cruel to me, but then again for fighting to get to weave which is what support types really need also forces them to buy two needless powers... Seems the game has a bit of bias against support types being survivable, it seems...

 

forgive my rant, please

[lemming]

For my chars with mystic flight, I bound the middle mouse button

MBUTTON "powexeclocation camera:max translocation"

 

Makes it much easier to use.   And I use it much the same way as srmalloy and I'm one of those wierdos that hardly uses or even chooses Rune of Protection. 

[Rudra]

My stance on the matter is simple: If you want flight with excellent flight control, then you take the Flight pool.

 

Support types don't need Rune of Protection to survive. Absolutely none of my characters have Rune of Protection. It is only available for one minute at a time with a recharge of three minutes that ignores any and all recharge effects. So you will always have at least two minutes of it not protecting you no matter what you do. And for those two minutes of no Rune of Protection, you can easily have either gotten orange and light purple inspirations to protect you for that same one minute duration or made orange and light purple inspirations from the inspiration drops you got to do the same thing. Hardly critical to any character's survival.

[srmalloy]

18 minutes ago, lemming said:

For my chars with mystic flight, I bound the middle mouse button

MBUTTON "powexeclocation camera:max translocation"

I went with the control+click from way back on live, except that I generalized it to all of the teleports I had on any of my characters, so I could have the one entry in my keybinds.txt file:

 

CTRL+LBUTTON "powexec_unqueue$$powexecname Translocation$$powexecname Teleport$$powexecname White Dwarf Step"

[DoctorDitko]

6 hours ago, srmalloy said:

the glass is missing on the abandoned map, and Translocation lets you port through

The glass may be present on the regular office maps, but you can still Translocate straight through it.

 

I consider Mystic Flight to be the fastest travel power in the game.

 

Try this: activate Mystic Flight, press R to auto-run, now moving at ~60 mph. Turn on Steam Jump or Jump Jet from the P2W vendor (No need to actually activate it), you're now at ~90mph.  CTRL-click (/bind ctrl+mouse1 powexec name Translocation, or use srmalloy's universal bind) ahead on your route and TP another 300 yards, give or take. Repeat as needed.

Hey, presto: you're there now!

 

tldr: Please don't mess with Mystic Flight; it's glorious!

 

 

[Rudra]

Some advice on flying that may help you: When using any flight power without Hover, before you finish reaching your destination, typically just as you reach it, move in the opposite direction you were flying. It helps break your drift. So normally that would mean briefly hold the back key since you would most likely be using forward movement. Don't keep holding the back key, just like a second or so is enough to counter drift.

[Ultimo]

I'm not sure I understand.  Hover isn't part of the Flight power, there's no reason you can't take it when using Mystic Flight.  I love that Mystic Flight includes the Teleport aspect, because that gives me Teleport without having to take a separate power.

[Jacke]

I used to take the Flight Pool more often in the past.  But now when I take a non-Temp non-Prestige flying Power, it's almost always the Sorcery Pool's Mystic Flight.  I don't always take more from Sorcery, but I love that combo of flying and teleportation.  Add an extra Slot and a 2-set of either Blessing of the Zephyr or Hypersonic and at L50 (and even some Levels Exemplared) the Toon flies at the FlightSpeed Cap.

 

 

[Maelwys]

The "inertial drift" that accompanies Hoverless flight can also be partially mitigated by Toggling on Combat Jumping or Athletic Run.

 

Personally on the (few) characters I have which take the Fly pool over the Sorcery pool, the only real draw is the extra one-slot wonders for LotGs.

Mystic Flight's Translocation teleport ability is excellent at reducing main map travel speed, enabling me to bypass geometry to appear at a target's feet, and getting me the hell out of dodge quickly.

[tidge]

If we are sharing macros, here is one I've added to my characters with  Mystic Flight  to mimic Combat Teleport:

 

/macro_image "Archery_Aim"    "BAMF" "powexec_location target Translocation$$powexec_toggleon Mystic_Flight"

 

It requires a double-click if Mystic Flight is toggled off.

[tidge]

10 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Frankly why do I have to buy two powers to get to the one, I really bought the pool for Rune of Protection?

 

Seems rather cruel to me, but then again for fighting to get to weave which is what support types really need also forces them to buy two needless powers... Seems the game has a bit of bias against support types being survivable, it seems...

 

forgive my rant, please

 

The character-building economy has always had opportunity costs. I believe there are other servers that pretty much allow players to pick whatever powers they want. There have been changes over the years w.r.t. Power Pools, try to imagine how you might feel if Fitness wasn't inherent for example.

 

There are IMO still power pools that ought to be tweaked, but the "origin" travel pools are not anywhere close. They were among the most recent ones to have been adjusted.

 

The power pools that deserve a hard look involve the last of the original (mostly untouched) legacy pools, specifically those that have picks that are available at 4,4,14,14,14. Minimally, each of those also has two powers that require two previous picks, so I'd prefer if the available levels were more like 4,4,4,14,14 (with same pre-requisites) or 4,4,4,14,20 (with an upgrade to the final pick) like the origin pools. In no particular order, my hot takes on the pools that need tweaks:

 

Flight: I'd make Evasive Maneuvers the level 20 (Group Fly would be 14) pick and make it an auto power. The pool has too many toggles, which is IMO motivated by the original devs fear that most everyone would only use Flight as their travel power. (which is why "flight control" isn't trivial to get)

 

Leadership: Mostly fine, but if Victory Rush was made to be worth taking I'd probably be happier.

 

Medicine: as with Flight's Evasive Maneuvers, I think Field Medic ought to be an Auto power, and it can be the level 20 pick. There was an original dev fear about "easy healing" that simply doesn't make sense in the game, certainly not now.

 

Presence: This needs to be  a 4,4,4,14,20 pool, and it should be possible to take only Intimidate before Invoke Panic. The powers Pacify / Provoke / Intimidate are "orthogonal" to each other in terms of designing how a character can play. It doesn't help that the Fear and Threat sets offer some of the worst choices in terms of available enhancement pieces.

[MsSmart]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Some advice on flying that may help you: When using any flight power without Hover, before you finish reaching your destination, typically just as you reach it, move in the opposite direction you were flying. It helps break your drift. So normally that would mean briefly hold the back key since you would most likely be using forward movement. Don't keep holding the back key, just like a second or so is enough to counter drift.

Thank you

 

[MsSmart]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The "inertial drift" that accompanies Hoverless flight can also be partially mitigated by Toggling on Combat Jumping or Athletic Run.

 

Personally on the (few) characters I have which take the Fly pool over the Sorcery pool, the only real draw is the extra one-slot wonders for LotGs.

Mystic Flight's Translocation teleport ability is excellent at reducing main map travel speed, enabling me to bypass geometry to appear at a target's feet, and getting me the hell out of dodge quickly.

I did not know that, thank you!

[MsSmart]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

The character-building economy has always had opportunity costs. I believe there are other servers that pretty much allow players to pick whatever powers they want. There have been changes over the years w.r.t. Power Pools, try to imagine how you might feel if Fitness wasn't inherent for example.

 

There are IMO still power pools that ought to be tweaked, but the "origin" travel pools are not anywhere close. They were among the most recent ones to have been adjusted.

 

The power pools that deserve a hard look involve the last of the original (mostly untouched) legacy pools, specifically those that have picks that are available at 4,4,14,14,14. Minimally, each of those also has two powers that require two previous picks, so I'd prefer if the available levels were more like 4,4,4,14,14 (with same pre-requisites) or 4,4,4,14,20 (with an upgrade to the final pick) like the origin pools. In no particular order, my hot takes on the pools that need tweaks:

 

Flight: I'd make Evasive Maneuvers the level 20 (Group Fly would be 14) pick and make it an auto power. The pool has too many toggles, which is IMO motivated by the original devs fear that most everyone would only use Flight as their travel power. (which is why "flight control" isn't trivial to get)

 

Leadership: Mostly fine, but if Victory Rush was made to be worth taking I'd probably be happier.

 

Medicine: as with Flight's Evasive Maneuvers, I think Field Medic ought to be an Auto power, and it can be the level 20 pick. There was an original dev fear about "easy healing" that simply doesn't make sense in the game, certainly not now.

 

Presence: This needs to be  a 4,4,4,14,20 pool, and it should be possible to take only Intimidate before Invoke Panic. The powers Pacify / Provoke / Intimidate are "orthogonal" to each other in terms of designing how a character can play. It doesn't help that the Fear and Threat sets offer some of the worst choices in terms of available enhancement pieces.

I love this

[lemming]

10 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I went with the control+click from way back on live, except that I generalized it to all of the teleports I had on any of my characters, so I could have the one entry in my keybinds.txt file:

 

CTRL+LBUTTON "powexec_unqueue$$powexecname Translocation$$powexecname Teleport$$powexecname White Dwarf Step"

Oddly enough, I use that combo for my other teleports.   I think for mystic, the middle just worked better for me.

[Snarky]

Unlike you I take Sorcery for the flight power. And the teleport. As you dash through maps in search of goals even great stealth and knowledge can be overcome by enemy numbers and gimmicks. (Perception, damage fields, etc…). A well thought out teleport jaunt can get you right across the problem and on your way…

[Doomguide2005]

And I rarely take any Sorcery pool powers.  I'm a fan of Air Superiority, then Fly, Evasive Maneuvers (with Fly and Air Superiority order based on the rest of the build to that point).  I deal with Fly drift as suggested above by tapping the back space until EM was available.  I also long ago developed the habit of coming in straight down to minimize the chance of aggro on nearby mobs.   Used to be disturbingly common to have much higher level mobs near doors your relative lowbie needed to enter.  Hollows and PI in particular loved to teach lessons to you that way.  Most have been moved away but habits remain.

[Ukase]

On 10/31/2025 at 3:17 PM, MsSmart said:

My request, is to replace the valueless Teleport with Hover as a choice, this way I can have a maneuverable and controllable flight.

So I get that for you, the TP has no value. For some - that's the only value the pool has aside from the Prune of Protection. I call it Prune on purpose for reasons of my own. (still irked due to the nerf) 

If you got a hover like power from getting mystic flight, in lieu of translocation, then there are players who would rather have a third alternative, like combat jumping. If I can have that as a choice along with your hover choice, then by all means! 

But, there are things I don't know, and I don't even know what I don't know about what kind of a hassle that would be to implement, let alone how that would impact every build for 90% of the characters that take one or more of these pools. 

As an idea, it's not bad, but it would need further fleshing out to be something most players could get behind. (just my opinion)

[Frozen Burn]

On 10/31/2025 at 4:17 PM, MsSmart said:

I bought the pool mainly for Rune of Protection for my support alts, so I had to take the sacrifice to buy this power pool to deal with the spammed and abusive use of Status effects in the game.

 

I am grateful that at least they placed flight, so something actually useful besides the rune in this pool was useful and thus make the sacrifice less painful.

 

But when I engage flight, just like normal flight, it has the idiotic ungraceful stop, that gets on my nerves. If you had the flight pool and had hover, then flight works very well when you try to stop and click at a door. 

 

When I engage normal fly, it gives speed boost as a special which is nice and useful, when I use the Arcane version I get the totally useless teleport.

 

My request, is to replace the valueless Teleport with Hover as a choice, this way I can have a maneuverable and controllable flight.

 

Thank you!

 

 

I think everything pretty much has been said already above, but some additional considerations/reminders:

• For stopping, hit the back button near the end to stop the drift - this is how you had to Fly since 2004 when the game launched and before HC recently allowed Hover and Fly to stack.
• You can also STILL take Hover from the flight pool and have it stack, if you want - also, Combat Jumping helps.  Yes, an extra power pick, but it's possible to do if the drift annoys you that much,
• Rune of Protection is largely not needed at all due to the unchangeable duration and recharge.  I have only 1 character with it so that I can say I've tried it.  It rarely uses it as inspires are typically always there when I need them - even in the worst of content:  4-Star TFs/SFs, iTrials, incarnate, etc. 
• Power Pools are meant to have the "good" powers at the end and have prerequisites to take prior to getting them - always been that way.  That's the trade off for the "good" powers.  As also mentioned above, there are other servers out there who do allow you to pick any power in any order, and some also mix and matching many power sets across several ATs.

I too am in the camp of finding the inherent TP very useful.  I would be sad to have it go away from Mystic Flight.  Too many times, I am trapped in a room or hallway by a horde of mobs and the TP helps me escape/relocate.  Or it helps me to better position myself within a mob (in the case of my fairy Brute that wants to be surrounded by foes - sometimes, mobs stay in a cone and I can TP into the middle of the mass to force them to surround me.  🙂  

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Frozen Burn said:

• Rune of Protection is largely not needed at all due to the unchangeable duration and recharge.  I have only 1 character with it so that I can say I've tried it.  It rarely uses it as inspires are typically always there when I need them - even in the worst of content:  4-Star TFs/SFs, iTrials, incarnate, etc. 

 

My biggest complaint about Rune of Protection is the animation/graphic; I'd like to have a "minimal FX" option for it. When the recharge could be enhanced it was definitely OP.

 

My POV on the Sorcery pool is that it is a convenient pool to take to leverage for muling enhancement pieces that would otherwise have trouble getting into a build. As noted, it has a useful travel power (that can take several good pieces), a power that can mule Preventive Medicine's %Absorb, and RoP can mule several pieces (in addition to being an on-demand replacement for some Inspirations), including a pair that together can add +6% Defense. I'm lukewarm on the single-target blast; I have no complaints, it is more that I like it best on explicitly "magical" characters. On my 'tight' builds I usually don't have slots for the pool attacks

[Chris24601]

Arcane Bolt is definitely a pick dependent on your AT and concept.

 

I know for my spellcaster themed gravity controller, arcane bolt outperforms Propel in just about every metric and adds a nice batch of energy damage to an otherwise smashing heavy set.