In an ideal (CoH) world, I'd like to have zero overlap between powersets among all my toons. That means no matter how many toons I make, I can only use a powerset once. So for example if I make a Kin/Sonic defender, I can't use Kin or Sonic Blast on any other toons. I mostly stuck with this idea in the original CoH, and if we get it back, I'd like to do it again, but with a lot more planning, due to a lot more knowledge.
With a clean slate, I've come up with a choice for each AT, and the goal is to maximize power/effectiveness...basically to find the best combos from what's available. In some cases it's easy, but in some very hard. For example fire blast. Arguably the best blast set for 3 AT's, but can only be used on one, with my rules. So here we go. Let me know what you think of my choices. At the end of each one (in parentheses) I'm also providing my former experience with the AT's and sets, which I'm basing my new choices on.
Blaster: Fire/EM. This means I can't make any corrs/defenders with fire blast, which is bad....but oh well. I can't imagine playing a non-fire primary blaster. (Fire/EM was my original main, and is pretty much the only one I would keep exactly the same.)
Brute: SS/Fire. Planning this to be my main in the new game. Probably the strongest overall build in the game, so can't go wrong here. (I had a Fire/SS tank and feel a brute would be even better.)
Controller: Illusion/Rad. One of the all time FotM's. Seems to have very good synergy, with /Rad providing some much needed extra crowd control to the least controllerish set in Illusion. A secondary option is Fire/Dark. Lots of damage, lots of survivability, stacking AoE stuns in Flashfire and Howling Twilight, Dark Servant helping keep the imps alive, etc. (I had an Ill/FF, Ill/Emp, Fire/Rad, and Fire/Kin. I feel like my new choices would be better than any of the old four.)
Dominator: Haven't completely decided, but I'm leaning towards Plant/Psi. Really set on plant, but not on the secondary. (No significant experience with doms.)
Defender: Cold/Sonic. Cold matures so late, I think I could only handle playing it on a defender. And sonic is the best choice here because its -res is significantly stronger than on other AT's. (I had a Kin/Rad defender, which I had zero fun with solo, so he was pretty much just a very good buff bot. His killing speed was just too slow for my linking, even with Kinetics. I'm hoping that the stacking -res from Sonic would do better.)
Mastermind: Thugs/Time. I couldn't imagine playing a MM without an AoE heal, and Time seems like it would be very good with MM's. (I had a Thugs/Dark that I really liked, but with /Dark being taken by a controller, I think /Time would do very well as a replacement.)
Scrapper: WarMace/Willpower: WM needs a lot of endurance to be effective...and WP provides that. Plus it provides good status effects (stun and knockdown), which should help a lot with WP's regen. In general, I'd like to reserve sets with a damage aura for brutes. WP has no damage aura, so it's fits perfectly on a scrapper. (I had a level 50 BS/Regen, DM/SR, and a Elec/Elec. But I also had WM/Shield in the upper 20's, and I could tell that WM would be godlike by the endgame. The only problem was endurance. The toon was practically unplayable, as he would be out of end after like 2 attack chains. The plan is for WP to fix that.)
Stalker: Staff/Ice. Maybe I'm missing something, but looking at Staff for stalkers, it seems just incredible. Definitely the best mix of ST and AoE damage, from what I can see. And /Ice seems to be great as well, with hoarfrost taking the stalker into the scrapper realm of HP. Also, infinite endurance. (I had an EM/Regen and Spines/Nin, but they were made just for PvP, and I didn't really enjoy them much in PvE. EM was just a joke with zero AoE powers and very slow ST attacks, and Spines had great AoE but very poor ST damage. Staff seems like a great mix of both.)
Corruptor: ?/Kin. I definitely want a kin toon, and a Corr seems like a great place to do it. But I really can't decide on a primary here. With no limits, I'd go with fire, but that's already taken by the blaster. Then I'd do Sonic, but that's reserved for the defender. My 3rd choice is Ice, but then I'm missing out on the new snipe and nuke changes. I don't want to deal with constant redraw, so all the weapon sets are out. So what's left? I'd like to try Energy/Kin, but I fear that energy's knockback would interfere with Kin. (I had a Sonic/Therm, but I played him only in PvP, so don't have any PvE experience with him.)
Critique away! And if you'd like to make your own list like this, I'd be interested to see what combinations others would come up with.
This is an extremely interesting angle and one I think I'd like to play with. I have no critiques for you - sorry - but I do have a question: I know how to download and run I24 via Icon and Tequila, but does anyone know where to get a copy of the I23 client? I don't want to accidentally create a character with invalid power sets...
I tried to avoid power set overlap as well. I only had one instance of it- Not a Nemesis Agent (Assault Rifle/Time Manipulation Corruptor) and Madron (Demon Summoning/Time Manipulation Mastermind.) /Time was an integral part of their backstories, bt it did bug me a little.
Regarding a copy of I23 Coh, look here (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Titan_Icon).
Quote from: Phaetan on September 15, 2014, 11:19:53 PM
Regarding a copy of I23 Coh, look here (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Titan_Icon).
Thank you, but as far as I can see, Tequila will only download I24 for us. I can use Icon as a standalone app with I23, but only if I already have those files. :'(
I thought it had a place to download U23 as well. Not sure if this has been changed, or my memory is shoddy. :-\
Sorry
Quote from: Supermax on September 15, 2014, 10:25:22 PM
In an ideal (CoH) world, I'd like to have zero overlap between powersets among all my toons. That means no matter how many toons I make, I can only use a powerset once. So for example if I make a Kin/Sonic defender, I can't use Kin or Sonic Blast on any other toons. I mostly stuck with this idea in the original CoH, and if we get it back, I'd like to do it again, but with a lot more planning, due to a lot more knowledge.
I did this for a long time at first.. almost 5 years I had many toons and never repeated a powerset. However I realized over time I was missing out on other incredibly fun combinations..
Nope, I love overlap if I like the power. I had 4 Illusion Control, 4, Dark Miasma, 3 Radiation Emission, 4 Dark Affinity, 3 Sonic Blasts...
Funny I was thinking of a squadron approach.
Each toon in the lineup must have a common powerset.
Well, this idea might get stolen, but imagine "The Firing Squad" SG with all fire based toons. Ice, and Dark could be other candidates, with similar cleaver names.
I actually tried this on Triumph with my Stoners League. All Stone Tanks.
But broadening the AT might be more fun.
Actually at the end I started doing these elemental theme groups..
Ice
Shield/Ice Tank
Ice/Cold Controller
Cold/Ice Defender
Water/Cold Corruptor
Ice/Stone Tank
Ice/Thorns Dominator
Electric
Elec/Elec Blaster
Elec/Elec Dominator
Elec/Psi Dominator (I would have remade him into a Mind/Elec Dominator (shutdown casualty)
Elec/SS Tank
Elec/Shield Brute
I had plans for some type of electric stalker as I didnt have any stalkers..
Fire
Fire/Psy Dominator
Earth/Fire Dominator
Shield/Fire Tank
Fire/Fire Tank
Spines/Fire Scrapper
Rad/Fire Blaster (one of the best toons I ever made.. sniff sniff)
Fire/Mental Blaster
Initially, I was "like you" in that for years, I didn't repeat a powerset.
I went from emp/elec defender to Fire/stone tank, to energy/energy blaster to spines/regen scrapper to ill/rad controller, to warshade and then PB.
After the aliens, then I decided to mix things up. I'd heard that fire/fire was much better at running a dreck's map than fire/stone, but I hadn't heard how much better. Brutes weren't around then, so the flavor of the month was the fire tank. So, I started Fire/Fire with the Tank AT. It was soon after I read Olepi's guide to ice blasting, rolled one of those and really, really enjoyed it. So much so, that I rolled several ice/ice blasters and got two of them to +3 incarnate levels with the rest just resting in Outbreak on the other servers. I'd decided to get a 50 on each server for some reason. Seemed like a good idea, but it never panned out, probably because they came up with server transfers.
As for any advice, I am taking some from you and looking forward to trying a fire/dark controller. Never did do the dark powerset, not really sure why. Seems like a very fun time learning it.
Quote from: Fridgy Daiere on September 15, 2014, 11:11:39 PM
This is an extremely interesting angle and one I think I'd like to play with.
Thanks. The main reason for me was just the novelty of playing a new set. After getting something to 50, doing basically the same thing over again didn't appeal to me. I wanted it to be completely different, not just somewhat different. I kind of had ADD with this game and could never play the same toon for too long. I had to switch a lot, and one of the most fun things for me was doing the same exact mission/arc/etc on different toons, to see just how differently they played out. And when you get tired of playing a fire blaster, switching to a fire corruptor and using the same powers you were just using....I didn't want that.
I realize I left a lot on the table, because some of my toons were far from perfect. Most were made in 2004, but I stuck with them until the end. I just got lucky and made a lot of good ones. But if we get the game back, I intend to get it right and make the combos that perfectly fit my playstyle.
P.S. Another thing I would do is think of my toons as a "group", an SG if you will. I'd try to make teams for them in my mind. Like using my top 15 toons to make 3 teams of 5 each, coming up with the best combinations that would complement each other the most. What made this fun is they were all different. If a lot had the same powers, it would be kind of boring, to me at least.
Quote from: ukaserex on September 16, 2014, 02:31:37 AM
As for any advice, I am taking some from you and looking forward to trying a fire/dark controller. Never did do the dark powerset, not really sure why. Seems like a very fun time learning it.
Oh boy, dark is amazing. To be fair, I only used the MM version, which is a bit different, but it seems like the troller version is even better.
Just a few thoughts for you. Howling Twilight is a 25 foot radius mag 3
autohit stun. Twilight Grasp is an amazingly strong AoE heal. Dark Servant does a good job even without any extra slots. On my MM I think I had just 1 ACC slotted. And lastly, the biggest reason for Dark (imo)...you get 30% -res on every group you fight,
starting at level 2! I'm really surprised it wasn't more popular. Dark/Dark defenders were pretty common, but other than that, you didn't see it that much. I guess the "dark" theme turned a lot of people off.
My critique: WHY NO KHELDS
In all seriousness, staff/ice is fantastic for stalkers. I like /ice so much though I would make several combos of it.
Quote from: Microcosm on September 16, 2014, 02:58:47 AM
My critique: WHY NO KHELDS
In all seriousness, staff/ice is fantastic for stalkers. I like /ice so much though I would make several combos of it.
why was Ice so good.. I have heard on Stalkers it was one of the best.. but why ?? could you Perma the tier 9 or something ??
Quote from: HEATSTROKE on September 16, 2014, 03:11:20 AM
why was Ice so good.. I have heard on Stalkers it was one of the best.. but why ?? could you Perma the tier 9 or something ??
I think I know. My /regen stalker was very survivable with DP available, but had nothing to protect him except regen and healing. So over time, he got his ass kicked. Being EM and having to kill the entire spawn one by one obviously didn't help, lol.
My /Nin didn't get hit much because of his defense, but when he did, he got killed in 2-3 shots.
Ice combines both into one. You get good defense, and also a DP clone. Plus unlimited endurance, and a very good tier 9.
Quote from: Microcosm on September 16, 2014, 02:58:47 AM
My critique: WHY NO KHELDS
Hehe, I had a PB at level 41, I think. But I don't think I'd make another one. In all these years of using mids, I've never been able to come up with a good PB build. Either it's human form and I'm not getting the most damage, or it's a tri-form, and then I have a whole bunch of throwaway powers. Sigh.
I know Warshades were considered to be better, so I may try that at some point, but only after everything else :)
Quote from: Supermax on September 16, 2014, 04:10:40 AM
I think I know. My /regen stalker was very survivable with DP available, but had nothing to protect him except regen and healing. So over time, he got his ass kicked. Being EM and having to kill the entire spawn one by one obviously didn't help, lol.
My /Nin didn't get hit much because of his defense, but when he did, he got killed in 2-3 shots.
Ice combines both into one. You get good defense, and also a DP clone. Plus unlimited endurance, and a very good tier 9.
And some resistances. And massive resistance to slow and -recharge. And significant sapping ability if you chose to slot for it. It's one of the best rounded sets in the game.
hmm now what primary for a Stalker ??? hmmmm that goes with Ice..
Quote from: HEATSTROKE on September 16, 2014, 06:37:47 AM
hmm now what primary for a Stalker ??? hmmmm that goes with Ice..
Elec/ for the theme (and the boom) and kin/ for the -Dam (makes char quite a bit tougher).
Quote from: Supermax on September 15, 2014, 10:25:22 PM
In an ideal (CoH) world, I'd like to have zero overlap between powersets among all my toons. That means no matter how many toons I make, I can only use a powerset once. So for example if I make a Kin/Sonic defender, I can't use Kin or Sonic Blast on any other toons. I mostly stuck with this idea in the original CoH, and if we get it back, I'd like to do it again, but with a lot more planning, due to a lot more knowledge.
With a clean slate, I've come up with a choice for each AT, and the goal is to maximize power/effectiveness...basically to find the best combos from what's available.
I don't generally do the "best" thing, but its a fun premise, so I'm game. I liked to try to play everything, but I didn't have a no overlap rule myself. Still, by these two rules (no set overlap, looking for most effective - by at least some measure - combos) and sticking with I23 sets (this changes dramatically in I24):
Blaster: Fire/EM. Very high damage, and still some utility in EM. Sonic/EM would be a better soloer, but its hard to argue Fire/EM is reasonably survivable and very high damage. AR/Mental is the AoE monster, but difficult to make workable until you massively IO it out.
Controller: Illusion/Radiation. In my opinion, the best all-around swiss army knife controller. Good control, good buff/debuff, good healing, pets, and one of the best tier 9 powers in existence.
Defender: TA/Sonic. Its hard to pick the best defender primary; they are honestly all good in different ways. But I really like the utility and diversity of Trick Arrow, and Oil Slick Arrow is just awesome. Supplementing that with Sonic helps overcome Defender's lower damage modifier with high resistance debuffs. And in case of emergency, just break Siren Song's glass.
Scrapper: Kinetic/Willpower. I love, love, love MA/SR. However, in keeping with the rules, Kinetic/Willpower is an extremely powerful Scrapper. */Shield has a lot to love, but in terms of sustained continuous destruction its hard to beat Kin/Willpower. A lot of people denigrated Power Siphon. Those people were wrong. There were lots of other contenders here, but I needed to save them for other archetypes.
Tanker: Shield/Stone. Shield is one of the best all-around defensive sets available to tankers, and I really like Stone melee on tankers with all the knockdown. Its strong defense plus strong offensive mitigation making a tanker that can stand up to a lot of attackers. Note: in I24, I would have rolled a Bio tanker. Bio was going to kick serious ass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6bkyUXYlNU&list=UUkyaL-2ZrJKmVBhTkHHUKvg.
Brute: Staff/Dark. Dark is a very strong defensive set, but it does have an issue with endurance. Staff's modes help out greatly in that area. Form of Soul provides endurance discount which can help power Dark, and when that's no longer needed Form of Mind provides a recharge buff which can help keep fury up *and* it also increases the power of Dark Armor by recharging Dark Regen faster. This would make a good single target brute and a great AoE brute.
Corruptor: AR/Kin. Kinetics needs no explanation. I think AR works really well on Corruptors because its AoE heavy: to get the most out of scourge the enemies need to be at lower health. Strong-hitting single target attacks tend to gain less out of scourge than lower hitting (per target) AoEs because the individual targets are at low health more often.
Dominator: Mind/Psi. Psi is a decent attack set and honestly the playstyle options Mind control offers are difficult to give up without using the set somewhere. Plant/Earth would have been my second choice here: unusual play options, powerful sets, and in particular a secondary with power boost.
Mastermind: Bots/Time. I think Time was one of the more underrated sets and it was going to show up somewhere, but overall I believe its best place is in the mastermind. It has a lot of interesting effects that can help pet survival which is important for masterminds. And while there are pros and cons to all mastermind pets I think the good ranged offense of the Bots was most effective in the most circumstances. For those that like to get up and close, my second choice (and the MM I played the most myself) was Necro/Dark. When you're spamming TG and running tar patches all over the place you don't miss Kinetics much. But you have to like knife fights in phone booths with that combo.
Stalker: DB/Nin. Dual Blades is a very good set in general, although other sets outmatch it in certain areas for most other archetypes. But for Stalkers it has a very good balance between single target output and AoE (by virtue of Sweeping Strike being a short ranged cone with high DPA). You also want to avoid sets with DoT (like Spines) or sets that have odd effects that can mess up placates (like Electric's chain effects). Ninjitsu is another highly underrated set by many, although its strength had supporters. But to put it in these terms, if Ninjitsu was handed to Scrappers, it would be among the most powerful scrapper secondaries in existence (almost as easy to soft-cap as SR and with a strong reconstruction-like heal). Its version of PB also had psi resistance, which SR scrappers would have killed for (to deal with non-positional psi). About the only thing SR beats Ninjitsu on is defense debuff resistance (which is incredibly high on SR, making it an excellent set to run things like Incarnate content with). On stalkers, low health limits Ninjitsu from being as powerful a set as it could hypothetically be on scrappers or brutes, but its still plenty powerful.
I was not as much of a fan of /Ice on stalkers because of the peculiarity of the lack of Fire defense. Ice Armor has defense to Smash/Lethal and Energy/Negative, but not Fire/Cold. Many fire and cold attacks were also smashing or lethal, so this wasn't a big deal in terms of overall damage, but the nasty problem with lacking Fire defense on a stalker was that Fire tended to have DoT that would spoil or break hide. So while that Fire defense hole wasn't fatal in terms of allowing damage to land, it could have an outsized annoying effect of compromising hide. In the latest iteration of stalkers hide mode was not as critical as it was previously, but it was still a trade off worth noting between Ice's otherwise strong defenses and endurance management.
Quote from: Arcana on September 16, 2014, 09:04:15 AM
Defender: TA/Sonic. Its hard to pick the best defender primary; they are honestly all good in different ways. But I really like the utility and diversity of Trick Arrow, and Oil Slick Arrow is just awesome. Supplementing that with Sonic helps overcome Defender's lower damage modifier with high resistance debuffs. And in case of emergency, just break Siren Song's glass.
Definitely.
TA/Sonic was one of the more fun and effective combos that I ever played on a defender. Great damage and mitigation both. It really needed it's own AT as it was too controllerish (a Deftroller?) to be called just a defender.
I just wish I'd gotten mine built out. http://web.archive.org/web/20120905231124/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=295377
The other Defender that would be worth looking at (I23) would be Time/Ice. If TA/Sonic could be described as a Deftroller then Time/Ice could be termed a Deftanker. I used mine with debuff procs (in Time's Juncture) to get the agro I wanted and it worked unless there was someone actually throwing out Taunt at the time.
While I wasn't a frequent roleplayer, I did tend to have that roleplayer's habit of seeing each of my characters as individuals... completely different "people" regardless of what their power-sets happened to be.
That meant that playing, say, both Surruna and Grey Kestrel (My two DB/WP Stalkers-) didn't really seem same-old/same-old in spite of their matching power sets and ATs. Likewise Palrah and Ty'ree (Both WP/DB tanks-) or Ashirion and Ke'khali (Both DB/WP Scraps-). There were small mechanical differences between each of them, too. Different focuses with their enhancements, different pool power and epic picks, different Incarnate picks and such. That also kept them from feeling overly similar to me. Playing Kestrel with her massive global recharge and perma-summoned Adept partner was a whole different thing than playing Ty'ree with her through-the-roof Melee Defense, or Ashirion with his tendency to keep everything around him bouncing on its butt.
I was asked a few times "Why don't you just have multiple builds instead of duplicate characters?" and my answer was always the same... Because Kes wasn't Ru. Ty wasn't Pally. Ash wasn't Khali. I didn't see them as interchangeable collections of powers and numbers.
Thanks Arcana, that was an interesting read.
I rarely overlap on primary powersets, but there are certain secondaries that are just too good.
Having said that, I wouldn't want to place restrictions on anyone else. If you want to play a MA scrapper more than
once, more power to you.
Quote from: Ankhammon on September 16, 2014, 02:54:27 PM
Definitely.
TA/Sonic was one of the more fun and effective combos that I ever played on a defender. Great damage and mitigation both. It really needed it's own AT as it was too controllerish (a Deftroller?) to be called just a defender.
I was fond of Rad/Sonic for damage and mitigation, myself. Between the sonic -RES and Enervating Field weakening the opponents and the Defender inherent, Assault, Acc Metabolism boosting damage output, things tended to melt and not do a lot of damage. A bit of an end hog to start but that's what Stamina and AM were for.
Quote from: Teikiatsu on September 17, 2014, 12:24:16 AM
I was fond of Rad/Sonic for damage and mitigation, myself. Between the sonic -RES and Enervating Field weakening the opponents and the Defender inherent, Assault, Acc Metabolism boosting damage output, things tended to melt and not do a lot of damage. A bit of an end hog to start but that's what Stamina and AM were for.
You can't go wrong with Rad Defenders in general, and Rad/Sonic would be an excellent choice for someone wanting to play a defender. Within the rules of this particular game, I could only use Radiation Emission once, and I elected to use it in my Ill/Rad controller. In the spirit of the thread, TA was going to show up somewhere (in my opinion its too good to not use somewhere), and I think given a choice between Ill/TA (also a good controller) and Rad/Sonic or Ill/Rad and TA/Sonic, I leaned towards having the top AV-killer in my pool of characters (and a combination I personally played a lot) and still getting a top notch Defender in TA/Sonic.
Something I did not note but its worth mentioning: Sonic does energy damage which is important to synergizing with TA (because Oil Slick Arrow needs fire or energy damage to ignite it). There are ways around that (origin powers, epic powers, etc) but its still better to not need them in a "best of" list.
Quote from: Teikiatsu on September 17, 2014, 12:24:16 AM
I was fond of Rad/Sonic for damage and mitigation, myself. Between the sonic -RES and Enervating Field weakening the opponents and the Defender inherent, Assault, Acc Metabolism boosting damage output, things tended to melt and not do a lot of damage. A bit of an end hog to start but that's what Stamina and AM were for.
Don't get me wrong, I know the power that combo was capable of. But I tended to not play FotM characters unless I found out about them before the crowd (so Sonic was good for me :) ). And a combo like Rad/Sonic was Fot... well year or two.
I only made two characters ever that had Rad mostly because everyone played it so often. I know it was because it was such a good set, but it made thinks a bit bland when everyone is playing the same thing. One of the reasons I could never get into DCUO.
Heck, it's one of the larger reasons I ended up being a Defender specialist (more of them than anything else).
That and I loved how debuffs worked in CoH. Only time I've found anything as good to play was the Spiritmaster in Aion. Dots and debuffs were always my favorite in any game.
Quote from: Ankhammon on September 17, 2014, 08:16:12 PMI only made two characters ever that had Rad mostly because everyone played it so often.
True story: when I rolled my Ill/Rad shortly after release that combination was literally considered the worst controller combo period. Partially because it worked a little differently then, and partially because players didn't fully appreciate it.
Basically, less hard control in Illusion (true through I23), lackluster damage (true prior to containment), confuse steals XP (true until they changed the XP calculations), terrorize sucks (true until they changed fear mechanics from "run for Mexico" to "stand and quiver"), and radiation is a poor healer wanna-be with silly toggles you had to manage.
Let's just say that eventually Illusion control grew up and made that set more popular, and eventually the playerbase grew up and made radiation more popular.
Quote from: Arcana on September 17, 2014, 09:20:41 PM
True story: when I rolled my Ill/Rad shortly after release that combination was literally considered the worst controller combo period. Partially because it worked a little differently then, and partially because players didn't fully appreciate it.
Basically, less hard control in Illusion (true through I23), lackluster damage (true prior to containment), confuse steals XP (true until they changed the XP calculations), terrorize sucks (true until they changed fear mechanics from "run for Mexico" to "stand and quiver"), and radiation is a poor healer wanna-be with silly toggles you had to manage.
Let's just say that eventually Illusion control grew up and made that set more popular, and eventually the playerbase grew up and made radiation more popular.
That's what separated CoH from every other game out there. We had FotM characters all over the boards and just as many absolutely "lame" characters. Only to find out that when someone actually played them well, those "lame" sets were actually pretty good.
My favorite example was when me and a friend basically made a bet to make characters. Mine was the new Sonic/Sonic set and his was the TA/Arch set. Both were said to be teh suck on the forums.
Tuned out my Sonic/Sonic made buzzsaw killing machines out of just about any pug and his TA/Arch was incredible in pvp and pretty nice solo too.
I always looked for the sets that I rarely saw being played, or the ones that people specifically said sucked. Those were the ones I liked to roll up and run with. That's what made CoH so much fun. You could take even the "bad" powersets and make them fun and effective as hell.
Quote from: Ultraamann on September 18, 2014, 03:32:57 AM
I always looked for the sets that I rarely saw being played, or the ones that people specifically said sucked. Those were the ones I liked to roll up and run with. That's what made CoH so much fun. You could take even the "bad" powersets and make them fun and effective as hell.
Yeah, I did that a number of times. Once, when I invited a guy to a team (playing my BS/Dark scrap), he stopped and said "Wow, Ive
never seen anyone play /dark to this high a level." He was a bit harder to play, but I liked the challenge.
I tended to go more for concept over what was considered FOTM. I believe /dark became a bit more popular later on once people realized you could
make any defensive powerset fairly decent with the right IO set combinations.
My DB/Fire though - never could get that combo to work - a mob could sneeze and she would die.
Quote from: Arcana on September 16, 2014, 09:04:15 AM
Stalker: DB/Nin. Dual Blades is a very good set in general, although other sets outmatch it in certain areas for most other archetypes. But for Stalkers it has a very good balance between single target output and AoE (by virtue of Sweeping Strike being a short ranged cone with high DPA). You also want to avoid sets with DoT (like Spines) or sets that have odd effects that can mess up placates (like Electric's chain effects). Ninjitsu is another highly underrated set by many, although its strength had supporters. But to put it in these terms, if Ninjitsu was handed to Scrappers, it would be among the most powerful scrapper secondaries in existence (almost as easy to soft-cap as SR and with a strong reconstruction-like heal). Its version of PB also had psi resistance, which SR scrappers would have killed for (to deal with non-positional psi). About the only thing SR beats Ninjitsu on is defense debuff resistance (which is incredibly high on SR, making it an excellent set to run things like Incarnate content with). On stalkers, low health limits Ninjitsu from being as powerful a set as it could hypothetically be on scrappers or brutes, but its still plenty powerful.
(Warning: the following post has no where near Arcana's appreciation and application of mathematics)
My first 50 level villain was a DB/Nin - and that was before the stalker buffs too - terrible build but she was just FUN. I remember once putting out an LFT comment, something like "DB/Nin stalker LFT" and just getting back laughter (if friendly laughter) in response. But dammit I stayed the course and I leveled her! FOR THE FUN.
As I recall, a lot Stalkers forumites appreciated Nin as a solid jack-of-trades set, which I found it to be as well, so I'd definitely recommend it myself as well. It wasn't flashy (I never did get a chance to try Ice), but it was a pretty useful tool box of odds and ends with all sorts of applications and tricks. My one Nin regret was not leveling my Staff/Nin blue-side stalker past about 28...