Underrated Powersets

[Alphablaze]

Kind of tardy to the party, but my two were Dark Armor and Ice Armor.  They were late bloomers, but were amazing once you got around 30.  I should also note that I always built my tanks for maximum defense, neglecting nearly all offensive capability in exchange for controls and team coverage.

Ice Armor always seemed a bit squishier early on, especially considering your only self-heal was a long CD Dull Pain.  This made wading into alpha strikes kind of a painful experience early on.  That is until you unlocked Energy Absorption.  Hop into the middle of a big group, and pop that bad boy, and you're deflecting everything they're throwing at you.  Not to mention, the super-short CD meant you never really ran out of endurance again.  Couple that with Hibernate a few levels later, tack on a control-heavy attack set like Earth, and you were dang hard to kill.

Speaking of endurance issues...  Dark Armor was hands-down my favorite set to play with as a tanker.  Yes, it went through endurance faster than Takeru Kobayashi goes through hot dogs, but what you got in return was something magical.  Once you got SOs and were able to (at least) two-slot the armors with End Redux and do the same with the heal, you were set for life.  My Dark/Ice tanker hardly ever died after getting SOs.  Herd a big group together, drop Ice Patch, and watch as the helpless fools are either slipping and falling, cowering at your feet from Cloak of Fear, or walking around in a stupor from Oppressive Gloom.  Which doesn't even touch on your massive resists to pretty much every damage type in the game.

[Talon Blue]

Cold Domination was great buff and debuff set that I felt was overshadowed by more popular sets like Radiation Emission and Kinetics.

[Ankhammon]

DA/Ice worked very well together and tanker /Ice should be on your list of underrated powersets, imo.

For me, Trick Arrow and Kin Melee were two of the more underrated sets. 

I had two TA/ defenders and both were very good. One was TA/Ice and the other TA/Sonic.
Everyone was concerned with the redraw on  TA but most of the time you unloaded arrows and then went to blast, so there was only one or two redraws in a fight.
The only irritating thing about the set was the end usage on it considering the recharges involved, but that was mostly a conceptual irritation (you are firing arrows, how tiring is that for a hero?).

My other nomination would be Kin Melee. It had a very tasty -Dam component in its powers that made it a natural fit for any melee character. It also had an elongated time on it's build up (Power Siphon) which allowed it to hit harder over the long term than it looked like it was. The damage really added up.

[HEATSTROKE]

 I cant see how Ice Armor was underrated.. I would say if anything it wasnt appreciated. Ice armor could easily be one of the most survivable tank sets if built even halfway decently.

[blacksly]

I cant see how Ice Armor was underrated.. I would say if anything it wasnt appreciated. Ice armor could easily be one of the most survivable tank sets if built even halfway decently.

At the end of the game.
Early in the game, they used a different calculation for To-Hit vs Defense, and without going into great details, what happened was that as you fought higher-con mobs (+4 and up), they started to hit (and thus damage) you A LOT more. So you suffered for fighting more difficult mobs far more than other Tankers. I forget in which issue this was fixed (I4, maybe? maybe even later?), but Ice Tankers deserved their reputation for being weaker than other defense sets, for a long while. It was only until IOs allowed them to start adding to their defenses, that they really became a good set.

In addition, in the early times, there was The Set to be Nerfed Later (Regen), Invuln's ability to tank the entire Warwolf mission, Granite Armor, and Fire Aura had the original PowerLevellingRUs version of Burn. So besides the fact that Ice Armor was a lot worse at the time just on its own merits, the other sets were pretty much OP in defensive measures, so it looked even worse by comparison. It deserved its bad reputation, and it took a while to shed it.

[Arcana]

I forget in which issue this was fixed (I4, maybe? maybe even later?)

Issue 7.  Using a system similar to one I first proposed on the forums in Issue 2.

[Eoraptor]

Issue 7.  Using a system similar to one I first proposed on the forums in Issue 2.

yeah, i started Fug li, my icetank in i4, and immediately noticed I seemed to draw mobs like ants at an all-honey picnic.

[Arcana]

My other nomination would be Kin Melee. It had a very tasty -Dam component in its powers that made it a natural fit for any melee character. It also had an elongated time on it's build up (Power Siphon) which allowed it to hit harder over the long term than it looked like it was. The damage really added up.

Because it was unconventional, most people used bad math to estimate Power Siphon's strength.  In actuality, it was something like twice as good as Build Up on average.  Highly underrated.

[HEATSTROKE]

Because it was unconventional, most people used bad math to estimate Power Siphon's strength.  In actuality, it was something like twice as good as Build Up on average.  Highly underrated.

I love Kin Mele.. found the sounds and the whirling animation annoying..

[Arcana]

I love Kin Mele.. found the sounds and the whirling animation annoying..

Yeah, Kinetic Melee was so fun I too found myself unable to stop twirling around and making whoosh-whoosh sounds sometimes myself.

[brothermutant]

Underrated...Try a Dark Melee/Elec Armor Brute. I did mine before they made energize (IIRC) and used DM to give me a heal move (Siphon Life). I had ridiculous END thanks to Dark Consumption + Conserve Power (now energize) + Power Sink, decent heals/+regen (Siphon Life and Energize), Some added defense in the -ToHit attacks from DM, pretty good PBAoE attacks and a solid ST chain for killin hard targets (a couple with Smash+Neg dmg, a couple with STRAIGHT NEG dmg only). That lil dude was VERY fun, but never needed him to fake tank (Our SG leader was a Fire/SS tanker).

I tried a Shield/DM tank once to try and get some decent +DMG buffs but if the game opens again, I may reroll her as a Scrapper or a Brute to see if killing faster is equal to increased survivability.

[Arcana]

Underrated...Try a Dark Melee/Elec Armor Brute. I did mine before they made energize (IIRC) and used DM to give me a heal move (Siphon Life). I had ridiculous END thanks to Dark Consumption + Conserve Power (now energize) + Power Sink, decent heals/+regen (Siphon Life and Energize), Some added defense in the -ToHit attacks from DM, pretty good PBAoE attacks and a solid ST chain for killin hard targets (a couple with Smash+Neg dmg, a couple with STRAIGHT NEG dmg only). That lil dude was VERY fun, but never needed him to fake tank (Our SG leader was a Fire/SS tanker).

I tried a Shield/DM tank once to try and get some decent +DMG buffs but if the game opens again, I may reroll her as a Scrapper or a Brute to see if killing faster is equal to increased survivability.

I have to say DM was never really underrated, it was always considered at least a good if not great set.  Electric Armor was rated low before energize, but honestly it was low performing before energize.  Not that any melee defensive secondary was rubbish, but it had the lowest survivability of any other set.  In fact, in my defensive secondaries spreadsheet I used to make and release it was one of the only sets that for some damage types it was actually less survivable than someone who *rested*.  Even with rest's -defense and -resist debuff which made everything hit you 95% of the time and deal 4x the damage, the regeneration of rest outperformed the mitigation of Electric Armor.

I actually tested this because I didn't trust the calculations, and proved it to be true.  It was partially that result that caused the devs to decide to buff the set (because no set should be worse than rest, jeez).

[blacksly]

I actually tested this because I didn't trust the calculations, and proved it to be true.  It was partially that result that caused the devs to decide to buff the set (because no set should be worse than rest, jeez).

And... instead of proposing a new Couch Potato defensive powerset, you had them buff Electric Armor instead?

[Teikiatsu]

I don't know too much about the melee sets, I'm more of a support player.

It always seemed to me that Storm Summoning got the short straw because people only saw KB chaos, and Earth Control didn't seem flashy enough to let other players know what the controller was doing for their benefit.

[brothermutant]

I always thought FF was underrepresented as a support power. It had some decent powers in there (Force Bolt alone was enough to allow me to solo safely till I got my dispersion bubble). The team shields gave decent def to LOTS of things (including positional), just not psi or Toxic, BUT one gave unslottable res to Toxic and the other gave protection from -End/-recov attacks. PFF (your own personal hamster bubble) was another nice lil power to have for newbies that didn't know to run into a bad area you aren't prepared for. And disp bubble was great at giving mez protection (however, since no SLEEP MAG protection, I always seemed to get slept ASAP by bad guys). Never liked Detention field, Repulsion field or bomb, or Force Bubble, but that was ok by me, it gave me access to power pools I would have never tried. If they were to change the powerset at all, I thought some of the effects that TIME got should have been used in FF (slow fields and hold fields, etc).

Because I didn't need all those other powers, I had really flexible builds. I just wish you could bubble yourself, BUT if you had any kind of attacking pet (trollers and MMs had plenty, and some epics gave one as well), you could really protect those lil goobers if you bubbled them and kept them in your Dispersion field. I know many MMs that rolled Bots/FF just to get HUGE defenses for themselves AND their bots. Made them freaky tank-like toons. I even saw one take done a GM solo (well, with his Minions) and I was HIGHLY impressed.

[Arcana]

And... instead of proposing a new Couch Potato defensive powerset, you had them buff Electric Armor instead?

It was that or nerf Rest for making Electric Armor feel bad.

[blacksly]

It was that or nerf Rest for making Electric Armor feel bad.

Should have made a whole powerset out of it:
Rest
Relax
Lounge Around
Taking it Easy
Power Nap
Infectious Yawn
Sleep
Sandman
Unconsciousness

[Ankhammon]

Should have made a whole powerset out of it:
Rest
Relax
Lounge Around
Taking it Easy
Power Nap
Infectious Yawn
Sleep
Sandman
Unconsciousness

This set is flawed. It needs a "Turn on Golf match" which will make Power Nap twice as effective.

[brothermutant]

Should have made a whole powerset out of it:
Rest
Relax
Lounge Around
Taking it Easy
Power Nap
Infectious Yawn
Sleep
Sandman
Unconsciousness

And I think you forgot Siesta.
;D

[Arcana]

This set is flawed. It needs a "Turn on Golf match" which will make Power Nap twice as effective.

Also, the devs would never allow us to stack Rest.