Underrated Powersets

[Mistress Urd]

*/fire manipulation blasters.

Area Damage was out of this world, faceplant bait but it helps to have teammates.   

[HEATSTROKE]

*/fire manipulation blasters.

Area Damage was out of this world, faceplant bait but it helps to have teammates. 

My Rad/Fire nods in approval... put some IO's in that build.. Soft Capped to S/L/E/N... wade right in the middle of a mob and go to town..

[Nealix]

I liked my level 50 Earth/Storm controller.  When I used earthquake I generally used freezing rain and quicksand with it instead of the immobilize.  When I did immobilize (stone cages) it was when using stalagmites to disorient.  Plus you have volcanic gasses to overlap on either if needed.  With those controls and the earth pet, tornado and lightning storm for damage it was fun to play.  At higher levels I chose fire for the ancillary pool so I had fireball to lob at groups as well.  It all went great with the theme of the character as a CoT member that turned away from villainy to become a hero.  Mystic Elementalist was the name I gave him.  I'd attach a picture of him but I never could figure out how to do that on this site...

[azazel005]

My Rad/Fire nods in approval... put some IO's in that build.. Soft Capped to S/L/E/N... wade right in the middle of a mob and go to town..

Still, when you are IO'ed to the point of soft capped defenses on a blaster, your pretty much always going to have a good time of it. Rad/Fire had that nice irradiate AOE to warm them up too. Shiny zero defensesesseses make for TOAST!

I'd agree that 'Stone Armour' as a set was under-rated. You see people driving around almost constantly in granite but the multiple toggle defenses could handle things quite well without resorting to granite and being (nearly) dependent on a kin.

[Charged Mastermind]

Hearing everyone saying they didn't really like Dual Pistols, I thought that it was a very good powerset. The animations weren't vague and boring, the sounds were brisk and clear (not at all annoying), and the Swap Ammo was (in my opinion) a very handy tool if your team lacked either DPS, Defense Debuff, or something to slow the enemies down.

[Shifter]

What do you think was an underrated powerset, whether it be usefulness, or how often you saw it?
Force Fields was another set I thought was a bit underused and underrated.

Agree. Force Fields was actually my first toon. I'm all about defense, so was an ALMOST a perfect fit for me. The problem for me is that I like a good balance of solo and group play, and it was down right painful soloing some content as a FF def. I eventually migrated to Stone Tank and never looked back.

[emperorsteele]

A couple people said "Mind Control", and yeah, it was very under-vauled... However, it was VERY useful in Hamidon raids. Its attacks weren't flagged as either ranged or melee, which allowed my Mind/Kin to help out against ANY of the mitos if we were short on ranged or melee attackers. There were a couple other small things, but that's the big thing that always made me smug when arguments about its uselessness broke out.

[Eoraptor]

Hearing everyone saying they didn't really like Dual Pistols, I thought that it was a very good powerset. The animations weren't vague and boring, the sounds were brisk and clear (not at all annoying), and the Swap Ammo was (in my opinion) a very handy tool if your team lacked either DPS, Defense Debuff, or something to slow the enemies down.

Could not agree more... Dual Pistols could turn anyone into a one-toon swiss army knife, particularly when you slotting in a lot of range or acc

[azazel005]

A couple people said "Mind Control", and yeah, it was very under-vauled... However, it was VERY useful in Hamidon raids. Its attacks weren't flagged as either ranged or melee, which allowed my Mind/Kin to help out against ANY of the mitos if we were short on ranged or melee attackers. There were a couple other small things, but that's the big thing that always made me smug when arguments about its uselessness broke out.

Well it didn't have a pet, confusion was not to everyone's taste and people tended fuck sleep control up faster then you could say... Pepsi sucks. It was still a damn fine powerset, with pretty respectable damage outputs if you wanted to solo.

Hearing everyone saying they didn't really like Dual Pistols, I thought that it was a very good powerset. The animations weren't vague and boring, the sounds were brisk and clear (not at all annoying), and the Swap Ammo was (in my opinion) a very handy tool if your team lacked either DPS, Defense Debuff, or something to slow the enemies down.

I loved pistols, I really liked the animations and the fast turnaround mini-nova. I had a Pistol/Storm corruptor and he was oodles of fun. Like any set that lacked an 'Aim' you missed that extra kick when you needed it but I thought it was more then serviceable. I wish I had more time to play it.

[HEATSTROKE]

 Had a DP/Time corruptor.. and he was very very good..

[primeknight]

A couple people said "Mind Control", and yeah, it was very under-vauled... However, it was VERY useful in Hamidon raids. Its attacks weren't flagged as either ranged or melee, which allowed my Mind/Kin to help out against ANY of the mitos if we were short on ranged or melee attackers. There were a couple other small things, but that's the big thing that always made me smug when arguments about its uselessness broke out.

I figure this is appropriate and I hope you don't mind me posting your guild.  Also, hello

https://web.archive.org/web/20120904202924/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122388

And I have to agree, mind/ controllers may have been underrated but they were awesome.  Mass Confusion was ridiculously powerful. .   

[Thirty-Seven]

Hearing everyone saying they didn't really like Dual Pistols, I thought that it was a very good powerset. The animations weren't vague and boring, the sounds were brisk and clear (not at all annoying), and the Swap Ammo was (in my opinion) a very handy tool if your team lacked either DPS, Defense Debuff, or something to slow the enemies down.

I liked the set well enough... But IMO the animations were TOO not generic to the point where some character concepts were simply not compatible with the set.

I went with someone who was part crazy anyway, so it worked alright.

[ukaserex]

*/fire manipulation blasters.

Area Damage was out of this world, faceplant bait but it helps to have teammates. 

Sorry - but there's no chance many people think anything fire is underrated. Fire is awesomeness.

I think ice was seriously underrated in blasters and controllers. Particularly controllers. Maybe earth controllers, too.

I really enjoyed my earth/rad troller. I liked my ice/empath, too. But if I get the opportunity, one of my next five toons is going to be an earth/kin. It never occurred to me to use sb on a pet, for some reason. Maybe a fire/kin, too - but I think there's already a zillion of those.

Way back in the day, I had read @olepi's guide to ice blasting and through his/her passion, really saw the thrill of all things ice. I loved being able to practically one-shot minions with BIB.

Making an ice/empath controller was a hoot, but I'm so not going empath for a secondary again. Useful stuff, but boring for my playstyle.

[Ironwolf]

Sonic/Ice blasters.

I could chain sleep bosses and in some cases even AV's! I had -def attacks and a group knockback (with the right IO - knockdown). Ice patch and so many good powers. I used to run mine at +4 x 8 solo.

I tanked Recluse once when our tank went down. I was able to pull him off the rest of the team, then debuff and slow him enough with all my controls that I survived until the tank was rezzed and back in the game. Then I stuck with the tank until we wiped him out and the tank never dropped again.

Aggro an extra group? No problem - drop snowstorm and keep knocking them down and chain sleep them untill they die.

[Supermax]

I'd like to nominate both Elec armor and Elec melee. About a year before CoH closed down I made an Elec/Elec scrapper, and he ended up becoming one of my most fun and powerful characters.

Elec melee was underrated because most people thought it had poor single target damage. This was definitely not true. It didn't have any big hitters like most sets did, but it had a very solid and fast attack chain. Overall I don't think it was any slower - it would just take like 6 fast attacks to kill someone instead of 3 slow attacks. And then it had Lighting Rod, perhaps the most fun power in the entire game. Seriously, every time I used LR, I smiled. It was incredible.

Elec armor was underrated too, but I'm not sure why. I very rarely saw anybody playing it, but it was very survivable and offered literally unlimited endurance. My elec/elec scrapper was probably my only toon where endurance basically didn't exist, like it wasn't even part of the game. No matter what, I knew that I'd never run out, and after playing so many scrappers with insane endurance issues, this was definitely a rewarding experience.

[Charged Mastermind]

Elec armor was underrated too, but I'm not sure why. I very rarely saw anybody playing it, but it was very survivable and offered literally unlimited endurance. My elec/elec scrapper was probably my only toon where endurance basically didn't exist, like it wasn't even part of the game. No matter what, I knew that I'd never run out, and after playing so many scrappers with insane endurance issues, this was definitely a rewarding experience.

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I didn't really use Electric Armor because it had no resistance to Toxic damage and the Vahzilok were almost pure toxic damage. Other than I completely agree

[Eoraptor]

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I didn't really use Electric Armor because it had no resistance to Toxic damage and the Vahzilok were almost pure toxic damage. Other than I completely agree

What the charged one said. I had little use for Elec Armor because I was an altaholic and always dealing with vazis... but definitely right about it being a speed set

[wyldhunt]

Eoraptor, Charged Mastermind, may I direct your attention to here? Please peruse The Amber Fist's build - my actual in-game build at shutdown, and my first fully-incarnated character, advanced within a few weeks after each incarnate content expansion was released. Yes, notice only 9.7% Toxic resist. However, many non-Vahzilok Toxic attacks also include Lethal or Smashing, so please note the 45.2% Def to S/L. No, no DDR, but then please note the Regen/Healing/HP available. Then pair it with the KB from the Stone Melee (supported by the End tools in ElecArmor). Yes, the Vahzilok missions in Faultine were interesting, but doable (it's hard to vomit when you're KB'd). Later on I took The Amber Fist through many Arachnos and Arachnoid missions with nary a hiccup. If built in certain ways and with certain powerset combos, ElecArmor was a king of layered mitigation, and had some nice QoL too.

Supermax, the reason some min-maxers gave me as to why ElecArmor wasn't as good: "it's pure resist, and will get creamed without Def to back it up." That could be true, which is why I IO'd for S/L Def softcap, and paired it with Stone Melee (a set seemingly tailor-made for ElecArmor). There were some other ElecArmor believers as well - I saw them on the forums and in-game. I also liked Elec Melee, however I never quite got an Armor to gel well with it - maybe I'll try again next chance we get (keeping up hope!).

[Microcosm]

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I didn't really use Electric Armor because it had no resistance to Toxic damage and the Vahzilok were almost pure toxic damage. Other than I completely agree

Technically it had solid resistance to Toxic in its tier 9, though if your problem was vaz, that still woulnd't help you since they were an earlier enemy group. You could also slot Power Sink such that you could drain the crud out of toxic dealers, even more quickly if paired with elec melee.

Elec armor got a bad rap because for a long time it did not have energize (the heal), and as a set with no defense using the interruptible aid self was problematic. After Energize, slap some defense on an Elec build and it became one of the strongest sets out there.

Elec melee, I played on stalkers so I never felt the lack of single target damage.

[Supermax]

Supermax, the reason some min-maxers gave me as to why ElecArmor wasn't as good: "it's pure resist, and will get creamed without Def to back it up."

Hehe, guess they weren't very good min/maxers

It was a lot easier to add significant defense to a res powerset than it was to add significant resistance to a def powerset. Fire Armor is an almost identical set - also res based, with a single heal, a damage aura, and some unique tools. And guess what, it was the most popular min/max powerset by far.

I think Microcosm is right. Fire armor had been around since the start, so everybody knew how good it was. Elec came years later and didn't have energize, so it was clearly much worse. Once energize was added, I guess not enough people decided to give it a second try.