Underrated Powersets

[Sajaana]

Energy blast...Sajaana actually got kicked out of groups when people found out she had energy blast.  They thought energy blast would knock off their aggro.  And for someone who would use energy haphazardly, this was true.

But I can't tell you how many tankers, scrappers, stalkers and brutes I saved over the years with those energy blast powers.  If they are swamped, a quick energy torrent or power push will give them some breathing room so they can get healed.  And there's nothing better than to knock some Harlequin Fencer off of some poor blaster or dominator who is getting sliced up at close range.  Energy blast can be a group saver.

[Neutron-Star]

Read some mentions of /Traps.  My bots/traps MM worked just fine.  It was fun and fit the character concept.

Does anyone have an opinion on Traps as a primary for Defenders?  If we get back into the game, I think I want to re-roll one character as Traps/Beam.  It would be a fun concept but it seems like an odd primary and I don't want to find out too late.  It does not have to be uber, just viable.

[blacksly]

Traps is uber.

Not so much on teams, actually... the playstyle doesn't work as well into teams, and the timing for some of the powers is not very good for fast-rolling teams (although, at that point, it doesn't greatly matter), but it's still decent on teams. It provides AoE Defense and Status Protection as defensive stats, Caltrops to keep enemies away from the squishies at the rear, the Suicide Drones as enemy debuffs, and Acid Mortar to increase damage. Not as good a suite of tools as some of the other sets, and not as convenient to use.

But for soloing, it's one of the best buff/debuff sets. You control the timing and setup, getting Status Protection is great for soloing squishies (and with good +Def also), and Acid Mortar is a lot more useful when soloing since it has a small AoE so it works better on smaller spawns, and it can be slotted with Damage Procs for more damage, but the damage is pretty much inconsequential on teams. Poison Trap is also not much use on teams, but superb when soloing (and it enables you to solo AVs relatively easily).

[HEATSTROKE]

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."

To this I say ballocks...

I played an Electric Armor/SS Tank and I didnt build for defense at all.. could have.. didnt.. and even without defense backing it up it was one of the most survivable tanks I had.. My favorite moment on a 16 man BAF.. everyone wiped except me..

Me.. Nightstar, Seige and the 9CUs.. and I lived just fine...

Now maybe thats because my build had Perma Energize.. and I could time Power Surge really well..

[Clave Dark 5]

Energy Melee.  While I'm aware of the weaknesses in the set, it is a single-target damage and stun monster.  I'm pretty sure Energy Transfer is the most powerful single-target attack a player can get.  Maybe it was due to me playing solo most of the time, but I didn't mind the slow animations or weak AoE, not when I could hit enemies with the 3.56 scale (with guaranteed Mag 3 Stun) Total Focus or the 4.56 scale (with 60% Mag 3 Stun chance) Energy Transfer.  (Her name wasn't "Ms. Stungun" for nothing.  She was almost always surrounded by enemies, even Bosses, staggering about in a daze)

My main was an EM stalker, and by game's end I had him tricked out five near-sets of of Kinetic Combat, making sure to slot the knock-down proc in them all (I could have gone for one of the non-procs, but it was just too good to pass up.  Sometimes when teaming, EM had me landing what appeared to be a really devastating blow on someone who died just a second ago, so in that the set did have it's problems.  On the other hand, as his secondary was Super Reflexes and I had taken Shadow Meld as well, this was a stalker who could tank pretty well.  I don't know enough about the other sets to say for sure, but with all of the above and those stuns and power POWS from EM, he worked out really well.  And yet I never did get him to 50... I was afraid doing so so, since he was my main, would swomehow jinx the game; then when the axe fell, it was too depressing to do so.

[Eoraptor]

My main was an EM stalker, and by game's end I had him tricked out five near-sets of of Kinetic Combat, making sure to slot the knock-down proc in them all (I could have gone for one of the non-procs, but it was just too good to pass up.  Sometimes when teaming, EM had me landing what appeared to be a really devastating blow on someone who died just a second ago, so in that the set did have it's problems.  On the other hand, as his secondary was Super Reflexes and I had taken Shadow Meld as well, this was a stalker who could tank pretty well.  I don't know enough about the other sets to say for sure, but with all of the above and those stuns and power POWS from EM, he worked out really well.  And yet I never did get him to 50... I was afraid doing so so, since he was my main, would swomehow jinx the game; then when the axe fell, it was too depressing to do so.

yeah, I ran into that double-kill bug in the electric sets as well. it could get annoying at times.

[energizingion]

To this I say ballocks...

I played an Electric Armor/SS Tank and I didnt build for defense at all.. could have.. didnt.. and even without defense backing it up it was one of the most survivable tanks I had.. My favorite moment on a 16 man BAF.. everyone wiped except me..

Me.. Nightstar, Seige and the 9CUs.. and I lived just fine...

Now maybe thats because my build had Perma Energize.. and I could time Power Surge really well..

Well that and the BAF is great for Electric Armor; almost all energy damage, so it was "your" resist  damage type.  Try tanking on a MoM trial...much harder heh.


Going back to some of the original posts (just reading them now)....I never cared for Ice Control that much because the lack of actual control in the primary set itself.  Especially against those Nemesis robots that didn't get knocked down. :( 

I'll have to say that there were only a few powersets that I never played (or got the chance to do so).  Energy Melee, Ice Control (to a degree) are the two that jump out to me...I'm sure there are a few others...

Oh and Nature Control...of course it 'just came out' when CoH closed, so never fully played that either.  :(

[HEATSTROKE]

 actually Elec has very good resists to Psi..

and I tanked with an Inv tank on more that one occasion against Psi enemies and didnt get shredded to pieces.. Its all about how you build the tank.. and even without defense.. you can make a tank survive most circumstances

[Neutron-Star]

Traps is uber.

Not so much on teams, actually... the playstyle doesn't work as well into teams, and the timing for some of the powers is not very good for fast-rolling teams (although, at that point, it doesn't greatly matter), but it's still decent on teams. It provides AoE Defense and Status Protection as defensive stats, Caltrops to keep enemies away from the squishies at the rear, the Suicide Drones as enemy debuffs, and Acid Mortar to increase damage. Not as good a suite of tools as some of the other sets, and not as convenient to use.

But for soloing, it's one of the best buff/debuff sets. You control the timing and setup, getting Status Protection is great for soloing squishies (and with good +Def also), and Acid Mortar is a lot more useful when soloing since it has a small AoE so it works better on smaller spawns, and it can be slotted with Damage Procs for more damage, but the damage is pretty much inconsequential on teams. Poison Trap is also not much use on teams, but superb when soloing (and it enables you to solo AVs relatively easily).

This is exactly what I wanted to hear, thanks!!!  I would probably solo mostly on this character (hopefully will get to) so this fits the bill.

[Gatecrasher]

I think an important factor in some sets' "underrated-ness" was that they had long-standing issues that finally got addressed, but the damage to the set's reputation was never repaired.  Exhibit A for that is Electric Armor with Energize.

Exhibit B: Ice Melee.  I forget exactly when Frozen Aura got changed to do a nice chunk of damage, but from the time it got fixed right up until shutdown, I'd hear people saying things like, "Why would you play a set with a T9 power that does no damage?". You try and explain to them that you're not, but after a while, well, you're just shouting at the tide.  If they had ever actually fixed Greater Ice Sword, I think IM would have become a set that paralyzed me with too many good options.  :)

My experience in COH was aided when I met a guy who became a good friend, who made me realize that what most people claimed were "bad powersets" were more often "atypical sets, played badly."  His main Blaster was Energy/Energy, who used a ton of knockback, but where others used it as a sledgehammer, his used a scalpel.

Later on,
Gen

[Dal]

I think /Poison deserves some love. I don't even remember seeing anyone with this set.

[Ankhammon]

I think an important factor in some sets' "underrated-ness" was that they had long-standing issues that finally got addressed, but the damage to the set's reputation was never repaired.  Exhibit A for that is Electric Armor with Energize.

Exhibit B: Ice Melee.  I forget exactly when Frozen Aura got changed to do a nice chunk of damage, but from the time it got fixed right up until shutdown, I'd hear people saying things like, "Why would you play a set with a T9 power that does no damage?". You try and explain to them that you're not, but after a while, well, you're just shouting at the tide.  If they had ever actually fixed Greater Ice Sword, I think IM would have become a set that paralyzed me with too many good options.  :)

My experience in COH was aided when I met a guy who became a good friend, who made me realize that what most people claimed were "bad powersets" were more often "atypical sets, played badly."  His main Blaster was Energy/Energy, who used a ton of knockback, but where others used it as a sledgehammer, his used a scalpel.

Later on,
Gen

The other thing that got "fixed" on the Ice Melee set was Frost's range and arc.

And you're right, it was a fine set after the fixes. Most of the attacks were fast and the ice patch was just awesome.

I had a Dark/Ice tank and was planning a Bio/Ice using Sorcery tank that would have been very nice.

[Gatecrasher]

I forget exactly how the timeline played out, but my initial IM tank was WP/Ice, created right when Willpower came out (at its launch, so many people were just pairing WP up with the other set released at the same time, Dual Blades, that my pick of Ice Melee was about 90% fueled by contrarianism).  I think Frozen Aura got its fix after I started Snowbrawl, but before I hit 38, so suddenly I was all, "Wait, I have a choice now?" :)

When I inevitably put a guy on Champion server for Tanker Tuesdays, that positive experience with Ice Melee made me roll up a Shield/Ice, and hoo-boy was he fun.  Got up to like, high 30s or low 40s when the hammer dropped.

Ahh, the good old days...

Later on,
Gate

[energizingion]

I forget exactly how the timeline played out, but my initial IM tank was WP/Ice, created right when Willpower came out (at its launch, so many people were just pairing WP up with the other set released at the same time, Dual Blades, that my pick of Ice Melee was about 90% fueled by contrarianism).  I think Frozen Aura got its fix after I started Snowbrawl, but before I hit 38, so suddenly I was all, "Wait, I have a choice now?" :)

When I inevitably put a guy on Champion server for Tanker Tuesdays, that positive experience with Ice Melee made me roll up a Shield/Ice, and hoo-boy was he fun.  Got up to like, high 30s or low 40s when the hammer dropped.

Ahh, the good old days...

Later on,
Gate

I made a WP/Ice Melee tanker too. ;)   She was sturdy enough but was definitely lacking in damage heh. 

And /poison was a good set but not the best in pve (was great in pvp as I saw it used more in pvp).

[Ankhammon]

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.

Nice trick. I always thought /ice on a blaster was better than advertised.

I have visions of this kind of thing for a NA/Psi defender. No sleeps, but between the -Dam and -Rech along with all the other goodies it should be quite sturdy.

[Kurrent]

I dearly loved Trick Arrow.  That was one of the best debuff sets ever, hands down.  It got even better when dealing with large mobs, like on the ITF, because so many of the debuffs were AOE.  However, it was still amazing at anything debuff wise. 

One of the proudest moments I ever had was taking out Reichsman on Kahn's TF with just four of us.  The others had all left early, and we decided to stick it out to see if we could do it.  One tank, one scrapper, one blaster, and my TA/Archery Defender.  No heals.  It was beautiful.  Vi was able to handle not just the debuffing but the crowd control and even help with damage.  Reichs went down right as we used the last charge on our Dimensional Grounding Ray. 

I'd take TA over Rad any day for debuffing.  Not slighting rad, because it's amazing at what it does too, but I just played so much with TA that I was more comfortable with using it.  It's my pick for most underrated powerset.

[Kistulot]

My mains were all elec. An Elec/elec blastr, elec/elec Dom, Elec/elec brute... elec/shield scrapper with a shield that looked like it was made out of electricity...

People really underestimated Elec in PvE. Sure, it did lower damage, but it was amazing AOE. I could, as a blaster, use a combo, fly into the middle of enemies, and kill the, before they got enough Endurance to actually do anything.

It's true some enemy groups didnt even care about END, but those mean nasty Harpies of Vengance, Rikti, Praetorians, high leveled devouring earth... they all cared!

I tanked every piece of incarnate content with my Brute, including each run of a MoLAM. It really thrilled me to hear people saying how weak Elec armor was just to pull that off without a hitch. I only ever even used my electrical body once just to take a nova strike from Praetor Barry White so I could say "Now, see, that's how I survive one, so please actually try to dodge the next one!"

Elec control was a biiit frustrating admittedly, because its neat chain confusion would always be interrupted by someone killing all of those affected. Much like sleep, confusion is one of those things where it works really well solo, but in groups you often find yourself sighing and shaking your head.

[Teikiatsu]

Sonic was not so much underRATED as disliked by a lot of players. The graphics were not really interesting, the sounds were annoying, and the gameplay with it was largely boring. It was effective but boring, much like Force Fields. So the Sonics that you see would be effective, but you wouldn't see many of them.

A surprising synergy I found was Sonic Control and Psi Blast.  Between slowing the enemy's recharge and increasing my team's damage resistance it was almost like proactive healing.

[Teikiatsu]

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!).

I had an elec/ss tank who mowed through mobs ridiculously easily.  It felt like I was cheating.  I'd fight purple Malta, DE and Rikti for a challenge.

[Winter Fable]

Sonic was always a set that people over looked.When we ran all def or troller teams and we had 2 or 3 sonics the mobs just fell.Traps was another,it did well on AV's and solo.I had a traps/thugs which did very well.While the mobs were kept busy with all my pets,traps did the real work :)