The two best and worst frameworks in your opinion.

eva1988

I just thought i'd make this thread to kind of see if everyone is on the same wavelength when it comes to which frameworks probably need a little more work than others, and which frameworks probably don't need that much work at all...

So for my worst i would pick :

Earth
It seems like it isn't really sure what it wants to be... It kind of feels like it was meant to be a damage dealing hybrid of melee and range, but when played like that it just becomes all around lackluster...The framework itself just feels like it lacks a focus; nothing really meshes together very well.

Wind (I was also tempted to pick archery, but i feel it is a slightly more versatile framework than wind)
The damage for this framework always felt really low compared to other elemental frameworks, and the energy cost seems quite high. I'm not sure if the low damage has something to do with it being split into two damage types.. A lot of the framework just kind of feels like a copy of powers that already exist..Not only that, it has very few powers overall...Infact, i think it has the least powers of any framework.

And for my best :

Dual blades
Very high damage output, and is very versatile, probably the best selection of passives, and has good power synergy; huge selection of powers. Infact, the entire martial arts tab is a pretty solid.

Might
Similar to dual blades, very versatile, good defense and offense passives, the powers all seem to work very well together, also has a huge selection of powers.

shadowolf505

Celestial is for healing you know

criswolf09

Force needs a review urgently as well Celestial, they are basically a random bag of tricks that don't focus in either damage or pure support, and let's not talk about Telepathy.

Bestial, Infernal and the Single/Dual Blades powersets are very easy to use, as well have a lot of synergy with others sets and deal very good damage.​​

rtma

The ones that need reviewing, which is pretty much everything, also I had some fun encountering someone criticizing my Elemental Light Dragon's build, spurting his/her conformity despite explanation about being offense oriented even tho the duality is complimentary to it's intuitive nature, Celestial could use some offensive based options then expecting pure Healing builds with it.

pantagruel01

Wind has a single outstanding power, and thus wins out over Earth, which is just a mountain of meh. Archery and Telepathy are mostly sets you use on CCers, or take dips into for other sets. Celestial has several nice powers though it's dual-purpose powers wind up just being inferior at two different things.

baelogventure

Two best: Bestial, Power Armor

Two worst: Earth, Archery.

pantagruel01

pandoraslockbox said:

It's supposed to be for healing and damage.

A set can be functional without doing what it was originally intended to do. The best powers in the set are iniquity, conviction, and imbue, and all three are quite good.

spinnytop

Two Best: PA and TK
Reason: TK has a lot of variety in what it can do and how it does it, and has lots of utility packed into the set. PA is more focused on just damage with almost no utility, but does a great job of being like that while not being boring. A close third set is Heavy Weapons, for the same reason as TK.


Two Worst: Fire and Electric
Reason: Quite possibly the two most boring power sets in the game currently. There's nothing interesting about them - they only do one thing, and they do that in the most boring way possible. A close third is Wind - it does something, but that something is generally irrelevant and otherwise it's basically the same as fire and electric, so the set barely scrapes it's way above them.

shadowolf505

Eh, I'd use celestial for healing purposes only. Better that way

shadowzero66

Best Sets: Gadgeteering and Sorcery
They're both sets with a boatload of powers but more importantly a boatload of variety. They can do the standard DPS thing but also have stuff like the On-Next Hit powers, Circle buffs, and assorted support powers. Yeah, it makes them ripe to cherry-pick from, but I think it's more due to the lack of an analogue outside those sets. For example, I'd like an Electric-based resurrection power (think that lightning strike that gave Frankenstein's Monster life or even shock paddles) but since we don't have one, I'm forced to take a resurrection power from one of these sets. Amazingly, for all that is has, Gadgeteering lacks a Block replacer. But that doesn't seem to affect it much.

Worst Sets: Fighting Claws and Telepathy
Fighting Claws doesn't having anything going for it. Okay, it has Dragon's Claws (which may or may not be on NerfWatch™) but that's it. For the longest time, the set had been without an AoE power. And the only reason it has one now is due to homogenization where most of the T0 melee combo attacks got turned into AoE powers. And the closest thing the set had to a unique gimmick, the Shredded debuff? Single Blade, Dual Blades, and Bestial all have access to it now. Fighting Claws doesn't even have much in the way of weapon skins, and it's been around since forever. So yeah...

Telepathy issues can be roughly divided into two categories: its heavy tie to "hard" CC that the devs haven't decided on how such things should be (which is a problem with the general mechanics that contributes to the Telepathy framework issues) and the stuff that came afterwards in an attempt to give the set some other stuff (which is a problem with the Telepathy framework). The DoT/debuff line of powers acting as a sort of DPS to prop up the set leaves much to be desired. Besides the general underperformance of DoTs, it requires investment in multiple attack powers and we know that's not popular. And then there's that hybrid passive... bugginess aside, I've gotta figure out some sort of gimmick I can pull using Congress of Selves (which lowers threat generation regardless of role) and the Tank role. Did anyone have any idea what they wanted to go for when they made this stuff?

I was tempted to mention a few other sets as worst sets such as Celestial, Wind, and Archery. But like Telepathy's hard CC issue, their problems don't have a simple solution. For example, Celestial's dual-nature powers require some sort of trade-off for balance reasons. The current trade-off is reduced power. But given the ever-advancing player power creep particularly with regards to energy management, would increased energy cost be an acceptable alternative? Or perhaps some other factor can be finessed with. The healing-only powers generally seem to be fine and the attack-only powers (Vengeance and Expulse) are only a tad mediocre.

flowcyto

Every set that was revamped is in a good place overall, imo. Not gonna pick favorites as I like the majority of the sets for diff reasons.

TP, Earth, and Force are what I would consider needing the most attention (not really going into specifics, as I think their entire direction needs to be re-evaluated from the ground up). Aside from that, I would like for Wind and Archery to get better single-target dps (even if those options have to be shorter range), Gadgeteering to get some more Tech-based healing options and to better utilize MSA, Might to be updated to be more flexible than being 'the Haymaker set', and Celestial to have some better offense-oriented options (so its not quite as pigeon-holed into being a healer tree).

shadowolf505

What is TP?

flowcyto

Telepathy, or something to do with bungholes. Maybe TP needs to be wiped with TP cause its full of crap.

aesica

Only 2 of each? Too bad, taking more than that!

The Good

• Dual Blades: Decent, useful abilities, solid damage, and minimal bullshit required to get the most out of everything. Very stylish as well.
• Shadow: Solid damage, solid self-healing. If the EU was modernized to restore energy over 6 sec and it didn't have useful powers gated behind a shitty GCR grind, it'd be close to perfect.
• Telekinesis: The revamp took a mediocre set and made it pretty decent, at least the melee portion. While I'll never be a fan of the consume-the-stacks mechanic and the way it seems to infest nearly every revamped framework, it's slightly less terrible in this one. Solid damage and the introduction of Dependency into powers that can stack it up more quickly makes it great for soloing.
• Sorcery: Easy to use framework that does solid damage in a straightforward manner. Offers the rare choice of options for AoE, both of which are decent in their own ways: projected cone or ranged sphere. I just wish Invocation of Storm Calling was modeled after good PBAoE maintains like Epidemic and Hurricane instead of being left in its current, worthless state.

The Bad

• Celestial: Terrible damage output, and no, "for healing only" is not a valid excuse for this. Illumination (the buff) is utterly useless on its own. Locking the full potential of powers (Celestial Conduit, Holy Water, etc) behind it is a god-awful attempt to make it artificially useful. An out-of-set power (Will-o-the-Wisp w/ Guide) actually does a better job at applying Illuminated/Illumination to foes & friends in one go than its in-house ability, which is hilariously stupid. The dual-nature abilities can make for clumsy mechanics at times, especially on cooldown abilities like Holy Water.
• Telepathy: The damage over time abilities are terribly done, especially in a game that's otherwise all about big hits and things that die too quickly for these dots to matter. Blocking too early after using Ego Sprites actually removes it from targets? Really? The damage of this set is just bad in general.
• Force, Wind, Earth: All basically suffer from the same problem--too few powers that are actually effective. Most of them are gimmicks or outright junk. Earth and Force lack a proper EU. Earth's block enhancer is either leaving stuff out of its tooltip or it offers no useful secondary effects whatsoever. Why would anyone pick this (besides theme) over...literally any other block enhancer?
• Gadgeteering: Random dumpster full of assorted powers and themes that tries to be too many things and sucks at most of them. There's Batman gadgets, sci-fi lasers, noise guns, wonky healing powers, and a random melee power in chainsaw gauntlet because why the hell not? Its own energy unlock works poorly with most of its key damage powers because they lack proper cooldowns while other powers have cooldowns that are too long to keep the energy rolling in reliably. The healing is totally inadequate without help from other sets with better healing powers. Finally, the random "surprise!" effects/malfunctions that a few of its powers have is cute, but not at all useful.

The Ugly

• Fire: While a strong set, it's basically being carried by Fireball w/UA + Conflagrate.
• Electricity: Great damage, but huge energy costs make it tricky to use without the excessive energy boosts granted by its offensive passive or large amounts of End/Rec. Storm Summoner could offer an attractive alternative to Lightning Storm, but its so weak (even compared to Sparkstorm!) and has absolutely no interaction with Negative Ions which prevents its EU from supporting it. The block enhancer for this set is weaker than any of the others, and the damage-while-blocking doesn't really justify this. You use block enhancers to mitigate damage first and foremost.
• Archery: This set feels like a slower, crappier version of Munitions, which makes sense because guns are deadlier and more effective than bows and arrows. Its energy unlock is unreliable and that poor knockoff of Sniper Rifle is nothing short of cringeworthy.
• Power Armor: First, let me say the damage is fine. I'm listing it though because the bulk of PA doesn't jive well with anything out-of-framework due to how the toggles function--it's all-in or nothing with this one. The non-toggle powers don't seem to be realistically usable for anything besides utility since they don't work with the set's own EU, are underwhelming in power, and have higher-than-normal energy costs.
• Laser Sword: While not a bad set, the lack of things that stack Plasma Burn is disappointing and its consume-the-stacks mechanic via Plasma Cutter is flat-out bad. Reliance on the Particle Accelerator form to reliably stack Plasma Burn via the combo is an unfortunate thing that I'd hoped would remain quarantined in MA. Its combo is far weaker than it should've been.
• Bestial Supernatural: The damage is fine, the powers are decent for what they are, but like...the animations of this set look utterly terrible for anyone who isn't wearing a dogman or other animal costume. Yeah, I know "Bestial" Supernatural, but still...

Whoops, guess I ended up roasting most of this game's frameworks.​​

flowcyto

Gadgeteering: Random dumpster full of assorted powers and themes that tries to be too many things and sucks at most of them. There's Batman gadgets, sci-fi lasers, noise guns, wonky healing powers, and a random melee power in chainsaw gauntlet because why the hell not? Its own energy unlock works poorly with most of its key damage powers because they lack proper cooldowns while other powers have cooldowns that are too long to keep the energy rolling in reliably. The healing is totally inadequate without help from other sets with better healing powers. Finally, the random "surprise!" effects/malfunctions that a few of its powers have is cute, but not at all useful.

I wouldn't be against splitting Gadgeteering into two diff sets- maybe one that's futuristic/Sci-fi tech, and the other that's more practical/modern gadgets and tricks. I'd like them to add some more powers to better realize MSA and tech-based healing, but the set is already bloated as is, so its a tougher proposition in its current state.

vorshoth

I'd say Archery is the worst, since unless you're really devoted to being an archer (and who wants to be Hawkeye, really?), there's not much that's particularly exciting about it that doesn't exist in munitions or gadgeteering.

For best, in terms of what I actually play, I'd say humanoid pet powers. Now yes, they don't do much damage, but there's something really fun about raising the dead via the dedicated power for that, then raising shadows that are also a humanoid summon, then using 4 seperate devices for raising the dead until you have a modest army of zombies surrounding you, a cloud of meatshields you merely continually heal and resummon as needed. It does terribly in PvP, but in PvE, it's... passable.

For a more serious answer... I'm trying to get myself more into directly damaging powersets, and am finding heavy weapons is quite fun. You can easily find ways to be a Thor-like bishie bashie type person... But there's also enough ranged moves in there that if you're a staff-using caster with the 2 staff weapon costumes that exist, you can easily use that powerset for that.

pantagruel01

vorshoth said:

I'd say Archery is the worst.

Archery has some very nice crowd control powers. It's kinda cruddy for everything else.

flowcyto

Archery is.. just okay imo. Main things holding back its dps are its no lockdown and 100ft range on most powers. Its EU is also pretty bursty and annoying to work around. I'm expecting a buff for Archery if it ever gets a pass, but not a large one.

servantrules

flowcyto said:

Archery is.. just okay imo. Main things holding back its dps are its no lockdown and 100ft range on most powers. Its EU is also pretty bursty and annoying to work around. I'm expecting a buff for Archery if it ever gets a pass, but not a large one.

Would be neat if it had an ultimate of its own. Heck, Hawkeye and Green Arrow have a nuclear/atomic warhead arrow (respectively) for a rainy day.

ashstorm1

Best : Power armor and Munitions

Worst : Archery all around. This was my first AT before i went lifer, and it almost had me quit and uninstall CO after 20 minutes of playing.

bluhman

Best

• Telekinesis - It's an amazingly versatile set in the whole, while not really suffering heavily for it. It can be built for both melee and ranged combat, it has options both for either rupturing and directly utilizing Ego Leech for burst damage, or to maintain the stack and use it for a constant boost to critical chance. Its damage output, for its final-tier attacks, are all impressive, and then also backed up by a decent subset of advantages that grant the powerset some massive boosts to survivability.
  
• Munitions - It has access to extremely powerful single-target attacks, and then pairs this with possibly the easiest energy unlock to utilize and a bunch of long-ranged AoEs that can serve different purposes. Also provides a mass of useful debuff moves that can even be used by other sets. It also gets a ton of incidentally useful powers that provide nice stuff for melee builds.
  

Worst
This is a tough one for me to actually pick. There's a ton of powersets that make absolutely no sense when assembled as intended (i.e. stuff like gadgeteering having 0% cohesiveness in attack types or force not having a defense debuff included), but at the same time a lot of the sets have redeeming qualities that can make it possible to utilize them (i.e. Force Cascade or even stuff like Cave In and Fissure.) But after careful consideration, I pick these two:

• Earth - So while TK's a great example of how you should do a melee/ranged mix set, earth's how you don't do it; not enough powers to base a build solidly around one or the other. Its core debuff of Stagger is both outdated now that most sets just rely on a single, non-stacking defense debuff for damage, and is also much more difficult to manage than necessary since its refreshes are all stuck on very long charge attacks. Most of its utilities are just straight up broken in both directions (Earth Form is literally just Kinetic Manipulation, but better in every concievable way, and inversely Stone Shroud has no apparent block benefit.)
  
• Martial Arts - While the set's still functional, it's gotten the short end of the stick on a lot of different, subtle things. It has all the components that other melee sets have to succeed, but lacks the necessary power to really contend with the other melee options. Thundering Kicks has a neat dodge buff, but doesn't really support the same kind of great Shredded damage that the other MA sets put out, and isn't even an AoE. Burning Chi Fist and Hundred Hands are both very solid attacks, but neither have a defense-debuff that can really specifically help it out within its own set (no Crushing/Dimensional one). Especially in BCF's case, options such as Haymaker or even some of the other MA Dragon moves perform better and are simpler to set up debuffs for. Many of the other choices while otherwise innocuous (rising knee or open-palm strike for example) are entirely suboptimal in what damage they can put out. Underlying this, all of MA builds to culminate around maximizing dodge abilities, which, considering how outright exotic this defense type is and the wildly different gear it requires, hasn't heavily benefitted the set in its appeal to DPS minded building. It leans too hard into its unique dodge mechanics, and as a result, lacks a lot of appeal to builds outside of its very specific realm of dodge tanking.
  

theravenforce

Hmm...

Two Best Power Sets in Champions Online:

- Power Armor: I've only recently really experienced close to the real DPS potential of this set first hand, as before, I mostly paired PA with Invuln or a multitude of toggles, hoping to pull off what I used to way back with PA and not really dipping into DPS Specs. But thanks to some very useful advice from Silverspar, I've seen how strong PA can be, so in terms of overall damage, it's pretty up there from what I've seen. Also, in terms of fulfilling the concept of the set, it does seem to best fulfill it out of all of the sets in Champions Online, this is in part thanks to recent changes and just how well the set can do both of its intended jobs (DPS, Tank, Hybrid etc). It has multiple opportunities to keep up your defense whilst dishing out damage. Despite PA, not playing very nicely with external sets...typically PA users just make use of their suits primarily. The non toggle options within the set could probably use some expanding/additions to make them more appealing.

- Sorcery: Sorcery was the...fourth ever power set I dipped into (after Telepathy, Telekinesis and Force) and even with the changing times and content adjustments, thanks to reviews and the general use that Sorcery has within its set, it's managing to keep up and offers a great deal of build possibilities. It is also moved towards being a bit more pretty in terms of its VFX and general presentation, something which is very appealing. I do think that some parts of it need to be upgraded in order to be useful in endgame content (sigils and pets) but I suspect that is a wider issue which may be tackled at a later date. I'm a huge fan of the nod to "bad luck" effects that the set now has as well as the appropriate energy unlock and very nice looking ultimate.


Two Worst Power Sets in Champions Online:

For the sake of this thread I will avoid mentioning T*******y. Whenever I do things seem to get horribly personal in the way of insults and derailment happens, so my other options are...

- Force: My choice here mostly springs from my personal dissatisfaction that Force is basically an 'offensive gimmick' set and serves little purpose aside from personal enjoyment with knocking enemies everywhere for fun or theme (or both). The current state of endgame generally means, for scoring purposes and checks etc, it is best to stick to potent maintains and clicks, if charges have to be used then they need to be quick charging and have high spike damage. The only thing in Force which remotely fills that condition is Force Cascade and possibly Gravity Driver (not so much w/o multiple targets). I think the set is a huge disservice to the general portrayal of Force Fields, which are predominantly for defensive purposes but also can have really cool offensive uses. I think there's a general lack of good VFX which make use of typical force field shapes being thrown around. Example: Gust's 'charging sphere of wind' would be a perfect animation for charging something like a Force Blast 'sphere'. I think like most sets, Force was actually based heavily a Champs Lore hero or villain, so in this case, Sapphire's energy projection abilities. So maybe that's where the issue lies, it isn't quite 'proper energy projection' (in my opinion, that'd have to be some form of pure energy, maybe particle damage based or just deals straight up "energy damage"). Also I am still salty AF that Wind Breath can do exactly what Crushing Wave can do, yet Crushing Wave has not been adjusted to tick as fast. I feel like cones should be in line with each other, Crushing Wave should not be an exception. (My take on how to review the Force set, is linked above and in my sig).


- Earth: I think I've been underwhelmed with this set since it came out. It feels like Force in that it is trying to cover several concept bases but fails because it lacks the necessary powers and mechanics. Bits of it can do great things like Cave In or Seismic Smash. I am not a fan of Stone Shot's weird animation, I would have used Fireball's charge up animation instead and made it look less..."pooper scooper-y". I am surprised Earth doesn't have more powers, but I think the set was added after much pressure. I do hope it is appropriately expanded soon without having its powers reduced to 25ft or something equally ridiculous. My expectations are 'Earth Bending'!! I think it has the potential to be a visually awesome set (Old Cave In's animation was amazing...so many rocks!) as well as useful sustained and spike damage but it needs to perhaps function more like Telekinesis in that it can support both melee and ranged fighting styles with ease.