Author Topic: Thermal Radiation  (Read 4061 times)

Solitaire

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Thermal Radiation
« on: April 15, 2015, 11:36:15 AM »
Anyone out there ever try a Thermal Radiation build when the game was still going? If so how did it play, and how was it slotted?

Inc42

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Re: Thermal Radiation
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2015, 06:07:47 PM »
Thermal was one of my favorite support sets, and was in my opinion, very underplayed. This set had an AOE heal, a single target heal, a rez (that served as an attack), +res shields, mez protection, buffs and debuffs. This set could do it all, maybe not quite as well as sets dedicated to doing just one of these things, but still freaking well.

My favorite thing with this set though was that my SG had a themed Thermal group, we all played /Thermal controllers and it was amazingly efficient. We would all have all resistances capped constantly, damage buffs for ourselves and pets, major debuffs to every group we fought, we encouraged Leadership powers...it was freaking fun. If/when the game comes back I will definitely be organizing a group of all /Thermal again, though this time maybe some corrupters and masterminds will join as well xD

blacksly

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Re: Thermal Radiation
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2015, 12:57:18 AM »
It was a solid set, with nice graphics.

The "weakness" was that it was resistance-based, and for much of the game, it was a lot easier to stack Defense buffs and To Hit Debuffs to floor the enemy's chance to hit, than it was to stack Resistance buffs to reach the Resistance caps. Now, if you're already working with teammates that have some resists to begin with (or a Controller with a pet that has nice Resists such as Gravity or Earth), and you could get them to the caps or near them, it was very strong defensively. But it was more likely that you'd get onto a team with a Defense/-ToHit based set such as Empathy or Dark Affinity, and help them cap out there, than it was that you'd get onto a team with solid base Resistance, or with another Resist buffer, and cap out the Resists.

So its main problem wasn't inherent to the set but just due to the fact that it's better to stack the same kind of mitigation until you're at the cap, and that it was easier to find sources of Defense than of Resistance.

But for some sets that have good Resists already, it was a great secondary... Earth Control, Gravity Control, Demon Summoning, Beast Mastery.

Solitaire

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Re: Thermal Radiation
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2015, 06:55:26 AM »
Thanks for the feedback folks  ;)

Inc42

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Re: Thermal Radiation
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2015, 06:49:16 PM »
It was a solid set, with nice graphics.

The "weakness" was that it was resistance-based, and for much of the game, it was a lot easier to stack Defense buffs and To Hit Debuffs to floor the enemy's chance to hit, than it was to stack Resistance buffs to reach the Resistance caps. Now, if you're already working with teammates that have some resists to begin with (or a Controller with a pet that has nice Resists such as Gravity or Earth), and you could get them to the caps or near them, it was very strong defensively. But it was more likely that you'd get onto a team with a Defense/-ToHit based set such as Empathy or Dark Affinity, and help them cap out there, than it was that you'd get onto a team with solid base Resistance, or with another Resist buffer, and cap out the Resists.

So its main problem wasn't inherent to the set but just due to the fact that it's better to stack the same kind of mitigation until you're at the cap, and that it was easier to find sources of Defense than of Resistance.

But for some sets that have good Resists already, it was a great secondary... Earth Control, Gravity Control, Demon Summoning, Beast Mastery.

I agree with this, but it should be kept in mind that that weakness was covered by the fact that the set also had almost the healing capabilities of an Empath. While there are several support sets that only have a weak area heal, or a strong single target heal, very few had both. Even if it's heals were a bit weaker than Empath, that again is covered up by the resist shields.

It's a pretty solid set.