To be honest, most of the gear sets need to be revitalised so they are worth using. I see two main problems with the way in which gear sets are designed:
1. There is one less minor/secondary attribute (intended to not make them too powerful while being compensated by the abilities the gear set offers);
2. The bonuses, 4-piece abilities and talents are generally terrible. So, you have these two issues collapsing on themselves constantly which just undermines the point of using gear sets over brand sets.
It has been said for ages that Striker as one of the original sets is terrible because it’s currently designed to make it really difficult to keep the stacks up while they removed the healing benefit. It honestly seems like they took the healing from that and gave it to True Patriot. You even have players in PvE and PvP run status and ordinary skill builds with brand sets instead of gear sets because they provide the most benefit of damage output or efficiency.
I know your post is about Ongoing Directive (OD) specifically, but I wanted to at least introduce the broader subject that overshadows the gear set which is gear sets generally.
Anyway, I’ve played around with OD before. I made it all red, 3 blues/3reds, and all skill tier with status effects respectively. What I’ve noticed from testing it is:
1. The bleed is cool and all but definitely cannot compete with the burn status effect on a skill build (Potential buff needed);
2. OD just seems to be more of a discount rate Hunter’s Fury (HF) blended with Predator’s Mark (from Division 1); and
3. The damage output plus the bonuses do not provide enough damage like the HF.
I always believed that gear sets should be the ruling type of gear with exotics and brand sets to help create a nuanced approach to combat rather than this false sense of diversity where you have to run brand sets to be the most efficient. Sure you can manage to get a kill or complete a mission with a gear set, but at what cost? Time? Damage? Survivability?
To me anyway, it just seems like the developers tried to reinvent the wheel a bit too much by throwing away most of the old gear sets and attempted to introduce abridged versions of them in the form of gear sets and unique items. I’m not suggesting to scrap the current system, but at least revisit the current state of how gear sets fit within the game in comparison to brand sets.
Mmm, no. The gear sets should stay at where they are currently. Something, that will be cool in their idea of playing the game, but not best of the best like they were in div 1.
If you don't understand the purpose of the Striker gear set - it's your problem.
As for OD gear set - i've already posted a way to improve it.
As for other gear sets - i can see True patriot been buffed. And a small buff to system corruption. Outside of that, all sets are good in ther particular way of a build.
What you are saying would be true IF these gear sets were actually cool in their own right, but unfortunately they are not. The majority of the gear sets are generally underwhelming and do not offer a general effective response to other builds that specifically invest in brand sets.Originally Posted by As1r0nimo Go to original post
The way in which striker is used was never misunderstood or in dispute. So, I’m not sure what your point is there...
Personally, they need to be rethought because they aren’t on the same level as other gear. I’ll have to reframe what I was saying. Gear sets don’t have to be best in slot, but if they only offer damage and nothing unique or effective to builds that can do similar things with brand sets only, that’s an issue.
Striker is unique (sort of)Originally Posted by ForgetLeSpaghet Go to original post
Tip of the spear is unique.
Hard wire is unique
Foundry Bulwark is unique (and good tanking build).
A&8 is unique
Negotiator
Future initiative.
System corruption.
ALL gear sets are unique. Some are flat increase (and there should be at least one of them), others provides a unique buff and synergize extremely well with some exotics. For example, Vile+Eclipse set.
And no. I've seen Div 1 gear sets. They are either boring or broken as ****
TD2 Striker is total trash, compared to TD1 - it's like generic Striker (no 5th and 6th bonuses). Literally, any other direct damage sets are better than this
OD is just lol set if keep in mind, how weak bleed effect for non-status builds
Spear is useful for passive special ammo regen, not for actual combat ofc
Eclipse good for CC builds
Hunter is good for CQ runners (incl. PVP)
Bulwark is good for tanks, but locked behind raids
FI - maybe for some sort of healers
Corruption could be useful for PVP - not a big fan of this part of the Division games - but locked behind DZ
ND is awesome, I can't argue here. Use this set 24/7, can't see anything better for PVE
And all of that sets are good only because of 4th bonus and/or major parts (chest, backpack) bonuses
Striker provides the highest damage at max stacks. Coz his bonus is amplify, not basic total weapon damage.Originally Posted by Licher.Rus Go to original post
As an example, i've managed to hit 1 million crit on my Chameleon 4pc striker+memento build. It was hard, but i did it.
PS: it's a 1035 RPM btw.
Sure - if you have the target to stand still the whole time. Realistically, striker is not the most viable choice while you can pretty much choose most brand sets to fish out consistent damage without constantly losing it (stacks are the problem).Originally Posted by As1r0nimo Go to original post
Even if gear sets bear some type of unique trait, brand sets with other talents can almost mimic gear sets (eclipse vs brand set skill build with creeping death; the brand set version will deal more damage).
Bulwark offers healing after being damaged or whatever. However, I can just make a tank armour regen build and it will be just as, if not more, effective.
Future initiative is just a copy of the standard healer build, but the only difference is whether you’re going to be closer to the group and the fight or further away (depends on the back back talent and chest piece talent with slightly more damage buff). While these pieces are stuck behind the raid, you’ll see more people run the brand set counterpart for whatever reason. Whether it is because of the raid or that it isn’t appealing, I don’t know - could be both or other reasons.
Aces and eights is quite disappointing, you can make sniper headshot builds as well as crit builds that perform much more efficiently with consistent damage. While it offers a damage buff when you land a certain amount of shots, I can just have higher dps without it.
Negotiators is probably the only gear set I can think of that doesn’t fall within the scope of the other gear sets. Admittedly, hunter’s fury can easily compete with brand set builds.
The issue is not whether the gear sets are simply unique because they offer something slightly different, but whether they are worth running as a counter to brand set builds. If I can make a build that can somewhat copy the function of a gear set and outperform it, there is clearly a problem with the gear set.
Are gear sets perfect and should be left alone? Objectively, no. I have tested all of the gear sets and considered most of the gear sets’ performance are just incredibly underwhelming. Why use them when you can do everything better with the relevant high-end build?
All things have room for adjustment. The question should be whether the thing achieves the purpose he made, interesting gameplay, or strong? Players are willing to collect? Does not rule the game.
For example, A8 is invincible before DLC,
After the DLC, it changed quite badly,
What you should ask for is to strike an intermediate balance.
I can now make better A8 suggestions:
For example, if you hit the head and flip three cards,
Killing an enemy will restore an ammunition. The ammunition will be hit with an effect similar to Achilles scan for 3 seconds. Then all the weapon shots of all players will be calculated head shots.
Look i understand that there is a lot of power gap between the weakest and the strongest sets. EP , HF , HW , FB and few others prove that the specialized bonus they provide CAN be competitive compared to the very generous stats that brands + rolls can give by instead being very unique in ways no brand can be ( i mean EP makes you are fire wizard and FB can make you almost immortal).
As the guy who made numerous threasd about gear sets, such as the poll asking for which ones where the weakest, how to improve them, played in test servers to give feedback in reworks, made therads about striker, A&8, system corruption and so on. BUT (and this is but) i don't know about you guys but Ongoing Directive has never ever ever ever EVER been anything but trash, even during the periods that i liked it was just "okay" not strnog, not OP, not useless but just okay, so i am really passionate for this specific gear set and really really REALLY want to keep this to this one gear set and not revolutionize all of them (as i already did a bunch of other threads about that)