Dark Current

Great. I rolled up a plant / elec dominator named Spring Fury. What level did you all get to? I can do some work to catch up this weekend.

Is this open to plant dominators by chance?

Can villains finally have their own low level Strike Force a la Posi 1?

I have one at lvl 23 as of Virgil Tarikoss SF today. Solid damage output with Freezing Rain and Disintegrate. Hurricane creates an island of safety for you to blast away. I have hover, which is mandatory I think for this combo to pick out targets to disintegrate. Problems: Healing and shooting with redraw is slow and challenging on large teams in a timely fashion. You can often get caught trying to FR, Disint, spread disint, blast, blast, and suddenly... Oh, no, teammate dying! Where'd I put that O2 Boost? Crap, they're dead... too late. I've found that I can either ignore the health bars and make sure I'm spreading the damage, or I can focus on protecting allies and miss a lot of disintegration opportunities. Ranged defense is non-existent so if you anger enough people and they're surrounding you from range, you'll take a beating. I just got Snowstorm so we'll see if that helps. Otherwise, your only defense is dropping FR and blasting them before they get back up. You can leverage hurricane to dust groups with -to hit, but the repel effect seems much wider than the visual effect of the swirling cloud, so it's tough to judge. Endurance is an issue in long fights. But on a team with wounded allies, Vigilance is really nice. Just blame their low HP on your crappy heal and keep on blasting. Getting disintegration leveraged is challenging if you knock away clumped targets with hurricane or gale.

My current experience with this set is on a fire/rad dominator... the idea being aid other for imp pets and aid self for dominator. I'm really considering dumping it because aside from the powers' lackluster / situational uses, I'm feeling I could get just about as much if not more utility from other powers that would keep me safer. Especially with the IO sets you can afford pretty easily. For instance, putting the +Absorb proc in Health... wouldn't that be as useful as Aid Self? Or throwing some +Heal procs in blasts? The interruptible nature of Aid Self makes it not useful in a lot of fights. And if you're using it after the fight, why not just Rest? Or pop a green inspiration? The other defensive pool powers have broader / constant use that would probably make it so using Aid Self wouldn't even be needed. Like what about taking Maneuvers? A little more defense and you're not getting hit as much, so you're taking damage that needs to be healed. And you don't even need to think about having to click the power or getting to a spot where it's not interrupted by something like Nullifier grenade aura.

Swap Ammo will give you some nice options to stack with powers you have, plus being able to switch damage types as needed: Cryo rounds will stack slow with tar patch. Chem rounds' -DMG will give you another layer of protection with your +DEF and -To Hit, so even if they do hit, it'll be for reduced amount. Incend rounds will give you some more damage to go with the -RES of tar patch. Any plans for your APP/PPP? With dual pistols you have a couple AoEs (your nuke is PB AoE) that work great at point blank range, so you might want to look at a set that's good in melee and work up to that in your 30s and 40s. Was glancing through your options and thought these would be a solid choice: Dark has 3 PB AoEs to leverage... so you toss out Fear, drop a patch, run in, hit Soul Drain while OG is running and NUKE + Bullet Rain combo. Or pull around corner into tar patch with DN and then Soul Drain + Nukes. Elec has Thunderstrike and Power Sink, which aren't as good as what dark would bring, but probably second best option for melee. The Mu and Soul sets are similar to the above. The other sets all lend themselves to staying at range if that's your plan. Dang... I think you're talking me into building one of these myself!

I think you'll like it. Just make sure you get some acc (tactics is a good idea) so that you can hit with your heals and controls. Good strategy is to open with Fearsome Stare and / or pull with Darkest Night, then let the robots unload. Toss out your tar patch, petrify a tough lieu (need to 2x stack on a boss), maybe hit a heal if needed, then blast blast blast. What secondary did you pick?

Only issue i have with the nature heal is you'll need to be standing behind the bots, or turn around, to spray them. Forgot to mention thermal... provides solid resistances on par with sonic, and also brings heals to the table. So if you're looking for a buff and blast type of defender that checks a lot of boxes above, thermal could work. I'd still rank it lower than my initial list because it only has one debuff, which I think this duo will need more of when fighting EBs / AVs.

Analyze what bots / FF brings: A lot of DEF to cover you and them. Ranged attacks primarily. Knockback from bot blasts. So I think if you have some group stealth that would be nice and allow your bot pack to get into range without being seen: dark, storm, cold have such auras. You'll need to be able to heal yourself and the MM/bots at range. You'll want an aura heal over a ST to catch everyone at once. There are several options here: rad, dark, emp, time, nature, thermal, etc... you won't get it from storm, traps, kin, poison, cold, sonic, etc. Some resistance to add to the mix would be nice. So the stealth auras mentioned above would work, along with sonic. The kb will knock things out of patches and anchor auras, so you'll need to be selective on where you place those if you take a set with them... I can't think of a defender primary that roots targets to prevent it. For me, putting that all together, I'd think something dark/ would be really good. It also has -RES / slow patch, fear, hold, rez, -To Hit... would be a great collection of debuffs and controls to go along with your partner's damage and ranged blasting potential. Also, shadowfall will plug FF's psi hole somewhat. I also like rad/ and time/... no stealth aura, but checks a lot of the other boxes and brings some strong debuffs / buffs to the party.

Wormhole is one of the best control powers in the game. A ranged stun that hits from around a corner out of LOS and moves an entire spawn from a hazardous location to one of your choosing for AoE destruction? It's downright surgical.

Why is darkness manipulation so unpopular on blasters?

Putting a +End in Aid Self, a power that costs End to cast, makes no sense. Isn't that an End discount then? Pointless I'd rather see the +End moved to Aid Other and the -Interrupt put on Aid Self.

Has anyone tested this on the 'new' preventive medicine proc? It never made it to live, so I don't know if it was intended to behave like Panacea. Also, a lot of changes were made to procs for I24, so has any testing been done to confirm that older healing procs weren't modified to affect allies. Not calling you a liar or anything. I just am working on my own plant/nature controller and wasn't sure if all the old rules still applied on HC. Thanks!

Agreed. I was playing my KM brute last night and Burst was no better than my ST attacks. I hit at most 2-3 targets even when I was in the middle of a group of 6-10 clustered mobs. Combat log only showed to hit rolls on 3-4 targets. Something seems 'off' with the range.

Nemesis Staff kb is a great opener against a mez-resistant boss / target. Hit with that, then throw first app of hold. By the time it's standing up, your hold is recharged and you can hit again.

How stable is this new version overall compared to the last version of Pine's? I'd rather wait until the majority of bugs are worked out before making the switch.