Dark Current

I have Melee Partial Radial Core on a Brute. I felt the same as you, but decided to really test it after reading this post. Here's what I did: I shut off all toggles. I opened my combat attributes and toggled monitoring on several positional and type defenses. I went to sharkhead isle and stood in a crowd of angry miners... 10-12 I clicked Melee Partial Core hybrid toggle and observed. Primary results: My defense increased by 1.20% for each mob in melee range up to a maximum of 7 stacks (+8.4% total). This is one less than the target cap listed in the Info box. Other observations: There seems to be a 'to hit' requirement. At least it was a guaranteed Def boost for in range mobs. The duration for each mob 'hit' lasted only so long as they were in range it seemed. The moment them moved more than a few feet away, the Def boost was lost. There seems to be a delay between reacquiring the Def boost and when a mob came back in melee range. There is a 'Critical' hit component whereby some 'hits' award double Def. I saw my def boost go up to +12% total at times (so 10 stacks, but some of those were 2x 'critical' stacks). However, this only seemed to work in the first portion of the power's activation. I suspect this is a type of decay effect like you see with Destiny powers. Conclusions The power works, but it can seem like it doesn't at times because of the following factors: There is some sort of to hit roll / pulse frequency, so the power is not 'always on'. The Def boost duration is only a couple seconds after a target leaves melee range. If mobs are not in range or leave range when the power checks for 'to hit' / pulses, you don't gain the benefit until they reenter the area on a later pulse and get checked again. You can get double critical stacks but only in the first portion of the power's activation, so some times your Def boost is really high, but later it decays to not much. So for a longer fight, it will basically be gone if you kill all the mins and are left with a solo boss.

Static Field is a bit more OP than that. It's hands-down the best sleep in the game. From the in-game stats from my lvl 50 controller: 1.88 endurance on target 3.00 magnitude sleep for 25.33s on target 5.00% chance for 1.00 magnitude sleep for 29.06s on target 50.00% chance for -3.00%% endurance on target -40.00%% run speed for 25.50s on target -40.00%% fly speed for 25.50s on target -40.00%% jump speed for 25.50s on target -40.00%% strength to jump height for 25.50s on target So it does the mag 3 sleep, drains endurance as you mentioned, but also has a pretty hefty slow effect. By comparison, Ice Slick does -90% run spd only and Quick Sand does -50% run and prevents jumping. I find that amount of across the board slow pretty tasty and actually slot mine for slow with dmg proc as well. Keeps the group in place sleeping and slowed while they get slowed (hover in melee running Conductive Aura). If you were to give each of the other AoE sleeps a trifecta like that: some sleep, and 2 different debuffs, they were be really solid. Much better than they are now. I suspect that because they do some minor damage that they were nerfed in effectiveness by design. However, that initial damage actually makes them dangerous to use as you trigger a response attack before the sleep takes hold (that's why mind's AoE sleep is way better). I'd remove that damage in a heartbeat to get something akin to what I proposed above - patch sleeps with debuffs. As far as losing the domination boost... I'd be willing to sacrifice that. I'm pretty confident most doms aren't relying on their AoE sleep (outside of Mind and Elec) as an effective longterm boss control anyway.

Earth Control comes with gobs of control and most of it is AoE patches and clicks. So mobs will always be locked down and debuffed to oblivion. I'd put a bunch of dmg procs in those powers. With all that control and debuff, you should be able to get right into the thick of fights and start pounding. Sadly, dark is a little light on melee... you don't get a 3rd melee attack until lvl 38. But all your attacks are going to bring -to hit, so you should be pretty safe. I like soul mastery for Dark Obliteration and Soul Drain to help with the melee combat. Combined with your 2 punches and Engulfing Darkness + Gather Shadows and you should be able to mash enemies into paste. Don't forget you also have your earth pet who prefers melee as well and can tank for you.

I think the solution to all the AoE sleeps is not upping the magnitude, but to give them the same treatment as electric control's sleep. Static Field is both control and debuff that reapplies its effect every couple seconds. What if Ice's Flash Freeze was a super cool patch that slept and slowed anyone who entered? Earth's Salt Crystals was a fossilizing patch that slept and crystallized anyone who entered, lowering their def? Plant's sleep spores created a lingering cloud that slept and debuffed regeneration? Mind's sleep I think is okay as a click, but I'd add in a -rch or -dmg debuff when the creature is awakened. Overall numbers are kept the same, but the mechanics are altered with debuff side effects added.

Wind / Savage would be beyond cool. No Ball Lightning? Basically PB AoE, which would fit your concept of melee only. Probably get more mileage than the Guardian.

Please stop with the imaginary situations for when / how dim shift is useful. Here's what actually happens on a team with a grav using dimension shift: Brute / Tanker type engages in melee drawing aggro. Ranged attackers and controllers launch powers at clustered mob. Ranged attackers and controllers scream WTF because none of their powers land because the one knuckle head grav tossed Dim Shift on the melee. Brute / Tanker get pwnd because they're now soloing a bunch of mobs without back up. Ranged buffers and debuffers fire last desperate powers to save brute/ tanker. Ranged buffers and debuffers scream WTF because none of their powers land to save the brute/tanker because knuckle head grav's Dim Shift is still lingering on the melee. Team manages to escape / overcome after dim shift finally dissipates. Team is wondering wtf just happened. The missions were going so smoothly before the grav dim shifter showed up. Team thinks it was just a fluke and the guy mis-clicked his power. Team realizes in horror that no, this grav actually thinks dim shift is a useable power and keeps tossing it every encounter the rest of the mission. Team ends up breaking up because now everything is taking 3x as long to defeat and half the team's powers keep getting wasted.

Why is this download taking so long?

I went fight pool for the added smash / lethal + elec mastery shield and ball lightning. You do your best controlling in melee for sure. Mobs are sleeping, drained, and to hit debuffed to the point of pitiful. You just keep hitting them with jolting chance (hold proc added) + your ST attacks until defeated. Damage is a bit plodding, but survivability is sky high.

One dimension shift is bad enough on a team. Two would be worse. Far, far worse. Seriously, any other power in gravity is better. The only power worse (or even) is Black Hole. If you need an 'oh sh--' power to get out of trouble take phase shift from concealment or just teleport. The power is too confusing for a team of randoms. I've never seen it used wisely or in a situation where just dying wouldn't have been a better option.

Electric / Time if you like to play tank. Patches and auras make you untouchable in melee.

Keep dreaming. Devs hate villains. Even after 7 years.

LCMS x2 so far in 10 min

Oh, I might be an hour late... 10 eastern / 7 pacific... so start without me.

Who's going to be on tonight? Manticore is the WST, so I was thinking we could that. It's 30+ for those of you interested.

To the OP's defense: If salvage is seeded, why are recipes not? The only thing salvage is used for is to craft.

So we finished last night as intended, and I have to say it went really really smooth. Romi went down in probably 5 - 7 min. I don't think any of us died in that fight. We brought Imperious with us just in case. He aggrod like a champ as usual, which made the fight more dangerous than if we had just left him behind. He basically flew through the mobs in the middle of the platform and drew Romi before we'd finished the Cyclops and Minotaur. So we ended up fighting 2 EBs, and the AV family + a bunch of adds simultaneously. What really made the difference I think was 4x Creepers. It was just a swarm of tentacles around the AVs. Helped spread the aggro around while I just pounded on Romi with elec-powered fists over and over. One of the others is /traps I think and that made a big difference. Plus, the -RES bubble from sonic helped melt things. I again admit I didn't think it was possible with just 4 dudes running lvl 39 and lower toons, 3 of them controllers and 1 a dom, to take down Imperious and his Nicti friends, but we pulled it off and it really wasn't that hard. Another place where we shined that I know wipes alot of teams is the initial rescue of the Oracle on the platform. You know when all the dwarfs and novas storm up the stairs from behind? Well it was like there wasn't even an ambush. I was fighting the Cims and figured I'd start seeing teammates redline. I turned around a minute later after taking out the minotaur and the team had the ambush pretty much silenced. It felt like we'd turned down the difficulty or something, but nope, we just handled the waves like it wasn't a big deal. It was really nice work by the team. I applaud their skill and look forward to more challenges next week.

Team 2 - aka 30s team (I was lowest at 33) First, we headed to IP and ran Penelope Yin's TF. We were joined by a PuG corruptor I think and had to make fun of them because they were neither plant, no nature themed. I chuckled a lot as he always ran ahead to eat the alpha with tar patch / DN rather than letting us just toss Seeds or Creepers. He red-lined a bunch, but over all we rolled through the missions. I had to ask at the last mission if we were set to Bubble Blowing Baby Mode because I swear it was like you were beating down greens and grays. Then, we did the Summer Blockbuster. I played the Hacker. We picked up a couple of the badges (only missed the one with the dogs iirc) and Overwhelming Force IOs. I'll probably try converting mine into the -kb because, wow, does Thunderstrike do knockback. Will need to tweak my permadom build plan if I do. After that we did a brief AE farm to get me the rest of the way to level 35 because a couple of the boys were itching to run the ITF. We popped into Nightward to get the badge so we could all access Cim, and headed there last. Now I'll admit I was skeptical when (I think it was Raisin) was all for starting the ITF with just the 4 of us and our highest level being 38 (?). I thought that was complete madness as there was no way we'd get through half of the TF without team wiping. But I figured at least it'll be good xp. We pretty much rolled through the first couple missions with only a death or two (although the pets kept getting wiped by the exploding crystals). When we started the 3rd mission and had to battle through Cim valley to the robot and fight the first 2 AVs, I think your team was rapping up and you messaged how we were doing. We said good or something like that, but then I messaged the team that that was going to end with this mission. There was no way, IMO, that we were going to win this with just 4 and minimal buffs. Well shut my mouth! We made it through the valley, soundly defeating the generals and 100s of Cims (a couple more deaths) and got to the computer. I was thinking 'here we go, soon as the last couple waves of bots activate, we're dead'. But no! While it was a bit slow damaging the computer, which worked to our advantage, every time a wave of bots activated, it was soundly confused by seeds and kb'd by creepers. We took them all down without much trouble at all. That moment made me a true believer. I've been on plenty of ITFs and seen team wipes there plenty of times, but the stacked controls and pseudo pets cleared the way handily. And mind you, there were just 4 of us! But before being able to bask in the glory, somebody pulled not one, but both AVs and their entourage down to the computer. I was thinking 'are they crazy... we're pretty much tapped of insps and could use a quick rest'. Down the AVs came and I engaged Rom in melee fisticuffs as the resident tank-inator. I had to eat the rest of my candy, but managed to hold him off long enough for the team to put him down first and Requiem a few moments later. At that time it was pretty late, so we decided to pause the TF and continue it TONIGHT. 9:00 PM is our finale... retaking Cim. I'm really curious to see how we do against the nictus-fueled Romi. I have to say I will be shocked if we finish this with our current team, but I'm a lot more confident now than yesterday.

And you've played all their new stuff to base your conclusion on, correct?

East Coast or West Coast? If you're on the left side then I think the group broke up by then.

Excelsior server at 9 PM (eastern). There were 7-8 of us in Striga. We ran until 11:30 PM. What is your character name?

What Creeper colors did people pick? I remember someone mentioning purple to mess with Haze, but that was all I caught. I was too busy button mashing Council all night. Oh, and don't know if someone has a bunch of damage procs in their Roots or if it was the cumulative hits, but the groups I was fighting seemed to melt a few seconds after diving in and it seemed to coincide with the Roots sound effect. I'm at a stage (31) where I'll be adding more AoE to my attacks so we should be able to shred things even more soon. One note is that I think I'm planning to grab Mu patron. But I'll have to go redside to get that done. Any plans for patron arc unlock as a team or should I make arrangements outside of SG?

Ding ding ding! You win the prize... The answer to the riddle of Gravity Control: Gravity control isn't strong, boy. The player is stronger. (Wormholes an unreachable enemy to their doom). That is strength, boy. That is power. The strength and power of the player. What is Gravity Control compared to the player that wields it? OP: Look at the strength within your tactics. The desire in your heart. CoH gave this to you. But here you are, doubting yourself. Such a waste. Contemplate this at the character creation screen.

What are we planning to hit Thu... missions, DFB? Haven't done much in the new KR so far. Also, did we outlevel Striga with the plant control squad? I went in there today to get the first contact, but they're no longer showing for me. I'm lvl 27 and I think the zone cap is lower. If so, someone lower level is going to have to snag the missions for us. Otherwise, we'll need to move on to Croatoa or Talos or the Wards

I rolled a Nature / Sonic Defender called Skreaming Tree for the Thu group. Avian protector of the forests ready to take down any who would dare defile Mother Nature. Lvl 2 atm. Not sure if I should try to get more levels or not prior to tonight. Or is the plan to start low and work our way up?

GRAVITY CONTROL!!! Bend space to your will! Tear holes in the fabric of reality! Crush your enemies! See them Wormholed before you! Hear the lamentations of your teammates after your Dimension Shift!