Lusid

Since the zones that allow for level shifting, or even the amount of level 50 zones are very limited, i suggest a new newspaper and police scanner that allows you to find level 50 (maybe even fully level shifted) missions in every zone. This way we can go anywhere and fight the enemies native to those zones. No new enemies required (except maybe level 50 versions of those that don't exist), no new maps, very limited additions to make it happen.

Yeah total brainfart on the +mez enhances. Don't know why they were just erased from my memory temporarily. I deserve being laughed at for that one lol. As for the containment and dom swap, i never viewed controller as a solo class. Yes, it can be done and yes people have shown it to do okay. They really shine in a group though. That's where the increased magnitude on holds would be best. I usually am in a team of at least two and continually wonder why dominator is a better controller than a controller. So yes, soloing is a good counterpoint to this but not a defeater i don't believe. More like the only reason to keep it that way, which could also be remedied by an increase in base damage scaling. The confuse suggestion, yes is mainly at seeds, but confuse really is the strongest cc there is. The enemy cannot hit you, making it close to stun, but can hit others making it also a damaging attack. Just not on the target who gets hit by it. At the same time taking away all AoE confuse abilities would be no good. Plant/ dom is my main and seeds just feels like godmode. I'd say the same about synaptic overload but it has all the issues associated with chain skills, and mass confuse doesn't compete thanks to it's cooldown. The hasten change, i've never built a character with hasten that doesn't make it permanent, nor have i seen many builds that have it and is not permanent. The ones i have seen that hasten is not permanent if you change the build a bit to make it permanent you'd see it as a complete increase in efficiency. It's pretty strong.

There is another topic that discusses KD and KB, the suggestion i had was increase AoE ranges. With this game's format there isn't a big advantage to having increased radius on your targeted aoe, pbaoe or cones. This is especially true since there is already a target limit. The range could be 100 feet and it won't let you hit any more targets in most situations. Not suggesting they be increased that far but if the AoE attacks had the ranges of incarnate skills, or about half since vorpal as example is 120' long, knockbacks would be far less offensive.

A bit lower in the front page of this forum i have a write up of suggested changes to overhaul the control type AT's as well. It addresses most of the issues talked about in the first post, as well as some other changes and some quality of life updates. To add to the current topic though, yes. Control types need some love, but the changes that need to be made are not small and would im sure be met with resistance. For the health of the game and class, something should be done. This game is the only one i've ever seen that allows crowd control to be a major aspect of a class. Most CC in mmo games is very short duration. This one lets it shine bright and i'd love to see it kept up to snuff with everything else that exists or gets added.

This is cool. Always liked the idea of making copies of yourself. I forget which task force has an enemy who makes clones of himself, but the concept is already there. I also like the attacks being instant copies. I'd play this set.

I had an earth/storm character on live that skipped the aoe immobilize and focused on whipping groups around with unrelenting knockbacks. I got more compliments on the character's performance than you'd imagine with KB hate. Not only was the character incredibly fun, everyone who could adapt to it found no issues. From that experience i found a good way to greatly lessen the complaints about KB and people being shunned for using it would be to expand the ranges on AoE attacks. Thinking about it honestly, what really would become unbalanced by having ranges increased? There's already a target limit (which i also disagree with), and i cannot think of any way this would give a serious advantage. All immobilizes now turn KB to KD, pulls are already pretty packed and a very short wait after the tank strolls in and they're all compacted anyway. Wormhole packs everyone on use if it's available. Turning a 20' bomb into a 35'-40' instead won't tip the scales of balance. Even increasing pbaoe skills like foot stomp to 20-25 won't have serious repercussions. Watching mighty go off makes everyone giggle with excitement, let all the abilities go nuts. Incarnates can be cranked even higher. I mean why not?

I like the idea of the shield, it would function similar to how one of the /regen skills on a sentinel, so easy to implement. Instant healing turning toggle i don't see how it would help tbh. If it's able to be left on it's just yet another +regen toggle. Boring power. May as well just buff integration and call it a day. Multiple toggles doing the same thing is just power fluff where it doesn't need to be. Each power doing it's own unique thing makes for more robust gameplay and builds. Otherwise it's going to behave like the hybrid incarnate powers, where the only benefit there is more control over when it's cooldown takes place. Based on a regen build a friend of mine put together, regen seems to be in a decent place with the way current sets and enhancements work. Grab a bunch of ancillary defenses (any dominator knows that game) and it lives through some serious punishment. While im not a fan of any set being reliant on ancillaries, it does it's job for what the system allows. The issue i think is that the way regen works makes it function well in a role that doesn't really exist: off-tank. It requires an actual tank to take most of the agro while the off-tank picks up stragglers. But the issue there is: Why use this instead of just another competent tank. For regen to work as well as other armor sets, you'd need a way to stagger damage so your regen can compensate. The monk class from WoW had an interesting mechanic that would work very well for a regen class. Stagger took any damage you take and stretched it out over x seconds. Basically turned all incoming damage into a DoT debuff and you had other abilities that could wipe the stored damage or stretch it further. something like that could work well, but i have a strong feeling it'd be too strong. Edit: You know, on second thought making it behave like hybrid's toggle, where you can deactivate it early and control when it goes on cooldown isn't a bad idea. Simple change that gives control over when you have your powers.

100% agreed that illusion control should be given to doms as well. Exactly as is, all abilities unchanged. Yes, domination only benefits few abilities, but that would be something any illusion dom would accept by making the character. Just having PA tank for you so you can go crazy with assault attacks would be fantastic. Remember, Phantom army damage is all illusory. The enemy will heal all of it back. I am pretty sure the heal is not tied to enhanced damage, so with any +damage it's increase is permanent damage. In that regard, PA would increase damage. But dominator is about doing damage. There are power sets on certain AT's that out damage others as it is, and the loss of control for the gain of damage is a trade off. Not one i'd say would be overpowered. Also remember all PA attacks are single target (something i'd suggest a small change to, but that's for another topic) so while they'd do well against 1-3 targets, it wouldn't be anything game breaking. I'd say give them the option and see how it goes. If it's too strong, adjust the dom version. Other set combinations that were previously thought to be too strong showed up like /kin on a MM, and it turned out to not be anywhere near as crazy as it sounds. Small adjustments could certainly fix any issues. Also /illusion assault would be a nice concept to go with it.

Here are a few (some major) changes to control types that i think would improve the AT overall, as well as get them out of the tight balance spot they're in. Any opinions on these or changes to these suggestions are welcome. AoE hold abilities cooldown reduced, duration reduced. Purpose: Allow it to be up for each pull since CC is their damage mitigation. Also to combat the necessity of perma hasten as well as forced into stacking cooldown reduction. Add a -damage effect (Mez Sickness) when mez drops that lasts for a single attack. Currently when a hold drops, the enemy attacks instantly. Even if you apply another mez before the enemy's attack fires off, it still occurs. This would also alleviate the need for taking so many ancillary powers because of the constant concern for defense. Reliance on sets, epic power pools, procs, and uniques, do not allow flexibility in builds. A boon for both solo and team play. This ability should only apply when a successful hold is broken to prevent spamming holds on AV/hero for perma reduced damage when the hold won't apply. Add some form of staggered mez drop from AoE holds, Each target having a slightly different duration so all don't just drop instantly. This would allow for controllers to do spot maintenance on their holds, also eliminating the anarchy of all dropping at once. Add +mez duration as an enhancement, set bonus, or new sets that have them Purpose: when cooldowns are the only thing you can improve these abilities with, that becomes then what they are balanced around. The result of which both demands builds incorporate this as well as balancing around the anticipation that these will be how they are built, limiting freedom as well as forcing certain builds to even compete. This will allow shorter base cooldowns and the option to have either short cooldowns or long durations. Options are good. Edit: Ignore this. Completely brainfarted and forgot they even existed somehow. Leaving it here so everyone can have a good laugh at lusid, lol This is more a global change rather than control types, but relevant: Change hasten to no longer be affected by cooldown reduction, similar to WP's t9. Increase hasten's effectiveness to compensate. Exact numbers would need to be explored, but about 140%-150% hasten for 20-30 ish seconds on a 3 minute cooldown would be a decent start. Purpose: Currently, the reliance on making hasten perma likens it to that of a toggle. This change would make hasten more of a short burst of insanely low cooldowns. It remedies the reliance on it in builds, and would also prevent having to balance abilities around the possibility of perma hasten. As a note: Balancing abilities around their possible interactions is what paints abilities into corners with builds and balance. Add some form of identifier to all cc that can signify it's impending collapse, for efficient planning of gameplay. I dont know if the coding would allow for an icon above the enemy visible only to the controller, if not i'm thinking a change in it's graphic at the 10 second remaining duration mark. Smoke could puff out sporadically, vines can start to break and fall, lighting can short, etc. Split confuse effect into two: Mind Control and Confuse. Mind control would behave like confuse does now, where the enemy behaves likes an ally for the duration. Confuse would cause the target to attack random targets, ally or enemy. Purpose here would be to make confuse less of a hard CC (Lets be honest, it's friggin' broken) while letting it's powerful current effect to be still used for some abilities. Mostly the AoE effects would be confuse, while single target would be mind control. Mind Control could also use a visual effect like dark control's possess to differentiate the two. Swap Containment and Domination. Containment gives a chance for critical hold, but more importantly increases (doubles?) damage done to held targets. An ability wasted on controllers, but would shoot dominator damage to damn near the top, if not the top. Domination lets all holds be double magnitude, increased to hit, and mez resistance. That is more suited for the dedicated controller, especially with the mez resist. This would let controllers be the more reliable hold class. Yes, these changes would break many current builds (free respecs anyone?) but if that is a deterrent to making changes that are/can be for the better, these changes will never happen.