oedipus_tex

Small update to my posts above, Bopper corrected me in a chat. Scale 0.2 damage on a level 50 pet is actually around 11.12 damage. If that ticks 5 times, you'd get around 55.5 damage (66.6 if it ticks 6 times) which is a bit better than the 46 I guessed at above.

Yeah the Fiery Orb proc is always going to be a bit of a conversation starter. 🙂 I have to admit that when presented in terms of what it provides, a damage proc with the stats: 2 PPM, 5 x Scale 0.2 damage*, 15 foot radius, target cap 16 is pretty good. Probably the reason it doesn't "feel" good is the 20 seconds it takes to deliver that payload of damage. *Just realized I may be slightly underestimating how many ticks of damage the pet delivers. It lives for 20 seconds, its aura ticks every 4 seconds. So it's possible the pet delivers a final tick of damage on the same time it dies. Not sure which takes priority, the damage delivery or the pet dying first, but its at least possible it delivers 6 ticks of damage for a total of 1.2 Scale versus 5 ticks for 1 Scale.

This post prompted me to look up what Fiery Orb actually does. It's power list appears to be here: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_dominating_grasp_pet If this info is correct, the orbs summoned by this proc last 20 seconds. They don't actually have a direct attack, just an aura that ticks every 4 seconds (so it ticks 5 times over the orb's lifetime). The sphere has a 15ft radius and hits up to 16 enemies. Each tick deals 0.2 scale Fire damage, so an enemy hit by all 5 ticks takes Scale 1 damage. I believe that works out to around 46 damage total. That isn't terrible, necessarily, if you consider how excited players get about Hold damage procs--typically a 57% chance for 72 damage to a single enemy. If you can actually keep enough enemies in the 15ft sphere, Fiery Orb should work out pretty decently... if it triggers. Two howevers to follow: First however: the PPM for Fiery Orb is just 2PPM. That's low. This is certainly not the game changing proc that some other archetypes get in their ATO. Second however, the orb can be killed by enemies. It has 25% fewer HP than a standard pet and no defense or resist of its own. It's not a bad feature that enemies can attack them of course, it can pull a little heat of you, but it does mean the damage output is more theoretical than real. IMO the right place in Ice Control to put Fiery Orb is Frostbite, the AoE Immobilize. The only other AoE control thats suitable is Flash Freeze, the sleep, and a DoT is at total cross purposes of sleep. But even so I don't cast Frostbite very often, I'd usually rather allow enemies their movement, because Ice can slow it to a crawl and further mess with their AI.

The reason Cold is such a well known AV killer is mainly because of the combo of Heat Loss + Sleet + Benumb. It's really brutal, but as noted above Benumb and Heat Loss both require a lot of IOs to get there. Sleet's -Resist is marked as "no stack from same caster" but it turns out each Sleet you summon is a "unique caster," so you can easily stack the debuff. Most average builds can probably at least work it up to a few stacks. The debuff is a little confusing, it lasts 30 seconds after the previous rain ended, so stacking it is a lot more feasible than it may seem at first. Note, Thermal's Heat Loss lacks Benumb's -Special, but has better uptimes. It has a Recharge to duration ratio of 120/40, versus Benumb's 120/30. Perma-Benumb is technically possible, because 120/4 = exactly 30 seconds. But you'd need hard capped Recharge to do that. Most people settle for close to perma (~35 Recharge). It's much more feasible to make Heat Exhaustion perma. The reason Thermal doesn't pull significantly ahead is it can't stack -Resist like Cold can. It can still do a decent -22.5% though, the same as Radiation. Another thing to keep in mind though is that some of these powers can miss. Thermal is the most vulnerable to it, a missed Heat Exhaustion or Melt Armor on an AV really hurts it. Radiation is in the low risk category, Cold is somewhere in the middle. Even with perfect Accuracy you will always have a 5% chance to miss with powers that aren't autohit, and in real life scenarios this can haunt you in challenging ways.

Domination is an Inherent power that benefits from Global Recharge, but can't directly slot Recharge enhancements. It has a Recharge of 200 seconds. There's a mechanic in City of Heroes you may notice on some powers that says "Does X thing after a Y second delay." Domination is one of these powers. It has a power attribute that says "Crash the Rage bar after a 90 second delay." Power attributes in City of Heroes also have a tag that tells you whether duplicates stack, replace, or are ignored. In this case, the attribute that is supposed to crash your Rage bar has a tag of Replace--meaning if you somehow click Domination again before 90 seconds are up, the timer resets/is replaced with a new timer. As long as you click the power within 90 seconds or less, the timer will continue to replace. Any source of Global Recharge will shorten the Recharge of Domination. Common sources of Global Recharge are: The Recharge bonus in Hasten The bonus in IO sets bonuses that provide +Recharge Powers like Speed Boost or Chrono Shift cast on you by a teammate The Force Feedback Chance for 100% Recharge proc The Destiny: Ageless power Bonuses from the superhero base buff The upshot of the above is that Hasten is an incredible power for Dominators. I often take it as low as level 4. If you are coming up short despite your best build efforts, remember that using Ageless Destiny will make hitting permadom quite a bit easier (plus refill your endurance bar and provide a recovery boost). It's hard to say how much impact it will have, because the strength of the boost is variable. The base buff on the other hand is cheap, lasts an hour and a half, and provides a constant +20% bonus. The only reason you should ever not have that active is if you've just forgotten about it. (I am lazy and forget it often, but its a big boost and on a Dominator well worth renewing every time you have an idle couple of minutes). Note that the Recharge offered by the incarnate Alpha slot only boosts powers that are enhanceable. Domination is not enhanceable, so you won't get any +Recharge from it.

I thought you might like to see what difference slotting knockback to knockdown makes in a set like this, so I filmed a separate video. It's possible that I was a little more comfortable with the character during the second vid and that contributed; however you can also see I got to the same spot on the map about 2 min faster. I didn't bother 'fixing' the overall build, just slotted kb to kd and accepted the loss in Ranged defense, but still I think the second build is stronger (and less likely to get the boot from trams). By all means go all out with the knockback build for fun. 🙂 Don't forget you can make a badass contributor with some more control to your knock, though. 🙂

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that on sewer maps there's a song playing. It only plays right by the entrance, and not through the whole map. If you stand there long enough, there's even what I think are vocals. I've never been able to make out what the singer is saying. It sounds like: "Happpppy birthday. Happpppy birthday toooooooooo you." Has anyone figured out the real lyrics?

Now this is an unexpected one. 🙂 I demand a video to see the Fire Forcefielding Fun.

Interestingly, the most reliable, fast casting AoE knock-blast is probably in a set you don't expect: Umbral Torrent in the Dark Blast set. It animates in 1.05 seconds, recharges in 15 (about 4 seconds on a top end build), and has an excellent (for a cone) 80ft range. If you combine Dark Blast with Energy Manipulation, you can extend this range to 126 feet with Boost Range and the knockback can actually be a really effective solo technique. The main limitation is the same one that exists in all cones, the 10 target cap. But that's true of cones in Energy and Dual Pistols too, and neither of those sets have a frequently up power with 100% chance to knock. Anyway, I happened to be on the test server tonight and had a few minutes to demo the Grav/Storm/Leviathan build posted above. Here it is in a +4/x8 Council mission. I unfortunately forgot to turn bosses on but you can get the idea. I probably could have played more strategically, you can see that while the enemies aren't really threatening me, I'm struggling to take them out because of so much scatter. It's fun to play, tho. 🙂 I first tried this with Tornado turned on, I turned it off for the second run though because the Repel/KB was cutting so deeply into kill rate.

My weird suggestion: consider a Corruptor with one of the riskier Blast sets and a secondary set that doesn't provide the caster a lot of protection or healing. The set that really stands out to me as the "are you crazy" set is Radiation Blast. Your Fireball-like power is a PBAoE. Most Fire Blasters can fall back and hover blast most of their careers without too much tradeoff. Not Radiation Blasters though! There's some minor mezz in other the nuke and T3 blast, but otherwise staying upright means fighting on your toes. One secondary that leans into this all-in style would be something like Cold Domination. There's some slows, a tiny amount of Defense and exotic Resist, a bit of knockdown, and the rest is allllll debuff. Corruptors don't get the Defender ATO heal, either (they get a Recovery and a Damage proc instead). If you don't like Cold, another debuffing set with a similar crazy style is Poison. Don't let the buff powers in that set fool you, it's a difficult set to leverage with legit good rewards if you can master it,

The Recovery in Chrono Shift isn't like Speed Boost unfortunately. It lasts 30 seconds, not the full 90 seconds of the Recharge. That's the price of Chrono Shift being allowed to affect the caster. +50% Recharge is 20% shy of a second Hasten. I'll take it. 😄

What's hilarious is that 99% of players avoid the Chance for Knock proc in the Stun invention set. This guy though, after adding it, would have every power other than Steamy Mist in the Storm set creating some kind of knock effect. Gale - kb Freezing Rain - kd Hurricane - repel/kb Thunderclap - kb thanks to the proc Tornado - kb Lighting Storm - kb

EDIT: Updated build after I realiized I missed an obvious opportunity to add knockback to Thunderclap, making the KB king title even more applicable. Here's a basic knockback build, not recommended for teams. I cannot stress enough how irritating this build unleashed in a standard PUG can be. Even just knockback in Wormhole tends to be disruptive, so use with consent. 🙂 Note I took the Rune of Protection path to at least get some kind of mezz protection. Storm builds are expensive to run at end game and likely require support from Ageless Destiny. Grav Distortion may need more Accuracy if you plan to fight AVs a lot. The -Defense in Freezing Rain/Water Spout makes this bearable enough for me in general content tho. This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.2.17 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Controller Primary Power Set: Gravity Control Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Sorcery Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Lift -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Apc-Acc/Rchg(3), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(5), ExpStr-Dam%(7) Level 1: Gale -- Acc-I(A) Level 2: Gravity Distortion -- UnbCns-Dam%(A), GldNet-Dam%(11), NrnSht-Dam%(13), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(13), IceMisTrmt-+ColdDmg(15), GldJvl-Dam%(15) Level 4: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17) Level 6: Propel -- Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), Thn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), Thn-Dmg/Rchg(19), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Thn-Acc/Dmg(21) Level 8: Crushing Field -- Artl-End/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(23), Artl-Acc/Dam(23), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(25), Artl-Dam/End(25), Artl-Dam/Rech(27) Level 10: Steamy Mist -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), Rct-Def(27), Rct-ResDam%(29), Rct-Def/EndRdx(29), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(31) Level 12: Mystic Flight -- BlsoftheZ-ResKB(A) Level 14: Spirit Ward -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 16: Freezing Rain -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 18: Gravity Distortion Field -- BslGaz-Acc/Hold(A), BslGaz-Acc/Rchg(31), BslGaz-Rchg/Hold(31), BslGaz-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(33) Level 20: Rune of Protection -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A) Level 22: Hurricane -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(A), DarWtcDsp-Rchg/EndRdx(33), DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(33), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(34) Level 24: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 26: Wormhole -- SprWiloft-Rchg/Dmg%(A), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(34), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(34), SprWiloft-EndRdx/Rchg(36), SprWiloft-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(36), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(36) Level 28: Thunder Clap -- Stp-KB%(A), Stp-Acc/Stun/Rchg(37), Stp-Acc/Rchg(37), Stp-EndRdx/Stun(37), Stp-Acc/EndRdx(39), Stp-Stun/Rng(39) Level 30: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A) Level 32: Singularity -- ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(39), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(40), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(40), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), ExpRnf-+Res(Pets)(42) Level 35: Tornado -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(42), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(43), FrcFdb-Rechg%(43), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(43) Level 38: Lightning Storm -- SprWntBit-Rchg/SlowProc(A), SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(45), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(45), SprWntBit-Dmg/Rchg(46), GldJvl-Dam%(46) Level 41: Water Spout -- Artl-End/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(46), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(48), Artl-Dam/Rech(48), Artl-Dam/End(48), Artl-Acc/Dam(50) Level 44: Shark Skin -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), UnbGrd-ResDam(50) Level 47: Hibernate -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 49: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(50) Level 1: Containment Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 1: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 1: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 1: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(7), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(9) Level 1: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PwrTrns-+Heal(9), PwrTrns-EndMod(11) ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1389;661;1322;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F137110C77FDBDDA5A50F1E965A28943EB440297DF91718791895262| |44DBCD64DD9B69BB45DB25D883DF940AE2AC1C7C9E74105F46AD4BFC3C7C52B4769| |1562E2A90E3BF3931A36D97EF63733DFE9ECFCE6B7B9EB73EE5269E13C130666AB4| |AA35198D5EBA6A157ABAA21E794B2566447971DEEE8B18707A52E1ACA9A6636F93A| |D4157261B5544AE54DDDA815F2ABB59A5ED7EA65E65CD241955F51D565373EEA465| |1359A1E6BB1A0952B2684B970553D5A86E757B4626A4EAF697505921516D5354D31| |2B4ABD90531A264887A1B410DC7705F811AC6A3B32CBDA18CB4ACC9621A691528A9| |844F634815E895D43A125662CC02CE73D8127848CC2255438E7458B6E055C41604D| |B0D67D7D327206FD51689948E5086202330E10EF8343E6B5CA2FC9F90279EA39F11| |972E829F109721384762EB63BF06F4FDB892272B88728210332B208C25E124BBD3E| |AC3DB08F358F1D105BC8F12BC8AD18632E1231D7776CC426183DBC651E7AB16588E| |AE791FD64DC02C32019C5C1CF36AB6FE35F885F91E16FC84790D6CBD37ACF61012A| |A87D3C83EF3D1610FE48FC808C7C420AD0793FCFE0EFC0C51E807604F7B2238FEC6| |2D2C80E711B79E60DF135F115B204BA513E06A377B06567D7893788379113B788B7| |91221413E40D09FA71661E02427C07430758F6440B39D926FE24FE42C60F9165104| |6F9BB444914A7E038054F53D2E90D2225AD802E269038F64EB28C336F89BBC41D64| |729B4823BD0E98E2654FD1E02569F0D23470691AB4340D5E96067203C4097E1E127| |F3063F610B9E7662CC5BB94A2B191A07519AEC8D0A8668790D0C57F07B63326759F| |5E6BC7174F9A96A4E3E3CC04CBF4C379FCCDA0A8FD93A65697C9C62EC3D3247C392| |258BAE32A16D4FE2FE831B6DBF11B3BE86C23FF02C704D905| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

You're right that Time is not a great AV soloing build. It's an incredible set though. Chrono Shift is an AoE +50% Recharge that affects the caster and can be made perma. I tend to favor it on Defender/Corruptor, where that extra Recharge lends itself to constant nukes and faster access to Aim, but it works well for bringing long recharge controls back online as well. In a team setting +50% Recharge to the whole team is outrageous (basically, it's Speed Boost without the run speed and endurance buff) and will contribute to faster AV defeats by bringing everyone's Build Ups and Aims up faster. In some ways I'd rather have a Time team member than one of the more traditional AV slayers just for that.

I'd vote for Gravity/Storm/Leviathan. Note that when you actually play something like this I think you'll discover knockback critics aren't completely offbase. Excessive knockback will cut into your kill rate significantly. It can be very cool and exciting to play though, so I support people who enjoy it. You're likely specifically going to want something where some of the knock is in pets or toggles, hence why I recommend Gravity (Singularity) Storm (Tornado, Lightning Storm) and Leviathan (Water Spout, which is actually knock up, but will contribute to the feel). All the knock being in clicks will hold you back to only being able to knock as fast you can click, a real kick king or queen needs the knocks per second only sets with semi passive knock can bring.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. 🙂 Technically the answer is yes, powers can ignore Resistance. It's not necessarily always a bonus, though. Damage that ignores resistance ignores resist debuffs as well. This could hurt Archery on Defenders and Corruptors. Your suggestion is interesting though. I don't entirely agree with you about the value of +ToHit. IMO +ToHit is always valuable, because it allows you to skimp on slotting elsewhere in the build. Where I'll agree with you is I don't think adding it to Archery is a huge buff; you're possibly correct that Archery needs more than just that. However, since Archery's gimmick has always been "the extra accurate set" I think it's a small ask to change that from the current implementation to a global +ToHit buff that would be more applicable. I'd be fine with extra affects like +Perception, +Range or other things being in there as well, if that's needed. I'd also be fine with something unusual like the +ToHit applying in an AoE to all teammates, essentially like "free" clickable Tactics. Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone.

To be completely fair, on Controllers past a certain level, some of the debuffs have always served as backups rather than must-cast powers. This is how I think a lot of players have treated the toggles in Nature, Dark, etc. Those powers are more of a Defender/Corruptor thing or a fallback if for some reason you can't control the enemies (e.g. they are good for the all boss packs in the ITF). The exception is anything with -Resist. On a steamroll team you usually still try to cast those powers. Most debuff sets will have at least one somewhere in the power line up. A few (Sonic Resonance and Poison) even get Resist debuffs that don't require clicks.

Alpha I'd pick anything with +Damage. Judgment is really up to you. I tend to pick Void Radial because the -Damage applies to archvillains, making it a legit good power for AV fights, especially if you also took Sleet, which magnifies the -Damage. Interface is really up to you. I agree with Journey on Destiny. I'd go Barrier because /Psi is already going to cover healing and endurance. This is one of the subtle reasons /Psi Assault is top tier. Instead of having to build for actual softcap, you can build to 40% and rely on Destiny Barrier's low ebb of 5% to stay capped at all times. Lore again really up to you. I tend not to cast the Lore pet as often as I should. I couldn't even tell you what Lore pet most of my characters have.

The reason it tricks so many people is the damage in the immobilize is often a DoT, so its hard to see how much is piling up. On a Controller, the T1 immobilize does 30.59 damage base. With Containment, that's about 61 damage. A standard Blaster T1 blast with 4 second recharge like Power or Ice Bolt is 62 damage. So the T1 is not huge damage, but it's pretty comparable to a Blaster's T1, and because of Containment superior to the T1s most Defender/Corruptor/Sentinels get if you let the DoT complete.

So I tried an actual version of this on the test server. I did it on a x8+4 Council run to see how it felt compared to some of my other Dominators. I have to admit it went a lot smoother than expected. You can see the hesitancy in my clicking in the video due to unfamiliarity with best practices. What surprised me is how little dying I did. I cleared the mission mostly safely. On the less encouraging side, Singularity died a few times during the run, which means versus a more difficult enemy group he'd be less reliable. One big surprise for me is how much more damage this character seemed to do compared to my Gravity/Storm troller. I recently ran him through a similar Council mission and things just didn't seem to die. That could be an optimization issue. Having to remember to reactivate Voltaic Sentinel is annoying as hell by the way. I long for the updated version other sets now have. Note I did try this at first without Ageless Destiny and it was completely unworkable. Not that endurance issues are uncommon to Dominators though. Overall I'd give this a B-. Better than the C I thought I was going to end up giving it. Sorry for the long dull parts of the video, didn't have time to trim it.

Thirding Vigor as the Alpha slot. Other folks touched on good reasons. A third reason is that a few powers don't take any sets at all. Siphon Power and Siphon Speed for example. So it's nice to have the Alpha slot handle the Accuracy component of that. Nerve is a similar Alpha slot. It provides Accuracy but also bonuses to Defense, Can help you reach Defense caps easier for even more space open to procs.

BTW regarding that second post above, one thing you'll notice about how I was slotting in 2020 versus how I'd do it in 2022 is proccing out Char. I didn't in that original Fire/Ice build above, but probably should have. Putting Char into the attack chain lets you hold stuff without losing momentum on damage, which can be important. I also have a lot more respect for Dark Assault now than I did then, mainly from being persuaded by other players to give it another try. I now have to admit it's a great set and I was slotting/playing poorly.

I don't have one offhand. You can extrapolate a basic one from looking at /Psi builds and Fire/ builds. You can see a recent discussion about Fire Control here: You can see a couple of older builds I made here. There's a number of things I'd slot differently with knowledge I have in 2022, mainly how I'd slot the Dominator ATO. But the Elec/Psi build there is reasonably solid. For Fire/Psi I'd probably take the Ice APP, not whatever I picked here for Elec/Psi (I don't like Sleet or Rain of Ice on Elec builds because it breaks Sleep). Fire/Psi won't have that issue, and its worth using the huge endurance gains from Drain Psy as a source for unlimited Sleets.

The Wind Control set was in development and planned for a release before the announcement of the game's sunset. Many of the powers are partially coded, but the particle effects aren't in place. Servers that have chosen to enable it have created new particles or reused existing ones. You'll get a slightly different take on it depending on which server you play it on. There's no ETA on a release for the Homecoming server, and no guarantee the set is being actively worked on.

I don't read comics too often, so my references are all from the early 90s and 2000s. IMO it would be hard to replicate: Multiple Man/Jamie Madrox. Illusion Control's ability to make copies of yourself is a good start. I don't really feel like there's a Controller secondary that's a good fit though. If Illusion existed for Dominators, Illusion/Martial would kiiinda cover it. Still see MM as basically a Tank or Scrapper though. Rogue. There are plenty of "absorb power from enemy" type powers but I still feel like there's room here for a specific "power thief" set. Cannonball. Imagine what his Blast or Manipulation set would look like. Some kind of flying version of Lighting Rod? Or is he actually some kind of Sentinel with Momentum Armor or something similar? Quicksilver or really any speedster. It's kinda covered by existing sets, and of course anyone can take Super Speed. I woudn't say Super Reflexes feels like a speedster to me. Magneto/Polaris. We have Gravity Control, which may work as a stand in. Not sure I'm completely convinced Gravity Control is Magnetic Control, and there's not really an Assault set to pair them with that feels right. Unless Magneto is actually a very powerful Gravity/Force Fielder? Room for ideas for sure...