oedipus_tex

I don't know how I ever missed this, but I used to main Controllers on live, and would always wait til the 40s to take a single target blast, and was excited because I would finally be able to solo! Turns out, the whole time the Controller single target immobilizes have the same damage, with half the recharge, better accuracy, often a faster animation, and a Mag 4 immobilize that sets Containment on bosses. 😄 What are the obvious mistakes you made or details you overlooked?

IMO Psi has four key characteristics, mostly deriving from the power Drain Psyche. If you happen to have used that power on a Blaster before you may already be familiar with what to expect. The takeaways: Psi is the "sustainable" Dominator set, the only set they have that has both a strong source of healing/Regen and Recovery. Psi is very recharge dependent. Not a remarkable set unless you spend some cash to gain global recharge. If you aren't looking to IO its probably mediocre overall. (Still playable, of course but a deep analysis of its strengths is probably not necessary.) Psi Assault pays for Drain Psyche with weak ranged blasts (with the exception of the snipe). To make the damage bearable against single targets, you'll likely need to use the set's two melee attacks. This has obvious risks during high risk fights versus AVs and is the biggest setback of the set IMO. Drain Psyche is a point blank, small radius AoE, and its effects last just 30 seconds. So, a lot of the battle tactics involve gathering enemies into clusters in order to vampire from them. This is a bit safer to do on a Dominator than on a Blaster. [Possible 5th distinction: Psi is the only Dominator support set with a -Regen debuff. Psi Dominators have as much -Regen as well respected support characters like Cold or Thermal Radiation Defenders. It's also twice as high on a Dominator versus a Blaster (-500% versus -250%). I believe this debuff works out to around -21 HP/second. This probably won't affect your overall build but it's worth noting, not a lot of Psi players understand that in AV fights they should treat their Drain Psyche like a Cold Defender treats Benumb.] My quick and dirty, not entirely fair ratings for Psi pairings: Dark/Psi: One of if not the tankiest Dominator builds possible, as long as enough enemies are around to apply Drain Psyche. Only real weakness is standard Psi lowish single target damage. This is one of those builds I'm always scared a developer will see in action and assume the entire Dominator archetype plays like this. 🙂 Dark Control's hold has 1.67 animation time, in the middle for Control sets, which isn't great, but isn't bad either. Plant/Psi: Another of the truly frightening Dominator builds. Damage in Carrion Creepers helps recover from from of Psi's okayish damage, but this is more of an AoE character. May struggle with single target damage, but again that's standard for Psi Assault. To kill you, enemies need to get past Creepers, Seeds of Confusion, and your huge Regen buff. Fire/Psi: It's good. Very good. Plant or Dark good? Not sure I'd go that far, but it does have better single target damage than either, due to being able to proc out Char. DP covers Hot Feet's huge endurance costs. Only real downside here is general Fire Control inability to keep its own pets alive, since DP doesnt do anything to help them. You'll note many ages ago this build used to be used by Villains to farm, and the build hasn't gotten any worse since those days. A solid A tier choice. Elec/Psi: IMO this is A or B tier, depending on what you want out of a character. With this, you're really tripling down on the "vampiric" role. It's great and a lot of fun when it works, possibly frustrating when enemies are too dangerous to engage up close, because you don't have any AoE mezzes that Dominate other than the 240 second recharge hold. I'd give this a higher ranking if Synaptic Overload applied Domination on its chains. Conflict of interest alert: I "main" one of these. He's a good, not perfect character. It's fun to play though, quite different from other Psi Dominators. Note the single target Hold has a 2.17 second animation time, the longest of any control set, and that can significantly slow down your ability to burn down bosses if you need to ensure your safety during the last stages of a battle. Earth/Psi: Two solid sets that neither specifically interfere or assist each other. The worst thing I can say is Earth doesn't help cover Psi's single target damage hole. But if that's the worst I can say, that's actually really good. I wish Earthquake animated faster. Volcanic Gasses doesn't Dominate, but doesn't need to be amazing; it is easily the best of the AoE holds. Otherwise this is a great choice. Mind/Psi: With this, we're getting into unusual playstyles that make it hard to assign a rank. Mind Control is the "sneaky" controls set that lets you set up controls without alerting enemies. But then thrown in there it has Terrify, a cone Fear/damage power that encourages a Rambo style of play. Note that you can use Mass Hypnosis to sleep entire enemy groups and then discretely Drain Psyche them without waking them up. You can even do a combo of Mass Hypnosis > Fold Space > Drain Psyche, so you're opening every fight with maxed out Regen and Recovery. Probably can't pull that off on a team though... like I said, hard to rate. Note, Mind Control's Dominate animates at the same speed as Fire Control's Char and can be procced out to help fill in the single target chain. It also must be said that every player will either learn to live with Mass Confusions 240 second recharge or else walk away from Mind Control a bit frustrated. I'm one of the latter, The set does have its fans, though. Gravity/Psi: Overall I don't have good things to say about Gravity Control. But this specific combo is actually complimentary. Wormhole and Drain Psyche have natural synergy, and Gravity Control happens to have Psi's weak single target ranged game with Lift. If you must roll a Gravity Control Dominator, this would probably be my top recommendation. Ice/Psi: Psi is one of the better Ice pairings. DP helps cover for endurance issues from running Arctic Air. Fun to play. Usual issues with low single target damage. Both Ice and Psi have lots of -Recharge, it will make you wish -Recharge was more useful. 😄

In a recent thread in the general forum, Gravity/Electric Dominator was listed by a number of posters as one of the lowest performing character combos in the game. I tend to agree with that sentiment. While I think you could "make it work," my experience with both sets is that other sets do most of what they have better, safer, or in more fun ways. However, sometimes the community surprises us with interesting insights. So can we do it? Can we make Gravity/Electric rise above merely "playable" and actually thrive? I started us out with a build below. Full confession, I am not completely happy with the build, I'd like to use it as a starting place. Initial logic: Sleet is so useful that almost any Dominator can justify his or her role on the team by taking it. So, if we're making the best of what we've got available, I think it's a top choice for a build seeking to justify itself. We're probably looking at some kind of Lift > Melee attack > snipe when available single target chain. Gravity Distortion buffs Lift's damage but more importantly controls bosses, which we're probably going to need to do anyway. We get Build Up, which means ample opportunities for Gaussian's Chance for Build Up abuse. In Build Up mode our damage actually is pretty respectable. Downside, we don't have a nuke or any good AoEs to really take advantage of that extra damage, so actual results will be significantly less applicable than it would be if we were a Blaster. Gravity Control is incredibly vulnerable on Dominators. You get Wormhole to protect you. That's it. No armor outside of the APPs, no sustain, no sleep, no confuse, no debuffs, and approximately 0% chance the saps in your Electric attacks will do anything to affect the enemy's ability to counterpunch you. Propel has knockdown that I don't think is effective enough versus Propel's cast time. So this is going to be a delicate affair. Picking Attacks: The DPA values for this combo are very very weird. Here it is with procs. Note that does throw off some of the comparisons, but you can see start values in blue: The attack takes: So, before procs, Lift with the Impact mechanic has better DPA than any attack we have other than the Snipe. Even outside of Impact it's got 100% chance for Knock and DPA similar to a melee attack. This is probably the best thing Gravity is going to give us and is a must take. To actually hit that hard with Lift, we need to set it up with Gravity Distortion first, so my assumption is we want to proc that attack out with damage procs. The power doesn't animate as fast as Char or Dominate, but 1.83 sec is at least manageable. It's also a control, and we're likely going to need to cast it anyway to approach bosses safely once Wormhole wears off. The snipe is identical to every other Dominator snipe. It's a must take. The only downside is we aren't playing one of those other Dominators. 🙂 Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch both hit about as hard as each other. The proc potential varies but in the end Charged Brawl wins for me for it 0.83 animation time. With the purple damage proc Charged Brawl is our biggest DPA in the set and has a recharge of 1.95, so that's what we're gonna be here... a faceslapper. Voltaic Sentinel is free extra damage. Not much free extra damage, mind you. But free is free, there's no reason to skip it. Thunderstrike is a very strange power. It initially looks like a heavy hitter, but 2.5 animation time cuts heavily into its damage. It takes AoE sets but only about half of the damage applies to the AoE portion. Presumably procs fire within the AoE area at full strength, and that rescues the power from obscurity. Still, I'm unsure how useful this really is in practice. I took it on the assumption that using it after Wormhole is effective against tightly bunched enemies. Static Discharge, the cone power, exists. That's the best I can say for it. I took it because its our only other AoE option. At least Wormhole will keep enemies in its relatively small radius? Downside, other Electric sets have really interesting AoE attacks that define them, and Electric Assault has this. The attack skips: Lightning Bolt, with 1.67 anim time, isn't even worth casting. I'm not actually sure I'd take it in any Electric Assault build. Propel isn't either. The best I can say for it is it is better than Lighting Bolt. It has some mild control potential with the AoE knock but not enough to justify taking it IMO. I did mention upthread Gravity's vulnerability and our need for more control, I just don't think spending a bunch of slots here is really going to help us. If this was a true AoE power and not a single target attack that knocks in a radius it would be a lot easier to justify. Charged Bolts is forced on us and not worth slotting. Probably wouldn't even put it on the hotbar. This isn't that unusual for a Dominator though. The weird/other stuff: I took Dimension Shift. If I'm being honest I do not like this power in PVE. I've never encountered a situation where it has turned the tide of a battle. If it had a longer duration I could see it, but 20 seconds? Casting this will root you and impart run suppression, where otherwise you could have usually just run away. I took this just because I had slots available. Could be replaced with a travel power. Stealth - took this because the combat bonus is actually pretty decent even in combat, and the ability to avoid detection is probably useful to a Wormholer. Plus this build is so vulnerable that skipping some fights entirely is probably advisable. Slash/lethal defense: Probably need to be capped. I left them a bit shy of capped out of laziness. That isn't hard to fix, it may mean sacrificing some proc damage though, which I'm loathe to do. I'd be a little less concerned about capping it if I was convinced controls would cover the gap, I'm not in this case however. Endurance usage: No way is it sustainable to launch Sleet every 26 seconds without a blue bar crash. This build assumes support from incarnate powers. Probably Ageless Destiny. Overall grade: Without actually spending hours playing it, I'd give the current build a C. Playable. But I also do not have enough cash that I would actually spend it on something like this. I am not a complete min/maxer--I enjoy and actually prefer an unusual or surprising solid B tier. But everything I see so far makes me want to spend the money on a different combo. In particular, its hard not to look at this and think rerolling as Gravity Controller and taking a solid secondary with decent damage would be a better and more fun investment. Can you build it better? Am I totally off base and there is a secret to making this work? Other thoughts? This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.2.17 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Bad Situation: Level 50 Magic Dominator Primary Power Set: Gravity Control Secondary Power Set: Electricity Assault Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Concealment Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Ancillary Pool: Ice Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Lift -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(9), Apc-Acc/Rchg(9), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(11) Level 1: Charged Bolts -- Empty(A) Level 2: Gravity Distortion -- GldJvl-Dam%(A), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(3), GldNet-Dam%(3), NrnSht-Dam%(5), UnbCns-Dam%(5), SprAscoft-Rchg/+Dmg%(7) Level 4: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7) Level 6: Charged Brawl -- SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc(A), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(13), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx(15) Level 8: Crushing Field -- Artl-End/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(43), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(46), Artl-Dam/Rech(48), Artl-Dam/End(50), Artl-Acc/Dam(50) Level 10: Havoc Punch -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx(17), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg(17), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Hct-Dam%(50) Level 12: Stealth -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 14: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 16: Build Up -- GssSynFr--Build%(A) Level 18: Gravity Distortion Field -- BslGaz-Acc/Hold(A), BslGaz-Acc/Rchg(19), BslGaz-Rchg/Hold(19), BslGaz-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(21) Level 20: Zapp -- GldJvl-Dam%(A), StnoftheM-Dam%(37), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), StnoftheM-Dmg/ActRdx/Rchg(42), StnoftheM-Acc/ActRdx/Rng(43), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx(43) Level 22: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(23) Level 24: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(25) Level 26: Wormhole -- SuddAcc--KB/+KD(A), AbsAmz-ToHitDeb%(27), AbsAmz-EndRdx/Stun(27), AbsAmz-Acc/Rchg(29), AbsAmz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(29), AbsAmz-Stun/Rchg(31) Level 28: Static Discharge -- Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-End/Rech/Rng(34), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(36), Artl-Dam/Rech(36), Artl-Dam/End(37), Artl-Acc/Dam(37) Level 30: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 32: Singularity -- SuddAcc--KB/+KD(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(33), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(33), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(33), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34) Level 35: Sleet -- AchHee-ResDeb%(A), RechRdx-I(36) Level 38: Voltaic Sentinel -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(39), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(39), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(40), ExpRnf-+Res(Pets)(40) Level 41: Hoarfrost -- NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(A), DctWnd-Heal/Rchg(42), Prv-Heal/Rchg(42) Level 44: Ice Storm -- Artl-End/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(45), Artl-Acc/Dam(45), Artl-Dam/End(45), Artl-Dam/Rech(46), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(46) Level 47: Frozen Armor -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(48), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(48) Level 49: Hibernate -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 1: Domination 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 -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(31), Mrc-Rcvry+(34) Level 1: Stamina -- PwrTrns-+Heal(A), PrfShf-End%(23), PwrTrns-EndMod(31) Level 49: Quick Form ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1414;676;1352;HEX;| |78DA6594E94E135114C7EF4C6728142A54BAB0155AB64257AA2FA0B2980AD56A13B| |F92B114BC49699B764AE431DCE233F8107EF00D5C501F00E312A2E012BFC2E99CFF| |A5924EDAFC7ACE9C7B96FF9969FED1CAC0F6F6DA35A10D2E57AC667373A5B62BAB9| |65D6B98796B47965C4208EF0D6B2B529476CBB265ADEA264FF43C6A73B956B51BB5| |4AFA66C3DA93F6BEB2E39D88EBCDA6D5AAD8E9D54AB9643764A91D95B7AAB2DEAA3| |80985A750A304C57AB9BCE5737EE6AA7BB2291FC80A857A1DCF9ADC7968CBEACE80| |636D94AD3A1963AB75594AE74A654AD7B4CB8DFD4EF323D46484BEC976FF9A685FA| |786C8EA42640DD1BB0466989E3498621EEA425DA7F4A14BA4288F863CA6D6CE4A71| |FAAEC65C65DBB0C80E13739CA7E715FBA74932170E6BAE84E09BE0678A3551CC309| |F1B8E73E019F89479E909F89899A1C46ED58EBBD7749C713733D5C3CC98CCAC01BA| |985FA8629FD2A4AF409836C4D05DF01ED35F6466133C8B9766E8C721D11FE0C1357| |27A95505E47A8AF143EA85C832F755416C287C32EDF81EEA874F903F891E9FFC4FC| |46184606731852CF1EB05AB1F7CCC577CCF85BF00DD3451D0594D48110EF237805F| |BA19B2175338419468698ED98515576F490751EBBC3038CDD664EE4C10DE6E43AF3| |3B615CED631C7B88622F33D8C70CF6318B7DCC621F416A2BACA40DA3ADABD4CE945| |AD214DA891C73B9C809F88B19FDCD1CF1D1CE308336FDBA2D2495C5837644E69CEA| |710E99E691691E99E69129F607FC0B0128F3020EEB0B45EE71310F1EB1BE1314945| |01512983E093592983689E953E6C5A7759C0EA755853454C8F8412C699482969454| |4B188C9ED2F3D7F574C2E87A7737BA5D0543FD2B904B735C3F3C9D7F0A44FDEC761| |DFFE7D2C57DEE6A32CAF3476F911D33C4C985A07FBCBBE00B3C32276CAFC76914D5| |F5195593DBCA| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

The main drawback of this is the expense, If you can afford to do it though, why not? I rarely have enough cash to really make it work. But if you are playing one character and almost nothing else it does make a lot of sense to have multiple builds. My main is an Elec/Psi Dom, being able to swap him back and forth between the Psi and Mu epic pools would be really useful, for example.

I think in the current meta Defender tends to be the stronger archetype. Corruptors aren't bad by any means, it's just that that 30% damage buff Defenders get when solo ends up filling the very specific gap where they might otherwise flag in usefulness. If I'm ever on the fence about Defender vs Corruptor I feel safer rolling the Defender most of the time. If I were to need a tie breaker, I think the Defender ATOs are superior, especially on sets that lack their own heal. So even though Cold, TA, Traps etc lend themselves well to Corruptors, the Defender variety feels like the safer, sturdier bet to me.

This is a suggestion for a small tweak to Archery to make its secondary effects fit better with the archetype system, and also hopefully introduce new and interesting Archery builds. Archery currently has no secondary effects on its blast powers. The set's special gimmick is slightly better base Accuracy in every power. However, this extra base Accuracy does not flex with archetype modifiers. In addition, it is tightly confined to the Archery blasts themselves. I suggest that instead of extra Accuracy being built into each blast, Archery's Aim power receive a lingering ToHit buff around the strength of what you'd get from Combat Teleport for around 30 seconds. If current modifiers were used, the results would be: Blaster: +10% Corruptor: +10% Defender: +12.5% The justification for this would be that Archers naturally have keen eyesight, so for several seconds longer than other blast sets after taking Aim, all of their powers are more likely to hit. This would allow them to apply their extra aim to powers in Kinetics, Cold, the Blaster Manipulation sets, and anything else that rolls ToHit.

EDIT: On re-read this post sounds more drastic than I'd hoped, but its Mardi Gras weekend and I don't have time to revise before heading back out. Hopefully this gets read as a suggestion and not a diatribe. 🙂 Happy carnival. At risk of being guillotined for saying it, I would love to see the Level Shift ability only apply during iTrials. If reward rates are a concern, and that meant making it so that level 53s give rewards like 54s, and so on, that would be fine. In this instance, it's more about fixing the play experience than the net rewards for me. Level Shifts are IMO the most destablizing mechanic in the current game, because of how they provide better rewards the stronger your character already is. If you're fighting 54s already, and can shift that downward so that you're fighting 53s, you're earning a lot more than the player who shifted from 51s to 50s. That's because the Purple Patch gets harsher the larger the level difference between player and critter. It's not even really accurate to say the Level Shift even "gives you an extra level"; what it meaningfully does is subtract one from the level difference between player and enemy, resulting in using different tables. For example: We can see from the table that at +4 power effectiveness is cut by more than half. If we can reduce the level difference from +4 to +3, instead of half, we're now only losing 1/3rd of our efficiency. Meanwhile, a player who is fighting +1s is already fighting with 90% efficiency. They get 10% back from the Level Shift, but not nearly the drastic change in performance. I won't do the math on how much efficiency you gain by reducing a +4 to a +1 in Dark Astoria. Apparently that segment of the game was designed with that in mind. I don't understand it, got flamed hard last time I brought it up, so I'll just highlight it and move on. Note I do think Level Shifts are appropriate inside iTrials. iTrials were designed for them, and players get crushed without them. I'd even be fine with making Level Shifts easier to obtain for iTrials, because getting crushed and not able to do much in a 24 man trial is not very fun. But, outside of iTrials, I'd like to see changes made.

I'm unsure if I'm actually serious about about this request, but part of me wants to the cut long recharge of controls in Controller and Dominator sets roughly in half in exchange for halved mezz durations. Doing that would have a lot of downstream impact, particularly at low and middle levels. It could actually make the game harder at end game due to needing to reclick stuff. But it's something I might not mind a powers designer looking at, even if ultimately they decide the current ratio:duration ratios are ok.

If you're on a Posi 1 Task Force, the clone of any player who has Trick Arrow as his or her powerset. The clone will have a version of Flash Arrow that blinds the team. Back before TA got buffed it was almost trolling to bring your TA toon, because the clone was so much more effective than anything your actual TA character could do at that level to counter it.

Electric Affinity is a set created by the Homecoming team. It didn't exist on live, and is not playable on any other server. Electric Affinity's core gameplay mechanic is bouncing buffs off of teammates or pets. For that reason, playing with a Tanker (especially an Electric Tanker) you can target through will make it enjoyable. Electric Affinity can't heal or buff itself directly, but it can stand near a teammate or pet and bounce buffs of them. The buffs you can bounce this way are a heal, an endurance bar refill, and an absorb. For its T9 Elec Affinity can Power Boost a teammate permanently, and cause him or her to proc lightning bolts with each attack. If your teammate is an Electric Tanker like your son will be playing, powers like Power Sink will double in their ability to drain endurance, and any Defense powers he has will increase in value. The other standout ability Electric Affinity has is Fairaday Cage. It's a "big bubble" like Sonic or Force Field would have, except it doesn't follow you around. It stays locked in the place you cast it. However, the recharge on it is very short, the duration of the Cage very long, and you can even cast it while mezzed. It's one of the most interesting powers in the game IMO. The takeaway is that Electric Affinity is one of the small classes of powersets Corruptor/Defender/MM can take with native mezz protection for itself. For secondary sets, almost anything will work, but given what Electric Affinity and Electric Armor bring, I'd consider Electric Blast as the blast set. Electric Blast has a new mechanic that does additional damage on enemies who are endurance drained. Although Kinetics will also do that, for a more support style character I think Electric Affinity will do great--especially on a two person team with a Tanker who will benefit a ton from the T9 and other abilities. To get ultra specific, one synergy between Elec Affinity and Electric Blast is the new Voltaic Sentinel, which will detoggle if you get mezzed. But you won't get mezzed often, with Elec Affinity.

There are a couple of powers in the APPs that raise eyebrows. I remember how excited I got when Explosive Blast came to Dominators, only to read its End Cost: You, too, can expend 1/3rd of your blue bar on an Explosive Blast. 😄

Both of these combos are likely to be pretty great. Given the choice at hand, on a Corruptor, I'd probably go Water/Cold, just because Water patches up the self heal Cold otherwise lacks. As with all things, you'll want to think about whether you might be happier with a Defender. The Defender gets: +30% solo damage on Defender, versus Chance to Scourge on Corruptor. I'll need someone else to math out how this translates to real world output. The same -Regen, since it doesn't flex based on AT Better -Recharge (probably doesn't matter) Stronger team shields (probably doesn't matter) Better self heal (may not matter) Better endurance/recovery from Heat Loss (doesn't matter since there is so much of it you'll cap with either) Better modifiers for personal defense and resistance (may matter, best reason to consider a Defender) Better -Resistance in Heat Loss, but not in Sleet (probably doesn't matter much, but someone could prove me wrong) Better ATOs (IMO)--especially for Cold, because it has a heal. But, Cold/Water specifically can heal itself, and its less critical Note that Cold Defenders actually get slightly shortchanged on Sleet. When Cold got ported to Defenders, the debuff should have risen from -30% to -35% Resistance, but stayed -30%. It's especially strange because Freezing Rain, which is the same power with a different name in the Storm Summoning set, does flex. There's a possibility this could be fixed in some future patch. I imagine if that happens the Defender value would go up and Corruptor stay the same, though that isn't guaranteed.

The 40 second duration of Thermal's Melt Armor is interesting in context because 40 seconds is also the duration of its AV-slaying power, Heat Exhaustion. Heat Exhaustion for some reason doesn't seems to get the respect it deserves. It's the same power as Cold Domination's Benumb, with 10 seconds of extra duration (40 total) and no -Special. Not to knock the -Special in Benumb, because it can be useful, I think the extra 10 seconds on Heat Exhaustion is slept on too often. It's mainly worth noting because even with perfect Accuracy, both of these powers will always have at least a 5% chance to Miss. A Heat Exhaustion that misses a round of applications will have around a 20 second window where the AV is not debuffed, versus 30 seconds for Benumb. Benumb is also hard to perma, and very demanding in the sense that the moment it Recharges you must press it right away to keep the debuff going, while Thermal has some leeway. Neither of these powersets are the only ones with -damage and -regen, of course. But getting them in a set that still has a full aresnal of heals and buffs is what makes Thermal so sweet. If I was headed into new content and had no idea what to expect, its the set I'd have the most confidence in seeing me through. As much as I think Cold, Kinetics, Time, etc are great for certain content, I have less confidence I could leverage them to avoid a fail. They're more like multipliers on top of teams that already would have cleared the content.

To be fair, I think Thermal Radiation is one of the most underrated sets in the game. It's basically a mix of Empathy, Sonic Resonance, and Cold Domination, picking up some of the best features of those sets while avoiding many of their tradeoffs. It's a great set for someone who wants to play a strong support character that remains relevant into the game's most difficult content. For the most recent challenging task forces specifically I think it may be one of the best sets out there, being able to go offensive or fall back defensively into healing/buffing mode without trading off too much effectiveness.

I always want to be careful to list powerset "opportunities" versus "criticisms." There are a few sets I think could really benefit from some extra function and flavor. Here's my top list based on the ATs I am most familiar with. Ice Control. I adore the design vision of this set. It's original, and clearly someone poured love into the design. The high endurance cost of Arctic Air is a starting point. The set wants you to wander into close range, but hits your blue bar hard and requires mezz protection to make it viable, making it hard to achieve the survivability that AA requires to really leverage. AA is also less effective on Dominators than it should be, being penalized with lower mezz times than Controllers (all powers are outside of Domination mode) but then not being able to enter Domination mode. Force Field. Totally iconic. Who doesn't love Force Fields conceptually? The criticisms are well known, so I won't rehash them. I think there are plenty of ways to make this set more effective with the its current tools. Sonic Resonance. You've read about this already. Lots of good ideas out there. Above all else, endurance costs don't seem to justify themselves here. Electric Assault. Even if the numbers are technically fine, the set is ripe for an extra fun mechanic or two. Other Electric sets are interesting in various ways, from endurance crashing to Lightning Rods, endurance drain auras. and shock mechanics. Electric Assault has Build Up. It's ripe for something fun. Thorny Assault. Granted, it looks kinda neat if it fits your concept. But this is another set I wish would distinguish itself somehow. It's currently got Build Up and a version of Caltrops. I've never gotten one of these characters past level 20. I wish there was interesting stuff to make it play differently. Icy Assault. Sensing a theme here? 🙂Other Ice sets have cool (LOL) stuff going on. Here it's Power Up and a slow aura. That's better than what we had on live, but still a wide open opportunity, when you look at how fun and extra other Ice sets are. Empathy. I'm probably going to be the odd guy out here by listing this, but I think Empathy could do with a few minor updates to make Resurrect, Clear Mind, etc not feel like "the flavorless original version later copied by other sets with added, interesting effects."

If you happen to look at the code for the Dominator Fire Pool, something that stands out is that the slot for Melt Armor is actually named "Consume." This probably points to how the pool was cloned from the Controller pools that existed at the time and a few power plugged in; Rain of Fire is still called "Fire Blast," which seems to support this. In any case, I agree Melt Armor in the APPs is overnerfed. I'd be okay with the lower radius and target cap if the power didn't also take a big hit to its actual debuff values. The "true" version of Melt Armor is a -3 Scale resistance debuff, where the APP version is half that, at -1.5 Scale. Dominator modifiers for -Resistance are actually decent; with unchanged source values, the debuff would be -22.5%, similar to Controller values. I understand why they want to be cautious with this power--if it's too good, the Fire APP becomes the obvious viable pool for Dominators--but with such a small radius I think the full debuff justifies the long recharge more.

Yes I think we are saying close to the same thing. 🙂 I appreciate that you are using careful language and referring to "suppression" in the sense the developers often used that term. To clarify on that i13 developer's note, as far as I know no toggle power suppresses on mezz.* What actually suppresses is the individual AttribMods of the power. I understand why they explained it that way, and in a nutshell it's basically true. It's only when you look at how actual powers operate that you can see that the developer has individualized control over each sub-aspect of the power. The "suppression system" only "exists" as a guiding principal. Some powers have AttribMods that don't suppress on mezz, like some (all? I haven't looked at every single one) of the Recovery, Regen, Absorb or Heal mods in Blaster sustains. Also, the "suppression system" is technically little different from the Containment, Scourge, Domination etc "systems." It may be better to think of them as design standards rather than actual mechanics. The big idea being that powers which previous teams considered "offensive powers" like Arctic Air or Choking Cloud could be reclassified and made to follow the "defensive power guidelines" if that was the new paradigm. [*To get super technical, there are probably a few actual toggles that "suppress" by using the TargetRequires or ActivationRequires or field at the Power level to prevent the effects from collecting targets or being clicked. Like if you really look at Hibernate, there's stuff there at the power level]

We seem to be in a disagreement about what the word "suppression" means. I know sometimes the word is used to mean the overarching "suppression ruleset" that powers often follow. I'm using the term more generally, because as it turn out the suppression rules are not an actual system, just a design standard applied to each individual power. For an AttribMod to be applied, the conditions of the reverse Polish notation statement in the Requires field have to evaluate to true. If the statement says "IsPVPMap?" it will evaluate to True when the player is on a PVP map. If the Requires statement does not evaluate to true, the AttributeMod is suppressed/ignored/does not apply/however you wish to describe it. The Requires field is used to suppress many different kinds of effects when there are conditions that could potentially suppress them from firing. Examples are Containment, Scourge, Domination, Critical Hit, many combo mechanics, whether the target is a critter or player, and a number of other considerations. Maybe some folks would prefer not to use the word "suppress" here. However, like I illustrated with the Requires conditions for Cauterizing Aura, the Requires field is used sometimes used instead of the CancelEvents field we normally associate with "suppression" when the conditions are complex (in Cauterizing Aura's case, it's because its a power that both heals/recoveries the caster and hurts the enemy; only the hurting the enemy portion suppresses). The bigger picture idea is that the developer has individualized control over which AttribMods suppress under which conditions, and there is no global piece of code that dictates this.

Hey there, prompted by your comment, I took a deeper look at exactly how this functions. It turns out we are both correct. Each power in Super Reflexes and perhaps other armors has two separate attributes, one for PVP maps and one for non-PVP maps. In the in-game readouts, its not obvious that its actually being controlled by two different attribute mods, one of which gets suppressed depending on what type of map you're on, but that's how it works under the hood. This one suppresses on PVP maps or if you are Stunned, Held, or Slept: This one suppresses on non-PVP maps and like you mentioned doesn't suppress on mezz. Interestingly, each references different particle effects. I don't know enough about how powers work in PVP to explain why, perhaps its because players aren't allowed to "hide" their armors with custom PFX in PVP? Interesting none the less.

RE: Mezz toggles, might be helpful to share some background on the under the hood mechanics. I'm using publicly available powers code, which could potentially differ from the more updated Homecoming stuff, but as far as I know this part of the code hasn't changed. There's actually no code-level distinction between a toggle that's offensive versus defensive. Instead, the default is for all toggles to detoggle on mezz. If the power designer decides the power should not detoggle, the designer can manually add flags to the specific mezzes that should not detoggle it. Here for example is the first power in Scrapper Super Reflexes: With these flags set, the toggle will completely ignore the specified mezzes. To achieve suppression, the power designer then must visit each individual attribute mod that the power provides. Here is Super Reflexes again. Code like this appears in every benefit the armor provides that should suppress. In this case, the attribute would suppress if the player is on a PVP map, or if they are Held, Stunned, or Slept. There are powers that exist in the game that perform a bit differently than expected. Blaster Fire Manipulation for example manually handcodes the conditions for suppressing the damage in its Cauterizing Aura, and at least on Issue 24 code, appears to get it slightly wrong: That code basically says "target must be a critter, must not be the same entity who caster the power (so we don't damage ourselves), and caster must not be Held, Slept, Stunned, or Terrorized." Terrorize does not normally suppress a toggle, but in this isolated case, it will. Also, for some reason this specific toggle can be activated when you are mezzed) because of this bit, which most toggles do not have: That's the same code that lets you press e.g. Rune of Protection even if you are mezzed. TLDR: powers are not code-bound to perform in a certain way. A toggle can be designated a "suppress versus detoggle" power no matter what the power technically does, if that's the direction the designer/team thinks is appropriate.

EA as in Electrical Armor? I'd roll an Electric Blast/Electric Affinity Corruptor or Defender. He can use his Power Sink to crash endurance bars and help you blast, and you can keep stuff drained with your blasts. Your big Electric bubble will also provide Resistance to stack with his, and even fill in his knockback hole.

I mentioned it upthread, but one proc I think exposes the limits of the system is Gaussian's Chance for Build Up. IIRC the proc was originally intended to give you a chance for bonus damage about 20% of the time you hit Build Up or Aim. It's currently triggering more reliably than that. It's only 1 PPM, but most powers you would put it in have base recharges longer than one minute, so it fires reliably. Because you can chain the proc reliably into a nuke or your highest damage attack, that one proc may add more opening salvo damage than was intended. This gets back to the idea that for some procs, averaging them out over time may not be the most balanced way to go. I don't have a better system up my sleeve, but this particular interaction causes my nose to alert.

Thank you all again for the helpful commentary. I've made a third build which takes into account some of your suggestions. Thanks for prompting me to proc out Infrigidate. It's not got quite enough Accuracy here for every situation, but the -Defense throughout the build and the +ToHit in Amplify hopefully help with that. In the end I decided to keep Soul Transfer. I was going some 801 missions with this character (who currently has no IOs yet) and the confidence that I'll be able to pop quickly back up if I got dropped trying to use the PBAoE nuke was very helpful. Thanks for pointing out my delinquent slotting in Benumb. I've added more Recharge to it to try to get as up as often as possible. I had to drop Super Speed, so picked up a Stealth proc, and will rely on the freebie powers. I dropped the damage procs in Siren's Song after realizing that without Accuracy those procs weren't going to hit often. I hadn't picked a Alpha slot before. I think for this guy what makes most sense is Spiritual Alpha for support work and iTrials, flipping over to Musculature in the event I want to solo. The build shows Spiritual Alpha on the current config. I'm still not sure I'm totally sold on Screech, but I have also yet to try it out in a real scenario. I'm gonna try it out and see how it feels. I'll probably find out you guys are right about the slotting. 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 Defender Primary Power Set: Cold Domination Secondary Power Set: Sonic Attack Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Ice Shield -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 1: Shriek -- SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), SprVglAss-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(3), SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(3) Level 2: Scream -- SprVglAss-Rchg/+Absorb(A), SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg(7), SprVglAss-Dmg/Rchg(7), Thn-Acc/Dmg(9), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11) Level 4: Howl -- SprDfnBst-Rchg/Heal%(A), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), SprDfnBst-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), SprDfnBst-Dmg/Rchg(15), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg(15) Level 6: Glacial Shield -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 8: Infrigidate -- IceMisTrmt-+ColdDmg(A), HO:Lyso(17), TchofLadG-%Dam(17), ShlBrk-%Dam(19), AchHee-ResDeb%(19), ImpSwf-Dam%(21) Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(21) Level 12: Arctic Fog -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(23), UnbGrd-ResDam(23), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(25), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(25), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(27) Level 14: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(27), Rct-ResDam%(29), Ksm-ToHit+(29), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(31) Level 16: Combat Jumping -- ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(A), UnbLea-Stlth(31), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(31) Level 18: Boxing -- SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc(A), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(33), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx(34) Level 20: Benumb -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(48) Level 22: Amplify -- GssSynFr--Build%(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(34), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(36), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(36), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(36), GssSynFr--ToHit(37) Level 24: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(37) Level 26: Sleet -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 28: Siren's Song -- CaloftheS-Heal%(A) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(37), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(39) Level 32: Heat Loss -- PreOptmz-EndMod/End/Rech(A), PreOptmz-EndMod/Acc/Rech(39), PreOptmz-EndMod/End(39), PreOptmz-EndMod/Rech(40), PreOptmz-EndMod/Acc/End(40), PreOptmz-Acc/Rech(40) Level 35: Screech -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Apc-Acc/Rchg(42), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(43), GldJvl-Dam%(43) Level 38: Dreadful Wail -- SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc(A), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(45), SprAvl-Dmg/EndRdx(45), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(46) Level 41: Oppressive Gloom -- HO:Endo(A) Level 44: Soul Transfer -- Erd-Dmg/Rchg(A), Erd-Acc/Rchg(46), Erd-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46) Level 47: Soul Drain -- Erd-Acc/Rchg(A), Erd-Dmg/Rchg(48), Erd-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48) Level 49: Dark Embrace -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(50), UnbGrd-ResDam(50), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(50) Level 1: Vigilance 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 -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Prv-Absorb%(5), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(5) Level 1: Stamina -- PwrTrns-+Heal(A) Level 50: Spiritual Core Paragon ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1388;681;1362;HEX;| |78DA65945B4F135110C7CFDE404A4B5BA1964B0BB616444AB72D5E129FBC507910A| |A05125F9B4DBB2D1BB06DDA9AE893D16FE0ED1115A388AF5E9F7DF4C12FA024A88F| |2A6AE205F092757A668E6068B2FDEDCC99FF9C99D9B39B3E9F72160A634799D4363| |A67D46AD99459304B79B3AAA58DA295638D5F335C41E1CF1E3F5728E8A3E5B97C36| |553E6B958CBA552E05FEAD4E19A5A299D7A7CB252B973D56AF1BB959E6C894CB73F| |A74C534F36E7E3B611A105B9BB12A4E6157AC52D1C58D31AB385307CB7BA262E5F4| |94519DCDA68D5ADDAC5EE8843A42708DCBF027F1D26CC67C709754D9AB2D4E991D5| |0B9531E21EE47BE96450CB335E9203A9B12C42472C73C432E201D7790CB20568458| |79A6E0E253A4F309F131B2ED11F121320D624DD4AC51CD27651C2ECFD8DCA671A7E| |73098AAC23C2F656EEF6C820C41E073B0DB55D6B128713B0CCA16CA28B544B1C60E| |E269886DA545AD95B6DBD541FC8635757E27AE23BBD7905EC8EC22B1EA227137890| |35F3128F087F1327A3D9414446E317FF73806F52AD843EF325282202F35AC7A6FE0| |BC775F275E235E4586AE20338DBE45E6F66E6C30448DC6892B10E413A3F43DC0ED4| |24BC83DF7898BC47BC8C85DA40265F9C528FD7E9C6F64047B9884982EF1E4BA68BB| |37E0EC11CE9E17380215D20445A1419A5B84E63640739A02659FC44FA1ADF5FDC61| |6077E11D7917B37883F896BC8B7200E8BC71A4E62F5FB12C43851470EC588C3D8C8| |3B30FB85B87F01330EDD460EDF22DE24CE236347507C113048F3658387F0882EB91| |88B8A86A31F643EB7D87BE247E46550EAD4B0ACD3629C82E314740982129449496C| |E09E493A97493AAF493AAFA7D4CD57DD0EA84CFCEC866DDB6C62BB2BA36EBEF84CE| |2AE55C7D6AF08777DDAEEFAECD8FA59096101EA2AF10C3ED32FFFE97EE0E41A727B| |B21DEE45A97F010400D57A| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

That's an interesting way to put it. I mostly agree. I'm still glad we can shut enemy toggles down fairly easily. We're the superheroes tho, I'm fine if our toggles work differently. IMO player toggles that do not do damage should not detoggle. I think the standard is for them to also suppress, but I'm not even sure that there's a major balance reason they should do that. The toggles are mostly not any stronger than click buffs and debuffs, and those don't disappear when caster is mezzed. That said, I do think there's an additional difference between debuff and mezz toggles and self affecting buff toggles. Self affecting buffs (mostly) only benefit the caster, while debuff toggles help all teammates and pets. But it's definitely the case that we can compare debuff to debuff and buff to buff, and for sure there's some room there for reeval.

I feel like a lot of Corruptors are this out of the box. Particularly /Cold, /Dark, /TA, /Elec Affin, /Poison. The comparable Defender version is often pretty soloable as well.