oedipus_tex

Ice/Nature Controller is an interesting example of this. Run Arctic Air and Entangling Aura together and you get a passive debuff ring that confuses or holds enemies that step inside. I have one of these at level 50. Nature has only one enemy debuff, a single target version you won't need too often. My toon's damage is very poor when I do decide to attack, but I still run him from time to time on teams.

Illusion Control probably comes closest in the literal sense, but Ice Control played passively can definitely work like this.

At level 50, you will always find work if you commit to the role of team leader versus waiting for a team to join. A lot of people enjoy the fast leveling of joining a level 50 team, but appreciate being able to actually participate. A lot of buffs that aren't that great on a fully kitted team are excellent in this scenario. -Defense in particular is a stat that isn't highly regarded in normal content but a game changer on a team full of underslotted heroes. That said, it's true that certain builds offer very low damage. Mostly this is the low damage Controls sets like Earth, Ice, Mind, and Electric when combined with a secondary like Empathy, Force Field etc. I wouldn't bring any of these on a challenge that requires high DPS. Mainly, the Summer Blockbuster mission comes to mind.

I think increasing the -Recharge duration from 20 to 60 and an increase in the arc would be a good start for Neuro Breath. I agree that adjusting the cone size would help, as would lowering anim time. Wouldn't be against this power being partially unresistable as well, so the -Recharge impacts Archvillains. Kinetics already does this with Siphon Speed (-20% Recharge for 60 seconds, stackable) so it's not unheard for there to be unresistable -Recharge, nor does it break AV AI. Poison is supposed to be a hard target debuffer, so it would track.

Neurotoxic Breath has multiple design features that make it a skippable power in my eyes. I didn't verify in game, but if Mids is correct its stats are: 30 degree cone, 60ft length Duration: 20 seconds Effect: -81.25% Run Speed, Recharge (Defender/Controller) Cast time: 2.67 To its partial credit, it does hit 16 targets and not 10 like some cones. Devoting 2.67 anim time for a 20 second -Recharge debuff isn't a trade that's worth it in my eyes. I'm also partially convinced some applications -Recharge either do nothing or even make enemies hit harder. Since most AoE attacks have longer recharges than single target attacks, some applications of -Recharge may actually push enemies to favor harder hitting single target attacks. I don't have specific suggestions for this power, but for now it's on the skip list for me. (EDIT: There's also two 25% chances for unenhanceable Mag 2 Holds, one lasting around 4.5 seconds against even level enemies, the other lasting 0.3 seconds. I don't consider either Hold reliable, so they don't factor into my eval of the power).

To give the "glass half full" version of Poison, the fact that it packs so much of its debuff into Venomous Gas is fairly impressive. VG has -Resist, -Damage, -ToHit in one aura, where normally you'd need two powers to get that utility. The set wouldn't necessarily be better with a more traditional design, say where the -ToHit or -Damage was in Neurotoxic Breath instead of the aura. So, I can read the fact that so many powers are skippable as a potential plus. On the flip side, the actual radius of Venomous Gas is on the low side, just 15 feet. 15ft is not completely atypical of buff set auras (its the radius of Choking Cloud and Entangling Aura and a few other powers). It's not unworkable, but notable if you play a lot of support. IMO powers like VG, along with anything that doesn't damage enemies (Arctic Air, Choking Cloud, a few others) should suppress and not detoggle on mezz. Having them detoggle makes so much of the build journey about filling that specific hole. Top end builds will already have built for this, making it work better and more evenly would be a big lift.

Adding another quick note about Psi Defense because this is something I sometimes have to re-learn myself every time I replay City of. 🙂 When you glance at Force Field's ally shields you'll notice they lack Psi Defense, which may lead you to believe that Psi is a significant hole for Force Field. However, the shields provide Melee, Ranged, and AoE Defense, so unless an attack lacks one of those tags, Force Field is still effective against it. In practice, most Psi attacks except for the ones derived from the actual Mind Control set have those tags, so while you might occasionally encounter an enemy who can slice through Force Field's defense easily, its not common. A much more siginificant threat, of course, is -Defense, since Force Field doesn't provide any Defense Resistance; OTOH if someone does get hit with -Defense its still better to have it happen with a huge amount of extra Defense in the bucket.

What's really interesting to me is Trick Arrow is kind of an anti-combo mechanic set. Acid Arrow's and Ice Arrow's debuffs (actually any debuff to the list of things they debuff, but there aren't many powers that do it) actually applies retroactively, so it doesn't matter if you debuff Recharge, Regen, Recovery etc before or after the arrow. The effect is multiplied regardless of the order of events. I suppose the same thing is true of Benumb as well.

Asymtoptic has some great advice. +1 to their comments. One slight personal preference is Repulsion Field over Force Bolt. Even with tons of accuracy Force Bolt can miss, and it roots you and suppresses travel. Repulsion Field on the other hand works even during other power animations and will not root you. I personally consider Repulsion Field a key Force Field power.

Well organized and presented post as always, Galaxy Brain. I'm not sure I'd include Gravity Control as a combo system. I get why it's listed there though. I don't mind the "combo" aspects of the set as much as I mind the set not "talking to" a Dominator's intended source of damage, in the Assault set. If that's ever changed I could see myself playing more Gravity Dominators. Overall I don't mind combo systems in sets if they're aren't super intrusive. BTW two to add to the list are Time Manipulation and Nature Affinity, examples of Buff sets that have a combo mechanic. I don't necessarily mind the mechanic, but I also don't play to it.

I have always felt Poison is one power short of great, and that on non-Masterminds the there could be improvements to the order in which powers unlock. While it's true that a few other sets wait a long time for key powers, I feel like Poison's change from being a mostly ranged to a mostly PBAoE set at level 38 isn't smooth. Moving Venomous Gas down the power tree to tier 5 or so would prepare you for what the set actually is, a risky PBAoE debuffer with no self buffs. It's fine that Poison has a unique role, but I wish it announced its intentions earlier in the build. If I were going to improve Poison, I'd pick one power from the heal, rezz, or anti-mezz and give it something unique. In the past I've suggested making the heal ground targetable with a small aoe effect so Poison could drop it underfoot and self heal. As far as I'm aware there are no ground targetable heals currently in game (there are a couple of Regen or heal patches but nothing instant). It would mean Poison could use terrain to heal around corners, which isn't super powerful but is a unique thing no other set can currently do. 8ft seems to be a theme with Poison and I think that would be fine for the radius, current strength values aren't that high and cast time is long so I don't worry about the power tipping the scales too much. Reducing the endurance cost of Venomous Gas would be a nice boon too.

This is going to depend on how you envision your character I think. Force Field gets dragged on the boards lot because of its shortcomings, but the one arena its contributions stand out to me is iTrials. Specifically, Force Field can be comboed with Power Boost to apply a Defense buff of around +38.5% with just three Defense IOs in the mini shields. This bonus is on a very short recharge, so there is no need to worry about people gathering, or reapplying it on anyone who dies. It lasts 4 minutes, right in the perfect sweet spot for most trials given how often players need to split up and run around. The quick recharge also means that by reapplying the shields every cycle you are shielding Lore pets, which in iTrials contributes to overall damage if they would otherwise have been killed. It's funny because Force Field is not considered a game changer in most content, but I do think when optimized specifically for iTrials with Power Boost it may be the biggest game changer of any set. I'm hard pressed to think of a set that can turn around a possible failed trial better than it can, if played to its strengths.

I feel Sonic is, or is meant to be, the midway point between Force Field and Thermal. It does have a few things Thermal doesn't have. IMO it's let down by its T9 though. 300 recharge 30 duration. The strength of the power power doesn't justify the low up time. There are other powers I can see that could use a buff, but Liquefy stands out for having unique effects that aren't present enough to really make an impact.

I'd personally skip Power Build Up and take Power Boost in Soul Mastery instead. Power Boost is up more frequently. It has a 15 second duration, and you can usually get it to around 40-50% uptime on a build. Get in the habit of hitting PB before using shields, like Zork mentioned the bonus lasts the full duration. Your big bubble, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping and any other toggle Defense powers will have bonus Defense for the 15 seconds Power Boost lasts, hitting Power Boost can keep you periodically incarnate capped for iTrial content.

The two sets that are reasonably complete are both Controls sets. Both feature a mix of semi-unique particle effects. Although they are not a secret, I try not to share too much about them on the forums without a go ahead flag from that server's devs, in order to control the messaging. I'm only sharing about it at all since this conversation is specifically about shared code and its somewhat known among folks who visit Ourodev that I'm present there. 🙂 If you're interested in details, I think it's okay if you private message me. That way we can respect the Homecoming devs space and messaging.

That's a really solid suggestion.

Power Boost affects -Endurance but not -Recovery. Personally I think the route for a sap-troller style character, if you want to really quadruple down on that role, is to go Dominator, for the combo Electric Control > any Assault set with Power Boost (I personally think Dark Assault works best for its other characteristics) > Power Sink. I've heard there are recent changes to how sapping works on Elite Bosses though so I am not sure how viable that role is anymore. It was a unique capability of Electric Control characters for a period of time, being able to floor EBs and keep them there.

Question from the peanut gallery. Is the -Regen in Time worth fitting into the attack chain? Asking because I have no idea. I see Time can get -75% Regen from its powers, not sure how much that translates into overall effectiveness. Without having an answer to that question, I'd personally be tempted to consider Energy as the secondary set. Mainly because I feel like the value of an actual HP sustain versus an Absorb one like Temporal has gets really exaggerated by the conditions of iTrials and the new challenge mode that was just introduced.

I think I know the answer to this for general builds, but I am not 100% sure. I am wondering if someone has actually mathed out Sleet and Ice Storm from the Ice APP versus Fireball and Rain of Fire from the Fire APP. I have a feeling Ice is generally superior, not the least of which because Sleet also increases teammate damage. However, Fiery Assault can raise its Fire Damage by 85% for 30 seconds, and more or less perma this. Does the big damage bonus from Fiery Assault, which would provide you 85% stronger Fireballs and RoFs allow the Fire APP to catch up or exceed Ice? In total fairness to this comparison, we may also need to consider Melt Armor. (Does anyone actually take Melt Armor?)

FWIW I have not seen any complaints. I have some experience modding CoX, and I think its helpful to understand that making changes is not as simple as grabbing files and putting them into place. The way CoX is structured, a single bad file can corrupt the bin process (the process of turning editable data files into "baked" resources for fast execution by the server and client). On my personal private server, I have 2 custom powersets that are more or less "complete" and 5 or so others in various states of completeness. No other server has access to these sets, and only I and one other player have used them. I'm open to sharing the files--the idea was to put them on the shared forums for any server that wants them to grab. However, its not as easy for a dev team to just grab the data and plug them in. People running an actual server have to balance all the various components against each other, plus deal with any bugs that exist (I'm sure there are plenty). Not to mention, each resource you add adds overhead in terms of maintenance. That's why I mod privately and do not run an actual server--it's a ton of very difficult work. What the Homecoming and other groups have been able to do is really amazing, and very different from just creating or installing content. Just speaking for my own content, I'm completely open to Homecoming installing it and doing with it what they want. On the other hand, I completely understand why they or other servers might not want to.

I am able to run Homecoming fine on my newest laptop with Win 11. However, modding the game on my private server is not possible on Win 11 as far as I've been able to figure out.

I've honestly never thought about projectile speed as a factor in the set, but it's interesting to hear different opinions about it. The set also has an extra 20ft of range on most attacks, which is nice. Is there a particular combo on an archetype where Psi Blast really stands out? I don't see a lot of Psi Blast characters, but its possible that's because some people are turned off by (real or perceived?) high Psi Resistance on end game mobs. I do find myself wishing the Defender version of this set, and also Water, Energy and everything else that has knock, had a bigger chance of firing on Defenders. I adore Psinado and love seeing it flip enemies over, would adore the power if the chance on Defenders was higher.

Knock Protection IOs like Blessing of the Zephyr on characters who lack knock protection is the investment I'll make for any character it applies to, even if the character is just a throwaway.

Personally I think the 16 target cap is okay. There are Incarnate Judgment powers that hit 40 targets, and I'm not really a fan of how that affects the battle equation. I do think bumping AoE "nuke holds" to hold more than 16 targets is a good idea to make these powers what they are meant to be. That would be the Controller/Dominator AoE holds, along with Trick Arrow and Radiation Emission's EM Pulse powers. A bump to 24 or 32 targets, enough to handle one half or one full extra spawn would make these powers stand out against the much better AoE Holds that Dark and Earth Control get.

Like the title asks, "What should we do with Psychic Blast?" Maybe the answer is "nothing, it's fine." However for some reason I am never drawn to this powerset. I personally love Psionic Tornado, but I tend to grab it as an APP power. I can't say for sure that something is wrong with Psychic Blast either. It's not at Assault Rifle levels of awkward to play. But on each AT it always feels to me, for some reason, like Psychic Blast is missing something. So, do nothing? Or is there room to make it stand out differently than it currently does?