oedipus_tex

This is great. Thanks for sharing your philosophy on this.

The fan on my PC fried so I haven't been able to look at the hard mode stuff in a while, but I'll back Mezmera up on Mind Control raising a rank or so faced with the kinds of stuff in those challenges. Right now my general rankings would look something like this: S Tier: Dark, Plant A Tier: Earth, Mind B Tier: Elec, Fire C Tier: Ice, Grav Electric in particular is in a really weird spot because on the one hand endurance drain is really useful in this context; on the flip side its end drain is PBAoE where it is dangerous to be. I am going to be thinking about whether speccing back into Power Sink is a good idea, and going full-bore sapper. One big bonus about sapping is it disregards enemy rank, so Electric Control can sap Elite Bosses (I've occasionally bottomed out the entire group of Cyclopses in the ITF, its just that people rarely care because its not really needed). Might be different in this new content if Electric can remain standing faced with such difficult enemies. Previous experiences with very tough enemies in the AE raise my doubts a little, but I'm willing to try it.

Getting mezzed is a major issue for Ice Control, so much so that it demands its own topic. Needless to say "Break Frees are a thing" doesn't scratch the surface of the issue. The issue with these toggles is the burden is not worth the payoff. Seeds of Confusion, for example, doesn't shut off just because caster got mezzed. You can fix detoggles by fixating on detoggles; it becomes the whole strategy of the build. Electric Blast has never had to do that before and IMO should not have to now.

I love what y'all are doing for the set, but I am going to agree that toggle dropping from getting mezzed is not a change I love. I am excited that you are encouraging new build strategies. However, I'd like to see the direction for powersets with vulnerable mezz toggles to trend more toward suppression on mezz versus a full detoggle. I have a lot of experience with mezz detoggling on powers like Arctic Air, Conductive Aura, etc. These are control powers that in theory should contribute survivability. However there is so much mezz out there that a source of mezz protection becomes vital to enjoyment. The problem is fixable with a particular build, but then character's journey becomes super fixated on fixing this issue just to make a key power basically function. In the case of Voltaic Sentinel specifically, this is a power that previously would not detoggle but now will. This is a whole rethink of Electric Blast builds, trying to build them the way I would an Ice Controller for example. I think a full detoggle is too large a punishment. I'd rather retain this power as a simple click if it comes to it. I'm not against there being at least some powers that detoggle on mezz, but I'd like the build to not have to focus so intensely on fixing this hurdle just so the character can perform. Thanks for providing a chance to give feedback and your hard work on the set.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the explanation. 🙂 Had some drinks last night and came up with another question. How would the team feel about -Range Resistance as the tier 3 bonus? There aren't currently a lot of sources of -Range, but they absolutely wreck players. Stacked Hurricanes are probably the most common source of it. I'm pretty sure most sources of -Range are resistable (if City of Data is accurate, of course mob versions may vary). I think Range Resistance is also kinda thematic for a travel power. Anyway just a thought. Keep up the great work. 🙂

If you're on the fence and ready to roll now, I'd say go with Plant/Dark. Plant Control has Carrion Creepers, which is one the most amazing powers in the game. There are lots of ways I can picture future content hindering various control powers, but short of the developers outright taking an axe to Plant Control, the combo of Seeds and Creepers is likely to always be a top performer due to the extremely generous Recharge on Seeds and the relative invincibility and high damage of the Creepers. Keep in mind yet another option would be to roll this character as a Controller instead of a Dominator. If you still want to be a melee character, you can take the Earth APP for Seismic Smash. There are a lot of questions about how Dominators will perform in this new content. No questions about Controllers though--their buff sets will be in huge demand. Especially sets like Dark Miasma, Kinetics, Thermal, and Time Manipulation, which provide you with a reliable heal that also heals your teammates. Plant/Kinetics/Earth for example is a melee focused character that when saturated with enough targets does damage close to or better than a Dominator, and contributes superior team utility as well.

If you're interested in playing a strong support character you could also consider rolling Empathy as a Controller. Dark Control/Empathy and Plant Control/Empathy for example are good pairings. Illusion Control/Empathy is possibly one of the most pure builds you could make, setting the pets free to do their thing without needing any supervision while you patch the team. A bonus of going Controller is you can get perma mezz protection for yourself (via the power Indomitable Will) that Defender/Corr/Mastermind can only get through Destiny incarnate powers. It's not strictly necessary, but is very helpful if this is your calling.

Some interesting sets. Thanks again for adding a Slow set. The set, as posted, is tempting. A max Slow resist ranged Ice character is easy to picture now thanks to these changes. RE: The travel sets. These are oddball sets, so it would be interesting if they provided an oddball bonus like STR to a strange stat. For example Taunt STR. I dont even know if STR exists for Taunt, although it theoretically should, since Taunt and now Placate are enhanceable. Other strange stats that can potentially provide STR are ToHit, RunSpeed, Heal/Absorb and Endurance Mod.

Interesting changes to Sleep. I think this is a good first step. I can't say that having Sleep autohit would make me rethink taking a Sleep power I previously skipped, but it's at least nice that its reliable. Thank you for at least being willing to visit the issue. RE: AoE Control powers specifically, I still think a reduction in their recharge and animation time is warranted unless there are other planned changes. Even without needing Accuracy you still need a lot of Recharge (in the power and globally) to justify the power. Salt Crystals and Flash Freeze aren't powers of the same caliber as Earthquake and Stalagmites and should probably animate and recharge two to three times as fast. 30 base Recharge would at least tempt me, even if the Sleep duration were drastically reduced (Sleep duration hardly matters). Thanks again.

That's interesting about a version of this existing in WoW. I have seen it done in a few small games but never as a UI-only tool, although it totally makes sense that it could work that way. You're spot on that because these objects are more abstract than traditional in-game objects, they could be client bound instead of server bound. Server bound objects would of course offer a greater degree of permanence, if there's someone willing to tackle that degree of complexity, but it isn't critical, unless someone wanted to expand this feature so that the text based objects played a greater game play role (which I'd be fine with). I came from MUDs and MOOs prior to MMOs so the lack of this feature in most graphical games has always seemed like a missed opportunity. In my opinion most graphical games could learn something from these low budget efforts about the value of abstraction. In a text system, items are allowed to "exist" without the expense of an icon or mesh. That liberates the storytelling. In CoX's case, it might also provide a break from a tendency to provide information to the player in dialog dumps. You could, for example, find a book about a topic at the library which exists as a text object that responds to commands to READ it. The simplistic implementation outside CoX using a C# or C++ editor is pretty easy to imagine. The hurdle would be building it in CoX in a way that feels comfortable. A lot of people would probably not pay much attention to it, but that's by design. I do find it weird to see some people saying "No, absolutely not" but I have to assume they don't really understand what's being proposed. A worst case scenario is it has no effect on you whatsoever. Someone did mention Bases earlier and whether these items would interact with that, and while that would be an additional hurdle to add it fits with the spirit of the idea exactly. Saving and loading might be a bit of an issue though (in most text games objects put in containers on the floor/room are not permanent and can despawn). A sneaky workaround some games use are fake containers technically "located" on the player.

I have a build for this somewhere because I built one a while back. It's viable, but has some endurance management issues because of Hot Feet. I have to track the build down. Ping me if I don't get back to you.

Hey folks, I'd like to have a discussion about the merits of the idea and not the project management aspects or conjecture about what is worth a theoretical developer's time. If it seems like modders prefer to just build things and then spring them on you versus presenting them first and building on your ideas, some reflection about reflexive responses with one word memes might be helpful.

LOL yep. It's been a while since I looked at the DPA of Electric Assault but I seem to recall most of the attacks having a lower DPA than Lift. And then I realized Lift with Containment does more damage on a Controller. Since then I have only rolled Gravity Control on Controllers. That 26 level wait for a good AoE Control is frustrating on either build though.

I wrote all that above and then had another thought. I'm going to put Dark Assault a further step ahead of Psi Assault, mainly because the more I think about how end game arch villain fights work, I can more easily picture a player caught on a team with no healer really leaning on Drain Life in a way you probably wouldn't on Drain Psyche, Drain Psyche is still good. It's just more of a crowd survival tool than an AV survival one. Psy is still more of a melee set than Dark though, even if Dark does have one good melee attack (Smite).

I'm still digesting the changes in the next issue. Some stuff is still in flux so take my comments with a grain of salt. Since the highest difficulties in the next page limit inspiration use, Dark Assault is probably the premier set for Dominators in this content. It is the only set with a reliable self heal. Psi Assault is potentially still viable, as long as you can survive at melee enough to pull off Drain Psyche. The bonus here is DP also covers your endurance bar, which may be important if you've traditionally relied on blue inspirations. Note DP only really works against packs of enemies, its not going to power you through an encounter with a single AV. Savage Assault has a mediocre self heal, but even a mediocre self heal might help given being locked out of green inspirations. The two control sets that continue to be S Tier for me are Dark Control and Plant Control. Plant has the best reliable hard control (Seeds of Confusion) and an excellent knock/damage patch in Carrion Creepers. Higher enemy damage numbers and less ability to heal matters less if you turn enemies against each other. Dark has -ToHit debuffing to accompany its controls, has amazing uptime with Fearsome Stare, and still retains a Stun power that differs from Fire/Grav/Earth only in being PBAoE. Hibernate, which was already a pretty good power, is a lot more useful in the context of not having inspirations for emergencies. Ditto Power Sink, Surge of Power (Mu), and Indomitable Will (Psi). Anyway, since you asked about a build that can live in melee with these changes, the option I'll recommend is Plant/Psi. You presummon Creepers, then hit Seeds > Drain Psyche > Sleet (if you have it) Psy Shockwave > AoE. For single target throw in Psi Lance > Mind Probe > TK Thrust. Any combo of Dark or Plant Control with Dark or Psi Assault is likely to be a very high performer, with a fairly similar routine. (Fire Assault is also a high performer, but mainly because it can avoid melee, so its not a great option for you probably). As for the the three Control sets with PBAoE auras, Fire, Ice, and Electric Control, I'd be surprised to see any of them as top choices for this new style of content. If you do go with one of these I'd for sure combo it with Dark or Psi Assault to try to offset the danger with HP recovery. Of course if you team with healers, you can bring anything you want, but IMO at least some self sufficiency is still likely to be prized.

Do we happen to have any numbers on how often units spawn as the higher rank version of themselves? It's an addition I like, but I'd like to understand how frequently it occurs. A rank conversion from Lt to Boss tends to favor certain Dominators, because in Dom mode they can shut down the pack. Even still it does lower how long they can control things, since the nature of the Dom's Mag 3 + Mag 3 means bosses aren't mezzed as long as their minion/lt versions. It does mean Controllers struggle to control things a bit. As much as I like the chance for a rank increase, I wouldn't object to adding alongside it a chance for Minions to spawn with loads more HP and danger than normal. Perhaps it could be a very small chance for a minion to spawn with a click power that provides +500% HP +250% damage +16 ToHit to 16 of his minion friends. There isn't currently a rank of creature that has the profile "High HP, low mezz protection, high danger." That type of enemy would be ideal for hitting with a Mag 2-3 Control power and would be a nice sidecar to sometimes encountering +rank versions of enemies, to round out the challenge and make sure everyone has a role.

My only regret about Tombstone is if you kill something with it doesn't mockingly leave behind a tombstone. Great work on the set overall.

A lot to digest here. One interesting takeaway is that my Electric Dominator, while not benefitting directly from these changes, now positions Electric Blasters to create a lot more havoc due to them piggybacking on endurance drain, and that is very interesting.

This is bold work, and much appreciated. I am sure a million hours went into testing and building this. Huge thank you. If you are open to it, I do have a small suggestion about tapering the difficulty. I suggest instead of a flat penalty, that you give enemies an auto-cast cone power that does some of the debuffing. This encourages Tanks to pull enemies in a certain direction, not just position, while still allowing blapper characters a chance to get in on the action. I am on the fence about the size of such a cone, max targets hit, and so on. You could make it so that effect it places on the player is a Temp Power to prevent it from stacking too many times on a single player. This power could also potentially treat archetypes differently (e.g. a Tank with 10 cones on him is fine, a Defender not so much so.) Probably the biggest limitation with CoX combat system as-is is that there are only implicit downsides to engaging too many enemies as a non-Tank. That is, the only real penalty is that you're making more die rolls. Other games that use an explicit multi opp penalty are designed to encourage Tanking by explicitly hammering you if you disregard and engage too many opponents carelessly. It adds a dimension to combat that IMO can be thrilling if managed fairly. I am really excited to try this out. Thank you again.

I had a Fire Control/Sonic Resonance Controller who felt this way. If endurance costs are ever lowered in a balance pass it might be more feasible. That's the one flaw that will make me abandon a character. Anyway, just in general, Arctic Air and Hot Feet should probably have their endurance costs cut in half or two thirds. They can function okay paired with a good way to recover endurance, but pairing them with an endurance heavy set (Poison, Sonic Res, a few others) will send your bar crashing.

Congrats on making Radiation Assault work. I've personally never taken Rad Assault past level 20. It just never sparked my interest. How would you rate Radiation vs the other top contenders with sustain tools, Dark, Fire, and Psi?

Not a bad start for a build. Here are a few comments: I'd skip Midnight Grasp. It has lower DPA than Smite, and is actually barely more DPA than Gloom. Consider slotting Life Drain as a heal instead as a blast. That its main feature. The actual DPA isn't that great. If you can fit both heal and damage, that's fine, to avoid losing a lot of DPS when you use it in longer fights, but I think the heal is more important. I think skipping Haunt is a mistake. The Haunts do damage a bit below Fire Imps. If you can somehow sneak them in, Hibernate and Ice Storm are worth taking. You'll probably also want Living Shadows. To get these, I'd drop Grant Invis at a minimum and make up the lost Recharge elsewhere. For this particular build I don't think you actually need Tough/Weave. You can probably reach similar Defense numbers taking Manuevers and shifting some slots. Tough/Weave is more critical on Resistance armor builds to close the defense gap. 22% Slash/Lethal resist isn't terrible, but also to me not worth skipping better powers like Ice Storm or Hibernate.

If the chart represents solo clear times then I don't think it's surprising Sonic Attack is near the bottom. IMO it would be overpowered if Sonic both defbuffed enemy Resistance and still had you clearing maps as fast as other sets. At the end of the day Sonic Attack on Blasters is still 65% as good at debuffing as it is on Defenders (20% vs 13%). Defenders mostly don't get a secondary devoted to damage like Blasters do and in my experience have a much harder time trying to fill the solo hole. That's the price of Howl in particular. Two Howls from a Blaster beats the resist debuffing of Dark Miasma, Radiation Emission, Thermal, or Time on Controllers, MMs, and Corruptors. It's also worth noting that stripping -Resist also strips Damage from the opponent. So depending on how Sonic is comboed it can end up debuffing the attack strength of enemies. I do think the animation on Shout is worth fixing. It's too long. In the meantime I think Sonic Attack overall is mostly okay. Sonic Attack is a debuff set foremost, and Blaster's aren't specialists in that. Sonic/some high DPS blap set is pretty viable though for a middling, not incredible character who teams a lot if you want to do something different.

An interesting data point I wouldn't mind seeing (but am not personally qualified to calculate on my own) is whether a team of 8 Sonic Attack Blasters outdamages a team of 8 Fire/Ice/whatever else Blasters. Of course, even that would be a largely theoretical. The real benefit of Resist debuff is it enhances all damage, even pets, procs, and incarnate powers, and as we've said, Sonic Blasters can fall back on the raw DPS of their secondary if they need to. I guess a safe place to start is the assumption that a halfway invested Blaster can sustain around -39 Resistance in ST. With 8 of them doing that, you'd have around -312% resistance before resists and purple patch. That's by no means a scientific survey. But it does mean each Blaster is in theory doing 300-ish percent more damage, as are all their procs, Lore pets, judgements etc. Of course in the real world most stuff dies before you'd ever stack that much resist. On the flip side, practically the only task you're likely to fail in this game is AV fights, particularly in iTrials. This isn't to say I think Sonic Attack is amazing on Blasters. But its definitely way better than Assault Rifle and the like. No one has any questions about how 8 Assault Rifle Blasters collectively perform.

I have a Dark/Energy Blaster who is pretty great and extremely hard to kill. Not the fastest Blaster in terms of kill times, but not every character needs to be. I really appreciate Dark Blast having an immobilize. That's a feature many Blasters don't get and it does make life much easier IMO.