oedipus_tex

I'm not 100% certain but I believe that is a reference to the PowerTags aspect of the creature. I just had a look at Council and Arachnos. Among Arachnos the following are tagged as Humans (I'm leaving out duplicates): Arachnos_Olivia_Darque Arachnos_Scirocco Arachnos_Black_Scorpion Arachnos_Lord_Recluse Arachnos_Dr_Quatrexin Arachnos_Dr_Aeon Arachnos_Agent_Hugo Arachnos_Hequat Arachnos_ShadowSpider Arachnos_Viridian Arachnos_Repairman Standard rank Arachnos e.g. Wolf Spiders are tagged as Humanoids, not Humans outright, so not sure if they are included. FWIW the PowerTags I'm able to spot at a quick glance are: HumanSkeleton Human Humanoid Raid Electronic IncarnateBoss Undead Demon Beast That final tag, IncarnateBoss, BTW, gives Controllers automatic Containment damage versus anything tagged with it. The final version of Anti-Matter encountered on the Keyes trial uses that for example. Creatures can have more than one PowerTag.

I have not confirmed this bug due to the difficulty of testing it. I encountered the possible bug while reviewing public DEF files. If anyone is familiar with PVP mechanics and able to help test, please feel free to tag me or share results. POSSIBLE BUG: The Poison Trap traps summoned by Poison and Traps players may cause Dominators to go into partial Domination mode when the Puke animation is triggered. Needs more testing to confirm. BACKGROUND: Poison Traps summon a lingering gas cloud. This cloud has a pulse rate of 1/sec. Every pulse there is a 1% chance to make a player play a Puke animation. This achieved with a Conditional statement that sets the player's Stealth attribute to 1000. Stealth is the same attribute checked by Dominator powers to see if they are in Domination mode. Since the Dominator's powers check to see if Stealth > 1, the Traps player could accidentally benefit his or her opponent via the Gas cloud instead of hurting them. EVIDENCE OF BUG: The bug would be confirmed if a player playing a Dominator could use a control power after the puke animation plays and receive the benefits of Domination (i.e. the Domination! floating text) while outside Domination mode. SUGGESTED FIX: Assuming someone can confirm the bug, there are a few ways to handle it, including just not letting it work on PVP maps. If that's too much (it would mean no Players puking in PVP from these powers) you could flag it so Dominators are immune or it uses a different stat. COMORBIDITIES: If there are other versions of Poison Trap out there used by PVE enemies they may also cause this flag to get thrown unexpectedly. I have a longer write up about the mechanics of these powers here if you need more info on how they function and why this might happen:

Clockwork will indeed be thrown out of Ice Slick/Patch/Earthquake zones. Ice Slick and Patch in general should not throw most other enemies out of the zone. These powers are flagged to ignore level differences, so will do knockdown even if you are level 50 casting it in Atlas Park.

Right. To be honest until I read the files I didn't realize how the Poison version really worked. A 25ft radius, Scale 8 Hold on 60 sec Recharge is pretty incredible, so I'm wondering if I'm misreading it. It also has no Accuracy penalty versus the AoE Holds. Note that both Controllers and Dominator's AoE Holds are Scale 8 like this power's is, it's just that Controllers have a 1.25 Modifier versus Dominators 1.0. I think pets also have the 1.0 modifier, which is how I derived that Poison's Poison Trap is about the strength of an un-Dominator's AoE Hold, albeit with a 75% shorter recharge and no Accuracy penalty. Another way to put it is it the initial Hold is Controller Cinders or Glacier with 25% shorter duration but 75% faster Recharge/better accuracy.

New write up available. I'm questioning myself about the Hold duration in Poison > Poison Trap. If I'm reading this correctly, it's 100% chance for Mag 3 Hold, Scale 8 (using pet tables), 25ft radius. For a point of reference, Fire Control > Cinders on Dominators outside of Domination mode is a 25ft radius Hold, also scale 8 (archetype tables), with 240 Recharge. Is Poison's Poison Trap really as good as a un-Dominator's AoE Hold with 60 recharge (versus 240)? Its never felt that strong to me but I wasn't looking at it like that. I might be misreading something or maybe this power is much better than most people estimate.

Okay I see an error I made tracing the paths between both pets. I got the Poison version and the Traps version switched around a bit, need a while to clarify the two versions. I'll fix asap. EDIT: Made several corrections to the original post. Added write up for both powers. Hopefully should clarify any confusion.

This is Poison Trap from /Poison. I can look at the /Traps version next although it may have to rely on a version other than the Controller one, since Controllers didn't get Traps on the live game.

This thread is a variation of the thread in the Dominator forum attempting to deep dive and explain the mechanics behind Dominator powers. @Arbegla had requested a write up of Poison Trap in the Traps set. I had mistaken it for a request for a write up about Poison Trap in the Poison set. Since I am most familiar with the Controller versions of powers I did the write up here; however since Controllers never got Poison on live I had to extrapolate from the Corruptor version. Once again this write up is based on publicly posted i24 source files. It is possible some aspects of these powers have been tweaked for Homecoming or Homecoming-specific engine mechanics may alter how they play. EDIT: Updated to correct issues with original post that confused various values between the Traps and Poison version of these powers. Please correct or question anything below that seems wrong, tracing the full path of each of these powers is a bit of a maze. Traps > Poison Trap* *This write up is actually based on the Corruptor version of the power. I do not have access to the code for Controllers, since Traps for Controllers did not exist on live. Poison Trap as a power consists of two pseudo pets, the initial trap you place (we'll call this the "Trap") and the gas that results when you the trap triggers (the "Gas.") The Trap has two powers; Self Destruct 16ft radius sphere, max targets of 1. When this power fires, the Trap dies, and the Gas is summoned. Trap Armor The Trap has comprehensive protection to most things but is technically killable. It's immune to healing and some other assorted effects. It has about 50% resistance to most damage types. The Gas also has three powers: Initial Gas Effect Fires the moment the Gas is summoned Max 16 targets. Radius: 25ft Rolls for Accuracy Effects: 100% Chance for Mag 3 Hold, Scale 4, after a 0.25 second delay. Plays "choking" animation. Pulsing Effect (called "Poison Gas" by the game files but called Pulsing Effect here for clarity) Pulse rate: once per second Radius: 25ft Autohit (even the rolls for Holds) Effects: Scale -10 Regeneration for 10 seconds (-30 in PVP) Scale 0.3 -Recharge for 10 seconds 2% chance for Mag 3 Hold, Scale 4 after a 0.25 second delay (note this is per pulse). This hold animates as a "choke" animation (like Char e.g.). Can theoretically stack with itself from a single trap, as unlikely as that is. 1% chance per pulse to play Puke animation. This is not an actual Hold, just an animation. In PVE only works on enemies specifically tagged by the game as "Humans" Puking is not affected by enemy rank. Archvillains are as likely to play the puking animation as minions, as long as they are "Humans" Possible PVP bug: The puking animation uses the same attribute that Dominators use to track their in or out of Domination status. In theory, in PVP for 4 seconds after puking, Dominators get free Domination mode from their powers. I have not tested to verify this. Self Destruct Autofires after a 30 second duration Takeaways: Damage procs from Holds should fire in both the Initial and Pulsing Gas effects, tho I am not sure how effective they are in the Pulse Since the trap has a 16ft detection range but only 25ft effect radius, it's probably only worth dropping this right in the middle of an existing pack if you loaded up procs The Gas is only summoned if an enemy actually gets into range. In theory, if they somehow killed the trap without closing range it would do nothing. Mainly this is worth noting in PVP or if there are any PVE enemies who have this power. Multiple Gas clouds stacked on each other should stack their debuff together Enemies retain the -Regen debuff for 10 seconds after they exit the Gas. So if they stand in the Gas for the full duration, you can estimate they are debuffed for 40 seconds. The Regen debuff is autohit but the initial Hold is not. If using this power just to debuff Archvillains you can ignore Accuracy completely. Proc bomb builds need to account for the initial burst missing though. Poison (Controller Version) > Poison Trap Poison's version of Poison Trap functions identically to the Traps version, but has the following modifications: Recharges in 60sec (not 90) Changes to the Gas powers: Initial Gas effect: 100% chance for Mag 3 Hold, Scale 8 after a 0.25 sec delay (that is, the initial Hold has double the duration of the Traps version) Pulsing Gas effects: Radius is 15 (not 25 like the Traps version) NOT autohit (unlike Traps version) Does not do any -Regen Has a 1.5% chance per pulse to do a 0.1 scale Endurance drain. I doubt anyone would even notice this. Scale -1 Recovery for 10 seconds Scale 0.03 Toxic Damage per pulse Same Hold and puke mechanics as Traps version Self Destruct After 30 seconds, same as Traps version, Here's a visualization of the Poison > Poison Trap version to tie it better to the gameplay:

A fourth option to consider is /Poison. While I'm critical of Poison as a set, it's specific advantages on a character who possesses Wormhole can't be denied. One advantage of Poison is that because it mainly does debuffs, it stacks with pretty much any other set someone would bring. Main downside is lack of heal and endurance tools that can make melee range a bummer.

Think of Haunt sort of like a shorter duration Fire Imps or Gremlins. They're worth recasting when they are up but not usually worth investing a lot of time in protecting. It's almost better to think of them as blast powers that happen to be able to briefly distract an enemy or two rather than "pets." As for Dark Control secondaries, I agree /Storm is hot. With /Storm you essentially get a Dominator (minus mezz protection, but you can fix that) after level 40 or so that can play at range or hover, or hop in to mezz groups. Spamming Tornado triggers the +100% Recharge proc for lower recharge times on key control powers. If you can somehow sneak the Teleport pool into the mix, you can use it to Combat Teleport in for Thunderclap/Heart of Darkness (for a Mag 5 total Stun, stunning bosses). Fold Space can also be effective here. The combo of Lighting Storm/Tornado/Haunt/Doggie/Freezing Rain on a tightly packed group is beautiful. Endurance costs can be an issue with /Storm, so ready yourself for that.

I can take a look later and reply to that in the Controller forum. Although it's a power available to other ATs I'm most familiar with it on Controllers and would be most comfortable talking about it there.

I don't know how much I have. I'm guessing around 400 million. I have one kitted out Elec/Psi Dominator who is vet level 102 or something and actually has the Winters Gift sets and the like. A few perma Doms that aren't full kits. One mostly kitted Stalker. One semi-kitted fire farmer, just enough to not making farming annoying, but I don't bring him out too often. I never end up finishing builds. Around the time when I get to where I might consider filling in the final pieces, it always seems better to send items to a different character. I do have an absurd number of merits, including Emp Merits because I rarely spend them.

The one area IMO Confusion really can cause a mess is when facing enemies who have Storm powers. e.g. the Coven witches. This is a mainly limitation of Mind Control and Electric Control than other sets though because they can't easily stop the mass chaos that follows. The witches don't appear as level 50 enemies, nor do any enemies that use Storm powers en masse. Most other enemy groups don't have enough knockback for it to matter but it can get irritating.

Scrappers, Stalkers and Brutes should be more vulnerable to Sleep, Stun and Hold. The armor sets should be re-combed through, with some armor toggles set to not stop functioning during mezz so they don't get totally wrecked if a mezz does land. They could also possibly pop their T9 to break out of mezz. No more all-the-time Mag 10 mezz protection and immunity to everything being the standard for these classes. All the other classes and their relationship with mezz should be renegotiated from there. Tankers should be demonstrably better at handling mezz than other classes.

I think you might be reading more into the conversation than is there. You asked for a build that exemplars well, has good defense, along with a number of other high end qualifications. Dark Control is better than Mind Control at all of this. Mind Control specifically is good if you want to play with Mass Confusion, which isn't nothing. It can be useful versus some specific groups of enemies like Arachnos where direct confrontation is too dangerous. But it's on a 240 second recharge and unlocks at level 32. Even the fear cone doesn't unlock until 26. Dark Control is cheaper to build, has better proc options, has two pets where Mind gets none, has a secondary effect where Mind Control gets none, and has power unlocks in reasonable order. Mind Control has huge control holes, forcing it to rely on Total Domination, but Shadow Field is a direct copy of Total Domination except in every category better. I wouldn't make the comparison if the two sets weren't so similar, but they are. I rerolled my Mind Control characters as Dark long ago. If you are fine with all of that and really do want to play with Mass Confusion and Mass Hypnosis go for it. I expanded my concept and embraced Dark. Hopefully Mind Control gets a buff.

You seem upset. I'm standing by what I wrote though. Take it or leave it. Other than concept Dark Control is very similar to Mind Control expect in most ways better.

Not to be Debbie Downer, but probably the best way to improve a Mind/Psi build is to reroll it as Dark/Psi instead. Mind Control is playable if you insist on it for for theme or just really like Mass Confusion, 240 recharge and all. Otherwise, everything else that matters is better on Dark Control.

I can't open the builds because Mids has broken on me again, but with Dark Control IMO its usually a waste to soft cap. -ToHit is your secondary effect. Except for AVs you shouldn't have any issues. I aim for Defenses in the ~32.5 range. Because of this IMO Defense armors are usually wasted on Dark Control builds. You don't need that extra Defense, what you need is Resistance to tank through damage that punches through. The sort-of exception case is the Ice APP, not because Ice Armor is very useful to Dark Armor builds, but because Sleet is so much better than any other APP power that it justifies that pool by itself. That said, the Psi, Fire, Mu, Leviathan, and Soul pools are all attractive Resistance armor APP sets for various reasons. Mace, not so much. If you want more Defense in this scenario, Psi pool is probably your best bet for the combo of Link Minds + Mind Over Body resist+ Psi defense in Indom Will.

Even perma Domination can drop on you if you get hit by -Recharge debuffs. Most Ice and some Psi attacks have a -Recharge component. In practice, Ice powers aren't very common in game, but Psi attacks are, especially on enemies like Arachnos.

Yes that one is way up there. Overall IMO these powers should suppress and not detoggle. If that were to happen much of the pressure on squishies to find mezz protection would lessen.

There are two types of need when it comes to squishy mezz protection: The "Like a Break Free inspiration" kind, which RoP is well suited to because it can be used reactively The "protect my offensive toggles" kind, which RoP is not well suited to because of limited up time It's that second class of mezz protection that drives offense mezz toggle builds. Arctic Air is probably the most egregious power in this class. Just popping a Break Free doesn't rescue an Ice Control build from the trashbin. It's full time mezz protection or get detoggled at every half second Sleep from a gray Freakshow minion. Hence for builds that truly need mezz protection RoP isn't an option. Since the emergence of IOs Controllers have had Indomitable Will and Dominators have had perma-Domination to help them deal with detoggles. RoP is more of a power for more "vanilla" Control sets like Plant, Mind, etc than can do things reactively. I said earlier I think armored characters are overpowered. Probably Controller and Dominator total mezz protection is as well. The issue is that the penalties for getting mezzed are sky high so the developers made whole classes of characters mostly immune to it. If we were making CoH2 I'd make everyone but Tankers subject to mezz but remove its armor cancelling and detoggling properties. Just the inability to click anything or use inspirations other than Break Frees is a serious penalty already. Since all of that is unlikely to happen I'd vote to keep RoP as is. If something must be nerfed, make it the Resistance duration but not mezz protection. Players who need full time mezz protection are already using other powers, there's no need to come for RoP.

This won't be a popular opinion, but IMO the balance issue with Rune of Protection is that armored characters are overpowered. They don't need RoP because they have effective immunity already. Their T9 isn't a good point of comparison, because they don't actually need it and it doesn't fill a hole. I'm ok with RoP getting nerfed but I do think some questions need to be raised about why armored characters don't even need powers like this or their T9s. The answer isn't because RoP is overperforming, its because armored characters are. That being said, I don't see this likely to be addressed. So I lean on the side of just leaving RoP alone.

I feel like that piece of text about xp loss has caused a lot of avoidable heartburn over the years. Unless you stand back and let mobs solo each other, Confusion powers don't appreciably reduce your rewards. In particular, one reason they are incredible when soloing is inspiration drops aren't negatively impacted. Inspiration churn is the key to lawnmowing through difficult packs.

I really dislike Radioactive Assault. It's a set built for an armored character, not Dominators. An armored player can footsy around with an unreliable heal without too much worry. On a Dominator the timing is awkward and the set overall just not very good. It might get better with extensive IOs but I've tended to just avoid it. Dark Assault is a set with a similar feel to Radioactive Assault, and while it's far from perfect, it's still got at least a few tools useful to a Dominator build.

Hopefully rather than sounding like a complaint this post will sound like an observation. City of Heroes was most enjoyable to me around the time the incarnate Alpha slots came out. There was some specific interesting developments after that, and on Homecoming, but that is the version of the game I've always enjoyed most. It was never hard, nor was it heavily based on a Tanker-Healer-DPS triad. But it also didn't play like it currently does. The lower level game can be okay, but a lot of classes do not play well at lower levels. Dominators and Controllers, which I've always preferred, come to the fore in the late 30s and 40s, right in time to be eclipsed by incarnate abilities and nukes. Two specific abilities, the proliferation of crashless nukes and Judgment, really lowered the enjoyment I get out of teaming. Lore Pets and Destiny powers aren't far behind. It isn't just that these abilities are overpowered, they are dull. There isn't any way to get around the math that the end game path for an 8 player team is a Judgment firing every ~11 seconds. That's before you consider any actual nukes or nuke-like powers, which can easily result in a nuke firing every 8-9 seconds on average. That is what it is. Folks will say lower the number of team players, avoid the content, don't slot your abilities, etc but you never used to have to do any of those things for the late game to have a combat system.