oedipus_tex

Fold Space is a 100ft radius sphere, similar to (but much bigger than) EM Pulse, Glacier, Inferno, or Nova. Instead doing damage or mezz, it applies a Teleport. The caster doesn't select a location; enemies are teleported to the spot s/he occupied the moment the power started activation. Summoning a large number of enemies to a single spot results in their hitboxes overlapping, so if you do this to a big enough group, they typically form a line.

Propel isn't really a high damage power in the scheme of things. Without Impact it deals DPA roughly between Ice Bolt and Ice Blast. Impact makes things a bit better, and brings it up a bit, but casting Gravity Distortion is slow and doesn't naturally fit into a Dominator's attack chain like it does a Controller's. Most Dominators would be better off skipping Propel entirely. It's a good blast for Controllers because Controllers don't have a secondary devoted to damage. Basically Gravity Control close the gap on Dominator damage for Controllers but offers little for Dominators other than some extra damage from Lift. Maybe the intent was for Dominators to be skipping Propel or for the cool animation to justify taking it, but I sort of doubt that. Could be fixed by allowing the knockdown splash effect to do some damage. Dominators do not have access to many spherical AoE blasts so at least that would be adding something, while maintaining the "Gravity sacrifices control for blast capability" equation. Right now on Dominators it mainly just sacrifices control capability for slim returns.

If you absolutely wanted to roll a Grav Dominator, you could make Grav/Psi work. It potentially works because Drain Psyche is a very powerful self buff, balanced around Psi having low damage ranged attacks, a hole that Gravity patches. Wormhole also combos nicely with Drain Psyche.

Grav/Martial is a case that might work, depending on what you want out of the character. Here's a layup of the DPA from Grav Control and Martial: So Lift, Thunder Kick, Trick Shot, Dragons Tail, Masterful Throw would be your likely attack picks. Maybe Propel or Explosive Shuriken, neither is really that great for a Dom. IMO though like EdgeOfDreams said, I think Gravity Control is all around better on a Controller. The Dominator above likely does have higher single target DPA (because of the snipe) and gets a some AoE damage. However the sacrifices is large. You lose the utility of a buff/debuff secondary of a Controller. Also, the Impact mechanic on a Dom pushes you to use the low-DPA Gravity Distortion to set up the attack chain, which feels natural on a Controller but awkward on a Dom. If you do roll Controller and still want some close up AoE/melee action you can take the Earth APP, which gives you Fault and Seismic Smash. Fault rolls two independent 50% chances to Stun that will stack with Wormhole to stun bosses, mostly obviating the benefits of Domination. Seismic Smash thanks to proc rules can deal astronomical damage. There are even a few Controller secondaries that effectively function like an Assault set, in particular Storm, but also Trick Arrow, Traps, or Poison. Martial Assault itself I find to be a mediocre set overall. Not strictly bad. But nothing great either. In the end you should roll what works for your concept. Martial does have some cool animations. This character will be playable, that is true. I personally probably would be drawn to a different combo of powersets though.

Yes you're right. Especially with pet powers, sometimes there is difference between the version players get and what pets get. In this particular case, players used to get the version Jack Frost has. It's a 10ft radius -Recharge and -RunSpeed aura. It was widely considered one of the worst powers in the game. On Jack at least it costs no endurance and doesn't detoggle on mezz.

I don't think there's a rule against it, no. A few ideas were tossed around when Castle was updating Gravity around issue 20. One of them was for Propel and/or Lift to gain extra utility when used in Domination mode, e.g. throwing nearby enemies into the air or creating a "knock up patch" in the spot the power lands that continually hurls enemies in the air. There were a few other ideas tossed around, some involving Dimension Shift. The game wasn't around too much longer after the changes, so nothing much came of it.

There are subtle way to phase out the incarnate abilities using carrots instead of sticks. There's a brilliant moment in the XCOM series where the player is tasked with using a mind-scanning device to retrieve information from their alien opponents. The device uses up a valuable slot in your squad member's inventory, and using the device requires moving into close range for a risky face to face encounter, versus just shooting the alien dead from safety. That's the kind of thing I could see raising my interest in the incarnate system. For example, if there was a single target, close range version of Judgment that instead of frying the crowd raised your chances of any drop being a purple by 1%, it would reward the player for taking the riskier route. I've also toyed with the idea that some Incarnate abilities might actually be challenge modes, where the idea is it uses up that slot and inflicts you with some kind of condition, and you earn badges by surviving the cursed artifact. Perhaps even a ranking system by powerset of who is the most powerful in all the land.

IMO the most obvious class of powers missing from the game are what I'd classify as "Celestial" powers. You see this sort of power a lot in Fantasy MMOs used by Clerics/Paladin/Priest type characters. I have a whiteboard in my house where I write down game ideas, and Celestial Control has been written there for a while.

It might be worth talking about Power Boost again and an accidental(?) nerf Ice Control got on Dominators on Homecoming. Three Assault sets originally had the true Power Boost power, Ice, Energy, and Earth Assault. Among its features, Power Boost offered 15 seconds of +Defense, +Confuse duration, +Hold duration that comboed nicely with Ice Control. I mentioned that Arctic Air has a lower base Confuse duration on Dominators than Controllers (3 seconds versus 3.7 seconds). However, with Power Boost added, these sets got a base 5.6 second Confuse for its duration, significantly improving the power. When the Homecoming devs updated the Assault sets recently-ish, they eliminated Power Boost in favor of a new power called Power Up. That lowered the duration of the +Confuse STR effect from15 seconds to 10 in exchange for some +Damage %. On most Doms that change didn't significantly change survivability, because they hit Power Up or Power Boost prior to their big mezz. But Ice Control needs the effect constantly running to keep saturating Arctic Air. In addition, they often benefits from the extra +Defense during Power Boost's effect. The loss of 5 seconds may not seem like much, but on an end game build spamming Power Boost every 30 seconds it dropped coverage from 1/2 downtime to 2/3 downtime. I'm still hoping to convince the devs that those sets really needed that extra 5 seconds of STR effect and it can be restored. The +Damage is nice but the tradeoff was harsh, especially for Ice Control and a few other sets, especially Electric.

That's very cool. Another sign that this development team is top notch.

The Cake server serves as a niche for a certain kind of player. I can see why some people would enjoy it. One of the most exciting things about the revived CoX is you do have these various flavors to pick from. Of the various available varieties I prefer the Homecoming server because I think my desired play experience aligns most closely with their philosophy. I want a game that adheres to the original game philosophy that the player has two powerset picks and a tertiary pick and the challenge is to make that work. This game was deliberately designed to avoid the standard MMO formula. That's why I don't like the Destiny, Judgment, Lore type powers very much. I don't mind that they exist for iTrials, because they're necessary there. But in every day content it takes away from the game for me. "Did that Scrapper just use a 30ft radius PBAoE force field type ability? The same exact one as the Blaster and the Defender did? And then all three of them tossed Ionic Judgment? Of course that's what happened." It just really takes the thrill out of it for me when the enemies are being slain by the same 2 or 3 shared powers and everyone's got a 30ft radius force field type power.

Really? That's a super creative way to differentiate Tankers from other archetypes. I knew about the size of AoEs being increased for them, but for some reason didn't think it would apply to powers like this. I really love that if it's the case. Would love to see more differentiators between the various classes and that's a brilliant way to do it.

I was initially concerned Fold Space might be too powerful for a pool power, but after using it for a while I think it's in a great place. It's not an every-build power, but it is a game changer for some characters. Builds where it shines most are the ones that have a buff or debuff that affects a tightly packed area: Drain Psyche Power Sink Fulcrum Shift Soul Drain

I realize on the Suggestions forum players are 100% meaner than other boards, but I think we'll all be happier if we assume everyone is posting in good faith. Thanks.

Those graphs look pretty indicative to me, personally. Mind Control dead last on Controllers with Ice, Electric, Earth making up the next bottom three--oh for sure hell yes. That situation deserves its own thread.

Yes they decreased the cast time drastically. The original cast time was absurd. For some reason the number 3.3 seconds sticks in mind, but that could be wrong.

I feel that would be easier to appreciate the differences between powersets and archetypes if the incarnate powers didn't dominate so much of the space. The old end game felt good. The powers you'd picked for your character were coming into focus at top levels and battles were fought differently depending on the show of powersets. It mattered quite a bit what support character ended up on your team. The game was never hard, but it was driven by your actual powers. Then comes Destiny, Judgment etc which to me feel as connected to my character as a temp power from the P2W vendor. These days many of my characters are outdamaged by someone's Lore pet and quite frankly in many Task Forces I wonder if I even need to be there. Invasions like the Rikti ship were never thrilling to me and were pretty easy but now I won't even bother to show up for the free XP. It wasn't like these were ever hard, but Destiny is turned them into such a dull, same-y affair I want to stay away. I really love what the Homecoming folks have done with CoX. I feel like they've made a lot of wise decisions. I really hope they can diversify the end game.

Good question. Controllers and Defenders share the same modifier for -Recharge and -Run Speed, which I believe is 1.25. I think I recall (but could have made it up) a discussion ages ago about the Controller value being set to that value because in Ice Control, -Recharge is meant to be "a control." Thus the Controller value is bumped to Defender levels. For whatever reason, Dominators have a lower modifier on Recharge and Run Speed at 1.0 (25% lower than a Controller/Defender). Below images shows the -Recharge on powers with scale 0.5 -Recharge, Controller, Dominator, Defender. RE: Dark Control, Defenders have a modifier of 1.25 for -ToHit, Controllers have 1.0, Dominators have 0.75. RE: Electric Control: Controllers and Dominators drain endurance equally. It's not easy to make a comparison to Defenders, but Defender Power Sink does drain more endurance than either of those archetypes. That could simply be an outlier though. Endurance Drain modifiers are known to be inconsistently used across archetypes. Blaster and Defender Electric Blast drains the same endurance for example. I've always found that weird. A wild card in this is that Power Boost style effects are somewhat of a staple of Dominator sets. 4 out of 11 sets have a version of it. On live, since we didn't have Martial, Savage or Radiation Assault, it was basically a feature of half the sets. Power Boost has no effect on -Recharge, but does greatly increase -Run Speed, -ToHit, and -Endurance. The ability for Dominators to take a Power Boost in their secondaries is an often overlooked part of the Dominator puzzle. Only one other archetype I can think of (Blaster) gets a Power Boost power in an actual powerset. Several ATs can take it in their APPs of course, but no other archetype quite owns that effect.

Part of it is just derivative of issues left over from the original Gravity Control. It was poor on Controllers and very poor on Dominators. Propel was an "attack" (quotes required) with a 3 second or so animation time. It was questionable on Controllers and the very essence of a question mark on Dominators because its DPA (it had nothing else but single target knockdown) was out performed by even their T1 Assault powers. No one took Propel... for that matter no one played Gravity Dominators. It wasn't until near the end of the life of the original game when Gravity was changed to its current state. Impact was added and is very nice for Controllers. For Dominators, its better (maybe?) but still a tangle. Basically when building a Gravity Dominator you need to go through each attack in the Assault set and compare it to Lift / Propel and figure out what's worth taking from each set. There are a few sets with low ranged damage where Lift/Propel are clearly superior to the Assault blasts. Psi Assault for example, and possibly thing like Earth Assault which add some extra AoE. For other sets the numbers pull pretty close and its like... why is this power in a Control primary set? Nutshell: When Gravity Control got its update the DPA of Gravity's Blasts with and without Impact wasn't compared to the Assault set damage, nor was it taken into consideration that Controllers will do more damage than Dominators because of Containment. It is true some Controllers have less AoE capability than some Dominators, but most Dominators are not AoE masters. Storm, Trick Arrow, Poison, Traps are all Controller sets that can compete in this area while offering more safety and utility and happen to pair very well with Gravity Control.

At this point it's too late anyway. They'd still have been available, just available as Assault powers instead. So you could have a Ice Controller who hurls trash cans at people and what not.

I agree. This is what I think the solution probably should be. A properly translated Gravity Dominator should still be blast-y. Probaby Impact should work on the Assualt powers somehow. What I'm less sure of is at what threshold the Dominator begins to encroach on the allowed damage for other damage dealers like Corruptors and Blasters. If I had the ability to do it over completely, Propel and Lift would be in a "Gravity Assault" set instead of a control set on Dominators, and both powers would be replaced with some kind of control. Gravity Control lands in an awkward spot. It has no AoE control other than Wormhole and the AoE Hold. Even the much maligned Ice Control has Arctic Air, Ice Slick and Flash Freeze, but at least it brings some actual control to the picture.

Are more than a handful of people playing Gravity Dominators? I have tried a few times and after looking at the resulting build either rerolled as a Controller or as a Dominator with a different primary. I can't think of any time I've teamed with a high end Gravity Dominator. The only build I can think of that might stand out is Grav/Psi, because of Drain Psyche and generally low damage in the Psi base attacks.

Well then my next option is give us enemies with stats that can punch through Destiny and obviate the older content so that it is no longer ideal to run. I'd rather just fix what is broken though.

I know this is the suggestions forum, and normally the idea is to come in with a suggestion. In this case though I am presenting a problem with no real suggestion on how to fix it. Subject: Gravity Control's Lift and Propel Powers Backstory: Originally, Gravity Control was supposed to be a "blast-y" Control set that traded control capability for direct damage, in the form of Lift and Propel. The original developers weren't looking at animation times, so this didn't immediately pan out. Propel had terrible DPA that wasn't fixed almost until servers closed. The solution was an "Impact" mechanic that adds extra damage after the player uses the single target Hold. This allowed Gravity Control to move into the "blast control set role." While that did make the set more playable, it accidentally introduced new problems: Lift and Propel compete with the Assault set Dominators get. Dominators have a secondary devoted to attacks. Here's how Lift and Propel stand up against a fairly average Assault set. We can see that Lift with Impact damage is almost as good as any attack in the secondary. The way this pans out in actual play is slightly harder to evaluate, because the Hold casts semi-slowly and in an attack chain will lower damage. However, what tends to happen is either Propel/Lift are better options or Assault set powers are better options, but mixing the two is a bad option because you need Impact, which doesn't contribute to damage in the Assault set. Now this wouldn't necessarily be an issue. Blasters have a degree of this in their primary/secondaries. However, there is also problem 2. It will arise for anyone who looked at the chart above and went "Whoah Lift with Impact hits almost as hard as a Dominator's melee attacks?" Because of Containment, Lift and Propel do more damage on Controllers than Dominators. Now, I realize that there is some degree of set up for Containment damage. But we should also remember Controllers often get -Resist or +Damage in their secondaries, so they are multiplying the damage further. Lift, in particular, easily competes with the ranged blasts a Dominator gets, and even many melee attacks. The takeaway is there are few situations where Gravity Control is "worth it" on a Dominator versus a Controller because Lift and Propel duplicate many of the benefits of the Assault set. While there are a handful of situations where the Dominator pulls ahead in damage because of not having to set Containment or the Hold, the difference is marginal compared to the sacrifice of losing out on a force multiplying buff/debuff secondary. If we could go back to 2006 or so when Gravity Control for Doms was being constructed, Gravity Control would lose Lift and Propel in favor of some kind of control power and Lift/Propel would go in a "Gravity Assault" set. But since that's probably not in the cards, some kind of solution is hopefully attainable. Unfortunately I can only point out the issue, I don't have the solution. 🙂

I don't think so. I'd attack this in two steps: Flag the Alpha level shift as incarnate-only and shift level 53 rewards slightly upward. This is so you fix difficulty scaling but retain similar earning potential, with even more earning potential for pushing to +4. Outside of iTrials, make Destiny affect caster and his/her pets only. I buy that many players have made their Destiny choice a core aspect of their build and changing it would force a recalibration. What I do not buy is there are players whose build would be ruined by losing the ability buff other players with Destiny. Destiny actually does play an important role in iTrials and the AoE buff capability is balanced there by patches of death to force moveent. There is no similar balancing mechanic in the main game.