oedipus_tex

While I agree that Shiver is wide, 135 degrees is still only about 1/3rd of a circle. In the context of the set it's fairly unwieldly. What complicates things is you can't aim the cone wherever you want, it requires you to target an enemy in the reticle. There are cones out there that fire in front of you without a target, but that isn't how Shiver works. Since you're so close to the targets, them running or being knocked back a little to the left or right can really mess you up. We could make Shiver require no target, but I'd much rather one of these 2 solutions: Make it a 50ft radius sphere placeable within ~20 ft range (developers may feel 35ft sphere with 40ft range is more appropriate, either would be much better options than the current cone and cover roughly the same blast area), range enhanceable When placing a sphere there are no accidents where +Range results in a larger blast area: the only thing that changes is how far away you can place the sphere Make it a 360 degree "cone" that takes Range enhancements [EDIT: Some fidgeting with placeable drop distances to get math closer to current Shiver reach]

I have strong feelings about Shiver overall. Part of what makes Shiver so unwieldly in the context of Ice Control is you're likely up close to the pack in order to use Arctic Air, which puts you in the red zone with a high chance of aggroing enemies nearby. The cone is actually too big IMO and, especially if Shiver is enhanced with Range, has resulted in more deaths than its worth. You don't even always have full control of this. A teammate can hit you with Ageless Destiny and unexpectedly increase the range on Shiver. I wish I had a bloopers video of misfiring this power 180 degrees opposite of the way I intend when an enemy is suddenly knocked back or my intended target dies. Related: Searching for an enemy to serve as a center point of a 135 radius cone is an adventure I could write books about. What I personally really really do not want is a version of Shiver that is a still a cone and also a mezz. We have cone mezzes in game (Terrify, Fearsome Stare) and I don't feel Arctic Air will play nicely with them. The best thing I can say for Shiver currently is at least I can skip it. Adding a mezzing cone to Ice Control would be a big departure. That's why I think if any alpha breaker is considered it should go in Flash Freeze and not Shiver.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I think Shiver should be a 50ft radius placeable sphere. Like a bigger version of the Time set's Distortion Field, except instant-cast instead of summoning a pseudo pet. That way if you drop it directly underfoot, you have no conflict with AA and more or close to the same shape as the current Shiver (think of a pie with a 135 degree arc cut into it and 10ft lost on final distance). If you cast it directly under the enemy, it would more or less work like the current Shiver altho technically hitting a different area. That would put the outter edge of the cone at about 100ft, where Range-enhanced Shiver currently lands. An alternative would be to widen the cone directly from 135 to 360, so that it becomes a sphere that Range enhancers work on. To be honest I'm not sure what the widest possible cone in game is.

I think Shiver should become a 50ft sphere. (It's currently a 60ft cone with an arc of 135 ft). That way there'd be no clumsily trying to aim it and it wouldn't conflict with the PBAoE nature of Arctic Air. It should probably also have stats identical to the Blaster version, where 1/2 the duration lasts 1 minute. I personally don't think it needs to be a mezz. I'd prefer that be Flash Freeze somehow.

Mass Hyp also takes the Chance for Placate proc. Mind Control is probably one of the ideal sets for that proc, because it's less likely to instantly break (Arctic Air for example cancels Placate because the aura is considered an "attack.") I'm not sure how useful that is in practice. Also am not sure what Placate does, if anything, while solo. Most players use so much AoE that Placate isn't much of a factor in their gameplay, but it's something.

Presumably you would write the formula correctly.

I could for sure see a development team out there that would want to do something like this. Maybe not the Homecoming team, but probably someone. It's not a playstyle I enjoy, but it's a popular enough mechanic that it's been included in a lot of games, from Diablo to Darkest Dungeon to X-COM. Rather than delete the character, sending them to a zone from which they can't escape may be more appropriate. And gives some distant hope of a way to restore them in the future. Perhaps any IOs could still be recoverable from some system. Resurrection powers could be converted into an "escape from the purgatory zone" powers and perhaps limited to one use per character per lifetime.

So don't quote me but I think there is a way to do this with individual powers where it is (arguably) appropriate. If this became a "Stalker special ability" I think it would fit that class and be a cool and unique special ability. I've noticed in the JSON code for powers that developers can code a power as autohit in PVE but then make the PVP version require a ToHit roll. An example is in the effects of Flash Arrow: I believe that this means you could manually code a power to hit even if the player had an unlucky roll. I don't think this is appropriate for all powers, especially AoEs. However I could see something like that existing in Assassin's Strike or in Stalker powers generally.

The new mezzes I'd like to see added are stuff like: Enthrall - Cannot use attack powers. Compelled to use any buffs you have on enemy team. Suspend- Similar to Hold, but toggles do not drop. Basically as the character progresses into the incarnate levels and begins to encounter cosmic, astral, god-like, and celestial opponents, or just more sophisticated arch villains, the mezzes they used to shrug off become more threatening. In game mechanics terms, this would offer the dev team a fresh slate to rethink mezz and offer at least the occasional instance to interupt a Tanker or Brute. Note some version of Suspend already exists in some of the iTrials, e.g. with Anti-Matters Freeze Ray which hits everyone regardless of their mezz protection.

I don't agree with this idea as presented, but I do think it's true that mezz wrecks players. Every character I make builds for mezz protection eventually, because it's thrown around absent mindedly by so many enemies. Getting mezzed not only shuts off any armor you have, it prevents eating inspirations other than the magic mezz breaker. The Armor sets were originally created for a more traditional Tank-and-Spank meta that no longer exists. They got grandfathered into total immunity, with effects felt down stream for years to come. I am going to mostly say no to the idea. However I also personally think that in the end game there should be some newly added mezzes which no one has total immunity to but which don't totally destroy the character. Possibly Tankers could shrug these mezzes off quicker than other characters. However what we shouldn't have (and pretty much no game other than this one has) is 1/2 the characters being totally immune to mezz. I don't think squishies should be totally immune but I also don't think melees should be either.

I may have posted this in the past. I couldn't find the original post, so I hope you don't mind me reposting. Concept I think the majority of PBAoE Toggle powers should suppress rather than detoggle. I'm talking about powers like Arctic Air, Choking Cloud, etc. I used to not be sure the tech existed to accomplish this, but apparently it does, and is used in some of the Blaster sustains, like the new Cauterizing Aura. While I am sure some folks will call this "scope creep," in this instance I think this is more of a fix. There are some really well designed powers that should theoretically be fun to use, but squishies are so vulnerable to being detoggled that it doesn't pan out, unless you pursue a mezz-protection-all-the-time strategy. Data Here is a spreadsheet listing powers that potentially fall in this category. I'm on the fence about whether damage powers should qualify. However, I think Crowd Control and Debuff powers surely should. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_zCo-udIKrE2kZtAHn8cNJLOACp3Mu1SH-BO6QZTKmw/edit?usp=sharing Alternatives An alternative to this solution would be to review and normalize the Recharge times of powers vulnerable to detoggle. Arctic Air is down for 15 seconds if you get mezzed; other powers are down for 20, or 10, or 15, or 4. Having to recast is not ideal. However, its still better than a long wait time.

Domination itself may or may not need tuning. However, I do think that some individual powers still need tuning even if the Domination power itself is not changed. The house rules tended to work fine for the more straightforward sets like Plant and Mind, but didn't turn out so hot for sets with auras or pseudo pets. Because of that I think we need some updated house rules: In Domination mode, pulsing psuedo pets should apply a one-time Domination mezz instantly on the first pulse (See Dark Control>Shadow Field which already does this) Static Field: Mag 3 Sleep for ~7 seconds (enhanceable) Volcanic Gasses: Mag 3 Hold for ~9 seconds (enhanceable) In Domination mode, auras with a chance to mezz should have their strength updated to Mag 6 Arctic Air: 30% chance for Mag 6 Confuse for 4 seconds (suppresses base 30% chance for Mag 3 Confuse) (enhanceable) In Domination mode, powers that summon psuedo pets should summon a unique psuedo pet and otherwise obey normal rules Synaptic Overload: Mag 3 Confuse for 22.35 seconds + Mag 3 Confuse for 33.53 seconds (enhanceable)

To get super technical, Domination is both an actual mechanic and a series of "house rules" on how that mechanic should be implemented. Each individual power that Dominates has to be custom coded, and the developer has the option to stick to the house rules or to make exceptions. Here's a readout of the JSON file for the Dominator>Mind Control>Dominate (the standard single target hold). It's object [2] in the Mind Control object array. The screenshot above shows the basic definition of the power. The effects of the power are found in the effect_group array. If we explore the various effect groups, we'll find the Domination effect in position [2] for this power. You can see above the control the developer has over how Domination works in this power. It has a 100% chance to apply a magnitude 3.0 Hold for 26 seconds when in Domination mode. The "house rule" generally dictates a similar implementation in other Dominator powers. Where things get tricky is in toggles or in powers that summon pseudo pets, and in powers with less than 100% chance to fire their effect. The implementations are often unconsistent or limited by tech (for example Synaptic Overload only Dominates the first target because the tag that triggers Domination doesn't apply to the psuedo pets it summons).

My proposal is that all AoE Holds would have two varieties: The standard 240 second recharge flavor that exists now A "lite" flavor inspired by Choking Cloud with these stats: 120 recharge 10 second Hold duration (Controller numbers, down from 15 sec) Special: Enemies who take damage have a 50% Chance to break out of the hold for 3 seconds Players would use Null the Gull to swap between Hold varieties or there could be some other mechanism.

Mass Hypnosis is a not-bad power that nevertheless has sat on my Update Wishlist for some time. IMO the Sleep duration should be shortened, but it should recharge in 15 seconds (down from 45) and have a cast time around 1 second. As is, its not terrible. It's mostly useful solo, although there's the occasional situation where Sleeping an enemy group one spawn ahead can keep them from aggroing.

I think the nearly universal opinion is that Voltaic Sentinel does not measure up on any of the archetypes that have access to it (Dom, Blaster, Controller or Corruptor). The Homecoming powers team has been doing a great job revamping old powers, so hopefully will get around to looking at this one.

I have 86 levels on my Electric Dominator, more than any other character, so I think the set is reasonably playable. But I wouldn't be being objective if I didn't note some of its issues. Synaptic Overload should Dominate splash targets. Static Field should Dominate on the first pulse. Power cast times on the T1, T2, and T3 are longer than other Control set powers and should be brought into alignment. I also notice you're playing with /Energy, and I am playing with /Psi, both of which are among the stronger Dom secondaries. Where Electric Control takes a serious hit is when paired with a secondary that does DoTs. This interrupts Sleep and downgrades the set considerably.

There are some good ideas here. You've made a persuasive argument that Ice Control could use some updates. Here are a few thoughts. The Blaster version of Shiver was recently buffed. The power now has a 60 second duration, up from 18 seconds. At the very minimum Ice Control's Shiver should match that. I'm on the fence on whether or not this power should become a true mezz. There's an argument for and against it. There is such a thing as Unresistable -Recharge. The Kinetics power Siphon Speed deals -20% Recharge that is unresistable. This means AVs eat the full debuff. I think giving Ice Control a similar amount of -Recharge would make its abilities worthwhile. Arctic Air should Dominate somehow. Arctic Air currently is double-nerfed. It has both the shorter mezz duration Dominators get outside of Domination, and lacks the longer duration Dominators should get in Domination mode. Note that Domination does not have to clone the 30% Chance for Mag 3 if developers think that is overpowered. There are some powers that only Dominate at Mag 1 or that adjust the mezz chances in other ways. Personally I think the best scheme for this power is a switch mechanic based on the player's Domination state. Outside Domination: Use current "normal" mezz rules. Inside Domination: Suppress "normal" mezz rules. Replace with 30% chance for Mag 6 Confuse, 4 second duration. That would make the power confuse bosses but still leave holes in coverage. It's possible to make a Hold or other mezz that breaks when the enemy takes damage. This was proven with the new Blaster power Choking Cloud. I could see this put to creative use in a few powers. The power developer can control the chances of the mezz breaking on damage. In Choking Cloud its 50% but that can be adjusted per power or effect.

Greetings Dominators. I thought it might be fun and helpful to people to see some examples of how real builds translated from concept to implementation in the real world. I've provided write ups of 7 characters who reached 50, along with original concept, surprises, disappointments, and ultimately an approximate build. The builds are "approximate" because rarely do I ever completely finish a build in game, and I tend to change builds up every few months just to explore, so some no longer match whats in game. Feel free to ask questions or post your own builds below. Oedipus Tex Concept: My first character needed to settle on a new identity in Homecoming. Sets: Earth Control/Savage Assault/Leviathan Mastery Overall Rating: A Backstory: Oedipus Tex was my first hero, which is how he became my namesake. Apparently "Oedipus Tex" is also a character name used by a famous slapstick composer, but I didn't know that at the time. I started with the hat and the name that he would be called "Tex" and searched for rhyming words until I came upon "Rex." He's been a few different powersets over the past 15 years, often centered around Earth Control. When I saw the "soaring eagle" attack in Savage Assault I thought it was too funny not to become his signature move. So, as of the past 4 months he's an Earth/Savage Dominator. Gameplay: Overall I'd say this is one of the strongest Dominators I've built. Earth Control really lives up to the word "Dominate." It's loud, fast, and responsive. Unlike most sister powers, Stalagmites comes out almost immediately when the button is pressed, to devastating effect. Volcanic Gasses is up to be spammed. Multiple sources of the +100% Recharge proc (in Earthquake and in Savage Leap) make the uptime easy. You may have seen my comments elsewhere that I think Plant/Savage is among the strongest combos in the game, and I suspect it eclipses this in one important way: it can Hover. Tex is ground-bound a lot, which puts him at risk another set wouldn't face. Still, end game Earth Control can layer controls on very effectively. I did find survivability shot way up by taking Water Spout, which provided just enough extra soft control to deal with Stalagmites that miss. Approximate Build: Sarcopha-Guy Concept: An Egyptian mummy who is ready to party. Sets: Earth Control/Dark Assault/Leviathan Mastery Overall Rating: B+ Backstory: This is a pun name in search of a powerset instead of the reverse. The costume was then put together. Since I am on a mission to pay every Dominator secondary and Dark Assault seemed like a reasonably okay option, it was selected as his assault set. Gameplay: Not bad. I could have stuck with this character except that he is so close in function to Oedipus Tex (Earth/Savage) but IMO a tad weaker. In fairness, though, retirement only came after hitting 50and deciding I'd prefer an Earth/savage (who became Tex). This guy's build was the prototype for Tex's and how I eventually came around to that design. Wish List: Dark Assault, to me, just feels slightly lethargic. It has a minor heal to help you stay upright, but overall doesn't really distinguish itself on the field. It's not strictly bad. It's just sort of bland. Approximate Build: Late Fee Concept: An employee of the last remaining Blockbuster Video store absorbs powers from action and horror movies when a satellite (owned by Netflix) crashes into the store. Sets: Dark Control/Martial Assault/Leviathan Mastery Overall Rating: B (gameplay) / B- (fun) Backstory: I wanted a Dark Control character who drew a stark contrast with the goth and gloom of the powerset. I tried to design a costume with clean, crisp lines that would stand in juxtaposition to the dark powers, colored a gory red. At the same time I wanted some over the top animations for the "action movie" aspect of the character. Gameplay: Aesthetically, it works well. In terms of gameplay the character is fine. Fine, but not great. I love the concept of the character and want to play him more, but in the end Martial Assault just isn't all that interesting to me. I keep hoping to unlock something new about it to revive it in my eyes. Wishlist: Despite looking cool, it's hard for me to give Martial Assault high marks when Savage Assault is similar but so much better. There are a couple of unique powers here, and the animations are fun. However, they translate into game mechanics fairly generically. Despite its unique mechanics, Envenomed Blades adds no special flare. There's no endurance management or healing to be had, and Explosive Shuriken is a huge disappointment. Overall the set isn't bad, but also not as interesting as some others. Approximate end game build: Social Medium Concept: A social media psychic implicated in the Lori Loughlin/Felicity Huffman scandal is forced into a life of heroics. Sets: Electric Control/Psionic Assault/Mu Mastery Overall Rating: A- (gameplay) / A (fun) Origin: In this case I had the idea that I wanted to play a Electric/Psi Dominator; the name is a back formation for the concept. The Electric Control powers turned out to do a good job of imitating the concept of content "going viral." Gameplay: Overall Electric Control is not the strongest set. The set doesn't benefit from Domination as much as other sets do and really struggles with fast reaction time (it has to rely on its sleep patch or else the 240 second Hold for quick reactions). It's a set built for fights that last a long time, and there's less and less of that in City of Heroes toward endgame. Still, the strength of Drain Psyche on an end game build can't be denied, and there's something sadistically fun about being a reverse human battery sucking the energy out of everyone on the battlefield. While not always the most effective character, this one is always interesting. I've wavered back and forth over whether to play him petless or with the Gremlins + Mu Seer. The petless version has a bit more Defense and has Cross Punch for dealing with Psi resistant enemies. The pets aren't very sturdy but they are kind of fun. When I do run with the pet-owning build the pet names allow me to continue the "social media" theme; they are named Like, Share, and Follow. One big point in favor of Elec/Psi specifically is /Psi covering both healing and recovery. This allows this character to run Destiny Barrier (where some other of my Doms run Ageless for the endurance management) and shores up survivability in spite of Electric's rather weak hard controls. Wishlist: Some of the powers in Electric Control should benefit from Domination. Also, a review of how sapping works overall would be a good thing for all sapper sets. Approximate end game build: Solar Icecap Concept: He has ice and fire powers. No really, that's the concept. Sets: Fire Control/Icy Assault/Ice Mastery Overall Rating: C+ (gameplay)/B+(fun) Origin: Sometimes I just want to play a particular combo, and that's what happened here. Both Fire Control and Icy Assault have a PBAoE damage aura and I wanted to see how they'd play together. Gameplay: Eh. I just... hmm. So this is far from the worst character I've ever played. Stuff dies at a reasonable pace, and Mag 6 Flashfire is always welcome. It's....more...philosophical(?)... than that? Thing is, Hot Feet is a power also available on Blasters (so is Bonfire for that matter), where it does about as much damage as it does stacked with the Icy aura here. But Blasters have sustain powers to help their endurance bars and with health recovery, where Dominators mostly don't. So what I have here is a nukeless, healless, endurance bar crashing Blaster with a pretty strong Flashfire and suicidal pets. He does get Sleet, which is a big plus, and mezz protection, which the Blaster has to get from Clarion. And it's still playable, which is why I give it a C+ for gameplay. On the other hand, I have admit that for all the dying and despite Icy Assault being fairly vanilla, this is pretty fun to play. In case you're wondering, the suicidal pets are named Snowball, Chance, and Hell, approximating their chances of survival. Wishlist: With no disrespect intended to the developers, Icy Assault is kinda boring. There are so many interesting powers in Ice Blast and Ice Manipulation, I'm not sure how we landed on this. As I'm playing it I'm constantly wishing just one power summoned an Ice Slick under the target. Something to set it apart. Approximate end game build: Not currently available. Still deciding whether its worth investing in this character. Build below is a fairly terrible version that has several slots left over and improperly accounts for end redux needs in the auras. Lawn of the Dead Concept: The lawn is alive and wants your brains. Sets: Plant Control/Earth Assault/Soul Mastery Overall Rating: A- (gameplay) / B+ (fun) Origin: Another play on a name. This guy has been with me since Virtue on Live. My first Dominator I ever rolled actually. Gameplay: Lots have been said about both of these sets on the boards. Overall I think Plant/Psi or Plant/Savage would be more playable but he's not bad. Wishlist: The endurance consumption in Earth Assault is my only real complaint. Approximate end game build: Not available. I don't play this character a ton and haven't built out the powers. Green Energy (Controller) Concept: Min/maxing Plant Control because I can. Sets: Plant Control/Kinetics/Psi Mastery Overall Rating: A+ (gameplay) / C (fun) Origin: Green Energy was rolled as a Plant/Kinetics Controller mainly because it seemed to me the equivalent Plant/xxx Dominator would not be as powerful (he was originally going to be a Plant/Energy Dom). Gameplay: It's Kinetics. You either like playing Kinetics or you don't, but almost everyone would agree it's powerful. Strictly speaking I think this guy brings more to most teams than many of the Dominators above. Due to better Controller Defense/Resist modifiers he's also capped to S/L/Rn/Melee paired with Destiny Barrier, which he can pick because he needs to fill neither a healing nor recovery gap. But I also don't enjoy it quite as much. Kinetics isn't for everyone. And he does solo just a bit slower than the comparable Doms. Wishlist: Nothing in particular. Only shared here as a comparison point. Approximate build:

Yes. Actually I think Plant/Savage is one of those (semi) hidden gems that may be one of the best Dominator combos possible. Just make sure "birds flying at people" works for your concept. I think that may be the biggest downside of Savage. If you can get past that, the numbers are great, it has decent (not great) endurance management and decent (again not great) healing and excellent damage, and most notably incredible maneuverability once you unlock the T9 Assault power. The ability to teleport to melee range translates into huge damage other sets struggle to match.

Electric Assault is the only set other than Radioactive and Thorny I've never taken past the 20s, so I can only say that on paper it doesn't strongly appeal to me. I'm a masochist though; I have a plan to bring all Assault sets to 50 so I can talk credibly about them. I just rolled the /Electric last night (as Grav/Elec). If I had to make a list of "top" Assault sets, it would consist of Fire, Psi, Energy, and Savage. However, if I had to make a list of "top" Dominator control sets, Dark Control would be in that mix (for me, alongside Plant and Earth). Generally speaking the great primaries are strong enough to carry a so-so secondary, and vice versa. So Dark/Electric would probably be okay just on the strength of Dark. Electric Assault does have a few pluses that may (or may not) make it worthwhile. Some of the attack return endurance to caster. This usually is represented as a 30% chance to restore about 1/2 to 1/3 of the power's cost. The set gets Build Up, which can be procced with a Guassian's Synchronized Fire Control: Chance for Build Up. Many of the other Dominator Build Up-lite powers cannot be procced this way. Voltaic Sentinel may appeal to some players. However, the downsides: Unless paired with a primary that does endurance drain (so in this case, Electric Control) -Endurance/-Recovery as a secondary effect is mostly wasted. Electric Assault has no T3 strength blast and is pretty weak as a ranged attacker. It's not completely alone in this--Psi and Dark and a few others also lack this. However, super-snipes have taken the bite off this somewhat. Also both Dark and Psi have heals to make up for the lack of a T3. Not Electric though. Voltaic Sentinel will decidedly not appeal to many players. It's up to you whether to stick it out or reroll. No judgement around here. You'll probably get more build advice from the more popular secondaries tho, unless you want to be our new expert on /Electric.

I'd go with Gravity Control/Storm so that you can hurl stuff into a corner and hurricane them from there. FYI you will absolutely need mezz protection to make this concept work. The Controller power Indomitable Will in the Psi pool is the best full time option for a squishy, other than the Destiny Clarion power.

I didn't test the endurance draining capacity of the new EMP Arrow, but on live you can Power Boost it, which with 2 level 50 end mod IOs will crash the endurance of all enemies within 35ft. Keeping it crashed is the hard part, of course, but Electric Controllers shouldn't have too many issues with that (Chain Fences is a 30ft radius AoE).

Either Earth for Damage or Psi for mezz protection/Psi defense and a resist armor are good options for Plant/Kin.

IMO the best powerset for this is Ninjitsu (armor). It contains Danger Sense, which gives the mob +60% perception at all times with relatively few other attached effects. (You can also use SR or Willpower as noted above). Just be aware that if even one member of the group has the extra Perception, they effectively all do.