AngriestGhost

The convenience of it has led me to play through a few arcs. I did the Unity Plague and Wheel of Destruction last week. The Unity Plague seemed to have an exceptional amount of zone hopping; I probably would have dropped in frustration without the base TP.

I'm warming up to the idea of Domination as a toggle. Perhaps it could only drain the bar while active You could set it and forget it if you like it try to actively manage it for when you want it most

I agree with you on this. There are people that use and enjoy TK as it is or at least as it once was. It's unique in what it does and how it does it. I think there are simple solutions (like your original TK proposal) that address most of the problems with it. However, there are a lot of things that could be tweaked with it. For instance, if we up the target cap, does it infringe on the role of Total Domination? How do we address that? How long should a player be able to sustain it? How long is reasonable for it to be a positioning tool without replacing Total Domination? I think a growing endurance cost could be part of the answer to those questions. That is one of the great challenges of being a programmer. You're boxed in by many factors, but there's freedom within those constraints. Talk to a musician or artist and they'll agree that limitations often breed creativity. Being unable to see the path initially doesn't mean it isn't there. You see pie in the sky and I see someone not reaching for answers. From what I have seen a power that sets and utilizes different mode tags is feasible. I hadn't consider it's use in regard to TK however until Cheeseman's suggestion.

In other MMOs the grind for gear is quite different though. Most of what you acquire mid-level is discarded by the end. In CoX there are recipes that are quite useful that don't drop in later levels but are used in end game builds (Numina's +recovery) or those that are just as valuable from an early drop as a later (LotG +recharge). Some sets, for instance Basilisk's Gaze, are nearly as desirable as their purple counter part. If very rare recipes became harder to acquire many people would just forego using them. If you look at the monthly numbers a lot of people already pass on the end game in favor of experimenting with new alts and new concepts.

I've built many perma-doms and as much as I enjoy them I'll admit the idea behind Domination was one I never enjoyed. On live we saw many changes to rework them from their original incarnation where their performance was even more binary. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the last of that design go away but I'm sure it would upset many players. If I were creating the AT from day one, I would implement an inherent like Brute's Fury, but with critical control. It would begin with a 10% chance with no bar and scale up at around 75% of the bar you would see a 100% chance for a full mag 6 control. To me, Fury and Defiance 2.0 are fun mechanics though I understand if someone prefers to use Domination more methodically. I just find myself sitting on it too long like unused potions in other games.

Pretty much I will only ignore someone for racist, sexist, or generally abrasive behavior. All the same things that would make me not want to associate with a person in real life still apply here. In regards to play styles, if someone plays in a fashion that I don't like I'll usually give it a mission or two and excuse myself from the group. I don't hold it against someone if they want to use knockback or herd or speed TFs. Sometimes those are the best solutions for a situation; sometimes I even learn from someone that has mastered something I haven't.

I'm not sure how intensive it is coding-wise but I would think a helicopter placed on one of the abandoned buildings in the south-west (going off memory, I believe there is a badge near them) would do the trick.

Yes, that is me, and this is me (posting from my phone). I like the change in focus we have in this thread, adjusting what we have rather than reinventing the wheel. Buffing Mass Confusion is one of the key changes I think most of us will agree should be done though finding the sweet spot for those changes may take real testing on top of their crafting. I think 120-145 seconds is a solid solution if it retains its current duration. If a change were in there works for Terrify, what would you recommend? I floated a few ideas up thread that I think would be worthwhile. I think that's the one place where we could addresses Mind's damage issue without altering the function of any power.

Yes, but the more recharge you build the closer you get to receiving the full benefit while simultaneously butting against diminishing returns. It's... complicated.

The thing that is often overlooked when people advise you to not compare Mass Confusion to Seeds is that Plant is also dealing a great deal of damage with Roots and Creepers or that those powers do nothing to offer the benefits of Seeds. That is not true in Mind. You hamper the kill speed advantage when you try to leverage Terrify for damage. In addition to that is that Seeds is an outlier with better recharge and duration than other sets find in their every spawn control; it honestly should behave more like Stalagmites and Flashfire. Those are reliable every spawn control without the kill speed advantage. A solid build can have them up every spawn but also needs to fall back on other controls in an emergency. Both MC and Seeds would exist fine at those proven values, though there would certainly be a lot of gnashing teeth for Seeds to need after all these years.

Just tossing my 2 inf in the discussion, but I find the presence of EA buffs alongside some enemies like Clockwork or Freakshow confusing at times. Am I be buffed? No, it was that ranged Super Stunner that rezzed behind us!

I feel like a gadget control set is really low hanging fruit with the variety of grenades you could use. A pet could recycle one of the variety of drones we encounter. If I recall correctly, controllers are still a fairly popular AT via the last server stats.

I like the idea of turning Levitate into a conditional AoE. The cost of running TK (as it currently is) to do so is probably more endurance heavy than leveraging AoE immobilizes, but I am away from my computer and can't look at the numbers right now. In my opinion, poor AoE damage is Mind's primary issue. Using two powers to fix the issue isn't ideal, but it does preserve the spirit of the set. As for all the ideas surrounding TK, I like many of them but I think simplicity is key. The idea of a hold in place/repel on demand appeals to me for that reason. We know it can be done with the existing engine. If the tech for push/pull becomes available that would be even better. Adding variables into it like the number of targets and the use of Levitate will look likely complicate things. I imagine that as it checks with each tick, enemies that were initially held may have been jostled out of position and break free.

Wouldn't this implementation cause anyone's Levitate to trigger the repel behavior, much like grav controllers can benefit from someone else setting up Impact?

That's something I hoped for as soon as Dark was announced, but the Live devs were working on the animal models and we got stuck with it too. Understandably, they probably wanted something different from Dark Servant, but I do hate the dog if for no other reason than it is incessantly noisy. I would have vastly preferred something like the Spectral Terror.

It's a stealth buff to controllers to make us relevant again.

There's no conflict between GI and Shadow Fall because GI is a click power. You can stack the stealth radius and defense from both of these powers. SI and Shadow Fall, however, can't be used at the same time. Toggling one on will toggle the other off.

I'm a bit surprised no one has mentioned /Dark yet. Stacking Howling Twilight with Stalagmites will let you stun bosses. Earthquake and Darkest Night stack nicely for a lot of -to hit. Quicksand and Tar Patch make a nice little patch of doom with -def and -res. Of course, most anything pairs pretty well with Earth.

A bit of a warning here, you'll have to temper your expectations on locking down AVs. It's often hard to see, but AVs have special mez protection represented by purple triangles that rotate around them (often called PToD, or Purple Triangles of Doom). This gives AVs mag 50 protection to most mezzes (except immobilize and sleep) for about 2/3 of the time. For a solo controller stacking that much mag can be difficult and activation time plays an important part in how much you can stack. On the plus side, Phantom Army is essentially your control for AVs. As long as the AV is swinging at an enemy they can't damage, they aren't targeting squishy teammates. As other's have noted, the team composition here wasn't in your favor. Brutes and Scrappers build for survivability and have their own mez protection. FF is much more suited to buffing ranged ATs that lack both of those things.

I haven't played /Ice much, but I found it very endurance heavy when I did and overall just kind of lackluster. /Earth has a few powers that I really like; Seismic Smash, for instance, is pretty handy to stack a hold on a bosses outside of domination or on EBs when domination is up and the Stone Mallet powers feel like some solid damage. Though I do wish Tremor had a shorter animation.

-Res would definitely make ice more appealing. I could conceptually justify it as things being frozen to the point of brittleness. I also like the idea of a Shatter mechanic, some sort of flag that would proc a sort of a critical dealt in cold damage. Something I think more in line with a change we could see is simply adding - to hit into Ice Slick. In terms of why, aiming is difficult on an unstable surface (the same as Earthquake). Mechanically, wiffing that first shot makes -recharge more effective. A bit on Bonfire, I believe the kb to kd procs are supposed to reduce the rate of knockback when slotted. I have to double-check the patch notes to be sure

I had an electric/time on live and found it quite useful while solo. With immobilizes now converting knockback to knockdown, this seems like a pretty solid choice. Yes, the end. drain is pretty significant, but it does require more time than I find most teams allow. I believe the duration is 30 seconds and it does reapply the sleep. If you hit the first target, it spawns two chains to spread the confusion, if I recall correctly. It's very likely that it will hit most of the mob.

This should be in affect according to the patch notes. If you still aren't able to cast Glacier in the air, then it needs to flagged for another look. Also Flash Freeze previously couldn't affect flying enemies, but should be able to now.

It looks like you may need to shift your thinking about some of the powers you've taken. As a dominator your primary roles are control and damage so that's what you really want to focus on. Defense debuffing happens to be a nice side effect of the powers you've taken, but it's not something that you want to enhance. Primarily, you'll want to focus on control duration, damage, and recharge reduction. After that you may want to take advantage of some of the different procs (chance for -res or chance for damage). As for power selections, most control sets have an AoE control that is available for nearly every mob and is considered nearly essential. In the case of Earth Control, and particularly for dominators, that power is Stalagmites. While domination is up Stalagmites is capable of stunning bosses in a single shot. After that Earth has two other solid AoE controls in Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses. Unfortunately, neither of those are affected by domination but they are both very much worth taking because they can both lockdown bosses outside of domination. With the availability of 3 other AoE controls, there is little reason to take Salt Crystals. Sleeps are generally considered a softer control because they will end when an enemy is damaged, moved, or knocked down. Combining that with the player-based AoE of Salt Crystals means its generally only useful as a set mule. I can't say a lot about Thorn assault because I haven't played it, but as general advice I will say slot for damage and don't be afraid to take your melee powers. Some of your best damage as a dominator will come from those melee attacks. When you've locked a crowd down, you'll be fairly safe to move into melee to use the cone and PBAoE powers. Regarding power pools, you've got Hasten which is good choice in general, but excellent for long cool down controls and in keeping up Domination more frequently. Hover is a power that I often take, but in this case I would suggest skipping it because Stalagmites requires the user to be on the ground. Also, Fly doesn't need enhancement because it already caps fly speed. Leadership is a bit of a mixed bag for a dominator; it offers to places to slot the Defense of the Gambler: +7.5 Recharge IO (Maneuvers and Vengeance), but dom numbers for buffs aren't great. Tactics is a bit redundant with the amount of -def that Earth and Thorns can provide. (For instance, opening with Stalagmites+Stone Cages followed by Fling Thorns is a total of -45% defense.) From the epic power pools, I tend to go with sets that either provide more AoE damage or a bit of defense. I feel the ice epic is really solid, offering a defense armor, a nice res/defense debuff in Sleet, and a bit more AoE in Ice Storm.

I had forgotten about Martial Assault in my brief assessment of dominator snipes, but it just goes to show how wildly inconsistent the to hit threshold treats these different sets. As for the damage reduction, I haven't formed an opinion yet on whether it's justified or not. For sets where it wasn't accessible before, just having access to a usable snipe feels like a buff. But the nature of balance requires outliers from both ends to be brought closer to the center.