EnjoyTheJourney

There is no way that firing off a ranged debuff that affects a smaller number of mobs and has a smaller resistance debuff is "more impactful" than affecting more mobs and applying more than twice as much resistance debuffing to all but one or two mobs in the same amount of time. That's like arguing up is down, pregnant is not pregnant, alive is dead, air is water, earth is sky, and so on. There has got to be something that can be improved with how a character is played if they can't make a team move faster with venomous gas and envenom versus just envenom. Fire off envenom while in mid-air and then land in the middle of the next spawn and drop poison trap. Ideally, do that just ahead of the team's alpha strike so everything is choking on a proc'd up poison trap mini-nuke while the team's fire blaster is starting up their nuke sequence. If the team's fire blaster has their nuke started and your poison character wasn't already in melee range, preferably with poison trap already working, then that was a missed opportunity to make lieutenants and higher melt faster. Team play can be pretty chaotic, so it won't always happen. Still, whenever you're not already in melee for the team's alpha then you're not leveraging venomous gas to the extent that it can be.

The resistance debuff from venomous gas is higher than the splash debuff from envenom. And, for the clear majority of mobs in a spawn the splash debuff is the only ranged resistance debuff likely to apply to them. Some numbers for defenders ... Envenom resistance debuff ... Target hit with envenom (maximum of 1 mob per use of envenom) = -40% to all damage resistances Mobs hit with the splash debuff (only affecting mobs within an 8 foot radius of the target) = -20% to all damage resistances Venomous gas resistance debuff ... Up to 16 mobs in a 15 foot radius of the defender = -25% to all damage resistances Thus, a mob with a splash debuff has -20% to all damage resistances, while a mob with a splash debuff and venomous gas applied to them has -45% to all damage resistances. It's baffling how anybody can convince themself that a debuff that will usually affect a smaller number of mobs and consistently has a smaller effect can somehow be more impactful than a debuff that will usually affect a larger number of mobs and consistently have a larger effect. Further to the above, some who don't take venomous gas seem to think that stacking the ranged debuffs is a worthwhile thing to do. However, stacking the ranged debuffs such that there's one full debuff and one splash debuff applied to two or perhaps three mobs does less resistance debuffing, and to fewer mobs, than applying venomous gas to those same mobs instead of layering on envenom more than once. Finally, those taking venomous gas will very likely be stacking debuffs, rather than dropping envenom and only taking venomous gas instead. The notion that comparing venomous gas vs envenom is somehow an important thing to do is at odds with how poison players who take venomous gas tend to play their characters. It's the stacked debuff total that matters, with higher clearly being better than lower. Especially since venomous gas more than doubles the amount of resistance debuffs applied to most mobs, it seems very clear that the argument "ranged debuffs are more impactful" holds no water. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=defender_buff.poison&at=defender

SR provides softcap positional defenses within reach with IO sets, a good amount of DDR, absorb with master brawler, and scaling resists as life totals decline. The heal in water blast's "dehydrate" can address that key gap in survivability tools provided by SR. After the recent buff to sentinel's water blast damage, water/SR is a really solid combination.

Admittedly, I'm not running a psi / martial / mace blaster these days, having replaced that character with a fire / martial / mace. Also, I'm drawing on past experiences in other content given that my psy / martial / mace blaster was retired before the newer KW content was introduced into the game. Perhaps I'm overestimating how well it would fare in the newer content. If there are blasters than can solo KW radios, though, a psi / martial / mace blaster is probably good candidate to be a member of that group.

A psi / martial / mace blaster with rune of protection, inner will, T4 melee hybrid core, T4 barrier, and the usual accolades would probably be able to solo PI, DA, and KW content. There's quite a bit of control and debuffing available in the primary and secondary, plenty of mez protection, good peak survivability options through barrier, accolades, and inspirations, and plenty of AOE and single target damage. There's also a combat teleport available in the secondary with burst of speed.

Probably a 0.05 buff to dominator damage won't move the needle in a visible way. AOE damage is the one kind of damage at which dominators do noticeably lag several other ATs. A change that would help dominators do noticeably more AOE damage would be to lift the target caps for targeted AOEs in the secondary assault sets to 16 targets, which is the usual number for blasters, defenders, and corruptors.

If you try out the dark build I posted earlier, consider dropping the world of confusion power, replacing it with haunt, and then slotting in five pieces of the Glimpse of the Abyss set into haunt. Haunt's damage isn't that high anyways and the Glimpse damage proc makes the damage better. That has the pleasant effect of pushing accuracy to over 95% for dark grasp and to boosting poison trap's accuracy as well. I realized later that I didn't update the dark / poison build to reflect how I had actually done with it in-game (ie: that was an older, draft build). I've since replaced him with a pyro / poison / psy troller that I like better, and so all of the IOs were taken out of my dark / poison to help out my pyro / poison troller. I've heard that the version of Mids that incorporates pyrotechnics control is buggy, I'm still using an older Mids version because of that, and so I don't have a mids build to post for my pyro / poison / psy troller.

My own experience with different ATs was that my original reason for trying and enjoying them usually shifted into something else over time. Not that everybody else's experiences will inevitably match my own, that's clearly not going to be the case. Still, maybe a bit of reflection might help to navigate the journey that's underway for you. I've sampled all the ATs, at this point, and gotten at least one level 50 character in most of them. Some ATs got dropped after a few attempts and have never been re-visited since then. Some got dropped, then were re-visited and were enjoyable enough to keep playing them the second (or sometimes third or fourth) time around. Basically, I've found a range of playstyles that I really like and I've found ways to enjoy that playstyle in different ATs. It's still not that easy to articulate after all these years because it's the "feel" of playing a character that makes it work for me (or not); my expectations about how I might enjoy playing a character can still vary widely from how much I do end up enjoying them. There are also often "bumps" of enjoyment or lack of enjoyment along the pathway to figuring out whether I like playing a character or not. It's a bit confusing, at times. But, I've learned to ride those out and let enjoyment find its way to my characters or not, while focusing on being in the moment along the way. FWIW, YMMV, and all that.

A very thoughtfully done build. Nice. It's clear that this character is designed to fight at range, relying on cones and targeted AOEs to control the battlefield and to do AOE damage. Just as my builds are clearly not your cup of tea, this isn't a build I would ever enjoy playing. I can appreciate that it would be effective, though. It's clear why VG, despite its low slotting requirements, is not a high priority for you. It's also clear why poison trap functions better for you with set bonuses than by being proc'd out for damage because for you poison trap isn't an "every new spawn" alpha strike. Instead, it's a way of responding to the occasional occurrence of mobs getting into melee range when you would have preferred to fight them from range. At the end of the day, it's great that the game supports different ways of building and playing characters.

Sometimes you can apply both envenom splash and direct debuffs on a boss or EB. But, only sometimes. Very often the two bosses in a spawn aren't close enough to each other for that and in those cases it's challenging to get the full effect of envenom on both of them. Often the other mobs die so fast that the minions near the boss you targeted with the first casting of envenom are already defeated by the time it recharges. Also, the time you spend on trying to make that work isn't being spent on other things and those other things you could be doing instead also have value. More importantly, you've accidentally created a kind of false dichotomy in how you're framing the choices available. Having VG passively acting on mobs doesn't prevent you from applying envenom twice when doing that makes sense. I get a sense that some playing poison think that maximizing debuffs is the main minigame on which to focus when playing poison. That's not my experience. Debuff to the extent that it makes a noticeable difference and then do damage or, if needed, apply some controls to better protect the team. The math is that a poison character with VG running has a higher floor and a higher ceiling for debuffs both on average across all mobs and specifically on hard targets than a poison character that doesn't have VG running.

For a bit of context, consider the following tidbits about the area coverage for circles of different sizes ... 8 foot radius circle encompasses roughly 200 square feet 15 foot radius circle encompasses close to 700 square feet 25 foot radius circle encompasses close to 1960 square feet The 8 foot radius for envenom and weaken gives them a noticeable amount of area coverage for their respective debuffs. It's very clear that VG can affect noticeably more mobs than either of them, though. And, the area coverage for poison trap is in a league of its own when compared to weaken and envenom.

The math doesn't math on -60%, -100% being the norm for enemies because the radius for envenom and weaken are both just 8 feet. If a spawn has over 10 mobs in it then the clear majority of mobs will have just the splash debuff or no debuff at all from envenom and weaken, whether envenom has been applied twice or not. VG becomes a key source of -res and -def, given the small radius of envenom and weaken. In addition, poison trap makes a great alpha strike on new spawns, helping noticeably to weed out the weaker mobs. Then the small number of stronger mobs are alone that much faster and the team moves faster. Also, VG (15 ft radius) + poison trap (25ft radius) are going to consistently affect more mobs on a large spawn than the more narrowly focused debuffs from envenom and weaken. On a related note, poison trap will do little or nothing to improve clear speed if a poison character is steering clear of melee range. In addition, waiting 3 or 4 seconds to get the second application of envenom going means the team's alpha strike has already happened and that time interval during which VG was probably operating on the mob won't happen unless the poison character is in melee range. As well, trivializing the role of to hit and damage debuffs in venomous gas and the hold in poison trap doesn't hold water. They contribute to clear speed by reducing incoming damage, especially to those in melee range. When any tanks, scrappers, stalkers, melee dominators, and blasters in melee range on the team take less damage, everybody gets to focus more on offense and less on healing / resting / inspiration management and the team can move faster. Finally, consistently operating in melee range means that a poison character gets any AOE-based buffs that are most often applied to those in melee range as a matter of course. That means more consistently applied defensive shields and, importantly, more consistent uptime on fulcrum shift. That makes a poison character's survivability and damage noticeably go up on many teams. On a related note, in my experience once teammates see a crazy controller poisoning mobs in melee range, they sometimes become more aggressive themselves. That indirect effect on teammate choices also tends to make a team move even faster^. ^ This doesn't always happen. It sometimes does, though. I don't know how to characterize tidge's experience. I've no doubt that is their experience. It's just head-scratching how a choice that is obviously and inevitably mechanically inferior* produces a faster clear speed. That doesn't match my experience at all. FWIW. * "Mechanically inferior is admittedly a loaded term. But, it's technically accurate here. You can't do less debuffing and less damage and call that mechanically superior. You. Just. Can't. Still, operating fully from range is absolutely viable and somebody can make an effective poison character doing that. If somebody doesn't want to make the kinds of choices that support operating in melee with a poison character, whether it be bolstering defenses, avoiding taking the alpha, accepting more defeats, or whatever, then that's totally their call. CoH is an easy game, at the end of the day, and even if it wasn't then if somebody enjoys their character more when played fully from range I wouldn't call making that choice wrong.

Here are two builds for two different primaries. The electric control build has lower ranged defense, but is generally still defensively fine because endurance drain ends up being helpful for surviving in melee range during a fair percentage of longer fights. Also, the gremlins confuse a noticeable number of mobs with the cupid's crush proc slotted in them, thereby reducing incoming aggro. The darkness control build is still generally safer, though, partly because of better ranged defense and partly because fearsome stare is a really good opener which recharges for pretty much every spawn. All those to hit debuffs also help. Controller (Darkness Control - Poison - Psi mastery),v3.mbd Controller (Electric Control - Poison - Psi mastery),v2.mbd

Regarding the "dual boss" scenario, having everything around the one boss that didn't get the "big kahuna" debuff melt faster also makes the one boss who only got the splash debuff melt faster because it will tend to be the last undefeated mob quite soon after the fight starts. If you really feel the need to speed up that process then you can click one button after only that boss is left and apply the full debuff if you'd like. One surviving boss is seldom more than a minor speed bump for a team anyways, either way. Still, if somebody enjoys their character more when played at range, then that's more than reason enough to do it. CoH is a pretty easy game and optimizing for fun will usually still lead to a mechanically effective character. It's when you're operating in melee with a poison character that you can really accelerate a team's rate of progress through missions, though. Venomous gas increases the -res and -defense debuffs on enemies, which is helpful for clear speed. And, venomous gas also helps to make it safer to keep drop a highly damaging poison trap loaded with procs as often as possible, which also noticeably helps to improve clear speed.

It is true that that the stacking mechanics work differently for the T2 and T3 poison debuffs when compared to other debuffs that can stack, such as tar patch and freezing rain. For the T2 and T3 poison debuffs you get the highest debuff on the one targeted and a lesser debuff for those affected by a splash from the targeted debuff. That seems mechanically reasonable to me and probably ultimately to the advantage of players because you get to choose which target gets the "Big Kahuna" debuff and which get the lesser debuff. It is more work to double up the T2 and T3 debuffs on mobs, for sure, compared to freezing rain and tar patch. But, venomous gas will usually get applied to mobs only affected by the "lesser" splash debuff, which still makes for a higher total than the T2 / T3 splash debuffs on their own. In practice, it's usually only when fighting EBs and above that it's worth bothering to both target mobs directly with a T2 debuff and to also stack a "splash" of the T2 debuff on them. So, in practice the "wonkiness", as you're calling it, which I would call instead "a welcome opportunity to stack debuffs when they're useful", tends to come up only every so often. I can empathize with finding it bothersome that a clearly melee-focused set is given a cone with a lot of range on it and a long casting time. Mechanically it seems at odds with the rest of the set. In a similar vein, I've often found it bothersome to have those kinds of cones in a melee-focused dominator assault set because to me those are "dead spots" in the assault set that I'll never touch. Still, I don't see how having a cone is relevant for making judgments specific to just the poison set. It seems to me that's part of a larger discussion about set design, at the end of the day.

Even though it means not having a nuke, I tend to prefer controllers when using the poison set. It's typically not difficult to get ranged defense into the mid 30s on a controller. That level of ranged defense paired with good resistances seems to be a kind of "sweet spot" for surviving most +4x8 alphas when heading for the middle of new spawns to drop poison trap. If I'm not sure about how well taking an alpha will go for a particular spawn or if a team has very little support / healing and my poison character is the alpha taker then I'll have a control option that makes getting to the middle of new spawns safer. Plus, with one or more controller pets along for the journey single target damage can be very good, especially with the strength of resistance and defense debuffs offered by poison. Taking enflame boosts AOE damage and also works well against single hard targets. So, overall damage tends to be in a good enough place that the lack of a nuke isn't a significant concern. Another benefit of controllers over defenders is that you can get rune of protection from the sorcery pool at level 20, indomitable will from psionic mastery at level 35, melee core hybrid T4 after reaching level 50, and some knock protection from IOs; together these provide a fair amount of protection against mezzes and knocks even when exemp'd down for lower level task forces. It's not necessary to build with taking alphas in mind, though, as there is usually at least one other character on the team who can take alphas fairly well. In the end, there are a lot of good choices available for building a poison character.

Poison is a premiere "make the team go faster" set when it's played in the aggressive manner suggested by Frosticus in his guide to poisons. The rapid ramp-up of resistance debuffs, in particular, helps to make this true. Given the ease with which one can make thematic characters, the way the poison set promotes an aggressive playstyle that many embrace and enjoy, and the extent to which it can speed up a team by acting as a force multiplier, it's not surprising that there are quite a few who really like the set.

Where was the intimacy coordinator when that animation was playing on screen?

In case you perceive mind control as equivalent to a psionic control set, then mind control / fiery assault is (also) a solid pairing for a dominator. Mind control has been a strong control set for dominators for a long time and it has been noticeably buffed by the recent adaptive recharge change.

I've tried both dark control and dark assault on multiple characters and neither of them ever really clicked for me no matter what other sets I paired up with them. That's a personal preference, though, and I couldn't say what's fun for you and what's not. Like Uun, I couldn't speak to what's good for PvP or not. If the "worth building" question is focused on mechanics, then both sets are very good at what they do. Dark control, in particular, is one of the strongest and most versatile control sets for dominators. The single target confuse lets your dominator punch well above their weight class, which Voltak used a lot to solo harder content. Fearsome stare is enough on its own to clear entire missions with a high degree of safety and when paired with the AOE immobilize it allows you to go a bit light on defenses and still floor mob to hit chances against your dominator in many situations. Heart of darkness, shadow field, and shadowy binds offer similar levels of control to their comparable powers in other dominator sets. All the -to hit tends to be quite noticeable in how it protects a dark control dominator and their teammates, at least in most situations. The T9 pet does reasonable damage and also contributes to controlling mobs, should you choose to take it. Dark assault does reasonable to higher end single target damage, depending on slotting. With a quick-recharging heal in life drain and a noticeable amount of -to hit debuffs it also provides superior survivability. The immobilize in midnight grasp adds another layer of control to whatever other controls are present and it stacks naturally as a part of using your single target attack chain. Gather shadows acts as both a (moderate) damage boost and a "power boost" when its active, which beefs up defense totals whenever it is active. The main limitation of dark assault is that the PbAOE is middling for damage and the AOE cone has good range, but only a 20 degree spread, which is narrow. Dominators are generally not the best at AOE damage anyways, though, so that doesn't put dark assault noticeably behind most other dominator assault sets. The main synergy from playing both sets together comes from the stacking -to hit, which increases survivability in most situations. The immobilize in midnight grasp is quite a nice bonus for control, though, as it reduces the odds that enemies successfully run away before being defeated.

Singy's reverse repel and its ability to keep mobs off their feet are two of its best features. Even without the teleport pool, Singy can be pulled into spawns by moving to the other side of them. With enemies very close together and having a not-so-great time dealing with Singy's knocks usually a team makes short work of them. So, when teaming, shortly after Singy has been pulled (or teleported) into a mob it's usually a great time to wormhole another spawn to drop on top of their friends, where Singy is already hanging out. When soloing, as well, dumping mobs onto Singy with wormhole is a time-honored way to put Singy to good use. Finally, (re)summoning Singy into spawns as an alpha strike can be an effective way to start fights, as long as Singy is ready for resummoning and your grav troller has a stealth IO in sprint, for example. If keeping Singy alive is a challenge, then the two +10% resistance pet IOs can be slotted into Singy, along with 3 other expedient reinforcement IOs and a sudden acceleration KB to KD unique IO. Singy will still need to be resummoned from time to time after mobs defeat it. But, all that damage wasn't directed at your troller or teammates and the occasional resummoning is a minor inconvenience given the added utility Singy brings when its unusual talents are put to good use. PS: Aggressively using Singy this way works really well even in Cimerora against +4x8 spawns gathered together in large numbers, which is one of the more difficult environments in which to do that because of all the EBs and -def buffs that are about. Just monitor Singy's health and do the occasional resummon as needed. Singy's presence will absolutely help the team clear those scrums quicker.

I've tried both overwhelming force and sudden acceleration KB to KD IOs in the same build for the same gravity controller. The effect of singularity on mobs was easier to predict and more controlled with the sudden acceleration KB to KD IO in it than with the overwhelming force KB to KD IO. The difference between them was very noticeable. It costs about 100,000 to 150,000 inf to buy an unslotter. The two unique KB to KD IOs aren't cheap. But, they're not anywhere near the high end for their cost either. If a bit of spare inf is laying around it's probably good to try both of them out if you're unsure which you'd prefer.

Regarding wormhole, repositioning most of a large, loosely packed spawn on itself can be useful because mobs end up being packed closer together and many are stunned. Often another power choice would be better in those situations. But, sometimes the stun and repositioning ends up being worth the long casting time even if you're not dumping one spawn's members upon another spawn. Also, one reason for dumping another spawn onto one the group is currently fighting is that a fair number of sets these days have location-based debuffs and controls for mobs and leveraging what's already on the ground by bringing in more mobs often increases clear speed. I usually put in the purple stun set upon reaching level 50. I also put in the sudden acceleration KB to KD unique IO to make mobs move around less after they're teleported. YMMV on that slotting, of course. Unless there's been a recent change, putting the overwhelming force (OF) "knockback to knockdown" (KB to KD) unique IO in singularity doesn't reliably make its repel / knocks team friendly, but putting the sudden acceleration (SA) KB to KD unique IO does make singularity's repel / knocks team friendly. By that I mean that singularity with the OF KB-to-KD unique IO in it will sometimes fling mobs around, while singularity with the SA KB-to-KD IO in it consistently makes mobs just fall over, and doesn't fling them around. The reverse repel effects seems to work the same way with either of the unique KB to KD IOs slotted into singularity.

Another approach to blaster building and playstyle is to pick whether you'd like to be mostly in melee, near melee, or far away. Then pick powers and slot for success when fighting where you're planning to fight. Then be consistent with your plans, only shifting where you fight if that is needed for survival reasons. Movement costs time, which adds up if you're moving a lot. A lot of perspective changes as you shift between places increases cognitive load and will increase errors in reading what's happening. Also, if you have a smooth and well constructed ranged attack chain then you may not increase damage much, if at all, if you sacrifice multiple ranged attacks to joust and pull off a single hard hitting melee attack. Basically, if you don't need to move around a lot, then it's very often better to not do that. On a similar note, there is value in hover blasting in one place, whether that place be in melee, near melee, or far away from melee. Cognitive load is reduced, which tends to make decision making better. Also, a fully ranged blaster who consistently maintains their range from a fight can see how a fight is evolving better than one in melee, better than one who is moving all over the battlefield. A fully ranged blaster can do a better job of picking out priority targets and figuring out where in a battle to apply their AOEs and mezzes to maximize their effect. They may give up some DPS by not making a lot of use of hard hitting melee attacks. But, in exchange they can switch targets quicker (on average) with ranged attacks than with melee attacks and they can put their DPS to better use through better target selection. Personally, I like building blasters to be in melee 90% of the time, or more. You get fulcrum shift as a matter of course, which usually greatly improves damage, without needing to stop attacking to move in and get it. You get any other AOE buffs aimed at the tank without thinking about it or spending time moving into and out of melee range. I sometimes joust when leveling. But, once endgame has arrived I'd much rather just stay in a consistent place in battles and focus on dishing out damage. If being in melee on the ground gets too dangerous then I'll usually hover just above the fight and stay in melee range that way; there is always a sweet spot above mobs in which you can melee those on the ground, but they can't use their melee attacks against you as you hover above them. If I don't have the ability to hover slightly above the fray on a blaster, and it's too dangerous to be in the thick of melee, then I'll shift to the edges of a melee scrum and fight there. I give up on having a better picture of how larger battles are unfolding by by consistently being in or near melee, though, so there is a tradeoff. I just happen to enjoy fighting in melee range more, so I stick with it. That said, I would agree with a lot of what Nemu is suggesting. For example, using line of sight is inarguably a good idea and it's a really effective way to reduce incoming damage. Also, when soloing, jousting can be a useful tool to confuse enemy AI, which will help to reduce incoming damage. That can be worthwhile even when the time lost to moving while jousting leads to any DPS increase being quite minimal.

Good point and I'm a bit surprised to have forgotten that. The -res proc average uptime per target and the average number of targets affected won't be twice as high with 2 mortars out. But, average uptime per target and average number of targets affected are both damage multipliers that directly affect each other, boosting damage higher than either would entirely on their own, and they both increase with the number of mortars out: basically, two different damage multipliers that multiply each other will tend to get larger together. So, a -res proc in mortar should in most cases deliver noticeably better results with multiple copies out. Multiple copies being a thing noticeably changes the math, making including an achilles -res proc probably a very good use of a single slot.