EnjoyTheJourney

Just a bit of a plug for incarnate play ... Delving into incarnates opens up a lot of new options for character growth and for fun content that you typically can't experience without exploring incarnates. It also allows for a longer journey with a character if you really like that character. Not totally sure which would be a better choice if you want to truncate the experience to pre-incarnates only. Controller might work better, especially if everything is being done on a budget. If you'd like to explore incarnates, then a dom could be both highly effective and a lot of fun.

Run Type: Pylon Archetype: Sentinel Primary Powerset: Electrical blast Secondary Powerset: Super reflexes Time in seconds: 217 (3:37, 304.5 DPS) Burst: Sustained Hybrid: Assault radial, used Number of Runs: Several compromised runs, 1 actual run Version: Issue 27, Page 7, 27.7.5964 (Technically beta server, but live is 27.7.5960, so probably little has changed) Notes: Had to carefully manage voltaic sentinel positioning, as otherwise it would start focusing on a different pylon. Build: Attached Run Type: Office Archetype: Sentinel Primary Powerset: Electrical blast Secondary Powerset: Super reflexes Time in seconds: 375 (6:15) Burst: Sustained Hybrid: Assault radial, used Number of Runs: Two runs, had 3 runners that weren't noticed in the first run, best run given Version: Issue 27, Page 7, 27.7.5964 (Technically beta server, but live is 27.7.5960, so probably little has changed) Notes: Runners were an issue in both attempts. Perhaps when mobs have both little life left and little endurance they all think they're Usain Bolt? Build: Attached Wizard of Lightning - Sentinel (Electrical Blast - Super Reflexes - Electrical Mastery),v3.mbd

Pretty sure it's when the pylon is first damaged that the time recording starts. It would be the simplest and most sensible thing to code. Starting timing whenever somebody cast a self buff near a pylon would be harder to code and it would lead the noticeable measurement errors from time to time. Edit: On reflection, perhaps a debuff put onto the pylon could trigger the start of timing. "Doing something adverse to the well being of a pylon" would be a reasonable trigger for starting timing on a pylon defeat. Haven't been starting out with non-damaging debuffs, and so at least from experience I couldn't really say.

Agreed that it should have lots of slotting options. At present it only works in powers that offer control. One could reasonably say that's thematic. But, one could also say that such a proc can offer a modest control effect along with a damage bump, be slotted in lots of different powers, and that would also be thematic.

There are a fair number of assault sets that don't accept the +damage proc IO. In those cases I tend to put the whole set, including the +damage proc, into an AOE control that gets used a fair amount, preferably as an opener before using assault set powers. That way there's a fair amount of uptime for one stack of the proc and it will often activate just before delivering a damage alpha on a new spawn. Not ideal, but at least the proc offers a modest buff that way. It would be better if that proc worked in any assault set or control power and that when it procs would add both a modest control effect (mag 2 immobilize, 50% chance, for example) and an increase to damage.

Maelwys put a quote about damage mechanics for melee classes into a post about improving the baseline performance of scrappers. A key part of it mentions that the +50% crit strike proc IO activation period begins ticking down when the power into which it is slotted starts animating (in italics and underlined for emphasis). The quoted timeline for crit strikes proc IO activation (when the power into which it is slotted starts animating) doesn't line up with discussions in this thread. But, it does seem to line up with my own fairly limited experiences testing out how crit strike proc IO activations work in practice. In a sense, if crit strikes proc IO activation period begins when the activating power begins to animate then that may re-open discussion about whether or not there's some kind of 0.5 second delay connected to the crit strikes proc IO activation period and in what manner that might apply. It sure would be nice if there was some definitive answer to the question of how +50% crit strike activation periods work that was backed up with data. If there's an icon that appears when the proc is active and that icon disappears when it deactivates then perhaps that would be one way of measuring it. I'll check that out.

Baseline scrapper DPA is often in the 200 - 300+ range for single target attacks. Without crits scrapper single target DPS would be below blasters, many or most sentinels, most dominators, stalkers, and a bunch of other ATs. Crits are what allow scrappers to top these ATs for single target damage. The OP makes a legitimate point about how there are downsides to having so much of an AT's power attached to crits and the associated AT IOs. Another downside to making crits and the associated AT IOs so important is that it is currently quite complicated to build a high-end damage dealing scrapper, requiring a high level of knowledge about mechanics for crits and the AT IOs. Lots of newer players probably have disappointing experiences with scrappers because of that.

Having pondered the input, might as well offer a couple of thoughts. For my scrapper build it probably makes better sense to put the Gaussian build up proc into the build up power, along with a single level 50 recharge IO that is boosted to +5. Then the full adjusted targeting set goes into tactics. With speed boost active, with the build up proc in the build up power there would be a chance to activate the build up proc close to 5 times per two minutes. It's also helpful to be able to use the build up power just before using the attack that has the critical strikes proc IO in it for a potentially really big critical hit if both the Gaussian build up proc and the crit strikes proc IOs activate. Endurance usage is a bit lighter for tactics with the full adjusted targeting set in it, compared to putting that set into the build up power and going with less slots in tactics. Also, better to hit bonuses in tactics from slotting the full adjusted targeting set translates into more hits for everybody on the team in challenging encounters. FWIW, YMMV to anybody pondering how to choose between build up (or aim) vs tactics as a home for the Gaussian build up proc.

Focusing on the minimum base recharge needed for the maximum chance to proc may be a bad bargain, though. What matters more are proc uptime and the number of powers that can be affected by each proc activation, which involves three main considerations ... 1. The chance to activate per attack for the power in which the crit strikes proc IO is slotted 2. The total number of chances to activate that arise per minute 3. The difference between "arcanatime casting time" and "animation time before effect" for each power in the single target attack chain After a fair amount of testing four working hypotheses emerged. First, having more chances to proc per minute can overcome a higher percentage of time to proc, and vice versa. So, comparing both proc chances per attack and also how many times per minute an attack will be available for different global and local recharge amounts helps for narrowing down in which power(s) slotting the crit strikes proc IO might be a good idea. Second, subtract animation time before effect from arcanatime casting time from all attacks. Think of that amount of time as "lost time" because during that time the proc activation period is ticking down, but no follow-up attack can be initiated because the proc and its timer have been activated, but the activating attack has not yet finished animating. These time gaps can vary quite a bit. So knowing the gap in time between the arcanatime casting time and the animation time before effect helps for figuring out in which power the proc IO should be slotted. As a general-but-not-universal rule, it's usually better to slot the proc IO into a power that has an arcanatime casting time and an animation time before effect that are not largely different, as that causes less of the proc activation time to disappear before possible follow-up attacks can have their crit chance increased. Third, to arrive at the order in which to activate follow-up attacks the power with the shortest animation time before effect is likely to be the best choice for the last attack you'd like to have affected by the crit strikes proc IO. Since it seems that the animation time before effect for an attack needs to finish up while the crit strikes proc IO is still within its activation period, having a shorter animation time before effect will usually offer a better chance of getting one more attack to be affected by the crit strikes proc IO. Naturally, if it is the case that only one follow-up attack will have an increased chance to proc then the attack that makes the biggest difference in overall damage done should be the follow-up attack. Fourth, if you like to exemp down for lower level content a lot, then as a final consideration choosing a power that's available in earlier levels will lead to higher damage. Not sure this level of fine-grained analysis is really needed and an exemp'd down scrapper is probably going to do just fine anyways. But, if two powers look about equally attractive to receive the proc this consideration may be a tipping point for choosing one power the other. Also, there probably are some cases in which the activating power recharges fast enough to double stack the crit strikes proc IO. That would also mean many activation chances per minute, which tends to signify a highly desirable situation. But, balanced against these two very favorable conditions it's good to consider whether or not proc activation chances become very small as a result; that may happen if reaching a double-stack state requires lots of recharge in a power that has a short casting time and a very short base recharge time. So, when double stacking is possible the calculations have another layer of complexity to consider.

In other words, since there's no delay in calling the "boost up" buff, it would seem that the actual buff period can be calculated as follows: 5.25 - 0.72 = 4.53 seconds ... because the animation time before effect is 0.5 seconds, but the proc doesn't finish its own animation before the expiration of the arcanatime casting time (1.32 seconds). Roughly 12% of the buff activation period seems to disappear that way. Not a huge loss and it's still worth slotting the proc. It mainly matters for estimating uptime, to get a better developed model of how a build will function with the proc slotted.

The game engine probably checks once every 10 seconds, just like for tactics. The wild card would seem to be whether or not it checks for activation of the proc with every mob that gives you a buff for invincibility or just for that one mob that gives you the highest bonus. Not sure how that might be coded.

City of Data seems a bit hard to read for the Gaussian proc. The City of Data entry for the "boost up" buff(?), pet(?) or pseudopet(?) called by the proc on activation goes as indicated on the following webpage: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=set_bonus.set_bonus.boost_up ... which makes it sound like a 5.25 second buff. And yet, it clearly lists 10 seconds as the duration of the buff in the main entry webpage for the proc. Also, the arcanatime casting time is 1.32 seconds and the animation before power takes effect time is 0.5 seconds. That suggests 0.72 seconds of the buff time will be essentially lost and shouldn't count when estimating uptime for the proc. So, 92.8% of the 10 second activation time is available for buffing attacks. The best guess I can make is that the final power to be affected by the Gaussian build up proc needs to finish up its "animation time before effect" before the 10 second activation time window elapses.

I've heard the following two statements about how the power in which the Gaussian build up proc is placed can affect the proc activation rate. 1. Putting the Gaussian build up proc in build up (or aim) will offer a 90% proc rate. A bit of "napkin math" suggests that build up proc uptime will be roughly a little less than 15% for many characters (unless global recharge and recharge in the build up proc power are quite high or quite low). 2. Putting the Gaussian build up proc into the "leadership: tactics" will lead to fewer build up proc activations when soloing. But, it will lead to more build up proc activations on a full team. IIRC the reason teammates increase the proc rate is that Gaussian build up proc can activate off of any team member, but regardless of who activates the proc the damage and to hit buffs it provides will always be for the character that slotted the proc into tactics. Not sure how to calculate activation rates in this scenario, which makes it challenging to try to estimate uptime for the Gaussian build up proc. Are these two statements true, false, or a bit of both? Has anybody modeled and/or tested proc activation rates when the Gaussian build up proc is slotted into leadership: tactics? If so, what were the results? In the absence of more formal modeling or testing, is there anecdotal evidence of a difference in proc rates (and therefore uptime)? Thank you in advance for any insights / data offered!

Currently learning more about criticals and scrappers. City of Data and Mids information may be taken to suggest the following: A. The base critical chance for an attack is 5% for a scrapper, by default. B. If a critical happens then the base damage of a power doubles (ie: a base damage of 50 becomes 100). C. The "Superior Scrapper Strikes" recharge / critical hit bonus IO increases the critical chance by a flat 3% (from 5% to 8%) when it is placed into a power. This bonus is "always on" as long as the relevant unique IO is slotted into a power and it never needs to be activated by any attack. D. The "Superior Critical Strikes" (ie: catalyzed) "recharge / +50% crit proc IO" activates 4 times per minute, on average. E. When activated, the +50% crit proc IO increases the chances of a crit to 58% (8% + 50% = 58%) as long as the unique +3% critical hit bonus IO is slotted into a power and the follow-up attack(s) to a "+50% crit proc IO" activation finish within 3.25 seconds after the "Animation time before effect" of the activating power finishes up. This is a lot to take in, so here's a simplified possible combat event log ... 1. "Initiating power" activates the +50% crit proc IO and the "initiating power's" 1.188 arcanatime casting time begins. - The timer for the "animation time before effect" begins when the "initiating power" is activated. 2. The "animation time before effect" of the "initiating power" = 0.688 seconds - the 3.25 second activation period for the +50% crit proc IO begins immediately after "2" above 3. After 0.5 seconds (1.188 - 0.688 = 0.5 seconds) the arcanatime casting time for the "initiating power" ends. - The remaining window of time for a 58% crit chance is now 2.75 seconds, as 0.5 seconds is lost 4. 1st follow-up attack has an arcanatime casting time of 1.584 seconds and a crit chance of 58%. - This attack both begins and finishes its arcanatime casting time within the 3.25 second activation period of the +50% crit proc IO. 5. 2nd follow-up attack has an arcanatime casting time of 1.32 seconds and a crit chance of 8%. - This attack begins, but does not finish, its arcanatime casting time within the 3.25 second activation period of the +50% crit proc IO. Event 5 is true because ... - The 3.25 seconds of activation time for the +50% crit proc IO became 2.75 seconds after losing 0.5 seconds when the "initiating power" took 0.5 seconds after the animation time before effect ended to finish up the arcanatime casting time. - The sum of arcanatime casting times for the 1st and 2nd follow-up attacks equals 2.904 seconds, which is greater than the remaining 2.75 seconds of +50% crit proc IO activation time. So, the 1st follow-up attack began and ended in a timely way (ergo, 58% proc chance), but the 2nd follow-up attack did not finish up before the +50% crit proc IO activation time expired (ergo, 8% proc chance). Am I misunderstanding anything about how critical strikes function? If so, then where am I going wrong? Thank you in advance for any feedback provided!

Smoke canister + liquid nitrogen is a good combination. Smoke canister reduces mob vision so mobs will be passive longer and it therefore keeps mobs grouped together and in the incoming liquid nitrogen patch. Liquid nitrogen triggers the confusion effect on mobs in the smoke canister area. Also, liquid nitrogen means that even if they resist the confusion effect (ie: bosses) then they'll be slipping and falling fairly often. The cloaking device power seems to be fairly close to a "superior invisibility" clone. It's great for being able to seize the initiative in fight after fight because mobs generally can't see your dom until after you've laid an alpha on them. The AOE disorient is quite good and with good slotting its uptime is quite good as well. Basically, with the caveat that -fly isn't abundant and there's no immobilize (like illusion, for example) arsenal control has an abundance of AOE controls. The pet is a good tank with a taunt. However, it can split mobs away from the rest of a spawn. Overall it's a good power to take. But, it does have that downside.

Not sure how long this will last. But, just finished a 40 second pylon defeat with an illusion / fire / mace dominator. After looking at Mezmera's build and noticing the use of envenomed daggers, which had never occurred to me, I wanted to see how well fiery assault might compare to energy assault. So, I largely copied the parameters of Mezmera's 42 second run and tried to see if I could execute well enough to get a quicker run. It took probably about 10 attempts to get a time this low, with most attempts featuring brain farts or really hamfisted misclicks. Execution even at 40 seconds still isn't quite there yet, though, so it's possible that with more practice the defeat time could become at least a bit shorter. Run Type: Pylon Archetype: Dominator Primary Powerset: Illusion Secondary Powerset: Fiery Epic: Mace w/Tarantula Time in seconds: 40 (1086.5 DPS) Burst: Sustainable but I'd have to resummon the Phantom Army in the middle Hybrid: Assault Core (on) Destiny: Ageless Core Interface: Degenerative Radial Alpha: Musculature Core Number of Runs: 10-ish (took best time) Version: Latest build on open beta v4 Temps Used: Offensive amplifier, Gaes and Envenomed Daggers (No insps or Lores used) Build: file attached (PS: It's not an accident that almost everything looks the same as Mezmera) Dominator (Illusion Control - Fiery Assault - Mace Mastery),PylonContest,v2.mbd

Dominators could be seen as damage dealers, controllers, and debuffers. For damage dealing, dominators can do good to very good single target damage. Not at the level of a scrapper or stalker built to do damage, but even with and perhaps ahead of many blasters. AOE is not a strong point for dominators. But, it probably still lands even with or ahead of most scrappers / stalkers (crits are a key inflection point, here, so probably this is not always true) and below ATs with a nuke and other strong AOEs (blasters, sentinels, corruptors). For control, dominators are the strongest AT in the game because of the effects of domination. For debuffs dominators tend to come in ahead of blasters, sentinels, and melee ATs, perhaps with some exceptions, but noticeably behind many controllers, corruptors and defenders. This does vary a lot by powerset, though, as some powersets have very good debuffs, while others do not. For team buffs, the main ones that come to mind are mind link from Psi mastery and spirit tree from plant control. They are modestly helpful buffs, in general, and most dominators probably don't have them. Also, these two buffs are easily eclipsed in their value by the buffs available to ATs that specialize in buffing. So, while it could be said that (some) dominators have buffs, it's probably more accurate to say that buffs are not a noteworthy plus that dominators tend to bring to teams.

It might help to note that phantom army does knockdown against even con enemies that are not susceptible to knockback (ie: clockwork). It's phantasm that blows mobs all over unless "knockback to knockdown" IOs are used. Here's what seems to be a particularly relevant webpage from UberGuy's City of Data ... https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_decoy_dominator

Just one hypothesis, may not be true. There are a lot of new players these days. They'll naturally bring ideas about MMO character roles based on their past experiences with them. Not fair or helpful, for sure, but it will sometimes happen. Also, with sonic / sonic being a fairly rarely combo it's likely even some moderately experienced players don't understand what your character brings to the table, at least not in a detailed way. For PUGs you could try stating at the beginning that the main things your character brings to the group are resistance buffs, an anti-mez bubble, and -resist debuffs for mobs. You could even make that announcement into a macro that you press once just before starting out with a new group. Unfair comments will still probably happen. But, especially if you've already explained what your character brings you can politely point out that "reading is good, understanding even better" if others try to deflect blame for their own mistakes onto you.

Distilling the core message down, it seems the following are the basic facts to bear in mind ... 1. Add arcanatime to each attack's base animation time, as well as a very short time period that rounds up to fit CPU cycle times - Do this by clicking the appropriate place in Mids options so it adds in arcanatime and also adds in the "rounding up" effect to adjust for CPU cycles 2. Each power starts to recharge after its animation time, where "animation time" refers to ... base casting time + arcanatime + rounding up to fit CPU cycles 3. To make an attack chain seamless, all powers need to recharge before all other attack powers used in the chain finish their animation times - This last point can be a bit more complex to work out when powers are used more than once as part of an attack chain. But, this principle still holds. As a related observation, 3 - 5 attack powers in a chain is usually a good number. Practically speaking, as more powers are added to an attack chain you're at some point going to be adding in powers that have lower DPA and that you couldn't slot as well because the total number of slots available for attacks will always be limited. So, this totally makes sense. Hopefully I got it right this time. And, thank you for your patience in explaining this.

Thank you for a full explanation. It is very helpful and much appreciated. There is a potentially crucial detail that I may have somehow missed. For a long time it seemed visually like powers start to recharge once they are activated and I've been trying to calculate attack chains with that in mind. But, it seems implied that powers only become available to use again according to the following formula ... power cast time + 1 unit of arcanatime + recharge time ... where recharge time is the result of dividing base recharge time by the total recharge directly in the power plus global recharge (assuming no external recharge buffs or debuffs). Did I get that right? If I did, then everything else about your post makes sense to me and I can (finally!) start working out attack chains in a better way.

After a fair while trying it's still not clear to me how to work out a seamless attack chain. Arcanatime doesn't seem to explain what I often see about how powers recharge and activate. Perhaps there's something about the UI that I'm missing so I don't realize when it's time to click an attack icon. I definitely don't have an easy time looking at cast time and recharge time in Mids and then predicting what DPS is likely to result. Perhaps somebody can explain to this slow learner (and others who read this thread who are probably quicker to figure things out than I am) the art and science of putting together a seamless attack chain without wasting slots or IOs to create a lot of overlap between when attack powers are available that in the end doesn't raise DPS.

This reply comes quite late, so perhaps the OP has already moved on to other things. Which would be understandable. When it comes to builds, a good option to check out is JJDrakken's Random Builds, which is further down on the "Archetypes" forum, below the subforums for each AT. Here's a link to that thread ... I don't feel qualified to provide builds for electricity control, especially on a budget. So, hopefully JJDrakken's Random Builds ends up being helpful if you'd still like to play the dom you are inquiring about here and hadn't gotten to finalizing a build.

A sample build is attached. It's not perfect and ranged defense, in particular, could be improved, as could resistances. Still, hopefully it ends up helping. A few notes on the build ... 1. Getting softcap on smash / lethal damage was a priority. It helps in many situations, although definitely not all. 2. Burst of speed can be cast three times in rapid succession before the power goes on cooldown. This means you would have a "second nuke", as three button presses of burst of speed in close proximity with each other will do more damage than the nuke in your primary. It also recharges faster than the nuke in your primary. 3. Past experience with martial combat suggests that both the absorb and the recovery bonus in reaction time are worth slotting. The absorb, in particular, seems to take care of a large percentage of incoming chip damage. 4. Despite having more damage, dragon's tail was overlooked in favor of psionic tornado. Psi nado has a larger AOE radius, and so it will tend to hit more targets. It can also be used from range, which makes it quicker and easier to use in many situations. A core idea of the build is to "stay in the fight", which involves managing incoming mezzes and having good "peak survivability" options when receiving moderate-to-heavy incoming fire. For incoming mezzes inner will and rune of protection (RoP) help quite a bit. RoP is available at level 20 in this build, meaning that even when exemp'd down for a Positron task force you may be able to have some mez protection. At level 50 melee core hybrid adds a third option for managing incoming mezzes. You'll always want a couple of break free inspirations in case your mez protection gets overloaded by stacked mezzes or for gaps in mez coverage that may appear. For peak survivability you can get certain clicky accolades that temporarily buff your character and you can use the barrier core destiny incarnate and the melee core hybrid incarnate choices. RoP also helps peak survivability by increasing resistances in a noticeable way while it is active, in addition to providing good mezz protection. Blaster (Psychic Blast - Martial Combat - Mace Mastery).mbd

The most natural and believable place to add -fly might be the single target hold. Ice is water and water is heavy. Add enough ice to prevent somebody from moving, factor in all the added weight, and it would tend to make sense that frozen flying things end up dropping out of the sky. Edit: Gravity control already has -fly in the single target hold. So, it wouldn't be breaking entirely new ground for arsenal control to also have -fly in a single target hold.