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SaddestGhost

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Everything posted by SaddestGhost

  1. From my understanding, your proposal boils down to "What if a controller could Overpower any mob?" I don't think there's anything in that which would shift the game balance overwhelmingly, particularly in the damage focused environment of the current game. The one thing I would also throw into consideration is the duration of the Overpower effects. Rather than making the chance for Overpower dramatically lower (I feel your original proposal is a bit too low), perhaps it should be shorter lived on harder targets. A mixture of a lower chance and a lower overall duration with the higher magnitude could strike an appealing balance. I'm just tossing out some numbers for illustration: Rank Chance for OP Duration as % of base Additional Magnitude Minion 35% 150% +1 Lieutenant 30% 120% +1 Bosss 25% 100% +1 Elite Boss 10% 50% +6 Archvillian 5% 10% +50 The way I imagine that playing out is that occasionally a controller operating on their own would be able to hold an AV, but for a very brief duration (2-4 seconds). Additionally, this would give Overpower some utility when it hits a minion or lieutenant by extending the duration of the hold. Ideally, you could even tweak the numbers for individual powers with a lower chance on spammable single target holds and a significantly higher chance on AoE controls that are more difficult to stack. In my dream scenario controlling an AV would be less about stacking magnitude and more about cycling through different types of controls. I've always imagined it as the PToD cycling through different periods of protection, but I think there is a better solution somewhat akin to the PVP mechanics as mentioned up thread. If an AV essentially became immune to a hold for some period after one lands, you could then use a stun or confuse. It would require some careful coordination to keep an AV locked down and utilize powers like Flashfire which typically have no use in AV fight now. Of course, there's the issue of triggering those protections unintentionally through powers where they're only a secondary effect. Overall, I think it would be more interesting and dynamic play.
  2. Perhaps it's a bit of jealousy, but every time I see some new tweak to blasters I wish a little more love would reach controllers and doms. I'd gladly take a control set with recycled animations and visual effects if it meant there was a new one to play. Wind Control isn't the lowest hanging fruit there (some kind of gadget/grenade set would probably be lower effort) but I'd certainly love to see it in some incarnation.
  3. Much of the dysergy in Dark is, in my opinion, an intentional decision made by the live devs. Dark's ability to stack handy amounts of -to hit debuff with nearly every ability means it offers a layer of protection beyond its mez alone. I think they wanted to disrupt that inherent synergy a bit to prevent Dark from being the premier control set. Even in doing so they compensated by giving Living Shadows a bit of bonus damage. As it is, it's a very powerful set that does everything well while not being the best in any area. The only thing in Dark that actually needs fixed is Haunt's AI, which tend to do nothing after their initial target is defeated. Of course, it's not alone in control pets that needs an AI tweak. Phantasm can't keep itself out of melee despite not having any melee attacks. As for things that I would be nice extras, I'm all for alternative models for the dog (never been a fan) and it really needs to shut up.
  4. Barrier's defense and resist buffs have the same duration; a huge buff up front that degrades after 10, 30, 60, then 120 seconds.
  5. Energy Font demonstrably does very little. Take it for spin time against some lower rank enemies and spam the AoE immobilize with Energy Font. Watch how many of the enemies are actually stunned. Against a spawn of about 10 Rikti in RWZ, I was spawning about two orbs at a time and they were able to control two minions. Against something -15 to my level I would expect they could keep even those minions locked down, but they can't. The stun was sporadic. Want to see how poor they are for damage? Slot it in Confuse, stand right next to your target and spawn them. They barely nibble at even conning minions. If their purpose isn't control or damage, I guess it could be to take aggro. But spawning on top of the owner before moving in on the mobs is a poor way to go about that. If they spawned at the target, they might actually have a use in Sleep powers by taking a little alpha strike when they wake up mobs.
  6. It will proc one when you cast Singularity, but after letting Sing go to town on some practice dummies for about 3 minutes it didn't proc any.
  7. Mez magnitudes are additive in regards to magnitude. All mobs have some inherent level of mez protection (minions = 1, lieutenants =2, bosses =3, elite bosses = 4, AVs = 3/6 + 50 when purple triangles are up). As long as their mez protection is 0 or greater they can continue to act freely. So take a boss mob, for example, and hit it with Flashfire with a duration of 20 seconds. That reduces its mez protection to 0 for those 20 seconds (assuming even level), so it remains active. If an Energy Orb swoops in during that time and hits it with a mag 2 Stun for 5 seconds, the boss will be stunned for those 5 seconds because its total stun protection is reduced to -2. People have often complained because of the binary nature of this, especially in regards to AVs. If you can reliably stack 50 magnitude hold against an AV it means nothing while the Purple triangles are up. 54 is the magic number in most cases. As for Energy Orb, it's a bit hard to quantify how long its stun lasts. Using the proc in Confuse against a single target and monitoring the target's stun protection with a power analyzer, I've seen the stun last as little as 5 seconds and as much as 10 seconds. Damage wise I can see that even two Energy Orbs sitting on an even con minion are hardly making a dent damage-wise.
  8. My experience just doesn't match up with this even on teams. Minions and Lieutenants are wiped out in the volley of initial AoE. Where control matters is on the bosses that remaining standing. While some sets do benefit less, we see them all near the bottom in numbers for Doms. From the bottom up: Ice, Grav, Electric, Earth. Earth remains near the middle of the pack because its provides extensive control; both Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses can deal with bosses fairly effectively. Grav is a notable exception there but the explanation for its change in position is fairly simple; it trades early control for additional damage which benefits doms very little.
  9. The high recharge is nice on the control side of Dominators; it's also why many controllers chase it as well. However, when you begin to hit heavy diminishing returns on recharge in individual powers, the reason to keep pushing forward is perma-dom. For instance, I've been working on a Grav/energy build. If I drop all of the LotGs out of it, I can lose 37.5% global recharge. That makes a 3 second difference in how often I can cast Wormhole, but it drops me out of perma-dom by 10 seconds plus the time it takes to rebuild the domination bar. Additionally, Assault secondaries don't have many long recharge powers that benefit that much recharge. Shorter recharges just simply hit diminishing returns on recharge faster. It's quite possible to build a solid attack chain without the levels needed for perma-dom. So, it's a nice side effect, but only to a point. There's a reason people span that gap despite the diminishing returns. If you look at the popularity of Mind Control on Doms vs. controllers, I think it points at how valuable that extra magnitude is to control powers. Uncontrolled bosses kill squishies without other defensive options available to them.
  10. You are correct. It is a mag 2 stun, enough to overcome a minion's mez protection on its own. I'm unsure how it behaves in Blind, but I know the sleep in Blind has a very small radius. It's a pretty rare thing to see the sleep itself given how closely packed enemies need to be. As for TK, it can't even be slotted there.
  11. I have multiple issues with the controller ones and you've hit on one of them. Most put them in an AoE immobilize and spam that power. That, of course, isn't an option for Mind and Illusion. Plant and Fire, which already sit near the top of the pack for control sets, have bonus damage in those powers and this incentives their frequent use even more. For others it encourages a game play style that is somewhat detrimental to team play, often locking mobs in scattered formations because they've jumped to utilize those powers before enemies are neatly gathered. I also question why the heck Energy Orb was given a stun. It stacks nicely with Fire (again), Earth, and Dark, but as a mag 1 stun it does very little for other sets. When every set has a hold, why wasn't this the default choice to make it more equitable?
  12. True, they are more damage, but they leave the application of it in your hands. Coming out of Hide, you've got the choice of single target heavy hitter or AoE or which enemy is the one that you really need to defeat. Likewise you'll be choosy with when you fire off your next Build up. The stalker ATOs, I would say, at least loop back into the decisions you're making as you play the AT and that's what makes them so enjoyable. If the controller ATO popped up a buff that told me I had increased mag for a few seconds, I'd most definitely slot it. While also improving the role I play on teams, it encourages me to think about what I'll do next.
  13. Late on Live Gravity received a pass that resulted in changes to Dimension Shift and Wormhole; Wormhole became aggro free and its radius was increased (IIRC), which helped a great deal. On HC the introduction of the kb > kd IO, Wormhole become much, much more orderly; instead of throwing targets randomly near your target, it drops them in a nice pile. Knockback, Teleport, and cage powers like Detention Field and Sonic Cage have variable magnitude which means they are reduced by level differences. (At one point, you could use Hami-Os to alter the magnitude of DF/SC in order to cage an even level elite boss. I'm not sure if that remains unchanged.) At +3 the Teleport is being resisted, reducing it from 4.1 mag to 2.66 mag so it is no longer able to overcome a boss mob's inherent 3.0 protection. I would imagine a fix is as easy as tagging the teleport unresistable, but that relies on things that shouldn't be teleported actually having been given teleport protection rather than some ridiculous amount of teleport resistance.
  14. Thanks for the solid advice, SwitchFade. I can already notice the difference when foregoing the Attack Vitals combo for my heavier attacks. It's a shame that the combos don't offer more utility for the cost of performing them. It really shows that they were designed with the slow Assassin's Blade in mind. It's probably something the devs wouldn't consider with so much on their plate already, but I'd love to see the combos reordered with the consideration that AB can be used mid-combat now. Thematically, Attack Vitals would align well as Ablating Slice > Vengeful Slice > Assassin's Blade. Cut through their defenses, put them in a vulnerable position, and exploit their weaknesses. Empower would now work better completely reversed. I'm glad I can be effective without them, but a bit disappointed that I won't be using them often. It seemed like a fun mechanic that perhaps works better on other ATs.
  15. It's quite possible. As Redlynne pointed out it's generally much easier for a dominator to do so than a controller. One other thing to consider is that your mez powers are reduced in duration against foes that con higher than you. At +4 their duration is reduced by nearly half which makes it quite a bit more difficult, but it is doable. If you attempt it be sure to pick up the Vanguard Medallion as it will boost your control durations for a full minutes when used. Use it and stack up as much confuse mag as you can before engaging with an attack chance intermittent with confuse.
  16. Remote base access, I gathered, was a mistake that may eventually be cut off since it has the unfortunate side effect of allowing people to escape debt and dying. It's also taking for granted that people know such a thing is possible (which is also true of Null the Gull). Seeing a few people crowded around a sea gull (or wolf or lion) near Ms. Liberty has the potential to catch the attention of people that weren't aware such an option existed. Heck, why not just make the non-alignment options available at trainers?
  17. This analysis is a good starting point for comparison, but I think its somewhat flawed because of the diminishing returns we encounter in regard to shorter recharges and longer durations. I'm not certain how to weight those factors, but I do feel the scales wouldn't be linear. It does put us in the ball park where the numbers can be tweaked after some game play though. I'd really have to get my hands on a working power to see how this suggestion feels. I imagine it would feel similar to Herdicaning, but significantly easier since you could circle strafe to pick up foes that fell out of the repel area without all of Hurricane's radial repel. Playing around with TK and Detention Field a long, long time ago, I stumbled upon a trick that reflects this idea a little bit. Once you've isolated your TK anchor with Detention Field, you could move around the target to direct your TK. If I recall correctly, moving near or far the anchor didn't do much because the range was considered from the user to anchor. If Detention Field wasn't a fixed duration it would have been a useful trick, but otherwise it didn't bear fruit. One other thing I would consider is upping the hold duration so that foes that reach the end of the cone don't immediately break free.
  18. I am making an assumption here that I'll admit requires more understanding of how things operate under the hood, but the thing to springs to mind for me is toggle suppression. For instance, Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion remain active when the user is put to sleep. They continue to apply other mez protection to the user, but no longer provides defense/resist. Only part of the power cancels when held/stunned/slept and resumes when those effects expire. It may be necessary to code it in such a way that tokens that suppress a portion of the power are granted upon activation and expire after a set period.
  19. I've been playing one as well, but I'm too inexperienced with stalkers to offer much advice. In fact, I've got a lot of questions myself. Like is the Empower combo worth using? The few tidbits I've found tend to recommend skipping the combos all together aside from Sweep for a bit of AoE.
  20. Many options seem to be locked behind Null the Gull due to the labor intensive nature of changing UI. But he's kind of a pain in the butt to get to when you start a new character. His position is understandable given that he can change your alignment, but what about the rest of his flock? Perhaps some of of his kindred could take up residence in other zones with a limited selection of options, basically all the QoL changes (Mystic Fortune, speed buffs, etc.) while leaving out realignment in dedicated hero/villain zones?
  21. I like the theme. A lot of existing effects from Vahz and DE could be adopted in making it happen and Ground Crawler's immediately put me in mind of the D&D spell Creeping Doom. I will second Flea's feedback though. A mag 1 won't even hold a minion in a single application. Mag 3 is the standard for control primaries and anything less is going to feel hampered. Balance-wise it might be difficult, but I think the swarming concept works well with a chaining power. Perhaps each successive chain has less magnitude and duration? A much less serious suggestion: a small AoE confuse that grants the target a taunt aura so it looks like the target's buddies are trying to swat the bugs away... with bats and guns.
  22. Since you seem confused, I'll give you another potential solution that I didn't spitball in 60 seconds. We know that powers can have their function altered by checking for certain status, granted tokens, or modes (Hidden, InCombat, Grant_Combo_Level1, Swap Ammo, etc.). We know status/tokens/modes can be granted after some delay (NoPhase after 30 seconds in Nebulous Form, Hibernate, etc). We then make TK with a variety of modes (TK1: mag 3 hold, 1.0 endurance/sec, TK2: mag 4 hold, 2.0 endurance/sec, TK3: mag 6 hold, 3.5 endurance/sec); the power itself will set each mode after a fixed amount of time and swap to the higher mag/endurance cost mode. There's one potential implementation that utilizes only existing tech. I'd like to point out that I don't even find the Cheeseman's original proposition all that appealing. But the eagerness to shoot down ideas from the technical limitations stand point is far from constructive. Brainstorming is a vital part of creative problem solving work. After you have a basket of ideas you weed out the good from the bad. If there's some objection to his idea other than "we can't do it", I'd like to hear it at least.
  23. Multiple toggles baked into one power may be able to do it. The original would just check if the target was valid and the player was still using the power, it would toggle on Hold 1 with X endurance cost, after some seconds Hold 2 with X+1 endurance cost, after some more seconds Hold 3 with X+2 endurance cost... There's no reason people need to be constrained by what exists for a mere suggestion. It might lead to someone in charge wondering "Is this possible?" only to discover that it is. We've certainly seen some surprising developments before like fast-snipes or Injection behaving differently based on its target. Now more than any other time in the process is the time for thinking outside the box.
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