Riverdusk

Player-1 from another thread: "Even Level pets are in the pipeline, but there is a lot of work associated with the change with how their stats, slotting, and other interactions come into play." So, they are definitely looking at it. They will then also look at "balance" I'm sure. I'd have no problem if they "adjust" the tier 1 and 2 pets damage back down a bit to compensate. My issue with MM pets has never really been with their damage, but with their survivability. At least now that mercs damage seems to be fixed anyway. Oh, and that still leaves the one other issue I have with them, and that is how slow they move, some of them more than others, necro probably the worst. Even if they are "their own team", it doesn't matter much if by the time they arrive on scene to the next mob, the rest of your team has already defeated everything.

Interesting, I was thinking more that defenders benefited by being able to skip a weak tier 1 blast if they wanted. Personally I like infrigidate and time crawl (both are also nicely procable). I don't see a clear winner from this change between those two AT's myself. Tanker/brute is the one that jumped out to me, as you almost always want your tier 1 armor set power anyway, but people like to skip a lot of tier 1 melee attacks if they can and now finally tanks can do so (winner: tank).

Not sure I'd put brutes in a coffin myself, but actually surprised no one is here mentioning the new ability of tanks to now skip the tier 1 attack in their secondary? I love the change for the game overall, but I do think that's an advantage that brutes had over tankers that is now gone.

Yep. Even more shocking and I imagine rare, sometimes I've even done it on purpose.

The base damage bonus is 52.5%. However, and there is a good chance this is a bug, it appears to be buffed by the slotting of damage resistance enhancements. So, with say 56% damage resistance slotted into it (about 3 SO's worth), it goes to 81.9%. And it doesn't appear to just be a text bug issue as it also shows the 81.9% buff under the pet's actual combat attributes. Typically a buff like that is marked as unenhancable to prevent that issue, but maybe the devs left it that way on purpose this time. The damage bonus is also not affected by player level, it is static. That bonus, like all of them, then decays in a linear fashion during its duration. So, 1 minute in for example, you only get half that.

Very much. Despite the issues they may have, I still find them unique and fun to play.

Look for posts from @voltak in the dom forum. He's posted several. Dark/Dark I think is the one he started with. I'd say he's also an above average player in skill so that's to be kept in mind, but it is definitely doable. Honestly I'd disagree with @Uun a bit in that I think it is actually a bit easier to do on a controller than on a dom. Might just be my own bias in how I prefer the AT overall though. Illusion controllers were famous for standing on their own and soloing pretty much everything since early on in the game's history, illusion/rad most famously. Not that they were the fastest at everything, but that they could do it. Illusion/dark was the first one I think that I bothered trying to solo a giant monster on back during live game and did so without much issue. Will be interesting to see what illusion doms can handle.

Except you didn't do any such thing and I showed why. Think we've reached the agree to disagree stage. Good luck to you in your future super hero, or villain, endeavors.

You probably already know, but MM's also pay more endurance for most secondary powers as well, and for lessor effect. Darkest night for example costs a MM .65 endurance a second, for everyone else it is .52. Just one example.

Pure garbage eh? Nice. Way to keep things civil @Rudra. I specifically alluded to temp attacks not being able to be slotted, so I think I know that. I addressed the biggest drawback and acknowledged it, accuracy, but there are many ways to overcome that, most that I'd do even if I didn't use temp powers, so zero extra effort. But I admit that may be different for others, I was speaking personal experience. The whole post of course was also personal experience, I find temp powers, especially plasmatic taser very strong (and I hope I don't get it nerfed). Anyway, I specifically mentioned plasmatic taser and empty clips, so how about we compare those? Thugs empty clips (Slotted with 95% worth of damage enhancements) Average damage: 47.1 DPA: 25.74 Activation Time: 1.83 Recharge Time: 8 seconds Endurance Cost: 18.98 Plasmatic Taser (No enhancements because yes I do know temp powers can't be slotted) Average damage: 102 DPA: 96 Activation Time: 1.07 seconds Recharge Time: 12 seconds Endurance cost: 14.82 Not even including that plasmatic taser has a bigger arc 45 degrees compared to 30, which is a pretty huge difference. Radius are the same. You'd have to slot about 28% endurance reduction to empty clips to get it down to the same endurance cost as the free temp power. The free temp power that (even after fully slotting the MM primary attack for damage) still does more than twice the average damage and almost 4 times the DPA of the MM attack. Only other basic disadvantages of taser is the 4 second longer recharge, but I'd say twice the damage and 4 times the dpa yes "blow that out of the water". Especially when you start accounting for global recharge reduction which tend to reduce that gap on an absolute basis. At perma hasten levels taser is recharging in about 4.3 seconds. I'm not going to be firing it off more often than that anyway most likely, I do have other things to do. I'll take the bigger arc and the huge damage difference over the slightly faster recharge. To be totally fair, the taser of course also can't be slotted with procs, and it has knockback that can't be slotted with a kb to kd IO. To also be fair, the temp power costs a whopping 50k influence for every 240 charges (yes I'm being sarcastic on that one, that is virtually free). Compared to the mm attack costing you a power pick and 5 or 6 slots in your build. Temp power wins that one imo. Anyway, besides all of that, most players aren't even asking for much, a little bit of endurance reduction? So all the pushback is a bit weird. How about giving MM's the free 28% endurance reduction that the close to equivalent temp power has? Don't think anyone is even asking to address the huge damage disparity.

I'd find an immobilize proc very useful on some of my characters, so that's a difference of opinion. Things are getting a bit off track, so to bring it back around, I also very much like that spectral wall is an immobilize and unlike others in this thread, do not want to see that changed. I hate having to chase after AV's that like to run around, and with phantom army not taunting, I 100% like having an immobilize for those situations.

It'll be strong no doubt, but I'd say I could actually build an illusion controller just as strong. As usual the controller would be later blooming on damage though as it depends on epic attacks for a good chunk of its aoe damage. The illusion controller will still be the stronger AV killer at the least due to much more availability to -regen and the phantom army having taunt. Compared to other doms, as already mentioned, I think fire and plant will still outdo it for AoE mass killing. It still isn't going to have nearly as much -tohit that dark control has, so I think dark control is still the safer set. It might become the single target damage king for doms though? I don't see that as a bad thing. Single target damage is a bit underappreciated in CoH.

Welcome to your opinion, but just to make sure you are aware I looked that proc up and it appears the tohit debuff is 7.5%. A level 50 AV resists 85% of that, so that proc is only lowering that AV's accuracy by 1.125%. A +4 AV would resist another half of that again due to level difference, so in that case you are looking at it "helping" you by only about .6%.

I wouldn't mind the toxic res swapped for lethal. But then I tend to automatically think of toxic as like acid damage, which would work well on zombies, so that resistance also confused me. But I guess toxic also includes poison, so guess it depends what kind of toxic. Of course thematic appropriate has to somewhat give way to balance sometimes. I'd still never argue to give them fire resistance as that is just too on the nose thematic. Lethal though I don't see an issue with and I'd still like to see them get one way or another, even if it is in lessor amounts. Most of the melee pets (demons, beasts, thug bruiser) have both s/l resist for a reason.

I can totally respect that. I'm maybe not to the same degree as you, but I dislike playing the most popular or FoTM sets at least. There is definitely something nice about taking an underappreciated powerset and managing to do well with it, and having fun with it.

Only thing that bugs me about farming sometimes is all the begging for it on the LFG channel. I'd suggest a farming channel, but then people would probably just spam both, so nevermind. 😄

Agreed, with the changes they made to some of the sets they seem to be encouraging the use of the personal attacks. If they are going to do that, it'd be nice for them to not be so endurance penalized. And not just pool attacks are the only better alternative. Honestly, my go to if I want to add a little extra damage and have some buttons to press are temp powers. Temp attacks are usually the much better bet than the powers in a mm's primary. Plasmatic taser (very cheap at P2W) blows any of the MM aoe attacks out of the water even after accounting for enhancements in the mm powers. It does 102 damage in a cone at level 50 for 14.82 endurance, Thugs empty clips to compare does 24 base damage in a cone at level 50 for 18.98 endurance. Blackwand/nemesis staff is of course the go to for single target that hits a lot harder than any MM power. Honestly the baseball bat and sledgehammer are fun and effective as well. Only advantage of the MM attacks is you can slot accuracy, but with tactics, a kismet IO, accuracy set bonuses, and typically some more +tohit or -defense in the secondary, hitting most of the time isn't too much an issue. Oh, and you can't use temp attacks on a "master" TF attempt, but I typically avoid running those on my MM's anyway. So yes, it'd be nice to at least get a break on the endurance for powers that are generally outclassed by temp attacks as well.

Biggest factors that make exemping easier to me imo actually: The +5 power level that exemping gives you. All the extra slots you have when exemping. Those extra slots then also are double impactful as they lead to actually having more set bonuses because you'll have a lot more 5 and 6 slotted sets slotted. Oh, and mob hps scale and most of the time their resists stay constant from what I could see.

Sure, sounds nice. Thought for sure you were going to suggest the other one I hear all the time though, and that's a command to let us pick out bosses in a group. Would make stalker life so much easier.

To those saying lower level mobs aren't designed for some of these higher level powers and that higher level mobs are? I don't really see much difference in level 20 council compared to level 50 council. Same for freakshow. That's two of the most popular enemies you face from level 20 to 50. I see some differences when looking at the wiki, but I had to look at the wiki to really even realize that. And I also see a lot of mobs in the groups that cover all or most of the level 20-50 range, including super stunners which are probably the hardest freakshow mob. I could make the argument that circle of thorns actually get easier as they level up (ruin mages are nastier than agony or death mages imo, earth thorn casters are worse than air or ice thorn casters). Except for the usual scaling of damage and health, which also affects players, I don't actually find CoH makes particular effort to scale up their mobs much. Arachnos probably the most notable that actually do feel harder, but they feel more like the exception than the rule. And yes, I'd be all for adding a tough new boss to council similar to how super stunners were added to freakshow.

The ones I really feel sorry for is when you do all that, hit done, and you get "respec fail". Think it has only happened to me once.

Yep, almost think henchmen are bugged when it comes to monkey gas specifically. They are the ones I most hate to fight on my MM's. You can put them to stay and the gas damage cloud can be gone for quite a while, change them to follow and your pets STILL run away. And they will bolt super far. You have to wait a very long time after the cloud goes away before they won't do this. Meant to time exactly how long at some point, but haven't gotten around to it. Caltrops aren't nearly as bad as they tend to just run to the edges of the patch, not across half the entire map. Don't think I was having as bad an issue with fire patches either compared to that stupid rikti monkey gas.

Tested out an axe/energy scrapper. Have to say the set now feels fantastic to me. As @BrandX mentioned the aoe combo of Cyclone->Pendulum->Cleave was super fun, and effective, even without burn 🙂 At the beginning I tried leading off with Cleave from range to start as I closed in and it worked okay, but honestly just running into the pack and doing the above chain worked out better I think. Cyclone brings them close so that Pendulum and Cleave then hit more targets and it has a really nice synergy. I like that it has that synergy, and yet doesn't force a combo system on you, very well done devs. Anyway, probably the only time I'd really see using the range of cleave is for runners or flyers or those type of situations. But I think that is fine and still nice to have something in those situations without waiting for an epic power for it. Only drawback I noticed was the endurance drain was pretty brutal, even when I had energize going. That was with 1 endred in most of the attacks, but without really any of the specials (numi, panacea, miracle, etc.). So, might be okay once a full build is in place, but it is something I'd keep in mind. With how good the set feels now though, I think that is reasonable to work around.

Have to say I'm underwhelmed by the 3% increase on the target per attack. I did try it on test and like @Dispari said, you can't really see it, you can't keep track of it, and honestly I didn't really notice the difference. I was specifically wondering whether the M30 grenade also only worked on the target, even though it is an AOE attack, and I THINK it does only work on the target (which is also unintuitive? It's an aoe attack?). I can only say I think though, because honestly it was so slight I had a hard time even testing it. It definitely isn't enough to encourage me to actually take any attacks I wasn't otherwise inclined to take. Would probably change things if it was just a regular buff that wasn't limited to just one target and impossible to track.

Myself I'd label page 4 boring. Then again I didn't really care much about AE vet levels, emp conversions, or the defense changes one way or another. I think the toggle suppression duration reached a good compromise. Page 5 is sexy though. Can't remember an update before that's made me want to create so many new alts.