Coyote

No meter and no rhyme Makes it a waste of time Unless you are a shaker of spear And make iambic pentameter your career

I took my lumps, pressed them into a large lump of solid carbon, and made a War Mace out of them. Now I bash nice people who got presents with it. In the end, that coal was a great present 😄 I will thank Santa with it when the Winter Event starts 🙂

It is similar to other Sustain powers that give +Regen and +Recovery, except that it's not permanent (it can be made permanent, but it's difficult)... and with a single target in range, it's significantly weaker than normal Sustain powers. And it needs slotting for Accuracy and Recharge while most Sustain get slotted just for Healing, so it's harder to slot properly. Okay, that's the bad news. The good news is that fully enhanced, for the time that it's up, it's far stronger than a normal +Regeneration/+Recovery if you hit enough targets with it. A normal Sustain slots up to around 330% Regeneration... DP is about 140% with one target (much weaker) and 1480% maxed out with 10 targets. It's hard to hit that many with a 10' radius, but it's still over 700% if you hit 5 targets with it. Without going into the numbers, you get the same effect with +Recovery, smaller with just one target and not permanent, but able to get far higher when you hit enough targets. So it has a lower floor and a far higher ceiling than normal Sustains, and it's not "fire and forget" like a toggle that's always on. It does work better with builds that leverage it, for example a fully-ranged Hover Blaster will have problems using it well, while a PBAoE-centric Electric/Mental will be in the middle of mobs for Short Circuit so it would be great for them (and Rad, and probably Dual Pistols). It's more situational, but can potentially be a lot stronger. As for the secondary effect, it's worthless in most situations, and amazing against AVs. -250% Regeneration that is usually up about 30 and down 10 seconds (or less) is a major debuff upon them. The -Recovery is only noticeable if paired with Electric Blast. Overall, it's a very very good power, IMO the jewel of Mental Manipulation. Psy Blast doesn't play smoothly with it because Psy is all range (and with increased range to boot), while Drain Psyche only works at short range, so... not a smooth matchup. Other blast sets will do better if they have reason to get closer (PBAoE or cone attacks).

How about a compromise? Let him play-test the cake 😄 Just warn him that it may have bugs in it 🙂

"Getting updates" and "being part of internal testing" aren't the same thing. Usually, it's assumed that updates are the FINISHED product of testing (internal, then closed beta, then beta), therefore being part of internal testing is not synonymous with getting updates first. The reason is that there will undoubtedly be changes that are tested, and end up going live. And some that are tested and don't go live. So players testing those are "wasting" their time on powers, powersets, or changes, that go *poof*. That's part of testing, but focusing on "so they see the success stories first" isn't fair without considering that they also "waste their time on what gets discarded". IMO, I want to play, not test. If I wanted to test, I think there's a good chance that I may be able to get access to the closed beta if I were to ask... but I am aware of the downsides of being in the testing environment, and I am not interested. It's not all roses and glory, there's a lot of boring frustrating time finding bugs, detailing bugs, playing with a character who's going to be deleted even if I like it, etc. Envying the testers because they see the code first is not necessarily the right viewpoint. They also get to find the potholes and land mines on the highway before we drive on the semi-smooth pavement later. Although, they do get to be the first to nerf Regen. That's a nice perk.

With a NinKin, it's hard to prevent the Ninjas from taking aggro even with using Provoke. Some mob will shoot at me from outside Provoke's radius, one or two Genin will yell "Defend the Master!!!", and run off to kick them in the face. At that point, unless I call them back with a Follow (which slows down their attacks since it resets their aggro list), they will draw aggro and take damage outside of healing range. It's accounting for 90% of the henchmen deaths... as long as they're near me, they're fine, but melee henchmen will move away from me to attack someone. I'm sure the case would be the same for Beasts... fast henchmen with only melee attacks won't stay within a Tankermind/healing bubble, unfortunately 😞 . At least Beasts can have real defenses and some resists, and survive their occasional forays away from their master. Ninjas live down to their expendability reputation.

I'm running Demons/Time and it's a lot of fun and feels powerful, but it's because Time is strong defensively, and doesn't take up as much time (heh) as other buff/debuff sets, freeing me to whip 'em... whip 'em good. It's a tanky set, whatever AT you're on, but the point of an armor/tanky set is to free you to survive to use your other set. A Time character uses Time to have survivability while attacking with their other set (or controlling). Pair it with Sonic to have -Res debuffing for a team. Or with Ice to have a control effect. With DP or Water because they're both fun sets, or Fire because it's a high-damage set. But the point of the character will be the blast set, not Time Manipulation. I mean, it takes two single-target powers to add up to a Boss Hold... in a team, it's not worth it usually, versus just blasting the boss. There are busy buff/debuff sets (Kin, EA), and others that are more set-and-forget, and Time is closer to the latter... a character who tries to play focused through the Time powers is likely to be boring, because that's not how Time flies (like an arrow, I'm told). Instead, focus on the blasts and let Time back them up.

I'm going for a soloing high-AoE build with about 1000 AoE damage from multiple powers every spawn. It forces some trade-offs (no capped Defenses except Ranged), but does a lot of AoE damage while managing solid single-target also.

That's what I was saying, that Pain is better in general (and it also gets a PBAoE +Regen aura to help keep henchmen HP up, and Painbringer). But remember than a level 50 AV needs about 666% -Regen to floor it, and if you fight at higher difficulties that could mean that up to 1000% -Regen is still useful, so Thermal's -Regen is pretty much always useful even with the use of an Envenomed Dagger. Plus, it does -Damage on a single target, which is useful against an AV. Outside of that, as you showed, Pain is IMO better.

That's what Bank Heists are for 😄

The upgrade powers don't get slotted, a single End Reduction IO goes into them. However, be aware that the later upgrade power adds DIFFERENT powers to your henchmen, and therefore you will always keep your first upgrade power even after you get the second.

This is misleading. There WAS a party. And the MMs had enough energy to sit around and sip drinks, while they had the henchmen actually do the dancing. Which then led to a whole lot of "why can't we have Carnies as henchmen" requests.

It used to be one by one, and it got changed into an AoE with a good radius. I forget the radius... it's possible to miss some henchman mid-combat if they ran off to get killed far from the others, but between fights they'll all be close enough to be upgraded with the same activation.

First of all, I asked the same question though I had different sets that I was looking at, but the discussion could be interesting: Merc/ Secondaries Second, I don't like any of your choices because Merc AoE is all cones, and they benefit from secondaries that have a way to keep mobs away from you... Force Bubble, Caltrops, Hurricane, etc. This gives them better angle on their AoEs. However, if limited to those sets, I think that Pain will be better than Thermal outside of AVs, but Thermal will be better against AVs. Electric is better defensively, but without a -Resist power it will struggle with killing speed. If slow and steady rattle of bullets, shell casings all over the place, and a rain of DoTs over enemy heads appeals to you, Electric would probably be my choice.

I would have gone with Enter the Tank 😉

Jurassic in Numina's TF is mostly an AV with mostly AV stats. The only GM-like stat that he has is that, unlike AVs, he has high protection against Immobilizes rather than just the standard Mag 4. I don't recall if it drops to 4 when his triangles drop.

I pulled Bobcat first. At about half health she yells for a War Walker, and you interrupt the fight (fly way up out of range) until she de-aggroes and goes back to whine to Neuron about how lame-ass heroes are pussies and won't fight a real combat pussycat, then fly down and beat the WW. Repeat with the WW that she summons at 25% health, and she won't summon any more the third time that you call her out by her name. Then you have only Neuron alone. He was by far the hardest for me, but I was on an Illusion Controller, so his horde of duplicates out-aggroed my aggro management (heh) and I had to tank his attacks on a character who wasn't built to tank AV attacks. Other characters may find him very easy, and Bobcat's huge melee damage, which didn't matter at all to me, the real problem.

Not sure, and I'm not sure about it, either... I remember reading something, but perhaps I conflated some patch notes together and created an imaginary restriction in my mind.

I got Master on my first server. Wow. But when I moved everyone over to Everlasting, I lost a few nice names. That was the best one 😞

Doesn't it have to be activated upon a Stunned target? That is, if you hit Stunned targets with single-target attacks that aren't Release, then there is a chance... but I think that if you don't Stun them first, there is no chance to build up Energy Storage.

4 Cloud Senses in general for me, but sometimes 6 for the nice Ranged Defense boost. I'd use it on more builds, but /Dark Affinity is such a strong defensive set anyhow that I don't know if the extra defense is all that useful. Still, 3.75% for two slots is a steal.

Well, first you have to understand how /Nrg does its area damage... it builds up Energy Stored with Total Focus (melee attack), and then does almost double damage by using Whirling Hands (PBAoE attack). In effect, Total Focus becomes a semi-AoE, hitting one target hard, and effectively setting up AoE damage though it needs a 2nd power to actually release that damage. This means that /Nrg does all of its AoE damage in melee range. Now, my Dark builds will frankenslot Heart of Darkness with 3-4 damage procs. This puts it at 200-260 or so AoE damage, and it's an early use power in every fight. It's also PBAoE, so playwise, it's a real smooth action to start the fight with Fearsome Stare for the Fear (and huge ToHit Debuff). Note that if you have Power Up active at this point, you get a +Defense boost to your Defense powers, as well as a big boost to the -ToHit, so in fights where you have PU ready at the start, which should be most of them, you can start with a huge defensive boost. Now, while the buff is up, you run in and fire HoD, TF, and WH... you get effectively 3 PBAoE powers, 2 of them with damage boosted from PU (HoD gets its damage boosted also, but it does irrelevant damage outside of the procs)... and HoD gets its duration boosted by PU. So it's a very solid and smooth action cycle, with good AoE damage. Dark/Dark has a problem. Engulfing Darkness is a nice PBAoE, but Nightfall is a long narrow cone, and with 10 second recharge it's up a lot but does lower damage. I almost think that /Dark would play best as a range-oriented Dominator, giving up the use of Engulfing Darkness, but playing much more safely and leveraging Gloom, the snipe, and Life Drain. But to do this, it would work better with an all-ranged primary... Mind, Gravity, or Earth. Defensively, stacking the -ToHit debuffs along with the best heal available for Doms, makes it a very strong defensive build. But if you're going defense, I think I'd rather go with Earth, which also has a -ToHit power, and which doesn't have any reason to go into melee range. Single target is also a long analysis, but the short version is that Nrg does significantly more damage... but only by going into melee range and leveraging Total Focus, which builds up an Energy Stored/Released with Power Burst, giving you three Extreme damage attacks (Power Burst, TF, and the snipe). Dark does a lot less, but can stay at range and has a self-heal. So it's again a question of damage or defense. BTW, /Dark doesn't have more CONTROL. It has way more DEBUFFING than Nrg... Nrg has a 100% knockback, TF is a 100% Stun compared to the Immobilize from Midnight Grasp, and Whirling Hands has a chance to Stun while Engulfing Darkness has -ToHit. If you're going /Dark, it's not for more control, it's for more -ToHit and a heal. I like /Nrg option more, but... if you want a stronger defensive combo, Dark/Dark's ability to leverage a TON of -ToHit makes it one of the strongest Dominators defensively. Multiple control options, backed up by good -ToHit stacking, and with a safety net of a solid lifetap attack.

Heh, that's my main. Love the combo.

You could try insulting his dueling and challenging him to an ancestry. Not sure how that'll work, but while you two are busy figuring it out, I'mma gonna steal me some fries 😛

It's also possible that the OP's experience was to ALWAYS use it on top of Fire Cages, which were being spammed. In that case, it WOULD be weaker. It's just that as soon as you stop spamming AoE Immobilizes, it becomes a lot stronger with the KD... but if the OP just fired Fire Cages all the time, they may always have used in a situation where it's stronger without the conversion IOs in it.