Coyote

"8 ) Ice Storm is definitely a -SPD and -RCHG power and can be slotted as such. I may try DMG IOs instead just to see if the ticks go from 1 to 2 or something. But my goal was to basically keep everyone in the same area in case the Living Shadows or Fearsome Stare missed. " Um, to clarify something that you may not know... slotting Slow into a power that does -Recharge, does NOT increase the -Recharge. Slow Enhancements only increase the MOVEMENT debuff, not the RECHARGE debuff. You cannot slot to increase Recharge debuffs (or buffs). So, slotting Ice Storm for increased MOVEMENT SPEED debuff is not worth it, for two reasons: 1) You have Tar Patch. And because this increases the damage from Ice Storm, you will put down Tar Patch first and Ice Storm second. So, between the two of them, movement will already be greatly slowed. And if you did want to slot up the movement debuff, you should do it in Tar Patch because it's a stronger base value, and because it's available earlier so you get to use it when Exemplaring. 2) Mobs are going to be mezzed, and not moving very far. Use Living Shadows to prevent them from moving out of the area, and use Ice Storm to do damage. The -Recharge on it is both weak and not very relevant when mobs aren't going to be attacking much because they're Feared, Held, or Stunned. And if they do attack, trust in the -ToHit.

"On a team as long as you are using your aoe -res, team buffs, or your aoe +dam abilities from your secondary then you are contributing as much as many scrappers :p" Faceplant twice, and now you're as good as a Blaster, too! :P :P Heh, more seriously... Necro and Demon have good attacks for MMs. If you use proc IOs to slot them up, they do damage that is comparable to Defender attacks. The problem is that the Whips only have 2 single-target attacks, and one is on a long recharge, but if you take Arcane Bolt then you end up with a reasonable rotation, or you can go into the Fighting Pool and go melee/Whips which has a full damage rotation, knockdowns and Stuns, and -Res. You end up with a weak damage set and low numbers on the debuffs compared to running a melee/Sonic Corruptor... but if you know how to build a character, get solid Defense, and play well, you'll still be better than half the players out on the servers. And you won't block doorways :p. Though, I still feel that adding in the Demon Prince turns the character from really weak to just a bit subpar.

Just as a note, if you keep the Recharge enhancing to 50%, an AoE Stun will generally max out the Proc% on a 3.5 PPM Proc at 90%. This makes the AoE Stuns do the same damage (per Proc IO) as AoE Holds procced for damage. The only problem is that they generally don't have access to damage Procs, except for Heart of Darkness (which has access to PBAoE sets). But I do have my D-D-Cont planned with 4 damage IOs for Heart of Darkness... after all, it's not like Dark-Dark needs more defensive ability, and a mini-nuke up every spawn with about a 30 second Stun is great. I'm wondering how effective it might be to also slot up Shadow Field as a mini-nuke, now... ... and whether sticking a couple of damage IOs in Earthquake is worth it.

IO set notes: 1) Dark Grasp/Shadow Field: Basilisk's Gaze doesn't give good bonuses for slots 5 & 6, you are better off either putting in something like 2xLockdown, or some damage procs in case that you do solo. 2) Twilight Grasp seems over-slotted to me... as you said, when health bars are full, and they generally should be, health bars are not that important. 3) I like putting the Energy Font IO in Living Shadows since you're using it more often and have a better chance to stack the orb summons. But slotting for Immobilize duration in it is kind of worthless, so I 5-slot Positron for Recharge (and to increase the cone range), and put the ATO as the 6th slot. Yes, the -ToHit boost is nice, but there is already so much -ToHit flying around that I'm happy with a bit more damage and range, and the ATO in the power that gets spammed more than Fearsome Stare. 4) Once that's done, I like to put Cloud Senses in Fearsome Stare... the -ToHit is mroe important in it than the Fear effect, especially when spamming Living Shadows so they get to fire back a lot. 5) Fade: I don't like the bonuses from 6xLotG enough to 6-slot it. I 4-slot it, and that allows me to put in more Defense/Recharge IOs in it to max out its Recharge. 7) Dark Servant: If you have slots free, I would drop 1 from Cloud Senses, and put in two damage procs, probably both as Holds. This turns its Petrifying Gaze from 0 damage to 60 (from Cloud Senses) and then to 190 or so with the other two procs. Not noticeable on teams, but it makes a difference when soloing. 8) Ice Storm is a damage power, not a -Slow power. Slot it for damage, accuracy, and recharge, not for Slow. With Living Shadows nobody will be moving out of it anyhow, and you're using Living Shadows first to get Containment.

Well. Electric should be Stalker because it covers up their main weakness, which is single-target damage. It also has great AoE for Stalkers, so it's definitely a good option to run it as a Stalker. /Shield works for all ATs, but again... Stalkers lack AoE, so I always prefer armor sets that add to AoE damage, either with direct damage powers like Shield Charge, or AoE life-drain powers that can be slotted with damage procs, or with damage buffs (like Against All Odds) that scale with opponent numbers.

This thread and the updates to the PPM calculations thread made me consider something: Cold Domination: Infrigidate, with 3 damage procs and Achilles Heel = average 18% -Res and 190 damage with a 1.188 second activation time. For a Defender, that's not bad... for a Controller, that's great.

It could be possible to add a debuff effect to the AoE Holds that aren't persistent... the problem is that debuffs on 4-minute powers either have to be humongous, or remain very situational. I can see one way to make AoE Holds interesting: Use them to add Damage variation to the set. Ideas such as: -Ice's Hold provides -Resist(Ice) to the targets. Something reasonably significant, say -20 to -30%, and for a duration of 40 seconds. -Mind provides -Resist(Psy) of about 20%, but also adds a Paralyzed effect that increases the damage from Terrify, also for 40 seconds. -Gravity already provides an Impact effect that benefits the single-target attacks, but make the effect give a large bonus to Crushing Field. -Plant has a lot of AoE damage already, so I'm not sure if it makes sense to add damage to it, but perhaps it could be combined with either the AoE Sleep or Carrion Creepers (or both) and create a Stunned effect. The effect that combines should last longer than the Hold, otherwise there's no point to it. -Fire... more damage would be thematic, but like Plant it has the damage already and could use control more. An idea would be to put a "smoking" effect on the targets that has a small chance to combine with Fire Cages or with melee attacks from the Imps to give a short-duration Hold effect from choking. -Illusion could give -Resist(Psy), or combine with Blind's AoE effect so that the AoE effect does damage. In all cases, the debuff/effect should be significant, so that it's worth taking the power with the intent to use it for the debuff/effect, otherwise it's just a cute add-on if you were taking it already. It should last long enough to have about a 50% uptime with good Recharge, but not be perma-able... 30 seconds would be the bottom, and 45 the top (to match it to Shadow Field). Effects that are limited (like stacking Flash with Blind) should be quite strong compared to general like -Resist(Ice).

It works. /Traps does good AoE damage, great for a Controller. Gravity does good ST damage, great for a Controller. Between the two, you actually get solid single-target and AoE damage. Gravity is weak on controlling in general, but the one great strength is has is AoE mob repositioning... which is like the wet dream of other Traps characters. Meanwhile, Traps isn't a strong debuffing set, but between Seeker Drones and Force Field Generator you really lower the mobs chances to hit, making it viable to limit damage from a spawn by spamming Crushing Field with FFG up and Seeker Drones having detonated. So it works defensively also. It can solo AVs well because it covers Defense, Mez Protection, and -Regen as well as doing solid single-target damage. One major problem is that its main strength is pre-battle setup and teleporting spawns in the Zone Of Doom(tm)... but teams at higher levels just roll through mobs, not needing to take the time to set up before engaging. And the Zone of Doom(tm) is not very mobile. So, it's a weak teaming Controller at high levels on most teams... but that's really true of most Controllers and Tanks, since teams at high levels rarely need the defensive support that they provide. So as long as this doesn't worry you, the combination is solid in every way. If you're looking to get on large teams at level 50, you won't be contributing much... slow-activating single-target attacks are irrelevant, and AoE damage is done by preparing traps, which won't be useful on a rolling team.

Shadow Field for Dark Control is also good, and it's for the same reason: It's a drop power that Holds, but also puts out a good secondary effect for 45 seconds, and it will affect adds that go into its area. Generic AoE Holds for Controllers that don't really do anything other than Hold are... not useful. In most cases. The reason that they're not useful is that to try to make them useful requires 4-6 slots, and even then they remain an every-other-spawn power at best, if not every 3 spawns. Who wants to spend that many slots on a power that's only useful every few spawns, and even then only mezzes the mobs rather than contributing to kill speed? The only builds where I've found AoE Holds to be useful are those that can get SEVERAL of them, and rotate them.. so now they become part of your REGULAR AoE control cycle. The short list of these builds is Mind/Rad and Mind/TA, using Mass Domination, Mass Confuse, and EMP or EMP Arrow to cycle AoE mezzes. That's a very, very limited use set for AoE Holds.

ATO stands for Archetype Origin, and each Archetype has two IO sets that are limited to being used by it (and are unique, so you can only slot each of the IOs in the sets once). Controllers and Dominators each have one IO set that includes an IO which can spawn an Orb at your location. Dominators get a Fiery Orb, Controllers get an Energy Orb... both Orbs will put out a pulsing Disorient aura around them. The planned build for my DDC is: Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Nightmare Doll: Level 50 Magic Controller Primary Power Set: Darkness Control Secondary Power Set: Darkness Affinity Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Flight Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Shadowy Binds -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Apc-Acc/Rchg(3), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(5) Level 1: Twilight Grasp -- ThfofEss-Acc/EndRdx/Heal(A), TchoftheN-Acc/EndRdx/Heal/HP/Regen(7) Level 2: Dark Grasp -- SprWiloft-Rchg/Dmg%(A), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(7), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(9), SprWiloft-EndRdx/Rchg(9), SprWiloft-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(11), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(11) Level 4: Living Shadows -- SphIns-%ToHit(A), SprOvrPrs-Rchg/Energy Font(13), PstBls-Dam%(13), CldSns-%Dam(15), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), PstBls-Acc/Dmg(50) Level 6: Possess -- CrcPrs-Conf%(A), CrcPrs-Conf/EndRdx(17), CrcPrs-Acc/Rchg(17), CrcPrs-Acc/Conf/Rchg(19), CrcPrs-Conf/Rchg(19), CrcPrs-Conf(21) Level 8: Fearsome Stare -- CldSns-%Dam(A), CldSns-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(21), CldSns-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(23), CldSns-Acc/Rchg(23), CldSns-Acc/ToHitDeb(25), CldSns-ToHitDeb(25) Level 10: Tar Patch -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(27) Level 12: Heart of Darkness -- Arm-Dam%(A), Obl-%Dam(27), Erd-%Dam(29), ScrDrv-Dam%(29), AbsAmz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(31), AbsAmz-Acc/Rchg(31) Level 14: Darkest Night -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(31), DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(33), DarWtcDsp-Rchg/EndRdx(33) Level 16: Shadow Fall -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(33), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(34), GldArm-3defTpProc(34), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(34) Level 18: Haunt -- SlbAll-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(36), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(36), ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(37), SlbAll-Build%(37) Level 20: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx-I(39) Level 22: Fade -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A), TtnCtn-ResDam/Rchg(39), TtnCtn-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(39), TtnCtn-ResDam(40), TtnCtn-EndRdx/Rchg(40), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(42) Level 24: Howling Twilight -- OvrFrc-End/Rech(A), AbsAmz-Stun/Rchg(40) Level 26: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 28: Soul Absorption -- PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(A), EffAdp-EndMod/Rchg(42), EffAdp-EndMod(42), DctWnd-Heal/Rchg(43), HrmHln-Heal/Rchg(43) Level 30: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 32: Umbra Beast -- BldMnd-Acc/Dmg(A), BldMnd-Dmg(43), HO:Nucle(45) Level 35: Indomitable Will -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 38: Dark Servant -- CldSns-%Dam(A), CldSns-Acc/ToHitDeb(45), CldSns-ToHitDeb(46), CldSns-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(46), UnbCns-Dam%(46), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(48) Level 41: Mind Over Body -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A) Level 44: Psionic Tornado -- PstBls-Dam%(A), PstBls-Acc/Dmg(45), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(48), PstBls-Dmg/EndRdx(50), FrcFdb-Rechg%(50) Level 47: Super Speed -- Empty(A) Level 49: Hover -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Containment Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- UnbLea-Stlth(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A) ------------

This, or an Electric/Psy Dominator (Drain Psyche is usually used for -Regen, but also has a strong -Recovery debuff that will stack with several sources of -Recovery from Electric Control).

Twilight Grasp needs to hit, so it needs Accuracy. Living Shadows is for Damage and -ToHit, not for Immobilize. If you're using it regularly, the Immobilize will easily be permanent. Slot it for damage, put the Controller Energy Orb ATO in it. Don't bother with Recharge, it recharges pretty fast anyhow.

Dark Miasma is a very strong set for soloing, and works fine on teams also. Ditto for Rad. Even with lower MM numbers you'll be able to solo and solo hard content. The problem will be an attack cycle... the whip attacks aren't all that bad for MM attacks, but their Endurance cost is high, and they don't fill out a chain. If you go with the Fighting Pool you can fill out an attack cycle and also use lower-End cost attacks. As long as you're willing to mix the concept of beating people with a fist and then whipping them :p. You might also compromise and run it like a Controller, with just the Demon Prince as a pet. That way you'll still be depending on your attacks for most of your damage, but like Controllers, you'll get one permanent pet to help with damage.

I use it for damage. Does that mean slotting a PBAOE damage set is best? Hot Feet doesn't need Recharge, while most PBAoE sets bring recharge. I think it's best to Frankenslot it, say 2x Acc/Dam/End, 1 Acc/Dam, 1 Dam/End as a start. Then the last 1-2 slots for whatever you need, possibly including Fury of the Gladiator's -Res IO. The PPM calculator says that the last one should net about 3.4% -Res on the average, and getting a 3% damage increase for one slot is worth it. Although the thread linked above suggests that PPMs in toggles aren't working as listed.

I would stay away from considering Fears and Sleeps as perma-mezzes, since the mobs get to act if attacked... and most Sleeps don't reapply once broken, also. Stuns, especially in a set that can add Immobilizes, Holds, and Confuses, are the relevant "shut down the enemy spawn while killing it" powers. Frankly, I consider Seeds of Confusion an outlier. A better example would be Mass Confusion, and improving AoE Holds to be half its duration and half its Recharge would be a nice improvement. Unfortunately, Confuse powers were balanced back when Confused mobs didn't have their damage quartered with regards to taking XP, so they were considered to be great for mezzing, but balanced by lowering XP gain. Now that you have to do a lot less damage to match up to the Confused mobs, I'm surprised that they have Seeds of Confusion with its current Recharge/Duration ratio.

I would be totally down with lowering the Recharge of AoE Holds even if it shortens the duration to avoid perma-Holding... powers that shut a spawn down for 15 seconds but do it every spawn are more valuable that 30 seconds every other spawn. 120-150 seconds base would be fine, and if it lowers duration to 12 seconds base, I can live with that. We don't get the damage of Nukes, but it sets up Containment.

Frosticus is right in general: it is very difficult to have "perma-aggroing PA". It should be possible, in theory, as the 3 decoys come out at 1 second intervals, which means that if Decoy #3 from Set 1 has aggro, then Decoy #1 from Set 2 could come in, activate its attack power, and grab aggro as Decoy #3 from Set 2 arrives and deletes Decoy #3/Set 1. So there is about a 2 second overlap where one set is being summoned while the other exists (this assumes that the power itself is permanent, leaving aside the actual decoys)... if Decoy 1 attacks and hits in that 2 second gap, it should hold aggro for you. In practice, this is really a tight space, and you can't improve it, because quite often the decoys come in and look around in curiosity for a second or two. "Boss, why are we here? Oh, a fight?! Cool. Okay, let's mash face". So you will have aggro drop no matter what you do... but, ironically, the AV could be locked in an attack animation on one of the fading decoys, heh. Because of the combination of the AV needing to finish its last attack, and your first decoy needing to start (and finish) its first attack, you can't really guarantee that your PA will permanently have aggro. Therefore, plan on aggro drop for a few seconds no matter what you do with your build, so you're better off in making the build better overall (and especially in personal safety for a few seconds), than in squeezing out that last half second. Suggestions are: Power Boost to get defensive powers stronger. Hibernate at the PA drop and wait for Phantasm's Decoy to draw aggro. Phase Shift, like Hibernate, though going into the Concealment Pool for an Illusion Controller is otherwise only useful for LotG mules. Draw the AV during the fight to an area where you can duck around a corner when PA drops... given the choice of engaging your Phantasm or its decoy, or running around the corner to you, usually the AV will turn and 2-shot the Phantasm (or waste time on its decoy), which gives you time to summon PA at the corner.

This will vary for my Scrapper depending on circumstances and my role on the team. On steamroller teams with lots of AoEs, I don't typically prioritize maxing AAO since travel times between mobs very well might be the biggest hurdle to clear time. If I am the highest damage dealer, I'll generally jump in the mob get AAO going then nuke. If I'm playing pretend tank I'll lead with nukes just for the extra knockdown. If mobs are tightly packed I'll jump back and forth to keep damage buff and then get them to crowd around me. If I'm doing a farm with bosses, AAO is a top priority for me cuz killing them is slow. If I'm running without bosses I'll just hit as many mobs as fast as I can since they die so fast. If course a Kin changes everything if they Fulcrum Shift me to the damage cap. Exactly this. Not exactly as in the specific tactics, but exactly as in "what is optimal VARIES depending on the situation". Stara, you are being too narrow and argumentative to keep saying that you're providing the "most optimal" strategy, and no one else should ever put out any other strategy as being optimal, even when the reality is that optimal strategies often vary based on the situation. Sometimes you need to open with an AoE knockdown. Sometimes you have damage buffs on you. Sometimes you have Recharge buffs on you. It is often optimal long-term DPS to let AAO activate before using the nukes, but it is sometimes more optimal to open with the nukes and minimize the return alpha strike. But the idea is that optimal VARIES, and telling people that you know the ONE TRUE WAY to do better damage, unless you're talking about the targeting dummies, is being too restrictive. There are many gameplay situations where opening up differently than your usual opening may actually be more efficient.

AAO is a +Damage buff. There are teams and there are also situations when soloing, when you are going to be at or very near the Damage cap. So at this point, AAO would be providing no boost or very little boost, while the gameplay change to run into the spawn and set up a single-target attack slows down the delivery of AoE damage compared to teleport-attacking into the middle from a distance. If you get no damage benefit from AAO but have to slow down the delivery of LR/SC, then AAO probably shouldn't be used in that situation. I mean, with a Kinetic on the team... don't bother about AAO, just run in the middle, wait for the Fulcrum Shift, and AoE. You'll be well past the caps without AAO.

Huh. Farming with Dominators can be done, but it's a high-skill activity and I wouldn't recommend it to a first-time Dom player. However, leaving that issue aside, I have some comments and suggestions: 1: Ice control works best with a debuffing set next to it, so it's better for Controllers. 2: I think that Electric Control works very well in general for Dominators, though I'm not sure about its farming abilities. 3: Fire Control is a good choice for farming, and works fine for both Doms and Controllers. I would suggest it's better for Controllers since they can use its high damage more than Dominators, who already have a damage set, but it still works fine for Dominators. 4: You want an AoE secondary for farming, and I like Earth Assault for two AoEs that you can fire in the middle of the mobs (with knockdowns and Stuns to add), and Martial Assault which also has multiple AoEs that can be fired in point-blank range, and which also knocks down mobs around you. Of the two, Earth Assault has Power Boost which helps you defensively and helps Electric (if you go with that) drain Endurance faster, while Martial has Toxic Blades which increases your damage output. 5: Other good farming sets are Rad and Thorns, since their -Def helps you hit more. Psychic Assault has Drain Psyche, which is excellent defensively, but its damage output is not so great. 6: Plant Control is also a good farming set since Seeds of Confusion is available to shut down every spawn and turn it to fighting against itself. Pair it up with Rad Assault or Thorns, and not only are the mobs attacking each other, but now they hit more often, too. Personally, if I were to farm, I think I'd consider Fire, Electric, or Plant primary, and Earth, Martial, Rad, or Thorns secondary.

Eh. Your arguing from a specific point but arguing as if it's general. I understand that for a Level 50 Incarnate character with huge global recharge and high Defense bonuses, the knockdown from Energy Torrent is less valuable... the slots are more valuable to squeeze out the last percentage points to soft-capping defenses... and the FF proc is less valuable since you're already loaded with high Recharge. And AoE cones are also far less useful in a gameplay where you're firing Nova every spawn. But if you wish to argue that Energy Blast is a weak set and needs fixing, you can't just say "It's weak at level 6 when you don't have enough slots, and it's weak at Incarnate levels when the knockback is not useful", and ignore that in levels 20-50 (or maybe 20-45) the FF proc is actually very useful, and you start having enough slots to put it in a couple of attacks. In short: You're right, in the niche of Level 50 Incarnates, Energy Blast really sucks because... who cares if it has knockback? Force Feedback is less useful? Damage is king, and it's weak there... and with all of the AoE in those teams, mixed knockback is just terrible. You're absolutely right, but you're also absolutely right in a specific and narrow niche. For the leveling process, Energy Blast is poor and needs improvement... but not nearly that badly, and certainly not because Energy Torrent has mixed knockback.

Sunsette, I really don't understand something about your entire argument, and your character, and your playstyle, and you re-rolling.... I agree that the random mixed Knockback in Energy Torrent is bad. I think that random knockback in single-target attacks is fine. But in an AoE power, it's occasionally good for repositioning, but mostly bad. And you wanted to play the character for Energy Torrent, which can be a great power... and it takes one IO to turn it into a KnockDOWN power, which has practically no downside. For want of one (cheap) IO, you gave up on a character and say that the set is bad? Seriously, the difference between running AoE KB powers vs the same powers converted to KD is huge. It is hard to buy arguments that a set is bad because it scatters opponents.. when one IO fixes that. Arguing that the set should have higher stats because it pays an IO "tax" to make its secondary effect useful is a good argument. Arguing that a set is bad because you CAN'T make the secondary effect useful is not a good argument. Also, for FF... the proc has to affect you once, but checks on every target hit. If it triggers twice a minute, it's about equivalent to a 16.67% Recharge buff... granted, it takes a slot in an already slot-starved power, but it's still a very useful pick in an AoE that you will fire regularly. Especially since it's likely to trigger 4+ times a minute, not just twice.

I knew that the splash is at half debuff values, but City of Data and Mids both show the half-strength -Res debuffs as being AoE. http://web.archive.org/web/20140821090939/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Corruptor_Buff.Poison.Envenom I recall a discussion where people were arguing that the debuffs are especially strong on a single target since you could splash the AV with the debuff from a nearby enemy, and then hit the AV directly, and get both the splash and the main target debuff for -45% rather than just -30% resists. Granted, that's some serious positive thinking, but it wouldn't even have been an argument if there were no splash debuff for -Res.

Just wanted to say that the OP is correct, CoH definitely needs more Coyote time ;) :p

Short comments: 1: KB IS a plus on a set. You can say that it's less useful than a self-heal or -ToHit debuffs, but when you take a real counterpoint and just completely dismiss it or pretend that it's a negative (Energy Torrent knocks mobs back... and this is a negative? Use a KB to KD IO, it's now a positive... add in a Force Feedback proc in there and in Explosive Blast, and you have a set that has a very high chance to keep activating periods of +100% Recharge). Whether it's as useful as other tools is debatable... that it's a positive really can't be debated. 2: On the DPS side, well... EB is weak. It is low in single-target, it is low in AoE, and it doesn't bring special effects to the table (strong Hold, strong debuff, etc). Knockback is nice, but not nearly nice enough to counterbalance overall low damage. Other sets have good damage AND good effects (Water, Dark, Ice, Beam as immediate examples). 3: The power selection is terrible. As others have already said, multiple choices of basically the same blast, just in "small, medium, or large" varieties makes for a boring build. The set needs some sort of Combo mechanism where using multiple powers sets up a guaranteed (unresistible) knockdown, or self-buff like a +Damage boost, in order to make it reasonable to use most of the powers. All in all, it's not a terrible set, but it's clearly weak in several areas, and it could use some kind of buff. Damage buffs always work, but there are also other methods that could be used to fix it.