Coyote

Huh, what? 1: Poison's debuffs are listed to be NON-STACKING in Pines and in the City of Data site. I can't login to check power stats in-game to confirm this, but I never heard that they allowed them to self-stack. 2: Dark's debuffs ARE self-stacking. Twilight Grasp can be stacked about 4 times (20% To Hit debuff for Defenders, and that's unslotted, but more importantly, -40% damage). Add in Fearsome Stare, Darkest Night, and Fluffy's debuffs, and you're well over 100% ToHit debuffs, plus over 100% Damage debuffs. If you want to see a set that makes enemies into baby kittens, this is it, not Poison. Oh, and it also has a good amount of -Regen and a self-heal, to boot. For Controllers it's even better. Heck, it solos AVs at level 22 on SOs. 3: I don't understand the argument about featuring a relatively weak, small-radius debuff, when the gems of the set are Poison Gas Trap (Controllers would love to get an AoE Hold with this duration/recharge, not to mention the chance to use it as a mini-AoE with damage procs, as their primary AoE Hold), and Noxious/Venomous Gas (a decent radius debuff with debuff stats that aren't very high, but it debuffs 4 major categories... Defense, ToHit, Damage, Damage Resist, effectively being 2 debuff powers in one). If you can solo AVs with these stats on that character, then that character would solo AVs FAR better as: Dark, Traps, Rad, and probably Kinetics and Nature. Soloing an AV with that build just says that you play well, not that the build is actually all that strong. Seriously, a Dark Miasma character built like that can probably go AFK against most non-mezzing GMs or AVs, by putting Twilight Grasp on auto and running Darkest Night. Poison can't touch that, and this is in what is supposed to be its main strength, soloing hard targets. Put it in a team setting with larger spawn sizes and larger teams that are harder to heal with single-target heals, no AoE team buffs, and no self defensive buffs to help you survive aggro from putting out weak AoE debuffs... and again, Poison lags behind. Maybe it's not fair comparing it to Dark or Rad, but I really don't see any general niche where it shines. Its only trick is a strong debuff against -Special, which is nice in the very very few instances where it's relevant, and pretty useless otherwise.

I agree with this completely. Once I suggested that having accuracy over 100% should grant a scaling chance to Crit... not so much that slotting for excessive Accuracy does more damage than slotting for Damage, but there should be a bonus for getting more Accuracy. However, I don't agree that the method used to make ToHit be very useful should be linked to a specific power and specific values... on Live, the Devs once stated that the number of active accounts that also used the forums were less than 10% of the player base. That is over 90% of the people playing, who didn't get to read forums to find out how to get 22%. The percentage is probably lower on these servers for various reasons, but still, we shouldn't be creating a knowledge gateway, and on one side of it ToHit bonuses are very useful, and on the other, they're not. And the way to pass through the gateway is to visit the forums and look for the topic.

What he said. -Resist debuff is NOT a direct subtraction of a mob's Resistance. The calculation is complex, but the effect is very simple: a 5% Resistance debuff increases the damage that a mob takes by 5%. Regardless of their Resistance. Granted, that 5% may be more or less depending on how strong their base Resistance is, but the net effect is that damage improves by 5%. For farming, I would go with -Res over -HPs, because the effect of -HP becomes most pronounced when you worry about the target's Regeneration rate, and farm mobs are usually trash mobs that don't live long enough to bother regenerating.

No, it doesnt. It means some people will defend anything. Conversely, some people will attack anything. Some people, indeed, are not satisfied until their personal-pet-favorite powerset is THE ultimate in overpowered extreme godmode amazingness. ... and, your bias is revealed: You want your pet set(s) to be OP as possible, and to hell with game balance. If the set has weak numbers and plays poorly, then someone who says it can use buffing wants it to be OP? I don't even play Poison. It's very far from my "favorite set". But... I do play number-crunching. And the numbers, well, Dark Affinity and Rad and Storm and Time put up a good fight. Poison? No, the numbers just crunch it like it's a -2 minion. Statistically, it puts out pretty weak debuffs. It does this using a lot of Endurance and, worse, using a lot of animation time. It is not highly performing offensively, as the only thing that it does well is stack -Res on a single target. Granted, this has a use... but in a large portion of the game, it's not as useful as AoE -Res where it's good but not so great. It is not highly performing defensively, as it is only good at mitigating incoming damage from a single target... against multiple targets, its small radius and weak AoE splash effects drop it down pretty far. And single target damage is most relevant against AVs... who resist -ToHit and -Recharge, putting it down far below other sets at protecting against AVs. All in all, it's playable, especially as a secondary, but very weak on a Defender or Corruptor. Arguably the worst Buff/Debuff set for these ATs. So, we shouldn't consider improving it just because SOMEONE said it's fine? Heh, nah... show me the numbers. Then I'll sign on leaving it as is. But the numbers right now say: buff Poison.

WoC is a good power for later in a build, where you use two procs in it... if you're not already using Contagious Confusion in another power. Contagious Confusion makes it much more effective at confusing. Fury of the Gladiator -Res debuff gives it a -Res effect, I think averaging about 4-5% -Res over time. If it's a character that will be in melee range for some reason, running a toggle that will do some Confusion while also increasing damage by 4%, for a low End cost, is worth it. If not, then no. Take it for a set mule, take it for CC, and take it for Fury... but don't take it for its base statistics, because as Redlynne showed, they are terrible.

I'm with you, I like running arcs. And I have an alt to push money down, and it's easier to run arcs with nicely equipped characters... so attuned and ATO IOs for characters, Panacea IO at level 7, etc. People who use the high-XP methods of advancing characters fast are usually in XP teams that faceroll enemies, and don't need good slotting. People who play through arcs at mid-teens up to the 30s often find some hard periods where their characters feel weak, and ATO and attuned IOs help alleviate that.

Fixed. I imagine that other Doms, especially newbies, are going to be quite happy to find that their Snipe just became usable in combat without them having to research the esoteric tricks of how to build a character to do it. IMO, in game design, any change that weakens top builds while strengthening weak builds, is a good change, at least as long as it doesn't limit choices. Min-maxers are always going to figure out a way to min-max and make their characters effective, while newbies will have underperforming builds, so changes that bring them closer in efficiency while also opening up more builds, are good changes. There are always going to be vocal min-maxers complaining that their tightly-specced build is now no longer so well-designed, but for every one of them, there are probably 10 or more non-vocal casual players who don't frequent the forums, who never had such a tight build and will be happy to see what ends up as a buff for them.

That is a really cool idea. It makes me want to do it for a character with a colored aura, to change the colors regularly during combat.

Not necessarily. If any amount of damage was added to WEAK powers in Poison, they wouldn't need to be weakened. Examples of powers that are pretty weak for them are: Weaken (other AoE -ToHit debuffs are both stronger and larger in area... the debuff on Special effects is nice but doesn't make up for mobs just hitting you more often). Neurotoxic Breath... maybe. It's a -Slow and -Recharge power, and they're generally skipped and not very strong. I feel that both this and Shiver could use a buff, but it's not out of line with other AoE -Recharge powers, it's just that -Recharge powers are generally weak. Consider Lingering Radiation, which is taken more for its -Regen than for its -Recharge. Paralytic Poison... compare it to single-target Holds from attack sets. It's not a much better Hold, it doesn't do a secondary effect, and it doesn't do damage. It's a candidate for the worst single-target Hold in the game. In addition, Poison's ally powers (Alkaloid, Elixir of Life, and Antidote) are generally underwhelming for ally buffs, except for Antidote. So with the set being weak in buffing despite having 3 buff powers, it's not unreasonable to ask for its debuffs to be especially strong... but they're not. So, asking for some DoT effect on them is quite reasonable to me. The only REAL issue with adding DoT to them is... will it be enhanceable? If so, does this open them up to taking Targeted AoE sets? And if so, does this introduce any balance issues? I don't really think so, despite allowing for a -Res IO to be slotted, but it is something to consider.

I think that Stalkers are generally starved for AoE damage, and Electric is by far their best AoE set. In addition, Electric is usually starved for single-target damage, and Stalkers are by far the best single-target damage using Electric. For those two reasons, I would always run Electric Melee as a Stalker.

Grav / Traps. A bunch of traps in a corner sets up a lot of AoE damage, which is usually the weakness of Controllers. Then, Gravity adds in the single-target damage. Gravity has no PBAoE powers, so Caltrops can either be used as a DoT power, or to keep mobs away, since you don't need to be in short range for Gravity. So, set up traps, Wormhole mobs into them, back up behind Caltrops, and blast the survivors. Seems like one of the best combos for Controllers.

Electric/Poison, to add in the -1000% Recovery debuff from Poison Gas Trap. Finally get some use out of that otherwise useless debuff :p

Dominators, especially Electric, don't need capped Melee or S/L defenses. Ranged is good enough, and AoE is a nice bonus. The reason is that mobs next to you should be mezzed or drained of Endurance, so you don't need to worry as much about melee attacks, or about melee S/L attacks. Ranged S/L is covered by Ranged defense, so with good enough Ranged D you're good to go.

Here is my build, without Incarnates/Accolades planned. I think that Illusion/Storm works great, because Illusion is the Control set that embraces "damage without Containment" since it lacks Immobilizes... and Storm adds in a lot of damage that also doesn't use Containment. It also works well with throwing powers around a corner: PA, Freezing Rain, Tornado, and Spectral Terror, then once the mobs are falling down and aggroed on PA you can come around and add in Lightning Storm. An AoE Immob would be great, but it works well without one. It also has a great build synergy, in that you're trying to build for max Recharge for PA, and this also helps put out Tornado, FR, and Lightning Storm more often. The build is almost perma-PA, but with the Force Feedback procs firing (at a 90% rate when Tornado and LS are put out, and you can put out about 5 casts in total during a minute), you should run with perma-PA in every fight. That's before using Gale on mobs that are on Freezing Rain's patch to knock down everyone... and get a practically guaranteed activation on FF if you're hitting enough of them. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1502&c=697&a=1394&f=HEX&dc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

Dang. I was hoping this would be a suggestion post for a Vomit Blast powerset.

I always think that Poison is an offensive secondary for Controllers (especially with IO'd Poison Gas Trap), but it really needs a primary that can shut down spawns on its own, because Poison doesn't help it do that. So, I think it's fine for soloing, but only when paired with specific sets that are strong enough defensively to carry the load: Dark, Electric, Plant, Earth. Maybe Mind or Illusion, if you want to use a lot of Sleep/Confuse. I wouldn't run it with Ice, Gravity, or Fire.

Does anyone know any of the statistics of either the Orb or the summons power for it? 1) How long does the Orb last? 2) What is the radius of its aura? 3) What is the activation/tick period of its aura? 4) What is the Stun duration, and what is the chance for it to occur? 5) What is the damage? 6) Does it have any other attacks besides a damage/stun aura?

/Storm. Storm doesn't bring much personal defense for the Controller, but Electric is very strong in shutting mobs down (mostly due to End drain), and at later levels, Lightning Storm adds to that. But the main thing is that /Storm is endurance-hungry, and Electric is the only primary that will help its endurance management.

I've always argued that Ice can be a strong defensive set, more as a debuffing/confusing set, if paired with a -ToHit secondary like Rad, Dark, Time, maybe Nature. Making mobs attack less often, attack each other, and hit less often, while having a heal to fix the small damage that gets through, is as good for defending the team as mezzing everyone.. and a lot easier to manage. But it does lock Ice Controllers into a few secondaries. /Cold, /FF, and /Sonic can do similar things for the team with team buffs, but it leaves the Controller vulnerable and Arctic Air/Ice Slick will draw a lot of aggro.

Take Spinning Kick rather than Paralyzing Blast. Your best playstyle will be in melee range, not so much for the attacks but to stack Conductive Aura with Static Field for End draining. As long as you're in melee range anyhow, a melee cone will be a useful attack. Meanwhile, while an AoE Hold is nice, your main defensive plan will be to drain the mobs and to knock them down while draining them, so you don't care as much whether they're Held or not. You could also drop Chain Fences instead, but I find it a useful power on a lot of teams to prevent runners and to limit knockback, and it also drains more Endurance. Oh, and both Static Field and Conductive Aura return Endurance to you, so that's another reason why you will want to be in melee range.

Mind is eminently survivable when soloing, because it has non-aggroing controls (Confuse & Sleep), so you can always limit the active threats against you. Even without the Sleep, having a Confuse AND a Hold, rather than a knockup and a Hold, makes a huge difference if fighting spawns with like 5 mobs. And, of course, it makes 3-mob spawns trivial. Electric is also excellent, I think... it takes a different pace, but it should work well with Martial Assault. You Sleep the mobs (and their Endurance starts getting drained), then you run in the middle of them (draining more Endurance), and you Hold one and kick it and stick a shuriken between its teeth. By this time, the rest of the mobs are probably drained, and you can start with the AoEs... Dragon's Tail, Trick Shot, Jolting Chain, etc. BTW, Jolting Chain has low damage to start, but improves very nicely with damage procs since it's treated as a single-target attack with regards to proc %, while still hitting multiple targets. And if you think that Trick Shot is fun, going BOUNCE - BOUNCE - BOUNCE, add in Jolting Chain whose "bounce" visual is a mob going feet up as it gets knocked down. I'm having a lot of fun with Electric/Earth, but it was a close call between that and Electric/Martial regarding which would be more fun to play in melee range, bouncing mobs that have no Endurance. I went with Earth since it has Power Boost, but Martial would do more AoE damage.

LOL. The bounce from Trick Shot seems random to me, within the bounce range (I think about 15'). Envenomed Blades has a 40 second duration and 160 recharge, so with 400% Recharge, you still can't get it permanent since you have the animation time... but a perma-Dom build should have about 80% uptime on it, which is great. I don't have Explosive Shuriken yet, so I can't say... but how useful it is depends on the % of its damage that is AoE. As a single-target attack it's usable but poor... if it's usable as an AoE, then it's a solid power. As a Hover user, you shouldn't need Acrobatics: the midair flip from being knocked back while in Hover mode is not a big enough problem to make it worth going for Acrobatics. Grav is a poor choice for a Dominator, its main strength is single-target ranged damage, but that's much more useful for Controllers than for Dominators who already have good attacks in the secondary. And its main defensive power, Wormhole for the AoE stun, comes at Level 26. So you did pick a rather poor combination, I'm afraid. At least at higher levels you'll be able to Wormhole spawns into a wall in front of you, to bunch up everyone for the AoE kicks. There is a huge difference between running a perma-Dom build and one that isn't perma-Dom. Having constantly boosted controls is nice (less so for Grav, though, since it really only benefits Gravity Distortion and Wormhole). I would take Crushing Field since Gravity needs defensive help, but its main purpose will be to use the ATO proc in order to generate as many Fiery Orbs as you can. They add AoE Stun auras that will help keep mobs from fighting back. It is an End hog, so you will want Accuracy and Endurance in it. You can build for a good mix of Recharge and Defense in a Dominator... I have a couple of perma-Dom builds that also have 35%+ defenses to Melee and Ranged, and combined with mezzed mobs and mez protection, this works. But since you're depending on a lot of set bonuses to get this, plus Link Minds in an APP, it's a build that really matures in the 40s :(.

You can do a decent job of keeping targets in an area with either Ice/Storm or Water/Storm (though I would run it as a defender to get the Storm powers earlier), if you slot up Freezing Rain a bit for -Slow. There are nice IOs with End/Rech/Slow enhancements, so they'll help what you want to enhance on it in addition to the movement debuff. All of the Rain powers that you're looking at will slow movement, so combine all of those movement debuffs, and mobs will run out but quite slowly. Add in Gale with a KB -> KD IO in order to knock everyone down in the rains, and you'll be fine. Just remember to always use Freezing Rain before Gale, since it's inaccurate and you need FR's -Defense debuff to hit reliably. Also, add in the Force Feedback proc to Gale if you do this, and you can get a lot of +Recharge buffing when fighting larger spawns.

10 mil for a cornerstone IO seems reasonable to me. If you get an AT's ATO that you can't use, which is most likely, you put it up on the market and use the money to buy the ATO that you want. You lose 10% on the transaction fees, but in general the total loss is only in the neighborhood of 10-11 mil. For 12 of them, that's 120 mil, which is steep but still cheaper than purples, and the set bonuses are comparable to purple sets. Alternately, 100 merits = 300 Enhancement Converters = about 27 million after market fees. You can convert the merits to cash and buy two ATOs that you want for those 100 merits. Short version: the price seems reasonable to me.