LightMaster

Ice Mastery has a Snipe for Scrapper + Stalker, whereas Ice Blast does not? It’s not like Ice Blast needs it all things considered (Ice Assault Doms might appreciate it though), but now I should keep that in mind next time I make an ice-themed Scrapper / Stalker. I’m also surprised that Moonbeam have a higher slow-snipe base damage than other Scrapper + Stalker Snipes despite the animation speed being the same as Zapp and Frozen Spear. I thought at first a Slow Snipe feels redundant with Hidden Assassin’s Strike, but it can be a much safer alternative and adds an Extreme damage to your rotation as a fast-snipe, too. I’d only recommand Mace if it goes with your theme (i.e. Arachnos hired assassin or someone who stole some gadgets) but otherwise stick with Elec and Dark Masteries that you’d preferred.

TBH increasing the Dominator’s damage scales runs the risk of making the AT overpowered and away from it’s main role, since such main role first and foremost is “damage dealing CC” as twozerofoxtrot pointed, and not one of the damage dealing ATs, with Scrapper, Stalker, Corruptor and Blaster from tied 3rd for Scrapper and Stalker, to 1st for Blaster. If we increased the Dominator’s damage scales, they’ll end up forgoing CC most of the time because they will deal too much damage. While a smidge increase on Ranged Damage is fine, that scalar is ultimately good enough as is due to still doing enough damage to finish off targets and fight at a safe distance. It helps that Dominator have access to a Snipe in most Assault sets, too. Unlike Heatstroke, I’m taking advantage of the Assault the way it is meant to be; a nice mixture of Blast and Melee sets of the same theme, making Dominator one of the only true mixed ATs alongside the Blaster and the Epic ATs. I’ve been told in the Discord server of Homecoming that Assaults and most Manipulations (the Blaster’s secondaries) tend to have the same best melee powers as their Melee set counterparts, too. If anything, it gives a Dominator a sense of duality one must take advantage off on both solo or on a team. On one side, a Dominator can off Crowd Control often if the foes aren’t resistant to mezzes, then finish them off with their Assault powers. On the other side, on a team with already lot of CC or if the foes are resistant to mezzes like AVs, then pelt them with your Assault powers while shooting your CC powers time to time if you are on Domination. Perma-Dom (increased magnitude, resistance to mez for the Dominator, and insta-full End on activation) helps a lot in this regard as the Domination meter fills faster by using Assault Powers than with Control Powers iirc. If anything, the Controller is the underperforming one in the past, not the Dominator. Both can fill up some good Damage-Procs on their CCs, but the Dominator already have good damage on their own as well, giving the latter AT a bigger edge in a damage-oriented meta today, whereas the Controller have to rely on Containment, their pet damage and buff/debuff sets to significantly contribute beyond Crowd Control, and Overpower is inconsistant vs Domination. At least Defender have a much stronger buff and debuff than all other ATs, especially if such Defender can inflict -Def or -Res on foes. The Controller doesn’t have a luxury, only equal to Corruptor’s buffs and debuffs but with far less damage potential. It doesn’t make the Controller bad, I’ll say it is still good all things considered, just doesn’t hold the candle compared to other ATs. tl;dr Dominator is already in a good spot today, doesn’t severely need any buff, and already does better than Controller, an AT that is good but overshadowed.

A job for a Tanker is to control, get as much Resist / Defense fo survive and maintain that control, and distribute AoE damage. Energy Melee doesn’t have much AoE, thusly while servicable on a Tanker it is not the AT I’d recommand using for optimal use of the Power Set unless you’re more into the thematic sides of things, or combine with Bio Armor for granting one self extra damage to clean low ranked foes, then grant extra Resists for dealing with the big guns. Stalker is a common answer and for very good reason. Stalker are the most ST focused among pure Melee ATs* and thusly would love to use Energy Assassin Strike, Bone Smasher (optioanally), Total Focus and Energy Transfer as the single target damage chain. Although criticals work differently for Total Focus and Energy Transfer instead of a straightforward 2x danage, Total Focus Crits giving 2x Energy Focus means you have two Quick Energy Transfers, allowing for effective 2x damage on that power.

I appreciate giving your saying in the matters, particularly the “surprise” development. Regarding Hard Mode / Four Stars, It helps that players aren’t forced to participate on it at any point nor does Four Stars replaced the original (Lady Gray / Imperious) or the Four Star being the original one (Dr. Aeon) regarding Task / Strike Forces. They moreso serve for those who thinks those aren’t difficult enough and it helps that each Star adds additional objectives beyond boosting the critters’ numbers, with increased rewards in Prismatic Aethers. It does have an unfortunate effect of only certain ATs and powersets being selected a vast majority of the time for Four Stars, with loads of Corruptors and a Tanker back in the day, and then five Corrs, one Tanker and two Blasters. Back into the subject, I do think that civility should be enforced more given we saw some threads getting derailed a bit (if not severely so) with a few reaction post / snarky things in a row that didn’t add much to the conversations.

That’s something many would agree with, hopefully as two-in-one power purchase (you bought a Mini, you got the proportionally balanced version) as to reduce the need to cash in more Prismatic Aethers for those who purchased the Mini.

Something something Energy Blast having glowing FX akin to Energy Melee (and Energy Blast FX for Energy Melee), same for Assault and Manipulation. Given Dark powers have Soul Noir as an alternative FX based on Soul Mastery, and given that Energy Blast and Energy Melee have different FX despite sharing the concept powerset. Having options like those allows for easier interpretation on whether one toon uses it as “light” for glowing / hardlight particles with Energy Melee FX, or “molecular particles” with Energy Blast FX for the more general version of energy for both Blast, Melee, Manipulation and Assault. In case anyone asked, I rather not have Peacebringer light as an option it’s a distinct Kheldian light FX, same for Warshade’s FX regarding Darkness powersets. Storm and Marine Manipulations for Blaster given the Melee Powers of those and Dominator’s Assaults are useful to expand onto full melee sets of those concepts. Perhaps expand upon the Legacy Chain with critters of levels higher than 30, given they are supposed to be guardians of mystic arts that avoid letting those fall in evil hands, and / or have branches with level higher than 30 that have members that decided enough is enough and take more drastic measures, with skillsets and in-lore + in-game power level higher than the Legacy Chain we saw to back themselves up. Have one existing endgame enemy group to be more resilient against either Negative, Fire or Energy since those three are the least resisted type of damage among the enemy critters.

Def an interesting concept, but as far as I know, there’s not much insect NPCs available on top of having to create new skeleton riggings for the mantis. It’ll likely take years if it were to be implemented. But if it were to be implemented or something like that was planned in advance, I’d consider the following: The whole set focus on reducing stats and dealing Damage over Time, to make up for being mostly melee ranged. Praying Mantis are the one reducing Resistance, giving them an edge over other T3 pets. Black Scorpions (or just Scorpions to not confuse them with THE Black Scorpion of Arachnos) are the one dealing more DoT than other pets in general and reducing Defense. Giant Ants are the one dealing -DMG on the foes, which with all three Giant Ants makes for a heavy -DMG on one foe if all three are kept well alive. Perhaps smaller ants be available akin to Gang Wars and Hell on Earth, with weaker HP but adds even more damage if protected and buffed well.

Yeah, it have been suggested a lot as Rudra pointed out. From what I experienced with my Demon Summoning Mastermind, it deals Fire damage with Poison DoT. I can imagine the Whip Power Set starts with Smash damage and Lethal DoT, but can be embued with three different “modes” that changes damage type and secondary effect akin to Staff Fighting and Dual Pistols, or even mutually exclusive powers that serves as a single alternative mode. With Demon Summoning’s Fire damage and Toxic DoT being one of them, of course.

Other than directly helping out newly created toons via donations, of which we don’t have to partake if we really don’t want, I don’t see much solution for this supposed problem. Plus donations can be exploited by creating multiple toons, so a limitation per player might be needed like a cooldown-on-creation. Everlasting, the server I’m maining, have players that grant around 10 million inf or so for low level players. I also received 2 mil inf from a player during a SF in Exelscior, which helped me a lot for enhancements. Otherwise, it is not a gigantic problem even for new players that don’t speak up, and even then, new players that stick around figure to make the most of the Auction House. That is how I got much better at managing enhancements, btw… back before I realize how easy it is to use once you understands the basic, I was stuck using Merits to directly buy SOs, and not convert them into Converters / Unslotters / whatyouwant then sell then to AH. Ever since, my Inf income got a lot more stable.

Unless there’s Fire/Fire Blaster or Fire/Any Corruptor, where their DoT on top of good damage is more than enough to help shred even fire-resistant enemies. 😛 That said, there is a grain of truth of a few Lethal power sets lagging slightly behind at best, such as Archery, due to lack of secondary effects other than -Def (if even that), which leads to mechanic overlaps. Broadsword in particular is only helpful to combine with Shield Defense because otherwise Katana is simply better due to faster animations. This might explain the OP’s grief given that the Power Sets I mentioned can struggle against Lethal-resistant foes and got nothing to circumvent them other than reducing their Defense, something that’s only truly useful when teaming.

-Regen tend to be hit-or-miss when it comes to being high enough to be viable though. Too many times, you either have some powers with -Regen that feels insignificant unless you stack with others, and other times you have other powers with -Regen that makes stopping even an AV’s Regen a bit too easy. Envenomed Daggers can be considered as the latter as, since it’s a START Temp Power, every player can use it… and this little dagger has a whopping -250% Regen on hit. It is balanced by dealing minor Lethal damage and minor Toxic DoT, but it is still something to keep in mind… though Brute’s Fury begs differently. -125% by Time Crawl and around -80% by Time Stop may help making Time Manipulation more specialized on -Regen as you stack on the single hard targets with these two powers.

I admit I was on a bad mood at the forums at the time of yesterday of so, so let me the one to say: I understand. And I regret what I said in the OP. Especially now that I realize the number of devs, a bit smaller than I expected. At the end of the day, the Suggestion and Feedback threads are only that; Suggestion and Feedback. Drama (as in, intense arguments) and off-topic arguments hurted chances of an otherwise well-built and liked suggestion, and with that in mind, I don’t think the devs want to deal with any of that.

That’s where I am getting at, and thank you very much for clarifications. I avoided mentioning you specifically in the OP to avoid possible witch-hunting, which is an Internet-wide issue as far as I know. I used to think the worst possible implementation meant “poorly balanced / strayed too much from concept”, I wonder what do you mean by people reacting like that.

Between the whole “only 1% of suggestions be picked and 100% be implemented in worst way possible”, and some ideas comes off as pure junk (joke or otherwise), I feel like the suggestion forum started to become redundant with how seemingly little care the devs are about it. Shouldn’t be best to simply slow down if there’s almost no point that most of these are posted given the whole “only 1% picked and 100% worst” thing? I feel like the devs and / or forum admins should also hold accountable for this blatant disconnection and comes across as out-of-touch. I’m honestly surprised some people kept going despite little to no hint that any of the new ones might be picked up along the way.

And maybe the ability to give the “Monstrosity” or whatever that called via Advanced Power Editing? (With a version that also supersizes the custom critter, useful for outdoor maps.) Meanwhile I have been pondering for a “Random Power Set” for custom enemies, with the same randomizer logic used for “Random Power” when using a Doppelganger as a boss, to allow much less tedious work on minions or lieutenants that lore-wise are a variety of powers akin to player characters. Likewise, maybe allow boss-level Doppelgangers to spawn as a group akin to the Shadow Simulacrums at the last mission of Positron Task Force Part 1.