Redlynne

The stock advice of "don't do that" is predicated upon Dimension Shift being a Click power that can't be canceled early (it is now a Toggle that CAN be detoggled early) and also being a power that "puts $Targets beyond reach no matter what you do" (which is also no longer true). What Dimension Shift does now is move EVERYTHING inside the AoE (Foes, Allies, etc.) into a different Phase. This creates a "bubble" of AoE where attacks can't cross the boundary ... but inside to inside works and outside to outside works ... you just can't do inside to outside or outside to inside. The trick here is that you can use that phase shifting to your advantage to whittle away at groups of Foes while doing it in a team friendly way (your team just needs to know What It Means when they see it, since most will have never seen it done before). We make every pretense of competency around here. 😎 You can, and there will of course be situations where that is a superior option to Wormhole + Dimension Shift, so it really just depends on the context of what is happening. Which is another way of saying that Situational Awareness is important. The thing is, almost everyone who plays Gravity Control "knows" about the combination of Wormhole + Crushing Field ... but few people know about the alternative of Wormhole + Dimension Shift, so I was wanting to point out this alternative option for those who didn't know what it would mean. It's not something that you can grok intuitively just by looking at the build. It's something that needs to be pointed out and EXPLAINED how it can be a useful combination. By itself? Almost certainly not. If you're soloing, you'll almost certainly need to enter the Dimension Shift in order to start delivering damage to make arrests ... assuming you didn't Wormhole everything right next to yourself and/or your Singularity (so when the Dimension Shift goes up you're already inside of it rather than outside). In a group, you'd want to Wormhole the compost heap onto the nearest aggro magnet and the put up the Dimension Shift AFTER so that the 90% chance to hit each $Target inside the Dimension Shift can harm them upon casting. Because I could slot out EITHER Crushing Field OR Wormhole ... and Wormhole needs at least 2 slots (Accuracy and KB>KD) to produce the effect(s) I'm aiming for here. A lack of Accuracy slotted into Wormhole will cripple the power, and a lack of the Sudden Acceleration/Overwhelming Force proc will require use of terrain to corral the $Targets gathered up by Wormhole due to the (unwanted?) Knockback spew out of the Wormhole. What I was mainly aiming for with this change was getting the recharge time on Wormhole under 27 seconds, so it can be used twice per minute, while also getting the recharge up to over 30 seconds, so as to be able to make Wormhole "perma" as an aggro neutralization tool, which Gravity Control DESPERATELY NEEDS as a powerset. In order to do that, you need to dedicate slots to Wormhole. Crushing Field, conversely, functions "just fine" as a One Slot Wonder power, especially since it is just too ruinous on endurance to keep using every time the power recharges. Crushing Field is already "perma" out of the box without any enhancement whatsoever, while Wormhole is not. So just as a matter of balancing priorities, I wanted to put slots into Wormhole to enhance it and DIDN'T need to put slots into Crushing Field to enhance it. The other thing is that slotting the Energy Font proc into Crushing Field means that you need to have a sizeable number of $Targets being cast against in order to have a "decent" chance of getting Energy Font to proc. The fast recharge time and 30 ft spherical radius really works AGAINST getting high proc chances per $Target in the AoE on Crushing Field. You CAN make it work in large teams (or on AE Farm maps) obviously, but performance declines when soloing and/or not fighting against large quantities of $Targets simultaneously. Conversely, putting the proc into Wormhole yields a performance where you have a 90% chance to proc the Energy Font even against a single target. This means you'll have fewer Energy Font pets getting spawned, but they'll also be spawning "when you need them" (after use of Wormhole) in order to help with the lockdown stunning of everything that just got shoved through the Wormhole ... and with Wormhole available every ~28 seconds or so under Hasten and Chrono Shift, and with a duration of ~38 seconds, you can aggro neutralize entire groups of $Targets until you've defeated them all in detail in relative safety ... a performance profile you WOULDN'T necessarily get by having Overwhelming Presence slotted into Crushing Field instead. In other words, putting Overwhelming Force into Wormhole instead of Crushing Field made other engagement options possible, and I found those possibilities to have enough merit to warrant moving Overwhelming Force back into Wormhole after comparing the proc chances between the two options (and what that would mean for how to use the respective powers, both when soloing and when in groups). Besides, putting it into Wormhole just incentivizes you to use Wormhole as often as possible (for what should be obvious reasons), which winds up being safer and wiser than using Crushing Field as often as possible (which is ruinously expensive on the endurance budget). Potentially as often as once every 10 seconds. When it does proc, the buff lasts for 5.25 seconds. So in a Team-8 context, you're looking at a (statistically averaged) 41.5% chance to proc a +64% damage buff with a 5.25s duration ... every 10 seconds. In League-35+ contexts, you can potentially be looking at a (statistically averaged) up to 90% chance to proc a +64% damage buff with a 5.25s duration ... every 10 seconds. If that sounds "pretty decent" to you ... there's a reason for that. 💫 Granted ... and if I was desperate enough to want to salvage/harvest slots from somewhere to assign elsewhere, Tactics would be the power I'd pull those slots from to apply to other powers. So long as you dump the "compost heap" onto the Melee Monsters on your team, they simply won't notice use of Dimension Shift (since they'll be inside the AoE and shift with the $Targets that they're wanting to damage, so it's all a matter of Different Sameness™ to them). The only ones who might be affected will be Ranged Attackers who would be outside the bubble when you use Dimension Shift and whose attacks can't "cross" the bubble boundary. Let them know what's going on so they don't waste attacks trying to harm what they can't harm and they'll learn to adapt to the different context of the group dynamics (or they won't and they'll just complain, ye ken hoo i'tis). Basically it depends on how you slot up Dimension Shift. If you pile in the damage procs as @Sir Myshkin did you can produce quite a bit of AoE beatdown with Dimension Shift, which Gravity Control is sorely lacking in. The big thing though is that you want to herd THEN use Dimension Shift, due to the high proc chance(s) upon casting. Doing the reverse where you've laid down a Dimension Shift and then herd stuff into it will "waste" that high proc chance upon casting of Dimension Shift. So herd (via Wormhole, usually) first, Dimension Shift second. You CAN, of course, as @Sir Myshkin found, Dimension Shift first and Wormhole a group INTO the Dimension Shifted area successfully ... but that's wasteful of Dimension Shift's duration and proc potential compared to doing the reverse.

Yes ... but you and I orient what we value around different priorities for this. You tend to slot procs for damage, while I tend to slot procs for other purposes (usually control or force multiplier type applications). In that sense, I prefer to manipulate/control the battlefield, rather than just simply overrun it (if that makes any sense in this context). I guess the real answer in this case is that I wanted the flexibility of having Propel available for those situations that call for it, mainly because Impact is such a force multiplier for both Lift and Propel. However, that does bring to the fore the notion that Propel falls into the Nice To Have™ category, rather than in the MUST Have bucket.

Great. Now I just need a way to install all of this stuff that doesn't require going to broken links ...

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Controller - Gravity Control - Time Manipulation.mxd

So ... a while back (as in, May 2019) ... I took a stab at making a Gravity/Time Controller build. Some of you may have read it and made your own. Other people were inspired by it, and for a little while we had a bit of a ... craze, I guess you could call it ... of people trying out playing Gravity/Time and enjoying the Well of the Furies (WotF?) out of the combination. Well ... a little time has passed since then ... and a fair amount of research has been done in the meantime on how procs work (credit to @Bopper for a lot of that research!) and how a variety of different powers ACTUALLY work, particularly when those procs get slotted into those powers (*ahem* ... Tactics with Gaussian's!) ... and ... you get the idea. In other words, it's time for brushing off the old build and giving it a touch up for the sheer amount of knowledge (and let's be honest, cleverness!) that has been (re)discovered since Homecoming burst onto the scene like a meteor falling onto Galaxy City (help keep Galaxy City clean!). Which is a long winded preamble to say, if you've read my previous thoughts on this specific subject, don't worry ... I didn't shift the goalposts THAT far down the field regarding the build. However, if you're still interested in knowing the "shape" of my current thinking (and playstyle) on this topic, now that I've gotten a few Levels into my Controller, feel free to read on. Oh and this won't QUITE be (quite as much of) a WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU!!! situation as usual, since I'm dealing with somewhat well tilled ground here, but the build will be in the next post down below after this one if you just want to grab the data and run with it. So one of the BIG discoveries of the past few months was the research into procs and how they inter(re)act with various enhancement options. At the same time, credit needs to be given where credit is due for little discoveries such as this one ... So wait ... You can slot a Sudden Acceleration KB>KD proc into Wormhole ... and it won't negate the aggro-less aspect of how Wormhole works? And it will cluster up widely dispersed (within 20ft radius of the selected $Target) spawn groupings and dump them out in a neatly collected PILE without needing to resort of use of terrain/corners to keep them clustered up and avoid Knockback scattering? You still have 5 remaining slots left over ... which is EXACTLY how many slots you'd want/need to 5-slot the Overwhelming Presence set and ITS proc into Wormhole, where it will do you the most good? And you can use it as an Alpha Strike ... to prevent retaliation? So ... aggro DENIAL by use of Wormhole? And as if that wasn't enough of a gravy train, @Sir Myshkin had to go out and discover this ... So let me get this straight. It's not only possible, but also desirable(!) to use Wormhole AND Dimension Shift (of all things!) to neutralize an entire spawn group AND prevent them from wandering away? So ... Stun + Immobilize = (ghetto) AoE Hold that you can deploy more than once per minute?!? Um ... yeah ... I'll take two (per minute) ... and call me from the Zig when you figure out you've been arrested and just haven't gotten the memo yet (see above, Space and Time Controller!). /em polite cough Oh and by the way ... that Overwhelming Presence proc is going to have a really nice and high chance to spawn an Energy Font pet that will broadcast a PBAoE Stun aura around itself to help keep everything in lockdown. Have a nice day (being arrested before you even know what happened, $Targets). Okay, that's enough of an EBIL IDEA™ that it seems like something ought to be done to make this happen pretty routinely. Now, one of the side effects of pulling such a ... stunt ... is that needing a full suite of Defensive oriented protection powers stops being quite AS important when you can just "neutralize $Targets into a compost heap for disposal" TWICE per minute using Wormhole ... meaning that Maneuvers in the previous builds turned into something of an unnecessary set mule power given the overall context of the build. City of Wormholed Statues in a Dimension Shift anyone? So with that in mind, one of the things that I've been noticing while playing my Gravity/Time Controller is that, of all things, I miss not having Crush available (see previous builds). I say that simply because I've run into situations where sure I could just rely on Gravity Distortion, Lift, Propel (and have) ... but Propel now has a Target AoE Knockback component to it, which widens its aggro "reach" potential. Fighting Vahzilok zombies, I found myself frustrated by the fact that I could defeat them one by one using single target ranged attacks, but as soon as I'd use an AoE I'd have to deal with the entire dogpile all at once. If I had Crush available to me, I'd be able to manage them with a 3 power rotation of single target attacks only, rather than trying to make do with 2 singles and a single target that splashes Knockback (and aggro) around my $Target. Is Crush "all that great" on its own as a power? Well, maybe not, if you're talking about "perfect attack chains" and so on. But if you're looking for a single target ONLY attack chain (for ... reasons), you really want to be using a 3 power rotation rather than just 2 for that. And while Propel is technically a single target attack and takes single target Ranged set slotting, the Knockback "splash" around your $Target makes it an "aggro noisy" single target attack that can draw the attention of more than one $Target onto yourself. Now, granted, Vahzilok are kind of unique in this regard, in that if there are no "leaders" for the zombies (Reapers, Mortificators, Eidolons, etc.), you can pull off the single target sequential pickoff strategy with relative ease because they won't "communicate" their aggro state to those around them (while the "leaders" would do so to give the zombies their marching orders). Point being, there's an edge case where Crush can be more useful than the alternative ... and that's not even including how Immobilize works on AVs and GMs to keep them pinned in place where you'd want them. So I dropped Maneuvers out of the build and replaced it with Crush as the Level 1 power pick for greater flexibility in use of the attack chain, both in the early game and in the Incarnate Trials endgame. Research done by myself and others into the interactions of Build Up relative to straight up damage procs yielded some interesting islands of stability in unexpected places/combinations of powers. For Defenders and Masterminds this synergy tended to manifest when carrying the Build Up proc through multiple attack rotations in a way that would offer multiple bites at the apple (so to speak) and when that attack rotation included an AoE attack of some kind (in my Defender and Mastermind builds this wound up being a mix of Cones and Target AoEs) the increased damage throughput became multiplicative rather than merely additive like you'd see with a straight damage proc. Well that logic changes in the context of a Controller ... because of Containment. That's because the +64% damage bonus of a Build Up proc modifies the damage produced BEFORE it gets doubled by Containment. Well, I've worked out that with an attack chain of Crush (1.33s), Gravity Distortion (1.83s), Lift (1.03s) and Propel (2.07s) ... in that order, for a total of 6.26s of animation for all 4 attacks (a rate of better than 1.6s per attack, on average), yields 4.19s of time elapsed before returning to Propel ... meaning that from a single Build Up proc out of Propel (in this case) you can "wrap back around" to activate Propel again(!) while the Build Up buff remains active. So if you're just chain casting on a 132413241324 type rotation, so as to get the most out of Containment and Impact against hard(ish) $Targets that aren't Minions (who will crumple "too quickly" for this kind of damage appreciation!), you'll be able to leverage a single Build Up proc for +64% damage through Containment AND Impact for both Lift AND Propel ... even if the Decimation Build Up proc is put into Propel! The attack chain will animate fast enough(!) for Propel to benefit "directly" from the Build Up proc slotted into it! In a lot of cases, you won't get that kind of return on investment going with the Decimation Build Up proc (although I seem to have started to make a specialty out of it in my builds). This then yields an unexpectedly robust single target attack chain for a Controller ... especially if both Lift and Propel are also slotted with Force Feedback procs for the bonus recharge needed to make Chrono Shift effectively perma in this build. There are a few other aspects of this revision that will be "familiar" to anyone who has been following the evolution of my build plan schemes ... such as the slotting for Chrono Shift (now a "standard" on all of my Time Manipulation builds) and also Health and Stamina for maximizing yield on endurance recovery. I put the Decimation set into Propel, rather than into Lift, in this build for the very simple reason that the Build Up buff duration of 5.25 seconds doesn't begin until the power it's slotted into completes its animation. Essentially, the buff doesn't "start" until the next power gets used, that way it doesn't buff the power that procs the Build Up during the use that triggered the proc. The animation times of Crush, Gravity Distortion and Lift add up to 4.19s of duration before getting back to Propel, meaning that Propel "gets to use" the Build Up buff's remaining duration to apply to Propel on the repeat of the attack chain. The same does NOT hold true if Decimation is slotted into Lift! The animation times of Propel, Crush and Gravity Distortion combine to be 5.23 seconds ... which makes it extremely likely(!) you'd have a situation where the Build Up buff would only apply to 3 attacks, instead of 4(!), by slotting the Decimation set into Lift instead of Propel. It CAN be done, of course ... at the expense of the "yield" derived from the Build Up proc (3 attacks instead of 4). However, if you REALLY want to push your recharge, it can be done by simply dropping Crush from the rotation, which having Force Feedback procs in both Lift and Propel may very well be able to do for you (depending on Exemplar Level at the time). Which then brings up the point that not everyone would want to add Crush to their build (let alone slot it) like I'm doing here, which is a fair criticism. However, if you're the type of Player who would easily ditch Crush for something else/better/anything(!) then this build offers a ready made alternative (although some serious power picks and slot shuffling will be needed to implement it). Swap Crush for Enflame from the Sorcery pool(!). Since Crush is 6 slotted in this build, if you swap it for Enflame you'd be able to 6-slot Enflame without needing to pull slots from other powers, so all of that would stay relatively the same. However, the "yield" of the overall build would change rather markedly ... thanks to the ready made combo of Wormhole and Dimension Shift. Why? Because you could Wormhole a group into a unified "compost heap" to defeat them without drawing aggro. Cast Enflame onto your $Target, who will presumably be in the center of the dogpile after the Wormhole. Cast Dimension Shift to "close the oven door" and let your $Targets "cook" until done while they're Stunned by Wormhole, Immobilized by Dimension Shift and can't get away from the burn patch lit up by Enflame. As an added extra spice for your flambe cuisine preparation ... you can dump the "compost heap" onto your Singularity (or any old aggro magnet you have handy) and then "light 'em up" with Enflame before you "slam the oven door" on them with Dimension Shift and sit back and wait in relative safety for the (cosmic) microwave (background) to finish turning them into an accretion disk of XP and drops for you. And that's not even including the added seasonings of Distortion Field and Slowed Response for additional tenderizing. "Feed them to the Sharkticons!" indeed ... Dimension Shift will reach its 20 second expiration just in time for Wormhole to be recharged ... so you can wash/rinse/repeat if needed. And if that kind of EBIL IDEA™ sounds like just the fresh baked XP kitchenware you're looking for ... you might want to consider taking the build I'm posting below and make a few ... alterations ... to it, in order to achieve that outcome. You're welcome. There are of course a couple other bits of trickery involved in this build, but compared to the above, they're pretty minor ... mainly just ways to stay relevant during AV/GM battles and attacks on Hamidon where stacking Holds is the answer to a lot of questions. Anyway, they're there for any Disinterested Observers™ to find for themselves, if they're so inclined. Oh and pay attention to the proc chances I calculated, since there's some interesting stuff there too ...

Maaaaaybeeeee ....

Which is why D3 is stupid. Hopelessly stupid.

I'd counter with ALL of the exploration badges for a "not safe" zone, simply because merely one is far too easy (path of least resistance and all that). Still, the idea of EARNING the right/power to long range teleport to non-safe zones does have merit to it ... I just wouldn't make that aspect a "freebie" upon acquisition of the power.

It's when you take that notion to extremes that you start running into problems ... and guess what ... Players being the highly competitive breed that they tend to be will usually reach for the extremes as their FIRST (and only?) option, rather than as a later one. We know this. As for being "unable to defeat $Targets" ... are you talking about individually or as a force multiplier for an entire team? Even Controllers can defeat $Targets, and they're "low" on the damage scale. Sometimes you just need to be clever about it, rather than trying to brute force everything.

So sayeth the elitist jerks who demand gear checks before "allowing" you to join them on a raid, let alone their Guild Super Group. We're very familiar with the mindset foisted upon us from other games, thanks to the hyper-specialization of roles in the division of labor that they foster in their Players. Here in City of Heroes, we're more like "hold my beer" on this point, because we've got this.

It only got "left behind" simply because in order for me to produce these build posts takes MULTIPLE DAYS of free time per build in order to post them. That's time which I can't use to be playing in game. In this case, I just ran out of time to build a Bane counterpart. I probably will someday, but that day is not today (or this week, likely). I've got other priorities competing for my attention span (which is limited) and free time (which is even more limited). Finite resources meet nigh infinite demand for those resources.

Martial Arts/Super Reflexes is a "late blooming" combination, mainly because in order to be really effective you need ALL of your slots ... and you don't get all of those until Level 50. The combination also struggles until you get to Level 22 and can finally (finally!) start slotting some SO strength enhancements. DO strength enhancements just don't cut it on those powersets (let alone TO). Just keep going.

It'll take a little bit of muscle memory retraining, but you should be able to do it in about a week of playing. Once you've adapted you'll be fine. Until then, you'll be frustrated while retraining your muscle memory every time you make that mistake. You'll just make it less often as time goes on and you keep doing it. You'll get past that stage.

If you're going to do that, might as well throw in energy weapon "pew pew" noises as well so as to match some of the Retro Sci-Fi options better.

Being able to teleport into an SG Base without needing to go to a Base Portal first would be a desirable upgrade. Ouroboros makes no sense whatsoever, since Ouroboros is a WHEN as opposed to being a WHERE that would be accessible to Teleport. Declined. At that point you might as well just make it a Teleport me to my Mission Door kind of thing and just skip the shared world ENTIRELY. At that point you've basically turned the entire game into being inside the AE building, as far as travel goes. I know this will annoy some people ... but if you don't have to travel through the world, you simply WON'T (because you don't have to). At that point, the game turns into this giant lobby where people basically "park" their PCs and just appear and disappear out of to enter instances ... just like with AE ... and we all know what we think of AE Babies, don't we? Instantaneous travel to anywhere in the game ... ANYWHERE ... without needing to do any zone travel at all is NOT A GOOD THING for the overall health of the game and its community. It's a convenience that takes convenience for the sake of convenience "too far" in a way that trivializes too much of the game space. Not recommended.

Still kind of amazed by how Mystic Flight, all on its own, so vastly exceeds the Fly speed cap even when not slotting for Fly speed inside the planner. According to the mouse hover tooltip: Base Flight speed: 21.5 mph This has been capped at the maximum in-game speed. Uncapped speed: 164.6 mph I figure there's something wonky (that's the correct technical term, by the way) for how that formula is computing things inside the build planner. Oh and I'm still stuck using v2.6.0.1 due to a lack of a .net 2.0 compatible upgrade path for the planner.

Ah, so you use QWES instead of WERD like I do. Same idea, just 1 key to the left.

When I check Mystic Flight in the build planner, it shows an endurance cost of 0.36/s but when I look at the info in-game on Homecoming I see 0.46/s. I figure this is an Off By One typo in the database, but it has implications for endurance budgeting for builds that use Mystic Flight instead of Hover. This makes me wonder if there's possibly a bug(?) with the Activate period on the power. 0.182 / 0.5s = 0.362 endurance per second, as advertised 0.182 / 0.4s = 0.455 endurance per second, which is seen in the Show Info screens inside of Homecoming So a difference in the activation period of 0.5 vs 0.4 would account for the discrepancy and still be an Off By One typo situation, just not in the place you'd expect it to be.

Delete Island Rum and the CoH Client completely. Download a NEW fresh copy of Island Rum. Use the NEW copy of Island Rum to download and install a NEW copy of the CoH Client from scratch. If you have bindfiles or other personalized data in your installation, please copy that outside of the folders that are going to be deleted by this action so that you can "put them back" after you're done with the clean load installation.

Whereas I use the strafe keys A LOT in controlling aerial movement, particularly with low friction movement powers, so as to be able to "drift drive" through slaloms (like the entrance to the PTA trams. It's just one of those things where being able to side slip sideways while moving forwards is just incredibly helpful. While playing WoW I'd just the strafe move keybinds while moving forwards so as to be able to "keep my head on a swivel" while running down the roads and such. I'd basically "turn against" the strafe sideways + forward movement so as to be able to keep running in the direction I wanted to go while turning my view to the side while continuing to move. I'd then reverse the turn and the strafe sideways while continuing to move forwards so as to check the other side of my view. This switching back and forth while running in a line essentially gave me additional screens worth of peripheral vision to the sides of where I was going, so I wouldn't be surprised by something approaching from the flanking positions of where I was headed. It gave me a much greater sense of situational awareness without requiring me to stop running in order to look around. In City of Heroes I so something similar while Hovering/Flying where I'll use the Forward and Up keybind simultaneously, which would normally move my PC in a forward ascent ... but then I angle my view downwards so as to fly in a (relatively) level flight line while looking downwards like a helicopter. That's because often times I'm not interested in what is directly in front of me while I'm flying at my flight level when I'm searching for prey. Instead, I want to see what is below me while I proceed with my search pattern. Angling my view downwards while doing a forward + up movement yields level flight while watching what's below my position. I can then use the Strafe movements in addition to all of that to fine tune my approach vectors.

Dance Gun

Spelunker Badge

Clever ...

Explain to me why Rooted shouldn't offer a sub-power for Teleportation ... just like how Mystic Flight offers a sub-power for Teleportation ... since almost every Stone Tanker "has to" take Teleport as a workaround to being Rooted by Rooted.