Frosticus

Taunting invincible summons are probably more problematic from a balance perspective than Rage is on superstrength. I can appreciate that. I'd have changed it and abandoned the power completely the second the powers team said: "hey we are going to swap out the taunt for water balloons and make the ice sword put them to sleep.... That's cool right?" I'd have scrapped PA entirely and put in: Mimic summon 2 powerful illusions that mimic your assault powerset by using the doppleganger system. But only assault powers, no controls. I'd also have abandoned the "indestructible" aspect and just given them super high resistances, so they are practically indestructible. However extremely powerful foes could still conceivably defeat them before they expire without using gimmick powers, especially if you don't help them in battle to further the illusion. -immune to healing/regeneration, but otherwise buffable (and debuffable). -i'd strip secondary effects from the "assault" powers they use and replace it with mag 2 confuse and fear procs (thematic in making the illusionist "slippery" and avoids some potential issues). -keep healback % in place Done. No more broken indestructible tanks. Doms get a unique and cool power that is different with each ill/x combo rather than a drastically downgraded "wish.com PA". No need for gimmick powers to defeat them. Trollers don't feel left out because it only mimics assault powers (that trollers don't get), not controls. *I really enjoy my ill/sav. It is fun and powerful, but damn did they phone it in illusion*

I'm a simple guy. Either blazing aura should cause enemies to flee because it is burning them, or it should infuriate them into attacking me like I'm vaping in their face. The latter is preferred, but doing nothing is worse than doing something imo.

So the rule is: You get a taunt aura if 1. You don't have a damage aura* 2. You have an have an aura that debuffs enemies while buffing the player** * unless you play bio **unless you play invuln There are 11 secondaries with auras of some type, so the rule is broken close to ~20% of the time. Mostly I just want to play ice armor (axe/ice) and it irks me. Edit: the exceptions indicate to me that if you have an aura it should probably taunt for scrappers. I'd be ok even having to slot a taunt enhancement in to activate it (in case anyone enjoys fleeing enemies)

Doesn't bio get a damage aura and a taunt aura?

I dunno. Ice armor is left out in the cold with that description. Chilling embrace debuffs more than most. Dark armor cloak of fear debuffs tohit. And elec armor drains end with lightning field. Mudpots debuffs speed EA actually makes sense without one given it has a stealth power too, but gets a budget one anyway. Unless you mean buffs AND debuffs are both required to qualify, but then invincibility doesn't make sense under that description as it only buffs.

Unfortunately Dom PA rarely uses their melee attacks either. Their AI seems to be set to "ranged" (why can't that happen with phantasm??) With no taunt things rarely close the distance to them so they just sit back pew pew'ing water balloons. Better if you summon them right on your target. Still decent though.

Is there any logic behind which armor sets get taunt auras and which don't for scrappers? Always seemed bugged to me as only a few make sense to NOT have taunt auras, yet it is almost random which ones receive it.

meh set bonuses broke the game. Bring those in line and people won't be able to fit so many procs in while "easily" hitting defense and recharge goals. Perhaps less applicable with tanks as they were overtuned anyway. Some procs are problematic like critical strikes. New Axe and forcefield gives me hope that he is ok with crazy OP stuff and won't gut procs to the point of being worthless. Chasing set bonuses affects the difficulty slider way more than cramming procs in savage leap.

Yes, they also tanked recovery, but that was having the pendulum swung too far in the other direction. Nukes were often skipped, or required specific powers to make them more appealing (like a fire/cold corr with saturated heatloss, or x/elec blaster popping a blue then powersink). Now nukes cost a bit less than 2x a troller aoe hold, but recharge 40% faster. Dominators have single target attacks that cost (about) as much endurance as the "cheap" nukes like Geyser, Rain of arrows, or Overcharge. Even within blasters own sets, some of their secondary pbaoe attacks cost similar to nukes. I have no issue with nukes being desirable, but they are a bit "too desirable" imo. Fast snipes are pretty good.

I'm of the mindset that blaster nukes are ridiculously OP. Especially when weighed against things like troller aoe holds. Somehow city of statues is worse than city of vaporized spawns... To me sentinel nukes are exactly as they should be. I don't particularly enjoy sentinels, but their nukes are the best selling feature for me.

Don't know his build, but even if he had phant, hybrid and offense amp going that still hits the mark factoring those out.

I'm getting a bit off topic here, but... I think dominator illusion is a good set. I don't think it stands notably above or below any of the others. It is good at both single target control and aoe control, but is not the best in either category, it definitely isn't the worst either. Dom illusion is very formulaic and a bit cookie cutter. It gave up most of what makes it unique on a controller to fit a more generic dominator model. Troller illusion offers unparalleled single target control, but is pretty bad at aoe control. It actually makes a ton of sense thematically. The illusions I put out seem to fool no one. But it is still a good set because gleam is a good aoe stun and PA is still a good "pet" if for no other reason than their damage delivery is reliable by virtue of them being unaffected by most enemies. Comparatively, if I jump on my earth dom I really feel like a control earth elements. Dark doms have a ton of thematic powers. Gravity pulls things through time and space... Plant covers the field with massive powerful vines that follow you around wrecking everything. Etc Etc. It's not always about being the most optimized, thematics matter to me and dom illusion doesn't feel like much of a master illusionist. But I'm still playing it because I have mirror images while teleporting around (feral charge), so that is really cool looking even if it doesn't do anything. Dominator PA must have come from wish.com

No, as far as I can tell all pets are a direct port - so fire imps are identical, haunts are identical, singy is the same All psuedopets are identical* - so creepers is the same, ice slick is the same, spectral terror is the same, volcanic gases All direct damage powers follow the damage scale of the appropriate AT. So confounding chant hits a lot harder for doms than trollers (before considering containment) All primary direct powers gain the AT inherent where applicable - so firecages can double base damage with containment and proc +1 mag 20% of the time for trollers. And it gains domination for doms. The only exceptions seem to be found in illusion and darkness *Shadow field (bugged) has an AT specific psuedopet, but it wasn't implemented entirely correct and has matching debuff values (troller have higher debuff AT modifier). So doms version is better than it should be (15% tohit debuff, but should be 11.25%) PA is very different - Troller version is way better Phantasm - decoy power - is a bit different - Troller version is better. Group invis was changed to Gleam (and renamed haha) I'm of the mindset that a lot of things were just copy/pasted to doms that should have been adjusted. Things like psuedopets that do damage should do more damage on doms and things that debuff should debuff better on trollers. That is in line with the AT modifiers. Ex. Dom singy should hit harder, but have weaker slows and shorter base duration controls vs Troller singy Ex. Ice slick should do more damage for doms, but have a weaker -speed competent. I also think all psuedopets (volcanic gases, spec terror, etc) should have AT specific versions (like shadow field) that work with AT inherents. Maybe illusion will make doms popular enough to warrant the attention they deserve to fix up the little errors.

Gander again. Every single power is changed. A new melee attack was added. A different melee attack was taken away. A new ranged attack was added. A different ranged attack was taken away. Melee attacks without weapons now stun Melee attack with weapon now sleeps...? ok that's a new one for an ice sword Ranged attacks now knock down Other ranged attacks now sleep...? ok ice blast is now a sleep power I guess. Every single attack now uses a different animation/cast time Troller cast times range from 1.4 sec - 1.84 sec for 7 of the attacks with only hurl at 2.64 sec Dom cast times rare all 2.64 sec for all 8 attacks By this logic we could tank Taunt from a tanker, turn it into a sleep power and call it good as long as it was still an auto hit? These two phantom army powers are about as similar and as different as the two poison trap powers. But they are found in completely different debuff sets. So I guess that makes it ok for them to share the name...

Yes there are numerous examples of AT specific adjustments to powers that go outside AT modifiers. They are usually minor, or flavour oriented like the differences between brute claws and scrapper claws. FWIW widow follow up doesn't have dot toxic. It works exactly the same as regular followup albeit with a moderate adjustment to base recharge. The boost it gives is governed by AT modifiers (boostup), which are higher for scrappers, blasters, lower for brutes etc. Spin is a fine example though. The primary difference is twofold: 1. There are clearly documented. Widow spin clearly shows the damage, recharge and bonus toxic in plain sight. 2. The differences are explained via the ingame description of the power - yada yada "and poisons and slows the enemy" 3. Those powers still work exactly the same and still do the same function via the same mechanics. 4. If widow spin did something distinctly different, like an aoe stun it would be named something different. You can bet on that. There was no communcation with devs (in open beta), but it comes down to what the power "phantom army" actually means. The two versions share the fact that they summon 3 intangible phantoms. Every other aspect of the power from the control mechanics to the damage, to the powers they use, to the animations within have been changed. It is not explained or documented in game. If spectral terror cast holds for doms rather than fear it would have received a name change. Blaster secondary manipulation powers provide a pretty clear path. A LOT of those powers were altered to become sustain powers. /elec manip had several revisions on its sustain with lightning field ultimately becoming dynamo. It is still lightning field, but now does different things so it warranted a name change. They could have just left it as lightning field and told players "figure it out". Dom phantom army is still 3 summons, but it does completely different things via different mechanics and different powers. It warrants a name change, or it warrants a clear description of the different functionality in game.

I'm not sure that means anything with regard to what I'm saying. Do fire imps do less damage because doms have a secondary dedicated to damage? Does confounding chant do less, or more on doms even though they have a secondary dedicated to damage? I'm fine with illusion being revamped for doms and powers being changed. I'm more or less fine with the power as redesigned even though they missed some really great opportunities with the changes. It just needs to indicate that it has been altered (fairly drastically) in function and performance from the other Phantom Army. If a player used PA on a troller and then used it on a dom they would likely think it is bugged for one of them if they had no prior knowledge of the power. It really does behave quite differently.

It is identical across kinetic melee sets that have critical. Your point would be true if it crit for stalkers but not scraps right? So it is identical function across ATs which is my point. PA is not, I'm looking at MMs because they have divergences from normal buff/debuff but even those have different names when the power is altered

Scrapper version does that instead of critical damage. It is intended to be fair compensation whether true or not. Stalker version works identical. In this case the power is just objectively downgraded and different.

They also no longer taunt of course so they are no longer a "control" power via the same mechanisms that the controller version uses. I'm drawing a blank on any other powers across the ATs that have been changed so fundamentally without a name change. Do you happen to have an example? Edit: dom PA also has some attacks not found on the troller version, which further segregates the two

Ya we all know the troller version is superior because they can tank most anything the game throws at you and keep them taunted. Sure it would have been great if the dom version did that as well, but such is life. However, what I didn't realize on test was the DAMAGE nerf they also hit the dom version with. The attacks do much less damage and have a larger healback % on several of them. Troller PA punch 73.4 dam, 56.7 healback (70% healback) Troller PA powerbolt 44.5 dam, 31.1 healback Dom PA punch 55.6 dam, 43 healback (77% healback) Dom PA powerbolt 37.4 dam, 26.2 healback It's still a good power as far as pets go and I don't mean to look a gifthorse in the mouth because we finally have illusion. Beggars can't be choosers so I'm not saying it should have something to compensate like shorter rech, or small aoes (on the control aspects of the powers they use). I'm of the mindset that it would have been better to change the name of the power though because it is very different from the troller version which seems inconsistent relative to everything else in the game.

I like poison, but i feel it plays best on defender, or controller. It can be a challenging set to solo with, or be on a team with little support/aggro control. All in all poison/fire/psy defender was one of the most enjoyable builds I've ever done 0-50. It really is a sum of all the pieces experience.

Not related, but I've been having a blast on a petless necro/elec. An endless supply of "pets" that you don't have to control or resummon that allow you to chain the powers back on to yourself. As long as you keep attacking it just chews through things with 2 self heals, bottomless endurance and rapidly refreshing absorb shielding on yourself. No aoe though haha.

I mean you are because you are acting like this 20yr old non-competitive pve game is an e-sports event. The number of players that care about your specific style of play are less than have replied in this thread. That doesn't make it invalid, it just makes it extremely niche. My high end teaming days are on hold with a newborn, but I have to ask. Why is your ultra honed 4* ITF team not running /cold corruptors rather than cold defenders? If the answer is, you are - then why are you deliberately misleading the OP into thinking a cold defender is ideal for the best of the best speed running 4* ITF team? Like he could just show up with his cold defender and join as a walk-on by broadcasting in zone or something? If the answer is you aren't running /cold corrs then ask the person that is in charge of your strategy why not? your lore choices show you are seeking additional damage, /cold corrs give up a very small amount of team mitigation in favor of a huge damage bump. Which is what years of previous high end teams have already figured out. I have 50's of ill/cold, fire/cold corr, and cold/fire def. I'd never join challenging content with them unless there was other support to keep me alive. Huge hybrid forcemultiplier, but alone just joining random TF's they pull aggro and die. Even my poison defender has more personal mitigation and will do better in an unorganized, poorly supported TF. Without knowing the OP's specifics your advice ranges from terrible to good and back to terrible again - because you actually meant /cold corruptor. Finally, based on our recent discussion about TA there is no chance you are your group's leader, so also ask them if they are already seeing the next "meta" forming. This content is going to get chewed up just like every "difficult" thing in the past if the player base deems it worth their time.

ya single target confuse that causes aggro doesn't make a whole ton of sense to me. If it got out super fast (like seeds animation) I could see using it midfight a lot more. That said, it is free damage if I was already going to confuse an enemy during the fight anyway. I'm sure it has uses, proly just requires a different approach than i'm used to.

Search up @Bopper, he put a proc guide (among many other useful echanics guides). Whether the proc(s) is useful depends on the math, your expectations, and what you are giving up in exchange. I have builds that just proc out a few main attacks - like a sentinel nuke 3-dam/rech, 3 procs cause I always use it with aim. Or dominator call Hawk- a hard hitting single target attack with near perfect proc probability that can take 4 damage procs. I have builds like my plant/poison that put procs in pretty much every possible spot as an experiment that turned out super fun. The 5-6 pcs bonuses are where lots of people get their defenses. It can be difficult to give that up.