Zeraphia

Am I the only one who honestly isn't as bothered by cave maps nearly as much as the dreaded Circle of Thorns maps with the several tunnel torches that will get you stuck extremely easily? I really come across that issue far more often than I've had with any cave map I can think of off the top of my head... but boy when I get stuck on a torch...

I don't have a build for it, but I think your best bet is to probably go Mind/Fire, keep in mind unfortunately Dominators are some of the bottom-tiers in PvP due to the fact that mez is so poopoo'd by I13+ changes. Dan Petro left a comment for how to build a decent build for PvP toons, I'd recommend this as a lot of the builds these days that were posted in light of I26 changes have changed many builds.

Hmm... A more global knockback reduction in some capacity I do think is justified, especially for sets that have numerous knockback AoEs. I'm not sure I'd make it an enhancement however, I do think a toggle would be probably the best compromise (still not perfect though because you'd have to detoggle and retoggle if you wanted to use a knockback power specifically in that instance). What I hope I don't see: team leaders forcing others to use this toggle, and kicking people for not using it.

There is nothing I can do about the color unfortunately, I wish it would just provide a website link and none of that, but the OP can just click the website and boom done.

The only really challenging part about this is honestly the fact that it's constantly floating around in the sky and cannot be aggro'd, yea it does damage, but I can definitely react before it kills, and if it stood in place long enough, I could probably kill it. I think the game is in dire need of more content (and especially difficult content) maybe instead of more missions or zones, a truly challenging GM or set of GMs would be a nice approach (that may not be too Dev intensive).

There is a way to bind Domination and Hasten to movement keys which makes them "near auto" or at least very close. The method below works for every power in the game that's a clickie (minus some oddball rule breakers like Active Defense). Beyond that, I'm not really persuaded one way or another that this *needs* to be a thing. I think it's really not that big of a deal honestly with the workaround.

Does anyone have a picture of these blue/purple caves? I can't seem to recall an example of one off of the top of my head?

I think the Giant Monsters in their current state are... too easy. It seems the purpose of a GM was to be that it would take league of heroes to defeat the monster, and I understand min/maxers will always exist and still down them effortlessly, but I'd like to possibly see an incarnate-level Giant Monster that is actually a challenge that was rewarding and probably does need a team or two to actually defeat it. Some bit of challenge to truly be a "monster." I don't know if I'd station it in PI/GV or even a Praetorian zone (to incentivize people to explore Praetoria more). I think adding new content to the game would be a universal positive, but I think our current roster of GM's... is a bit disheartening in terms of difficulty to be a "Giant Monster."

Now I actually agree with this, but there is the fact, and I'm going to bold for emphasis, you gave the Psionic pool to sets that you seemed to favor for one reason or another over other sets and gave those sets a higher ranking. For someone who doesn't understand these principles, who doesn't read all of the forum literature, this is extremely misleading, and a valid criticism. Fire Blast's highest rotation (from what I've done) is Blaze -> Blazing Blast -> Mind Probe -> Dominate -> Fireball (when up) and using Flares only when you have full opportunity. That is significantly higher than having two different parts of the rotation relying on Flares, versus other sets where you literally gave them full reigning advantage of the Psionic pool. That is not just taking into account procs, that is outright giving a huge bias in favor of other sets. As above, you're looking for something to beat Fire Blast. That is a confirmation bias, and the fact you've used Psionic pools for other sets and use Flares 2x in your rotation gives a pretty hefty bias? Look, if you're going to give one set the Psionic pool and all the procs galore, give it to them all and really compares apples to (at least) fruits. You posted this, on a forum. Everything you say and everything you do on the internet is open for criticism. Some are going to bash you harder than others, that's just how it operates (though there is a line between bashing a user personally and criticizing). You created a data sheet with your own rules and sets, and you said to even take your own post with a grain of salt, so why are you so defensive over when people point out that it really (and I'm sorry I really don't want to come across as bashing you...) ultimately proves nothing about the relativity in terms of the DPS of the set, and the set rankings are extremely misleading for newer players who can't decide the powersets for themselves upon initial inspection, which they may have been lead to believe by the numbers you gave. That is actually quite harmful to them, because then they may pick up this set, not really look at how the numbers were created, make a character based upon this list and not see you used the psionic pool or a ton of procs and go "wait... why does my damage feel so low if I chose the highest dps that this guy listed?!"

Not being theoretical here, going to actually discuss some of the toons I've personally made and "hated" and had the enhancements on them shattered: 1. Robots/FF Mastermind... This combo is boring, honestly weak, not really even *that* tanky, and not great team utility either honestly. The defense is always nice, but beyond that, it's just harder to control DPS via pets and... I don't know I've just made bigger and better things than this many times over, it's super bland. 2. Fire Control/Kinetics Controller... This is a really popular combo that has (from many charts and statistics) taken a nosedive in popularity. On live many moons ago, this was a powerhouse and excellent combination, and I think the other thing wrong here is that Controllers are just not bringing what's needed anymore. You have Defenders and Corruptors dishing out better buffs/debuffs to leverage themselves with higher damage over your controls. I think it does fine solo and it does work for farming but in general, this one was a hard pass, especially against harder AV's. 3. SS/Shield Brute... Not a terrible combination, just overall should've probably been rolled as a Tanker in light of the recent changes (I made her way before them) and unfortunately just didn't work out to be what I had hoped for (I kind of wanted a character that could just farm any and everything in the game). Perhaps I gave up on her too easily because I played through a shadow shard TF and she just kept getting wrecked by Nemesis and Rularuu so bad I stopped playing her. To be fair, I really don't think this is a bad combo I just probably didn't give her a fair shake. 4. Ice Blast/Atomic Blaster... It's just not my favorite. I don't care for Ice Blasts' T9, I really dislike how it's a low damage over time (technically it is high damage at the end but still). She was safer, I guess, but she was... definitely not fire. 5. Plant/Empathy Controller... It's just a weird combination in general, it was supposed to be a "heal bot" before I realized that healing really isn't that valued in this game as much as I believed (for like regular content). 6. Rad/Fiery Aura Scrapper... Everything just runs, there's no taunting at all, Burn just scatters everything. It was a nightmare, I really don't recommend this one. Hit hard, but was a failure overall (sorry to this who enjoy this). 7. Assault Rifle/Atomic Blaster... Do not recommend, even with Atomic "helping" the primary. I thought it would be "OP" due to Ignite and the Sniper and various other great tools but... boy was I wrong about that one. I will never make another Assault Rifle toon again, sorry to those who enjoy it but... no. I'm sure AR/Ninja is quite horrific. There are many more that I'm just not thinking of that are potentially worse but my memory escapes me, or were just so "meh" I got bored of them rather than they were outright "bad." I'm not saying any of these combinations are outright awful and the worst combos you can make, but I've found them to be either really over-hyped for what they are or just massive underperformers in so many regards. I think lots of these may be that I didn't build them properly and now that I know more I could "make them work" but some of these I just wouldn't touch, there are much better combinations out there that work fabulously.

I know this isn't ground-breaking or trying to totally reinvent all the power pool options from the ground up, but what I often feel makes me not take a power pool are these: 1. ridiculously length animation times 2. ridiculously lengthy recharge times. I find that in order to really get the "oomph" out of these power pools with ridiculous 600+ second recharge times, you probably will want Hasten. That's 2/4 power pools chosen already, extremely limiting for builders and other individuals who may even look into other sets. I haven't even taken the entire Force of Will power pool on any of my characters nor Presence nor Teleportation nor Flight nor Concealment. The only one who has taken Sorcery or Medicine has been my Fortunata, who can actually make use of these. I think maybe just making the powers themselves truly accessible, giving worthwhile self-buff powers early on in the pool instead of something weird would be a step in the right direction for making the later options more attractive!

A thousand times this.

Based upon what I know of building, and procs, etc. I can tell you that while this combination may not be an S-tier MM, it's definitely a great combo that will accomplish a lot and can do everything every other mm can. Strengths: durable, easy, straight-forward, not that complicated, solos well. Weaknesses: melee pets, not the highest DPS combo (still great though!), and pets don't do a ton of aoe. AV soloing? With IO's absolutely! For a new MM player? Hmm... Beasts are a bit complicated and honestly I don't know if I would recommend them to a new MM player unless you're willing to read about how Fortify Pact works as well as willing to investigate Nature and its heals. It's not difficult to learn by any means, but at level 1, they are melee pets that don't have the greatest defenses and prone themselves to dying (but in the 30's it blossoms and they will hardly ever die with fortify pact and decent recharge).

I mean this is a lot of work of course but... I have to seriously question a lot of these numbers and I have to point out the noticeable disparities in advantage that specific sets are given, and this data is super misleading. Dual Pistols and Archery are just flat out not #1 and #2 in ST DPS, and the way you've ranked it would have people believe that to be so. In the rankings that Kaeladin did, he did not include epic pool muddlings into the DPS ranking or procs because it can get extremely murky. You can't just use Dominate and Mind Probe for Dual Pistols to make it #1 while giving Fire Blast a rotation with two different sets of Flares... Am I missing something? This just seems more like "I want these sets to be high up because I like them thematically over another set" but it seems to not really accurately portray how much the sets actually produce.

Honestly, I think I'd really rather have Spectral Blasts than another non-rifle beam set or a holy light type of set. Very unique and different type of damage and overall feel than other sets.

As someone who is actually doing speed running and has actually broken records with their team (not #1, but top 5 times): - Dark Miasma (due to Tar Patch bug), Sonic Resonance, Cold Domination, and Kinetics are the top tiers in that order for supports for speed running. - Sonic Blast or Fire Blast are the most viable blast sets. Beam Rifle is serviceable, but vastly inferior due to its cast times to use with debuffs/buffs in comparison to Fire Blast that can do everything pretty much at a whim when needed. Pure support - Sonic Blast. Pick Sonic Blast if you're going Defender. DPS - go Fire Blast. If you're going DPS with Fire Blast DO NOT GO DEFENDER. Go Corruptor. Most viable combos: Dark/Sonic (I will not recommend you make it, as Tar Patch will get fixed), Sonic/Sonic Defender, Fire/Cold Corruptor, Cold/Sonic Defender, Kin/Sonic Defender (this is the fastest one for regular teams overall *not everyone constantly popping Super Reds the entire TF*), Fire/Kinetics Corruptor. Why is Sonic Resonance so high up? Because it can Cage. But why is that "troll" power good? Because you can cage things like towers in MLTF and make them not affect LR, you can also Burnout with these cages, and that means you can (with high dps and team coordination) actually skip all of the towers (ignore the Red Tower, actually not needed to be downed, neither does Blue) and you can shave minutes off of that TF due to this set. Sonic Resonance offers extremely high -res at a very quick amount of time, it is S-tier actually at speed running despite what people say. So what about Dark Miasma? Tar Patch bug. -30% unresistable -res, that means you can actually debuff even immunities into nothing with this power, you can effectively nullify LR's immunity due to the Red tower against S/E with this power, you can turn Hero 1's T9 into literally nothing. You magnify damage at an absurd insurmountable rate, and you can abuse this by Tar Patch -> Burnout -> Tar Patch and then still have another Tar Patch to stack before the first two run out... That means you just did -90% unresistable -res... You have effectively NUKED everything's resistance in the game to 0. Expect this to get patched soon. Broken! Combine this with Sonic, and you have created your lovely "Wailing Banshee" of unresistable mayhem! Cold Domination will take Dark Miasma's place AFTER the bug is fixed. It can shoot out Rain, Heat Loss, a good -res proc in Infrigidate (-30%, -24%, -20% = 74%) and you can double the Rains with high recharge (-94%). And for the massive DPS pushes you can unleash hell with Burnout to do this... Double FR, double HL, Infrig to give a whopping total of -128% -res and almost all of it in AoE, and this can be done with FIRE BLAST on a CORRUPTOR (you can put the -res (FotG) in proc in T9 blast for -20% more totaling to -148%)... It also has Benumb which also... nukes AV regen! This set is god-tier, I'm sorry but the people who are saying Time > Cold are playing on teams that actually need these defenses (and really want to play it safe), Cold is much stronger due to its debuffing in speed running and just in general honestly. Kinetics is amazing, but not the best at speed running. Some people are shocked at this, but you can theoretically (if your whole team is willing to do this, most will not) get everyone to swallow Super Red inspirations throughout the entire trial, at this point, kinetics only brings speed (not useful to team if team is already at max'd run speed) and recharge, which is not going to be enough to justify itself over Cold/Sonic/Dark's -res. Keep in mind, I said not the best at top-tier speed running, for "normal" speed running it is S-tier at this when the team does not just swallow Super Reds all the time. -- Blast sets Fire Blast: highest DPS of all overall and it fits well with its fast casts to still allow you to debuff, if you want the damage, go Corruptor for this. Fire/Cold and Fire/Kin are the most viable Corruptors overall for speed running. Sonic Blast: pair this with any of the primaries. It is S-tier, far and away ahead of the other blast sets on Defenders on speed running teams. You can run a ST chain with Sonic Blast (Screech->Shriek->Scream->Shriek->Screech combo) that will neuter a hard target to -100% res from this set alone. Wail can take FotG proc for -40% res in a large aoe with damage, Anni proc in Howl is the same concept too.

This is perhaps the most salient example so far posted here... The "FLOATING MOUNTAINS" of Cimerora... I really think this should be fixed... Located right beyond the mission entrance of the last mission of ITF. Romulus' Fortress.

So I was doing a Kin/Sonic Defender, and I thought... "hmm, what if I decide to KB->KD both Repel and Whirlwind together to create a toggle AoE knockdown spammer?" Has anyone tried this or given it some thought? Would love the input as to if this is feasible/viable!

I could see Controllers possibly taking this pool given they could possibly get containment procs off of it!

I want to point out, that I said his anecdotal data was valid even in my initial reply, but that it wasn't a data-point that we can use to balance things or gauge relativity. There is a difference, that doesn't mean that his anecdote of being able to perform a hard or difficult task was invalid to showing that a Sentinel can perform specific feats, but it is wrong to try to act like it is a data-point to keep the AT as is in its current place and pretend nothing is wrong with it mechanically. Which is what I've been arguing, which is not the same thing. Also, there is numerous data via pylon numbers, mission clear times, etc. that has shown Sentinels to underperform, especially without the Psionic pool and heavy reliance on procs. I do not consider it a "great thing!" when an AT who's primary purpose is damage (because really that is what a Sentinel is, damage first, no actual taunts to Tank, and not given the tools to be a Tanker) is reaching 200 baseline DPS if not lower than that through its primary. You may disagree, but I do not think this is a great place for the Sentinel.

This is harsh, just because I don't see something the same way you do, and disagree does not permit the use of these types of remarks. Civilly disagree, and state why you disagree, but that wasn't necessary. I'm not going to engage this behavior, I do not see this as a noteworthy datapoint because it isn't something like pylon data, or clear times on a farm mission, or demonstrating a completely unilaterally fair wage to gauge prowess over another AT/set in relativity to another, and it can be misleading. There are many variables on Task Forces, lots of RNG, and very little true control. That is why I stand by the fact I just don't agree, because there isn't a way to test this accurately under many conditions unless you had the same type of map, exact same spawn locations of the mobs, and same hit rolls (which isn't likely... at all). An anecdote is a short story or a personal experience detailing a point, which is valid but that's not exactly quantifiable.

This is the point I think that often gets skipped in favor of other arguments. A lot of people (self-included) feel this way. This is due to a multitude of issues that Sentinels possess (unilaterally weaker damage, inability to spread the inherent unlike crits, no forms of taunt at all, and less sets with knockdown capabilities). This is actually perfectly stated, and this isn't something that should be ignored. You shouldn't *have* to build something with a crap ton of incarnates and procs to get it to "work." You shouldn't have to use an attack you may not want to use at all to get your "inherent" to "work." You shouldn't have to pick Fire Blast or Bio Armor to be competitive against Tanker damage with Stalker survivability. You shouldn't have to rely on an epic pool to do Dominate which is legitimately better than any single one of your natural attacks. Side note, I would appreciate it if people stopped comparing Sentinels to Blasters, they're not the same, they're leagues away from each other. Sentinels do not possess snipes, they do not possess 16 target caps, they have reduced range, they also do not have an inherent that functions at all like Opportunity. Sentinels will NEVER be Blasters, and they will never encroach on that territory for the reasons above.

Respectfully, I must point out that this is an anecdote rather than a data point. No one is considering whether an AT needs to be buffed or nerfed based upon their +4 ITF no ultimate inspiration time. That's not me bashing you for what you did, what you did is excellent! However, I must point out that there are a great deal of variance in map distributions as well as mob distributions take can greatly affect the time even if you were comparing apples to apples using this metric.

There is only one so far, that is my Nature/Water Defender! I find I love all of what Nature has to offer in terms of its beautiful green picturesque animations as well as Water, and all of the powers get used regularly! 🙂 Love this toon, but it does make for tight slotting!

I second this and even for Tankers honestly at this point. I've been finding that having it in an aura means it will proc much more often even if it isn't guaranteed (what you want it) than another power interestingly. Lots of people will tell you to put it in a fast activating good AoE or hard ST hitter, but the aura works great for both situations. Lots also would assume auras would nullify it, but if anything they seem to over-proc it.