Thezanman

It's a 9 radius 90 degree cone, which is incredible compared to the 7 radius 50 degree cones that are standard for most melee powersets. And guess what? Those melee cones are still used. They aren't meant to hit entire crowds, hence the 5 target cap. If you seriously think that you need multiple seconds to hit even two targets with Spinning Kick, you're either bad or lying. Not to even mention the fact that you called Dragon's Tail a "small range" AoE. It has a 15 radius, which is standard for Assault PBAoEs, and almost twice as large as melee PBAoEs, which usually have 8 radius.

I have a very hard time believing you've ever played a /martial dominator, at least seriously. I have never managed to hit zero enemies with Spinning Kick, and frequently hit 3-5 very easily. What makes you think that Martial Assault doesn't have a reason to stay in melee range, exactly? It has three very good low cooldown melee powers, compared to other sets which generally have 3-4 melee powers, some of which aren't worth using.

Thunder Kick is ridiculously good right now and the nerf is entirely warranted. Even after the change, it has about 75 DPA which makes it on par with if not better than the other T2 melees. And yes, Spinning Kick takes some getting used to the range, but that is no reason it should be stronger than anything else. It doesn't matter if the enemies are moving since targets are determined at the start of the cast, not the end (this is how all AoEs work), and I have personally played a /martial Dominator and never once ran into a situation where the enemies were too far above or below me to hit. Maybe if they're literally flying on top of you, but at that point no melee cone would be able to hit them and other enemies at the same time.

Also, both Time Bomb and Trip Mine seem to do significantly less damage than before, which is probably fair, but it is not mentioned anywhere in the patch notes. I do think that the damage was nerfed by too much, as now Trip Mine seems to do about half as much damage as Frost Breath, whereas before it did twice as much.

I'm not sure if it is related to the beta changes, but Time Bomb and Trip Mine slotted with Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown still knock targets back, rather than down.

Again, martial assault is by far the best assault set in terms of melee. Thunder Kick, Spinning Kick, and Dragon's Tail all have the best DPA out of their respective categories.

Weak in melee? It has by far the best PBAoE, T2 melee, and melee cone out of all the assault sets. There's no reason to treat Spinning Kick any differently from other cones; in fact it's generally easier to actually hit multiple targets with it due to the fact that you can precisely aim it to cover all of the mobs rather than being restricted by having to target it on an enemy. Either way, the target cap change is mostly for consistency as the small cone would rarely hit more than 5 targets anyway, and the damage change is completely fair. You shouldn't be able to hit 5 targets with single target damage (barring special powerset mechanics), regardless of how the cone works.

It's a 6 minute cooldown.

If you have perma-hasten levels of recharge, which is fairly standard, these changes are pretty much straight buffs, especially for the lower cooldown powers. Because the cooldowns are so low, with large amounts of +recharge speed you would be overlapping cooldowns a lot in your attack chain, which means that these changes will increase your damage without messing up your attack chains.

It deserved the nerf. It's currently the highest DPA power out of all the Assault powers except for fast snipes, seismic smash, and blaze, and like you said it's a T2 attack. 90 DPA is pretty ridiculous for a T2, even a melee.

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. I'm sure that some people found out from the in-game help chat as well.

I don't have tactics. You never needed it to get instant snipe. This is not just 'big deal you no longer need tactics to get instant snipe', this is 'EVERY possible way that ANY archetype could previously have built to get instant snipe is now irrelevant'. That's the flavour this change removes. And by "every possible way that any archetype could previously have built to get instant snipe", you of course mean "tactics + kismet, perma envenomed blades + kismet, perma farsight + kismet, or targeting drone". That's literally it. There are three sets that can get insta snipe without needing tactics + kismet, and two of them still need kismet. It's funny that you're talking about people being fine with the change because it personally benefits them, when it seems like the only reason you're angry about it is because you have a /devices blaster.

Also, last time I checked Targeting Drone should also give you added recharge on top of the added damage you will receive for having such high +To Hit for rolling /Devices. That is how it worked in the last beta patch, but they said they were going to change it to a damage buff at the start of combat as well as a small, persistent damage buff.

It’s not like it was difficult to get 22% tohit before; tactics + kismet was easily enough for blasters. Either way, targeting drone still has use because not only is it a massive tohit bonus that helps you deal with high defense mobs or tohit debuffs, they are actually going to change it to have a small, persistent damage buff.

Hello Captain Powerhouse, Is there any way (for the love of God....) to change the 'HUR!' taunt to the 'Arrh' taunt? Every tank I roll seems to 'Hur' (pass the sick bucket hurl) vs the more civilised, 'Ahh.....' You know, like changing your flight pose 1-4? Can we have a hard code taunt 1-2? It drives me crazy when each tank I roll has the 'Hur!' instead of the 'Arh.' Regards, Azrael. This is not the place to ask. Use the suggestions subforum.

It's not like snipers are some god attack that one-shot everything. Most snipers have between 70 and 95 DPA on blasters, while Freeze Ray and Bitter Ice Blast have 125 and 133 DPA respectively. Ice will still be significantly better in single target than other sets, only being matched by Fire due to the ridiculous DPA of Blaze.

None of the powers are shared with other ATs. Each archetype has it's own version of each power, usually with different damage, but the dominator versions also tend to have much different recharge rates and radii as well.

The last news was on June 25th; one of the developers said that they were waiting to finish work on dominators and devices before bringing the changes to live.

There are a lot of changes made to the sentinel versions of powersets that I'd like to see on other ATs, like Super Reflexes and Regeneration.

Then the problem becomes, "when you're slotting for 22% ToHit (tactics and kismet) why do you even take a power like aim?".

A good point that was brought up earlier in the thread is that ToHit debuffs can bring you below the fast snipe threshold on live, which is really annoying because it actually prevents you from having a functional attack chain with a lot of builds. I think it makes a lot more sense to do it this way, because it both removes the mandatory kismet and tactics tax from any build that actually wants to use snipes, and brings them closer to the thematic of a snipe with the longer version being used out of combat.

I agree, and I also think the Sentinel version of Super Reflexes should be given to the other Archetypes.

AFAIK it doesn't; it makes other toggles in the set give mez protection. That is correct.

Which threads? I searched before I posted this and didn't find anything.

Super Reflexes was changed for Sentinel to have the option of Master Brawler instead of Practiced Brawler, which gives you mez protection passively and can be activated to gain an absorb shield. This is a lot better design than having to click Practiced Brawler every two minutes to keep your mez protection, since it's an active ability that you have to use reactively. That means that it adds more interesting gameplay to Super Reflexes characters, which normally do nothing but keep their toggles on and maintain Practiced Brawler; it even scales the absorb amount with your missing health to reward good timing. I don't see why this should be exclusive to Sentinels; Super Reflexes already has fairly harsh downsides(no healing/recovery, no psionic mitigation, no debuffs or damage potential) so I don't see the harm in giving it a little boost. Speaking of downsides, the Sentinel version of Super Reflexes also has a little bit of psionic defense and recovery added. I don't think it's necessary to add these to the other archetypes, but it would be nice to lower the investment needed to protect yourself from psionic attacks, as well as bring Super Reflexes on par with other defense sets which offer endurance recovery.