Illusion powerset for Dominators please!!

[LordgrayinBC]

I'd really like to see the Illusion powerset opened up for Dominators.  I know many people said it would be OP, but I really can't see that.  Illusion doesn't have many direct attacks, and until you get Phantom Army, you are quite weak.  Dominator powersets would really even this out.

 

[Leogunner]

I've heard the reason was because it doesn't have much direct control to benefit from domination.  I don't really care about that, personally.  Some say swap some powers that would benefit from Domination but I'd be fine with just a straight port.  You can pair it with a control heavy secondary that gets the domination bonus in its place.

 

Granted, I've never actually played Illusion at all so I don't know how strong the set is first hand, I could presume Spectral Wounds is a flexible power that could be replaced.

[biostem]

Illusion basically only has 2 powers that would setup containment, (blind & flash), and the latter is a PBAoE hold with a longish recharge, so if that isn't a problem for controllers, then I don't see why they couldn't give it to dominators.  IMO, it's sort of the devices of control sets, in that it has a lot of utility and varied powers, but lacks the kind of focus that many other control sets have.  Frankly, maybe the whole set needs a once-over...

[oedipus_tex]

I don't see any particular reason why Illusion shouldn't be proliferated to Dominators.

 

Domination would affect:

• Blind
• Flash
• Confuse

All good powers to benefit from Domination.

 

Not that different from Earth Control, and arguably better:

• Stone Prison (but who cares?)
• Stone Cages
• Fossilize
• Stalagmites

 

You may want to change out Spectral Wounds on Illusion Control, but it's not crucial. There are other Dominators (Gravity, Mind) that have blasts in their primary set and nothing was done to change those.

 

If you're really worried it wouldnt benefit enough, or be too vulnerable to attack at melee, you could extend the range of Blind's AoE sleep effect from 8ft to 12ft and let that benefit from Domination. Most people don't even realize the Sleep effect is there in the base power because on a Controller it is only Mag 2, but on a Dominator it would be Mag 4 and Sleep bosses.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Saiyajinzoningen]

i know im going to get destroyed for this but, i miss the days of at least 1 power being tied to a specific powerset. it made things i dunno, interesting

[Leogunner]

59 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

i know im going to get destroyed for this but, i miss the days of at least 1 power being tied to a specific powerset. it made things i dunno, interesting

I kinda used to feel the same way back in the day...

 

...but then I started exploring the world of melee ATs and it's pretty fascinating how different each can be with just a bit of alterations for a specific AT.  Like did you know Martial Arts for Tankers and Brutes has an additional effect on Storm Kick that buffs buffs positional defense but for Stalkers and Scrappers, it just has a higher crit chance?  Or that for Stalker Dual Blades, One Thousand Cuts has a longer range than any of the other melees?  Or that Greater Psi Blade applies the additional insight damage in an AoE but only for Tankers?  Various little quirks within the set being unique can make the set feel like an almost entirely new set when played by a different AT.

[Zepp]

The problem may be that with portable tanks and all that damage from pets, it would allow for an almost pure-damage Dom. It would also essentially nullify the limitation that pets can't be buffed because Doms don't buff.

That being said, I would love this...

[Alchemystic]

If you move Spectral Wounds to be a T4 like Propel, and Flash to T8 like many AoE holds, things start to look a little more structured.

 

Then we remove an Invisibility power and Phantom Army to make room for some control that Dominator can benefit from (we can even make the player choose what Invisibility power they want, just like SR Sentinels). Removing the sleep effect from Blind and instead creating a single target and AoE target sleep power to fill in the gaps means we dont change too much as far as building for the set goes, and we effectively remove the issue that prevents it from being dominator friendly.

 

As for naming the new powers? Perhaps 'Dream' for the single target and 'Trance' for the AoE.

 

So to summarise;

 

Out: Phantom Army, One Invisibility Power (or choice).

In: Dream, Trance

Changed: Blind loses Sleep secondary effect.

 

The power set should look like this on Doms;

 

1 - Dream

2 - Blind

3 - Deceive 

4 - Spectral Wounds

5 - Superior Invisibility OR Group Invisibility

6 - Trance

7 - Spectral Terror

8 - Flash

9 - Phantasm

Edited January 2, 2020 by Tyrannical

[BrandX]

16 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

i know im going to get destroyed for this but, i miss the days of at least 1 power being tied to a specific powerset. it made things i dunno, interesting

Never made things more interesting for me.

 

Scrappers for instance, do more damage than Tankers.  Maybe I'd rather do damage and still play an Ice/Ice concept.

 

The differences in play, for me, always came down to the AT.  

[Zepp]

@Tyrannical
Removing the set's signatures, PA & pseudo pet that fires sleep does not seem like the way to go. Control sets generally have a T1 damage and T2 damage+ST hold power. Given that this is a dom port, they don't actually need spectral wounds. As such, wouldn't it make more sense to remove spectral wounds rather than PA? Make that power a single target fear (with minor damage) to work with Spooky, and make sure that Spooky and the sleep pseudopets banefit from domination would work better and allow illusion doms to stack invisibility like trollers ... No need to change order unless you want to flip flash and Spooky...

Edited January 3, 2020 by Zepp

[oedipus_tex]

I think Illusion could port over exact;y as is and be fine. Again the only thing I'd consider is whether to increase radius the Sleep radius on Blind and make it benefit from Domination. It would make for a very different and interesting Dominator.

 

Dominators are a direct damage class and play nothing like a Controller, so I'm not worried about it being redundant. I suspect what we'd find out is Controllers with debuffs do more damage than Dominators, at least against single hard targets. The Dominator would be better against larger groups.

 

If there is real worry that not enough powers benefit from Domination, you could put a Fear AoE in Spectral Terror that launches the moment the power is cast. See Dark Control's Shadow Field for an example of a power that has both an immediate cast effect and a long term effect. Shadow Field's initial cast benefits from Domination, where the remainder of the power does not.

[Alchemystic]

8 hours ago, Zepp said:

@Tyrannical
Removing the set's signatures, PA & pseudo pet that fires sleep does not seem like the way to go. Control sets generally have a T1 damage and T2 damage+ST hold power. Given that this is a dom port, they don't actually need spectral wounds. As such, wouldn't it make more sense to remove spectral wounds rather than PA? Make that power a single target fear (with minor damage) to work with Spooky, and make sure that Spooky and the sleep pseudopets banefit from domination would work better and allow illusion doms to stack invisibility like trollers ... No need to change order unless you want to flip flash and Spooky...

Phantom army *needs* to be removed on Dominators. Its unfortunate but that's how it is.

 

The fact is that with Phantom Army combined with Dominator assault powersets just results in an absurd amount of damage output, especially combined with Phantasm too, there is simply too much attack power. Removing PA reduces that damage output and provides room for more mez, which is what this powerset needs in order to fuel Domination, which should be the Dominators means of being powerful.

 

Spectral Wounds I will admit isn't necessary, as that too means you're stacking damage ontop of Assault powersets. It could be exchanged for a AoE debuff, perhaps something similar to 'Smoke' that reduces sight... I think that fits well for an Illusion theme.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Tyrannical

[speczero]

On 1/3/2020 at 6:34 AM, Tyrannical said:

Phantom army *needs* to be removed on Dominators. Its unfortunate but that's how it is.

 

The fact is that with Phantom Army combined with Dominator assault powersets just results in an absurd amount of damage output, especially combined with Phantasm too, there is simply too much attack power. Removing PA reduces that damage output and provides room for more mez, which is what this powerset needs in order to fuel Domination, which should be the Dominators means of being powerful.

 

Spectral Wounds I will admit isn't necessary, as that too means you're stacking damage ontop of Assault powersets. It could be exchanged for a AoE debuff, perhaps something similar to 'Smoke' that reduces sight... I think that fits well for an Illusion theme.

If Damage is the problem I would rather remove the damage from PA and still allow them to keep the taunt and taking no damage.

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, speczero said:

If Damage is the problem I would rather remove the damage from PA and still allow them to keep the taunt and taking no damage.

If the game code would allow for it, then it might work, but again Dom's need mez to get as much Domination charge as they can, and Illusion really needs more mez to make that work.

[Zepp]

Doms can generate domination without mez. Having PA tank helps you get more attacks out which helps you get more attacks...

[speczero]

7 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

If the game code would allow for it, then it might work, but again Dom's need mez to get as much Domination charge as they can, and Illusion really needs more mez to make that work.

 

1 minute ago, Zepp said:

Doms can generate domination without mez. Having PA tank helps you get more attacks out which helps you get more attacks...

I was thinking more along the lines of fighting AV's and other hard to mez targets. How about also making it so PA is not perm? Maybe 50% uptime or something.

[golstat2003]

On 1/3/2020 at 7:34 AM, Tyrannical said:

Phantom army *needs* to be removed on Dominators. Its unfortunate but that's how it is.

 

The fact is that with Phantom Army combined with Dominator assault powersets just results in an absurd amount of damage output, especially combined with Phantasm too, there is simply too much attack power. Removing PA reduces that damage output and provides room for more mez, which is what this powerset needs in order to fuel Domination, which should be the Dominators means of being powerful.

 

Spectral Wounds I will admit isn't necessary, as that too means you're stacking damage ontop of Assault powersets. It could be exchanged for a AoE debuff, perhaps something similar to 'Smoke' that reduces sight... I think that fits well for an Illusion theme.

Removing Phantom Army pretty much means I'll never make an Illusion Dominator if they ever get ported that way. Phanton Army is one of the MAIN POINTS of Illusion. I'd rather they remove Spectral Wounds. An AoE debuff would also be an insta skip power on Illusion got me. I've never taken the smoke power on any AT that has it or similar. Pointless in the new game meta that focuses on uber damage and mobs lasting less than 20 seconds now.

Edited January 4, 2020 by golstat2003

[biostem]

Just now, golstat2003 said:

Removing Phantom Army pretty much means I'll never make an Illusion Dominator if they ever get ported that way. Phanton Army is one of the MAIN POINTS of Illusion. I'd rather they remove Spectral Wounds. An AoE debuff would also be an insta skip power on Illusion.

I tend to agree.  Maybe an Illusion Mastermind would be a better fit?

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, speczero said:

If Damage is the problem I would rather remove the damage from PA and still allow them to keep the taunt and taking no damage.

I could live with this. But the Army needs to be there.

[golstat2003]

54 minutes ago, speczero said:

 

I was thinking more along the lines of fighting AV's and other hard to mez targets. How about also making it so PA is not perm? Maybe 50% uptime or something.

I could live with this if that's what it takes to port PA.

[Alchemystic]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Removing Phantom Army pretty much means I'll never make an Illusion Dominator if they ever get ported that way. Phanton Army is one of the MAIN POINTS of Illusion. I'd rather they remove Spectral Wounds. An AoE debuff would also be an insta skip power on Illusion got me. I've never taken the smoke power on any AT that has it or similar. Pointless in the new game meta that focuses on uber damage and mobs lasting less than 20 seconds now.

Well to be fair Phantom Army is one of the main points its not been ported to Dominator at all.

[golstat2003]

Just now, Tyrannical said:

Well to be fair Phantom Army is one of the main points its not been ported to Dominator at all.

Then you might as well not port it. It's a set defining power. Just create another set, but don't call it Illusions, cause it wouldn't be.

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, golstat2003 said:

Then you might as well not port it. It's a set defining power. Just create another set, but don't call it Illusions, cause it wouldn't be.

[golstat2003]

Just now, Tyrannical said:

Welcome to the City of Heroes forums. Also not only my opinion based on what I've read in this thread from others. The other options to keep PA I would be fine with as I've already said in the thread.

[Alchemystic]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Welcome to the City of Heroes forums. Also not only my opinion based on what I've read in this thread from others. The other options to keep PA I would be fine with as I've already said in the thread.

What you said didn't seem much like an opinion, seemed more like you were insisting something is a fact when it really aught not to be.

 

anyway...

 

To paraphrase Tony Stark; If you're nothing without Phantom Army then you shouldn't have it. 😉

 

If you have to rely on a single power from a powerset in order for it to be effective then what's the point? Just look at most of the new powersets with combo mechanics that reward you for picking different powers that compliment one another... Illusion is dated and needs to change, and one of these changes in my opinion needs to be Phantom Army.

 

At present it just about works for Controllers, it maintains a decent amount of crowd control, even if it has much higher damage than other control sets. But on a Dominator? It just isn't as viable in its current form, it trades reliable mez for higher damage, which doesn't translate so well for Dominators who already have damage based secondary powersets and require sustainable mez to build Domination.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Tyrannical