Clarifying Some Oddball Powers

[oedipus_tex]

I recently took a deep dive into some powers and was surprised by what I saw. Turns out there were a few I never really understood after all these years. Hoping this info dump will help some folks strategize. I reserve the right to be wrong about how I am reading these powers to work. 🙂

 

 

Electric Control > Static Field

For years this description of this power perplexed me. It lists endurance recovery as well as endurance drain, but I rarely seemed to see it working.

 

Here's what Static Field is actually doing:

 

• Static Field drops a Static Field pseudo pet. This is the pet does the pulsing sleep effect and slow run speed. Easy enough so far.
• The power also does minor endurance drain. It has a 50% chance to drain 0.03 endurance per pulse. 
• Here's where things get really strange. Each pulse where an enemy inside the field gets hit, there's a 25% chance to drop another, invisible pet. This pet is called Pets_Static_Field_End_Recovery. This pet has a life lasting just one second. It restores 2.5% endurance to up to 16 allies within 15 feet and then dies.
  • 15 feet is a smaller radius than Static Field. So, endurance recovery from Static Field is not dependent on actually being inside the field. You just need to be within 15ft of an enemy who is inside the field when a recovery pet drops.
• Static Field's Sleep effect stacks with itself. So a boss standing in a Static Field can be slept as long as the pulses overlap with each other.
• You can also summon more than one Static Field on the battlefield at the same time. Doing this can create a situation with psuedo pets firing all over the place, since every pulse from every Static Field on the map results in a 25% chance to summon the endurance recovery pet for every enemy in the fields.

 

 

Electric Control > Synaptic Overload

Some of this is already well known or documented elsewhere, but there are a few details of this I didn't understand until recently.

 

• Synaptic Overload does a straightforward Confuse, End Drain, and Recovery debuff on the first target hit. Simple enough.
• The power then summons a pair of pseudo pets. These pets are only summoned if the first target was hit; if you miss, no pseudo pets.
• After a short delay the summoned pseudo pets cast an AoE with a 15ft radius, max targets hit 1. To be hit by this AoE, the target must: not have been hit recently by Synaptic Overload, and must not currently be Confused.
  • This means you can't stack Synaptic Overload's Confusion duration easily on the enemies. The Confusion duration will extend on the first target hit, but any other enemies will not get hit by the power's chains. If you've ever noticed enemy groups seem to break out of Electric Controls controls all at once and turn on you, this is why. 
• For some reason, the endurance drain applies to the first target only, not each enemy in the chain. No idea why, because this is easily fixed. But Jolting Chain (both the one you get and the one Gremlins get) behaves the same way. 

 

 

Earth Control > Volcanic Gasses

(Thank you to @carroto for some assistance calculating tic times, see conversation in thread).

 

Oh boy. Let's see if I can get this right.

 

Volcanic Gasses is actually not just one pet, it's 7. 

 

• At 0 seconds, Volcanic Gasses drops a pet called Volcanic_Gas. This pet applies a Mag 50 Afraid effect (causing enemies to run out of the gas), and a tiny Fire damage effect. This pet is also responsible for the gassy particle effects you see while the power is active.
• At exactly 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 seconds, Volcanic Gasses summons a new pet called Pets_Volcanic_Geyser. Each of these has a lifetime of 15 seconds, except for the final Geyser, which has a lifetime of 10 seconds. The pet is technically invisible but has a power called Thermal Vents. Thermal Vents is a ranged AoE Hold (enhanceable) with 30ft range, 10ft radius, hitting max targets 5, recharging in 6 seconds.  
  • The takeaway from this is Volcanic Gasses pulses are not random, they happen in a perfectly predictable pattern:
    • 0 sec
    • 6 sec
    • 10 sec
    • 12 sec
    • 16 sec
    • 20 sec
    • 22 sec
    • 26 sec
    • 30 sec
    • 32 sec
    • 36 sec
    • 40 sec
    • 42 sec
    • 46 sec
    • 50 sec
    • 52 sec
    • 56 sec
  • Because Thermal Vents has a 10ft radius, its to your advantage to keep enemies close together. From what I can see, enemies near the center of the gas are the most likely to get hit.
  • Because there is only a 2 to 6 second gap between pulses, and the Vents will target the first enemy they can find, this power is excellent at holding the remaining stragglers, including bosses towards the end of a fight. We've seen evidence of that anecdotally over the years, so its good to see it confirmed. In this sense it is much more reliable than Arctic Air or Choking Cloud type powers. The gasses are not randomly rolling versus each enemy, they are hard coded to pulse at certain times that are 100% predictable. When there's only a couple of enemies left in the gas those enemies will reliably be held by the gas. 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

I'm back with an update on Shadow Field, which I recently took a deep dive through. If there are requests for any specific powers, hit me up an I'll do my best to have a look.

 

 

 

Darkness Control > Shadow Field

This power summons one of two different pseudo pets depending on whether you are in or out of Domination mode. The pets are nearly identical except for where noted below.

 

The radius of the power is 25ft. This is bigger than the radius of typical ranged AoE Holds by 5ft (e.g. Mind Control > Total Domination is a 20ft radius Hold).

 

The pseudo pet lasts 45 seconds. The pet has the following behaviors:

 

• The initial Holds.
  • These roll for Accuracy.
  • When first summoned, the pet fires a Scale 8 Hold.
    • Scale 8 is the same as any of the AoE Holds available to other Control sets. However, this Hold uses the Melee_Ones table, not the Ranged_Immobilize table other Holds use. The result is the base Hold duration of Shadow Field remains locked at 8 seconds as you level up, while other AoE Holds continue to increase. At Level 50, the base Hold duration of Shadow Field is 8 seconds, versus around 12 seconds for standard AoE Holds.
  • If you are in Domination mode you also get a Scale 12 Mag 3 Hold (with the in-game "Domination!" floating text). Again identical to other AoE Holds.
    • This also uses the Melee_Ones table.
• The ToHit Debuff.
  • This is autohit.
  • Scale 1.5 -ToHit for 15 seconds, replacing.  
    • Technically, this is the same scale as Fearsome Stare
    • However, because this is a pseudo pet, this is not affected by AT -ToHit mods, so Controllers and Dominators get identical strength.
      • Multiple fields from multiple Dark Control characters do stack, though.
    • Since this ToHit debuff replaces itself, if an enemy stands in the field the full 45 seconds it lasts, the enemy will be debuffed a total of 60 seconds.
  • Mids and I think the game itself lists the -ToHit debuff twice. It does this because its accounting for both the pet this power summons out of Domination mode, and the one it summons in Domination mode. You only get one or the other though, so in game you only get half of what is listed.
  • This power responds to Power Boost/Power Up/Gather Shadows type powers and the -ToHit is multiplied accordingly (as is the Hold duration).
• Pulsing chance to Hold.
  • There is a 5% chance per pulse to Hold any target in the field, Mag 3, 4 second duration. Enhanceable, but also uses Melee_Ones table. The pulse rate is twice per second.
    • There is no corresponding Domination bonus to the chance for Hold. 

 

 

Perhaps the biggest question is whether you should slot this as a Hold or instead slot it as a -ToHit power. I think there are very good arguments for doing either. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[DarkPhoenix]

Thanks for doing this.

 

It is really interesting to see how these powers actually use. Learned quite a bit.

[oedipus_tex]

Good morning.

 

Today I decided to comb through Carrion Creepers. This one really intimidates me because I know a lot of people have first hand experience with this power. I've used it a lot too without totally understanding how it calculates the number of vines, etc. Here's my attempt to clarify it. I reserve the right to be wrong about some of this because there is a lot of data to interpret due to the number of pets involved and all the subsets of files to comb through, about 6 files total for this one power.

 

For reference, this is once again based on publicly available i24 files and there is a chance it has been changed in some way on Homecoming.

 

 

Plant Control > Carrion Creepers

So, it goes without saying this power is weird.

 

Carrion Creepers, the clickable power itself, summons an entity called a Creeper Patch. This is an invisible pet that lasts 120 seconds. Its AI is tuned to "prefer Melee" which means in general it will approach the enemy that has aggroed it for close combat. "Prefer Melee" is technically the same AI Electric Control's Gremlins or Fire Control's Imps have, the only reason the Creeper patch doesn't run off like those pets is it has relatively low run speed. 

 

Creeper patches can't fly, so if you do something like summon it on the ground floor and then hover up to the balcony, it will run along the floor angering whatever groups it encounters on the way while it searches for the stairs.

 

The Creeper patch has the following abilities:

• The patch has an autohit aura called "Bramble." It applies Slow, scale 0.5 and -Fly, mag 10. 
   
• Entangle
  Every 10 seconds, the Creeper patch will summon 1 "Entangle" entity per dead enemy within 20ft. On being summoned, each Entangle entity will instantly cast an auto power, which confusingly is also called "Entangle."
  • Entangle, the power used by Entangle entities, deals a Scale 0.1 Lethal and Scale 0.1 Smashing damage DoT, lasting 5.2 seconds, to enemies within 8ft.  
    • The power has a recharge of 1000 seconds (meaning it only ever fires one time per summoned Entangle). This may account for why Creepers seems to proc so effectively, but I'm not the expert on procs.
  • The Entangle pet self destructs after 2 seconds. So basically it appears, casts its Entangle power, and vanishes. 
     
• Vines: 
  Every 10 seconds, the Creeper patch has a 50% chance to summon a vine per living enemy within 20ft. Vines self destruct after 15 seconds.
  • Vine Smash 
    • Cast every 4 seconds
    • Scale 0.2 Smash Scale 0.1 Toxic damage
    • 100% chance to knockback (at least on i24 servers... but also I24 servers don't have Homecoming's kb protection converted to resistance)
  • Thorn attack
    • Cast every 4 seconds
    • Scale 0.1 Lethal Scale 0.1 Toxic damage
    • 60ft range
  • Resistance
    • The vines are technically killable but it usually isn't a big factor. 
    • They have Mag 100 Immobilize applied to them. In theory if you were to overcome this with Clear Mind type powers they'd start running around the map. They have the same AI as the Creeper Patch (and Gremlins, etc) so this would be entertaining to watch.
    • The vines famously don't have KB protection so enemy attacks can blow them backwards.

 

If anyone is aware of anything I misread in the power and wants to help clarify it please chime in.

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

• • • They have Mag 100 Immobilize applied to them. In theory if you were to overcome this with Clear Mind type powers they'd start running around the map. They have the same AI as the Creeper Patch (and Gremlins, etc) so this would be entertaining to watch.

That would be amazing.

[Carnifax]

18 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

This may account for why Creepers seems to proc so effectively, but I'm not the expert on procs.

A lot of it is just the sheer number of attacks "creepers" makes. It's why you slot with Damage procs 1st (so Entangle, Vine smash and Thorn attacks all get chances to proc it).

 

But yes the Entangle having a 1000 second recharge would also be a big factor, you'll essentially be 90% sure of procs on the "corpse bombs" when they go off (and again you've up to 3 damage procs in there). Immob proc isn't as good in Creepers (because it will only trigger for Entangle, not the Vines). Slows are better because they go off for the Bramble patch and the Vine attacks (but not the Entangle). 

 

 

[Arbegla]

I have a request for a deep dive, but its not a Dominator power.. It is however an AoE hold, so its kinda related?

 

Poison Trap, from /Traps. What does it actually do, how long does the respective debuffs last for, and what are the chances for the irresistible vomit animation??

[oedipus_tex]

18 hours ago, Arbegla said:

I have a request for a deep dive, but its not a Dominator power.. It is however an AoE hold, so its kinda related?

 

Poison Trap, from /Traps. What does it actually do, how long does the respective debuffs last for, and what are the chances for the irresistible vomit animation??

 

 

I can take a look later and reply to that in the Controller forum. Although it's a power available to other ATs I'm most familiar with it on Controllers and would be most comfortable talking about it there.

[Arbegla]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

I can take a look later and reply to that in the Controller forum. Although it's a power available to other ATs I'm most familiar with it on Controllers and would be most comfortable talking about it there.

 

Thank you. I greatly appreciate it, and look forward to the seeing the explanation. 🙂

[oedipus_tex]

I'm glad I looked at Poison Trap, it caused me to take a second look at Shadow Field. Turns out it also uses the Melee_Ones table and not Ranged_Immobilize, so although the initial Hold is Scale 8 like the other AoE Holds, at level 50 it has base 8 sec duration versus about 12 for other AoE Holds. 

 

I updated the entry on Shadow Field above with new info.

Edited April 8, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

In this next post I'm going to try to detangle Domination and the associated powers itself. There's a ton to digest here so I may need to revisit for corrections. Feel free to ask questions or point out anything obviously wrong.

 

Domination technically consists of at least 6 powers:

• Domination_Rage: Defines how much Rage you gain per attack 
• Domination_Meter: Defines the conversion of Rage (a whole number) to the displayed Meter (a percent)
• Domination_Boost: Defines the boost to Rage building you get per ally 
• Domination_Dampen: Defines how often and how much Rage you lose
• Domination_Mode: Possibly defines the fact that you are currently in Domination mode; also possible its just a left over power that is not used since powers that Dominate don't seem to check this, they check your Stealth attribute instead 
• Domination: The actual clickable Domination power

 

 

Inherent > Domination_Rage

This power defines the Dominator's ability to build the Rage bar. I'm going to plead a level of ignorance here on how this is actually calculated and how much Rage is gained per attack. But basically what's worth knowing is the developers don't have to code every single attack power to build the Rage bar (like with Blaster Defiance), it just happens on its own via a core proc system defined in these powers.

 

The formula (written in Reverse Polish Notation) if you care to try to decipher it is:

 

ActivateAttackClick target.EventCount>  3 * Str.kRage source> *

 

Note that Rage is generally a whole number, 0 to 100.

 

Str.kRage source> means "the Rage strength multiplier." This part interacts with the mechanic below to adjust the Rage building rate when within range of a Teammate.

 

Rightly or wrongly I read that as you getting 3 Rage per attack click multplied by your Rage STR multiplier. 

 

 

 

Inherent > Domination_Meter

Appears to handle the conversion of Rage to a percentage. Rage is usually a whole number (0 to 100), this power converts that to a decimal for display on the Rage bar.

 

 

 

Inherent > Domination_Boost

This power defines the bonus to building the Rage bar when near allies.

 

This power is a sphere with 300ft radius. It is autocast every 10 seconds. It can hit up to 16 targets. Each target hit increases the Rage bonus by scale 0.1667. 

 

If I am reading this information correctly (possible I am not) this includes pets. So Dominators may actually have an easier time building their Rage bar when they pets near them (yours or someone elses). This is the first time I have heard or noticed anything like this and want to do some to test it out. It's also possible it may apply to some pseudo pets or pet like powers.

 

Assuming you can get targets in range (300ft, line of site appears to be considered here) the range of STR values is +0 (0 targets) to 2.66. What I don't know currently is if Rage STR is further multiplied by a table or if you really build meter 2.66 times as fast with 16 allies nearby.

 

 

 

Inherent > Domination_Dampen

This auto power defines the rate at which you lose Rage.

 

Every 7.5 seconds it triggers, and drains you of 1 Rage.

 

 

 

Inherent > Domination_Mode

This power may track the fact that you are in "Domination mode." I say maybe because I can't find any evidence it is actually used somewhere.

 

 

Inherent > Domination

This is the clickable power most people are familiar with. Clicking this requires 100 Rage to currently be on your bar.

 

Base Recharge: 200

Cast time: 1.17 

 

Effects:

• Immediate effects;
  • +1 to "Stealth" for 90 seconds
    • This isn't really "Stealth", that's just the name of the attribute the developers reused from other classes. In any case, powers that interact with Domination check your Stealth to see if they should fire Domination effects.
  • Scale 1 endurance to self (i.e. refills your blue bar)
  • 90 seconds of comprehensive mezz protection 
  • +100 Rage for 90 seconds (so your Rage bar doesn't drop)
• After a 90 second delay:
  • -100 Stealth
  • -1000 Rage

 

The reason perma dom is possible is that this power checks your current Rage meter to see if it is at 100. The power itself sets your bar at 100 so it will always be full. Casting it again erases the approaching timers on the crashes. If you can keep this up, you maintain Domination mode without having to rebuild the bar.

  

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[BZRKR]

*half-reads @oedipus_tex's informative post about Domination*

 

Super Strength Assault Confirmed!!!

 

🙂

[UrbanHound]

On 2/27/2021 at 12:47 PM, oedipus_tex said:

Electric Control > Static Field

For years this description of this power perplexed me. It lists endurance recovery as well as endurance drain, but I rarely seemed to see it working.

 

Here's what Static Field is actually doing:

 

• Static Field drops a Static Field pseudo pet. This is the pet does the pulsing sleep effect and slow run speed. Easy enough so far.
• The power also does minor endurance drain. It has a 50% chance to drain 2 endurance per pulse. You can't enhance this amount.
• Here's where things get really strange. Each pulse where an enemy inside the field gets hit, there's a 25% chance to drop another, invisible pet. This pet is called Pets_Static_Field_End_Recovery. This pet has a life lasting just one second. It restores 2.5% endurance to up to 16 allies within 15 feet and then dies.
  • 15 feet is a smaller radius than Static Field. So, endurance recovery from Static Field is not dependent on actually being inside the field. You just need to be within 15ft of an enemy who is inside the field when a recovery pet drops.
• Static Field's Sleep effect stacks with itself. So a boss standing in a Static Field can be slept as long as the pulses overlap with each other.
• You can also summon more than one Static Field on the battlefield at the same time. Doing this can create a situation with psuedo pets firing all over the place, since every pulse from every Static Field on the map results in a 25% chance to summon the endurance recovery pet for every enemy in the fields.

 

I thought I was pretty savvy on one of my favorite control sets - do endurance mods have zero impact on either the drain or the amount given to allies in Static Field? If not what do you think is optimal slotting then? I've been doing it all wrong!

[oedipus_tex]

On 4/30/2021 at 9:29 AM, UrbanHound said:

 

I thought I was pretty savvy on one of my favorite control sets - do endurance mods have zero impact on either the drain or the amount given to allies in Static Field? If not what do you think is optimal slotting then? I've been doing it all wrong!

 

 

I just had another look at the endurance drain in Static Field. Turns out I was wrong, the amount is boostable with enhancements. Unfortunately it's a very small amount of drain and only a 50% chance to do it. I'm updating the original write up.

[oedipus_tex]

Got some free time to look at few more. 

 

 

FIRE CONTROL > HOT FEET

This power is a mix of autohit and roll-to-hit. 

• Autohit portions:
  • Slow effect
  • Afraid effect
• Roll-to-hit portions:
  • Damage

 

Technically, the power itself is flagged as auto-hit with the damage portion coded as an exception (it checks the ToHit roll manually), so I believe this means any procs in this power do not require a ToHit roll either.

 

The pulse rate is every 2 seconds.

 

 

ICE CONTROL > ARCTIC AIR

Arctic is at the same time a very simplistic power and a fairly complex one depending on how far you want to dive. 

 

To start out, this power is autohit in the sense it does not perform a ToHit roll. It pulses at a rate of once every 2 seconds. Anything inside the pulse range gets the following effects:

• -Recharge: Scale 0.5 for 2.25 seconds
• Slow: Scale 0.65 for 2.25 seconds
• -1 Max Run Speed for 2.25 seconds
•  -Stealth Radius: Scale -35 for 2.25 seconds
• -StealthRadiusPlayer: Scale -389 for 2.25 seconds

The mezz effects are:

• 50% Chance for Mag 3 Afraid, Scale 2
• 30% Chance for Mag 3 Confusion, Scale 2

Each mezz effect is tagged to Replace rather than Stack, so if the durations overlap it still won't Confuse/Afraid a boss.

 

The Afraid effect is often forgotten. It's actually Enhanceable. Using any sort of multiplier power (e.g. Power Boost) extends the duration of enemies will try to run from you.

 

 

BALANCE CONCERNS: I've brought this up a lot over the years and it may or may not be worth repeating. The mezz effects in this power are Scale 2. Under normal rules for Domination, the duration of the mezz should increase to Scale 3 when the Dominator enters Domination mode. However this does not happen and this power is strictly weaker on Dominators than it is on Controllers. I've long considered fixing this power a key concern for this powerset. 

 

POSSIBLE BUGS: The -Stealth component in this power detoggles for 10 seconds after the player interacts with a glowie. The StealthRadiusPlayer deactivates for 10 seconds after you interact with a glowie, attack or are attacked. This may be intentional for some reason but could just be bugs. The -Stealth aspect of this power appears to be a copy-paste from the Storm Summoning power Steamy Mist, with values reversed. In Steamy Mists it makes sense that touching a glowie would reveal you. It doesn't make sense (to me) that touching a glowie would stop you from revealing hidden enemies though.

Edited May 2, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

While we're on the topic of Fire and Ice here are some interesting artifacts from the files that give some hints about the original design direction of the Control sets.

 

• In the visual effect files, Fire Imps are occasionally referred to as "Fire Salamanders."
• The icons for Fire Control refer to a set called "Fire Trap," which is the original name for Fire Control in early development.
• "Ice Control" is similarly called "Ice Formation."
• The Electric Control PBAoE power that drains endurance is referred to as "Stunning Field," a possible reference to the original intent of this power (perhaps a stun version of Arctic Air). No version like that I can remember ever appeared on a public test server, so this is pure speculation.
• There are a lot of overlaps between the coding between Ice's Arctic Air and Storm Summoning's Steamy Mist that hint that the powers were cloned from each other (most likely Arctic being created from Steamy but again this is speculation).
• The Fire Control power Char is sometimes referred to as "Soot."
• There's no internal table for Hold durations. All Hold durations actually pull from the Immobilize table. All of the animations we associate with Holds are called "Stuns" in the animation tables, possibly indicating the concept of "Holds" as a separate concept did not emerge until later in development.

 

You might also be interested in hearing the internal names of some of the mezz animations:

• Plant, Dark, Ice and Earth's Holds: ANIM_LASSOSTUN
• Mind Control's Hold: ANIM_SonicStun
• Fire Control's Hold: ANIM_CHOKESTUN
• Gravity Control's Hold: ANIM_FloatStun
• Electric Control's Hold: ANIM_ElectroStun

 

The actual "Stun" mezz effect actually has no power-by-power animation. I assume this is because the enemy walking around would override it anyway.

 

Sleep and Terrify both do have allow the programmer to tell the game which animation to use. Most just use the default Sleep or Terrify effect.

 

The particles associated with any of these powers (e.g. the ZZZ associated with sleeps) pulls from a standard .fx file. Power designers can choose to use different fx files if they want or exclude the fx entirely. These fx are independent of the animation. The fx are normally coded into a field called ConditionalFX and only appear if the creature's mezz protection is exceeded.

Edited May 2, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Arbegla]

22 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

You might also be interested in hearing the internal names of some of the mezz animations:

• Plant, Dark, Ice and Earth's Holds: ANIM_LASSOSTUN
• Mind Control's Hold: ANIM_SonicStun
• Fire Control's Hold: ANIM_CHOKESTUN
• Gravity Control's Hold: ANIM_FloatStun
• Electric Control's Hold: ANIM_ElectroStun

 

Ok, I'm trying to imagine all the various 'hold' animations. Lemme see if I got them right.

 

Plant/Dark -> Person wrapped with vines/dark energy, body slightly wiggling.

Ice/Earth -> Person encased in earth/Ice, body still wiggling? (do they wiggle, or just freeze?)

Mind -> Holding head, head shaking/moving agony of the mind

Fire -> Holding throat, choking animation

Gravity -> Floating in the air, but NOT the Ghost widow floating

Electric -> Person wrapped in electricity, body writhing, much more then plant/dark/ice/earth.

 

Is that about right? Or did I miss something?

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, Arbegla said:

 

Ok, I'm trying to imagine all the various 'hold' animations. Lemme see if I got them right.

 

Plant/Dark -> Person wrapped with vines/dark energy, body slightly wiggling.

Ice/Earth -> Person encased in earth/Ice, body still wiggling? (do they wiggle, or just freeze?)

Mind -> Holding head, head shaking/moving agony of the mind

Fire -> Holding throat, choking animation

Gravity -> Floating in the air, but NOT the Ghost widow floating

Electric -> Person wrapped in electricity, body writhing, much more then plant/dark/ice/earth.

 

Is that about right? Or did I miss something?

 

 

That's basically right altho IIRC Plant, Ice. Earth, and Dark all use an animation that freezes the enemy completely in a very rigid position. That animation is used for most Holds that summon geometry in order to prevent the character model from seeming to break out of the geo effect.

 

Keep in mind there are different types of creature models out there in the game. The effects you describe are what happens to human models, other models may not implement the animation the same way. The model reacts to the bit the power passes to it and animates using its own internal logic. So, against some enemies everyone will seem to have the same Hold animation, but against others it will look different.

 

Another way to think about all this is the power is responsible for animating the mezz particles and the creature model is responsible for playing the mezz animation. The power just tells the creature's model "Anim_LassoStun is active on you." The creature model then examines all the other things active on the creature (am I flying? am I running? am I holding a weapon? etc) and figures out for itself how to draw that combined state. Interestingly even the Hold animations have their own kind of hierarchy, the LassoStun anim tends to win over the other Hold animations, in order to prevent a creature hit by Fossilize from shaking inside the rock geometry when that is followed by an Electric hold, etc. This system is also what prevents mezzed enemies from playing "I just took damage" reactions in combat, the mezz bit overrides the react bit.

Edited May 3, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[carroto]

On 2/27/2021 at 11:47 AM, oedipus_tex said:

• The takeaway from this is Volcanic Gasses pulses are not random, they happen in a perfectly predictable pattern:
  • 0 sec
  • 6 sec
  • 10 sec
  • 16 sec
  • 20 sec
  • 26 sec
  • 30 sec
  • 36 sec
  • 40 sec
  • 46 sec
  • 50 sec
  • 56 sec

 

If each geyser lasts 15 seconds and can cast Thermal Vents every 6 seconds, then each one should be able to cast it 3 times before it expires, no?

 

Geyser 1	Geyser 2	Geyser 3
0 secs	10 secs	20 secs
6 secs	16 secs	26 secs
12 secs	22 secs	32 secs

 

So it would be:

• 0 sec
• 6 sec
• 10 sec
• 12 sec
• 16 sec
• 20 sec
• 22 sec
• 26 sec
• 30 sec
• ...etc.

[oedipus_tex]

8 minutes ago, carroto said:

 

If each geyser lasts 15 seconds and can cast Thermal Vents every 6 seconds, then each one should be able to cast it 3 times before it expires, no?

 

Geyser 1	Geyser 2	Geyser 3
0 secs	10 secs	20 secs
6 secs	16 secs	26 secs
12 secs	22 secs	32 secs

 

So it would be:

• 0 sec
• 6 sec
• 10 sec
• 12 sec
• 16 sec
• 20 sec
• 22 sec
• 26 sec
• 30 sec
• ...etc.

 

 

I had to go back and look closer. You're right, with a duration of 15 seconds the pet should cast three times. 

 

Where I think I got my scheduling wrong is I wrote the "15 second" number in the general write up, but for the time table grabbed the number 10 and not 15 to determine when pets were firing. It turns out all the Geysers don't have the same duration. The first 5 Geysers last 15 seconds, and the final Geyser actually lasts only 10.

 

So the final schedule adding in the missing extra pulse from the first 5 Geyers would be (added the 5 extra tics in bold):

 

• 0 sec
• 6 sec
• 10 sec
• 12 sec 
• 16 sec
• 20 sec
• 22 sec
• 26 sec
• 30 sec
• 32 sec
• 36 sec
• 40 sec
• 42 sec
• 46 sec
• 50 sec
• 52 sec
• 56 sec

 

I'll correct the original post with the new info. 

[oedipus_tex]

Had a few minutes today so decided to finally peek through Darkness Control's Haunt power. Hopefully this is a mostly accurate description, please let me know if I've misinterpreted something.

 

 

Darkness Control > Haunt

 

Haunt has two main features, which interact closely with each other.

1. It summons two Haunt pets at the location of your target. This part is probably straightforward enough to understand.
2. It applies a temporary power called Haunted to the target.
   • Haunted is an Auto Power that forces the enemy hit by it to immediately cast a Scale 60 Taunt in a 60ft radius, affecting only creatures in that radius named "Pets_Shade." This is what forces the Shade pets to focus on that target.
     • WEIRD CASES:
       • This Auto Power also has a target cap of 16, which implies that if a bunch of Dark players get together, their Haunts become collectively Taunted by multiple enemies.
       • For some reason the Taunt is Resistable. I have no idea if this impacts actual gameplay. However, since Taunt is normally subject to the Purple Patch, I believe it means higher level targets taunt Haunts longer than lower level enemies, because the Haunted power is cast by the enemy.

 

The Shade's attacks are mostly straightforward. 

• Shadow Punch, minor damage and -ToHit every 3 seconds.
• Scare, Mag 3 Scale 4 (pet tables) Terrorize every 6 seconds. Note this power does not do damage.

The takeaway on the attacks is proc damage doesn't look to be very attractive. One power does damage and -ToHit, the other does Terrify, so procs wouldn't seem to be firing too often. But I could be wrong about this.

 

 

Controllers and Dominators summon the same pet, with no differences between the two.

 

As many players have noted, with enough Recharge it is possible to have multiple Shade pets. It's my assumption that recasting the power with Shade pets still alive will Taunt them to the new target if they are within the 60ft radius of the Haunted power.

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Uun]

15 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Darkness Control > Haunt

This seems accurate. One thing to add, is that if the original target dies before the shade pets expire (60 sec), they will attack a new target. Not sure how that target is selected or if Haunted is applied to them.

[oedipus_tex]

10 hours ago, Uun said:

This seems accurate. One thing to add, is that if the original target dies before the shade pets expire (60 sec), they will attack a new target. Not sure how that target is selected or if Haunted is applied to them.

 

 

Good addition.

 

I don't believe they're Taunted to a new target. The Haunted temporary gets applied during the player's initial cast. The pet itself doesn't have the ability to apply the Temporary Power.

 

However if there's another Dark player around and they cast Haunt on something, or if you just have enough Recharge to apply the power again before the previous Haunts expire, the Taunt from their cast should theoretically Taunt any existing Haunts within 60ft.

Edited June 23, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

I'm gonna start diving into procs. Some of these aren't unique to Dominators, but are useful and relevant to them. I'm going to try to tackle Contagious Confusion first since that one (pun intended) tends to leave people confused, including me.

 

Please chime in with corrections or observations.

 

 

Coercive Persuasion > Contagious Confusion

The famous Contagious Confusion proc has the following characteristics:

 

• 4.5 PPM, rolled per target hit
• When it fires it:
  • Always cast from the location of your victim, not the caster
  • Sphere radius: 20, max targets hit: 5
  • 33% chance for Scale 10 Confusion, Mag 3 (ignores defense/accuracy)
• Other notes:
  • Does not appear to function in PVP 
  • Explicitly checks to be certain the potential target is not a pet--so it's possible but not confirmed that it will not affect enemy pets, like pets summoned by Master Illusionists

 

In practice, Contagious Confusion operates with Dominator powers in the following ways:

• Mind>Confuse, Dark>Possess: If it triggers, 5 enemies within 20ft of the target each have a 33% chance to be Confused
• Plant>Seeds of Confusion, Mind>Mass Confusion: Each enemy in the cone/sphere rolls to see if the effect triggers
• Electric>Synaptic Overload: Rolls on first enemy cast (high chance due to long recharge on base power) then on each chain (low chance due to short recharge on the power the pet technically uses)
• Ice>Arctic Air: Rolls on every enemy in range every pulse of Arctic Air

 

As far as I can see there is no lock out timer on how frequently the caster can trigger this proc. An individual enemy appears to be capable of only triggering it twice within 5 seconds. Most likely this would only come into play in a situation where you are teamed with someone who also has the proc.