The first successful TRIO to meet the No Deaths, under 60 mins, no inspirations, ITF, +4x8.

[Voltak]

1. Earth/Radiation Dominator

2.  Two Plant/Psi Dominators. ( @Raw and @AcreIV )

Even with two disconnections, we still beat the previous time by 10 minutes, but this time, Imperious was kept alive, and in Part 4 he makes a vast difference given his enormous damage.

Part 4 - MVP goes to @Acre for his Trees of Life which kept Imperious alive 
 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Voltak

[oedipus_tex]

I have to give you serious props for that clever way to play Earth Control. Hovering and then dropping to the floor for a second to cast Stalagmites is a clever way to get some added survivability. I tend to just stay ground-bound at all times, but after watching this, wonder if it would be a lot safer to switch to the technique you used here. 

 

It's great to see Water Spout being used by the way. For a long time I've argued Water Spout is a fantastic power, but never been able to communicate why. These videos prove some of the point I think. It's a great hands-off power that you can throw into a pack, and not worry about whether you are at the start of end of the battle with a pack. If cast near the end of a fight, the Spout will follow you to the next fight. It also tends to not care too much about range, so you can use it very effectively while maintaining some distance.

 

Well done, as always.

[oedipus_tex]

By the way, what are your thoughts on Radiation Assault? I've always put it somewhere in the potential A-Tier, because it does hit pretty hard, and had has some potential to (unreliably) heal itself. I rolled a Grav/Rad who was technically fine, but who I quickly retired because of frustrations with Gravity. I did think Earth/Rad would be a particularly good combo though, as would maybe something like Fire/Rad or Plant/Rad. 

[Voltak]

12 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I have to give you serious props for that clever way to play Earth Control. Hovering and then dropping to the floor for a second to cast Stalagmites is a clever way to get some added survivability. I tend to just stay ground-bound at all times, but after watching this, wonder if it would be a lot safer to switch to the technique you used here. 

 

It's great to see Water Spout being used by the way. For a long time I've argued Water Spout is a fantastic power, but never been able to communicate why. These videos prove some of the point I think. It's a great hands-off power that you can throw into a pack, and not worry about whether you are at the start of end of the battle with a pack. If cast near the end of a fight, the Spout will follow you to the next fight. It also tends to not care too much about range, so you can use it very effectively while maintaining some distance.

 

Well done, as always.

Hey, thank you very much.  I was using that out of necessity because when I did part 1 and 2 alone, I found out that Cimerorans can turn soft cap defenses into red numbers in a blink of an eye. 
Hovering was my way to negate all of that.   
I keep my mouse over the Hover button as I move around, so I can deactivate Hover quickly. 

Keeping an eye on the surroundings helps because you need to be quick to fly right away if anyone is near you. 



I agree with you on Water Spout. 
To be sincere, I focused this whole build to tear and shred all defenses that CImerorans have.  The ITF received a new tweak or a fix.  
Now Cimerorans have a RIDICULOUS amount of defenses.  
It is very hard to hit them without strong to hit buffs or without super good defense debuffs. 

Seeds will miss, Heart of Darkness will miss and so on when their defenses are activated (Shield stuff). 

So I made this as the SUPPORT dominator in the team.   Since I can keep 2-3 patches of quicksand , that's about 25% debuff each, then add the other stuff too. 
Then Radiation secondary adds some serious debuff too.
Heal of Radiation secondary -----  118 ticks of health times 3... OH YEAH !!!  
 
Water Spout is auto hit and also debuffs defenses and the control what water spout provides is unresistable in many cases. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Voltak

[oedipus_tex]

43 minutes ago, Voltak said:

I agree with you on Water Spout. 
To be sincere, I focused this whole build to tear and shred all defenses that CImerorans have.  The ITF received a new tweak or a fix.  
Now Cimerorans have a RIDICULOUS amount of defenses.  
It is very hard to hit them without strong to hit buffs or without super good defense debuffs. 

Seeds will miss, Heart of Darkness will miss and so on when their defenses are activated (Shield stuff). 

So I made this as the SUPPORT dominator in the team.   Since I can keep 2-3 patches of quicksand , that's about 25% debuff each, then add the other stuff too. 
Then Radiation secondary adds some serious debuff too.
Heal of Radiation secondary -----  118 ticks of health times 3... OH YEAH !!!  
 
Water Spout is auto hit and also debuffs defenses and the control what water spout provides is unresistable in many cases. 

 

 

I think part of their Defense they may come from this power: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=romans.legionarii.energized_shield&at=minion_grunt

 

If I'm correct about the history of that power, the Romans had it on live, and at some point it was commented out because it was thought that a ton of enemies running toggles was creating lag. The power gives them +0.25 Defense per critter within 8 feet of them. So they will tend to have more Defense if clumped close together. It's a Toggle, not an Auto, so if you can mezz them or sap their endurance, it should drop.

 

The Centurions do appear to have their own source of +Defense armor that is an Auto power and sadly can't be detoggled. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=romans.centurion.phalanx_fighting&at=lt_grunt

 

In any case, it's good to see some of my suspicions confirmed by top level players. Quicksand is actually an extremely good power, much better than it is ever given credit for, for the autohit -Defense. Shame it doesn't have a shorter animation time.


What's kind of interesting to note is that both Ice Slick and Arctic Air in the Ice set are auto hit. Not that I'm advocating for Ice Control as a major contender, but there may be an interesting Hover strategy there using some of the techniques you've shown off here. Kinda interesting there too, if you do manage to force one of the minions to toggle drop and their -Recharge is floored, they can't toggle it back on for 16 seconds (versus normally 4 seconds). This may be one of the vanishingly few situations where -Recharge can be said to make a potential difference.

Edited May 20, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Voltak]

14 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

I think part of their Defense they may come from this power: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=romans.legionarii.energized_shield&at=minion_grunt

 

If I'm correct about the history of that power, the Romans had it on live, and at some point it was commented out because it was thought that a ton of enemies running toggles was creating lag. The power gives them +0.25 Defense per critter within 8 feet of them. So they will tend to have more Defense if clumped close together. It's a Toggle, not an Auto, so if you can mezz them or sap their endurance, it should drop.

 

The Centurions do appear to have their own source of +Defense armor that is an Auto power and sadly can't be detoggled. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=romans.centurion.phalanx_fighting&at=lt_grunt

 

In any case, it's good to see some of my suspicions confirmed by top level players. Quicksand is actually an extremely good power, much better than it is ever given credit for, for the autohit -Defense. Shame it doesn't have a shorter animation time.


What's kind of interesting to note is that both Ice Slick and Arctic Air in the Ice set are auto hit. Not that I'm advocating for Ice Control as a major contender, but there may be an interesting Hover strategy there using some of the techniques you've shown off here.

I can confirm for sure, not even a question, that what the Devs did was to fix something which should have been happening since early. 

The Defense from shield defense was not stacking up when many of them were hurdling together or even close by.  

In any case, their defense has been fixed. 

Now their defenses are ridiculously high.   You need high To hit or you need strong defense debuffs. 

I made a video for tutoring or providing guidance to others on how to solo part 2, 54 x8, no inspirations of the ITF with my Earth/Rad Dom. 

I did make the point that QUICKSAND is very important and useful for defensive reasons and offensive. 

I would not even skip it, not ever. 

Whoever is advocating to skip it has not tried very difficult content like this or challenges.  

Concerning Ice Slick and Arctic Air --->  Have you seen my videos I posted on the forums using this tactic ?

I made several videos with my Ice/Storm controller including some solo videos vs Cimerorans 54 x8  with no inspirations in caves. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Voltak

[oedipus_tex]

41 minutes ago, Voltak said:

I can confirm for sure, not even a question, that what the Devs did was to fix something which should have been happening since early. 

The Defense from shield defense was not stacking up when many of them were hurdling together or even close by.  

In any case, their defense has been fixed. 

Now their defenses are ridiculously high.   You need high To hit or you need strong defense debuffs. 

I made a video for tutoring or providing guidance to others on how to solo part 2, 54 x8, no inspirations of the ITF with my Earth/Rad Dom. 

I did make the point that QUICKSAND is very important and useful for defensive reasons and offensive. 

I would not even skip it, not ever. 

Whoever is advocating to skip it has not tried very difficult content like this or challenges.  

Concerning Ice Slick and Arctic Air --->  Have you seen my videos I posted on the forums using this tactic ?

I made several videos with my Ice/Storm controller including some solo videos vs Cimerorans 54 x8  with no inspirations in caves. 

 

 

Rad Assault definitely has some stuff going for it. It's the only of two sets with a self heal and a place to put a Gaussian's (Savage Assault is other). It can easily slot the Achille's Heel proc because of the -Defense (again Savage Assault is similar). I've never really gotten that deep into it despite having a 50 Grav/Rad I rolled just to be a completionist. Nice to see it validated in these runs.

[MoonSheep]

god bless dominators, king of the squishies 💪