Patch Notes for June 8th, 2019

[senseichen]

It doesn't seem like Plant/ or /Martial are doing anything in that video except having a couple of AoE attacks.  Unless I'm misunderstanding, that video is just "if you overcap Fire defense in a Fire farm and spam AE, you can kill a lot of things"?  I don't see why any Blaster/Corruptor/Defender with the same pools and similar APPs couldn't make that same video, regardless of Primary/Secondary?

[Dan Petro]

It doesn't seem like Plant/ or /Martial are doing anything in that video except having a couple of AoE attacks.  Unless I'm misunderstanding, that video is just "if you overcap Fire defense in a Fire farm and spam AE, you can kill a lot of things"?  I don't see why any Blaster/Corruptor/Defender with the same pools and similar APPs couldn't make that same video, regardless of Primary/Secondary?

 

lol.

[Banana Man]

It's more about the speed. There are not many things in this game that will clear that map in 3 minutes, friend.

[nihilii]

The logistics of forum epeen contests were slightly confusing even back on Live, but now that we're all 7 years older they're downright bizarre.

 

Dan Petro, I'm now picturing you as a grown ass man, with wife and kids, sitting calmly in front of the family computer to type "lol.", oh yes complete with a period for that extra channeling of 1337 r0xx0r teenage angst.

 

Come on, man. Take a step back for a moment. Surely this is not really the person you are, today.

 

You're obviously putting together high-performance builds, and it is an impressive time worth bragging about. Now it would be cool to have the facts to understand it.

 

Anyhow, if I had to take a guess, I'd put it as a combination of the much higher damage on Plant's AoE immob (twice the damage of every other AoE immob, which makes it a decent AoE given its radius and recharge), and MA's Envenomed Blades and AoEs.

[senseichen]

To answer your question, I'm older now so I try not to waste my time on people who aren't even trying.  Low effort posts, get low effort replies.

Your contribution to this thread before that was one link to YouTube with no explanation, and "Lol."  I tried to understand what your video was showing.  If you can't be bothered to explain what you thought your video showed, I don't really care what point you thought you were trying to make.

[Widower]

Civility is a virtue.

[scran]

Fire/Psi.  They seem to be the standard build for 'melt all' damage?  It's the one that seems to stand out to me.  I've also heard about Plant doms with fire?  Psi and Fire, though.  Are the games standouts.  Not many things resist Psi and Fire teh POwURful damage burnie.  You see it with a spines/fire farm built.  Some things are 'go to' for the damage.  That isn't a big attraction to me.

 

Though I would like a bit more damage on my elec/elec domi on control and assault sets.  Dom's are brittle and very tippy tappy.  But that Domination button.  Oh mamma.  I find it's brittle play style compelling though.  My current favourite type. 

 

Brutes and scrappers.  Where's the vulnerability?  I'm tough and I do loads of damage.  Where's the challenge?  Wander in.  Hit stuff.  Get surrounded.  Wait.  It's all dead.  (Though my elec shield brute is, at L32 still making hard work of it...with a leaky end problem...)

 

My elec/elec domi' is 'ok' at single target damage.  I use Build Up to supplement my damage out put AND Assault from Leadership.  (I'll take what I can get...)

 

I wonder if the incarnate damage power in my incarnate slot would help...boost damage out put some.

 

As for Jack.  Give him a 'slow' aura.  That would make his dull witted persona more compelling.  Give him Bitter Freeze Ray.  So he's a slow plodding slower...with a big south paw punch.

 

Azrael.

 

It hurts how little elec control gets out of domination.  Could the confuse chain and sleep patch be made so the they benefit from domination? Confuse chain is so slow, only the first target being affected by domination is kind of a slap in the face.  Or maybe the end drain stuff gets boosted (and only the first target from chains gets end drained too...).

[Golden Azrael]

Civility is a virtue.

 

Amen to that.  8)

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

Fire/Psi.  They seem to be the standard build for 'melt all' damage?  It's the one that seems to stand out to me.  I've also heard about Plant doms with fire?  Psi and Fire, though.  Are the games standouts.  Not many things resist Psi and Fire teh POwURful damage burnie.  You see it with a spines/fire farm built.  Some things are 'go to' for the damage.  That isn't a big attraction to me.

 

Though I would like a bit more damage on my elec/elec domi on control and assault sets.  Dom's are brittle and very tippy tappy.  But that Domination button.  Oh mamma.  I find it's brittle play style compelling though.  My current favourite type. 

 

Brutes and scrappers.  Where's the vulnerability?  I'm tough and I do loads of damage.  Where's the challenge?  Wander in.  Hit stuff.  Get surrounded.  Wait.  It's all dead.  (Though my elec shield brute is, at L32 still making hard work of it...with a leaky end problem...)

 

My elec/elec domi' is 'ok' at single target damage.  I use Build Up to supplement my damage out put AND Assault from Leadership.  (I'll take what I can get...)

 

I wonder if the incarnate damage power in my incarnate slot would help...boost damage out put some.

 

As for Jack.  Give him a 'slow' aura.  That would make his dull witted persona more compelling.  Give him Bitter Freeze Ray.  So he's a slow plodding slower...with a big south paw punch.

 

Azrael.

 

It hurts how little elec control gets out of domination.  Could the confuse chain and sleep patch be made so the they benefit from domination? Confuse chain is so slow, only the first target being affected by domination is kind of a slap in the face.  Or maybe the end drain stuff gets boosted (and only the first target from chains gets end drained too...).

 

I get the feeling a bit more could come from Elec control with a gentle brush over.

 

A bit more minor damage or trickle damage here or there.  Conductive Aura could be an opportunity for minor damage maybe.  As you drain all of their endurance it begins to have a damage effect on their nerves/body.  With DoT trickle damage, kicking in when they are end drained completely.  A nudge on chain fence damage, perhaps with end mod being more apparent.  Static.  I like the confuse (funny power to watch...) and use that 1st and get them going then put the sleep on them.  Then Chain Fence.  Then I wander in and stand there with 'Aura' to drain the end out of them and take them out.  Static shock holds them.  But a chance for some damage there (it comes around every 4 minutes, folks...)  Confuse pickles their brains.  The 1st target gets some damage perhaps?  And as it gets passed on so does the brain damage.  Chance for minor damage there as well.  The fall over power.  (I can never remember it's name) is good.  But a chance to nudge the damage there as well?  So the accumulative damage of all these would be more noticeable than they are now.  Pretty negligible whether they have damage or not.

 

As pure control.  Not bad at all.  I like 'how' it plays.  But the damage return is mute.  The assault set, I guess, allows you to open up and clobber them when they're subdued.  I didn't realise that the end mod affected only the 1st target on confuse or chain fence?  I see.

 

Domination makes everything last longer.  It's noticeable.  And the to hit is boosted?  But I wonder if there is any chance of giving Domi's that red 'damage' button from the Scorpion patron arc as a permanent damage boost?  Or having 'assault' boosted as well when Domi is active?

 

Yes.  A bit more damage, the end mod being boosted and affecting all targets is surely the point of Domination?

 

There's not a vast amount wrong with doms.  Their not scrappers.  Not blasters.  Not controllers.  But they can do all three in a brittle but exciting gameplay.  A nudge on damage and end mod for Elec controllers and domi to apply to all targets would help.

 

It's a rewarding set.  But you have to make it work really hard to get it bomping.  Conducting aura is suppose to return end to you?  It seems really slow at it.  That's with x3 end mods in it.  Only when I was surrounded by about 12-15 mob did I notice.

 

I think the key to evolving the elec control set is chaining the effects of all the elec control set so the damage is more accumulative in effect and like so for end mod.  Both could be boosted to be more noticeable in impact.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

I think the domination inherent is the best in the game.  Very satisfying to 'hit that button'.

 

Boom.

 

'You're getting it now.'

 

The only thing thing Domination didn't seem to work on, that I've encountered, is Babbage.  Though I was beginning to end drain him.

 

Azrael.

[SarelFox]

They actually moved away from Domination boosting damage, and instead baked the damage into the base damage scalar.  By 'they' I mean the original studio. The reasoning behind it is dominators felt like they didn't 'dominate' outside of the button. You were gimped if you weren't in domination, because everything felt right  inside of it. I think the same would happen, especially since it'd also apply against our max of 400% damage bonus, meaning we'd 'feel right' when we hit the button, but in a team, we'd not be getting as much of a damage buff as the next guy. We'd start basing our expectations of damage, even if it's 100% bonus, on how much damage we did during domination, and then in a fulcrum shift, feel like we missed out on that 100% damage that everyone else was getting.

 

Elec's control set might be able to take more damage, yeah. That, however, would just widen the gap between the efficiency of damage between controllers and dominators, where controllers auto-crit controlled enemies. If you want to make dominators feel more ... dominating, one probably needs to look at the passive, or the assault sets. Instead of boosting damage by a flat percent when domination is hit, doing an extra strike or a critical strike at 50% bonus damage on controlled targets (due to them having actual assault sets, not full blown control) might boost damage in a way appreciable to people rather than boosting base damage again, or fluffing up our damage and sinking that bonus we get from teaming away. Considering it's only impossible to control certain targets, we'd not be losing out that much?

 

Pretty sure giant monsters are really difficult to control, hence the problem against Babbage.

 

Also, forgive me if this is jumbly. Wrote this early in the morning for me.

[Kyuubil]

It's more about the speed. There are not many things in this game that will clear that map in 3 minutes, friend.

 

Problem is it's not /martial doing any of that, it's plant/, and any controller or dom can do that with plant.

 

He uses seeds of confusion on the first group. It's a fire farm, he proceeds to the drop his creepers and gather more groups on top of his group of confused fire farm mobs.

 

They begin AOEing themselves and all their friends, while he throws down creeepers to take advantage of the corpses. AOE confuses op in farms, not plant/psi.

 

Only upside I can see is spin kick having a 16 target cap, but's also a untargeted frontal cone (the size of slice, but it literally just does it in a cone in front of you, not on your target) so it's pretty hard to use how he's farming.

[Banana Man]

Unless I'm really missing something watching this video, he doesn't use confuse a single time. It has a 60 second base cooldown (so, what? 15ish seconds enhanced?), and the video is pretty short. Skipping through the video a few seconds at a time, it'd be pretty easy to notice it on cooldown, and it never is.

 

I don't think he's claiming plant/martial is the end-all be-all dominator build. People were talking about strong dominator builds, and the poster mentioned plant/martial as one of them - which it very clearly is. Plant is good for obvious reasons, and martial for what looks to be really good AoE potential and the extra damage from Envenomed Blades, which lets increase your damage even if you're damage capped.

 

 

 

 

[vinnie_]

Didn't see a single confuse unless I'm missing something. Really weird to comment on the video without watching it.

[scran]

 

 

As pure control.  Not bad at all.  I like 'how' it plays.  But the damage return is mute.  The assault set, I guess, allows you to open up and clobber them when they're subdued.  I didn't realise that the end mod affected only the 1st target on confuse or chain fence?  I see.

 

 

I meant the chain skills, that is the chain knockdown and the confuse. the aoe immob does apply the end red to everyone.  Though most of the end red comes from the aura, the more important part on the other skills is the -recovery.  On that note the aura gives +% recovery buff, not flat end to you like the other powers do.

 

Now that i think about it, kinda weird elec assault has no chain skills.  Also thunderstrike seems godawful, tries to do way too much at once and its bad at them all. (ontop of being hillariously slow)

[nihilii]

So a friend helpfully pointed the REAL trick here when I showed him this awesome video of a plant/martial dom "clearing +4/x8 no cc":

- name your bosses "Boss"

- downgrade them to lieutenants

- record in potato quality

 

Consider me trolled successfully. :P

 

 

[Banana Man]

There’s no trick. The Lts are named “boss” because they are normally bosses. He’s just set to not solo bosses on that character. It’s pretty obvious from the video that he could solo bosses pretty easily, it would just take a little longer. I don’t know why he doesn’t solo bosses... that’s his own prerogative. Maybe it’s less efficient or something? I don’t know. It isn’t my character.

 

I was aware that they were lts and not bosses the first time I watched it, I assumed everyone else was aware, too. Bosses or not, I don’t think any other dom combos will clear that map as fast - even IF they can, that clear time is still really fast, which means that as the poster originally suggested, plant/martial is indeed a strong combo...

 

...which is all the poster was saying in the first place.

[nihilii]

Yep, it's still fast. No question. We're just moving from "WOW, this is unbelievably fast" to "oh, ok, that's pretty good".

 

I'll agree discussing intent isn't all too interesting here. But for the purposes of discussion, it's better to label what you're doing properly. People don't exactly think "no bosses" when they mention +4/x8, so the omission begs for confusion.

 

[Dan Petro]

The Plant Martial video that I linked was taken to show someone that player creeper vines seem to have a larger pull radius than the NPC version.  Also for someone who was looking for a different farmer for a spines/fire duo.  I believe they settled on a plant/ta controller and it is hilarious how effective it can be.  I just linked it here, because I thought I'd be fun to show that you don't need to run a /fire brute to clear +4/x8 quickly when people were talking about Doms and damage output. 

 

As for the boss vs. no boss it is literally one of the 3 top rated 999+ maps, the mobs are always named "boss" I have no idea how my settings got reduced as I haven't played that character in a while.  Here is a clear of the same map *with* bosses with a sub 4 minute time still using no confuse in case anyone gets offended by that.  Two mobs didn't pull so I generally just skip outliers and aim for maximum saturation, if you want to call it out on not being a full clear have at it lol.

 

With confuse you can get closer to 3 minute runs, but the reward gains are lowered too much for my personal tastes which I think is a result of being above the aggro cap and confused mobs doing too much damage to each other before you can get to them.

 

[nihilii]

And now this is impressive again. Thanks for proving me wrong. ;)

[Void]

Good lord.

 

The Plant Martial video that I linked was taken to show someone that player creeper vines seem to have a larger pull radius than the NPC version.  Also for someone who was looking for a different farmer for a spines/fire duo.  I believe they settled on a plant/ta controller and it is hilarious how effective it can be.  I just linked it here, because I thought I'd be fun to show that you don't need to run a /fire brute to clear +4/x8 quickly when people were talking about Doms and damage output. 

 

As for the boss vs. no boss it is literally one of the 3 top rated 999+ maps, the mobs are always named "boss" I have no idea how my settings got reduced as I haven't played that character in a while.  Here is a clear of the same map *with* bosses with a sub 4 minute time still using no confuse in case anyone gets offended by that.  Two mobs didn't pull so I generally just skip outliers and aim for maximum saturation, if you want to call it out on not being a full clear have at it lol.

 

With confuse you can get closer to 3 minute runs, but the reward gains are lowered too much for my personal tastes which I think is a result of being above the aggro cap and confused mobs doing too much damage to each other before you can get to them.

 

 

still not seeing what plant/ or /martial is contributing in this video. anyone with incarnates and /fire mastery can do the same thing... /s

[Dan Petro]

 

still not seeing what plant/ or /martial is contributing in this video. anyone with incarnates and /fire mastery can do the same thing... /s

 

Stay tuned for my Sonic/Elec/Pyre defender farm build thread, it is the true sleeper hit that no one has even begun to theory craft about.  Youtube wouldn't even let me upload it because the times were too NSFW  :-X

 

But yeah, sorry about the detour from the original topic.  Lets get those instant snipes in game (and maybe increase the dom's base recharge to 15 seconds so they can get a bit higher damage scale). 

[Banana Man]

maybe increase the dom's base recharge ... so they can get a bit higher damage scale

 

I like that idea.

[Golden Azrael]

The Plant Martial video that I linked was taken to show someone that player creeper vines seem to have a larger pull radius than the NPC version.  Also for someone who was looking for a different farmer for a spines/fire duo.  I believe they settled on a plant/ta controller and it is hilarious how effective it can be.  I just linked it here, because I thought I'd be fun to show that you don't need to run a /fire brute to clear +4/x8 quickly when people were talking about Doms and damage output. 

 

As for the boss vs. no boss it is literally one of the 3 top rated 999+ maps, the mobs are always named "boss" I have no idea how my settings got reduced as I haven't played that character in a while.  Here is a clear of the same map *with* bosses with a sub 4 minute time still using no confuse in case anyone gets offended by that.  Two mobs didn't pull so I generally just skip outliers and aim for maximum saturation, if you want to call it out on not being a full clear have at it lol.

 

With confuse you can get closer to 3 minute runs, but the reward gains are lowered too much for my personal tastes which I think is a result of being above the aggro cap and confused mobs doing too much damage to each other before you can get to them.

 

 

Well.  I see the plant tentacles are there.  I've seen brutes take longer to clear.  So the time is impressive.

 

I'd be even more impressed if an elec/elec domi could do that w/o incarnate powers.

 

I've got my plant/thorns assault Domi up to L28.  Enjoying it so far.  I find the powers are a little slow to execute on Thorns assault.  But fun enough.  I do like the controls.  But there's some whopping recharges on the vine/tentacle things. :o

 

As for Elec/Elec domi.  I find you have to really peddle hard to get it really going.  I'll see if I can fit the end mods into the build.

 

On the way up I try to balance my build.  Controls with attack.  The controls longer but enough damage to take the mobs out in that time.  End is still somewhat of an issue I have to keep one eye on.  Can't go all out (or can in short bursts...)  If I time it right, Domi comes up just in time to fill the stamina bar.  It does make for exciting gameplay.

 

The AoE damage is weak.  Single hitting is 'ok.'  (Havoc punch can BOMP....and Snipe is a potent hitter.  With insta snipe coming on tap soon.  Though with Leadership Tactics, Domi button and BUp I have it reasonably often.  Thunder strike.  I like.  It puts the boot into chain linked fence held mobs.  But you have to be careful not to scatter them too much.  It does take a while to execute.  Is it faster than Total Focus?  Random question.)

 

I still see opportunities for amplified damage.  eg.  On the confuse, chain link minor dot.  eg.  Brain damage.  A nudge on electric fences.  Static Shock...seems an obvious choice to deploy some there.

 

L38.  I haven't finished my build yet.  I have general IO enhancements in there. 

 

Epics.  Because the original developers saw fit not to have, inexplicably, an Electric Domi Epic set...I have to, reluctantly, do the Patron arc to keep theme.  (Non of the others fit.)  If SCORE want to fix something, perhaps that is something they can allow.  ie.  Elec Domi Epic choices.

 

Going for Elec armour so I can hang amongst the chain fence, slept mobs and take the odd punch while end draining.  Then Ball of Lightning to go with the electric AoE (the only one...) from elec assault.  So x 2 AoE then with Thunderstrike to act as a 'third' as a finisher, perhaps.  It's my biggest hitter outside of snipe.

 

Slots are tight.  I've got all the elec powers bar the 1st single elec fence.

 

The final two epics (patrons...) will be Power Surge for when I start to lose it (deck of cards, at times, teh Domi...) and Power Sink to end remove the mobs or bosses.

 

I always dread taking on those 'end freaks' Stunner Freaks.  I suppose they're like fighting an Elec/Elec domi.  They're pretty tough to take down.  Tougher than Freak tanks in some ways.

 

Regardless of quibbles over AoE dam/control dam.  It's a great control set.  Huge variety.  Bags of fun married to the elec assault.  The original devs did their job very well on it.

 

The idea above of chaining damage like on (static shock?) for elec primary on brute/tank/scrapper.  That's a good attack.  You hit the first and the damage spikes to any mob nearby.  Kool stuff.  I'd like that attack to be part of the elec assault set.  But not sure what I'd take out.  Maybe it could be part of the elec domi epic instead of the mu pet?

 

Azrael.

[scran]

The aoe on thunderstrike is abysmal.. the DPA for the first two melee powers is way way way better so those should be your main damage dealers along with snipe and the cone aoe... Elec assault really lacks aoe so its probably never gonna be even ok at farming.