Focused Feedback: Dominator Illusion Control

[Zepp]

7 hours ago, Xiddo said:

- I’ve never seen Blind’s AoE sleep thing - is there normally a visual cue? (My first illusion toon)

There is no power animation, nearby targets will just look like they've been mollywopped and then get a glow around their eyes. This power uses a pseudopet and the enemies have to be fairly close to the target of Blind to be affected.

[Zepp]

I am working on leveling rather than endgame as well. Spectral Wall is working as intended, but I have to say, a lot less useful than Spectral Wounds. While Spectral Wounds had that oomph followed by a heal (if not dropped in time) it provided the damage to make it useful in low level content. I'm not sure if it would be on par with the Assault powers, but it would at least be worth considering. I don't see Spectral Wall as being worth considering in its current form.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Zepp

[twozerofoxtrot]

This isn't strictly related to Ill Doms, but this came to me as I was testing a build:

 

Is there any way we could get Absolute Amazement's proc changed to a Mag 3 Immob for 10 seconds? Currently the -ToHit for 10 seconds on the proc is nearly almost always moot, because most dedicated stun powers last as long or longer than, precluding the enemy's ability to attack you.

 

 

As great as Gleam is, the area is very wide and there's no AoE Immob in the Ill Dom toolkit. This would be a handy thing to have, even if it's just a chance to lock down minions and lieutenants.

Edited October 10, 2022 by twozerofoxtrot

[Zeraphia]

Please don't take this post the wrong way, and this is not me advocating for it not to be ported over, I do have to be a bit honest here...

 

This powerset is just obscenely strong. Like leaps and bounds above every other control set for Dominators. It's basically stealing every single thing Mind had really going for it, and getting the best of what Dark had over Mind, and converging the two into being an unstoppable beast.

 

I don't hope for nerfs, but if this were ported onto live in its current state, I would not be surprised if half a year or so later, they decided to nerf some of this set. It is extremely effective in solo and group play, and is just a force to be reckoned with. 

[Xiddo]

5 hours ago, Zepp said:

There is no power animation, nearby targets will just look like they've been mollywopped and then get a glow around their eyes. This power uses a pseudopet and the enemies have to be fairly close to the target of Blind to be affected.

Ah ok. I will keep testing it to see if the glow appears 🙂 didn’t see it happen at all. However, combined with energy it is very visually loud so I might’ve just missed it

[Mezmera]

4 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Is there any way we could get Absolute Amazement's proc changed to a Mag 3 Immob for 10 seconds? Currently the -ToHit for 10 seconds on the proc is nearly almost always moot, because most dedicated stun powers last as long or longer than, precluding the enemy's ability to attack you.

 

No thank you! 

 

Stacking this -tohitt onto an AV with Total Focus is a great weapon to have.  Any power with a stun component that some people use in this way will be very negatively affected in an AV fight by this lack of creativity.  

Edited October 10, 2022 by Mezmera

[Mezmera]

3 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Please don't take this post the wrong way, and this is not me advocating for it not to be ported over, I do have to be a bit honest here...

 

This powerset is just obscenely strong. Like leaps and bounds above every other control set for Dominators. It's basically stealing every single thing Mind had really going for it, and getting the best of what Dark had over Mind, and converging the two into being an unstoppable beast.

 

I don't hope for nerfs, but if this were ported onto live in its current state, I would not be surprised if half a year or so later, they decided to nerf some of this set. It is extremely effective in solo and group play, and is just a force to be reckoned with. 

 

Yes it is quite strong.  It'll be the second best control below Plant and as you're alluding to it'll leave Mind and Dark in the dust, which hopefully some reshuffling comes about for some of the other control sets.  

 

I don't know what they can really do though to make it not as good as it is.  The powers feel about right and all of the pets you have to take.  The only real nerf would be to the pets and they already took away the taunt, how much do they trim from the set known for having great pets?

[Arcadio]

4 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Please don't take this post the wrong way, and this is not me advocating for it not to be ported over, I do have to be a bit honest here...

 

This powerset is just obscenely strong. Like leaps and bounds above every other control set for Dominators. It's basically stealing every single thing Mind had really going for it, and getting the best of what Dark had over Mind, and converging the two into being an unstoppable beast.

 

I don't hope for nerfs, but if this were ported onto live in its current state, I would not be surprised if half a year or so later, they decided to nerf some of this set. It is extremely effective in solo and group play, and is just a force to be reckoned with. 

What exactly is obscenely strong about this set? Also, it plays nothing like Mind Control.

[Major_Decoy]

Is there a purple triangles Elite Boss (downgraded AV) that I can encounter before Envoy of Shadows? The Envoy of Shadows is the first AV that just stomped my Mind/Savage and I want a comparison, but I don't want to level jump from 21 to 35.

[Wavicle]

26 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

Is there a purple triangles Elite Boss (downgraded AV) that I can encounter before Envoy of Shadows? The Envoy of Shadows is the first AV that just stomped my Mind/Savage and I want a comparison, but I don't want to level jump from 21 to 35.

 The Faultline EBs?

 

Striga has Heracles and Maestro

Edited October 10, 2022 by Wavicle

[Major_Decoy]

10 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

It's basically stealing every single thing Mind had really going for it

 

Honestly, Terrify is an amazing cone, and while Spectral Terror is perma right out of the box, Terrify is easier to use and a more satisfying AoE.

 

5 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 The Faultline EBs?

 

Striga has Heracles and Maestro

I did not do faultline on my Mind/Savage, but I did do Striga. I just ran my Mind/Savage through Mako's stuff (because a cat that can't vomit into your shoes isn't a damned cat) and Ballistas are so very annoying.

 

I'll take the Illusion through Striga next, thanks for the suggestion.

[laudwic]

After running around the test server doing Outbreak, a few missions with Twinshot, ToothBreaker Jones, a radio mission (at 19) and street sweeping/Trick or Treating at 19 here are some thoughts.

 

Bind is fine. 

 

Spectral Wall is interesting but I generally skip Immobilize on my Doms (hold and fear generally keep something in the same place, stuns don't move - all three of those stop attacks) Nice graphics!

 

Deceive is fine.  Seems to be the same as the Controller version.

 

Spectral Terror - This has always been an underrated power and while no different from the Controller version, it is extremely useful moved up.  Still a great power, and the best one this set has but with the fall back that you have no control over it after placement and it is stationary.

 

Superior Invisibility - same as controller version, great power.  Worth taking (not just to put a Luck of the Gambler/Increase Recharge) because it is so much better than just putting a Celerity IO into sprint even with the endurance cost.

 

Gleam - The graphics are nice.  My only complaint with this is the damage is too low.  I just leveled up (read solo) and Syn/Energy Dom to full incarnate.  Confounding Chant is a similar stun power, except a cone, but it is a superior DoT versus the light or minor damage this one is (I think it was 7 damage on my 19th level Ill/Eng Dom - not slotted for damage).  Consider increasing the damage on this one up a step.  With how it currently is, Confounding Chant blows it out of the water and I see no real return or reason to slot Gleam for damage.  

 

Phantom Army - I'm going to test this more, but, initially, I really do not like the removal of taunt and the creation of this new version.  The occasional stun or knockdown is nice, but not an effective replacement.  (Note, my main on Live was a 50 Ill/Rad Controller, have a 50 Ill/TA - both soloed a lot)  I remember with live that there was a change to Phantom Army and Statesmen posted how the power was never intended to do damage but to use taunt to draw off attacks.  Now we are removing Taunt and my experience is the occasional stun and knockdown not giving the same kind of mitigation.  Sure, if you drop it on a small spawn, it will do something, medium or large spawn, your going to use something else.  This power is the center piece of this set, and, from my testing experience, it is just kinda meh.  Maybe increase the damage as compared to the controller version (which will increase the heal back) to better differentiate the two?  You have to make some reason to use this power instead of just using Gleam and make the set attractive.  At 19, Symphony Control is a far superior set.

 

I have not tried Flash or Phantasm on test yet.

 

If Phantasm is a direct port, the AI either needs to be fixed or give it Melee power to use when it inexplicably charges in.  

 

Note, three powers for this set do not benefit from Domination in anyway.  (Gravity has the same problem.)

[Mezmera]

11 hours ago, Arcadio said:

What exactly is obscenely strong about this set? Also, it plays nothing like Mind Control.

 

Having tested it out a bit I can see where @Zeraphia is coming from so I'll help elaborate on what she's seeing.  

 

The t2 being the ST hold and t3 the ST confuse is exactly how I'd want my Mind doms first powers to be available.  The set gets the best stealth power without wasting a pool pick on Concealment.  Then with Gleam and Flash if you play in melee heavy like I tend to do on my Mind dom there's not much difference in how those aoe controls get used while Gleam is a decently less useful power than Mass Confusion it's still a great hard control with better recharge.  The terror pet is quite nice, not as great as Terrify, but still very helpful.  The amount of adaptable aoe control in an Illusion dom is not far off from a Mind dom, minus how great Mass Confusion can be.  

 

Then on top of that all of those pets provide some great distraction and grind into a single target much like Dark Control.  This has better ST damage than Dark Control which is known for top tier ST damage.  

 

The way Illusion dom's will be setup is fine but it sets the justification of a lot of other controls to be tinkered with.  

Edited October 10, 2022 by Mezmera

[Frosticus]

My desire was always ill/fire, but I've been testing an ill/sav. I'm pretty well versed in what illusion can do for controllers.

There will be lots of good ill combos for doms.

 

1. Spectral wall - meh. I'd rather have spec wounds. High burst damage of some doms would work well with the heal-back timer. Man doms t1 ranged attack is really weak and now skippable. Having a decent psi ranged attack would be welcome. I'd skip spec wounds on some doms, but I will skip spec wall on most doms. Maybe you need this though to prevent running AV's since PA no longer taunts?

 

2. Spectral Terror - love that it is available earlier. Have always loved placing outside of line of sight. Its a good power and keeps working while you do other stuff. I've always wished it had a bit more range on initial cast so you can get it down more easily before the team engages. 

 

3. Superior invis - might be of even more value in lowering your threat modifier now that PA and phant decoy have no taunt?

 

4. Gleam - aoe stuns under domination are amazing. This is a great one, taoe with pretty quirk cast time. 

 

5. Phantom Army - They have enough control (stuns/kd) to easily contain a single boss. Gleam more than makes up for the loss of taunt vs groups. PA is the entire reason to take Illusion for controllers imo. Definitely a decent damage source for doms, but I'm not seeing a compelling reason to make large build sacrifices push these to perma on a dom. Huge step down for the set vs AV's though.

 

6. Phantasm - skip. This suicidal pile of tissues is barely worthwhile for trollers that have considerable support powers to keep him standing. The decoy's taunt could occasionally cover downtime of phantom army, which was the only reason to use him imo. 

 

Conclusion: I'm going to play this set. It is great. My ill troller has no really way of locking down x8 spawns, has extreme st damage, and is unreal vs AV's. My ill dom will have spectacular group control and super high (st) damage. AV performance is a good or better than most doms. 

[Riverdusk]

13 hours ago, Mezmera said:

 

No thank you! 

 

Stacking this -tohitt onto an AV with Total Focus is a great weapon to have.  Any power with a stun component that some people use in this way will be very negatively affected in an AV fight by this lack of creativity.  

 

Welcome to your opinion, but just to make sure you are aware I looked that proc up and it appears the tohit debuff is 7.5%.  A level 50 AV resists 85% of that, so that proc is only lowering that AV's accuracy by 1.125%.  A +4 AV would resist another half of that again due to level difference, so in that case you are looking at it "helping" you by only about .6%.  

 

[Mezmera]

12 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Welcome to your opinion, but just to make sure you are aware I looked that proc up and it appears the tohit debuff is 7.5%.  A level 50 AV resists 85% of that, so that proc is only lowering that AV's accuracy by 1.125%.  A +4 AV would resist another half of that again due to level difference, so in that case you are looking at it "helping" you by only about .6%.  

 

 

Well a +4 AV is at 87% resist.  So the original number put forth for the regular AV isn't far off.  Plus then something like 4 stacks of Diamagnetic play into it on top of already capped defenses.  

 

I agree though the number doesn't seem all too impressive but much less so if it were a useless immob proc.  

 

 

[Riverdusk]

16 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Please don't take this post the wrong way, and this is not me advocating for it not to be ported over, I do have to be a bit honest here...

 

This powerset is just obscenely strong. Like leaps and bounds above every other control set for Dominators. It's basically stealing every single thing Mind had really going for it, and getting the best of what Dark had over Mind, and converging the two into being an unstoppable beast.

 

I don't hope for nerfs, but if this were ported onto live in its current state, I would not be surprised if half a year or so later, they decided to nerf some of this set. It is extremely effective in solo and group play, and is just a force to be reckoned with. 

 

It'll be strong no doubt, but I'd say I could actually build an illusion controller just as strong.  As usual the controller would be later blooming on damage though as it depends on epic attacks for a good chunk of its aoe damage.  The illusion controller will still be the stronger AV killer at the least due to much more availability to -regen and the phantom army having taunt.

 

Compared to other doms, as already mentioned, I think fire and plant will still outdo it for AoE mass killing.  It still isn't going to have nearly as much -tohit that dark control has, so I think dark control is still the safer set.  It might become the single target damage king for doms though?  I don't see that as a bad thing.  Single target damage is a bit underappreciated in CoH.

[Riverdusk]

1 minute ago, Mezmera said:

 

Well a +4 AV is at 87% resist.  So the original number put forth for the regular AV isn't far off.  Plus then something like 4 stacks of Diamagnetic play into it on top of already capped defenses.  

 

I agree though the number doesn't seem all too impressive but much less so if it were a useless immob proc.  

 

 

 

I'd find an immobilize proc very useful on some of my characters, so that's a difference of opinion.

 

Things are getting a bit off track, so to bring it back around, I also very much like that spectral wall is an immobilize and unlike others in this thread, do not want to see that changed.  I hate having to chase after AV's that like to run around, and with phantom army not taunting, I 100% like having an immobilize for those situations.

[Arcadio]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

 

Having tested it out a bit I can see where @Zeraphia is coming from so I'll help elaborate on what she's seeing.  

 

The t2 being the ST hold and t3 the ST confuse is exactly how I'd want my Mind doms first powers to be available.  The set gets the best stealth power without wasting a pool pick on Concealment.  Then with Gleam and Flash if you play in melee heavy like I tend to do on my Mind dom there's not much difference in how those aoe controls get used while Gleam is a decently less useful power than Mass Confusion it's still a great hard control with better recharge.  The terror pet is quite nice, not as great as Terrify, but still very helpful.  The amount of adaptable aoe control in an Illusion dom is not far off from a Mind dom, minus how great Mass Confusion can be.  

 

Then on top of that all of those pets provide some great distraction and grind into a single target much like Dark Control.  This has better ST damage than Dark Control which is known for top tier ST damage.  

 

The way Illusion dom's will be setup is fine but it sets the justification of a lot of other controls to be tinkered with.  

PA is definitely nice for single target, but without the taunt and no AoE immobilize the set has a problem with scattering. Despite gleam being a great control, without a way to stop enemies from wandering around while they're stunned I think it's probably the weakest control set for AoE. Which is a fine tradeoff IMO.

[Mezmera]

1 minute ago, Riverdusk said:

Things are getting a bit off track, so to bring it back around, I also very much like that spectral wall is an immobilize and unlike others in this thread, do not want to see that changed.  I hate having to chase after AV's that like to run around, and with phantom army not taunting, I 100% like having an immobilize for those situations.

 

That immobilize is a skippable power to me but I appreciate that it's there for others to make use of.  Outside of aoe immobs I'm not all too much of a fan particularly on a dom with so much great control already available.  

[Mezmera]

11 minutes ago, Arcadio said:

PA is definitely nice for single target, but without the taunt and no AoE immobilize the set has a problem with scattering. Despite gleam being a great control, without a way to stop enemies from wandering around while they're stunned I think it's probably the weakest control set for AoE. Which is a fine tradeoff IMO.

 

I found that if a group was well enough clumped together I'd soften them up with Gleam as I'm running in to use that pbaoe Flash to keep them from roaming.  Then the terror pet and the nice recharge on Gleam keep things pretty well controlled if anything tries to break free.  This set very subtly has some nice aoe control, nowhere near the weakest.  

 

I also like to run into the middle like I do my Mind dom and let my defenses allow the group to clump up on me in melee range then use Flash much like I do Total Domination then get to work on them.  

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

My desire was always ill/fire, but I've been testing an ill/sav. I'm pretty well versed in what illusion can do for controllers.

There will be lots of good ill combos for doms.

By random cosmic fiat, or something, I've also been futzing around with Illusion/Savage today.  I've run a few missions, leveled to a new tier, run, leveled, etc.  And I feel like based on the trek up, I pretty much agree with all your points.  Only maybe disagreement is on Phantom Army, which, since Dominators are already "Go massive Recharge or go home", kinda give a sentiment of, at least in high-end builds, no real reason not to shoot for Perma-Phantoms.  That said, if the AT ever gets looked over, it's actually kinda nice feeling like they're helpful but not make-or-break.

 

As for Spectral Wall, I'm kind of in agreement with others that it feels...underwhelming, I guess?  Like, Immobilizes can be kind of knockback-esque in terms of usefulness to me.  Maybe not that situational, but it's not something I'd want to overuse in the first place.  Phantasm is kinda useless due to fragility, but I feel like that's...kinda par for the course with Dominator pets?  I dunno, they've always come across to me as kinda gimmicky at best.

 

Also, Flash feels very outdone by Gleam, which is pretty speedy on Recharge, much faster to activate, and seems to have a pretty big radius when used from range.  Maybe give the Flash animation the same treatment that was given to Short Circuit (since it's the same base one)?  It's...fine as-is, but I feel like AoE holds should almost feel like nukes, and give a real "hell yeah" feel, which I'm not getting from Flash right now.

 

Beyond that, I'll have to futz more with other combos, I think (in part 'cause I forgot I like Savage as a concept but not so much in terms of how it plays). Maybe Thorns next...

[Major_Decoy]

10 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Also, Flash feels very outdone by Gleam, which is pretty speedy on Recharge, much faster to activate, and seems to have a pretty big radius when used from range.

Flash can stack with Blind whereas Gleam can't. (Though, if they're already blind, what is a huge flash of light accomplishing against them?)

[Lazarillo]

32 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

Flash can stack with Blind whereas Gleam can't. (Though, if they're already blind, what is a huge flash of light accomplishing against them?)

It does, although in my general experience, that's a fairly minor boon, since it only means a use for Boss-tier enemies, really, and Deceive, Phantom Army, and Domination all provide such use as well.

[Major_Decoy]

Heracles is down. Honestly, it almost feels like they calibrated Phantom Army's damage by "Okay, you should be able to defeat an elite boss jut before the duration expires"

 

Edit: I am also attacking the elite boss, I am not just sitting around watching the Phantom Army.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Major_Decoy