CapnGeist

Time Ally Should randomly give you one of the following...

-Guy in Futuristic Armor with Pulse Rifle
-Broadsword/Shield Knight in Shining Armor
-Caveman with Bone Mace
-Cowboy with two revolvers
-Morlock (fights with claws)

Part of the idea here is to give more incentive for people to use SGs. Right now most SG Bases are just Teleport Stations. What they SHOULD be is your one stop for pretty much whatever you need.

The issue isn't that something's wrong with Illusion, it's that Illusion is pretty clearly designed with the idea of a buff/debuff secondary. The set is very powerful on controllers with a proper secondary. The set's one of the few that enables soloing of Giant Monsters. It's very strong set secondary support and high enough recharge.

Dominator doesn't grant that secondary support. It just... wouldn't be nearly as good on Dominators.

Then as far as concept and flavor goes... Illusion Control controls, sure, but does it "Dominate?" Does it force your opponent to do... anything? It's got 3 mezzes, one of which is pretty much useless. From a Flavor standpoint it just doesn't fit the Dominator mentality of telling the opponent to shut up and take it.

To LISAR's point... Why would it have been given to Masterminds? It's not built like a Mastermind set, and it's just plain not as good at Mastermind-ness as the Mastermind Primaries. Sure, you could make an Illusion Mastermind, but you'd have to build it from the ground up. Mastermind primaries are the most formulaic of any set with only the level 18 power not being determined before the set even exists as a concept.


Anyway, Leo, I think you may be assuming more hostility here... I am not saying that I'd be outraged or angered if Illusion got proliferated to Dominators. I'm not saying that it would ruin the game or make things awful. I'm just trying to give reasons why it's unlikely to happen. You've got a legitimate concern in that you want it for concept, but it's just not a widespread enough concern, and there's enough reasons why Illusion Dominators would be sub-par that they've got other things to focus on first.

Yes, I more meant along the line of realistic in appearance. You know, to allow yourself to have a feel to any of the dozens of whip-using fictional characters. Yeah, using the word "realistic" wasn't a good one, but really, it's a /whip./

And as for the 3 attacks of not "using" the whip, the idea is that the Whip as an object conveys the general idea of command and dominance. Sort of like how Shield manages to grant Fear resistance not because hunks of metal stop fear effects from invading your mind, but because the mental benefit of a shield is that it makes you feel more protected.


Yes, I made a poor choice of words when I said "realistic" but my point is, it's a classic whip and an idea for a Natural Dominator, and Umbral, I respect that you're pointing out that the set's not necesarrily a great idea because whips don't work that way (and I think most people know this and don't care, otherwise they wouldn't be used like this so much in fiction.)

I have no respect, however, for Lucky's halfassed admission that he didn't even read the thread because a fire whip would be cooler. Fire whip is an incredibly narrow idea that would almost certainly overlap painfully with the normal Fire sets and doesn't lend itself to multiple concepts at all. Whips as a whole, however, are used by many well known characters such as Indiana Jones, Catwoman, and Simon Belmont. It's just not as good an idea for a set as Whip whatever.

So you're discarding the idea entirely because rather than a realistic whip you want unrealistic fire whips that would do the same type of damage as a pre-existing dominator set?

Why did you waste my time and yours posting that?

1) I have my attacks on my number bar, I move with the D-Pad, and use my numpad to control pets. Just means I have to stand still.

2) If you just keep your pets in Defensive Follow forever and always, you're probably going to still be awesome. My pets rarely ever leave defensive follow.

3) You're complaint is now "Masterminds are too hard to play" not "I want to play a Dominator with Illusions." To this I can only respond... Masterminds are not hard to play.

4) Illusion predates Masterminds, unless I got my facts wrong. Mastermind was made when they said "Hey, you know what's awesome? Illusion Controllers. What if we made a whole AT like that, but mitigating some of the major flaws?" Illusion Control is now an Artifact.

5) You're now saying that the only reason you want Illusions is because it looks cool and you don't actually WANT to play with Pets/Assault? Then what you want is an Illusion Controller. If you want to play it redside, just wait a few months.

6) On another note: The two invisibility powers would not be nearly as good on a Dominator as they are on a Controller. Part of Illusion's charm is that you can make yourself invisible and focus on using your secondary. Dominator powers don't allow you to be useful when you're not making yourself known to enemies.

The 'no comment' was clarified later. They've been working on it but it keeps throwing random issues at them so they've got no idea when it's going to be released. It's something they've said they'll keep poking at, but there's no garuntee it'll happen any time soon, or ever.

That said, it's likely that the first MM customization we'll see, if any, will be recoloring Bots and Demons. The fact that those creatures are built off of unique models rather than made of costume pieces means that one of the big issues they were having (unable to choose separate colors for separate costume pieces and thus turning your zombie/thug/merc/ninja into a smurf if you wanted anything blue) wouldn't apply to those two.

Yes, I know variants have been suggested before, but the search function says that the last one was a year ago, and it was just control, and not assault. Here's my suggestion for a Whip Control and Whip Assault matched set, for Dominators only. Controllers go home.

Unlike most Control sets, Whip will have low range, most of its attacks only hitting 20 feet. To counter this, Whip will do heavy lethal damage. Note that Whip has no holds, but instead has a few disorients. This was mostly because I couldn't figure out a good way to explain a whip holding someone without holding the user as well, and Disorient is almost as good.

I'm not sure if a whip should count as melee or ranged. That's for the courts to decide. Either way, attacks should require you to be within 20 feet, but that's pretty standard for a Dominator anyway.

This set has two types of attacks: Actual whip attacks and attacks based on shouting commands and using the whip for emphasis. The whip attacks do lethal damage and come with a defense debuff. The Command attacks do psychic damage and have no additional secondary. The Psychic damage shouldn't be percieved as actual mental attacks, but a force of personality strong enough to give the opponent pause. If a foe falls from it, they fainted.

The whip was designed for pain over damage, so each strike makes your foe less able to overcome pain.

1- Trip (Ranged Knockdown, Lethal Damage, -resistance) A whipcrack aimed at calf level. Whip, then tug back to knock the opponent onto his back.

1- Stunning Snap (Ranged, Moderate Lethal Damage, Disorient, -res) A Whipcrack aimed at eye level

2- Halt! (Standard AoE immobilize with full range, minor psychic damage, similar to frostbite, firecages, stone cages, -res)

6- Low Swing (PBAoE Knockdown, 20 foot, 180 degree cone, Lethal Damage, -res) Swing the whip horizontally, aiming at foe legs to hurt them and trip them.

8- Obey! (Ranged Confuse, minor psychic damage) Crack the whip in the general direction of the foe

12- Unbalance (Ranged, Lethal Damage, -Res, -damage) A strike of the whip throws your foe off balance, ruining his attempts at an offense.

18- Down! (Fear Cone, minor psychic damage) Crack the whip in the direction of the foe, foe cowers in fear

26- High Spin (PBAoE Disorient, Lethal Damage, -res) Crouch and twirl the whip above your head, striking the heads of those nearby

32- Dancing Whip (A whip without a wielder, flying around and attacking. Its animations would be the same as yours, except the wielder is invisible, similar to how Jack Frost has ice armor but has no visible body in it) Alternatively, some sort of big cat. Whips and big cats tend to go together. Or maybe someone can come up with a tier 9 cool enough to not need a pet at all.



Whip Assault

So, how do you give Whip ranged attacks? By focusing on that sharp, painful CRACK. For the ranged attacks, I stole from Sonic Attack, which doesn't have an assault variant. Note that all Sonic Attack animations would still come with a whipcrack, but the effects and damage would be the same. Melee attacks would have increased range

1- Whipcrack (as Shriek)
2- Lash (Melee, 20 foot reach, Lethal, -Res)
4- Spin (20 foot PBAoE, lethal -res)
10-Sonic Snap (as Scream)
16-Build Up (It's build up)
20-Whirling Fenzy (Toggle: 20 foot PBAoE, lethal damage, -res, and chance for knockdown) You spin your whip constantly as you move, forcing any foe who gets too close to risk being struck.
28-Deadly Crack (PBAoE, 20 foot, 90 degree cone, Lethal/Energy/Smashing, -Res) You crack your whip suddenly through your opponents, the sonic boom adding to the pain from their lash.
35-Heavy Lash (Melee, 20 foot reach, High lethal, -res)
38-Sonic Boom (as Shout)

I SAID etc. That would include Tsoo.

Knives Oni? Yeah, I didn't think that far. I've used Thugs and Zombies and my wife uses Mercs and Bots, but I've never touched Ninjas. I forgot the ninjas has a fire user.

There's also the problem the other way. Having an Illusion Controller and having multiple Masterminds I can tell you this... Illusion control feels pretty weak compared to any Mastermind primary. True, Illusion might not have the micromanaging issues... But it also doesn't gain the micromanaging strengths either. As one who uses the numpad binds for MMs and thus has precise control over his minions, I can honestly say that it infuriates me that I have no control whatsoever over my illusions. An Illusion controller is really just a bad MM, unless you take Radiation, but you're still only overcoming the lack of Rad on MMs. I'm a firm believer that if /Rad went over to MM, then Thugs/Rad would be even better than Ill/Rad... Which is why MMs should never get /Rad.


Now, if your argument is that Dominators need illusions because it would make for good dominators, that's fine, but that's not what I'm seeing... I'm seeing that Illusion Dominators would be bad Masterminds. If you're saying you want Illusion for Dominators because you want Masterminds to be easier to control, then I have to ask what you're smoking because having a level 50 mastermind I can honestly say that Thugs are as controllable as illusions when I'm drunk and eating a sandwich and significantly better than illusions with even the slightest bit of effort. The only other answer I can see is that you don't like buffing/healing your minions, to which case I suggest you try a different MM secondary so as to not worry about that.


The only other argument I can see is that you want a Pets/Assault AT, which I agree would be amazing, but I'd want it with an Inherent that actually works, not Domination.

Perhaps I'm missing something, and if so, please enlighten me.

1) I'm sure it has, but our search function is godawful and I haven't seen it.
2) Thanks.
3) Yeah, that's kind of the joke. He's actually STILL David Jones. His kids are Joneses. Bowie's just the stage name.

For the sake of ease, here's a C+P of the post there...

More likely, when CoH2 is announced, they'll declare that anybody who remains subscribed to CoH from the time of official announcement to the time CoH2 is released will gain bonuses at the start of CoH2, like with the loyalty program.

I love Illusion Control very much on my Ill/Rad controller. Hearing someone got disgusted with that tells me that they're completely missing the point of the set... Which is that you've got invincible creatures drawing aggro, and a foe that's attacking an invincible creature is pretty much mezzed in a non-mez fashion. It's not calling a truck with a bucket of water a firetruck... It's calling a tsunami a firetruck. Sure, the method's different, but that house is totally gonna be not on fire.


But here's one reason I think Ill won't see play on a Dominator any time soon, aside from Domination:

Illusion would step on a Mastermind's toes pretty hardcore. While in heroes Illusion is the only "pet" set, Villains have a whole Pet AT. While Illusion is the hero's only path to play pets, Dominators aren't supposed to do the Mastermind thing.

Zombies could be broken up into pure Zombies, pure Skeletons, and the mix we have now.

Bots could give us options for current bots, Steampunk bots, and Androids.

Ninjas would offer us Ninja, Samurai, Warrior Monks, and Sentai.


Defeat badges could unlock...

Mekmen for Robots, Vamypri for Zombies, and Council for Mercenaries
Malta Mercenaries, Titan Robots
Hellion thugs
Skull Zombies (due to power sets, they'd be the dark ones)
Knives of Artemis Ninjas
Longbow Mercenaries (Heroes only, but GR's coming soon enough)
Crey Robots (just because the power sets are most right for Crey)
Circle of Thorns Demons

Etc, etc. Reskins, powers would be unchanged.

It'd totally be up for going for an Unyielding run midday. I've got elsewhere to be at 8 EST, but before then? Absolutely.

Mechanically, this would probably work the same as City of Villains' hidden contacts that unlock upon getting the appropriate badges.

Or if not permanent, at least lengthy. The last gold title I got lasted a whopping three days.

While taking my character to a random Arbiter to gain his level up, I was struck by the thought "This is silly, there's an Arbiter in my Villain Group. Why can't she level me up?" and then it all clicked... Base functions can be added with minimal new art by adding one thing: Customizable NPCs that function as items.

Rather than re-posting the whole thing here and having two threads, I'll provide a link to the thread I made in the Suggestion forum some time ago, in hopes that those who admit to being base builders will take a look and comment on the idea.

Click here to go to the thread in the Suggestions forum.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking: A tailor in the base. That's what I really want.

I'm for any form of MM Pet Customization.


With demons being new, it's possible they're being built to be colored, maybe.

All this talk of CoH2 coming out and lifetime subs for them... Have the devs actually said anything about a CoH2 in the future? The only MMO I've heard of getting a 2 is Everquest.