EricHough

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While TK blast is very nice at L4 its not so nice once you hit L18 and compare it to bitter ice blast and blaze - both of which do more damage and cast just as fast.

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I am going to paraphrase Castle, you should not compare any Tier 3s to Bitter Ice Blast and Blaze because they are not what Tier 3 blasts should be. Blaze and Bitter Ice Blast are going to get nerfed hard in terms of damage when Castle gets around to.

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I was just pointing out why, currently, psi-blast is considered inferier in single target damage to ice and fire. Yes, some day blaze and BiB may get the nerf bat - until then though TK blast lags behind in both damage and DPA and is a more resisted damage type.

You will notice I DID follow up with advice on how to maximze the potential of the character. I firmly believe folks should be able to enjoy whatever character combo's they want to play - but I also feel I should point out shortcomings in the set so they know what they are getting into.

Here is a simple thought that basically keeps the benefit defenders are getting roughly the same but applies it a bit more evenly - give defenders a base end reduction that scales up for every member on thier team, kinda like the HEAT benefits. Maybe something like a 10% global end reduction all the time so they get SOME solo benefit and then an addition bonus (2%-5% say) per team member, regardless of the health of the team.

This gives the defender some benefit when solo and encourages teaming without giving more benefits to any one type of defender. It also has the benefit of being similar to an existing system (the HEAT benefits that accrue based on teammate AT) so that there is likely to be existing code that could be adapted.

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Something to keep in mind is that when you put it in a click to-hit buff power, such as Follow Up, Build Up, or Aim, you have a chance for it to fire anytime you use that particular power. If you put it in a toggle power, such as Tactics or the Widow Leadership power, it automatically checks the proc every 10 seconds and you can then slot something else in that slot of Follow Up.

Personally I would rather have it in the toggle power, preferably as the sixth slot, so I get the 2.5% defense vs. melee/ranged/AoE from the whole set in addition to the constant possibility of a random Build Up.

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The problem with slotting it in a toggle is that there is way to be sure that it will fire off when you are actually in the process of attacking, as it checks every 10 seconds whether or not you are in combat. At least with aim, build up, follow up and blinding feint you know you will be attacking right afterwards.

I would say how you slot the BU proc depends on what you want to get out of it - if you need the def (which IS nice) then slot all 6 in power that you can afford to slot a set like gaussians. If you really do what to get maximum benefit form the BU proc itself, slot just that proc in an attack/click power that will take it. Obviously the best choices are follow up, BF or similar powers as most folks try to get the cycle time on those down well below 10 seconds - but even in aim or build up I suspect you will get more out of proc than you will in a toggle.

A comment on pet slotting. I notice a lot of guide's only look at set bonuses when they consider the pet IO's - the problem here is that except for the new recharge intensive pet IO's most of the other pet sets don't really give good set bonuses - even soulbound allegiance is not that great and the enhancement bonuses you get for full sets are either too good in many cases or not good enough, even for the RIP sets. For example, slotting everything but the proc from Call to Arms or Expedient reinforcement will give you 60% accuracy, 77% damage, 40% end and 56% recharge (at level 30) which is not nearly enough recharge for a pet that actually need recharge and way to much for one that doesn't (like the tier 9 pets). What a lot of folks miss are the following points:

- Blue side, standard pet set IO's are CHEAP
- You can get a lot done by frankenslotting early on in your characters life.

For example - an ill/rad phantasm doesn't really need any recharge as the pet lasts until it zones or one dies and one hasten/AM cycle will recharge it completely. So I save slots and put the following 4 L30+ IO's in the power: 3 x ACC/DAM (any 3 different pet sets) and 1 x DAM. That gives you 60% accuracy and ED capped damage and leaves 2 slots for procs, end reduction (if it really matters) etc.

I slot up phantom army similarily, although I use all 6 slots because I want to maximize recharge. My current slotting on my illusion/rad is:

Call to Arms acc/dam/rech (L30)
Expedient Reinforcemnt acc/dam/rec (L41)
Brilliant Leadership acc/dam (L38)
2 x L30 generic recharge IO
1 x L30 generic damage IO

This gives me 60% accuracy, ED capped recharge (95.53%) and close to ED capped damage (91.73%). This is pretty much the best slotting I can suggest for phantom army as it gives you the best recharge you are probably going to get, sufficient accuracy for anything and nearly capped damage.

Best of all the ONLY expensive pieces are the two RIP pieces and they are not generally that expensive. Odds are the salvage is going to cost you more as all the new IO sets tend to require at least one piece of expensive rare salvage per recipe.

Obviously at L50 you might get enhancement bonuses as good with the right 4 L50 Expedient reinforcement which would let you get the 6.25% recharge bonus but the slotting I use above can be done by level 27 if you can get our hands on L30 versions of everything and will be nearly as good.

Other thoughts: I didn't notice if you mentioned picking up a pool attack early on to smooth out the single target attack chain. Air superiority is my favorite - good damage with containment and nice soft control outside of containment, but anyone will work.

Another possible tip, although this is pretty specialized, if you have access to Mr. Yin's store in faultline (either through other characters on your account, friends, SG members, etc) you can slot some SO's at level 10. With illusion/rad you have to really good options:

1) Go with natural or mutant origin and slot damage SO's in spectral wounds, blind and a pool attack power. The extra damage from level 10 on is VERY nice
2) Go with science origin and slot recharge SO's in AM and hasten. With carefull slotting you can have both powers capped on recharge by level 11 easily - this means that for 2 minutes out of every 3 you will have 100% recharge, stamina level end recovery and a 20% damage boost. I leveled my illusion/rad this way well before the latest XP smoothing pass and it went very fast.

The other origin options are not as good for illusion rad although going tech for end reduction would be ok.

I have 3 standard strategies with my archery/dev blaster. As an aside - she has cloaking device + a stealth IO so she can stealth right up to anything but rikti drones and the like. At lower levels I did the same thing with CD + smoke grenade.

1) Small group (1 LT or 3 minions) - go up to foot of group, plant trip mine. As you finish planting the trip mine leap back and unload AE's (for minions) or webnade + single target attacks on LT to finish him off. With the minions if you have one in the back targetted when you plant the trip mine and spring back and fire as soon as the trip mine animation finishes you will get them all in your AE before they are blown out of it by the trip mine.

2) Medium groups (multiple LT's, spread out minions, easy bosses): Stealth into cone range, plant trip mine at feet, throw caltrop patch at feet, Aim + RoA + Fistfull + Explosive Arrow. Finish off LT's/Bosses with single target attacks. The trip mine at your feet gives you a nice defiance boost (26% for 11 seconds) and if any mobs make it through the caltrops to close with you it blows up.

3) Tough bosses: Plant 1-2 trip mines between myself and boss, back up a bit from that mine patch and plant another at my feet along with caltrops. Aim+RoA+.... Basically same as tactic 2 except I might plant an extra trip mine or two - rarely more than that though, while it can be fun to see a stack of 6 trip mines blowing up a boss the time it takes to drop them is rarely worth it and more often than not a minion will blow the whole stack before the boss gets there - so 1 out in front, 1 at your feet, go for it.

I used to plant mine fields and reap insane havok but I realized that even at a high recharge on trip mine it took FOREVER to do this and I could kill faster with 1-2 mines total. The real benefit of trip mine is the defiance boost and the extra protection of having anything that closes to melee blown away from you.

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Set bonuses apply only to the player, not to pets and psuedo pets, except in the case of the Pet Aura enhancements that are specifically designed to affect the pet rather than the user.

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Does this mean Rain of Arrows doesn't benefit from +damage set bonuses? Or do those carry over since RoA inherits damage buffs?

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Most Pets and psuedo pets inherit the buffs currently on the player for the current buff duration. The last part is the key - if you have a buff that only lasts for 1-2 seconds and is renewed just as it goes down (like most global set bonuses or toggles) the pet will only get a couple seconds of it when summoned. So things like Aim+RoA is good as there will still be about 6 seconds of aim left to cover all the ticks in RoA but global set buffs last for a second or so before being renewed (not sure of exact duration - I am sure someone knows).

I think pet aura bonuses are a special case - the bonus affects the player by giving them a power (the pet aura) that affects all pets in range of the player. So it isn't as much the pet inheriting a special bonus as the player getting a power aura that functions a lot like masterminds supremacy.

With my archery/dev I went for ranged def - thunderstrikes are great for this, you get 3.75% ranged def total for a set of 6 and they aren't all that expensive. 2-3 sets of those, cloaking device, combat jumping and a couple of blessing of zephyr sets (you need 2 of these and can go skip the -KB if you want to go on the cheap, not that the -KB isn't nice) and you can get pretty decent ranged def. Combine that with caltrops, which tends to keep most opponents at bay and you have a very defensive blaster.

At L43 I currently have about 25% ranged def with 3 sets of TS, 1 Blessing of the Zephyr pair, a full gaussians set, cloaking device and combat jumping. I am working on finishing off a stupify set in stunning shot for another 3.75% def and a second set of Zephyrs.

Edit: Oops - forgot I also have a steadfast prot +3% def for those who are actually counting :-).

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I'd consider lowering sleep to mag 6 though so a solo mind can still sleep an AV with masshyp+mezmerize. But mass sleeping multiple AV's is not working as intended.

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Mass Hypnosis and Mezmerise don't stack - the damage from mez breaks any previous sleeps. The only way to stack sleeps is to have 2 characters with non-damaging sleep powers which would make sleep basically useless in most of the cases being discussed here.

I always figured the fact that sleep broke instantly was being used to balance out the low mag sleep resistance even the toughest mobs tend to get.

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Then defenders are debuffed for joining a team. That's a bad idea.

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Then don't replace it - just make it work differently when solo, if that's possible.

Personally, I like Miladys_Knight's suggestion as well although I think his numbers might be a bit high - hard to say without testing it.

Shield isn't the only set that gives problems with the costume change - my /ninjitsu stalker sometimes has problems as well, not sure if it's hide or one of the def toggles. I have also had similar problems with a /dark corruptor when shadow fall is up - I think any toggle that creates an aura/costume change can have problems. Hopefully if they fix it for shields the same fix will work for the other cases.

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And finally, for defenders FA might be 10% debuff... when slotted up. Even for defenders the to-hit debuff in FA is underwhelming.

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I gave you the MM numbers for fearsome stare (I assume that's what you meant and FA was a type for FS) and compared both slotted flash arrow to slotted DN/FS. The MM number are 10% base to hit debuff for each, 15% slotted up for a total of 30%. The defender number are 18.75% for each and get insane when slotted up.

Most people forget that fearsome stare has as much a to hit debuff as darkest night and is just as usefull as a debuff because it is such a good fear.

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Ok, let me ask you a few questions.

1. A melee enemy is charging towards you. If they are moving slowly and their few ranged attacks are charging slower is that enemy a threat?


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Sure - especially if half of them are outside the slow because the enemy I targetted it on happens to be the one who hung back while the others ran, which is what happens to me all the time on the few low level TA MM's and defenders I have tried to play, where my dark pretty much drop tar patch so most of it is between the mobs and my group and they are all caught in it - those that arent' cowering from the huge cone fear. You are also putting way to much faith in a 20% recharge debuff - that ISN"T going to stop much and recharge debuffs NEVER to anything about the alpha. With melee pets the movement slow isn't going to matter anyways (as your pets have to close) and there the -to hit from dark is going to give you more defense.

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2. The party sees three large groups of enemies close together. If the brute attempts to herd them he'll most likely get all three groups and probably cause a party wipe. Is it better to try herding, or fight each group where they are while using flash arrow to prevent the other groups from noticing?


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I almost never group so rarely see this but my answer would be that shadow fall will keep the far off enemies from noticing you and with the ability to stealth past a couple of groups, drop darkest night on a far group so you can pull 1-2 groups into a carefully placed tar patch, lock them down with fearsome stare then proceed to drop AE hell on them dark will handle this just as well, if not better than TA.


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3. The party is getting in over their heads. Is it better to reduce the party's chance to get hit by the 30+ enemies, or boost the party's ability to take down the 30+ enemies quickly while reducing the rate of incoming damage?


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I don't get what you are thinking you can do here in TA that you can't do in dark. Dark can drop tar patch and get just a smuch -resistance as TA (yes, I know thats an odd quirk of the psuedo pet mechanics, but it is true), fearsome stare is, again, a HUGE debuff and lock down that blunts alpha's at least as well as flash arrow and having a heal is really nice - nice enought that in a set that DOESN'T have one I want a lot more debuff.

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4. In an AV fight is it better to debuff an AV's to-hit by 12% or stack 6% to-hit debuffs with -recharge and immobilizes?


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Look - I already gave you an answer to this question in my previous post - the way I see it both sets bring just about as much to an AV fight PLUS I don't consider slightly improved performance in 5% of the game to justify what I see as reduced perfromance in the rest of the game.


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5. In a chaotic PUG that keeps getting in trouble due to killing anchors first is it better to do high to-hit debuffing that uses an anchor for a good portion of the debuffing, or fire and forget debuffs which can't be negated by one foe being defeated?

6. In the same vein, is it better to have a debuff that can miss or one that always hits?


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Considering that you can get over 30% total to hit debuff between DN and FS, having a target or two not getting part of that because FS missed or they are out of the DN area is pretty minor compared to the low value of flash arrow against anything but AV's. Now, point 6 almost is a winner with me as I think the RNG in this game conspires against me - but again, 5.25% vs a minimum of 15%, maximum of 30% seems a no brainer to me.


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Both dark miasma and trick arrow approach the situation differently. Both are equally effective though. One focuses on enduring longer fights via safety, the other focuses on ending the fight quickly while reducing incoming damage for that short battle. Both have the same goal, and once they have their toolbox filled both are equally good at it.


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As I have said before - i don't think trick arrow is all that bad it just doesn't seem exciting enough as an MM set to justify it over the other secondaries, at least not without an awesome character concept/outfit/name, which I haven't come up with yet. I will play anything with a cool concept. The only reason I am still posting counter arguements is that I think you are exaggerating the value of an unresistable to hit debuff.

I play /TA extensively on my controllers - I have 3 currently (plant/ta, illusion/ta and mind/ta) all of which are a blast. In my opinion TA is one of the best sets for a controller to play as its extra control fills in the niches in many control light sets (like illusion) and it provides a little more offensive capability without the cost that some of the other sets require (e.g. /rad is an awesome debuffing set but the best toggles take forever to put up and in some cases are way overkill). But when the numbers got translated down to MM's I think they got butchered a bit to much.

I can't say anything about TA on defenders as I can't stand playing defenders (personal issue with solo speed - I mostly solo, almost never group and my worst scrapper, stalker, brute or mastermind solo's a lot faster than the best defender I have ever tried) but I looking at the defender numbers I will accept that it is a good set for them.

At this point in time I would pretty much ask for a couple, small changes:

1) If you can't see making glue arrow a location AoE, increase its range to 80 like all the other powers in the set - this will give me more leeway for placing it where I want it to go.
2) Give the set some normal to hit somewhere - maybe 10% in poison gas arrow? This would be the defender value which would be what, 5.65 or something like that on MM's. This would make PGA a lot more pleasant to take and give the set some more defensive ability without overpowering it.

You may feel differently and I suspect I will never convince the dev's of this as it takes SERIOUS under performance to get them to make changes where this is more a case of not quite good enough.

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I think you're missing the point of DM. While it's true 6% is a small to-hit debuff, being able to stack it like crazy, to me, is what makes the set so potent. I know that my MM has enough to-hit debuffs to be hit maybe once or twice during an AV fight.

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I think your missing the point. That 6% during AV fights would be while stacking like crazy. It's using everything you got. Adding the /dm pet might bring it to 12% debuffing. Still not going to be THAT great of midigation. Better then nothing, but still not "you can't hit me" levels unless your also stacking decent levels of defense.

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I guess the question to ask here is TA really bringing all that much to the AV fight to justify the difference in a NON AV fight? Yes, the -to hit in /TA is unresistable but dark can stack nearly as much (if not as much) even after resistance. It has as much -res as /TA does and it has -regen in twilight grasp, +def and +resistance in shadow fall AND a heal - all of which will add to an AV fight. TA brings its -to hit which CAN probably be stacked to be more effective than dark, it has good -resistance and it might be able to stack its immobilize to reasonable effect (at least when the purple triangles are not up). All in all I would suspect that the two sets are about even vs AV's

Against non-AV's you get ALL the to hit debuff, a huge fear that is up every fight, a great single target hold that is just as easy to stack as ice arrow (if not easier - its on a slightly faster recharge base) and a heal - which, despite its low AoE is a pretty darn good heal.

Against all of that it seems hard to point to a small, unresistable to hit debuff and say that makes the set better. Yes yes, I know you can't single out one power for comparison - but more often then not it seems like folks arguing that /TA is fine do exactly that.

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Slot it with 3 hammies- Peroxisome Exposures. This gives you 95 duration on both the hold and immbilize. double bang for you buck. Then stick in two Rechares IOs, Finally one Dark Watchers slow. I find this to be a debilatating combo.

Dark servant has a Huge to hit bosus, so dont worry about that. Hes capped.

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I am not sure that he has that big a to hit bonus - the accuracy listing in the power is for the summon itself (which basically can't miss) the pet you get should have the same base accuracy of all pets - 1.0 which means a 75% chance to hit even level targets just like your character. He might get your supremacy bonus which would give him a +10% to hit bonus but I wouldn't expect anything more than that without slotting some accuracy or taking tactics or something like that.

Psychic blast starts off fairly nice - you get 3 solid, fairly fast single target attacks (psionic dart, mental blast and TK blast) plus aim (psychic focus) by level 6. The problem is from that point on it's all fairly down hill.

While TK blast is very nice at L4 its not so nice once you hit L18 and compare it to bitter ice blast and blaze - both of which do more damage and cast just as fast. Your fourth single target attack (will domination) could have made up for that - but the dev's decided to mess it up by making it a slow recharge sleep that isn't even reliable (80% chance of mag 3 sleep on a 20 second timer, which won't even sleep bosses).

Then you get Psionic Lance, the usual snipe that everyone skips (on all sets pretty much) unless you need a mule for IO set bonsues. Psionic Tornado - the only AE in the set other than the tier 9, it is OK but not spectacular. Scramble thoughts - another control power on a long timer but this time its a stun that does no damage so you can't use it as an attack. It's one saving grace and probably one of the reasons /energy is considered a good secondary is that you can stack it with /energy's stun power and stun bosses. Finally you get a PBAE nuke power, psychic wail. It IS a nice nike as it has also stuns mobs and slows thier recovery by a huge amount - so as nukes go it is actually fairly safe to use despite the usual end drain.

If you really like the character and want to keep playing it your best bet for a psi/energy is to go with a blapper - pick up the 3 single target blasts, slot them up reasonably. They are fairly standard 4/8/10 second recharge blasts - any guide for any blaster primary will give you good slotting advice. Take build up as soon as you can and fit in psychic focus reasonably soon as well. Then finish off your attacks with energy punch and bone smasher. That should give you a solid blapping build to which you can add scramble thoughts and stun so you can hit a boss at range with Scramble thoughts, run up and hit him with stun to stack the 2 mag 3 stuns and then finish him off while he is helpless. Finally, you could pick up Total focus at 38 - its so slow casting that it can be dangerous but if you stack the two stuns you can use it as a finishing blow.

Here is a possible build:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 40 Magic Blaster
Primary Power Set: Psychic Blast
Secondary Power Set: Energy Manipulation
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Psionic Dart -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(7), Empty(11), Empty(13)
Level 1: Power Thrust -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Mental Blast -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(7), Empty(11), Empty(13)
Level 4: Telekinetic Blast -- Empty(A), Empty(5), Empty(5), Empty(9), Empty(9)
Level 6: Build Up -- Empty(A), Empty(15), Empty(34)
Level 8: Psychic Focus -- Empty(A), Empty(15), Empty(34)
Level 10: Hasten -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(37)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Bone Smasher -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(17), Empty(19), Empty(19)
Level 18: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21)
Level 22: Energy Punch -- Empty(A), Empty(23), Empty(23), Empty(25), Empty(25)
Level 24: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Scramble Thoughts -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27)
Level 28: Stun -- Empty(A), Empty(29), Empty(29)
Level 30: Conserve Power -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(31)
Level 32: Psychic Wail -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(34)
Level 35: Psionic Tornado -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(37), Empty(37)
Level 38: Total Focus -- Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]

For actual slotting see the various blaster guides for similar attacks. I added in the two AE attacks in the set at 32 and 35 mostly because I don't see anything else worth taking - boost range is nice for a pure ranged build but on a blapper its a bit odd, I threw in conserve power just because it was there. You could easily drop conserve and Psychic tornado and pick up aid other/aid self or something like that. The nuke is probably still worth taking though.

I have to wonder if one of the reasons that so many people get down on /TA masterminds is that everyone wants to go ninja/TA as thematically it seems like a good combo. The problem here is that ninja's are the squishiest melee pets the games offers and /TA doesn't offer a lot to reduce the damage taken by melee pets.

Its primary defenses are glue arrow, which only works if your pets don't close with their targets; poison gas arrow with a small damage debuff that probably won't do much to save a squishy genin and oil slick arrow - which gives pets all kinds of problems.

As much as I think some of the MM values are to low, I might have tried a /TA myself just to get a feel for things but I am certainly not going to try them with a melee pet set and I have worked all the ranged pets sets up a couple times each (except for bots - for some reason I just don't have the patience to play bots).

Mind you, I am not sure that a stalker shield set would be worth playing. Odds are they would have removed the taunt aura (AOO) to put hide in the set which means you would have a low defense set that no longer has its primary draw - a great damage boost. Without that you have a set that has no better defenses than ninjitsu without the tools of ninjitsu.

On location vs targetted AOE - I guess its a difference in keyboard/mouse control style - I hotkey location AOE's to shift+lbutton, shift+rbutton, alt+lbutton and alt+rbutton and can either fast drop them (with a shift+lbutton) or two click drop them with a shift+rbutton, set the location then hit lbutton. I am very fast at it and do it all the time with my ilusion/TA controller. I have never had to micromange my pets - I have my numlock hotkeys set up to do the 4-5 basic commands I need to use and I generally run on either follow + defensive (for BG mode) or attack + defensive to order my pets to take out a specific target then return to BG mode. I might set up an addional hotkey to do goto commands for specific pets (grave knights - behave) but thats about it.

The only reason I haven't played a /TA mastermind yet is because I have 4 I am working on currently (thugs/traps, merc/dark, necro/pain and thugs/storm) and I am not currently interested in starting another. If we DO get a new primary for MM's in City of Rogues I might give /TA a try then, but for now comparing the numbers in /TA against what I can achieve with other secondaries it just doesn't feel worth it.

I am only suggesting small changes - not huge ones. I don't think the set sucks completely, I love it on controllers but thats because a controller primary makes up for lack of damage mitigation at low levels that I feel /TA has AND because controllers get the best numbers out of the set since they don't take that much of a hit on the debuffs and they get the best control numbers. With MM's between the extra end cost and the even harder hit on the debuff numbers the set looks anemic. I realize I may change my mind in play but with so many other really good secondaries for masterminds /TA comes in nearly last (I consider poison worst - but only because of its single target focus which is not a playstyle I like on my MM's).

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I'll try adressing each of these in turn.

1.) Skipping PGA is not that good of a choice no matter what AT in my opinion. The damage debuff on it's own isn't enough, but when combined with -recharge and -speed it's potent. And the sleep will always go off half the time. I've seen it sleep 5 of 10 mobs six levels higher then me. Gave me enough of an advantage to get away. Sure the sleep didn't last long, but it did hit.

2.) Let's assume that AV fight where you can't hold or immobilize the enemy. What do you see TA bringing to the fight? I see three -recharge powers for one thing. You forgot about Ice Arrow. Even if it doesn't hold something, it still debuffs recharge. And they had to reduce TA's recharge debuffage. I can still (fondly) recall stacking enough -rech with just glue arrow to cause enemies to be completely unable to do anything.

3.) Again, this would be a bad change. Since it's a targeted aoe you can use it mid battle. Targeted locations, not so much in a running battle.

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1)I get that you think PGA is a great power - I don't, even combined with the -recharge and -speed in the other powers, guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one. As it stands I MIGHT take it on an MM - but only if you could convince me to play a /TA MM, which is unlikely as the set stands. I would never take it on my controllers and I don't play defenders because I can't stand them. Give me a decent amount of -damage, even as much as 20% although 25-30 would actually make it usefull in my mind, and I would consider it decent. 15% is nothing.

2)ok - I admit I missed the -recharge in ice arrow but its STILL only 10%. Having to stack 3 powers just to get 40% recharge debuff on a single target is kinda sucky. I don't understand your point about AV's - I am addressing general set use, not AV's. Any argument that includes the phrase "helps with AV's" is a null argument for me as AV fights are a VERY small part of the game. I am not asking for a lot - 20% or so in each of the two individual controls (ice/entangling) might actually be enough to make me happy.

3) Targeted AOE vs location AOE - you can use EITHER in a running battle and a location AOE is ALWAYS going to be easier to place as you can be sure exactly where it is going to end up - I can't count the number of times I have dropped glue arrow on a mob I thought was closest to me, in order to put the glue patch between myself and the enemies and had all the OTHER mobs run up to me before the patch went down while the mob I targeted stays in the back and stands still. If you think a targeted AOE is easier to use than a location AOE you and I have different definitions of easy.


As for your other points:

Ice Arrow: how the heck are you chain holding bosses with a hold that has a 9.5 second druation and an 18 second recharge? I don't stack up enough recharge on my MM's to get something like this to stack - you would need over 100% recharge to get it to stack even for a few seconds.

Entangling arrow: Ok, stackable but you have to stack it to immobilze a boss and despite the listed duration I have had trouble locking down bosses with web grenade on my thugs/traps corruptor and it is a better power in every way except range (well, it costs a little more end - but I would pay more end for a 50% recharge debuff and 5 times the run speed debuff). This power is ok but in no way makes the set.

PGA: not sure why you call a 50% chance reliable - I guess there where earlier bugs that made it even worse than that and NOW you think it is reliable. I consider anything but 100% chance (well, 95% once you factor in capped accuracy) to be unreliable.

Glue Arrow: It doesn't last through a fight - if I have to reapply it before the fight is over that means it won't be up for the next fight. Admittedly, this is a minor complaint of mine - the location vs targetted AE thing is much more of a problem but 30 seconds is borderline for any serious fight. My definition of a good duration/recharge on a power is that it lasts the whole fight without having to reapply it and it is up for the next fight. Not many things meet that defintion - which is why in my list of things I would like changed I JUST asked for it to be made easier to use, not for a longer duratin, etc.

Well, I tend to side with the OP on this - for a set that has no buffs and only debuffs/controls TA seems to be a little light, especially when you factor in the lower MM modifiers.

Where I feel the set is lacking is in defensive debuffs - offensively I think it is fine even ignoring oil slick arrow. Defensively though you have the following:

Flash Arrow - only usefull if you are fighting AV's. Folks love to trot this out as if this where a huge part of the game - it isn't.

Poison gas arrow - totally skippable, a 15% damage debuff along with an unreliable sleep is almost useless without something to complement it.

Two single target controls (ice+entangling arrow): These are nice powers but with the low duration and high end cost that MM's pay and the fact that they generally have nothing to stack with them, so they are useless on anything higher than an LT, makes them questionable for an MM.

Glue Arrow - Only really good defensive power in the set, however it is hard to place because it is a targetting AOE rather than a location AOE, does almost no recharge debuff (20% again, isn't much) and frequently won't last through a fight.

Once you get oil slick arrow the set does improve quite a bit as the knockdown is a nice defense, but you have to deal with the pet bug if it happens to ignite (or if you want to ignite it).

Please note - I have several /TA controller and I LOVE it as a controller set. The longer control times and slightly higher values for everything make it just good enough when your primary compliments it so well but for an MM I just can see it standing up to the utility of dark and traps or the healing and buffing of pain domination.

I don't think it needs a lot but it does need a little:

1) Poison gas arrow is a joke - either make it a reliable sleep power or give it more damage debuff. Defenders are the only ones who get a decent amount of damage debuff and even then I am not sure I would ever take this power as a defender.
2) Add some recharge reduction to entangling arrow - 10% isn't noticeable, even when stacked with glue arrows 20%. I think it would be better to increase it here rather than in glue arrow so that it doesn't get overpowering - this way to get a lot of -recharge you would have to put down glue arrow then entangle each mob individually.
3) Make glue arrow a location AE so you can set up glue 'traps' with it OR give it more range so you don't have to close to aggro distance to fire it off. This applies to ALL version of the set and is my pet peeve with the power.

I would like to see more -tohit in the set but I have seen all the arguements for/against changing flash arrow and I would tend to agree that things get to complicated there (well - I don't really agree but I don't want to deal with all the folks who can't live without thier unresistable to hit debuff for AV fights - so I give on that fight).

Really, thats about all I would do - just a little more defensive debuff.

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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.

The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]

... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.

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I'm a newbie blaster Fire/Dev so forgive me if my method sounds trite.

My typical attack sequence for Lt/Minion/Minion goes like this:

~ Run up to the spawn in stealth and taser the Lt.
~ Blaze/Fireball/finish to kill the first minion.
~ Nemesis Staff (not reliable without Targeting Drone) the second minion and finish.
~ Back up and open up the whooping on the Lt. with Blaze.

Sometimes I drop one Trip Mine someplace where I can pull three groups as a precaution more for the knock down than the damage and then eliminate the three groups without tripping the mine. Stealth really helps. Trip Mine ends up being my "run to here if in trouble" option; like Taser misses.

Recently I have taken to opening with Rain of Fire (haven't had it that long) and just killing the minions before they run out, then using Taser on the Lt. when it finally decides to attack me. I think the real advantage of /Dev isn't Trip Mine or Caltrops; it's Stealth + ToHit + Stun.

I also think /Dev *really* came into it's own when they changed controls to suppress rather than detoggle. Retoggling Cloak and TD was really getting old.

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You are right - that IS the typical way /dev blasters are played, mostly I think because everyone talks about how powerful a field of trip mines is and folks get hung up on that - forgetting that it can take a minute or so to set up a serious field.

I play my archery/dev exactly the same way Ben does - stealth into cone range, trip mine at my feet (for buildup + extra damage to a meleer who closes), caltrops around me, Aim + RoA + Fistfull + explosive, move on to the next group. Total setup time - 5 seconds in exchange for a 30% damage boost in nearly every fight AND being fairly safe from melee foes (those who close with me take a trip mine in the face).

However, I also have an archery/ice who is fun as well - not quite as safe (I take more alpha on that character than on the /dev) but it works fairly well - tradeoff there is you get build up, which is no small thing.

So if you are looking for a safe blaster to play, at least as safe as any blaster gets, either secondary would work.

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More seriously, I really want to play with the new energy, but I can't decide what to pair it with. I *want* to pair it with illusion, but that option doesn't exist yet. I may just sit on it until illusion is finally proliferated in issue 17 or whenever.

Weren't we supposed to get more than just one round of proliferation? Seems like it's been quite a while since we heard anything about it.

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I have a Mind/Energy that I was already content with pre i15, now I am overjoyed that he will feel more uber than ever. However, as far as trying to put /Energy with another set, I am with this person, I just don't see it going with anything other than Ill/, I mean the pet summons pets and shoots energy blasts it is almost like running with another dom.

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Grav/Energy seems like a good fit - the extra control in energy (100% KB in power push and KU in lift) will balance out the lower amount of control in gravity at low levels and thematically I think they go together well.

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I dont know that it will increase dom popularity. I still see people really huffing and puffing on a middleaged dom. You were spot on,River. You said something to the effect of players saying " Nerf doms moar!!" or something.Aint that the truth with these changes on a mature dominator build? I am glad for yesterdays patch. Hopefully the scale down will alleviate some of the outcry by the masses.

I need to pop to test and checkout the 16 cap on psw. I have a feeling that may be problematic for my current build if I dont adjust it.I dont want to piss off 16 baddies and be unable to defeat them before they realize I am there.

Happy hunting Dom Boards!

edited because I realized I haven't play the new patch on my fire//psi yet.

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I suspect that nothing we see on the test server can be taken as a statement one way or the other as to how the changes will affect dom popularity once they go live. To few people read these boards and/or play on the test server to get a good sample population.

I do know that the live servers will get at least one new regular dom player when these go live - me. The current crop of changes clears up the one thing that kept me from playing a dom - the anemic damage during the high teens outside of domination. I have been trying to play and like dom's since CoV first came out and at low levels have enjoyed them considerably - but as the AT mods started to kick in during the high teens I would get more and more frustrated and eventually quit. I got several dominators up to 16-17 and let them languish there for months (years in one case). I have since then copied them over to test and find them a joy to play even in that level range.

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I am so sorry but I dont have rest in my powers trays on any AT. What you fail to realize is that although the proposed "revamp" seems great..... it really plays hard for some powersets.

The arguement about perma's is redundant.

The idea for the "revamp" is a good one but it still needs adjustments.

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If you are going to complain about changes do it about the RIGHT ones. You seem to be labelling ALL the changes to dom's as bad - as I noted before it isn't ALL of them and I DO see value in reverting or modifying the ones that cause you to apppear to burn end faster.

However if you are pushing for the base change to be reverted then you are ignoring real evidence and argueing out of ignorance and stubborness.

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Increasing recharge is okay as long as the DPS in total remains about the same.

Inbetween your gaps in your attack chain, you can throw out controls. Remember that doms have a pure dual purpose now: Damage and Control. Do both. All the time.

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Dominator's always were damage and control if you built it right.

If the dev's didn't want to nerf high level doms they would of put the difference of what was the buff of domination - the buff of overall damage and keep that in domination.

If the dev's didn't want to nerf dom's they wouldn't of made nearly every dom build a end heavy monster.

I feel sorry for those who have to level a dom and maybe even solo one. The extra damage will be ok for the first spawn or two but when you run out of end after 2-3 spawn having to take a rest then watching dom drop while in rest.

Then work to get dom back up only to have to rest a spawn or two after you get it up. Watching it drop again.

A spawn or two might go a slight bit quicker while out of dom initially but because you will have to rest and wait between spawns now missions will ultimately take longer to complete.

It is the ability to keep constant control and damage not a small burst then have to rest that will make doms better.

So a way to make this work as not a nerf...

1. Give the difference of the damage buff back to domination.

2. Give us our Endurance back

3. Cut back on some of the recharge added to powers.

4. Or the best way is not to mess with it and leave as is the current damage is very nice on doms built right you can have good damage with consistant DPS.

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If the dev's had done NOTHING but move the domination damage buff into the AT base you would have effectively seen no change except that you would do the domination level damage all the time, with no change in the end cost of the attacks. There are some complications with this at lower levels, due to the way AT modifiers kick in slowly, but certainly by level 20 you would effectively be doing domination level damage ALL THE TIME at no increased end cost. I can see no way to paint this as a nerf without serious ignorance or lying to yourself.

The appearance of increased end cost comes because in addition to rolling the dom boost into the base damage they ALSO increased the damage, end cost and recharge of many attacks. These attacks STILL do the same DPE as they did before however since you take out enemies faster you also burn end faster - i.e. it costs you the same end to arrest a target but may take you half the time it did before, so it appears as if you are going through end twice as fast. You may be running out of end faster but you are still arresting (and thus gaining xp) at the same end cost as before. I agree that it FEELS slower when you have to pause between fights to recover end but if the time to kill + rest time on test = time to kill on live then you are not really any slower - you just perceive it that way.

I can see pushing for reducing the recharge/end/damage values on some of the changed attacks for various reasons, the simplest being that having at least one fast firing, cheap attack makes building domination easier AND is useful for finishing off targets without wasting end on overkill. However the base change (moving domination damage into the AT base) is a win for everyone but those who have double or triple stacked domination - even perma-dom's come out slightly ahead with this change as castle actually increased the base to slightly more than the domination boost gave you. Additionally having a higher base damage means that your total damage cap is higher AND you get more value from damage boosts like build up or red inspirations as they work off the base damage as well.

I have a mind/electric and plant/fire that I leveled to 22 previously but held off playing until the updates came out - I will probably add a grav/energy as my tests so far make that seem like a very nice blaster type dominator, with 3 good ranged attacks by L10 in your secondary + lift as a 4th ranged attack. With 2 of them giving you reliable soft control (lift + power push) it balances the lack of AE control you get in gravity, at least at lower levels.