Frosticus

I don't recall what recharge that list was done at, but stone needs a lot. Give it a lot and wow. Mixing in either gloom or fireblast (if it ever goes to scrappers) is pretty mean too, especially gloom.

Not sure if it was mentioned, but one thing that really sucks about EM, aside from the excessive corpse blasting, is that when it comes time to optimize the build with some procs it cycles attacks so slowly that procs are around half as effective as seen in some other sets.

I worded it poorly. I meant they can sit on dullpain and use it as a heal because you are eliminating their need to run it constantly by using FW. If FW healed (I'm assuming you mean for the same amount as it buffs hp?) then cold would be ridiculously OP'd when it comes to support. Cold's ONLY weakness supporting is getting worn down over a fight and even that is handled well for every kind of attrition except direct hp replacement. Adding regen to the power would be more appropriate, but not really needed.

Arguing that sources of +hp found in the game through inventions and by grinding accolades devalue FW is tantamount to arguing that the tohit debuff of hurricane is severely diminished because so many people have +def IO's, or even closer to home, that cold's def shields become seriously diminished. I mean ya if you go out searching for scenarios you will find them, but that doesn't in any way detract from what the powers bring to the table.

For every 1 perma dullpain/capped hp toon you point out, you could find over 100 that can benefit considerably from FW. Maybe not to its full value as it is a ridiculously strong power, but we don't knock other powers due to them being too strong. We say thanks, and put valuable slots elsewhere.

We all know about layered mitigation. Even if you are only adding 200hp w/ FW, on top of your shields and crazy debuffs the survivability of your teammate just went up by a huge amount.
You logic fails to explain why a rad can get a heal, AM, RI, and EF by level 10.

Power order isn't an indication of relative power, or at least not in the sense that we arbitrarily assign power ratings. The examples of early powers being some of the top performers within a set are numerous and extend beyond such glaring examples as rad emissions and dark miasma. If powersets progressed from weakest to strongest like you are suggesting everything would be lopsided like old /psi assault was.

Putting Sleet into t5 would make it available at the same level as Freezing rain is for storm. Further precedent to support it. If you look at my second suggestion it was to flip FW and sleet and then flip benumb and FW, so sleet at 16, FW at 28, benumb at 35. But honestly benumb and FW being separated by a single tier doesn't really matter.

Anyway, that's just my feelings on the set. I've ran it to 50 a couple times now as a secondary and am doing it again right now. I've ran it to 40 as a primary and waiting till 26 wasn't as painful, but is still pretty crazy when my storm/sonic opened up the clone of it at 8. I honestly wouldn't change any of the powers in the set, it is really good and does a great job buffing and debuffing without being OP'd. The only thing that is lame about it is the power ordering imo, it makes it a real grind by either being difficult to solo, or shoehorning you into a buffer role until pretty late in the game. For such a potent debuff set that is more debuff than buff that doesn't seem fair.

Ya the shield is more important than earth's embrace, but EE will let you do a lot more than without it and the convenience factor is nice.

Grinding accolades takes ridiculously long and /kin/stone lets you avoid it, which is pretty nice.

I think they should just flip the position of FW and Sleet. Would really change how cold progresses.

Or push sleet down to t5 (FW position) and then flip FW and Benumb, so FW ends up being T7 and Benumb ends up being T8.

Either way, would be fine. Waiting until 35 for sleet is brutal.

Benumb either needs to be aoe with the rech/duration it has or it needs to cycle a lot faster. it is a great power, but not so great that it should be unable to perma outside of extreme conditions.

No you won't see the same discrepancy, it will be larger than between a scrap and tank.

Whatever man, I was just correcting your very wrong information. I don't have a need to be right so much as I have a need to make sure really incorrect information isn't spread. Sorry you have gotten so defensive about it. The metric you use to define damage as "close" to something else is just not grounded in reality. That's ok. It just isn't damage over time, or burst damage, or actual damage, or theoretical damage. Maybe some other type that only you know about.

I get that you don't think scrappers and tanks (good job moving the goal post too as before it was scrappers and stalkers, unfortunately it isn't helping your position) deal appreciably different damage. You are very likely alone in that. Interestingly enough they only deal about 35-50% difference in actual damage. In the case of a psi/mm and mind/psi it is 100% to 150% difference.

It isn't much of a stretch to say that every toon in this game deals "close" to the same damage given your margins.

Anyway, take care. I think the OP has more than enough information to make a solid decision.

Yes but that is such an incomplete picture you may as well not have picked up the paint brush.

It ignores so much in fact that applying your logic would dictate that brutes (0.75) do pathetic damage compared to scrappers (1.125). But that is hardly true now is it?
I dunno, I just keep getting drawn back to the guy that said the damage would be "close". You may well be operating off of a non-standard definition of the term though.
These two AT's are much closer in performance for like sets. However, "close" disappears when comparing aoe damage. Many doms can and do put out "close" to blaster damage. Mind/psi isn't one of them. It is even more disappointing because psi/mm isn't exactly a high damage blaster, which just indicates that mind/psi is a really low damage dominator This is an entirely different statement that "close to the same damage". It just so happens that I agree completely with it considering I've already said it myself.

I'll answer my own question then regarding damage of a psi/mm vs a mind/psi just so we can put this to bed:
psi/mm blaster does 2x more st dps than a mind/psy dom. That is with will dom, -rech, and tk blast mitigating vs tk thrust and -rech mitigating for the dom. If the dom locks them down first it is lower still.
psi/mm does 2.5x more st burst damage.
st dps and burst st damage are typical occurrences in game

The aoe dps is actually pretty close, but the psi/mm does about 2x as much aoe burst damage.
aoe burst damage is more of a typical occurrence than aoe dps in most game scenarios.

Definitely, mind is the best at disabling enemies that you have no intention of fighting. Gravity is pretty good at it too.

The problem I have with using the meta powers as part of your regular control arsenal is that it doesn't leave anything in the tank if things go south. With every other set I don't need to use my aoe hold, so it can sit there until it is really needed. Mind has an abundance of aoe controls, but two of them take 6 min to recharge, one of the frequent ones is useless if you actually want to fight the enemy and the other one allows fairly frequent retaliation.

Unfortunately aoe rules this game. While /fire is an amazing st set it also does solid aoe. Forgoing the aoe will always be slower unless you are fighting 2 or less enemies. Exactly what I already said. If you want a strong st toon it is a great choice

Dominate is not unique in its ability other than it being the second fastest cast of available st holds. If you are only fighting 3 enemies then that is the problem. I fight x8 on my earth/fire and interestingly enough, have more st damage than a mind/fire as well. But I'm aware of all that and still happily playing a mind/fire. It is a very strong toon and will ultimately be better for what I plan with it than my earth/fire could be.

I don't think CC has an actual taunt factor like Phantom Army does, but it does do a plethora of things that seem to bug some mobs a lot. I can't say I've seen it strip agro from my plant/kin, but I have had situations where well over 17 targets are happy to hang around me due to CC drawing its own agro.

As for cinders I'm always in melee range using Hotfeet anyway, so for me the speed of execution is what matters if things start to go south. I can appreciate the range advantage though.

At any rate though, I think the point is well illustrated that plant, while amazing, isn't a set founded on depth like mind or earth, but rather the principle of "enough". When enough isn't enough, it falls apart pretty quick.

Oh ok. If you say so.

If that is the case then you won't mind sharing some numbers to educate me. What kind of st dps will a psi/mm produce on SO's, hasten, IO'd vs a mind/psi on SO's, hasten, IO'd?

And what kind of aoe damage will each produce under the same settings?

How 'bout both in terms of burst damage too?

Yes it does, it made for a very good looking angel warrior design on my fire/ice. I hardly ever used it prefering to stay at range, but looked cool.

Seriously, my stance is the ridiculous one? Did you not say that a mind/psi dom will be "close" to a psi/mm blaster in terms of damage?

Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like you were the one saying what you are suggesting in the above quote. Because a mind/psi dom doesn't hold a candle to the damage a psi/mm blaster does. They aren't even in the same league and it is just ridiculous to suggest they are by saying such things as:

Actually rereading what you said you are right. The damage is close if the psi/mm blaster doesn't use aim, bu, or any secondary powers and attacks slow enough to not build up any defiance. Good point.

I'm going to state something as ridiculous as you did:
Safety (of a psi/mm) = close to mind/psi. But the blaster does lack dominate, confuse, masshyp, terrify and full mez protection from domination.

/psi assault is third among doms. It was second and then /earth showed up with a damage aura. Dom's kinda suck at aoe damage, hence mediocre aoe damage. /psi definitely sucks at st damage. It is only third for doms because PSW hits 6 more targets than anyone else. Its per target damage is well below fire and earth and also below thorny. Being 4th against 10 targets and 3rd against 16 is very much "middle of the pack" aka mediocre. Mediocre damage within a mediocre aoe AT. Nothing really difficult to understand. Or at least so I thought.

The ranking I gave the sets I listed is based on having played all of them to at least 40 in addition to a numerical analysis of their capabilities. Basically, I don't play a toon unless I know exactly what it is and will be capable of doing.

With just common IO's DP isn't up very often and PSW+psyscream don't cycle very fast and /psi does very little single target damage. Which means you'll need well above average mob control to wait out how long defeating them will take.

Mind is a good choice if you want to kill the group one at a time.

I'd say plant/fire. Seeds cycles quickly and fire packs a lot more punch. Earth/fire will also work well cycling between the various aoe controls. The -def is also fairly nice on a toon with no tohit buffs, especially with no IO bonuses.