Frosticus

Has anyone actually tested to verify that formula? From some of the fraps work I've done and then loaded into video editing software it appears to be a rough approximation of cast time rather than accurate, but admittedly the video software I'm using could be the weak link, but it does move in 0.01 second increments. Or even fraps.

I think there is no arguing that cast times are actually longer than stated by the game so I guess it is as good or better than anything to go by. At worst it removes a large percentage of paper inaccuracy, at best it is great. meh carry on.

This. Plus there are times you don't need to spam control ie in a team with buffs/debuffs or just against most minions where seismic smash, the knocks of the mallets, fissure, or w/e provides enough mitigation and you just want to beat things down with maximum efficiency.

Most of my time playing doms even if control is needed it is a single aoe control and then you just go into attack mode. Rarely do I have to sit there supplementing st controls into my chains to the point where it would excuse massive gaps.

a 4 second recharge Stone Fist would make a tremendous difference just as it does for stone melee. I mean it is one of the fastest casting powers in the game after all.

"I've been saying all along Stone Assault would likely have such long recharge times that you would not be able to utilize it with your usual high recharge slotting strategy."

This doesn't make sense. It looks like the ONLY way to play earth assault is with very high recharge. Like 250% recharge (hasten+ 80% slotting+ 100% IO global) so you can get those 8, 12, 20 attacks down to 2.3, 3.4, and 5.7 and so you can spam fissure of course.

Even with one of the most extreme builds possible you'll still be stuck drastically lowering your dps with stone spears or hurl and will probably be better of filling gaps with boxing... sad as that is.

Yes high recharge burns more end, but for a dom perma dom is considerably more end efficienct than high recharge, but non-perma and of course having a ppp end management tool up more often.

IMO the only way to salvage earth assault at this point is to replace stone spear(s) with stone Fist. It would go from very meh (but awesome looking) to pretty awesome all around. Even greatly reducing the cast time on stone spear wouldn't do it, not with the limitations on that particular power.


Just like how NRG needs a fourth ranged attack to support such long base recharges earth assault needs a fourth melee attack to support the long recharges of the mallets+seismic. I'm honestly a bit surprised that something this far off the mark would be turned out this far down the road and after soooooo many swings at making doms good. Ya ya, we all love the devs, but making a decent assault set isn't rocket science and very similar mistakes are being made with earth as were made with psy except earth isn't redeemed by a miracle power.

I realize no dom has a melee attack as a teir 1. No dom assault set has a damage aura or a TAoE, or a mag 4 hold, so meh just replace spear(s) with Fist please... I really want to like earth assault.

You mean the comment I made when the power order was announced about having to pl it up to 29 before the set is playable was accurate?

Go figure

1. If you have the money you can make a build that can easily cycle flashfire, cinders, empulse for total lockdown every spawn no matter how fast the team is. The -recov can be mitigated with a good build that nets end during normal times and the perf proc.

I'd say it coudl be a handy power if you like your imps as it is probably they will die a lot when you crank up the slider for more and more mobs. If you don't really care about your imps you probably don't need em pulse for your survivability.

2. Fire: Firecages with grav anchor proc, hotfeet, flashfire, imps. Char is nice to have for harder targets.
Rad: heal, AM, RI, EF, LR

3. Enough recharge for perma AM+perma hasten. 30%+ranged def (or if on a budget a s/l build can work well too) but ime you will always be immobing things so they are just out of melee range to attack you even when standing in the middle of them all, so ranged def is really good. (or so I've found on my fire/strom troller). You mention being a flyer so I'm guessing you just hover in the middle and above them all, so ranged is still the way to go.

Of course you will want perf proc, numina, miracle, but beyond that perma AM should take care of your recovery.

4. 1kb IO is good for about 98% of encounters. If you want to venture out and start soloing pylons, or other AV's you'll have to adjust accordingly.

Unfortunately concept fails to meet reality in both of these cases. You need at least 100% recharge in flares to eliminate the necessity of incinerate, not that tough, but I doubt 9 out of 10 Dentists agree

For earth feel free to indicate how much recharge is needed to string attacks with the following recharge together:
8, 12, 20

The answer is more than 0.009% of the players can afford to achieve.

Ya, with a lot of IO's into global recharge and hasten active you can get Neutrino firing really quickly still.

However, it was the prospect of not needing a heap of IO's and/or other recharge that made rad so appealing when combined with all the procs you can stick into neutrino.

Neutrino does enough damage now and recharges slow enough that you benefit from fully enhancing the damage and greatly improving the recharge through slots. This means only extreme builds have the opportunity to jam it full of procs while still maximizing the power.

It's fine I guess. Just not what some of us were expecting or at least hoping for.

It's not the best aoe attack that's for sure. Comparable to spine burst really as in very slow, moderate damage. Except it is a smaller aoe, but in exchange gets a lot of mitigation and solid st damage.

For instance looking at the aoe:
TS 60 dam
Spine burst 71 dam (with avg dot)
Spin 99 dam
Whirling sword 81
Dragon tail 74

It also has the longest cast time of the bunch and the longest recharge.

Don't discount elec entirely based on TS being mediocre though. Jacob's ladder is a nice cone and Lightning rod is an amazing attack and even better they actually gave scrappers a new version of the pseudo pet that deals the damage so they aren't stuck using the same low damage version as everyone else.

*Well I shouldn't say everyone. Stalkers are still using the low damage brute version... but tanks and scraps get their own.

No I'm sure he does, Jibikao is a knowledgeable poster. He also understands that pseudo pets are often not correctly reworked to adhere to AT modifiers meaning they often completely ignore "How AT's work". Do you require examples?

(AFAIK) I'll give two conditional statements:
a/ IF defender traps has the correct values then MM traps is overperforming
b/ IF MM traps has the correct values then Corr and Def traps need to be increased a bit more.

Which scenario one would prefer is up to the person. I'm guessing A/ is what would eventually be changed as it is easiest. I'm also guessing nothing will be changed.

I tried it with a lvl 1 fire/earth and ring of fire prevented stone spear(s) from doing knock. Strangler would need to prevent knock for it to prevent knock hehe.

Now that they have switched out of repeating the footstomp animation in the same set they need to drastically reduce the cast time on the ground punch for Dominator stone spear(s). For the dominator specific version Bab's should remove the stupid slow rise to the peak of the punch and overall make it hit faster. Bring it down to 1-1.3 seconds.

Hurl boulder has the same issue impale has always had in that the animaion is so bloody long for the damage it does. Except hurl is a bit longer and does less damage

I want to like earth assault, but I know that I have always preferred to have a bit of ranged ability and earth assault is so bad from range I'm just not sure I can do it... I might just have to continue filling my seismic smash/fissure need with my /stone app troller. I hit harder with it on her anyway thanks to kin haha.

You're right! it might even be worse
propel = 3.7 cast, 28.02 DPA
Stone spears*= 2.244 cast, 23.54 DPA

*really wish they'd take the "S" off as it isn't plural

Wavicle is correct afaik when he says Stone spears is the worst st attack Doms get in terms of DPA. In fact it is matched by only one other power iirc - Fossilize. But that is a long duration hold with huge -def and not really an "attack".

Admittedly I'd say propel is still worse in actual use because it locks you out of using anything else for so much longer.

IMO if they want to keep calling it Stone SpearS it should have a little 5ft aoe on it.

Anyway, as predicted earth is a horrid ranged set. I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it is, but was still preparing for something awful and boy did they deliver. However, it has some of the highest DPA attacks possible in the st melee ones so I think that just about makes up for it.