Frosticus

Actually it is very handy to determine roughly how many attacks you will need to take to saturate, or if desiring less attacks an indicator that you will need a lot more global recharge.

It may be more handy to some people if they separate out the types of attacks into ranged, melee, aoe and then examine it, but I don't personally need that done as I'm very familiar with each set so I can look at it as a whole. (and for the most part the pbaoes and cones are all roughly the same)

The way I do it for myself is to select the attacks I'll actually use in a build and then compare it to other sets with the same criteria. if the number ends up high and I don't want to dump a bunch of lotg's or such to solve it I pick something else. But I can't tolerate standing around doing nothing. Some can.

I could only get away with pulling the snipes though for what I posted because when I tried to amend elec by removing one of the lowest dpa attacks in the game (thunderstrike) Jade cried fowl, even though no well built pve elec min/max would use it for st or aoe damage. Zapp has higher dpa

If your particular concern is with low levels then all you have to do is exclude high level powers. Not very hard.
ie. If the set you were looking at for low level performance consisted of 4 powers with recharge of: 6,8,10,15 vs one with 2, 4, 8, 10 it is pretty easy to tell that the latter is going to be alot easier to saturate. though the first might end up hitting like a truck and be awesome in late game if you dump the IO's into it. However, I doubt the avg level reached in this game is over 35 and excessive IO's still aren't the norm.

If your concern is late game high DPA attacks a higher value is an indicator that a particular set probably has more of them in it (seeing as how recharge is linked to DS generally) and a higher value means you'll need more recharge to use them regularly.

I haven't claimed that an examination of avg recharge across a set is anything other than that - avg recharge. If you have no concern with recharge or are interested in something else then look elsewhere. High global recharge tends to be the MOST expensive IO builds you can make and I have a personal distaste for large gaps.

And now in ascending order

I find it funny how the numbers support what I'm saying yet you go on and on.

The numbers speak of themselves. As a SET elec was shifted so it very closely resembles the way OLD assault sets were designed and NRG is the new Elec.

Which supports exactly what I said:

"The funny thing is that if elec is so good now then it just proves that the recharge numbers didn't need to be tampered with seeing as how it closely resembles the structure of "old" dom sets (fast and light). Proof imo that people have no idea what they are talking about. "

"Easier" was in "quotes" for a reason. Whatever increased kill speed I've personally gained has been offset by the shift of feel of going from dual blades fluidity to that of axe. Just as the fast feeling with moderate damage has been replaced by a slow, but heavy hitting feel just like DB vs Axe.

I also can't account for how slowly you do or do not play the game compared to me, but if you have no endurance issues now then you must NEVER have had any issues before with lighter attacks and additional efficiency gained through domination. You experience definitely runs counter to mine as I'm ready to call dominators as a whole "endurance pigs". I can count on one hand the number of times I've used domination for something other than the endurance refill since the changes went through. I can't imagine that is how domination was envisioned to be.

The problem with rose colored glasses is that they don't let you clearly see. Every single set other than elec requires more recharge now, even icy. Most people realize that aoe output is important too and that if all that mattered is st damage we'd all be playing stalkers.

Any number greater than 1.0 on the excel below means it recharges slower and hits harder (excluding some of the aoes) and costs more endurance.

For pretty much ever dominator out there to attack in a similar manner as before they require more recharge and will burn more endurance (except elec). Once achieved you will do more damage, but until that point with big holes in your chains you will do similar, less, or more damage than old (depending on playstyle and build), but you trade in fluidity under low/no recharge for clunky hard hitters. (axe vs dual blade feel)

The obvious way around the recharge disparity it to take more attacks. That's fine, but bare in mind that means a tighter build and more slots to spread thinly and very likely a playstyle change seeing as how few if any doms have options to sub in alternative attacks that maintain an existing pattern (ie I can't sub in fireball to fill out a ranged fire chain, or explosive blast or w/e) so you'll probably be requiring more melee time.

There is no counter argument to what I'm saying except for elec, which while I've heard some people expressing their happiness with the set I've also heard most of my friends expressing their dislike. I'm more inclined to take their word for it than yours. No offense meant, just how it goes.

The funny thing is that if elec is so good now then it just proves that the recharge numbers didn't need to be tampered with seeing as how it closely resembles the structure of "old" dom sets (fast and light). Proof imo that people have no idea what they are talking about.

Not sure where you'd point then, but my mistake, the mud you sling actually cleans things. Sometimes I forget just how high the horse can be.

Anyway, gj on the takedowns, especially the GM's. Disagreement or otherwise on my personal annoyance with AI mechanics sometimes encountered in this game I've always been a fan of your work and your ability to push things to their limit.

Take care.

We can pretend I don't play non-perma doms if you like.

I see high recharge needed to fill attack chains and domination as necessary as ever to fuel the higher endurance consumption rate.

Of my 5 doms between lvl 20 and 50 I feel as much or more pressure than ever to seek perma dom regardless of whether my performance relative to i14 will be better, worse, or the same.

I can only recite my personal experience, but what now feels "clunky" under moderate recharge (barely perma dom) and even higher doesn't magically feel smooth with substantially less recharge.

I agree doms need individual set attention, I've said that for a long time. In fact they needed it before global changes, but late is better than never. They also need primary set attention. I personally have a hard time calling i15 a dominator revamp when only one primary power was changed .

Of these choices dark is the best to pair with cold.

I like rad blast the most of the 3, but imo rad pairs best with /dark and /thermal.

I greatly enjoyed my fire/cold, much moreso than my cold/dark defender. The hit in survivability was more than compensated by the astounding damage... at least for me. Granted dark blast for corrs is better than /dark blast for defs in the damage department.

Ya CC should have an icon in your bar showing it is still active. I use earth's embrace as my CC timer because it has the same rech and duration so I pop them together on my plant/kin. (though usually I just have them both perma, or very close to it). Sometimes I need to know when it is down as I often solo farm and CC will interfere with the herding I have to do if it is still active.

Hero stats might give you a timer for it, but I haven't checked.

I'm well aware of how the hate list operates in this game and many others. If you can't see that none of the troller attacks have a "taunt" component then I can't help the discussion...

A (ranged) tank with three squishy teammates could work because his ranged attacks have an actual "taunt" component to them, or he could use the taunt power. This is the Ghostwidow scenario I already pointed out. One that is really easy to exploit with the -range of taunt paired with epic immob (slotted for range)

I could enter with the mentality that I'm the lord almighty, but it still wouldn't make glitching out the ai good design. "Damage taunting" is a fine mechanic except when it results in the ai glitching out and performing at less than 20% of where it is intended to operate. Even Posi saying that is WAI wouldn't convince me that it is good design because it just isn't.

It's within accepted rules that actual "taunting" holds agro even in non-logical combat configurations. It is within accepted practice that damage can as well. The fact that the latter has developed into the "industry standard" is just weak design. (emphasis on non-logical).

I put it on par with glitching out npc's so they get stuck on terrain and can't attack back. I highly doubt it was ever the intended function of the system (in any game) but rather a limitation of the system breeding necessity.

A more advanced system might utilize something like a "zonal threat" ranking to ensure that if 10 things are gnawing at your feet each doing 10 damage the ai isn't preoccupied with the single enemy doing 11 damage from far away. Especially when it means the occlusion of powerful short range attacks.

I don't play Halo. Should I? does it have non-retarded ai? I could make a few suggestions of games with even weaker ai than Cox that can be even more easily exploited as you seem to think that is good design, but I think the "if you don't like it leave" argument is pretty juvenile.

Acceptance of weak design just because it is common place doesn't make it good design.

I see a large difference between my fire troller sitting back at 80 ft while the AV (or w/e target) cycles one weak long range attack and ignores all of its other attacks that it could use on nearby targets and actually being taunted.

My fire troller gains all of the advantages of taunt, without actually needing to taunt to keep my squishy little damage dealers alive. When I first started speccing my fire/storm for AV encounters I jammed in both res procs and a def proc into my imps hoping to keep them standing a bit longer and also slotted up o2 boost.

Then I went out and started fighting them and usually my imps were never attacked. I lost a lot of interest in fighting AV's after that.

Basically what happens is (in my eyes) the same thing that people complain happens with some pets where they get stuck cycling one attack over and over and ignore everything else (this has been fixed quite a bit recently). It was a huge sore spot, but I guess that is the "fun" thing about pve, if it works for you it is fun, if it works against you it needs to be fixed.

Holding higher con AV's also increases in difficulty and you can stack a lot more confuse mag than hold mag so actually degrades faster than confuse in terms of mitigating them permanently.

Like I said though, I've never tried it. I just know that while Ditzy is irrational at times, she knows what she is talking about. I know that if I were using a fire dom I'd go for a hold strategy similar to what Lili used so that my pets can tear them up for a fairly fast and safe AV defeat. If I were a mind dom I'd be looking for alternative strategies because spamming the hold so much doesn't leave much time for attacking and is more prone to failure.

I think that what she was saying is that hold spam on a mind is a "brute force" tactic where you just power through the situation, which is in line with how doms as a whole were changed. She is also saying that a more resourceful approach might be possible and even yield better results. Which is exactly what some people said about doms pre changes; they were already capable of amazing things if you'd just sit and play with them for a bit rather than get frustrated because they weren't as straightforward as a scrapper.

Unless I'm missing something a confuse tactic would be faster, safer, easier to build, and scale a bit better if say a +1 or 2 AV showed up.

Multiple AV's would probably require sleeping and holding in favor of confuse in a solo situation.

You'd think that would be how it would be designed, but that is pretty complex.

This ai hole has been used for some time in several encounters. An immob'd taunted (from range) ghost widow is a push over. I know my ranged soft capped troller gets eaten alive by most AVs if I close in and let them use Aoe's and cones, but I just stand way back in almost complete safety while my imps eat them up.

It is kind of silly to not have secondary target system to prevent such AI manipulation, but it is probably hard to implement.

This. Additionally if CC allowed you to remain undetected while they engaged it would be similar to phantom army because CC collects its own agro once it starts doing its thing.

That would probably be overpowered. Not that plant isn't already in that state, or very close to it heh.

Meh, impale looks like it moves at about 25mph and is a piece of driftwood...ouch

realism != cox