Jade_Dragon

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And what's wrong with sonic syphen at level 1? It's more useful then say, a buff which can't be used while solo and is meh at low levels.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't like the power. I don't spend much time at the lower levels (seriously, how hard is it to get to about 12?). Once I'm past level 12 or so, the power is quite, quite meh.

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Meh? It's your ONLY damage boost if you are solo. Sure, Corruptors do more base damage than Defenders, but I don't see how you can get by with no damage boost at all.

Maybe you don't solo, though. The ally centered version of the power is much better. Honestly, I think Sonic Siphon could at the very least use to be a cone. Siphon Power, which is the power Kins get at that level, buffs the caster and everyone around him.

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Didn't it also get mentioned that he was talking about unslotted attacks, which means that anything less than 1.95 scale was completely useless to use for a slotted attack given that the comparison was between damage of the attack to mob hit point levels.

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Not as far as I know.

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Enhancement: I can change this but by default I use 95% damage enhancement.

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If anything, the weaker attacks are the ones that give MORE Scourge, not less. The calculation was of the amount of damage that was "overkill". Note that Scourge itself does not become weaker or stronger as you slot attacks, it is a Critical, not a damage boost, and thus Scourge is boosted by Enhancement slotting. So the decrease in effectiveness is due to the increase in extraneous damage as the damage scale of the attack goes up.

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It's not a drastic difference in performance between the two, and it's in favor of the Defender until you factor in Scourge's effect on damage - even using the 80% numbers, that's a 20% difference compared to 15% for base damage.

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Saying "so-and-so isn't really different until you factor in Scourge" kind of misses the point. You can to an extent ignore Inherents when dealing with other ATs, but as Defenders do not have an Inherent which increases their damage, it is much more important to a valid comparison.

Given that the difference between Defenders and Corruptors is so small to begin with, I don't believe you can be that imprecise with your numbers. It's already been established that the difference is less than the standard 100%/75% ratio.

It should be noted, though, that even 5% base damage modifier difference is large enough to change from a clear advantage to the Corruptor, to a clear advantage to the Defender. (That is, the difference goes from 25% to ~15%, not the 20% we are aiming at) Which is why I suspect an Inherent bonus would be a better solution than a damage boost across the board. Although it is hard to argue that both Defenders and Corruptors would not benefit from a base damage of 0.7 and 0.8 respectively.

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Exactly. Although Castle proposed something even more radical with regard to Dom's and it isn't exactly non-existent in the game already I mean PB's don't exactly say they are "nerfed" while solo.

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I believe Castle's Dom proposal is what led Positron to say that, although my memory could be faulty. That idea never came to pass, though, and in fact the Dom solution was to remove the "penalty" that the boost to damage gave during Domination became when you weren't in Domination.

The PB example is kind of the point, though. Normally you are given a bonus on a team or during special circumstances. (Such as Fury or Domination) You usually do not have a bonus taken away from you on a team or under those circumstances. (Part of the problem is that if the circumstances require you to have that capability, and you lose it, then you are gimped. I.e., if Defenders were to lose healing ability when their teammates were injured that would be BAD)

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Defenders are also very powerful and the tweaking they require is very small. They really don't require any more damage while teamed and they really don't require any more buff/debuff while solo.

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Agreed, although Controllers didn't really need any more damage while teamed either, but Containment was made to offer them the same benefit whether solo or not.

The problem is more one of outliers that do not follow the standards on which the AT is balanced. Defender damage was balanced around the idea that Defenders would be able to buff their damage, but not all Buff/Debuff sets can buff damage. Not all Buff/Debuff sets even buff damage equally. While some Scrapper or Blaster Primaries or Secondaries offer more damage than others, you do not have a situation where, for instance, a Scrapper Melee set drops half of its attacks and provides you with a bunch of defense powers. Yet this is exactly the way most Buff/Debuff sets operate, some offer more offensive capability, while others offer more defense.

The exacerbates the problem because there are some Defenders which have plenty of damage, and others that have to rely on only their base damage. Since buffs are what Defenders do best, this takes up some of the gap between Defenders and the other ATs that share Buff/Debuff sets. Even so, all ATs that share these sets share this problem, so you have a wide range or capabilities if you are trying to make a comparison.

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There was a thread about quantifying Scourge a while back. In a "best-case" scenario [...] Scourge was providing roughly a 15% boost in damage, [...] Against minions it frequently had no effect whatsoever

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Starsman's estimate for the average Scourge effect in that thread is as follows:

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Minions average +7% damage.
Lts average +11% damage
Bosses average +17.7% damage
EB average +19.7% damage
AV average +20.3% damage
GM average +20.7% damage


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He reported no boost against minions ONLY for attacks of more than 12 second recharge and 2.12 base damage. Due to the nature of his testing, that meant he was comparing to using ONLY that attack. Such would be totally irrelevant in actual gameplay. Given that if you are aware of Scourge and can anticipate it you can usually choose to use your weakest attacks to "finish off" the foe, I would say Starsman's estimates are probably as close to actual gameplay value as you can get with a raw analysis.

So, as I said previously, about 10% average, up to 20% against Bosses and AVs.

This doesn't address the difference between Defender and Corruptor buff/debuff levels, but that is not as simple as Defender = 100%, Corruptor = 75%. In fact, it is 100%/80% for To Hit Buff/Debuffs, Dam Buff/Buffs, and Def and Res Debuffs. It is 100%/75% for Def Buffs, and Res Buffs. So really only the buffers are at 75% of a Defender, the Debuffers are at 80%. This is the same for a Controller.

It has also been calculated (I don't have those numbers myself, but would assume it's accurate) that Controllers and Corruptors have 88% of the healing of a Defender.

So, 10%, I think that's stretching it a bit, but it is not 75% of the buff/debuffs for a Corruptor. I personally would put it somewhere between 78% and 80%. Also, 0.65 compared to 0.75 is not 10% more damage, but 15.4% more damage, or counting the 10% more damage from Scourge, around 27% more damage. 0.70 compared to 0.75 would be 7% more damage, or 17.8% more with Scourge. Of course, raising both to 0.7 and 0.8 would bring the ratio between them closer to 10% as well.

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Sands of Mu though is a vet power. There's no reason why a pool power can't overshadow a vet power.

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It's not the comparison to Sands of Mu that is the issue, it is the comparison to Shadow Maul. And if Sands of Mu did less damage than Shadow Maul then you could say that. But it doesn't. If A = B and A > C then B > C.

If Flurry were turned into a cone attack with the damage that it currently has, though, there would be no problem. Flurry does less damage than Shadow Maul. So the only similarity would be the same range and cone arc. Shadow Maul would still be the better attack. (There's also the -Acc vs. the stun, but IMHO the -Acc wins that one, too)

Of course, Flurry recharges faster and costs less End than Shadow Maul. But that is a constant for all attack powers. No one says Air Superiority is better than Haymaker because it recharges Faster and costs less End. (Well, maybe they do )

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lower controller damage cap to 300%. It is currently too high in conjunction with containment.

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Or, give Defenders a Critical that can break their damage cap.

Or, change Containment to a damage boost so it won't break the damage cap.

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I also have a solution to address their solo'ing woes a bit, but admittedly it could result in some whines from people that can't grasp the idea of varying performance relative to team size. (which in such a casual game, might be a lot)

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My guess is that you would suggest decreasing damage boost in reverse proportion to the team-based End boost. Or whatever boost you replace it with. So solo you get a damage boost, but on a team it goes away.

I have thought the same, myself, but to quote Positron "A buff given under one condition could be considered a penalty under the opposite condition." So it could be argued this would discourage Defenders from teaming, since they can do just as well solo, and will lose their damage on a team.

I'm afraid good ideas must be weighted against the people who will insist you are just calling for nerfs. Plus, there's the fact that Controllers aren't really all that out of line, now that Blasters, Stalkers and Dominators have all gotten strong damage buffs.

The devs are continuing to change the game, which unfortunately changes the balance for those ATs that they have not yet gotten around to changing. Whether that is their intention or not.

Well, while reducing the animation time on Flurry would certainly solve many of the problems, it would no longer be Flurry. It would be Barrage. Maybe a really fast Barrage, but still only two or maybe three punches.

I don't see any way to make Flurry continue to have as many hits as it has without taking as much time as it does. The punches are already as fast as they can be, I think. So you're either talking about changing its concept drastically, or bringing it in line with the other attacks that have the same concept. (Although I do wonder what it is about darkness that makes people able to punch really fast...)

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the support advantage of defender is about 10% less than the damage advantage of corruptors. Unless of course you look at a broken set like sonic blast.

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Again, don't forget Scourge, unless you plan to give Defenders an Inherent which does about the same additional damage as Scourge.

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Why should these classes have inferior damage to the Tanker?

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Because, as previously stated, Tankers do not get damage buff powers such as Enervating Field or Siphon Power.

This is the way it currently is. Base damage modifiers are as follows: (for simplicity, I am posting the higher of melee or ranged damage)

Blasters 1.125
Scrappers 1.125
Dominators 1.05
Stalkers 1.00
Tankers 0.80
Brutes 0.75
Corruptors 0.75
Defenders 0.65
Controllers 0.55
Masterminds 0.55

Note that ALL ATs with Buff/Debuff sets are at the bottom of this list, and have a damage mod less than 0.76. All of the ATs at the top of this list do not have access to Buff/Debuff sets, and most have a damage scale of at least 1.0. (Only Brutes and Tankers are lower) This was not always true, Stalkers and Doms used to have a damage scale of 0.9 and 0.75 respectively, but the recent changes have brought them more in line with the other damage dealing ATs.

The fact is, Defenders and Corruptors do NOT have less damage than a Tanker. With a mere 20% boost to damage, a Defender would have the equivalent of 0.78 damage, and a Corruptor (adjusted for the Corr's lower buffing strength) would have 0.86. Most Rads and Kins are able to produce much more of a buff than 20%, and that's probably about what a Dark or TA would produce. So Defenders on average have a little less damage than a Tanker (in the area of around 2% less) while Corruptors do more than a Tanker, but less than a Dominator.

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I would weaken Mastermind's own attacks to be tanker base, they have their pets for the real damage.

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Masterminds already do less damage than Tankers, in fact they do less damage than Defenders. They have 0.55 damage scale, just like Controllers.

Corruptors, Defenders, Controllers and Masterminds are able to boost their base damage with offensive buffs or debuffs that are found in their Buff/Debuff Sets. Thus, they have lower base damage overall than Scrappers, Tankers, Blasters, Stalkers and Dominators, which have no such self buffing capability. They do have Aim and Build Up, but these are short duration compared to what the buffers are capable of. Plus, Defenders and Corruptors get Aim TOO.

Brutes are kind of a special case, because they have low starting base damage, but Fury gives them a similar type of offensive boost as a Buff/Debuff power.

I agree with Dispari that it would probably be better to boost both Corruptors and Defenders, to 0.70 and 0.80 respectively. Since base damage of Blasters has been raised to 1.125, and Dominators now do more damage too, there is room for the other two ranged ATs to get a damage boost.

Don't forget, however, that Scourge does on the average of a 10% boost, with up to 20% against Bosses and AVs. Defenders could have as much as 5% more base damage than a Corruptor, and still be tied with Corruptors for the amount of damage done. (Although that would not be acceptable unless Corruptors got the same strength buffs and debuffs, or similarly varied their buffs according to their or the Defender Inherent)

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Defenders offer nothing to a team that a Controller can't offer instead. Saying that Defenders offer stuff to a team so should suck at soloing is not justification people.

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^THIS^

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Especially since the Controller Inherent was specifically stated to have the purpose of helping Controllers solo. (And in fact, does just that)

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I agree with you. I can't think of a single Defender combo that can't solo. Some, like my Kin/Sonic can solo quite well. The question I would ask about that is, "but why would anyone?"

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I think the bigger question is "Is it that all ATs can solo on the lowest difficulty, or that the lowest difficulty is made so easy that any AT can solo it?"

Personally, I would say the latter, since the lowest difficulty introduces features, such as reducing Bosses to Lieutenants, and AVs to EBs, that are designed to make a particular mission passable for someone who would not be able to do it otherwise.

I would say the question about whether you can solo on the second difficulty, which is closer to the difficulty level of the game at release, is more relevant.

I think the devs also want to make sure that at least the majority of missions are soloable on the lowest difficulty even if the AT does NOT have a good build, so a character that is built for teaming is not stuck with nothing to do while waiting on a team. So even with a small selection of attacks, and moderate slotting, it should be possible to solo the equivalent of a newspaper mission or a "filler" mission that isn't part of an arc. Saying that any AT can solo such a mission isn't saying much, since the intention of the devs is to ensure it can be soloed.

Of course, you can now switch builds, which has made that a lot easier as well.

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Defenders that debuff benefit the team with their debuffs, which also help the Defender solo;
Defenders with Buffs can buff the team, but largely cannot buff themselves, which hampers them solo.

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This is a large part of the problem, but it is not as difficult to remedy as it appears. Most buff oriented Sets have both ally buffs and self buffs, so it is possible to spread those buffs more evenly, so the Defender gets closer to the same buffs as his allies. It is just that the devs have CHOSEN not to give the Defender those buffs. (Example: the +Def provided by his two ally bubbles could be added to FF's Repulsion Field)

Likely the reason is that debuffs come with a level of risk, and thus are considered less imbalancing than direct defensive buffs to a ranged Archetype. I really think the devs need to rethink their position on this issue however. Or at the very least, consider offensive buffs instead of defensive ones for the caster, such as with Pain Domination.

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Radiation Assault for doms would be lovely.

Radiation Manipulation for blasters -- maybe not so much. I'd credit the lack of a new Radiation Manipulation for blasters as the reason Radiation Blast is likely to retain Irradiate, Electron Haze, and Cosmic Burst, rather than having some or all of them get borrowed to fill out a secondary.

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Either Radiation Assault or Radiation Manipulation will need to have a Radiation Melee first, or at least be designed with a Melee set in mind for later.

Cosmic Burst and Electron Haze are in no way unusual for a Ranged set, except for Cosmic Burst's high chance of stun, they're no different from Blaze and Breath of Fire, or Power Burst and Energy Torrent. Electron Haze is a bit more damaging than Torrent, but less damaging than Breath of Fire. And it's greater damage also comes with greater recharge. In fact, cone attacks are quite rare in Manipulation sets. (Psychic Scream is the only real example, as Shiver does no damage)

Irradiate might make a good Manipulation power, but Radiation lacks a pure control power, like Power Push, or a power like Rain of Fire. I could see Manipulation getting a utility power like Lingering Radiation or even Choking Cloud, although it will need the usual immobilize and may even get some other similar control powers from a potential Radiation Control.

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I've been told that before Assault Rifle went with the 'Uber Gun of Doom', you would pull out a shotgun when using Beanbag or Solid Shot, and when you wanted to snipe someone, you would use a sniper gun. Or a flamethrower for flamethrower Ignite, etc.


[/ QUOTE ]unless this was in beta, i dont remember this ever being true. i came in right before issue 1, and it was always the frankengun.

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It was very early Beta. The set was called "Heavy Ordinance" and all of the melee weapons were similarly mixed into a single set called "Medieval Weapons". Neither was workable.

I'm guessing that will never be implemented for the same reason that most likely, KO Blow will not be replaced with the animation for Thunder Kick. Or Jab replaced with Flurry. They will most likely replace an animation with an animation with exactly the same cast time.

While you might say, "It's my choice to pick an animation with a really long cast time or redraw", that essentially reduces the usability of that alternate animation and makes it for concept only. It won't really be a choice, the stronger of the two options will always be the one chosen. And in fact most players would complain that they are being penalized for making a choice according to concept. (Including many of the people who originally said that they wouldn't care)

Now, if that redraw came with a faster animation of firing the weapon, maybe. But you're still talking about redrawing before every shot, whereas currently you only have to redraw at the beginning of a sequence of shots.

Flurry is useful for Controllers or MMs that can't really fill out a complete attack chain. Why you would use it in place of Sands of Mu, though, except for concept or to unlock Super Speed, I don't know.

I honestly think if it could hit multiple targets like Sands of Mu it might be treated a lot differently.

Also, if they ever get around to customizing Power Pool powers, if Flurry's animation could be given the old Storm Kick animation as an alternate, that would REALLY fit some concepts.

Actually, I do find myself a little frustrated with the sets that give you an interesting Brawl, as the power is not really comparable to even Power Pool attacks.

On the other hand, I usually manage to get a fairly good slotting out of it by avoiding End. It is efficient enough not to need it. It's too bad that ED means it's not possible to six slot it for damage any more, though...

I guess a good Proc in it can be useful. (And I may do that with my Thugs MM)

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This was actually addressed way back in Issue 1 or 2, I forget which. Defenders got an across-the-board end reduction on their blast powers, a significant one, too. It used to be a whole lot worse.

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The Global Defense Nerf came with an across the board decrease in End costs to all ATs that had not previously gotten one. Thus, now all Blast powers have the same End cost no matter what AT is using them. This should be confirmable with City of Data.

To be precise, any attack that does 1 scale damage, and takes 4 sec to recharge should cost 5.2 Endurance. Defense and Buff/Debuff powers are a bit harder to compare, but any particular power should cost the same no matter which AT uses it. The exception is Masterminds, who get an End penalty to all of their powers because their pets are able to draw on their own End pools to attack and use their powers.

Likely the reason Defenders seem to use more Endurance is the same reason Tankers seem to use more Endurance, they are doing less damage for the same End costs. In fact, it's the End cost over time that is constant, but the fight takes longer. Scourge also saves Endurance because it means a Corruptor does the most damage when he is lowest on Endurance.

Hasten's Defense was moved into Super Speed. Then the Defense was removed and replaced with a +Stealth.

The problem is that Combat Jumping and Hover are combat movement powers. They are designed to allow you to increase your flying and jumping speed in combat, but not by as much as the Travel Powers. So they are defensive in nature, and a Defense buff fits them. Hasten is an offensive power, though, it doesn't increase your movement speed (Sprint does that) it increases your attack rate. So an offensive power with a Defense buff gives you both offense and defense in a single power. Which isn't unusual, but it is more powerful than CJ and Hover. (It can also be argued that Hasten itself is more powerful than CJ or Hover, although such a comparison is really meaningless)

Travel Powers are not really intended to be used in combat, but as Super Speed had no equivalent "fast movement in combat" power, for a while it was treated as if SS was both the travel power and the defensive combat power. So it got a +Def and was usable in combat. Then came jousting, and travel power suppression.

Conceptually speaking, Weave, Super Reflexes, or Combat Jumping, when you're not jumping, are the Super Speed equivalent of being able to dodge really fast.

The last poster I saw who was giving defense stats for the Thugs that makes them comparable to Bots was using Purple IOs. Which means that essentially when you get to 50, Thugs can have as much defense as Bots. But when Bots gets to 50, it is doing as much or more damage than Thugs. (Depending on how much Burn Patch herding you do) So all you're really saying is that at really high levels their differences even out.

Prior to 50 the differences are obvious. Bots is the lowest in terms of damage, really having to struggle to get through 18-20, but has stronger shields at low level, and Lethal resistance. Those Manuevers that are stronger on Thugs, by the way, scale due to level, but Force Shield doesn't. So that's true only after 25, prior to 25 Bots have the stronger shield. Personally, I don't know why there is this difference, my guess it that it is an oversight. If Bots scaled to level as Thugs does, the gap would be much less.

Most people who compare the defense of Thugs to Bots also drastically underestimate healing, usually by their own admission. The argument is usually "My Bots die before they can get healed". I've never had that problem, and the constant healing of my Bots means that 90% of the time I don't have to. Or at the very least, I can concentrate on healing a Bot that I can't afford to lose without having to worry about the rest. My Bots is also paired with Traps, which is not capable of healing as much as Dark, and I took Aid Other instead of Repair. So I have about as much healing capability on my Thugs/Dark, and have my Dark Servant to heal like with my Proto Bots. There is an upper limit on the usefulness of healing, though, so I think the balance is about right.

The Bruiser definately has far more resistance than the Assault Bot, but he also has to move into melee to attack. So he's certainly going to be better at tanking. OTOH, with Bots, you are going to be better at tanking, since you get a Force Bubble of your own. So Bots lends itself more to the Tankermind strategy, while Thugs lends itself more to sending the Bruiser in to tank. (Which is exactly how I use him)

As for the other Mastermind Primaries, they really aren't up to the level of Thugs and Bots, and that's pretty well known. Necro is pretty resiliant, past 32 each henchman has the ability to heal HIMSELF, and they all have debuffs. Ninjas do far more single target damage than any other Primary, their damage is pretty high to start with, and Criticals really put them over the top. Both Ninjas and Necro have to be in melee to deal their damage, though, so you have to either Tankermind to draw aggro off of them, or react quickly to the attrition.

I think this is actually how the devs intended MMs to work originally, note that if a henchman dies and you resummon him, you have in effect healed the taken damage. In practice it doesn't work as well as intended, though, so I think the devs have made Necro and Ninjas a little weaker defensively than they should be. At least now Necro can get those Purple IOs, and Ninjas I see as a sort of Stalker strategy, you're better off pulling and striking with surprise instead of using the usual steamroller strategy.

Mercs has its own unique features, but the last analysis I did put them well behind the others. That may have changed with tweaks to the AI, but I still think Mercs is really just a concept Set. I do enjoy playing my Mercs/Poison, though. And they are the only Primary that has smashing and lethal resistance across the board.

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Hey - question.

Why is the Defense Crash the same for Brutes and Tankers? Brutes have .75 Defense modifiers compared to the Tankers 1.0.

When Unyielding from Invulnerability debuffed defense, it had -5% Defense to Tankers, and -3.75% for Brutes and Scrappers. There's precedent. Is there an actual reason or is it just an oversight?

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That is a good question........Castle?

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Because its an offensive set not a defensive one. Invul was a defense set and therefore defense mods apply, Super Strength is an offensive one.

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Darkest Night on a brute: 10.5% tohit debuff
DN on a Defender: 18.75% tohit debuff

If offensive debuffs are affected by AT modifiers, why a personal debuff be affected?

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Actually, I think the reason is that until recently, Unyielding's debuff WAS the same for Tankers and Scrappers. In fact, I'm not even sure the amount of time they had a debuff hasn't already been surpassed by the amount of time they haven't had a debuff at all.

A buff to your Resistance or a debuff to your foe's is subject to AT modifier. But a self imposed penalty isn't the same thing as a debuff from a foe. Foe debuffs aren't even adjusted according to your AT, a Blaster will be debuffed the same amount as a Tanker by the same foe.

Maybe the devs felt self implied penalties weren't subject to AT modifier. (Although the Unstoppable crash is proportional to the AT's hit points. And Endurance crashes are the same for all ATs since they have the same Endurance maximum)

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Now to be balanced, I should also include things that I love. [*] When a plan comes together


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Heheheheheh....

Two points here:

1) While a Defender does do less damage than a Corruptor, as a particular Primary/Secondary combination provides more damage buffs, the gap gets smaller. The Rad/Sonic combination provides the greatest overall damage buffs, and numerically does about the same damage on both ATs. The Corruptor starts out with more damage, but the Defender raises its damage further. The Defender also gets a much larger buff from Aim.

2) While Scourge and his greater base damage can make a Corruptor do more damage than a Defender, this does nothing for the rest of the team. In essense, the Corruptor is taking away damage from the rest of the team and giving it to himself, which a large team of non-buffers is not going to consider an overall advantage. The short version is, Corruptors are better at soloing, Defenders are better on teams. Which we already know.

Keep in mind that a Corruptor's damage base is only 0.75, compared to a Defender's 0.65. You could raise the damage base to 0.70, but if you raised it to 0.75, Defenders would do the same damage as Corruptors, and would have greater buffs besides. So there would be only the effect of Scourge, making Corruptors much weaker than Defenders when the battle started, but then surpassing their damage as the foe got close to defeat.

It's more likely Defenders need a Inherent that boosts their damage, instead of a damage boost. Taking the other Hero/Villain comparison that is applicable, Tankers do more damage than Brutes to start, but any Brute should be able to raise Fury enough to outdamage a Tanker within a few blows. They don't have to wait until they have full Fury before they start doing more damage than Brutes, that's when they do more damage than Scrappers. If Defenders had an Inherent that let them do more damage at the start of the battle, or under some other controllable circumstance, they would have offensive performance closer to Corruptors

The other thing Defenders need, and all other buffing ATs as well, is a more consistent availability of damage boosts. The lack of damage boost in FF and Empathy, and the low damage boost in Dark, Sonic, and Cold Domination increases the gap between Defenders and Corruptors for those sets. Inconsistencies such as Tar Patch not being scaled to the AT's modifier (which could apply to Traps once it is Proliferated) only makes the problem worse. If the devs intend to resolve this issue (and I'm not sure it's likely that they do) then this is where they need to start.

Ultimately what this comes down to is whether or not your ability to solo is trumped by a greater capability on a team. If the majority of players choose to have a lesser role on a team in order to increase their soloability, then that will be the status quo.

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Some very good guesses here on the powers, but Earth Assault will be a very melee heavy set. Also opted for the regular Hurl boulder Animation, since the Propel Boulder animation uses the full 3.5 second long propel animation. Now I may be a huge fan of propel for my grav doms/Trollers, but the thought of having 2 versions of it didn't seem too fun.

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I hate to say it, but I'm a little disappointed. Not with the idea of a Melee centric Dom Secondary, it will be a good counterpart to Fire, which is so ranged oriented. But this means that Earth Blast will be a lot more difficult to design in the future, and maybe not even a potential Blast Set at all.

I still would like to see the Wyvern Earth casters' "telekinetic pebble" attack. But I can understand why BaB would need to spend all of his time developing new Color Customizations instead of developing animations for Earth Assault. I'm guessing that's why we have no Blaster Manipulation this round, either.