Jade_Dragon

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2) It took about 10 minutes to copy the giant list of FX GEOs from Propel, and then remove the ones that were way too big

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Can I say Hurl?

Or... is that possibly one of the new Super Strength customization options... ? I can hope...

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Then I learned projectiles are the particle effects and those were hard-baked into the powers

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Yeah, this is the problem. A particle effect can track from the player to his target, but there is no way to make the player himself track to his target. An animation can make him jump pretty much anywhere, I'm guessing, but it would be luck if he actually hit the target.

Sheild Charge/Lightning Rod get around this by haveing you target a location, I think.

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23% and 14% on the two most used attacks aren't significant? ok

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It's not the 23% and the 14% that is insignificant, it is the 12% and the 7% for both Dom and FE. I slot FE for recharge, so it is up as often as it can be. Not to mention that 55% of the time I do NOT have Domination running. So for that time that I DO have Domination running and DON'T have FE running, I am paying more End for my attacks than I was previously. The rest of the time makes up for it.

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I'd appreciate you demonstrating you are doing more damage now.

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Fire Blast does more damage now, doesn't it? Incinerate does more damage now, doesn't it? Blaze does more damage now, doesn't it? Your own table, DPA for Blast went from 99.62 to 141.69. Incinerate went from 110.19 to 130.47. And Blaze went from 248.18 to 250.19. That's DPA, not DPS, but you're talking about END COSTS. You're not saying damage went down, you're saying the End cost for the same amount of damage went up.

And damage was not SUPPOSED to go up relative to Domination, due to the base damage change. That was the result of the changes to recharge time. So whether I'm spending more End for it or not, I'm still doing at least the same damage as before.

I have way more burst damage, if I choose to take advantage of it. In fact, though, I don't, I have more than enough damage just because I essentially have Domination going all the time. I've even taken to waiting until attacks like Incinerate finish doing all their damage, since I know now it will actually kill them without needing to use a second attack. Usually just using Dominate to keep them still while they burn is enough to make sure.

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1. Current /Fiery's DoT damage does not benefit from the new damage buff which leads to a little bit less damage than before with Domination, right?

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Firey's DoT DOES benefit from the new damage buff. It does NOT benefit from the increase in base damage and recharge time. In other words, Fire Blast does more damage now, but it does the same DoT. So since the recharge time has increased, it does less DoT proportionally than before.

Since previously damage varied depending on whether you were in Domination or not, and now it does not vary, it is difficult to make a flat-out comparison. But in simplest terms DPS is less than it used to be, if you are in Domination. If you are not in Domination, you are doing greater DPS overall. And if you have enough damage boosts, you should eventually gain more DPS in Domination, as well.

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2. Flare is worse than before (luckily I hate that power anyway)

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Flares is the one power for which the DoT has been eliminated (reduced to 4.5% of the overall damage) instead of just being left the same, relative to a greater base damage. This is where more of the End cost is coming from, since many /Fire users that spammed Fire Blast before are now spamming Flares for the same effect.

This also means Flares is doing less damage than it did before, under Domination, both in terms of DPA and in DPS. (Both the damage per shot and the damage over recharge time were decreased)

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When my level is higher and with sets, I won't even invest in Flare. Just Fire Blast, Incinerate and Blaze is good enough IMO. I mean I still need to spend time controlling.

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This has been my strategy since the changes. I use Incinerate a lot more than Fire Blast, and I'm also working Dominate and Levitate into the chain.

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You're right, the only thing that was changed is that flares used to be removed from my tray and now it is my most used attack. As a result I'm late to the party. It's like the old NBC commercials during rerun season: "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you"

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Well, that actually I can dig. I checked out the attack just to see what it looked like when they changed it, but I didn't like it enough to use it.

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I've now contributed more to the thread's topic than you or Testrat.

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Did you not notice that my post was the SECOND in this thread? I believe I have made enough of a contribution, thank you.

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bah like I said this is entirely pointless, either he will do the work or he won't. It isn't' a matter of whether it should be done.

gl doms

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Basically, all your chart really shows is that when you include Domination in the equation, the End cost seems to go up, because before you were boosting the DoT, which you don't pay any End for, with Domination. Note, though, that as you tack on more damage boosts, that difference cancels out. When you compared Blaze before to Blaze after, with just Domination, there was an 11% difference in their DPE. Yet, when you added in FA, that difference shrank to only 3.5%. Which is essentially what I said it was, and what it is when you just consider the base modifier.

These are not big differences. You're talking about a difference of maybe 2 DPE. And you already have at least that much advantage over the other Secondaries, Energy Assault comes out to about 18 or 19 DPE, if you figure the new values, or the old ones with Domination.

Flares is the only thing that really shows up as a big outlier, and I think we can demonstrate exactly why that is. The rest of it is just picking. And I don't have any problem playing Fire. I don't have any problem with the damage, which is better, and I don't have any problem with the Endurance, which I can control. Nobody's telling me that I'm doing more damage, I am, and I can demonstrate it.

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Over here Castle mentions that he's looking into Flares.

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Hot spots that I am paying close attention to are End Costs, Flares and low level play issues.


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I honestly think what we will get is a compromise. 15% is nice, but it's not what it once was.

Then again, IMHO I firmly believe Flares' DoT should be AT LEAST the same as Thorny Darts' DoT. Preferably more, since Thorny Darts gets a -Def debuff, too. It can still wind up being somewhat less powerful than what it was.

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When reality doesn't match the expected value people start to ask why. Admittedly not always in the nicest way

Silence on the matter then butts heads against society's need for instant gratification and things start ugly and escalate from there.

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Honestly, I think this sums it all up.

Sometimes you have to sit down and think about it, though. Like realizing that Electric Assault had much higher damage and recharge times on its melee attacks than other Assault sets. Then you see that Electric Assault gets lower damage and faster recharge, and everyone else gets it the other way around, and it falls into place.

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Isn't this off topic?

This thread is about psi assault.

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Seriously. The changes in animation time and graphics are not even related to the Dom changes. They were not added in this issue.

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After spending weeks reading various threads (and noting who is posting what and how often in them) I have yet to really see any sort of consensus of there being a problem (except PVP damage, which has already been mentioned in another post.) Hot spots that I am paying close attention to are End Costs, Flares and low level play issues.

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Well, while there are certainly many differences of opinion regarding Fire Assault in general, the analysis of Flares is pretty much numerical. I am glad to know it was noticed.

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It's powerbolt's animation, with fire graphics. You get them both at lvl 1 go see for yourself. Unless you are suggesting that powers like: air sup, haymaker, bonesmasher, cremate, seismic smash, havoc punch, etc, actually use a different animation.

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Nope. And in fact Energy Transfer's animation is Bitter Ice Blast's animation now. A ranged animation being used for a melee attack.

The graphic I'm pretty sure is a fire, though. It has flames. And it sets the target on fire. And there are just so many animations that are reused in this game, just with different graphics and particle effects. Maybe in the future, after they've finished making the graphics color tintable, they'll let us change the animations. Although they'll have to link it to cast time somehow, so you don't end up trading a short animation for a long one.

This is really very, very minor. You don't like the fact that they changed the animation time from 3.3 seconds to 1 second? Fine, but most people think the benefit in usefulness outweights whatever it looks like. That battle was lost ages ago, and really, even the devs don't like to fight it.

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C'mon Frost, you trying to hard to find something hidden in Castle's words or agenda. Let it go.

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Actually, I'd really appreciate a post on the subject myself. It's hard not to worry that the message never even got through, in all the complaints and incorrect assumptions about the End costs and power adjustments.

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If you aren't tied to specific concept or are willing to try a different character you might want to give mind/energy a try.

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I'll add that while Energy has really strong attacks now (with high recharge) you also lack either Fiery Embrace, Aim, or Build Up. What you do have is Power Boost, which increases your holds. So you have a more defensive Dominator to begin with.

It's not easy to solo a non-damage oriented Dominator. You can do it, but it's just not as easy as it would be for Fire or Energy. Stick with the concept if it's what you want, though, even though you may have to rely more on Wormhole, and your soft controls.

Maybe try picking up Tough, or Aid Self/Aid Other from the Pool.

Okay, here's the numbers:

Blaze previously was 3.02 damage scale, with 10 second recharge. Now it is 3.18 damage scale, with 12 second recharge.

3.02/10 = 0.302 DPS
3.18/12 = 0.265 DPS

DPS (measured in terms of recharge, not activation time) has definately gone down, but most of that is because slower attacks have a lower DPS naturally, they are balanced that way. In order to figure out how much damage Blaze WOULD have done, we would have to apply the ratio of the base damage to the extra damage before, and match it to the current. This would give us a 3.25 adjusted damage scale. (since base damage has gone up from 2.12 to 2.24)

3.25/12 = 0.271 DPS

So, we have 0.265 DPS, not 0.271 DPS. That is a difference of 2.21%.

Applying the same logic to Blazing Bolt we have:

(old) 3.48/12 = 0.29 DPS
(new) 4.28/20 = 0.214 DPS
(adjusted for full bonus) 4.49/20 = 0.224 DPS

The difference is 1-(0.214/0.224) = 4.46%

By contrast, Flares was more drastically changed:

(old) 1.01/2.2 = 0.46 DPS
(new) 0.88/3 = 0.29 DPS

Note the DPS before was pretty high compared to Blaze and Blazing Bolt. And not just because of the DoT. But let's assume we want to preserve the previous ratio:

1.194/3 = 0.398 DPS

That's a loss of 27.1% of the damage, just from no bonus. Even if we assume the 15% figure Castle quoted is accurate:

0.966/3 = 0.322 DPS

And our DPS is about 9.9% lower than what we've estimated it should be. We'd still lose about 19% of the DPS, but that's better than what it is right now. And that's still way larger than the 5% or so from the other attacks.

Flares needs fixing, that is obvious, but 5% is not significant. It's not even noticable. And the figures would probably come out about the same for the other secondary effects, too, so increasing a stun by 5% duration is not going to be significant. Let's spend our energy on getting SERIOUS miscalculations fixed.

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IIRC (and I do) fire blasts were specifically buffed 5? issues ago to have increased dot damage.

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Okay, but in that case it was the *DoT* which was buffed, and the base damage was left alone. Which is the opposite of what I'm saying here, which is that the base damage was buffed, because the recharge time and End cost was increased, but the DoT was left alone.

Castle has not come on here and said that this is "working as intended", he and the other devs have said NOTHING about the matter. Testers pointed this out in the Feedback thread in the Test forum, and no response has ever been given. Castle did make a statement (in game, so it's a report from someone who overheard him) as to WHAT HIS INTENTION WAS. We analyzed the numbers and found they do not match what the stated intention was. No further information or confirmations have come from the devs in any way. So at this point we are assuming this is just an unintended oversight, like leaving the PvP damage buff in place when it was intended to be removed.

Now, if you insist that the DoT must be raised to match the increased damage of the attack, let me ask you, do you think the duration of the stuns and knockback distance on the Energy Assault attacks should be raised? Do you think the amount of Endurance drained by the Electrical Assault attacks should be increased -- wait, correction, decreased. Do you think Ice Assaults' slow effects should be increased in magnitude or duration? Or Psi Assaults recharge debuffs?

If you are going to increase secondary effects because the damage and recharge times of attacks have been increased, you will have to increase ALL of them. Fire doesn't get to be treated special because its secondary effect is damage. Now, in most cases the different versions of different attacks do have different magnitude of their secondary effects. But this is usually based on the AT, not really the damage and recharge of the attack. Attacks with the same damage and recharge can have much longer duration holds for Dominators simply because they are Dominators. So I'm not sure we can say, "Well, the extra damage is supposed to be x% of the base damage". There's usually a few more tics for a Blaster or Dominator, and about the same damage per tic.

I will need to go look up the post, but I believe in terms of DPS, Fire Blast and Blaze only lost about 3-5% damage. Flares was worse, like 15%. I think it was originally posted it was like 30%, but that turned out to be a miscalculation. At any rate, it isn't nearly so back for the majority of Fire. Most of it is just the increase in End cost because of the greater damage, and Flares and Combustion. And note that those attacks are still just as efficient as they are for any other Dom Secondary (except Thorns, which also has a DoT) they are just less efficient than they were.

There has definately been a nerf to this power, hopefully unintentional. In other words, the extra damage for the Fire DoT effect was left off.

Flares used to do 0.71 scale damage, with a 0.30 tic of damage following, for a total of 1.01. It had a 2.2s recharge and cost 3.692 Endurance. For that End cost and recharge, my best guess is that the base damage of 0.71 was balanced to the End cost and recharge, and the 0.30 tic was "free".

Flares now has 0.88 (total) base damage, 3s recharge, and 4.37 End cost. Comparing Psi Dart and Thorny Darts, 3s recharge and 4.37 End cost should give a base damage of 0.84. So Flares now has a "bonus damage" of 0.04.

According to Castle, Flares' bonus damage should have been 15% of its base damage. If the base damage is intended to be 0.84, then that means Flares should have a base damage of 0.84, and a tic of 0.126, for a total of 0.966. This is not as much damage as it used to do, but is more than it is currently doing.

As Flares now does LESS damage than it used to, and costs MORE Endurance and takes longer to recharge, I think that can be defined as a nerf, whatever the reasons for it. This has been mentioned, but there's been no dev posts about it.

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Sorry I missed this part. Has a dev confirmed it is bugged or it is just all of us players that realize that?

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There has been no response on this matter yet.

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Are you seriously suggesting I don't know that doms don't get the swords, or cremate?

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You made the comment, you were talking about Dominators, I went, "Wait, what, back up I must have missed something."

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Cremate is a haymaker with firefists. So you are actually physically hitting someone with your body (the only fire attack that does that). It should actually be all smash damage with fire dot, rather than 70% fire damage

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All melee attacks do partial Smashing or Lethal damage, plus the damage type of the set, if that differs. Dark Melee attacks are only partially Dark damage, Ice Melee attacks are only partially cold Damage, Energy Melee attacks are only partially Energy damage. Fire is the exception, with melee attacks that do almost exclusively fire damage.

Even at that, though, Fire Sword is partially Lethal damage. So it's really only Incinerate that is unique as a melee attack that does purely Fire damage. Combustion could be considered an exception as well, but Dark has some AoEs that do only Dark damage, and Fire Sword Circle is partially Lethal, so it seems to be dependent on whether the "attack" physically hits the target, or just emits an effect that hits.

I don't suppose you have a problem with Shadow Maul or Total Focus making physical contact with the foe, so I'm guessing that with Incinerate it is a conceptual thing, a sort of "Burning Hands" cast at point blank range. I must admit, I like it for that reason too. But I'm not going to put down Cremate over it.

As for Flares, there may not be any throwing involved, but that was never the case, the original animation had the character standing with his hands over his head. And are you sure it's a "recolored Power Bolt" and not flames? Granted, I haven't fired it all that often, but it sure looks like flames to me.

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If you want a Scrappery ST feel, then Mind or Gravity mesh nicely with electric. Gravity's nice because it has two or three powers that are considered skippable. Freeing you up to slot up your Secondary. Very good if you're a soloist.

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I agree with this. I have a Grav/Electric, and he's very much leaning towards the Secondary since his power is more electricity than gravity. In fact, I just pretend the Gravity is electromagnetic powers.

Here's hoping an Electrical Control comes about some day.

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Earth/Electric (or plant/electric) is very solid all the way 'round. You have excellent control and damage, both are very team friendly build.

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I like the idea of Plant/Electric. Plant's well known as a strong Primary, and the AoE Confuse should be quite good at balancing the feel of the ST Secondary with some AoEs.

Mind, too, and you'll have more precise control of the Confuse.

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Not quite the same, as Blasters are quite obviously designed for damage, so slotting things for damage is more or less working as intended.

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Well, with 0.95 ranged compared to 1.125 ranged, and 1.05 melee compared to 1.0 melee, one could say slotting things for damage is more or less working as intended for Dominators, too.

And since Corruptors get a true Critical with Containment and not a bonus, and thus slotting your holds for damage will result in double that damage...

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I more or less have my answer on that one, though - given that both powers I can slot for damage or status effect do barely as much as my weakest, fastest-recharging attack, I'll put off slotting them for damage until later to never, depending on what slots permit. I suspect that, even in the best case scenario, I won't slot them for damage by much anyway.

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On my Blaster, Ring of Fire is one of her "Bread and Butter" attacks, and she uses it as a basic attack. It does about the same damage as her other basic attack, too. Although that is Fire, so the damage is somewhat better than the norm, even if it is DoT...

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I'd be interested to hear what large-scale enemy teleportation can be good for.

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I would too. At the moment, it just looks cool.

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I guess the big thing for me is drastically low hit points, much lower than Blasters, which necessitates even MORE control to keep from getting killed. They don't seem to have that much more control, but rather they have larger-scale control. Which is cool when it's up, but its scale limits it to only occasional use. What about the time when these powers aren't up, though? Do I simply idle until they recharge?

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First of all, are you talking about before or after the Domination change? Because I can take out one foe right off the bat with a Sniper attack. A Hold will take out another. I can usually concentrate enough fire on another that by the time he gets into melee, getting into Blapper range with me is instantly fatal. That's three right there. What spawn sizes are you taking on? Do you have your Difficulty set to 4?

No, you don't stand around, that's fatal. You shouldn't need an AoE hold to take on a spawn, though. In fact, opening with an AoE is the surest way to get killed. If you are soloing and can't make do with single target holds, there's something way wrong.

I'll also disagree that Blasters have as much control. My Blaster has Tesla Cage. Gravity Distortion is a 18 second hold cast every 8 seconds. Tesla Cage is an 8 second hold cast every 10 seconds. Sure, you could perma-stun a foe with /Energy but 1) you have to be in melee 2) you have to keep attacking to keep up the stun and 3) not all Blasters are /Energy.

If you can't hold a foe and deal with the rest of them within 18 seconds, well, I don't know that more hit points would do more than just delay the inevitable.

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If you solo a lot with Gravity the much maligned Dimension Shift is your friend. This power works very well for the dom soloist. DS the mobs, deal with the remaining mobs (Lift, Gravity Distortion, blast, blast, dead).

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Wow. With all the hate on Dimension Shift I never even considered it, even though I recommend essentially the same thing with Detention Field in FF. It's an irritatant on a team, but solo it's extremely important.

Even so, Dimension Shift doesn't fit my concept, and the lack of pinpoint precision makes me think I won't find it as useful as Detention Field for eliminating foes from the fight. I really have no trouble soloing my Grav/Electric, even before the changes I didn't really have problems with being overwhelmed. Then again, I played on Diff 3 or 5, not 4.

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I would also add, I'd slot gravity for control and recharge and not damage. You especially want your single target hold slotted up ASAP. Think of it as your primary means of damage mitigation. It's like a shield on a scrapper, tank, or brute.

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I primarily use my attacks on that Dom to deal damage. I do have Propel, but mainly for concept. My /Fire, though, makes major use of Dominate for damage, because he has Confuse to mitigate damage. Held foes don't hit you, Confused foes don't hit you and DO hit your enemies.

I have yet to see the foe that survives being held long enough for the hold to wear off, though, with my holds even one or two slotted. I don't really see the need for three except on an AoE. (Which usually doesn't deal damage anyway)

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I don't have enough (read: any) experience with anything other than Gravity Control, but isn't the presence of genuine attacks in Control primaries more the exception than the rule?

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Well, yeah, but not every power in Energy Manipulation is Total Focus, either.

I do agree with the dilemma about whether to slot Control powers for control or damage, and if you want to specialize with control in the Primary, and damage in the Secondary, that's fine too. But you have exactly the same dilemma when slotting Blaster Secondaries, the immobilize or stun has to be slotted for either damage or control, and usually you would choose the damage first. (Or I would...)

There is also a big advantage in Set IOs. You actually can slot for both damage and control, and I often do.

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Heck, it looks to me like Gravity Distortion is treated almost like a mini-nuke, and it doesn't last all THAT long even with slotting. Should I really be banking everything on Wormhole?

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Well, from what I understand, Wormhole is not the greatest of AoE control powers. There are other sets that perform much better. That's Gravity, there are other sets that perform much better. You hear a lot of that. On the other hand, Wormhole being effectively an AoE Teleport Foe has a utility which goes beyond it's Control capability. That's not going to show up in the numbers, though, the DPS or the "survivability time" or whatever the heck metric you're using to compare A to B.

The thing is, as I said, I feel the AoE holds are not really meant to be up all the time. That was the behavior of control sets long ago, before ED. Controllers got a serious nerf to control, gaining Containment and its damage in exchange for their AoEs. Blasters ended up getting nerfed, too, losing some duration from their controls so they would stay "weaker" than Controller counterparts.

But it's like when Tanker and Scrapper defenses were all cut in half. Since everything was cut in half, the difference between the two became closer. Since control powers had become nerfed across the board, Controllers and Blasters became closer simply because their maximums were closer together. And Control became something that is really not reliable. As you said, it's up as an AoE maybe once a fight. No one can lock down 100% of a spawn 100% of the time, not even a Tanker.

I agree that if everyone has enough magnitude to be useful, then it's just duration that becomes a difference. So it's an on or off thing. And Defenders and Controllers (and Corruptors) seem to specialize with "soft" controls, in Buff/Debuff. Knockback, herding powers, and especially Slows (since they are also Recharge slows, as well as movement slows) are often the specialty of Buff/Debuff. Doms lack that capability. And where they do have that ability, such as with AoE immobilize, it can be dangerous for them to use it.

Is that good, is that bad, is that different? I'm not really going to judge. I don't think Dominators should be Controllers. But that's just me. Controllers certainly have plenty of damage, and both Doms and Blasters have an issue with powers that it is fatal to them to use. But that's really a balance issue.

Well, you know, there's a monorail right there in Atlas Park, and there are very obvious gates to other Zones, and the AE describes itself in the tutorial as a "virtual reality". So I'm guessing that anyone who just levels using nothing but the AE knows what they are doing. I can't see anyone saying "This is all the game is" unless they just don't bother to pay attention to their surroundings at all.

I think a lot of the people who got 50s from the AE got them from the farms when it first came out. The devs have made it pretty clear they're against that. So this is like the Winter Lords, you've got a lot of people who levelled too fast, and it's not really the fault of the AE, any more than it was the fault of there being a Winter Event. Over time the XP will come under control, and the players will either have to come out to see the rest of the game, (even if that means finding "farms" in the "outside") or just make the choice to stay in the AE and level at the usual rate.

I think people who are curious to explore the game will actually explore the game. Curiousity is a strong motivator.

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Flares does 2 more base damage than psy dart, but part of the damage is delayed and psy dart has -rech and more range.

has anyone bugged this yet?

No wonder I'm not finding my /fire dom to be very good now.

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Oh, yes. It's been bugged, and mentioned time and time again in the feedback thread. No response, although Castle did say it is SUPPOSED to have 15% bonus damage, although the true value is more like 4.5%. (And it was around 30%, so it still won't be as good as it was) Combustion appears to be in the same boat.

Another good comparison is Thorny Darts, which has both the same base damage as Psi Dart, AND a DoT. It does quite a bit more damage than Flares now.

The issue, as it were, with the rest of Fire Assault, is due to the increased damage and recharge time on most of the attacks. Although the base damage was increased, the bonus damage was not. So although Fire Blast does more damage scale than Fire Blast for a Blaster now, it still does exactly the same bonus DoT. This has effected the ratio between base damage and bonus damage and make it slightly less.

I don't really think that can be helped, though. Sniper Blasts have been changed across the board, and while Blast and Blaze could be put back the way they were, that would likely make Fire a bit low on single target damage compared to the other Dom sets, and Fire is supposed to be very high on damage, comparitively. And the difference is minor, certainly nowhere near the change to Flares. Those other attacks still do more damage than they did before, even without a change to the bonus damage, Flares does LESS damage now.

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EVERY fire attack throws fire or uses a conjured firesword. Except flares (and cremate, which I also dislike being recycled as a "new" attack).

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Wait, what? Dominators don't get Fire Sword, and they don't get Cremate. In fact, Cremate was created for Brutes to replace Combustion, presumably because two PBAoEs was felt to be too powerful to a primary damage dealer. And Doms do get Combustion, not Fire Sword Circle.

I don't even use Flares. I checked out the animation change, and it looks to me like the ranged part of the attack is the same, even if the casting animation is different. I never put it back into regular use, though, and I still haven't even though it's "better" now. I don't need the DPS, and I certainly don't need the End cost.

(Also, Flares is bugged, see the other thread. I'm probably not even going to use Flares even if it gets fixed, though. I use it for building Domination, and really, that's it)