Jade_Dragon

This is likely one of the reasons Dominators were determined to do better with a "dual Primary" of Control and Damage.

Even so, I find there is a big difference between stunning a foe, immobilizing him or knocking him down, or otherwise disabling his attacks, and actually holding him. Most Control sets also have the capability to do that in addition to holds. The oft-maligned Propel, for instance, is a guaranteed knockback, which means it's a guaranteed damage mitigation. It's not that a Controller or Dominator has these powers in spades, making a Blaster look like a child with a toy in comparison. But then, a Defender's ability with its Buff/Debuffs doesn't overwhelm by a large margin the capabilities of a Controller or Corruptor with those powers, either.

It is primarily a matter of degree. A well slotted hold with Domination running can lock down what a Blaster cannot, for quite a bit longer. Without Domination, the Dom is more like a Blaster, while a Controller has a little better time of it, plus Overpower. The Blaster actually comes pretty close to that, and I think it should, because it needs the ability to defend itself. With just attacks, the Blaster just can't survive to deal the damage. That's been established in testing.

The nice thing about Control sets is, they're consistent, while Blaster Secondaries aren't (try locking down a foe with Fire Manipulation ) and more importantly, they deal damage. The Dom doesn't just have a Secondary full of attacks and some holds, he has two sets with attacks, like a Blaster does. He now has a little bit better control, and a little bit worse damage. He can't make the burst damage a Blaster can with Build Up and Aim, but the Blaster doesn't have an AoE lock down. So I think it's fairly even.

Yeah, if you weren't slotting your attacks you will gain a little bit of damage as you get the "other half" of the Enhancements that weren't providing any boost to your Domination boost. You could boost base damage, but Domination itself could not be boosted. Since the damage is part of base damage now, it gets the full benefit of Build Up or any +Dam cast on you from an ally.

If you'd been leaving off two Dam Enhancements to save slots, you will get about the same effect by slotting only one. If you left off only one, though, it'll probably be best in the end to go ahead and bring it up to 3. Look for some Set IOs, though, you can fit a lot of bonuses into less slots with them, particularly if you mix and match and pick cheap ones no one else wants. (also called "Frankenslotting")

Also, depending on your Secondary, some of your attacks may have increased damage and recharge. If you were trying to slot for fast recharge before, you may need even more to get where you were. I could say more if I knew your Secondary, though. (If you're /Electric, your melee attacks should now be FASTER. So you may not need the recharge)

The fact that the first blast is always really fast recharging and low damage, lower than most others of its kind, and that the second attack is an eye beam, is very reminiscent of Radiation Blast. And the Peacebringer melee powers definately seem a lot like Energy Melee.

While I can certainly see the connection between Dark Blast/Melee/Armor/Miasma and Warshades, however, I think the fact that the Warshade feeds off DEAD foes makes it extremely unique. I don't know of anything else that comes close to that, except possibly Radiation's Fallout.

I'll add that Iridescent Strike pretty much IS Total Focus. It is the same damage scale, End cost and recharge as well as animation. Also, while Orbiting Death is similar to Death Shroud or other melee AoE toggles, it has a 20 foot radius, instead of something like 8 ft. That's impressive, and the first time I saw it in action, I was pretty shocked at how much radius it had. Of course, it's also an aggro magnet, but that's kind of the drawback of having a 20 ft "taunt" aura.

Well, first of all I don't think it's coincidence that of the two Defender Primaries that do not offer any kind of offense bonus to the caster, one of those is not available to Corruptors AT ALL, and the other is replaced with a set with similar powers, but which gives the Corruptor damage bonuses for using his support powers on his allies.

Second, as mentioned, Tankers have a 0.8 base damage modifier, Corruptors are 0.75, and Defenders are 0.65. The attacks themselves are not really the major source of the difference, as Burst attacks really do more damage than any Tanker attack except KO Blow and Total Focus. The real problem with ranged damage is that Sniper attacks, which are the attacks that come closest to those Superior damage melee attacks, have such long animation times.

When you factor in a Defender or Controller's offensive boosts, though, their effective damage is much higher. And in fact, since the Defender gets greater boosts than the Corruptor, the MORE boosts the Defender gets, the closer he comes to equalizing their damage. Tankers, Blasters, Brutes, other ATs, even Controllers and Masterminds to an extent, have about the same level of performance no matter what Primary or Secondary they choose. Only Buff/Debuff has this ability to totally change how much damage the AT does, and Defenders are the AT that depends the most on it.

I'm really convinced that even if Corruptors got Force Field, it would be any more soloable for them. Ask any Mastermind about Bots/FF, and they'll tell you about what it's like to have the lowest damage Mastermind combination through the 18-22 levels. Even Thermal is not particularly popular as a solo set, and it has more -res than FF does.

Force Field is great for what it's great at, but it's not the best at supporting the Defender's Secondary. And the Defender depends on its Primary to support its Secondary. There is a definate lack of design consistency there. And obviously the devs know it, or Pain Domination wouldn't be what it is.

Actually, I'm hoping Going Rogue gives Defenders access to Pain Domination, even if they have to stay Neutral to get it. Maybe we will see a new Force Field that is somewhat the same.

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My current MM has 5 trays open

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I used to have four trays open, then I found the /popmenu command, and now I have it back down to two. I keep the popmenu macro in the second tray, which is in the upper left corner of my screen in 6x2 configuration. And I'm currently working on adding all my pet commands to a second popmenu. (Including being able to issue individual attack orders to each bot)

I'd prefer a Staff, because there is quite a precedent for superheroes using a staff or even dual bo sticks. However, depending on the customization options available for the staff, it might be tipped with a blade, as a spear, or an axe head, as a halberd.

This could even answer the "not another smashing set" complaints, as one or two specific attacks could use the tip as a Lethal attack. Even for a staff with no blade, the tip could be steel-shod, or it could just be the force of the staff concentrated at the point of impact that makes it lethal.

Honestly, considering that Nightwing and even Robin are known for using a staff, it's rather limiting that it's not available in this game. (I've got at least one concept that is supposed to be using a staff, and I know at least one other player whose concept is a staff as well. I happen to think a staff is more of a superhero weapon than a sword is...)

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in theory they could give you a color wheel and let you pick literally any color and it wouldn't be any different than letting you pick the 7 colors that you mentioned, in terms of work.

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Yeah, but in theory you would only have to transmit three bits across the network instead of 24.

Of course, that assumes their network packets are binary, when more likely they are a string of characters, since that's far more common. Since most costume definitions are a string of characters, that's probably what it is. So more than likely they would go ahead and give a full range of color choices (as much as they have for costume colors anyway) and that will be nearly as efficient as 7 colors.

Actually, IIRC there are actually more colors available in the format they use for costume definitions than can actually be selected in the editor.

Don't forget that you can slot your Form powers with End Mod to get somewhat the same effect while in your various forms. I actually use my Nova form to regenerate End.

Yep, BaB broke it, but he explains how here, and that it's going to be fixed. Soon.

It seems like it's related to the fact that NPC critters are using different emotes far more often than they used to.

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Oh, Power Push is a ranged attack?!!! I've tried Blaster's /Energy for a bit and I thought Power Push is a melee attack? I've never tried Enegy Blast or Energy Melee.

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You're thinking of Power Thrust. Power Push is from the Blaster Primary. It's similar, though, just longer range.

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Equal attacks will do about 95% of the damage a blaster would.

Or just look at the ingame numbers and take off ~19% from the dom's pvp stats.

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Okay, that seems to break the PvE ratio where melee is about the same but range is weaker. (by only about 18%)

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Because Elec Assault Thunderstrike was ported over from Blaster Elec Manipulation which does have knockback.

Elec Melee's Thunderstrike was specifically changed to have knockdown instead because it'd be too much of a hindrance to the melee ATs otherwise.

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Blaster and Dominator Thunder Strike also have much lower AoE damage, but a much larger radius. Brute's Thunder Strike is tighter radius, but does much more damage to foes around the target.

The knockback does interfere with the Dom's ability to keep chaining attacks, but if you DO want that foe to get away from you, it is better to have the effect than not to have it. I'd kind of like to see Thunder Strike be a compromise between the two, but given a choice between Blaster and Brute version I think I'll take the Blaster.

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He was talking specifically about pvp. Most of what you said doesn't apply to pvp.

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I guess you're right. The comment seemed to apply to PvE, and I wasn't sure if the next paragraph was referring to the same thing or something different.

If Dominator damage is higher than it should be in PvP, though, then likely it will end up about where it is in PvE, not quite so high as Blasters at range, but about the same or a little more in melee. That's just a guess, though.

Well, there's not really going to be a huge amount of difference. Kin is an offensive buff set, so it can make a Defender play very much like a Blaster. I would say that the damage is probably not going to be a big difference.

The Blaster will have melee attacks, of course. Electric's fairly good for Blapping, from what I understand, not quite Energy, but close. Thunder Strike is quite cool, too. Electric's End drains can give some of it back to you, so that helps keep End costs down. And Tesla Cage is probably the best power in both sets, you can just hold down a foe, close to melee and either Havok Punch or Thunder Strike him.

The Defender will have a heal with Transfusion, and the ability to really drain End with Short Circuit. Since Transfusion is melee only, you will probably want to stay near melee range even though you won't have nearly as much damage in melee. You can pick up a Power Pool attack if you'd like a little supplemental melee damage, though. You certainly will be using Siphon Power a lot (it makes a great pulling tool, as well as boosting your damage, and it stacks, so it helps to slot it for recharge) and once you get Fulcrum Shift you should both have a whole lot of damage, and some defense since you'll be debuffing your foes' damage. Between the heal and the damage debuffs you'll be less fragile than the Blaster, but not as much as say Rad or Dark would make you. You'll have speed, Endurance and firepower, though, so Kin's certainly a great choice.

ID and Speed Boost will be useful to you if you plan to solo, but you can always skip those powers. (or put them in a second build) And the powers that do effect you will do a really great job solo. Personally, I've played Kin a couple of times, and while it's quite powerful, in some ways it bores me. I think my problem was that I didn't want to go the massive End drain route, I was looking for something else, and that's not the best way to run a Kin/Elec. If that sounds like your concept, though, go for it.

The Epics I can't really go into, I've got a few characters in the 40's, but none with Electric. I do know that cone that Blasters get, Static Discharge, is quite cool, I've got the Dominator version of that, and it does a good job of making up for Electric not having a cone normally. I'm guessing Thunder Strike is quite good for Defenders, for all the reasons it's good for Blasters. Especially if you are going to be in melee anyway.

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Psionic Assault is the one set that's really going to notice an increased endurance cost because of the change to Psychic Shockwave.

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I agree. And although for the most part the talk about the perception of End increase was directed to those who shouldn't see a change, or even a decrease, like Ice and Electric, there really is a perception involved in the sets that ARE using End now. The problem is, they weren't using that kind of End before, and you have not slotted to compensate for it, nor are you used to it.

Previously, Electric was as long recharge, high damage on its melee attacks as the other sets are now. Yet, no one complained about that. There had to be people who were using melee-intensive Electric builds, but you didn't hear any of them complain, "I am using WAY more Endurance than other Dominators. It's totally unmanagable, I can't play like this." No, what they said was that they were doing way more damage, and Electric was one of the best Assault sets for damage dealing.

Once you get used to Psi, or Energy, it will be the same thing. Yes, the End cost will be higher, but because you are getting more benefit out of it, in the greater damage, that won't be a problem. End cost can be compensated for a lot better than lack of damage can be compensated for.

Because you still have your old slotting, though, and are still using your experience of the pre-change behavior of the set, you're running out of End. There IS a higher End cost, that's not just perception, but you are more aware of it than if you'd just come to the higher End cost cold, with no previous experience.

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Well, before, if you want Power Boost, Icy [was] a much superior set than Energy Assault but now I think Energy Assault has better ST damage than Icy (maybe...). Icy Assault has two aoe to play with.

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I believe that's the case, too, Ice Slash really isn't anywhere close to dealing the damage of Total Focus, and many of the other attacks seem not quite as strong as Energy. OTOH, Ice has Chilling Embrace, which is quite unique for a Dom. Between that and the built-in slows, you probably have greater protection than usual. Which I'm guessing is why Ice didn't get that much change. At least it does way better damage outside of Domination.

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I am not so sure about Electricity Assault now to be honest. It sort of loses its charm after the changes because other sets have long-recharge attacks now.

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It's funny, Electric use to be the slow set with lots of damage, now it's become the fast one, and different from the others for that. It's not so great a change, though, it's more like it met the others halfway. And its ranged attacks were always kind of fast.

I like Electric, personally, but that may be because the concept of the character is one I've always been attached to.

Electric's snipe is identical to Energy's Snipe. Most of the rest of Electric's attacks are less damage, though, with a faster recharge. Note also that since Build Up boosts Electric's damage with little End cost comparitively, this makes Electric doubly End efficient when compared to Energy.

Energy has Power Push, though, and Power Burst, while Electric has Voltaic Sentinel instead of a Burst attack. Energy lacks a cone attack, but Thunder Strike doesn't really do as much AoE damage as Whirling Hands. So AoE is probably even, or maybe Electric doing a bit more.

The short answer is that Energy probably does do more damage, but pays much more End for it. OTOH, it has Power Boost to increase its hold and other control effects.

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I wasn't making a global statement. Hence 'many' and 'some.'

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Also, I believe it was a statement about the subgroup of people who didn't want the changes. Possibly even the subgroup that wanted no change to PSW.

I think we can say that there were people who wanted there to be no change to PSW, but also that such was probably an unrealistic expectation. It would probably have been better to simply hope for no changes to Dominators at all, ever.

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Why should only Heroes have access to "real" ranged damage? I think it's about dammn time Villains got some ranged damage in there, and no, I don't think it's too much.

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I agree, but I don't really think Doms are the villain "ranged damage". Rather, it's split between Corruptors and Doms. Certainly the main damage dealers on the villain side are meleers, though, Brutes and Stalkers. Whereas on the hero side the damage dealers are Scrappers and Blasters, so there's more spread between melee and range.

Dominators don't do as much damage as Blasters at range, though. They have 0.95 base mod versus 1.125, and have no ranged AoEs or the Tier 9. Where they match Blasters is in melee, where they have 1.05 base mod versus 1.0, and have about the same selection of attacks. Maybe even better, actually.

Corruptors have the long ranged AoE attacks, and ranged damage that's comparable to a Blaster, if you have a good offensive Secondary, but they lack the melee. So you've kind of got Corruptors and Dominators filling in the area where the other is weak, to make a Blaster.

Don't get me wrong, I do a great deal more damage at range than I did, and I really appreciate that. And Sniper attacks, with their higher damage scale, really DO do as much damage as a Blaster. But I can feel just a bit of a difference there. Enough to make me glad I've got my holds, and want to lock down a foe and finish him off in melee.

Well, my Blaster Sandy uses her real name, so I suppose her Preatorian counterpart would too. However, I made for her backstory that while "our" universe's Sandy managed to stop the robotic implants that were trying to turn her into a cyborg, the Preatorian version completed the task. So she's driven insane by the transformation, and doesn't speak or even refer to herself by a name. I've also just been calling my Preatorian counterparts "Preatorian <whatever>". I hadn't actually thought about alternate names.

I tried to come up with a name for a villain version of my main, Jade Dragon, but the best I could come up with was Jade Strangler. I thought of him as a Dominator, holding and suffocating foes with his power. Maybe even making him a Plant Dom.

Let me see though:

Jade Dragon = Draconian Oppressor (eh, still searching for the right word...)
Blue Diamond = Unbreakable
Genie Gold = Devious Djinn
Silver Bolt = White Lightning (being a villain, his counterpart could be a hero, or he might be pretty much the same)
Bloodwolf = The Wolf's Hunter (Bloodwolf would DEFINATELY be a vigilante hunting the so-called "heroes" of this world and taking them out once he found a weakness)
Sandy = Sandy (see above, although she might go by her robotic identifier, SD7784)
Joe Everyman = Man On The Street

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Never mind that Energy Doms are clearly doing much more damage than the other Secondaries

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... and then the six Doms fought more than one foe...

Seriously, Energy is only the king of single target damage, and not by much.

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Well...........

If you introduce AoE into that, you're going to raise End efficiency. Because the more foes you hit with an AoE, the more damage you do, but you still pay the same End. So if you are hitting only one target with an AoE, that is clearly a waste of Endurance, however, if you hit 10 targets with an AoE, then that attack is WAY more efficient than 10 separate single target attacks to hit those 10 targets.

So one could say that the End inefficiency which Energy users are reporting (and even Psi users) is due to their emphasis on single target attacks. Those with greater AoE damage will be spending less End.

The point I was making, though, is that Energy is doing damage above and beyond the boost in base damage from 0.65/0.75 to 0.95/1.05. That is not costing them any more Endurance. The additional damage they do beyond that IS costing them more Endurance. However, their damage prior to the changes was extremely weak, and their End costs were also extremely weak, too. Therefore, as long as they aren't doing any more damage than any other Secondary, they shouldn't be spending any more Endurance than any other Secondary.

To be perfectly honest, most of the comparisons have not been between set to set. It has been mostly how the set behaved before, to how it acts now. Comparing the sets to each other you have to kind of make a guess. Figure what they were before, adjust for how they seem to be acting now, and plug that into the original comparison.

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Is that a hindsight call? Is an aoe that uses st rules not obviously broken to a development team? Hindsight usually indicates some unknown information has been revealed since the occurance. That didn't happen here.

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It wasn't the same group of people. If I understand what happened, the original CoV development team turned out what they turned out, handed in their ID cards, and went on to wherever they went on to. They didn't say to Positron and his team, "Oh, by the way, we really goofed around with PSW, it's a Tier 9 Blaster Nuke stuffed into the place of a Tier 9 Melee Attack. We don't figure anybody will mind."

(And that's actually why I believe PSW was tacked on there. Not because Psi was gimp, because I don't think the devs even realized Psi was gimp. They threw a whole bunch of different powers they made up off the top of their heads together and called it done. And then, because they had no Psi Melee set to draw the Tier 9 from, they stuck Psychic Wail in there. Yeah, Foot Stomp would have been a MUCH better idea. But hindsight is 20/20)

From what I'm guessing, the power had AoE end costs and recharges before, but because no one could stand to take the set to 38, no one knew that. Then Castle, in an attempt to stick a bandaid on the issue, dropped the end and recharge down to single target levels. Was it a kludge? Was it intentionally introducing a known bug to make the set playable? If I'm right, yeah, but a better solution than just telling everyone, two issues after CoV was released, "Sorry, your Psi Doms are all locked to you now, until we can totally redesign them from the ground up with attacks that will actually do some damage."

Plus there's the fact that I fully believe that Electricity Assault was introduced as a testbed for using the longer recharge, higher damage values for melee attacks, so they would have something to datamine. Then, once their data told them Electric went just a little too far, they dialed it back to the current compromise.

Of course, this disagrees with Castle, who never admitted to introducing any of the bugs, just that he found them. I admit that it was a possibility, but I'm not going to accuse Castle of doing something underhanded. Rather, I feel that as I said, it was experimentation, and making changes he could use to datamine.

One thing that you have to understand is that fixes can't be done immediately. Nothing is ever done right the first time, and nothing can be certified 100% free of errors. And when errors are found, you can't just go fix them, first you have to FIND what the problem is. It's a matter of setting priorities. Which do you want, the bugs fixed, or new content?

I'm not saying that Gravity isn't worse off than some other set or doesn't need some work, but one of my favorite things about Wormhole is positioning the exit on the wall or ceiling. Dropping the foes from the sky does seem to cut back the spread of knockback, and it's just cool.

Conceptually speaking, I think Gravity is the best Set. Propel and Wormhole are both just cool to watch. It is unfortunate that the functionality of the set is not at the same level as its coolness factor. (Or maybe that's intentional )

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btw, I have seen plenty of characters with such a combination of recharge and animation time that they still had gaps at high levels. Peacebringers and Katana come to mind, among others.

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While I suppose it is possible to slot around, in general Kheldian forms are not going to have complete chains. They only have four attacks. And it's hard to come up with the slots to spare on Recharge on a Kheldian.

Personally, I consider that an excuse to just form change like crazy.

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I was pokin a funny at you my fine, green,scaley friend.

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Heh.

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If anything the revamp to psw makes it easier to play than before. I've said this about abazillion times. I never relied on 2 powers for success with my /psi dominators.

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Well, I don't think we could have seen a revamp at all without addressing PSW. And no revamp would mean no change to Domination. And those who have not yet reached perma-Dom have appreciated the greater damage. And Psi could have been a LOT worse. It still has the basic feel of before, somewhat fast but still strong ST attacks, good AoE, Psi Dart a bit slower than before, but not so slow as it was during Test.

Awesome? Maybe not as much as it was before. Gimped? Not in any way. Still the best in some areas? Oh, yeah. Still a good choice? With some Primaries, sure.