Jade_Dragon

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Don't exagerrate.

Psi while having better single target, is still pretty crappy single target relative to what else is available for doms.

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Well, most people were reporting that they have a MUCH easier time levelling in the early levels, so I took that to mean single target damage is considerably improved. Mind Probe also does the same damage as Havoc Punch and Bone Smasher, and TK Thrust now does damage, like Power Push. I took that to mean its performance is, if not as good as Energy, somewhat the same in the way it has been changed. (More damage, more End cost)

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Psi isn't one of the sets I've played. However, in comparison to the way Psi used to perform, it would feel somewhat weaker, since it's not doing massive amounts of AoE any more. This may make it seem like it's not doing much more ST, when it fact you're not going to get the same kind of damage from ST anyway.

Fire, of course, is still fire. In fact, even Energy could be hard pressed to compete with that since it's single target, and costs more Endurance, besides.

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It is self fulfilling prophecy. The idea that they have end issues has gotten out and now people expect to have end issues. And they do.

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And of course, now that the rumor has gotten out that the increased End cost is to pay for the increased damage FOR ALL DOMINATORS, that's exactly what people see. Never mind that Energy Doms are clearly doing much more damage than the other Secondaries, all they see is "I've got more damage, it must be because Doms got more damage".

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What we have now is the clunker. Not the other way around. Then again superspeed was a "bug" left in game for 11 issues. So............

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Well, okay the clunker had a huge engine in it. And who cares about the smog, after all the environment isn't all that important. And your employer just happened to be paying for your oil...

If you think that pressing the PSW button every 4 seconds (or maybe you had it on autofire? ) is better than having a full Power Set with a full selection of attacks, though, that's funny.

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Fire - Although for the most part unchanged, it is using more Endurance than it used to. This is still somewhat better than the other Secondaries, because Fire does so much DoT that doesn't get charged against End, but if you're used to what it was costing you before, you will probably need to reslot. I found it was noticable, but nothing I couldn't deal with just by changing my tactics, avoiding Flares and Combustion, and taking a little more time. Again, damage is great outside of Domination, inside there is not much difference.


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I think your summation is pretty good. Just one question.

Q: how are you avoiding using flares? without either having a massive recharge build, or standing around.

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Well, by "taking a little more time", I pretty much meant standing around, as you said. Honestly, though, I used Levitate, and Confuse to fill in the gaps in my chain. Which considering I have always used those powers, didn't effect my End cost in the least. They are already slotted for End.

I actually never even used Flares, until its animation time was changed. So I just went back to not using it as much. I really didn't need to change my slotting that much, although if I had shifted a whole lot into Flares, I would just shift it back out.

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I dunno, he called it "bugged" isn't bugged a synomyn for "not wai". Deliberate or otherwise, I just personally think it is amusing to listen to the rationalizing.

9? issues is a looooong time to "use a temporary solution"

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*shrug* He also said that "schedule conflicts basically meant it was now or never" which means if he hadn't managed to push it into this release, it might have been pushed back to I17, which means it could have been pushed back even further than that, which means it could have been pushed back even further than that, which means that it might never have been changed.

Would you rather they lock out any Power or Power Set they find that has a bug in it? Would you rather they had prevented anyone from creating a /Psi Dom, or playing any of the ones currently created until they addressed the bug?

The car was running. It might have been smoking, and using oil, but it's better than walking to work. If you can afford the money for a new car, though, would you rather do that or keep driving the old clunker?

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I agree 100%. I'm fine with them changing psw I just think it is hilarious that it was intentionally set up to be too strong, but then later stated to not be working as intended.

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I don't think Castle was saying that it was not working as intended, what he was saying is that it was always intended to be changed. This was a temporary measure until they could look at the Power Set as a whole and fix it. Acknowledging that there is a bug, and saying, "we cannot fix that bug at this time because it would break the whole section of code that it's in" does not mean that eventually the bug and the code that is related to it won't be looked at.

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*note, I still think PSW is overperforming relative to the other pbaoe's that doms have. Actually I know it is, but w/e the game goes on.

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Well, actually, with a higher damage scale than most other PBAoEs with the same recharge and End cost, plus probably the best secondary effect available, and a nice short cast time, (and hitting 16 targets) I'm sure it is still the best PBAoE out there.

Then again, I don't think that was the intent, to take that away. The devs didn't want to make it so PSW was nerfed so it was weaker than any other PBAoE. They wanted to bring it in line with the others, and yet still have it with the reputation of being "the best". And I think that's what the Psi users wanted, too.

I have actually only played /Fire and /Electric myself, but from feedback from the board and my own analysis of the changes I believe this should sum it up:

Energy - Doing considerably better damage than before. The End costs are fairly high, but as you will no longer be limping along on a subpar Secondary, you should be able to compensate. This is really THE single target damage set for Doms, although it still lacks AoE.

Psi - Overall damage has probably gone down, however you should be able to do significant single target damage, pretty close to Energy. No more waiting for 38 and PSW before the set gets good. Still has good AoE with PSW and Psychic Scream, compared to other Secondaries, although nothing compared to what it once was. End cost is much higher, a reslotting strategy is probably wise.

Electric - The only Secondary to get a "nerf", this is primarily limited to the melee attacks and Thunder Strike. The lower End cost for these attacks and their faster recharge should be a noticable advantage, though. Outside of Domination you should see a definately increase overall, doing more damge for more End efficiency. In Domination the damage is a little less, but if you're using ranged attacks and holds a lot you probably won't even notice. (I didn't, and really, I had plenty of End all the time, I never even had any trouble with it)

Fire - Although for the most part unchanged, it is using more Endurance than it used to. This is still somewhat better than the other Secondaries, because Fire does so much DoT that doesn't get charged against End, but if you're used to what it was costing you before, you will probably need to reslot. I found it was noticable, but nothing I couldn't deal with just by changing my tactics, avoiding Flares and Combustion, and taking a little more time. Again, damage is great outside of Domination, inside there is not much difference.

Ice - This set has gone pretty much uneffected. Ice Sword Circle is a much larger radius attack now, but it also costs more End and does less damage. Overall, though, you shouldn't see any more damage in Domination, and you shouldn't see any more End cost. What you'll probably find is that you kill everything before you even get Domination, and thus either don't have the button ready to refill your End bar, or have used it and need it before it can fill again. You can either reslot, or save Domination for End refill.

Thorns - I'm not really sure about Thorns, some feedback has said that they notice the End cost, but it should be somewhere between Ice and Fire. The changes were not really drastic, and certainly aren't anywhere near as drastic as Energy and Psi. So like Fire, you probably shouldn't require a reslot unless you are really annoyed by End cost.

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Sounds intentional to me...having a power that is pretty much Guaranteed KB shouldn't also have high dmg + an acc bonus to it, seems a bit broken. I'm just glad it works in PvE that way...

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Well, one thing to consider is that Energy doesn't have a cone equivalent like Psychic Scream or Static Discharge. Total Focus and Power Burst, among others, also got much more damage than their Blaster equivalents. It may have gotten more single target damage because it has lower AoE damage.

OTOH, Psi Assault also got a much more damaging version of Telekinetic Thrust. It's a melee attack, not ranged, but otherwise has the same knockback effect.

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So far I haven't noticed any endurance issues with my Doms; perhaps the problem is that people never properly slotted them for endurance reduction.

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Amusing story: After playing my Elec for a while yesterday, I though, "Well, actually I think I may have plenty of End. Maybe I'll just remove some of the Enhancements". I was running low in really long AV fights, but I was doing fine popping blues, and never seemed to use End at all normally.

I went and looked in my build, and I have no End Enhancements in any of the attacks. I have three slotted Stamina, and an End in Gravity Distortion because I use it ALL the time as an attack as well as a hold, but I pretty much had nothing to remove.

YMMV, of course. I just thought it was funny.

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Only downside of course is that PSW is almost not worth taking now.

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Well, it's still one of the best PBAoE attacks available to Doms. Ice Sword Circle and Whirling Hands still don't compare (even though Whirling Hands has gotten better) and Thunder Strike, while it does good single target damage, isn't even close on the AoE department. That leaves Combustion and Thorn Burst. Combustion has no secondary effect (except for more damage) and there are still concerns about its End cost. And, well, I am not sure about Thorn Burst, the jury seems still out on it.

Just to make a quick comparison, Doms had 0.65 damage mod ranged and 0.75 melee. Domination gave them a +75% damage buff. If you three slotted your attacks for damage, though, that would give them another 95% damage, buff, so that has to be included when computing the "equivalent" damage mod.

In short, the numbers come out something like this:

------- Old - w/Dom - New
Melee - 0.75 - 1.038 - 1.05
Ranged - 0.65 - 0.9 - 0.95

As you can see, Doms are now doing a little bit more damage than they did previously under Domination. About 5% more at range, and 1% more in melee. However, there's a factor here that's not so obvious. Even though the old Doms with Domination had an equivalent damage scale of 1.038 in melee, when they were buffed, it was only the 0.75 part that was buffed. Now you get the full 1.05 damage scale buffed. So damage buffs are about 40% more powerful now than they used to be. And the damage cap has been raised as well. So on a team a Dom can do way more damage than he used to.

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If you mean that you do slightly less damage with your "aoe" from PSW, then yes. Otherwise, no. Psi got some pretty damn nice damage buffs to make up for the adjustment to PSW's dmg.

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Keep in mind that Psi used to use a LOT less End than it should have, because PSW was treated as a single target attack. In addition, the single target attacks in Psi have all been given more damage, which means more End cost. So the cost of Psi has gone up, plus it is doing much less AoE damage now. If a Psi player was leveraging PSW's AoE, then yes, I can believe the damage has gone down and the End cost has gone up.

Psi recieved a pretty severe nerf. There's no getting around that. Most Psi Doms will probably need to readjust their slotting to get the End costs back under control. The good part is, they will perform a lot more consistently across all levels, and have many more options instead of just spamming PSW to deal with every situation.

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Im not sure about the other sets, but electric assault definatly got the shaft, and im considering stripping her IOs and rolling a /energy dom

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Actually, only the melee attacks and Thunder Strike were effected, so if you use your ranged attacks a lot, you should see no difference. And I actually found with my Grav/Elec that the End costs were somewhat better. Of course, I'm not a perma-Dom, so I was doing more damage outside of Domination, but while in Domination I could tell I was doing about the same, only Havoc Punch just didn't have the "punch" it used to.

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"intentionally bugged"

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Intentionally bugged, that was not intended. Sometimes all we can do is laugh.

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That's my conclusion, really. The Little League team was underperforming, and so the devs went and got a ringer from the NFL to fill in. Okay, it's not really fair to have a grown linebacker from a football team playing on a kid's team, but the team just sucks that bad, you know?

According to Castle, he didn't discover the issue until it had been there for a while, and he decided not to "fix" it. Me, I ask why the developers of CoV put it there in the first place. Either way, it was a ringer.

It's not really a matter of "underpowered". Psi was just fine -- with PSW. Without PSW it was underpowered, though, and that's not a matter of "well, you just don't know how to play". Note no one who says that ever skipped PSW.

Now Psi isn't underpowered, and it isn't underpowered without PSW. Not that you don't still want to take PSW, but it's now acting like a proper AoE attack, while Psi's single target attacks are acting like proper single target attacks.

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Electric Assault = Claws

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Electric Assault = Electric Melee.

Maybe a little faster than that, since Thunder Strike is a mostly ST attack, and recharges faster than the Brute version. But yeah, Electric is fast now.

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It seems like we lost the coolest AOE power in the game for an increase in single target damage which still won't allow us to contribute much DPS when teamed with other ATs that do a lot of damage like Corruptors, Brutes, Stalkers, VEATS, etc.

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That is indeed the case. However, the "coolest AoE attack in the game" was described by one of the devs as "intentionally bugged". As it was doing AoE damage for the End cost and recharge of a single target power, I think this description is accurate.

I'm not a /Psi player myself, but hopeful I can give you an overview of the Dom changes that will help you decide if Psi is still worth it to you.

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Like previously I've only used Psi Dart to pull, is it really worth using as an attack now?

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Yes. It's still a very fast attack, but now does fairly significant damage.

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Do I actually have to take Psychic Scream (gag!)?

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Yes. Psychic Scream also does significant damage, and I believe was put on the Melee damage table instead of Ranged so Psi Doms would still have some measure of the AoE damage they used to have.

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Should I slot up the boosted single target attacks with damage or is it even worth it?

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Yes, it is worth it. You will do more damage both inside and outside of Domination if you slot your attacks now. (In fact, I wouldn't suggest not 3 slotting for damage, if you didn't before)

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Won't the increase in damage from some attacks be meaningless cause of the increased endurance costs?

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Yes, there is an increased Endurance cost, but you are gaining damage outside of Domination, in addition to gaining damage in your single target attacks. In other words, in addition to having Domination-level damage all the time, your single target attacks will now do more damage than they previously did under perma-Dom.

If you are perma-Dom, you will probably find that you are spending way more Endurance for the shift in damage from AoE to single target. OTOH, if you are perma-Dom, you should be getting your End back at the same rate as before. Alternately, you can forget about perma-Dom and try for more End efficiency instead.

There is really no way you can break even in this situation, because PSW was never really costing you as much End as it should have been costing you in the first place. The rest of the set performs better now, but it also uses more End than before. So you might be better off with another Secondary, it's up to you.

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I might be able to put something together. I only did the two for Kheldians because someone suggested it, and there was already animation/VFX there for shape-changing. VEATs don't have any sort of shape-changing powers to pull directly from.

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However, this might be the perfect time to point out that Dominators DO have the perfect shape changing power effect. (Although it's only a shape changing effect if you happen to have tied a costume change to it )

Permadom is no longer "necessary", but can still be useful for the increased holds, mez resistance, and End recovery. As for PSW, it's nowhere near what it used to be, but the rest of the set now does comparable damage to the other Secondaries.

As for the increased damage and End cost, Energy, Psi and Fire are the worst offenders there. Ice is pretty much unchanged (except for a bigger radius Ice Sword Circle) and Electric is actually less damage and lower End cost. (But it still gets a boost to damage outside of Domination)

Well, first off, one nice thing about the Going Rogue concept is that Reformed Villains are NOT Heroes. They are Reformed Villains. So there's nothing wrong with them enslaving the bodies of the dead or blowing up their henchmen in the cause of good, because THEY'RE VILLAINS. They're villains who have switched sides, but there's likely still something wired up a little crazy in their brains...

OTOH, my Ninjas Masterminds is switching back over to the Hero side, because according to my backstory, that's where she came from. She was a private detective in Paragon City who was helped by a villain that she assumed was trying to rob her. Instead, it turned out he was breaking up a Mob hit. She tracked the "villain" back to the Rogue Isles and found out he had gone underground because a worse villain was hunting him. He'd been forced to become a petty thief to survive.

When Going Rogue comes out, her friend will switch sides, and she will too. Her Ninjas are trained martial artists, that she's helped with her detective work, in the past. And they don't die, they have the same Emergency Transporter access she does, so when they're defeated, they just teleport away, just like she does. Sometimes one gets hurt bad enough that he's out of commision for a few weeks, but that's why she has extras in reserve...

Also, she's got Force Fields (a techological gadget developed by another former client of her detective agency) so she can do a fairly good job of keeping even Ninjas on their feet.

I have to admit, Little Bunny Pew Pew is an incredible name.

I have a female werewolf. Who is also a female wrester. Her bodyfriend is also a werewolf, and also a wrestler, so when he escaped from prison (long story) she went with him.

No catgirls, though.

I'm not sure if this is the informed concensus, but I find that it's really easy to pick up attacks and just ignore defenses in the early levels. The problem is, most meleers get some sort of defense at level 1, Stalkers get Hide. There's a little Def in it, but mainly it's just there to activate your Inherent.

I always break my usual rule about always picking up attacks until I get to level 6, and get a defense as soon as possible, either 2 or 4. Havok Punch should do some nice damage as long as you Crit on it, and make up for not taking Charged Brawl. Then when you get Assassin's Shock, well, then you're ready to go.

I'm about this with Scrappers, too. You don't really want to slot defenses until you get to level 22, because nothing but SOs really makes much difference. But the base power is usually pretty good, for the early levels.

Incandescent Strike is essentially Total Focus. Radiant Strike actually does more damage than I thought it did, I was thinking something like Bonesmasher or Stone Mallet, but instead it's more like Greater Ice Sword. (Which amusingly enough is listed as "High" damage. So there you go)

Technical explanation: Incandescent Strike has a DS of 3.56, Radiant Strike 1.96. That's pretty much average for "Extreme" and "High". (Superior goes up to about 2.28, Extreme starts at 2.76, the standard for Sniper attacks. However, you will often see "High" on attacks with as much as 2.12 DS. 1.96 might be the dividing line between High and Superior)

Personally, I consider it more of a comparison within the Power Set. One set's High may do more damage than another set's High, but it'll do less than the same set's Superior.

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Also, Posi's statement does not rule out the distinct possibility that Going Rogue will act like i6 and CoV and be released at the same time as i16... That way, GR is it's own expansion (but not i16) and i16 happens at the same time.

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Yeah, that's my thought, although I don't think GR will be I16. More like I17 or I18.

The only way GR would not be an issue, though, was if the changes were completely independent of the non-GR portions of the game. And if you had to buy GR to access those features. We don't really know that yet. (Plus, it's pretty likely GR will bring with it changes that apply to everyone, even if certain features are limited to the new expansion)

Both of my Kheldians aren't really Kheldians, that's sort of their concept. One is my main Jade Dragon, recreated as a PB. As I couldn't make his powers green, I had to change his name. I will probably just put his colors and powers back to green, once I can.

I will probably keep the explanation that the artifact that gives him his powers was carved from a dead Shadow Cyst. I'll just say the magics that were used to harness the energy turned it green.

My Tri Form supposedly isn't a Kheldian either, but a shape shifter that chose to use the Kheldian forms after seeing them in action. Since his normal color is, like the OP, a combination of gold and white, I will likely make his forms and powers gold as well. I may make the WS version a little darker gold, just to try and be consistent...

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#2 is also on the loading screen, with a really good front view. Looks like some sort of "tribal warrior".

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I always thought he looked like a genie.

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Seconded. In fact, I gave my male genie character that same topknot just from that image.

No idea who he is.

Also, CoV never needed to make up any excess characters, since they usually just use nameless Arachnos goons for that job.

One more comment, #1 isn't very clear, but I think she looks like War Witch. And I'm not sure who on the loading screen she is supposed to look like. (The girl in the pink spandex's hair is too long, and the girl in the shorts behind her, while her outfit kind of looks similar, it is not dark enough. And the girl to the right of Statesman... well... that's Maiden Justice, or I believe that's the concensus. There's a lot in common with her costume and Ms. Liberty's, and in fact in the other pics Ms. Liberty seems to be wearing an even closer variation of it)

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However, because they're now doing high damage all the time... the endurance costs and recharge times of dominator attacks have been increased.

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No, no, no, no, no! This comes up all the time in the linked thread, and please don't keep repeating it.

Energy, Psi, and to a lesser extent Fire and Thorns got damage increases ON THEIR ATTACKS. This is in addition to the base damage boost. The result of this change is that Energy now does WAY more damage than it did before. The change to recharge time and End cost is in balance with these changes, and in proportion to the damage you do. So you use more End, yes, but you also do damage much closer to the way Electric and Psi used to perform on Live.

Electric has been "nerfed", by having some of its melee attacks reduced in damage, and having its recharge and End cost for those attacks also reduced. This means Electric uses less End than it did before, and is faster and is able to make attack chains better. It STILL does more damage than before, outside of Domination, because of the base damage boost.

Psi pretty much shifted from being an all AoE set to now being mainly single target with some AoE, like the other Dom sets. It still has an AoE emphasis, much like Fire, but it's much less than before. It's also not all about PSW. (Meaning you don't have to wait for 38 to start dealing good damage) The end result of these changes, though, is that EVERYTHING uses more End in that set.

All of the above is totally independent of the change to Domination. And in fact, the increase in base damage should make Doms in general more Endurance efficient. Unfortunately, since just about every Dom set has been rebalanced to do more damage with greater recharge, the perception is that Doms are all using much more End now. In fact it is only Energy and Psi, with Fire using a lot more End than on live too. (But then, Fire had an End discount for its DoT effect, so it's still more End efficient than everyone else, just not as efficient as it was)

tl;dr version: If you don't see the power listed on that page linked to, it did not get an End cost and recharge increase.