Seldom

I have heard there's not much to taking out marauder...just one thing: Psy damage. The guy is resilient against most all else, but psy damage is buttah. I will try to get my seer core superior lore in time, as they are all psy and thus handy for this sort of thing.

To be honest, as of late the focus has been on doing small changes over time, with revisions as the tweaks pan out. This is nice as there are very few reversals/nerfs needed, but frustrating as it's slow.

Look at stalkers- they got their buffs before, now more are in the works. Energy Aura was tweaked, then re-tweaked for performance. The Developers were on a short deadline for the proliferation of poison to corruptors/controllers, with several other powersets being tweaked at the same time. I'm pretty certain they didn't want to slow things down with lots more tweaks (followed by testing) when they could release a slightly better version of an already established set. I also think they wanted to see if the working trap/splash debuffs were good enough.

Now that the splash mechanics/somewhat functional trap (The sapping part is still 'meh') have been released, I do think it's time to revisit the set with it working at the level it was intended to, and still having a few rough edges.

It turns out, Marauder didn't have to wait too long to find the side effects of Neuron's serum.

Neuron, on the other hand....
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Er..this gets into another topic entirely. But in reference to this specific example, like any other buff/debuff pairing is already? Yes, you really should balance a buff/debuff set without assuming it will pair with something else, because in manymany cases it just won't be. Heck, the other night my sonic/sonic was with a brute, no other pairs for it to be 'balanced for.' How do you balance radiation emission for when there is a team of all controllers/ defenders/ corruptors steamrolling task forces?

To be blunt, you don't. You balance for when it's radiation emission on its own. Same goes for sonic resonance. Let's stop thinking about it when stacked with a pairing because that's not a given. I listed the (perceived)weaknesses and possible solutions for them for sonic as a set, on its own. Feel free to point out flaws, bring up differing ideas, but saying a buff/debuff sets' performance is fine because it's great paired when paired with another certain kind of powers is not reasonable until such combos are mandatory.

The reason I say this gets into a different topic entirely is because it goes to how overpowered stacked buff/debuff sets are in almost any propensity in this game, which was something Castle brought up when looking at groups like repeat offenders and all radiation superteams. He concluded there needed to be some kind of diminishing returns calculation on all buff/debuffs, but he didn't want to have to stave off the pitchfork wielding players, so he left it alone. This actually gets to another set- trick arrow. During testing it was common to have a team of all (or almost all) trick archers, and the abilities were downgraded, adjusted in reference to some of the experiences from all trick archer player sessions. As it turned out, the set was weakened but then had more issues when it was alone as the team's lone buff/debuffer.

I guess I didn't say it very well, what I meant was that even at 15' radius, in most situations the debuff would not hit everything, so its impact would be limited. As-is I don't see how a -dam is a big balance concern. Especially considering how other shielding sets *coughCOLDcough* layer shields with FAR more than just -resistance/-damage.

I don't know, the suggestion would do nothing to ranged enemies away from the ally anchor, and could only be used when teamed. It would lower enemy damage output only in direct confrontations.


I agree that in a complimentary role, sonic resonance is quite powerful. But if it is balanced according for anything but what it and it alone can do as a powerset, then you start having issues with performance. As such what it can do for a defense based melee AT is as relevant as how much mitigation it can do with a control archetype locking things down, or with some other archetype healing shielded allies. I'm sorry, but what a team member is bringing is not reliable. Sonic resonance has to be looked at on its own.

Is sonic resonance good? Yes. Is it as good as other shielding sets? Unfortunately not, by virtue of layering mitigation. With each different layer you add in variety, you greatly increase utility and survival. Sonic resonance is just very focused on +/- resistance, but is not substantially better at those in most cases, nor able to back those up with disruptive debuffs/controls/etc, outside of liquefy (long recharge) and repulsion. (requires ally in range, drains endurance to nill with ease) The other shielding sets can do what sonic can pretty well, and more besides. Again, not a bad set, I've never had anything but appreciation when on a team with my sonic character. I can just tell quite well that if I played another of my buff/debuff sets, in many cases the team would be safer.

Only after doing 20 tips and 2 morality mission, proving first he's a villain but not a bad one, and then that he's a worthy hero, record be darned.

Heh. I feel you are not so much talking 'controllers,' but more '/kinetics.' Damage capped characters will always be top at damage, strangely enough. Other combos are more frequently equivalent, or lesser, depending on combinations. Plant/storm might have more of an equivalency with something like a fire^3 dominator, for instance, while a mind/nrg dom and ice/ff controller would be quite different as well.

..................

Back on topic:

As has been mentioned, dominators are all about locking things down then knocking them out. But HOW one does it comes down mostly to the primary, and then the secondary, should it supply mitigation. Mind/ has the best direct control for dominators, but because of that, mind dominators are far more interactive. You have to target things, time things, etc. to supply yourself (and your team) with safety. This is in contrast with patch-based/toggle based controlls like earth/ and electric/ which supply perhaps lower but certainly more continuous/hands off controls.

Secondaries for dominators run the full gamut from /fire and its 'let the primary do the work, I just kill stuff!' to the control heavy sets like /energy and /earth that ragdoll/mez stuff until it's dead leaving you pretty safe.

So it's kind of a non-answer, but dominator powersets heavily skew how a character approaches a fight. "Lock down, then kill" (Or just kill if it can't survive you long enough for you to worry) is as always the rule of thumb, but how you do that depends on your combo of choice.

Which, coincidentally, is great for anything with Kinetics. CJ+Inertial reduction gives so much air control it's almost funny. So good, in fact, that I wonder why they make combat jumping and super-jumping mutually exclusive. Combat jumping is one of the few 'pre-travel' powers that would actually compliment the later travel power.