_D0mbegone

I will say you have a lot of faith. I'm more of a tangibility person myself. To each their own.

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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 don't personally care when the work was/is done. The OBVIOUS time to fix any glaring issues would have been during the first dominator changes Scheduling conflicts are their problem not mine. I understand them, but I'm not compelled to apologize on the behalf of the team for them.

But if waiting until i17 or later meant a total revamp and even the primaries were looked at and a bunch of the issues that weren't fixed were looked at then sure... i'd wait.

Then again, I still think we'll be hearing the same dom complaints and people will want them fixed around i17 anyway.

But that's not really my point.

I'm saying, at some point someone designed /psi assaut. That someone made a set that is pretty lame. Rather than UN-gimp it they just tacked on this super aoe nuke (it was a brand new power at the time) and made it break pretty much every balancing metric established.

So at the time of implementation it was either released as broken (after being ok'd by the boss and QA) or it was WAI.

You generally don't set out with the intention of building a car that burns excess oil or can't pass air care regulations. But that is what someone did with /psi. They built a set designed to fail....

If psw was put in place as a balancing shim for the set with the intention of later going back and correcting the issue that is just ridiculous. You don't set out with the goal of product recalls

"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?"

Honestly? if the set was SOOO badly broken it shouldn't have been released. They should have took the time to fix the foundation and then they could have released it as a "new" set in one of the following issues and everyone would have been thrilled.

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 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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exactly. I think there was still a lot more tweaking that should have happened to the assault sets, but were burried under the overwhelmong "/eng is awesome" landslide.

All well, everthing is still very playable. My perma's don't feel nerfed and leveling so far seems to be less of a drag.

IMO the changes don't really do much, but maybe that is a good thing. I was fearing the worst from Castle from his past work, so to escape relatively unscathed is actually a pretty big win for me and my doms.

I sincerly hope a LOT of people start playing and sticking with doms, I'd hate for so much time/energy to have been spent for no real purpose.

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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.

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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"

Just to play devil's advocate; at what point is "temporary" not temporary any more? I mean it has been in place for over half the life span of the game. Was is designed as a temporary solution with the intent it would always be adjusted in the future? Do people honestly build things with the intent of failure? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'm well aware time is irrelevant to them, just that it doesn't work that way for anyone but them.

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Fire probably made out the worst, relatively speaking. DPE went down relative to the old version, and AoE damage went down compared to before while in Domination. Not that bad really but if you had a /Fire perma-Dom you might be wishing for the old version back.

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I couldn't disagree more. Firey Embrace combined with higher base damage modifiers and skills with increase damage scales means that Fire Assault is absolutely insane. It's within reason for a perma-Dom to have FE up for 30 out of 50 seconds.

This was a HUGE buff for Fire.

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It is far less insane than you seem to think. You need very high recharge to get FE up ~60% of the time, you really aren't dealing much more damage than a perma dom with FE up 60% of the time did on live.
*with the rech required to get FE up that much you were perma dom.

A bit more damage for sure, but the damage boost is not as large as the end consumption increase.

FE+souldrain and/or reds and now we are cooking with heat.

For me /fire is a bit better under extreme recharge, but actually worse under low recharge. Part of that is because I don't like the flares animation and it is now a staple attack.

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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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I love the /Ice users complaining about end use when only the aoe on /ice was changed.

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This. Everyone is complaining about end use issues even if their endurance was never changed at all. Some had end changes but overall everyone that was no perma-dom had endurance efficiency boosts.

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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.

Just as we were told it is a damage buff and even at levels were that buff is virtually indistinguishable and often less powerful than if you had domination up; people expect their damage to be better. And it is.

I'm not sure why people doubt that perception means everything. Even when it runs counter to reality it still prevails.

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Well considering it's been admitted that there's a BUG causing doms to do more damage than intended, I'm not sure what the arguing is about. Once that's fixed, they'll still do much better damage than before. They just won't do more damage than a blaster, while also having a plethora of mezzes....becaused that IS overpowered.

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this.

But bare in mind some people argued that insta-full fury w/ and endurance sapping power on brutes finally made them perform how they should

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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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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.

That's like when people use the word they are defining in their definition.

*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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but now the secondaries suck so much endurance that youre constantly resting while the rest of the group moves on

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Play with a kin, they are almost as beneficial to doms now as they are to stone armor

I'd suggest that if new doms need significant hand holding then the changes probably don't get the job done.

What I mean is that if the aoe immobs are a problem then the problem needs to be addressed rather than relying on experienced players to circumvent it.

But I'm convinced that some work needed to be performed on the primaries (other than mind) for it to be a successful revamp because many of the dominator issues stem from their control based powers.

It is fine to correct anyone spreading misinformation, I think that goes without saying for every aspect of the game.

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Socket end redux. In your attacks. Most brutes can work it out, c'mon.

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This.

but you also need recharge slotted now that they have longer base rech. Can't forget acc and dam slotting too.

IO's aren't required, but they are pretty dang close to being necessary on doms.

It's a bit easier on brutes, they pull about 29 DPE with fury and dam slotting whereas doms sit around 20 DPE. Dominator "controls" also plow through end waaaay faster than brute armors.

Fury allows for such solid DPE that many brutes barely even slot for damage enhancement until well into the game. While a brute is capable of dedicating 3 slots to end reduction if they so choose without gimping their damage it would seem a dom only has ONE slot to spare (1acc, 3dam, 1rech, 1end).

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Good advice Evil Ryu.

It very clearly is a buff (on my 50s of GRav/NRG and Fire/Fire but also my lowbie Earth/Thorns.) That some people still aren't satisfied, even after Castle reinstated the low-damage puffball Tier 1 attacks so that you can feel busy even if you aren't really doing anything, shows that you just can't please everyone.

Do people REALLY want to spend a little less end at the cost of taking one-and-a-half times as long to kill something (as some of the recent complaints seem to indicate)? Weird...

I think the changes were pretty well balanced and reasoned out and an honest attempt to make almost everyone happy.

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Running out of endurance frequently is a serious PITA and imo unacceptable once you start to mature your build.

Short of nearly faceplanting every spawn, being an end pig is probably one of the biggest turnoffs a toon can have.

Fortunately, doms have domination and powersink. Mine need both.

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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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After playing around with my new issue 15 confuse, all I have to say is "Just Perfect"! Goes to show, that the devs do listen to feedback, if it is presented in an accurate and informed manner ;-)

For those that don't know, Mind Control's single target confuse called 'Confuse' had its activation time almost halved to match deceive. Super.

If you remember how long the old version used to take to work, I strongly suggest you try it out again.

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Yes it is nice that it finally matches its clone power after 5 years.

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I see stalker shields being like how solid snake hides in that freaking cardboard box and no one knows he is there. It would definately look stupid.

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Fixed that for you.

However, it wouldn't be as stupid as Electric Armor.

[/ QUOTE ] Why is Electric Armor stupid? I'm pretty new to stalkers so I have no idea what yall are talking about when you say that.

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Aside from not being a very good set in terms of performance - res isn't great on stalkers, no heal, no real tricks (cause powersink alone can't sap well enough).

It also makes very little sense for a lightbulb to hide in the shadows considering lights eliminate shadows.

Conceptually a shield generating some sort of cloaking field (tech), or bending light (tech, or magic), or just magically covering the stalker, or even a wall of camoflague to hide behind works waaaaay better than electric armor for the Stalker AT.

Basically, shields were cast off by the devs as "not making conceptual sense", yet electric armor laughs in the face of that theory.

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Why even do interviews about Going Rogue if you're not going to reveal anything? More and more convinced it'll release 2010.

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First quarter 2010, AT THE EARLIEST, is my guess. My spider-sense is telling me this thing is a very long ways away no matter how you slice it.

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The comment regarding having not scoped out all the costume pieces that will be available with GR in particular has me agreeing with you.

Sounds like it's earlier in development than I initially believed with the first announcement.


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The first announcement was required to extinguish the flames caused by the MA fallout.

It was also purposefully labeled i16 to get people in a state of maximum buzz. They let that party go on until pretty much everyone had done a keg stand or two and most had passed out. Then "oops, some wires were crossed..." right....

We'll be lucky to have i16 before the xmas season.

I put GR at end of Q1 2010. That conveniently puts it in the 4-6 month post CO launch range, which just so happens to be right where it should strategically be placed to gain maximum converts.

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How do you read > use sleet on every spawn < and then state that I think it is useless?

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You tell me. You wrote:

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cast sleet on each spawn (infrig, benumb, snow) are largely useless in spawn to spawn play

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Perhaps you should be a bit more clear in your own words which of those powers you considered useless? Just the ones in parenthesis? So fine, you're not quite as idiotic to think Sleet is useless. Congratulations, you've graduated 2nd grade and I apologize for not being able to decipher your post earlier. Not to impugn your grammar, but try some commas for clarity next time, because your OP really read like you thought Sleet was part of the useless group.

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OP
"On many team encounters this is how complicated each set is:
cold
buff all friends with 4 min shields, toggle up fog, cast sleet on each spawn (infrig, benumb, snow) are largely useless in spawn to spawn play."

Ya it did need punctuation between "each spawn" and the bracket. But the way you read it you may as well suggest that I said the buffs and aura were useless too

It really wasn't hard to read OR understand. ESPECIALLY if you bothered to read the comments about FF and then apply some reading comprehension back onto what was stated. I did miss the punctuation though, my bad. But it pretty clearly is NOT suggesting that sleet is useless.

And even if it was the very last line of my OP says... wait for it....

"That said sleet is really really good and is reason enough to go cold over FF imo. "

(Read a comment to completion before going on the prowl. My friendly advice for the day).

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Now, tell me why Snow Storm is useless.


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It's a fine power, just not worth casting in spawn to spawn action. It is awesome in a protracted fight, but that isn't what I was talking about now is it?

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Heat loss is a 360 base rech, that means 180 with full slotting. 90 up, 30 down is a solid IO build with haste, is that the baseline standard?

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What are you going to prioritize Heal Loss with over recharge? You should be ED capped on the recharge, preferably with End Mod sets. In my own build, w/just 3 slots I have +53% accuracy and just a 26 sec downtime when Hasten is up. Even w/just SOs, 1~2 Acc, 3 Rech and maybe an End Mod should be the standard slotting. And why would any sensible Cold defender not take Hasten? You might not want Benumb every fight, but for the fights yo want it for, you damn well want it coming up as fast as possible, not to mention for Sleet & Heat Loss (and Frostwork for those who take it) that are greatly aided by Hasten.

90 up, 30 down is quite reasonable. And those 30 sec start w/a full end bar, so it's not like everyone has to stand still for the interim. Even if you disagree with all that, you're still talking about a power w/a base recharge a lot faster than Recovery Aura. Therefore, if you don't consider Heat Loss not part of "regular play", whatever that means, that means you would consider RA even less a part of regular play. Downright useless, that Recovery Aura!

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Hasten is a great power, but it should never be considered the base line. I personally consider hasten and 60% global rech the standard for pretty much all my builds, but that isn't applicable or appropriate to everyone.

A 120 sec rech of HL indicates 200% recharge slotting. You get 96% from slotting rech, you still need 104%. That is a decent IO build exactly like I SAID.

You're right I don't consider RA's part of a spawn to spawn power selection. They are amazing powers just like HL, but the recharge means they aren't up every spawn, or even every second spawn, or even every third spawn. They should be cast when appropriate though JUST like HL (oh ya I said that already too ).

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Your disdain for Infrig & Benumb is also remarkable. Of course Benumb is usually saved for EBs and above, but why wouldn't you want to Infrig a boss? Or do you only fight minions & lts on your teams? What exactly do you do in your capacity as a Cold defender anyway, put shields & Fog up, cast Sleet and twiddle your thumbs? I assume you at least throw in an attack or two, but you might wanna try putting up Snow Storm first, maybe hitting a boss w/Infrig, before giving your best blaster impersonation.

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I never gave any indication that I disdain benumb or infrig, but they are useless in spawn to spawn action on a full team. They are also amazing powers that are vital to solo, small team, AV's, or tough encounters and I never said otherwise. But they are not useful in the specific scenario I was talking about, which is full teams rapidly moving from spawn to spawn.

I'm not sure if I can break it down to any simpler terms.

I just figured this feature was so they didn't have to do the work required to make an actual shapeshifting powerset.

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cast sleet on each spawn (infrig, benumb, snow) are largely useless in spawn to spawn play

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Let me get this straight, Sleet & Snow Storm are useless from spawn to spawn? Really?

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Heat loss is nice, but the uber rech means it isn't part of 'regular' play, but cast it when needed; it is great.

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So 90 sec up (of infinite end), 30 sec down isn't good enough for you? I guess Recovery Aura is even less part of "regular" play.

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cast repulsion bomb on each spawn.

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Oh, much more useful from spawn to spawn, I'm sure.

Note, I'm not trying to knock FF, but if this is how you view the two sets, you really don't know how to fully utilize Cold.

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Did you even read the post you were responding to?

How do you read > use sleet on every spawn < and then state that I think it is useless?

Heat loss is a 360 base rech, that means 180 with full slotting. 90 up, 30 down is a solid IO build with haste, is that the baseline standard?
So ya casting it once every 3 MINUTES is the definition of not being an every spawn or "regularly used" power.

Maybe read what I wrote again, I wasn't talking about how the sets are used in tough situations, or solo. I was talking about solid 8 man spawn to spawn crushing.

If you are doing much more than casting sleet before attacking you are wasting your time (In addition to keeping everyone buffed and arc fog going). Then again I see some people using infrig+benumb on luts maybe you're one of them.

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Interesting insteresting stuff, wow, I never knew/thought about/considered this stuff. It makes sense that the rech time would start after the animation, i just always automatically assumed it started at the beginning of the animation. I don't have efence in my current rad/son build (took the psi epp for set muling) but I wonder if adding screech into the attack chain would increase the -res (screech has a hefty 12s -res effect). Interesting stuff guys, thanks!! Back to the drawing board for me.

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Screech should be on your team AV killing chain. Jeez I haven't looked at this stuff in a while, but iirc a screech chain hovers between 5 and 7 stacks of the -res (the 7th is very very short though). Which means you are adding at least 100% -res (usually 120%) so doubling everyone's damage.

An AV solo'ing chain won't use it. The avg higher -res doesn't make up for the damage you lose due to the 1.72 sec cast. Although you will have the stun double stacked the whole time so when the ptod drop the AV will be stunned, but that extra mitigation is generally unneeded on a solid AV killing build.

Given your high level of recharge you'll be able to slip dominate in place of efence. Dom can take a purple hold damage proc too!
In a chain of shriek>scream>shriek>dom the purple proc in dom will add ~15 dps to your end damage (including -res).

Using dominate will do a similar thing as screech in that when the ptod lower the AV will be held. However, the reason Efence is "better" is because the immob will keep the AV in one spot the entire fight.

Most AV solo'ing (ranged) builds go for high ranged defense. Ranged defense is pretty useless if/when the AV uses a melee attack. Time spent moving away/around a mobile AV is generally lost dps.

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I didn't try slotting range, no. It didn't occur to me that it would make any difference - I always found that mobs in the late game tended to have pretty long ranges on their powers anyway. Even if it had, though, I wouldn't have had the slots for it - I only had room to give it 4 slots total. It wouldn't have lasted long enough, been accurate enough, or recharged at any reasonable pace if I had had to devote 2 slots to range.

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The aoe sleeps all have standard accuracy so you don't need to compensate like normal aoe controls.

You literally need it to last for about 5-7 seconds no longer. It has base 17 seconds. If it isn't lasting long enough you are fighting some serious +con enemies.

At 60ft base range you'll often over compensate and be standing at 40ish ft when you cast it. That DOES open you up for retaliatory cones/aoes in addition to their normal long range attacks. The same way (more or less) that using ice slick in open view does. Though ime the sleep results in way less incoming fire, but ymmv.

4 slots I'd go: acc/rech, acc/rech, rech, range. That puts it up at about the same time as iceslick and gives it range in the mid 70's.

Once again it is flash>jump in for AA>cast slick under feet>profit.

Even if you aren't an AA user the sleep means nothing wakes up until it is flopping from slick (cast from range if no AA). Rather than mobs often standing for a few and attacking before they flop.

Then again I slot a range or two in slick/quake so I can easier use it when lacking LoS obstacles.

But like you said, if you aren't opening up the fights then it will be of little value.

I know it isn't ideal, but did you try slotting 2 ranges in it? that puts it just over 80ft and greatly reduces retaliation.

It still makes ice the weakest alpha set, but at least for me it has allowed me to do the job. As long as it doesn't "miss" for the most part.

I generally don't like to wait for brutes unless necessary. I have an entire primary designed to negate the need for a "tank". Flash freeze for me has allowed my ice control toons to take up the point where they otherwise would struggle when LoS can't be broken.

I end up with moderately reduced alpha mitigation (compared to other sets) and awesome ongoing mitigation rather than crappy alpha and awesome ongoing. I'm ok with that.

It works, but I'd definitely recommend someone try it before they buy it.

On many team encounters this is how complicated each set is:
cold
buff all friends with 4 min shields, toggle up fog, cast sleet on each spawn (infrig, benumb, snow) are largely useless in spawn to spawn play. Heat loss is nice, but the uber rech means it isn't part of 'regular' play, but cast it when needed; it is great.

FF
buff all friends with 4 min shields. Toggle up disp bubble, cast repulsion bomb on each spawn. (all the other powers are largely useless in spawn to spawn play).

Really the game is so easy in full teams that neither set is very involving.

That said sleet is really really good and is reason enough to go cold over FF imo.

If ice control had mass hyp I'm sure it would be better than flash freeze. Seeing how it doesn't...

That said the 0.25 delay is greatly overplayed on these forums. I can honestly say I've never had any problems with it on my sonic blaster or my /sonic def and siren's song is even shorter range.

Ya it'd be nice if it didn't give any chance for retaliation, but in practice it is usually a non factor. When you get hammered vs Masshyp is when you MISS because all the sleeps notify and mass hyp doesn't. The notify on a miss seems to get you way more agro then the delay ime. A miss notifies everyone near the "missed" target and they all take a pot shot before the sleep. If you don't miss anything you rarely take any damage.

That said I'm curious as I've always felt my ice troller and ice dom struggle with alphas (unless LoS can be used for iceslick). What do ice people alpha with on teams? or do most ice users just sit back and wait for someone else to carry the team?

I only ask because ice is unquestionably the strongest control set over time, but seriously lacks in alpha mitigation.

I've found flashfreeze to fill that hole decently (not perfectly). Like I said flash puts them out until AA can affect them and they don't wake up until they are knocked down from ice slick. It tends to work very well on team sized spawns. Better than just running in with AA or opening with slick from plain sight and dying... for me at least.

So how to ice users take an alpha in plain sight?