Alef_infinity

You're taking about a 9-year-old who doesn't play a lot of video games, though. Brute really is easy to pick up. Something like a Claws/WP Brute is good enough for an introduction.

For his second toon, he can probably broaden out and try something else. That'd be a good one for letting him pick whatever he wants to try playing.

You do realize you're making just as unfounded speculations as the rest of us?

I'd be opposed to -kb in the immobilizes, personally.

However, reduced animation times on Propel and Wormhole are pretty uncontroversial. As is increasing Wormhole's radius to the same as other AoE controls and fixing the early notification thing. Moving Wormhole up earlier is also a popular request. Anyway Wormhole doesn't really need any nerfing - it can just be

Also, please, please fix Lift's damage on Controllers. I don't know why they omitted that when they made the fix on Dominators.

As for Dimension Shift, there're just too many ideas for what to do with it. I guess the devs can just do what they see fit, but honestly the fixes proposed earlier in this thread would pretty much mostly fix Gravity for me already.

Eh, mezzes can be more handy for non-Controllers/Dominators than you think. I duo a Dark/Ice Defender with an Elec/Ice Blaster and our holds get decent usage (good for stopping runners, and reducing the odds of a particular mob hitting from 5% to 0%, as well as getting targets out of range of the debuffs/missed by Fearsome Stare), plus we can very easily stack holds on the same target.

And I've seen people posting about getting a fair deal of usage out of Mass Hypnosis and Dominate. However, those indeed are inferior to holds within the Corruptor's primaries and secondaries, let alone Controller versions. The PBAoE confusion is only semi-decent if you're regularly in melee range of large crowds and have the Contagious Confusion proc - the builtin confusion is actually so worthless it's only useful for triggering that proc.

And, no, you can't really reliably sleep AVs with APP Mass Hypnosis. At best, you cna make it perma on Lts.

I'm a bit annoyed that the pessimism from the other thread got dragged into this one too. Powersets've been said to be in the works for Dominators (when asked what those 'big plans' for dominators involved, a redname confirmed it was powersets). It looks like they just aren't ready to do a reveal yet. The lack of details doesn't mean they aren't working on it even right now; just look at how close-lipped they've been about some things they've been working on for over a year or more before doing a reveal.

I mean, power customization, anyone? City of Heroes Freedom? Completely out of the blue announcements of things they've been working on or a long time.

Dark Control, once they put it out, is likely to be as unique as Electrical Control (and out of the blue too), since the devs've apparently been showing a preference for creating fairly unique sets recently. And that'd take a lot more work than a straightforward port of a bunch of stuff. Hell, Earth Assault I don't think turned out like a lot of people would've predicted. So I'm not sure we can really predict readily what'll go into Dark Control or Dark Assault.

As for Illusion Control, I still don't know why it hasn't been ported yet, but they have promised eventual proliferation of all sets that it makes sense to proliferate. It might be that they invested all their Dominator development time into flashy new powersets instead of proliferation, or that they're holding it back for new animations, undecided tweaks, or something else. I don't know.

Given how generally unexpected the latest powerset announcements've been (Titan Weapons, Beam Weapons, Street Justice, Time Manipulation), speculation might turn out useless in the end.

Yeah, I perosnally use HOs to slot Terrify for both damage and fear duration as well. My Mind/Emp already has plenty of recharge in her build, enough that while an additional 6.5% recharge wouldn't hurt, it's not that huge of a deal. She already has perma-hasten without it.

Right now, I'm using 3 Dam/Mez HOs and 3 Acc/Recharge IOs. Not quite as much recharge as Local Man's suggestion, but somewhat more accuracy. I'll have to consider that suggestion, actually. Hmm.

VEATs appear to be more bounded by concept, though. You get limited weapon choices because those're the weapons the Arachnos in-game use. Robotics Masterminds don't have any such concept restrictions.

Not that I use the rifle attacks on my own Robotics MM. >.>

Bonus note for Dark Armor: it has the highest resistance to psionic damage of all armors and protection against all mez types including fear and confusion. Willpower does have some psionic resistance though, and defense too, as well as exotic mez protection. Anyway, either of those you could easily color appropriately.

Since Energy Melee got a mention, I'll bring up Kinetic Melee too.

It might be worth noting that Dark Armor has Cloak of Darkness (which's Weave-level defense), so has just a mite easier time reaching the softcap than the other resistance sets. You might want to mention Burn in Fire Armor, since it's a fairly notable aspect of Fire Armor. While it doesn't exactly add mitigation, it's a huge attraction for many like Shield Charge is for Shield Defense.

Otherwise, pretty good overview.

It affects toggles because toggles constantly reapply their effects while they're running.

I don't see any thematic issues against Sonic doing -dam. Vibrations capable of weakening armor can also weaken muscles and the like. Hell, it'd seem thematically questionable to me if those kinds of vibrations didn't do more than just -res. That always seemed like a rather specific debuff to have exclusively on Sonic (the blast set is fine because it does damage anyway).

-Regen, on the other hand, is definitely more questionable to me.

Only Repulsing Torrent, as per the name, has KB. It's rather skippable. Quick Strike and Burst has KD, which won't really be a problem except against Clockwork and foes lower in level below you.

Refreshing the breakable bubble could be fixed just by making it not stack/refresh if it's already up. And, ideally it wouldn't be stronger than, say, a ST heal from Empathy or Thermal. Still useful for keeping someone on their foot, but it can only do so much on its own.

I wonder how strong FF would be if it got a 'HP bubble' about equal to a ST heal on a shortish duration. Then again, it might not be that overpowered even on a really long or even perma timer--it's only so much HP as a ST heal after all. Thoughts, everyone? And the issue of what power would have to be changed for it. I don't think the tech exists right now to make a power capable of targeting both enemies and allies, but I don't really know that for certain.

I still don't see why they don't just give Dominators Illusion Control already, but I'm interested in what they've got planned post-21.

KB as a control... it's often far less effective control when used improperly, than the powers it's nullifying such as knockdown/debuff patches like Freezing Rain, or debuff toggles like Darkest Night. Hell on my own Bots/Storm MM I seriously dislike my own minions' KB, to the point where I'm considering a reroll.

Again. Peacebringer spamming Solar Flare, negating Darkest Night and Tar Patch, both of which would have helped people kill more rapidly and safely, as well as Ice Storm which helps those foes die as well. And before you accuse me of egotripping, I'll say this: I was the only Defender on a team full of damage. We didn't gain a tank until later and even then we still had some issues. Judging from the number of times I was using Twilight Grasp to heal people seriously down on health, I'm dead certain it'd have be suffered far more deaths without me.

Not only that, but I don't mind if other people kill the mobs in my patches. I don't expect them to 'sit back and admire' them. I expect them to be in there, killing as well. If they wipe out everything before my Ice Storm even finishes, I'll be perfectly happy. Seriously, go on! Add to the light show with your own powers! And, no, that isn't sarcasm. There're reasons I enjoy playing low-damage support but still setting up others to kill more effectively and safely.

Used intelligently, KB can be very effective. I won't dispute that. But I've witnessed a fair number of occasions where it was used in a problematic fashion.

It's too bad. Peacebringer powers really do look spectacular, especially ones like Solar Flare.

But more related to the topic of this thread: I'm most excited about those buffs to Energy Aura and Poison. Those proliferations are great news in general (and I'm eager to see what I suspect will be Dark Control/Dark Assault for Dominators, but who knows!). But it looks like I'll be getting most actual use out of the buffs. I just rolled a KM/NRG Stalker in anticipation of the changes, and I've got a shelved Thugs/Poison that'll get taken off the backburner. Especially if Noxious Gas (the MM version) gets much-needed fixes as well. And Dark Blasters are tickling my mind as well.

Oh, thanks for answering that question. I now have a new trick up my Mind Controller's sleeve.

Hmm, I'll have to test that out sometime today. I have Psy Tornado on my Mind/Emp.

I played with a PB yesterday, on a Dark/Ice Defender. He constantly knocked enemies out of my Tar Patch+Ice Storm, and scattered them all over so that my debuff toggle only affected a few spread out enemies. We died a lot. This guy was the team leader.

It isn't just melee ego that hates unfocused use of KB. I really do think Solar Flare has issues having as much KB as it does on one of the primary PBAoE attacks of the AT, though.

How many level shifts do you have? I've heard some people comment during the trials I partook in that they didn't really start feeling useful until they had at least +2.