Alef_infinity
-
Posts
159 -
Joined
-
Stone Armor would work terribly for Stalkers due to Granite's debuffs, I think. Not going to comment on the Invulnerability bit--I simply don't understand the assumptions you're making about that. What exactly are you talking about? PvP? That's in a broken state right now anyway.
-
Permadom will give you permanent mez protection, frequent endurance refills (but also more rapid endurance usage), one-shot holds on bosses (you still get a rapidly recharging ST hold and a long recharge AoE Hold), one-shot confuse on a boss if you target them as the first target for Synaptic Overload, and those levels of recharge will cause all of your controls to be up far more often plus help you attack with your higher damage attacks more often.
So it's up to you whether you want to go for it. Elec might gain less benefit than other sets (no short recharge AoE mezzes that benefit from Domination), but that kind of recharge likely would still benefit it and your Assault set with or without Domination. Plus you're going for /Psi, and more recharge means more uptime for Drain Psyche. -
Quote:Wait, seriously? I'll have to use that trick! Both Terrify and my epic AoE are ED capped for damage (I did some fancy HO slotting to make sure to get good Fear duration too), so this should up my damage in situations where I can't rely on any Containment outside Mass Hypnosis.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
IMO Mind Control is a much better set on Controllers than it is sometimes given credit for. It is also good on Dominators, but in a different way.
Small tip for the near future that took me forever to figure out: Containment bonuses are applied when a power is queued, not when it actually hits. You can cast Mass Hypnosis to sleep a group, and if you then cast 2 powers back to back(like Terrify >> AoE Blast) both of them get bonus Containment damage even though the first blast "should" logically wake up the enemies. -
My biggest guess is Dark Control/Dark Assault. It'd make sense after Dark Blast/Dark Manipulation, but would require more work.
-
I have a level 45 Thugs/Poison MM. This is exciting news. And, yes, definitely need to get some word on what'll happen to the MM Tier 9.
Also, my Elec/Kin goes into melee all of the time and other Electric Controllers do that a lot thanks to their PBAoE drain. So that's three control sets that're naturally at home in melee range. And there're already Corruptors crazy enough to get up close and personal with Kin, Rad, and other melee oriented sets, without the additional safety of controls. -
In my experiences, Empathy loves recharge. Thus Doctored Wounds is the best set ever for it.
Seriously, though, you can get ED capped heal and recharge with five Doctored Wounds (slotting everything but the triple), which's invaluable in Adrenalin Boost and Regeneration Aura. You shouldn't need that extra recharge IO in Heal Other, by the way.
In my experiences, you can generally get alway with one-slotting Resurrect. Very occasionally when things really go to hell, you get teammates dying faster than you can resurrect them which's a bummer, but that'd be an issue even with three recharge in Resurrect. For most situations, it's not really something to worry about.
I don't know that I'd bother to six-slot Efficacy Adaptor into Recovery Aura when you can slot Doctored Wounds five times in your healing powers and hit the rule of five for the 5% recharge bonus. I personally wasn't able to afford the slots to put more than three recharge into Recovery Aura on my Mind/Empathy controller, but I've noticed its base unmodified recovery seemed to be enough to mostly make endurance woes go away. You can still frankenslot for endurance modification and recharge or something if you want, but I'd say recharge's the most important thing.
Fortitude kinda wants more recharge than four Luck of the Gambler can really give. I actually just four-slotted mine with the Luck recharge global and then three Membrane HOs (maximizing defense, to-hit buff, and recharge).
Overall I'd suggest as many recharge set bonuses as you can reasonably afford, but this is coming from the perspective of a controller. You might be able to benefit from ranged defense instead (Energy Blast has room for five Thunderstrikes for example), but it's up to you whether you want more personal survival or more team buffage. Perma AB is a beautiful thing, but it takes a lot of global recharge. And I do mean a lot.
...I guess the short version of this post is "More recharge." Heh. That's the thing for a set like Empathy with really good buffs on really long recharge timers though. It really benefits from recharge. -
Heh, you're welcome. And, yeah, I'm extremely familiar with the Doctored Wounds, thanks in large part to my Mind/Empathy's build featuring four of them.
And, hmm, Infini's proposed build... interesting. 2.5% recharge really is an insignificant loss with as much recharge as you'll be throwing around especially with stacked Siphon Speeds. The fitness pool's still overslotted in my mind, but that's a personal taste. With a heal like Transfusion, one might as well forget about regen virtually entirely, and well slotted Conductive Aura and Transferences does a lot to migrate the need for extra Stamina slots. I took those Fitness slots away to improve Conductive Aura and adjusted Transference to reach the ED cap for endmod.
I do think the drains should be ED capped for Endmod--that helps greatly with drain speed. Also keep in mind that Chain Fences knocks off 10% just by itself and is the largest spammable source of -recovery available. It's pretty useful.
This build sacrifices any possibility of damage in the ST hold. Well, I suppose Electric Control isn't really the best for soloing speed anyway, and a good Fulcrum Shift pretty much does a lot to reduce the need to slot for damage slotting.
You can easily afford to replace one of the -KB IOs with a different Zephyr IO just to make it a bit cheaper. -8 doesn't really make much difference, since -4 and -12 are the actually meaningful margins in this game.
Here's my proposed variation upon Infini's build (set bonuses left out because very little has changed there due to it being a very minor tweak):
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Samantha Shocking: Level 50 Mutation Controller
Primary Power Set: Electric Control
Secondary Power Set: Kinetics
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Ice Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Tesla Cage -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(3), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(9), Lock-%Hold(17), Lock-Rchg/Hold(21), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37)
Level 1: Transfusion -- Acc-I(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal(31), Dct'dW-Rchg(37), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(43)
Level 2: Siphon Power -- Acc-I(A)
Level 4: Chain Fences -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(5), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(5), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(23), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(31)
Level 6: Jolting Chain -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(7)
Level 8: Conductive Aura -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(9), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(17), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(40)
Level 10: Siphon Speed -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(11), RechRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 12: Static Field -- FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(A), FtnHyp-Acc/Rchg(13), FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg(13), FtnHyp-Sleep/EndRdx(21), FtnHyp-Sleep(34)
Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(15)
Level 16: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(43)
Level 18: Paralyzing Blast -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(19), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(19), Lock-Rchg/Hold(23), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37), Lock-%Hold(46)
Level 20: Speed Boost -- EndMod-I(A)
Level 22: Increase Density -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 24: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(25), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 26: Synaptic Overload -- CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg(A), CoPers-Acc/Rchg(27), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx(27), CoPers-Conf/Rchg(29), CoPers-Conf%(34), CoPers-Conf(43)
Level 28: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Zephyr-Travel(34), Zephyr-ResKB(46)
Level 30: Tactics -- Rec'dRet-Pcptn(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit(40), HO:Cyto(46)
Level 32: Gremlins -- BldM'dt-Acc(A), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(33), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(33), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(40), BldM'dt-Dmg(45)
Level 35: Transference -- Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(36)
Level 38: Fulcrum Shift -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(39), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Ice Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(50), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(45), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Ice Storm -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Dam%(50)
Level 49: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 50: Spiritual Core Paragon
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 1: Sprint -- Clrty-Stlth(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A)
Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1451;709;1418;HEX;| |78DA6593594F135114C7EFB4456801692985B2549682856E42D46713116385C61A1| |2B7883894C14EACD3A61D8CBCF9015CD0E893C1ED0B18B7E86711DFDC51C017D797| |7AE67F6E654827EDFCEE9C39FB3993BE72A84988AB0784E21DCFABE5F2EC78C1304| |B857C5E2B35A4174DD5D40B866F5ABDA41A664EED9BCE15B21775E342BD1022BCA5| |59354A4EE4B5AC59D2B35541D0A6737071612139A91B9AA967CBBE9491D34A9A612| |6AB074FA6400EA68B9A36DF82E394A6CE6BA5724E2F36559F8B14DA87879471592F| |EB737A5E3797BC13453D9B4C65B5D9B45A36B5D25290B28BD2FF9D57C8AB52277E3| |88418138E9F40C31FC0FB1768FB050CFE0626149B559780D59462C19306761D0306| |33407412384C774558A615A1B0D57B0AEF64472EE732B45CB7197780F6BBECEF16F| |081D4EB58DD51B7020F3B1E321E011F49A15E410867FD35AEE33AD7B10C446E0247| |48C5AD38A0E7E6543C8C600CE8617C227F8D32BFC653306D3ACD38C97D3903F49F0| |00668E8CD0AE7D7CC1E766E4398145AD89FD2F20636D155E03345F2C996FA7810AD| |3C88561E44FBB60924782C4729989FAD84BF0F2152240A4851A0831E42C247513B6| |45A1D017432E8E5BEFA812F14BC5306EF3C07CF5DB38CF340CF0C97A972CA673923| |72DB2DDD76B3DB7EAE29F116F09342482A84561C56AA917B40623F095D4EB146817| |B65E0DE0DE4DFB7C6F8C65807225F81F82660ADDA005B39076E205498871DE66187| |79D8D62E0EF1C2398778BCBB2562763CA1151C96590CF3228DF0768DF0768D3C06C| |6EE331E004FC92A26AB8B71F971EE6A9CBBFA8C1492727992CF61B3E715E305E325| |FB7B0DB451B746E5E046D95F8FEBFF77463FBA44684B5289D6BC1DAD918CD548F6D| |648F6D548A62C8922256EF432E39212EBE385927BEBDBADAC7BE8AD3450122867D3| |2EB2F6342236ECA261687DB78B78818FFBAD3BFBCD789002CE33B6B36A3BCFD9CEF| |F00EDEEFFD2| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
-
Hmm. I'll break down the issues I can see. My own Elec/Kin's still pretty young (level 23), but I'm basing this critique at least partially off my experiences with Kin overall, my experiences so far, and comments I've seen others make about Elec Control. At the very least, those're points that leaped out at me as things to consider.
1. Your build doesn't really have a lot of endurance drain going on. The related powers're pretty underslotted. This might not be that big of a problem if you aren't planning to rely much on endurance drain. It's rather useful but can by itself be a little slow particularly for fast moving teams.
Overall, I mostly like your build. It accomplishes its goals without sacrificing the most essential powers too much, and the sacrificed powers can be easily fixed with relocating a few superfluous slots. I might just borrow a few ideas (like the Gremlin slotting) to give my own character better ranged defense, though I like Mu Mastery conceptually too much to commit to any of the pools that give Smashing/Lethal.
But if for example you took those slots out of the Fitness pool and put them into Conductive Aura and Transference, I doubt you would really miss the lost recovery (Transference is just too good) and you would add endurance drain back into your toolset. This can be useful for some of the harder targets especially if you're grouped with other electrical characters. On the Synapse TF I was on with my own Elec/Kin and an Elec Melee character, Babbage got drained absolutely dry and stayed that way. Fun times.
And I actually went without the Fitness on my original Kin before inherent Fitness. She did just fine with just Transference. With a free slot of inherent Stamina, Conductive Aura's recovery bonuses, and Static Field's random endurance restoration, you should fare even better on the blue bar.
Or you could toss a couple of slots into Tesla Cage to add a bit more damage. I'm a fan of damage in controllers' single-target holds, but a lot depends on your own usage cases.
2. Doctored Wounds would be better in Transfusion than Regenerative Tissue. As is, it's underslotted for heal. A better slotted heal is likely to serve you better than a slight 10% regen bonus that you probably wouldn't notice very much.
3. Frost Breath's slotting is rather poor but I suspect you're just using it as an IO mule with no intention to actually use it. In which case there's no real problem with that slotting. Or perhaps you're counting on Fulcrum Shift and your overall recharge bonuses to make up for the deficiencies in those parts of the slotting.
I'm personally not a bit fan of cone damage powers on a Kin anyway. There're reasons I rerolled my Kin/Dark Defender as an Elec/Kin (constantly running in to use Kin powers and running out to position and aim cones took up too much time). You might feel differently, though, or simply have no real intentions of using it.
If you're using it mainly as a mule rather than a functional power, with a little rearrangement of power selection order you could try taking Air Superiority or Electric Fence as an attack filler and slot Mako's Bite or Thunderstrike respectively to get that last bit of ranged defense. Just move Combat Jumping up to level 49 or something and take one of those attacks in its place. Vengeance 6-slotted with Red Fortune would also serve nearly as well, leaving you with a slight shortfall (about 0.5%) in ranged defense, and giving your team a very potent buff (including defense) when someone on the team drops.
4. Ice Storm *will* interrupt your Static Field constantly enough to make it not very useful. The pulsing sleep is fairly good at overcoming sleep's usual handicaps, but long duration DoTs still give it trouble. In that case, backup controls such as Synaptic Overload or, actually, endurance drain will be very useful. Otherwise, Static Field will still prove useful for migrating alphas and dealing with overaggro, etc.
5. You could try moving the Celerity +Stealth (or Unbounded Leap's +Stealth which can be cheaper) into one of your Sprint powers and combining that with Superspeed for total stealth. It's not one-click invisibility, but putting a Zephyr -Knockback into Superspeed would free up a slot for other uses. Then again, the convenience of one-click invisibility rather than two-click might be worth the slot for you. -
Quote:Isn't this just a semantic argument?Originally Posted by Texas Justice
I don't think you truly understand what a solo-er really is. Solo players don't team.
There are unteamed players, but that doesn't make them a solo player. It merely makes them an unteamed player. -
It's worth noting that most mez protection powers as far as I'm aware don't allow you to activate them while you're mezzed. Then again, most of them don't restrict your power usage. But yeah, some mez resistance might be nice.
And, yeah, those're some pretty major revamps to the forms. Which's why I'm not really going to push for them. I was mostly just thinking about the possibilities of what'd been said. -
Possible compromise: The flares, mires, and heals could be left separate, but the single-target attacks and the Nova's nukes could be merged with the human form. It'd be nice to have useful attacks in both human and Kheldian forms without gimping ourselves.
Yes, this would mess with people using both sets of ST/AoEs for IO slotting, but I honestly have trouble seeing how they manage it and still have their core powers decently slotted.
...Or, actually, oreso seemed to say something that might leave the best of both camps. Have human powers usable in forms, but leave the form powers as they are. However, that might cause odd balance questions with the doubling of available attack powers in forms. Getting seamless attack chains would become trival. I do think it's worthwhile as a starting place for discussion though.
Hm. Much to discuss, I think. And, honestly, I don't play a PB right now. I play a WS (though I created mine for concept rather than power level reasons). I can say that a fair number of the changes (KD/KU Solar Flare, Seeker tweaks, etc.) proposed here would make PBs more attractive to me. And it might be worth categorizing the suggestions separately into PB-specific things (Solar Flare, Seekers fix, things like that) and changes for Kheldians in general (shift animation time reduction, slotting changes, etc.). Warshades really don't seem to have a lot wrong with them that isn't wrong with Kheldians as a whole anyway, so there's probably not any need for Warshade-specific fixes (other than the oddity of their Cosmic Balance giving them more of what the team already has, and a PB thread isn't really the place for discussion on that).
As for the dwarf mez things, actually I think there might be a way to do this: give the mez protection portition a longer duration but keep it non-stacking. Just look at how the stealth IO procs work for example. Mez protection for, say, 30 seconds or so would let us do some things in other forms at least without necessarily making us completely invulnerable to mezzes. This number could be tweaked - 20 seconds might be a more suitable duration.
I like the idea of frontloaded Cosmic Balance.
Shorter shift times would be great. I haven't really seen much disagreement about this point. The formshifts are pretty dramatic and cool looking, but there're still noticeable pauses in them. And even without that, I think they could easily be shaved down to a second or possibly less and still keep a lot of visual impact. -
Quote:Recall Friend, especially combined with stealth sources (like the Concealment Pool), can significantly speed up a number of tasks (like TFs). It's massively helpful on the Transcendence Trial for example. It's also good for snagging anyone who gets into the zone late (saving them the full trip), yanking people out of trouble now and then (make sure they're okay with it!), repositioning deadies for safer rezzes. In short, it's a very good QoL tool to me and a fair number of other people.Originally Posted by firespray
I purposely left them out because I don't feel that they're worth taking. They are all too situational to be really all that useful to most people, and they can't be used to mule any useful sets.
I really wouldn't discount the Teleport pool. As a concrete example, I can now potentially reach -12 knockback reduction easily on my Dark/Stone tanker just from travel powers (Combat Jumping, Superjump, Recall Friend), and she already has the stealth to make best use of Recall Friend. The Concealment pool would add little as I am planning to emphasize survivability (thus prioritizing defense over recharge). And Recall Friend adds more utility than any other travel power alternatives I can think of (that's slottable with Universal Travel sets).
The previous slotting forced to use up a slot just on a Steadfast -KB to reach -12 protection. So this change already frees up at least one slot.
As for the Medicine pool... I've already seen a fair number of people talking about taking Aid Self on softcapped builds otherwise lacking self-heals, improving their own survivability even further just with one slot. Rezzes are handy and never really need anything more than one slot. I'd consider Heal Other and Stimulant more marginal, but Stimulant at least grants a touch of mez protection on team lacking powers like Clear Mind.. -
Quote:Disregard that wiki. It was deserted by its creators who moved to a site more under their control than Wikia's (since Wikia's high priority on profit's led to it being riddled with malware-infested ads). The more current one is herre.Originally Posted by Misaligned;3183153
Like I have explained before, many of the links to guides are outdated or simply broken. It is beyond frustrating trying to find good, solid, relevant sources of compiled information about some combos and even some ATs in this game. Don't believe me? Take a peak at the CoHwiki article on Dominators:
[urlhttp://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Dominator[/url]
It doesn't even mention IO sets in the part about getting Domination to recharge faster.
After the first few responses, I was not very happy that I had made this thread. Now, I'm glad I did. I have had a few inquiries via PM asking me if I can make a build for a x/x dom similar to the one I did. I usually decline and remind people that I have very little experience with doms. Mostly due to the fact that everyone I knew believed they were an inf sink.
We're lacking in good, relevant information on these forums in the form of guides. Not only that, but our wiki is outdated and needs some love. I fail to see why someone wants to argue about something that really leaves nothing to argue about. I said I made a perma-dom at 36. I said I was told I needed purples and level 50 by people who have been playing this game for years to make this happen. The guide I read was outdated and didn't include half of the sets that made this build possible. And all of this is true.
So while this has not gone like I wanted it to, some good still came of it.
Thanks to all of those who actually read the post and were perhaps inspired to do something that "everyone they know" said couldn't be done.
Cheers!
It's frustrating that the dead Wikia wiki continues to rank so highly in the search rankings. Don't bother updating it, just update the Cohtitan one.
As for the other subject you discussed, it isn't particularly new information, but it probably doesn't come up nearly enough. -
Quote:Uh, 'arcana time' has little to no impact on perma-anything discussions. That server tick delay's really nothing compared to total recharge times and even cast times for pretty much anything you'd want to perma, and you aren't worried about the delay after executing the power, since it's already in effect by the time that delay kicks in. Plus you want wiggle room anyway for all kinds of reasons anyway, and the build has that already.Originally Posted by Novawulfe
Well if you've done the math on it cool, it's just at first glance, it would seem not perma. Have you managed to account in arcana time?
Overall, arcanatime's only of real concern to executing rapid succession of powers (i.e. attack chain discussions). -
Quote:I'd want confirmation of this. From what I've seen, all buffs and debuffs stack additively (that's what gives buff/debuff stacking such enormous power). Some do act on specific formulas such that they don't necessarily act in the manner one might expect--for instance recharge has that whole 'actual recharge time = base recharge time / (1 + total recharge modifiers)' formula. So for example +100% recharges it in half the time and -50% recharges it in twice the time (but if you have 95% recharge slotted in a power, you only end up with +45% recharge in that power after the debuff instead of +95%)Originally Posted by Flints
EDIt: Also I've been told the -dmg% doesn't stack but rather multiplies
Such as 7% on a 100 damage, 93 damage, then another 7%, so on and so forth, I haven't found anything on wiki saying thats true or false, but I'd be cautious of how much you want to depend on it.
But I don't believe +damage/-damage has any such formulas? It's a straightforward percentile increase or decrease. What complicates the whole case is caps for both +damage and -damage, and that damage resistance counts as resistance against damage and resistance buffs/debuffs (it's just that buffs generally get tagged as unresistable since people want to benefit fully from them).
So for example, someone with 90% lethal resistance will resist 90% of your debuff to all lethal damage they deal out. I also believe level modifiers affect it (so if they're higher level the effects will be lessened). But AV resists don't include damage debuffs.
Simple example: you do 50% damage debuff to a +0 AV with 50% energy resistance and no fire resistance. It will deal 25% less energy damage and 50% less fire damage to you. Of course, mobs often have at least some resistance to the primary damage types they deal and smashing/lethal resists are almost as common as smashing/lethal damage. So a lot of your damage debuffs will get resisted.
If it seems weird that resistance to damage acts as resistance to both resistance and damage debuffs (not to mention it'd resist buffs if practically every instance of those buffs didn't get tagged unresistable), blame it on the engine. The more I learn about the engine, the weirder its quirks seem.
Also note that -90% damage debuff (after reductions by resistances and level differences) to an enemy would act the same as 90% damage resistance on you and overall the more -dam you stack the more effective it will be (same as capping your resists or softcapping defense).
EDIT: I just thought of a possible source for this confusion, inspired by a comment I saw in another thread. Damage resistance and damage debuffs don't stack additively. For example, if you resist 50% of their damage and their damage is debuffed -50%, you will basically take 50% of their halved damage, or 25%. Working out to 75% damage reduction, not 100%. But -damage debuffs are additive with other -damage debuffs and resistance buffs are additive with other resistance buffs. -
Quote:I more or less concur with this. Also, Hasten will go nicely with Domination as well as helping your controls and attacks recharge faster. I'm already wishing I had it in my Earth/Fire's build and will be taking it when she reaches 22.Originally Posted by Hot_Head_Mike
I suggest that you use it when ever its up UNLESS there is not much left in the mission or if your far from your enemies. Also if you know you are coming up on a boss save it for him because one hold in domination = pwned boss
If you run into a Kin who gives you Speed Boost, hug them.
-
Quote:Controllers've had Indomitable Will for a long time, and it hasn't been nerfed yet. And it's better for them than Dominators, who already gets periodic mez protection in Domination. Or even permanent with high enough levels of recharge.Originally Posted by Lazarus
My only problem with Psi Mastery is that it looks like it has a huge "nerf me" bullseye on it just because of Indomitable Will.
The numbers on Link Minds are low enough for it not to be imbalancing IMO.
Indomitable Will has the potential to be valuable for non-permadoms. After all, not everyone will have reached that point yet or even want to aim for it at all. Alternating the two mez protection powers would increase coverage.
Psitornado just doesn't feel that strong compared to the other APP AoEs. This could be deceptive due to its DoT nature (not to mention lack of containment on my Mind/Emp), but then again when things're dying fast, that DoT doesn't exactly have time to do its thing...
Of course, there're other nice choices in the APP pools, so it depends on priorities.
Speaking of due for nerf, Sleet looks like the real candidate to me. It's pretty much unaltered from Controller/Corruptor/Defender values. That's kinda absurd compared to other APP powers (if you accept the philosophy of APP powers being weaker than primary/secondary versions, which's another matter). Maybe a doubling of its recharge time--Power Sink and a few other powers gets that. -
Quote:Oh, okay, that explains a lot. I tend to convert my merits into random rolls and sell them on the market.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Every time I say that 300M figure, I mention a lot of merits. The Kinetic Combats ate my merits.
-
Quote:33 base cost, actually. With endurance reduction, it's not hard to reduce that to 20ish (or less if you can manage it, but I couldn't). It's still an expensive heal, but it pretty much resets your HP. In my mind, it's one of the best heals in the game.Originally Posted by Madam_Enigma
Because it also has the most expensive heal to my knowledge. 50 endurance base cost to use dark regen. You may not have enough endurance to activate it, or not enough to activate it without detoggling.
I didn't find the theft of essence +end proc to be particularly expensive. Slotting for recovery isn't that bad either (unique heal IOs aside)--it seems to be the defense bonuses that're expensive. Goodness know you couldn't get Dech's build for 300M anymore--the Kinetic Combat triple alone seems to be going for at least 100M.Quote:All options, assuming you have the inf to spend on IO sets. -
Quote:'XP leech'? Helping a team not suffer loss of XP from debt and lost time from regrouping after defeats is leeching XP? If you feel everyone should have a good mix of offense and defense (like the redside ATs), that's a viewpoint I can understand. It certainly would help in soloing. But it's not like offense light controllers contribute nothing. Also, are you completely ignoring force multiplication?Originally Posted by saltyhero13
Pre containment most set didn’t come into their own until after level 32+. That means you were basically were an XP leech for 32 levels. Move forward to post ED, post Containment, and post APP the chasm between the outliers and the “WAI” sets grew bigger and bigger with each implementation.
I do agree about the target cap being too low on Conductive Aura and the chains not exactly being the same as real AoEs/cones, though. -
Quote:That opens up all kinds of strategies then, especially with the power's location based nature. Stuff like throwing it up in advance to prepare for ambushes or out-of-line-of-sight stunts. Static Field spam sounds like an interesting trick on a high recharge build like permadoms or an Electric/Kinetics.Originally Posted by Liliaceae
You can have 2 or even 3 out at once. I used this to test sleeping +3 AVs and it worked quite handily.
I wanted to have a run at the Freedom Phalanx in the RSF but couldn't generate enough interest. I'm pretty sure it will be close to Mind Control at this particular function, and even better in the ITF because you can do it out of line of sight so no worries about healing Nictus.
Yes, I keep reading posts saying that Elec/Kin won't be the best combo, but this is a concept build. And primarily a team character anyway, so the lack of damage's alleviated by buffing other teammates' damage to insane levels. Plus for extra fun, Conductive Aura should help me get away with skipping the Fitness Pool even in the pre-35 levels. I'll be dealing with team sized spawns anyway.
This is looking like fun. Knockdown spamming, sleep field spamming, draining, confusing, kinetics stuff. Gods, that'll be crazy busy (though I'm used to crazy busy from playing a Mind/Emp). Plus I can get Power Sink from the Mu Mastery pool. I took a look at the Primal Forces pool because of Power Boost, but it has a cone attack (bad combo with Kin) and Power boost comes late. Plus Mu Mastery is electricity themed and not only helps with drain but also has a decent AoE and Power Sink. Sadly I can't really think of any IC justification for the Mu Guardian, but it sounds like a decent idea for added endurance drain.
Hmm, actually she could be summoning a Mu Guardian from her world. For context, her world was overtaken by a mass brainwashing attack that turned everyone peaceful and kind (yes, that's supposed to be at least a little creepy), so there're possibilities for heroic alternate versions of villain groups that sprung up before that change. Yeah, that actually might be cool, and more endurance drain is nice.
All the stuff about gremlins being massive aggro maniacs, though... I might have to create a kill-switch bind (/releasepets) to for when they look about to do something urgently stupid. And running Tactics sounds like a bad idea with the increased perception range that'd be granted to the gremlins.
-
Quote:The thing is, there's a core balance issue in that any power you get before level six is pretty useless to a triformer. I don't know of any other powerset combos where this is the case. At most, you're forced to take a less useful power at level 1 from your secondary--and even those less useful powers can have uses before you get your far better powers later on. They aren't outright nonfunctional the way they are on a triformer. And most characters aren't stuck with four useless but mandatory powers.Originally Posted by Microcosm
Last official stated stance was it had been allowed to become a "feature." But, y'know, that still doesn't mean they won't change their minds someday.
If the devs ever fix the ability to retrospectively respec level 3/5 slots into Nova, they really need to rearrange the power order so both human-only and form-shifter Kheldians have viable pre-level 6 power choices. Peacebringers actually get a useful option at level 4 (Essence Boost). Thus, form-shifter PBs're only stuck with two wasted slots rather than four.
Given the work necessary to fix that respec thing, it's probably simpler to just leave it be. But there's a good reason to actually fix both the respec bug and the power ordering: Kheld newbies might not know about that respec 'feature'. Of course, Kheld newbies probably would have trouble finding good ways to slot a weird AT like Kheldians. But still.
More on subject, great guide! Especially the strategy section. It has some useful tricks I wasn't aware of (and I've been guilty of just ducking into Dwarf form to deal iwth mezzes, though I used Break Frees where possible). -
Quote:I've found that if I can get all of my -tohit stacked up on the enemies, I barely need the heals. It's when fights start getting chaotic, anchors dropping, and so on that my undead start dropping (and even then I usually only lose a zombie or two, occasionally a Knight when things get intense). I probably need to develop some strategies to deal with this. Dark Servant should help--my Necro/Dark is 33 or so, but doesn't yet have Dark Servant.Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds
Yeah. The nerf to TG still makes no sense to me.
That said, I've found Aid Other sufficient for keeping all tier pets alive and kicking, myself. Then again, I mainly use it for topping them off between battles; I trust in their damage output and/or other defenses to keep them going in a fight. When my pets start dropping like flies, I usually disengage first, to come back with a full force and a new plan.
Still, if your Necro, you may just want to tough it out until you get the second upgrade - that gives all your pets some form of self heal. If they are still being wiped out after that, then you need to look into alternatives.
Generally, I wait until I'm 25+ to start Frankenslotting. I know that by the numbers, it's wise to do that starting around level 12... but I find it more trouble than its worth before I can start getting the level 25 IOs. After that, its Frankenslot away until I'm ready to work to my final build, around level 45+.
Basically, I just need to develop better strategies, I guess. Indeed, I started seeing better results later in my solo session than early on (I hadn't soloed on her for a long time).
Yeah, I tried frankenslotting early on my Demons/Traps. But only got as far as partially slotting up the tier 1 pets. Just playing her's better, she's been getting levels quickly enough. I gave up and just threw DOs into her powers. -
A word of clarification: from what I've read, it seems both heroes and villains can grab APPs. Even PPPs only require you having done a patron arc (so a hero could go villainside, do a patron arc, then revert to hero and freely choose between either an APP or a PPP).
-
Quote:Gods know that heal is a huge pain on my Necro/Dark. Maybe I'll try taking it, but the animation time looks too slow to save the tier 1 henchies, though it could work for tier 2 and high.Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds
Yes. I've found that the Mastermind version of Twilight Grasp to be... lacking. The limited radius - necessitating that I be right next to the pet I wish to heal, the inability to use it outside of combat, and the tendency of the Henchmen to bolt out of range after, or for it to miss... just makes it fall short of what I need a MM heal to do. It's great for healing ME, not so much for keeping the pets going. So yeah, I look to Aid Other when I can fit it in, when building for Force Fields, Traps, Trick Arrow... and yes, Dark Miasma.
That said, the Ember Demon is capable of healing, making it easier to skip Aid Other when Demons are involved.
Then again, since the undead are mostly melee oriented, I can just order them to focus on a single target and then heal them there. Still a pain though.
I'm still a little cross about what they did to the MM Twilight Grasp. Rather an annoying nerf.
Yeah, going to play with that when my Demons/Traps gets to a higher level where it would be more worth taking the time to do frankenslotting (since the early levels go so fast I've found early frankenslotting to not be worth it).Quote:You're welcome. The Whip attacks are great for the Resistance debuff effect, but their damage is just as anemic as all other Mastermind attacks. So you aren't using them for damage - slot Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, and maybe Recharge. Of course, with only a few slots, Frankenslotting may be your best bet...