Anglican

Just a note on dev hate and tanker changes:

1) Hot feet has fear, its one of the main uses of it on fire doms.

2) Strangely, almost every dev is accused of lying and being two faced, etc. Buff me and your are a great game designer, nerf me and you suck in every aspect of a human being.

3) Game balance and realism rarely are able to connect. Naming something "invulnerable" means they cant be hurt at all, while "willpower" means you can lose weight easily by just not eating what you like.

4) I like most of the changes that have happened since I joined. From unyielding becoming mobile, to stopping perma-hasten and perma-unstoppable, to being able to play villains, to the villain VEATS and new zones and TFs. Do I like all the changes and new stuff? No, but everything is continuing to improve. Frankly, Jack made what he wanted in a tank (an unhurtable brick meatshield with no offense), and then backed down when he saw it wasnt fun for people. If anything, I think he learned to not tell the player base that much because if anything changes they will scream bloody murder.

Which leads us to Positron and Castle. I like most of what they (or mainly the staff?) have done. They have boosted doms when the data showed they needed it, they have now buffed stalkers to make them more team viable, and I love the way they worked out the VEATs. I dont care for loot, but understand why they added IOs.

Invul may need some slight changes. Lots of other stuff also needs some changes. Invul is viable, maybe not as good as WP. Its not an emergency, and the numbers will provide the push to make changes if its that big a difference. At some point, you are tweaking rather than fixing, and at that point, you are just rearranging which set is best, not really improving the game.

Something I havent seen discussed which should be in some thoughts is the comparison between resistance and defense, and how easy it is for something to be raised/lowered.

1) Resistance vs defense
Resistance isnt scaled to level, but damage is. So, while defense becomes less effective and it appears resistance stays the same, with the increased damage the same resistance % still lets you take more overall damage. Defense loses out because they are not only easier to hit, they also take more damage (damage being higher hurts defense builds more than resistance builds).

Defense builds get to "skip" status affects like holds because not only do they get mez protection, but they also have to be hit and have a high defense. This seems unfair to mez based ATs like doms and trollers, that they not only have to overcome mez protection, they also have to hit a defense based build multiple times. Mez powers should have enough acc bonus to allow them to be stacked on a def build, as the def build already has as good mez protection as a resistance build.

2) Ease to raise/lower
One problem in balancing powers is the pool powers. For instance, as an invul I can max le/sm resistance fairly easily. However, there isnt any option to raise resistance to fire or nrg attacks. However, a fire tank can get tough from the fighting pool and raise his le/sm resistance and already has better nrg/fire resistance.

In the case of defense vs tohit/acc, to boost tohit/acc you have tactics and FA (epics). To boost defense, you have manuvers, weave, and a tad in combat jumping and a few other powers. The to hit/acc bonus is much larger than the defense bonus. Further, powers within the powerset tend to be very specialized (such as one power to boost melee def, another to boost range def, etc) while FA, tactics, aim, BU, etc tend to boost the acc/to hit of all powers.

Once the devs get the "desired" balance set (as in, how often should max tohit vs max def actually hit), then these other issues need to be thought about.

I missed it, and hate that I did. Sounds like a huge amount of fun to me.

As an idea, on one MMO I played they had a time where the moon turned red, and anything that happened disappeared at the end of the time period. It basically allowed wide open PVP in all zones with no negative impact (ie, no debt) by the end of it.

I think it would be awesome to have a no debt invasion of Paragon City by the Rogue Isle villains. Turn off all debt for a day or so and let anyone PVP in any zone.

I like these type events. Its fun when the big dogs show up and need a spanking.

I really, really wish it had started while I was there

Guess Ill hang around longer at the next one, just in case.

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1) You have the default To Hit value (ie no buffs), your target has no Defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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With it being no added to hit/acc vs no defense, I would expect 50% on both sides or fewer hits (no lower than 35% though). I wont be worried about missing a little more often, with no to hit or acc. Same for defender, I would expect to be hit at most 50% of the time. Even less would not be unreasonable.

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2) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has no defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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With max tohit/acc, I should rarely miss. 5% is about right. On the reverse, I would expect to get eaten up (5% missed).

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3) You have the default To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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This is a hard question. However, I should very rarely hit max defense with no added to hit/acc. Im saying hitting 5% would be reasonable. As a defender with max defense vs no tohit/acc added, I should very rarely get hit.

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4) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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This is harder. Off hand, I would say 50/50. Max vs max = same as default. However, I can see some mitigating circumstances for this. For instance, status effects can be stopped with BFs, melee types have mez protection, AND they cant be hit due to defense. Defense is stronger than resistance in this way, for status effects. Another qualifier is how hard is it to meet the max?

All in all, the main problem I see with defense builds are having more to hit powers (tactics, FA) with a greater effect than defense powers. I think pool powers tend to mess up the balance on some things. For instance, if tanks are balanced where invul is best vs le/SM, and a fire tank is better vs elemental or energy attacks, the fire tank can take tough to round out their Le/SM resistance, while the invul tank cant boost his fire/cold resistance at all.

In the same way, tactics + FA and 3 enhancements in acc tend to remove pure defense as a decent option, while pool defense powers dont seem very effective to me.

On the other hand, I think its wrong that status affects can be avoided with defense builds, while resistance builds end up having mez stacked and their hold protection can be overcome. In other words, an SR scrapper has much better mez protection that an invul tank, unless his entire def is nuked via some power. A dom or controller cant hit them to overcome thier mez resistance via stacking, so they become immune to holds, plus can hit a BF to break the hold on top of it all.

Lots of issue to balance.

I, and I have every reason to believe Im a typical MMORPG player, have no interest in a FPS PVP game. The main attraction I have for the game is the PVE creaction and playing of my character, and watching that character grow in an RPG to the highest level. In a FPS PVP type game you have zero level progression, meaning gear makes the man. For instance, in Doom the BFG9000 or whatever and your reflexes are what make you strong, not the time/levels invested in the character. Its the make and grow your character, and see the progression that makes MMORPGs addictive IMO.

However, where PVP comes in is what do you do after you do all of PVE? When you are max level, and done all the unique missions and the rest are repetitions, then what do you do? PVP, loot, skills/trades are all answers various games have used to try to keep interest after you "finish" the game.

This is why most games which attract players via PVE, also want PVP. One brings them and hooks them, the other provides a reason to stay after you "finish" the game.

IMO, and only in my opinion, PVP adds another dimension to COx that would be sad to lose. Im a 90%+ PVE player, who occasionally enjoys PVP.

The question for the designers of COx, is what do players do after reaching level 50?

Playing alternates/starting new character is an answer. COx is good at encouraging that, and Im a natural alternates person, but it does prevent/discourage some of the social aspects of the MMO (on different server, no longer same level as other friends, etc).

Adding "Loot" is one answer, as once you reach 50 you still may not have collected all the epic level loot. EQ and WOW and others go this route. However, even then, who cares about loot unless its something you get to use.

Continually adding higher level content is some thing that EQ and others have done. The problem is adding more and more programming to an older and older game engine. Its good, but its hard to keep up with the players.

PVP allows for enjoying a max level character well after all the PVE stories are completed. This gives a reward for the loot system, making both better.

Some of the problems I see with PVP is that some powersets play massively different in PVP than PVE. Tanks (for example) are much squishier in PVP than PVE, making someone who plays in PVE pretty upset at their performance in PVP. PVP also lends itself to poor sportsmanship. All competitions have this potenial, but the added inability to hurt a jerk makes them fearless. Last, in an MMO with the variety of powers available in COx, its almost impossible to balance the powersets. As mentioned by Thorizden (old paper DnD reference, if I recall correctly) or Arcana, some powers are not as easily defensed as others. Two examples are slows and stuns. Holds are easily avoided via BFs and even acrobatics and all melee types with mez resistance (and hero Epics), while slows can be countered by kin defender powers only (and ice tanks?). Stuns are stopped by mez protection and BFs, but aid self has a very minimal affect. As stuns are often part of the highest damage attacks in the game, they are very effective in pvp. The difference in a fire blaster and nrg blapper is huge. The difference in a invul/fire tank and a invul/EM tank is huge. A lot of that is the stun+high damage.

This makes the balance thing very difficult. First person shooters avoid this by making almost everyone the same (which I hate the idea of, BTW).

I think COxs needs and should have PVP. I love the fact it is consentual only. I like the backdrop story of the zones, in general (Warburg being the weakest). I like the fact that levels are (mostly) taken out of the PVP mix, and how loot (mostly) is not part of PVP. Yes, HOs and more inspirs/better slotting do make a difference in PVP, but not as much as some gear in some fantasy games.

Clearly, some are better then others, as far as reviewing goes. Xbox mag is clearly NOT going to be that cynical of a reviewer (as every game appears ok), while many third party mags are fairly decent. On a scale of 1-10, they may not give out any 1's (even when deserved), but the games being rated 9 and 10 are almost always great.

I played EQ a lot, and COx is much better in movement (no huge continents to traverse by walking), as well as some penalty for death but not much (cant lose levels from dying, then dying more trying to get your gear back). Its also fairly decent missions and plots from 1-50.

I agree that they need to start making some post 50 and end game content. Shadow shard was supposed to be some of that, I think. Sadly, its a pain to travel around, and while its better now the TFs are too long for me to do them.

Now, I suspect IO is the end game. It will take a long time to fully IO out your toon. The problem is what to do with your tricked out toon? I think something (other than Hami or States/LR TF) needs to be added that makes having a level 50 fully outfitted really cool. Maybe a neat zone that has very tough monsters, where you need ho's, Sho's and IOs to win for some kinda epic powers or something.

Sounds like the incarnates would fit this plan, assuming they still plan on doing those at some point.

Heck, just adding new levels from 50 to 60 with some new power pools would be great.

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Oh dear, I hope this doesn't turn into a battle between the Carebears and the Carebear Cousins. Anyone who's seen Robot Chicken knows how that ends!

*dodges upcoming flames*


(I would've posted a linkie to the YouTube video, but I'm quite confident that it would've been mod-smacked.)

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I just want a temp power that is an cone placate called CB stare. I think it would be hilarious, the FX could be a rainbow affect in the area of the cone.

Personally, I dislike temp powers being more useful than your primary and secondary. Nukes and shivans are over powered to me. Although, summoning temp powers are cool, making them repeatable and the easiest way to beat EBs solo is kinda sad.

Has hami bit the dust yet? Just curious if anyone has actually beaten the Hami at this point, or if new testers can be the ones that break the strategy.

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1) IOs provide a bonus of 7.5% at level 10 through 40% at level 53. Is there a chart showing this progression by level? At what level would an IO out perform an SO?

2) What determines the level of an IO you invent? I was guessing player level, but if L53 IOs can exist that can't be it.

3) Since you don't out level your IOs (you can still get benefit from an IO 4+ levels beneath you) is there also no upward limit to IOs you can slot? If my L10 character had an L53 IO could they slot it?

s.

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There are no level 53 Common Inventions. Commons only exist at 5 level increments starting at 10. Uncommons and Rares can go to 53 though.

It's based on the level of the enemy you defeated to get it.

You can still only slot Enhancements that are 3 levels higher than yourself, so your L10 character can't twink with an L53 IO.

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Ok, now I'm confused. I thought with the lvl 30-50 IOs if you slotted them it would mean you wouldn't need to reslot those powers with new enhancements as you progressed because the IO would scale with you. Is this not the case?

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You don't have to slot in new IO's but the higher lvl ones give a bigger bonus so you will more than likely want to slot them.

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Yeah, theres a chart on paragonwiki showing the %. So, a level 10 schedule B IO may give 5%, a level 40 would give 21.64%, and 50 would be a 23% boost. So, you COULD keep a level 10 IO all the way up, but it wouldnt be that good compared to what you could have. On the other hand, when you made level 14, it wouldnt suddenly drop off the end of the world and provide 0% enhancement.

Please correct me if Im wrong, but it seems to be correct in light of dev statements. Of course, Im sure the numbers can/will change during development, so a 23% could end up 33% or 15%.

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It would be very farmable, which is why I like the idea of adding a Pool B drop to Safeguards/Mayhem's for the mission holder but restricting the drop from those missions to once per day, similar to the HO limit in the LRSF. The Pool B drop could even be restricted to lvl 45+, so that it's only available to those character who no longer have Story Arcs available.

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I like this idea but I see a problem. It's much faster to blitz through a few radio missions and then save the bank, rinse repeat, than to go through a full story arc. Also Safeguard/Mayhem missions already have rewards which have been balanced against the risk and time needed. Adding a new reward to these missions changes the balance the devs have created. I would make this system only work for level 50s who have lost the exp reward from these missions. And also require that all side missions be completed to get the recipe to slow the farming. Might even need more restrictions.
I see B recipes for level 50s being like the Isolator badge. There should be a way to get them, but it should be very difficult.

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If you have already done the story arc, why should it be extra hard to get the reward?

I say, add them to bank missions. You have to do a bunch of newspaper missions, then finally get one bank mission. I think making it only for the 45+ or even 47+ level bank mission would be good, as its really a way to allow level 50's to get this reward.

I guess my take on this is "ok, someone found a cheap way to cheat the system". So what? Does Cryptic lose processing power because too many of these are in circulation?

If anything, a few people get them quickly, and then are in the same exact state as they are in now. The rest of the people playing get something for doing some of the more time consuming content, and get to play with crafting. Crafting is fun to give a level 50 something to do.

As for shivans and nukes, I prefer using primary and secondary powers over temp powers. I fail to see why shivans and nukes are good while letting control powers work is bad. At least a control power is from a dom's primary.

Anyway, how about giving some of these AV's AOE confusion powers? If they confused the shivan, sure would be a lot of fun for people like Ultimus. For that matter, how about an ambush of succubi?

There are better ways to counter an abuse of a power than simply nerfing stuff, or trying to boost AVs to where only two or three sets can fight them (ie, the regen boost where you must have a rad toon in order to win). Clearly, use of the shivan combo'd with taunt and lucks is what is making for the ease of soloing. A strong, autohit defense debuff (-def toggle, for example) or something that would screw up the shivan (AOE confusion say) would work just fine to stop this.

For that matter, write some code when if you summoned a shivan the AV summons a mega-shivan to crush the normal shivan would work just fine and dandy.

By the way, I doubt you get a shivan in 10 minutes. First you have to travel to BB, then travel to each site, then do the base, and then return to where you were going to do the SF/AV encounter. It make take you 10 minutes to get the shivan from inside BB, but I think travel time takes up more than that.

I think one way to stop the shivan abuse is to give one shivan instead of 5.

I have played Meridian 59, mountains of Yserbius (sierra network), EQ, NWN and COx.

I didnt have the money to play a bunch of different ones (kids, house, etc), but I can see some massive improvements that likely came from irritations developed via playing.

For instance, meridian 59 - you start out standing around in gangs hoping for one fricking rat. Nowhere in COx do I see lots of people standing around hoping for one spawn of something. Even when max population, lots more mobs in streets than players. Also, even the weakest critter in COx looks more danagerous than a small rodent.

EQ - Should be called evertrip. Running everywhere, takes forever to go between zones. In COx, generally only have to run through half a zone, then take a train. After level 14, the longest trip is pretty short compared to going anywhere in EQ.

All in all, lots of nice gameplay decisions in COx. People harp on the negative, often forget the positive. Nothing's perfect, but love the fast pace of COx.

Just need to fix travel suppression with some other way of preventing jousting, and we would be gold with dueling flyers and SSers in PVP zones.

The next change is to make the reward worth the risk for fighting these monsters. There should be an accolade for defeating all of them, IMO.

You can die a lot to some of these (Lusca with a small team), and the exp doesnt come close to covering it, and there isnt any other reason execpt a badge to fight them. There would be more participation if the team got a nice chunk of exp for defeating them.

Really enjoyed Faultline, but finding the mission entrances to the ruins is very hard. I looked for a long time, and now in this thread find that its there somewhere.

Can you place a door in front of the tunnel, and have the mission marker on the map go to it first? As it is, I dropped one (which I would like back now if I can find the entrance) and would have the other as its just too hard to find.

The greatest challenge in a mission should not be to find the door.

Other than that, the new area is great.

I played this change solo on test, then with a 4 and 5 man team last night.

It does provide domination (if used) more often, adding more end and being a damage buff. I think this will help the low level doms a lot, as they struggle with low damage attack chains and lower durations on holds.

However, this didnt address certain problems:

1) The AOe controls are rarely taken, and certainly arent as useful as many pool powers. If they are going to fire 1/mission, can thay at least be very powerful (ie, mag 6, longer duration, acc bonus, etc)? Right now, flashfire is a MUCH stronger power than cinders, mainly because its available for use. With the very long recharge, very short duration, and acc penalty, these powers arent worth taking. I understand the logic behind AOE holds not being able to overlap (total spawn lockdown), but if they arent going to available for use or be useful till 6 slotted, they should be stronger.

2) Doms dont do well in PVP, because of BFs, stackable CM, and the hero epics granting mez protection. Basically, this breaks the dom set for PVP. While some enjoy the challenge, the dom AT is much weaker than any other in PVP. There needs to be some brainstorming on how to let a control AT use control in PVP. I think the problem is that too many high damage ATs (ice/nrg blasters?) have holds. How about raising the player mag in PVP to a base of 6, then make BFs just remove a hold. Basically, while a player may survive a dom hold until suppression starts, they wont survive a ice blaster's hold, or an nrg tank's stuns, etc. Note that troller X3 damage from containment could be reduced to X2, making their damage about the same as a doms. Durations could be adjusted as required.

3) Doms struggle to be useful against PTODs (ie, AVs with the triangles that raise their mez resistance). At the least, a suppression type system would be more consistent with PVP, and also allow a dom to use the hold tactically. In other words, give AVs resistance to set how long you want holds to last, then use suppression to provide the downtime. 50 immune and 25 vulnerable, IMO, is too little to help a dom. Further, many ATs can get the hold during the downtime, while having other powers for the triangle up time.

Doms stink mainly in cases where control isnt allowed to work. If the devs can find a good method for allowing controls to work better, these other changes would not be as required. The I8 change is nice, but misses the mark IMO.

I answered storylines, but have the following thoughts:

1) Costumes are window dressing - I love that they look good, love the new wings and such, but would hate this game if it was just eye candy.

2) We need stories to involve you more. The best one I can think of is really the hollows story, where you find the policeman's brother and save him from the COT. This level of detail seems missing in the higher level missions.

What would be great, would be to have very long progressions through a villain group (like COT) where you hear the name of a villain long before you fight the AV. Seems like most AVs were found, beaten, then you find out who they are. Should be you hear all about them as you do missions, getting you closer and closer till finally you fight the big dog.

One way of doing that is to start adding COv villains into the COH missions. But, a lot of it is to start a story line at, say, level 4, and not have it finish until level 40, all the while dropping the names of the AVs you are are going to fight.

3) PVP is way off in balance, IMO. Only 3-4 powersets really good for PVP, should be better than that if its to be a big feature.

4) Need to make some type of end game stuff for level 50's. Mine just gather dust, and occasional play during holiday stuff.

5) One thing missing, is gameplay. EQ made you constantly wait to recover health or mana, while COx lets you go. Much more fun. Battles tend to be more frantic and faster paced which is lots of fun. Fast feeling travel powers are also lots of fun. All in all, I think gameplay is likely the biggest reason combo with storyline to keep playing coX.

My favorite was a long time ago, in I3 I think. Was on a pug, ~level 15-18 in the hollows, on one of the missions of kill all critters in the cave (igneous, I think). Well, this one blaster has over agro'd stuff and died inspite of my tank taunting and attempting to agro control throughout the mission. Celarly, he lacked any idea of tactics or pulling for limited agro.

Anyway, this blaster almost caused a team wipe, and tempers were climbing. We got to a large round room with tons of critters. This blaster said "watch this" and went flying into the area, triggered the alpha, and ate an obscene amount of boulders and ranged damage. It was enough damage to likely wipe the whole team 3 or 4 times over, as he agro'd like 4 separate spawns.

Over team channel I asked "wow, was that on purpose?". The reply was "no."

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All I'm saying is that if some of the people here who are so satisfied with doms actually experienced the full gamut of the game, instead of just solo and PuGs, they might have a better idea of what those of us who feel doms are lacking on large teams are talking about.

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... because 8-man PuG's running on relentless aren't large teams?

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If the issue is whether doms are as good as other toons on large teams, a PuG is not a good place to look for the answer, simply because it's quite likely that some or most of your teammates are drunk, watching TV, watching their children, set on "follow" so they can PL, etc. etc. A dom may indeed be lacking on such a team, but the very high noise-to-signal ratio may well disguise that fact.

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Seems to me to be very eliteist. In other words, the only people who really "know" what the standard an AT should perform to are people who form PL teams for max farming of exp. PUGs dont count, nor does playing with friends who may not be maxing exp/hr, etc. Honestly, this style play also makes a stalker a loser, unless he ghosts to the end of every mission and just touches the blinkie or kills the one boss. In addition, MMs are also losers here due to startup time, unless you are street sweeping mobs. Guess only brutes and corruptors make decent team mates.

Most dom builds arent made for those type teams, but I could make a dom that is. Take a fire/fire dom, use FE + breath of fire + AOE immob + HF + combustion and a significant portion of any spawn would be dead extremely fast. All you would need is the same thing an AOE throwing corruptor needs, which is something to keep agro. Only, you could stop agro via smoke then flashfire, then attacking. Add in three foaming at the mouth fire imps, and the exp/minute is pretty high.

Honestly though, as you run up to 50 and yell "I HAVE ANOTHER TOON AT 50!!!", then what? Nothing to do but turn around and do the same thing with another AT, or PVP. COx really doesnt have an end game to speak of, so the time spent raising 1-50 is the game, not being at 50.

As for me, there isnt anything in COH I havent done, from large SG teams to soloing, from 1 to 50, and each AT (though not each individual powerset, and not every AT to 50) to at least SO level or higher.

In COV, I have one of every AT above the SO level, though not to 40 or higher. I have played with VG teams that were made of some of the best players around, as well as some very stinky pugs. Ive played with corruptors of every set above the 40's and have seen every single AT at the highest levels (at 50 or darn close) and probably every single powerset functioning between level 40 and 50.

Frankly, other than AV and PVP fights, I find doms to perform reasonably, as a control primary and a damage secondary. Not everyone wants a powerleveled FOTM build.

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How ridiculous is it? What portion of incoming damage do you think one typical dominator can prevent? One typical defender? Don't assume that we're thinking of the same numbers that you are.

[/ QUOTE ] Well, first let's assume it's not PvP or an AV. Those are gimmes, after all, since Control performs the weakest then.

So let's talk about missions instead. How many Defenders does it take for damage to be mitigated to the point that a typical team can run through at a reasonably quick speed (no need to stop to Rest, no deaths, quick kills, etc). Two, in my experience, for a full team. More makes things faster, but you're smooth sailing with two Defenders as your sole source of mitigation.

How many Dominators would it take for there to be no risk, fast killing, and no pauses? Could you do it with two Dominators as your sole source of team mitigation? Would adding more Dominators make it faster?

Support mitigates better than Control. Not only because of what I noted above, but Support does not have the liability of being 100% foe-based for its effect.

Control is useful. I like Control. Control is not, however, the superior option for team mitigation.

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Ice slick generally mitigates ~90% or more of all the damage from a spawn, with a duration that lets it typically last the entire fight (on a strong team) and a recharge that with 3 SO recharge reduction and hasten allows it to be almost perma.

AOE holds 100% stop any damage while affecting 10? 15? mobs and lasts long enough for the dangerous mobs and majority of the spawn to die on a decent team when slotted with 3 duration SOs or using Power boost. However, its not up except every third spawn or so. For ice it can be alternated with flash freeze, but I dont as PUGS have problems with sleeps.

On fire, flashfire is up about every spawn, and with 3 SO duration lasts long enough for most of the spawn to die. Its really what the AOE hold should do, but its ranged, and has good recharge as opposed to the AOE hold.

None of this includes the mitigation of hot feet or artic air or shiver. Hot feet uses slow and fear to make it rare for the mobs to attack you, while they take pretty decent damage (decent based on many mobs in AOE). AA uses fear + confuse + slow to mitigate pretty good. Shiver has less clear effects to me.

Bonfire can be used to group mobs in a tight space for FE, HF, breath of fire from which most will be dead, even with out a toon (though its bad when you miss place the bonfire and just agro everyone ).

In normal play (not PVP or AVs), the only case where corruptors are better then doms, IMO, is when they are stacked heavily (4-5 of them). Then, the overlapping effects (like 2 speed boosts and 2 AMs for the team) make them by far better than ANY other AT. This is also true of controllers or defenders, BTW.

The overlap capacity of the buff sets get unreal when there are a lot of them on a team, but other than that, in normal PUGs I see doms doing as good or better than corruptors in damage mitigation.

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I think it comes down to the nature of control, and its intended role in this game. I believe it's designed to be crowd control, not mob-control.

In other words, the role of holds possibly are not to allow you to eliminate all risk from an encounter, but rather to bring the risk down to a manageable level.


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Exactly, but how do you do this, in a way that compares to a debuff? I understand 100% held is not very risky (I fought GMs with controllers back in the days they could perma hold them) and therefore not fun.

However, its also not fun to not be able to use your powers. A primary built on holds isnt much use when it cant hold.

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The problem with lowering hold magnitude on an AV is that while they'd be fine in a situation like RSF if only used for crowd control, they would likely end up being used to either a)stack RSF teams with doms so there was no risk attached to it or B)make every single AV fight in the game trivial. Even with the template 2 brute/6 corr team, RSF is not a risk-free encounter.

I see sleep as essentially a hold for crowd control purposes, but not in a mob-control circumstance.

Fear, confuse.... these fall into the same categories IMO - they're not designed to take the single mob you're fighting and make him unable to fight back - they're designed to allow you to handle X number of mobs when otherwise you'd only be able to handle X-Y.

Perhaps massively overhauling the secondary effects of some powers to incorporate a heavier representation of debuffs (in both the primary/secondary) would add value to a dominator in not just "triangle" fights, but also boost their overall effectiveness without requiring things like an HP/dps/control duration boost like many ask for.


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The problem I see started with the original controller AT. It could permahold everything, and had no real damage except its pets post level 32 (with a few exceptions). With I5, the devs added damage, and reduced holds. This was ok, because the trollers lost some control, but gained being able to solo pre-level 32 pets.

Now we have the dominator. Its what controllers were begging for pre-I5. Hey, lose the team buff/debuff stuff, and keep the controls and add lots of damage. Only, now, the controls are nuked, and the damage is only ok. Its like a controller without any secondary powers. Part of that is that controllers should never have had as much damage as they were given, without sacrificing some of their buff/debuff capacity.

The other side of the coin are buff/debuff powers. Control is too strong so we dont let it work, but debuffs are allowed to work at full strength. Furthermore, many of these powers are AOE, while the AOE holds have been made rarely available. Even more so, these AOE debuffs are often toggles, meaning they never go down (are perma).

When the best control in PVP is a slow or -fly, and thats available to every single AT in COV, what does a control primary bring to the table?

If the devs feel controls cant be allowed to work in PVP or against AVs, doms really must be given something else that will actually WORK. Otherwise, in those two scenarios, they will always be gimped.

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so the 'Sweet Spot' for Doms is 23 (slotted with SOs) to 40 (or whenever you hit AV/Monster mish where your Primary is nullified by Purple Triangles)

Well, thats almost half the game!!

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Actually, on an ice/nrg dom, I felt I more than contributed my share as soon as I started using ice slick at level 12. Further, before then, I could usually nuke the boss (BOI, powerpush, BOI) which at the time was a big deal for corruptors, and brutes (no real defense/resistance before 12).

Really, other than AV fights (and PVP), I dont think doms (or, ice/nrg doms or fire/fire doms) need any improvement. The problem is ice slick, AA, BOI and glacier not working. Slick uses knockdown, AVs basically immune. AA uses fear and a extremely short confuse, which dont seem to affect AVs at all, leaving an ok slow with a huge end drain. BOI only works with no triangles, same with glacier. Shiver is a slow and -recharge, which mainly doesnt help much when an AV can win in two hits (ie. no recharge needed).

Looking at my fire/fire, I have smoke, char, hotfeet, flashfire and bonfire. The def is smoke is pitiful, char works 33% at most (triangles), hotfeet does damage, but the fear doesnt seem to affect AVs (though I may have just missed it), flashfire needs stuns to work, and bonfire is knockback which most can just run through.

In other words, the devs think its fun for my powers to work 90% of PVE, and in the 10% when the chips are down, they take them away. Both my toons can do ok damage and do some slows, and thats about it against an AV. THAT is the problem, that I and some others have with doms, and its made more apparent due to the LRSF, where you face 5-8 of them (AVs) at the same time.

Same as Kid Laz, I have boosted my doms health through accolades, and it doesnt do much for the AT (IMO). I have also used red inspirations, and have been on teams with assualt. I'm told assualt adds +19% damage, and it didnt make my dom any better than he is now.

Every boost is nice, but the complaints I see as valid mostly wont be fixed by adding health, damage, or mez protection, unless the add a lot more health or damage than is reasonable.

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A +19% damage boost is pitiful? Have you ever been on a team where everyone is running Assault? It's quite noticable. Plus, a lot of the LRSF strategies now seem to rely on Vengance, so better numbers with that certainly couldn't hurt.


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My defender has it, but I know they changed its effect since the last I checked, is it 19%? I think the smallest red inspiration is 25% isnt it?

It sure doesnt seem noticable when solo on my defender, but then, I think it used to ~10% or so, and I may still be thinking of that. Now, its always been true that a 6 + member team with all the leadership powers rocked, with its defense boosted high and extra damage and then vengance on top. However, most of the time, the one person with the leadership pool is on his own, and so the boosts were pretty low (in PUGs). Of course, some VG/SGs require people to take leadership, which means their teams are strongly boosted as these powers are additive.

I will say, for any toon, vengance rocks. I could see taking leadership pool powers with the idea of making yourself team useful, but aid other and assault will only bring what any toon with them would bring.

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For the vast, sweeping majority of the game, my Dominators are effective support/assault toons. For a very small minority of extremely important encounters, they're utterly ineffective. This needs to change.

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I totally agree with this, which is why I think adding a small amount of damage (assuming we wont start out damaging damage primaries), or a little health (assuming we wont leap frog melee only toons like stalkers) wont get us to where we should be.

Our powers should work, in all situations. Maybe they lose a little effectiveness (same as raw damage is less against an AV due to their high health amounts), but they should be as usefull as other ATs powers. Between BFs and triangles, dominators are simply left as poor damage blasters. Unless doms are given blaster level damage, they will always be a drag on an AV team, compared to other ATs.

To me, this means the answer or the fix for doms involves changing BF/AV triangles, or how holds interact with those.

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I do think additional damage makes a difference. It makes a difference to me for sure, and I am not sure how much more justificiation I need than that, let alone remark on how this would help in PvP.

More HP, well, I would be less of a liability to my team if I wasn't so easy to drop for high damage dealers in PvE and PvP.

The Mez protection that is coming is going to be nice, except for the fact that you are still so light in health that you can be easily killed by the things you need protected from the most. AVs, EBs, and PvP toons can still 2 and 3 shot you dispite your mez protection....and you are expected to go into melee with them...there is where your additional damage and health would definitely make a difference.

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I think there are two sets of complaints, that are somewhat different in how they can be fixed.

1. Soloing, or in small parties (2-3 members), damage would make doms better, mez protection make them better, more health make them better. Only, my experience has been that I dont NEED my dom to be better in that situation. Both of my doms do fine soloing (even at relentless except for AVs), including EBs (though lord recluse is on the slate for my main and lost on the first try). Same with small teams, both my doms do well (ice/nrg and fire/fire). More damage, more health, etc all make him even better, but dont see a NEED here (though others may). This is more "any boost is nice" IMO.

2. Large teams/AVs/PVP. Really, mainly versus AVs (and PVP), controls are nuked which makes doms less usefull than they should be. However, here is where a slight damage or health increase really wouldnt help. Unless doms end up the highest damage AT, other ATs still bring what is needed (brutes/MMs for alpha, corruptors for debuffs/healing/buffs). As you have enough damage to do fine with brutes, corruptors, and MMs, it doesnt make doms any better for an AV team than any other AT. Look at stalkers and how they arent good for the LRSF. Stalkers (nrg anyway, got doubts about my nin/nin stalker) do great damage, but they are considered with doms on the "pity" spots on the LRSF teams.

To compare to COH, while you need tanks/scrappers and defenders/controllers for AVs, blasters are NOT considered required. This is because you will have enough damage given most PUG compositions, and a squishy dies too fast vs an AV. In a lot of ways, this is the same reason stalkers have been less than desirable for AV teams.

So, if you see #1 as not a big issue, but see #2 as a large issue (mainly due to LRSF), then the fix involves letting doms be effective when the devs have decided controls are too storng (AV and PVP fights). This is why I dont see more damage or more health as doing much for us, because to me, the main issue is when I go against the top mobs in the game, my powers stop working.