DarkCurrent

I know everyone is focused on dark control and dark assault and gravity tweaks, but while we have the devs' focus on control sets and set revamps, I'd like to plant a bug about Ice Control.

It sucks. Please upgrade this schizophrenic nightmare. Ice Slick as the bread and butter power? C'mon now.

Dear Synapse and Powers Crew, fix ice control next please!

I don't think any modern dominator build is worried about the long recharge on powers. Soon as you cross that off your list of objections, you can see the utility it has.

For instance, my earth/nrg dom took it to supplement his lack of AoE. Made for a good opening attack after stalagmites. Followed up with whirling hands for the 1-2 PB AoE.

I think any dom that like to get into melee quick can benefit from just the tp. Fire control, Elec control, Ice control all have PB AoE controls that work best in tight groups at melee range.

The knockdown is also a good soft control option. A lot of you seem to build for defense, so why not take advantage of your soft cap and jump into melee?

Oh, and you can put an Obliteration set in it or a Kinetic Crash for the recharge bonuses (kb resist as well).

I'm enjoying it on a few different doms and controllers. Gets you into melee fast. So long as you have other melee and PB AoE powers to use as well, it works great. Nice little knockdown for additional control.

Do NOT put 5 slots in Stamina. Three is plenty - regular IOs or two regulars and the End Proc performance shifter if you have it.

The extra slots can go in your armor that has just one. You can also put extra slots in VG for dmg procs, chance to hold proc, etc.

Rogue Alignment power is a PB AoE confuse btw.

Problem with Ice AA is that is slows as well as confuses, so you'll see a lot more standing around doing nothing that confused guys battling.

I don't think /elec assault will help though. I think you want something that has a dmg aura like Mud Pots or Death Shroud, so you can increase your confuse proc chances. The chain confuse with contagious would be good.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...72&postcount=1

The dark control animations look pretty sweet. I'm eager to test these out. If they look as good in game I'll have to give the art team huge props. Oh and the wolf looks pretty awesome... better than that pic on the main website.

So far I've only been able to mess around with Dark Assault and as the devs themselves have said it's a cobbled together set from various powers already in the game. Exception is the buff that's like PBU, so that's cool. Everything else we've seen already.

So based on that, it's not the 'special', 'exciting' or 'goody' that was mentioned last summer and fall. Furthermore, it just goes to prove that Dark Assault could have been added a long time ago. And that's something that upset me when Blasters got Dark Manipulation with I21 and it was said they got it because it was 'low hanging fruit' so no challenge for the animation team. So I wanted to know at that time why doms didn't get Dark Assault. And a bunch of people told me to stop complaining because the devs said we'd get something exciting. So here we are with Dark Assault and I'm trying to figure out if that was what Avatea and Synapse were talking about. Doesn't seem like it to me.

I also wanted to know why Illusion wasn't being proliferated when every other AT was getting sets proliferated. Again I was told to be quiet because we were getting something exciting. So here we are with Dark Control and still no Illusion. Ok, is Dark Control the exciting goodie? I can't say because it's not on Beta yet. Instead, we see the Dark Control tier 9 'secret' appearing for another AT's accidentally leaked set. Kinda ruins the surprise for doms, eh?

Don't get me wrong. I'll take new sets any day. I just don't see why Illusion hasn't been proliferated. I don't understand what the hold up was for Dark Assault. I also don't agree that Dark Control required so much animation and art and new power design that it took longer to make than Time, Street, Titan, etc. Especially when dominators have the 2nd fewest powersets in the game ahead of MMs, who have a new powerset now, too.

The devs' explanation alluded to Dark being exciting enough that it would take extra time. I just haven't seen that yet. Maybe Dark Control will blow me away though. Maybe the Tier 9 pet was the hold up. Maybe because that held up dark control and they wanted to release both dark control and dark assault together, that explains the overall delay. Maybe. I don't know.

Well off to Beta server to play with the grav changes some more!

Not autohit at all. That was one of the 'features' some folks said as a good use forDS (don't slot accuracy so it missed half the mobs and you'd get mitigation but still have targets to dmg).

And here's another from Synapse:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=59

He talked about 'goodies'.

So you had 'exciting' and 'goodies' being the two words used by the dev folks to reference what dominators were getting after they were skipped with the last round of proliferation and new power sets (Street, Time) released.

Now the discussion does dark control and dark assault fit those adjectives? Some people say no because they sets are cobbled from preexisting ones or because darkness powers are nothing new in game.

Also, some have pointed to the tier 9 pet in darkness control as the surprise, but now here we are unable to actually test that pet (it's not available in beta yet), but meanwhile MMs got apparently the same power in their new but not supposed to be announced set that slipped into beta. So that's not sitting well with a couple people.

I think it's going to come down to what the control set is like when we finally get to see it in beta. If the fx, animations and functinos are superior, then people will be happy. If they're just 'meh' then people will be disappointed.

I said this when Avatea first posted about the exciting news for doms coming, but you had to be patient. Those words painted the devs into a no-win corner. Somebody somewhere won't be excited and so their excuse for not releasing dark sets earlier won't go over well when everyone and their brother who had tons of powersets already got even more.

I'm concerned about the lack of a true PB AoE attack. Mostly a blast set with only 2 punches and one of those is lvl 38.

So attack chain is going to be 2 ST blasts, 1 cone and 1 punch during early levels.

Moonbeam at 20?? No thanks. Either early or late for snipes, so you can take/leave it, not mid-career.

Could be some slow leveling, but I need to test this.

Um... taking fire mastery, but not taking Rain of Fire???

That power is the reason for fire mastery. If you don't want the added AoE for some reason and like the buff/debuffs I'd recommend a few other APP/PPP before fire then.

Basilisk Gaze in both holds - that's 15% rch there.

Expedient Reinforcement in your imps.

Both sets require just 4 slots to get their recharge bonuses. You can move the extra slots to other powers.

Take Ice Storm and put Posi Blast in it.

Put 3 rch in Hasten. Sure you'll hit ED cap, but you want to.

Instead of Weave, why not CJ or stealth? Either can be 1 slotted and could mule a LotG rch bonus.

Personally, if you have perma and AoE dmg, defense is rather moot. Targets will be controlled and dead faster than they can hit you. Eat a couple lucks to dodge the alpha if you're worried.

Whirling Hands is actually pretty good these days. The range was extended and the damage increased a few issues ago. The stun chance is decent as well.

Dark Obliteration is decent as well. Gives you some true AoE ranged capability.

Both powers could be slotted with sets that give nice recharge bonuses as well. If you built up to perma, then the Dark Consumption power would be totally unnecessary.

However, if you're planning a solo career taking on higher level single targets as opposed to groups of lower level targets, then your build could work just fine. Depends on what you want to do.

To me, your original build is another example of someone going for so much defense as to hamper their ability to do other things like damage. Personally, if I'm perma and have AoE, I don't need much defense. Nothing that a luck or 3 won't solve.

I don't think we should just dismiss PvPers here. They are part of the game and gravity control is one of the better pvp control primaries. I have done a lot of PvP in the past with my grav/ice and grav/elec doms and used them to good effect messing with the other team by WHing their buffbot into a kill squad, or WHing the drone hugging blaster. I've even used DS to escape scrappers, etc. Personally, I don't think the DS effect was long enough, consistent enough, usable enough to warrant basing my PvP strategy on it. I also don't think that it should hold up changes to the power to make it more useful in PvE. That said, those who use the power for PvP purposes should be heard and their concerns addressed, not ignored or shouted down.

If there's a way to preserve the click for PvP purposes, then great. If not, maybe there's some debuff mechanic that could be added to compensate for losing that utility. I'd like to see anyone exiting a dimension shift to be 'messed' up somehow. Most other patch type powers have some lingering debuff effect that lasts beyond the power's duration, so why can't something be added here for DS?

Arcana's idea about the -regen would be useful. That would work for PvE (targets can't just regen while phased) and would have PvP use. I can also see something along the lines of some -acc or -dam or -rch to simulate confusion when you reappear in 'reality'.