Enantiodromos

a) is nonsense. I said nor implied that. b) is true. If you don't want to buff, it's silly to pretend you want to play a controller, and given that, nobody can take requests about power performance from you seriously in good faith.

There's a whole class of control + damage, if you have access to redside.


Since I didn't do any such thing, I don't suppose I need to reiterate that your decision to micromanage responses was a poor one.

That, also, does not make you a horrible person.

Have fun either way. I think I'd just go ahead and start leveling the toon now, and maybe by the time you have Freezing Rain, I16 will be here and you can recolor the thing to look like falling sparks.

Bingo. When they did the Global Defense Nerf and crippled all the AoE Holds + Mass Confusion (and I think one or two other things), the kinda realized they'd hurt Mind, an alreayd subpar set, worse than most others. Their solution was to tweake Terrify a couple times to try and make it some kind of hybrid control/AoE damage tool. Which went along with the obvious, intentional move to swap control for damage (because they were hesitant to make the game genuinely harder, e.g., the Boss buff they tried out and was awesome, and inexplicably refused to expand the role of control in the game, despite pioneering ways to do so immediately afterwards-- the results can be seen in some of the Croatoa missions and "portect object" missions, which let Controllers shine.)

I suppose it would be worth talkng about putting the -toHit in Terrify. But the only reason to do that is if you're looking to solve Mind's "Only Average AoE control ability, despite lack of pet" problem with the tweak. I dunno if I think that would do it. I suppose it's like, what they intended. It would still be lame.

For the record I've taken and six-slotted terrify on all my Mind 'trollers. It's a "just cuz I can" thing.

Almost. They usually throw an initial attack, and are terrified for the duration except for X-second segments of time during which, if they're attacked, they can do something. I don't actually know what X is, but I'd be surprised if it's as long as 5 seconds. I thought it was more on the order of 3.

Exactly. If you have a situation where you're only attacking one mob at a time, it can be useful mitigation. IOW, it's comparable to a sleep. And sleeps aren't worthless tools. But a hard control like Flashfire, Seeds, or even Total Dom, Cinders, etc-- Terrify and Sleeps just don't rate. And most people rightly regard sleeps as, as I put it, feeble, because what they have in mind is not the aggro-management tool that sleeps & their ilk present, but hard controls good for ground zero of a fight.

I would vastly much rather have Earthquake or Ice slick, for mitigation. Heck, earthquake even debuffs to-hit.

I was talking about hard control. You know, the kind of control that isn't a sleep.

Terrify is a quite feeble soft control-- I'm sure you know that terrified foes are readily able to attack while Terrified. It doesn't even have the to hit debuff typically added to terrify (lower case T) powers. (Not that all powers need to operate identically, but seriously, Terrify is a feeble control.)

Of course, Mass hypnosis is also soft-- simply comparable to other sets sleeps or equivalent aggro management tools.

You saw my objections to TK in its current form. At its size and maxHit mobs, it's an end-intensive addition to Mind's already superlative ST repertoire.

TD and MC are both hard controls, of course. Together, one will be up 3/4s as often as a 90s hard control. So sure, they almost do the job. Two powers-- to do the job of a single AOE Stun.

As wise posters said earlier in the thread, it's not about comparing individual powers-- but sets. But one thing that's conspicuous about Mind is that it's lacking anything comparable to Flashfire, Wormhole, Stalagmites, Seeds. On the face of it, so're Ice and Illusion, except that Arctic Air's a 70% chance mag three confuse plus afraid plus slow plus recharge debuff that's *perpetually* available, and Illusion has (I view this as the most comparable thing) Phantom Army.

Mind isn't especially good at AoE control (as I've been trying to explain ever since I erroneously reported it otherwise in the first iteration of the mind/empathy guide I wrote, and which became even less the case when the global defense nerf was used as an excuse to cripple AoE hard controls-- which obviously hit Mind twice as hard as most sets). A lot goes missing from the set and there's not much that compensates it.


Personally I think that's one of the best parts. Particularly with, say, Vazh zombies that wander around while Intang because they resist the immob in it! Bwahah.

I agree needless to say that most groups don't have time for Dim Shift, even the way I would tweak it. Thing is, most groups don't have time for sleeps in just the same sense. It would get taken about as often as sleeps, which is to say, not a lot, but more than Dim Shift in its current state.

No. There was reasoned discussion.

Is it that you just object in principle to any discussion that could conclude something might need nerfed?

The second half of your post-- let me paraphrase: there's been change, and there's been feedback.

So what's your issue? I trust you're aware that nobody's being compelled to discuss this. I trust everybody here's grown up enough to stop reading or posting when they think they've expressed themselves, or when they have better things to do.

Is it that people who want to talk about something need:

1) Your permission?
2) To meet some standard of productivity you've decided on?
3) To be able to prove we can unilaterally make changes to the game ourselves?

Were you aware this game is widely regarded as unusual among MMOs for the degree to which its player base gives feedback to its developers, and is paid attention?

Plant and Mind (as well as Gravity) have serious balance issues at present. I agree with others who pointed out that it's not as simple as a comparison of Mass Confusion and Seeds of Confusion, but I think even the OP understood that. Meanwhile, those two powers are key to their respective sets issues.

You're entirely wrong about what confuse does to XP in the sense that anybody who understands how rewards in the game work, cares about XP. I have multiple guides on this, including in my Mind/Emp & Rad guide, in my sig.

In short, what people care about is XP/time, not XP/mob. I grant that XP per mob can seem important, but that's utterly an illusion. There are special rules that tweak XP distrubution heavily in favor of players rather than confused foes, there is no limit on foes available to fight, and the advantages of confuses with respect to XP heavily outweigh the opportunity-lost-per-mob.

Whoever told you confuses lose XP was (understandably but thoroughly) wrong. The fact that Seeds is a confuse is a modest ADVANTAGE in terms of XP-- NEVER a disadvantage.

(And yes, I chose the word "never" carefully, though I grant that some of the cases you have to look at are peculiar.)

I realize a lot of people randomly tab to the first MOb in a spawn to fire a power that takes a target, but this is really a nonissue, as you virtually never see whole spawns that are off the ground. All you have to do is target a mob that is, and problem solved. I've played a Plant/Storm to 47, and never had to bother with snowstorm.

Nor are most Plant builds so click-intensive that you can't afford to spend a second finding the right target occasionally; we're not talking about mind/kin here, we're talking about a set whose core functionality rests in basically two fight-opening clicks. (Seeds and Freezing Rain). Plant/Kin, maybe a little more of a nuisance.

You may or may not be right about it being too much (I don't think it would be, considering Mind has no hard control comparable to the 90 (or less)-second recharge hard controls Earth, Fire and Plant weild).

But "perma" is not necessarily a meaningful measure of a power's effectiveness with respect to its recharge. The absolute recharge time is a much better measure.

To illustrate. Suppose I offered you Total Dom with either:

1) 15 second duration, 240 second recharge, or
2) 5.6 second duration, 90 second recharge.

The second power is far superior, even though they both have the same proximity to being "perma."

(If that example doesn't convince because neither power is very good, suppose I offered you:

1) SoC with 18.6 second duration, 30 second recharge
2) SoC with 37 second duration, 60 second recharge
3) SoC with 74 second duration, 120 second recharge.

1 is better than 2, which is better than 3.)

Recharge matters far more than duration. Even at the relatively tiny durations of AoE Holds, a breif pulse of AoE mitigation that's up every fight is VASTLY much more effective than a moderately longer pulse that's available irregularly.

I agree TK is a clunky individual power because of its end cost, and I don't see why it couldn't (and hasn't) had the end cost reduced.

But I don't see an end redux to TK as (part of) a workable solution to the issues with Mind. TK is tiny (11% the size of the standard AoE containment setter-- Immob), plus it only hits 5 opponents at a time. It might be better to boost size and maxHit, rather than reducing the end cost.

Fiddling with TK but leaving it's radius and maxHit is a lot more like improving Mind's already top-notch ST controlling ability.

Again, I'm just vaguely averse to changes that tweak multiple aspects and go contrary to the convention (here with confuses, which have inexplicably long durations.) And again, I don't think duration matters quite that much.

I really do think bumping SoC's recharge to 90s would rein it in meaningfully without crippling it. I mean, as it is, you don't even have to THINK about conserving it. You could practically put it on auto.

I can't at all see all the extra damage justified in the negligable ground-only limitation. And yeah, the broken part of the game (PvP) probably ought not bear on decisions about powersets. I recognize that it probably WOULD, but frankly I can't take recommendations based on tha part of the game seriously.

Yes and no. People still avoid confuses because they "steal XP," in which sense, no matter how good we made dimension shift, so long as it included a foe intang, many people would shun it. I don't think people's superstitions can be used as part of the decision.

And I'm afraid I don't follow the other suggestions that have been made, that have something to do I gather with some redside power that's used in PvP. But a debuff or damage in an aggro control power-- and that's what Dimension Shift clearly is, just like AoE Sleeps & Fire/Smoke-- would completely changes the control set paradigm.

As it stands, Dimension Shift has pretty interesting uses that are foiled mainly by the tendency of players to tab about at random and fire ST attacks &c on intang targets. I've used it myself as a crowd-thinning tool for ST blasters and scrappers-- and after all, isn't that exactly the use the sleeps have? You can set its acc low (start off by STing missed mobs to death for 30 seconds), or you can refrain from enhancing the intang magnitude (start off by fighting unsupported bosses for 30 seconds.)

If the affected mobs were nontargetable, it really would play that role, and also be the best at playing that role closer to the center of a fight. Meaning my suggestion allows it to remain true to its basic purpose, but jump from being the worst of a basically throwaway class of powers, to being the one power in that class that's probably worthwhile. (See also, hotfeet as one of the area slows.)

Interesting quote!

You're quite mistaken. Did you have something to contribute?

How often do you see Spirit Tree? Generally I agree with you; Dimension shift, possibly Bonfire, and a few other powers, were genuine flubs. So were all confuses intially, before they fixed them (once upon a time they really DID steal XPs!). And some flubs were subesequently introduced, e.g., Mind having twice as many AoE controls radically nerfed with really nothing worthwhile replacing them, when the set was at the weak end of the spectrum to begin with.

I trust most of us can agree that the two powers aren't meaningful to compare to each other in a vacuum-- but that's usually just an excuse to ignore the elephant in the room; a comparison of sets.

Arctic Air has a warmup period of 4 seconds, is a higher end cost, and is point blank, but it's also (effectively, slotted) a 25' radius toggle 72% chance mag 3 confuse that can be used perpetually and does lots of other nice things. I'm not disagreeing with any broad point you're making, I don't think. But people do tend to ignore AA.

Yes. Also I think the addition of aggro to the power seemed to them like a huge drawback that it wasn't. Not at base 1.0 accuracy and potentially huge area.


I've said all this above, but really, it's nice that you're confortable with it, but (ideally) the question's not personal. Mind moderately underperforms a majority of sets, especially once you talk about the 32+ game. That's a problem. Not for Mind Controllers (but they don't pay subscription fees, so who cares?), and not for you or I. For the game.

If Seeds of Confusion was changed so that its recharge time was 61 seconds rather than 60 seconds, that would:

1) Constitute a nerf to SoC and
2) The set would remain the strongest in the game, which is needless to say far from "crippling" it.

It's one of those arguments like "public subsidy of anything will plunge us into radically inefficient and tyrranical communism!" Not really.

Putting forward a "Crippled Plant Control!" as soon as any sort of nerf to SoC is mentioned, is probably viscerally rousing for a lot of folks that're shortsighted enough to dread any minute adjustment to their own toons... or just the status quo in general, regardless of the help or harm it might deal to the game overall.

But getting anybody to realize they play characters in *the game* (and therefore have a stake in the game's optimization) is pretty tricky. One experiment I often conduct re: that is to point out on the forums:

There are no Controllers playing City of Heroes.

The best part is the way general perplexity at this remark proves my point.

Right then. SoC belongs to a class of powers: area controls that were left (in the defense nerf) with fast recharges-- the most typical examples are Earth & Fire's AoE stun. Consider the comparison:

(numbers in parenthesis are practical upper limit enhancement)

I wouldn't want to finagle with the long duration of confusion-- it's a given (for whatever inscrutable reason) that confusions take ridiculously long duration. If we propose to change that here, one wonders whether there shouldn't be an equivalent nerf to Confuse, Decieve, MC, Arctic Air. I say: leave duration alone.

Area coverage's hard to compare, because one's enhanceable and the other isn't (but the unenhanceable starts bigger). Leave it alone, says I.

# targets hit is identical. Leave alone.

So IMO any nerf to SoC should be to bring its accuracy and recharge closer to Stalagmites & Flashfire.

Personally "having no problem with" something is all well and good, but I wouldn't want any nerfs or buffs done to suit personal preference.

The thing is, the game presents a situation in which competition between power sets is real and intense-- mainly because the game caters to teaming, and people have a choice of what builds they team with, but also because it is, at least in principle, regularly adjusted to suit how it's actually being played by whichever builds are being played.

In which case, either we're all fine playing the one by-far best performing set of seven available, or there's actually inherent value in controller set diversity. Considering how many people play relatively sucky sets and how much time was sunk into making those sets up, I conclude it's good for the game, and something people want, for set options to be genuinely competitive.

Realistically, Mind and Grav aren't. That doesn't mean nobody ever plays mind or grav. What it probably does mean, however, is that lots of people whos start with those builds get disillusioned with the game a lot faster and leave. Which is bad for the ongoing development of the game, needless to say.

OTOH (and I realize this is an abstruse defense of the concept of balancing sets, but it seems like we're coming up on that question), how different sets really are is also important-- I think people relish that there are real tactical differences and areas of specialty in each set, so obviously balance can't become identical sets that look cosmetically different.

As far as tier 9s and comparing powers by what tier they belong to-- I think I see what you're talking about, but I stand by the view that it's a very narrow sort of comparison.

Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness its outer limbs and flourishes. I swear I use no art at all.

You should look at it this way: the vines, as your pets (though only indirectly summoned), whilst attacking, give you away. You'd have this same problem if you had a fighting hostage you were leading out of a mission, had summoned a pet warwolf or Amy whatserface, etc. Or if you were Fire/Storm and had imps leaping about. Premature/collateral aggro from pets isn't unique to CC + Steamy Mist.

That's gratifying, though I cringe in many ways to think how out of date they are.

I don't think anybody is holding a gun to your head if it's not something you want to discuss. I'm sure you see that people have differing views on the topic. But if you're tired of it, there's always leaving it to the folks who're interested and understand the topic.

That's not really true. In the first place, Plant has four total controls: Strangler, Spore Burst, Vines, and Seeds of Confusion. Mind, granted, numerically has more (six)-- confuse, mass confuse, dom, mes TD, and Mass Hypnosis.

But obviously this is not a situation in which plant "only dreams" of having powers it has (numerically) four of, opposed to mind's six. Moreover-- and this is an important basic point about the way the game plays that lots of people don't get, but fatigue doesn't change the facts-- AoE powers are substantially more powerful than ST equivalents for normative play (where there are many MObs) because their effectiveness scales directly with number of MObs present. Not only does the AoE question make a simple count of powers obsolete, but so do other features of the powers, cheif among them, recharge. Total Dom and Mass Confusion, AoE powers both, are on LONG recharges. Plant control's Seeds is half that-- which effectively makes it twice as available.

If we pair off Mass Hyp + TD + Dom with Vines + Spore Burst + Strangler, we're left comparing Mesmerize and Confuse to Seeds of Confusion.

Which would you rather have, Seeds vs [Confuse + Mesmerize]? I have Mind controllers levels 50, 50, 43, and 29, and Plant Controllers 50, 49, 47, and 11. Over the course of a career of normative play, I would prefer Seeds to the pair.

By a vast margin. That's the hard control comparison between the two sets.

As a rule, it need not. All the other powers you mention are positionable, and in fact easily so. Something you may not be aware of if you've not worked with AoE immobs in the past (and in many sets besides plant, AoE Immobs are a less safe proposition): spawns are usually initially tight enough for things like Freezing Rain, and an AoE Immob will keep them that way.

I don't in the slightest follow the "what level it comes at" logic. Comparisons of powers that come outside equivalent levels is not at all ridiculous.

If it were ridiculous, then (by your logic) comparing defender siphon speed (@L6) and controller siphon speed (@10) is ridiculous.

I don't see how claiming to be tired of a conversation is a good justification for making baldly indefensible arguments of this sort.

I'm left to wonder if everyone who disagrees with you is automatically "shouting about how something sucks."

Also left in doubt: why after saying you were "not even going to touch" the conversastion, you assert a position. This is your way of admitting you can't at all defend it, I assume? Hit and run opine?

Actually, there has been some pretty reasoned discussion of mind control here, though I'm not sure remarks that summarily declare straw men "completely false and just absurd," show our best work.

Needless to say, nobody's "shouting that mind sucks," that was your own invention. So. Hopefully that's clear now.