Idris

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  1. I personally find that confuse durations make a visible difference in AA. I have two now and am planning to add a third at some point. But that's just me

    I agree that Hasten would definitely be worth it for a Dom. The only reason I don't have it is because I can't stand the idea of hands on fire for my Ice dom. Most people probably don't care about a style-over-substance reason like that
  2. I don't know who I am to advise since I'm only level 36. But anyway, it looks good to me (although I'd never give up Glacier, not when I have Power Boost). Slows in CE might be a bit of an overkill if you're going to run it together with AA, though. I don't like slow enhancements much because they don't affect -recharge.
  3. I could actually make it to both runs, one with my Peacebringer and one with the Blaster.

    A team list? I bet 5x this many people will turn up again
  4. Idris

    Kin/Psi - Powers

    What does chain stunning have to do with Acrobatics (except that stuns drop toggles, which is obviously annoying)? Surely there isn't a connection and you would have been just as chain stunned without Acrobatics.
  5. Any click buffs (like Hasten) affect the forms, none of the toggles or passives do.
  6. Ooh, you get ten points and a Parrot badge if you give some more details

    Did you build domination during the fight or before it?
    How long did the fight take?

    Just curious. I love dominator PvP success stories since we're supposed to be such underdogs one-on-one.
  7. Electric voids? Oh, the nightmares!

    My latest is umbral sheep.
  8. Completely OT, but whenever I see this subject truncated in the forum list, my brain keeps trying to fill in a warshade equivalent of electric sheep. It's like a song stuck in my head.
  9. Since this thread seems to be turning into a knockback resistance discussion, does anyone know what the deal with Crey Power Tanks is? Soaring Dragon from Katana seems to always knock them back, when it's only supposed to knock up.
  10. WAI, I think. I've seen dev responses about it, it's one of those frequently asked questions. It's a bit of a pain but not too bad since there aren't that many knockback vulnerable mobs. Lower levels I can handle without, although it would be handy to stop them from scattering.
  11. It does knockback if the enemies are vulnerable to knockback or many levels below you. Apparently knockdown is a low magnitude knockback.
  12. Cool, Filth! Very convenient that we both happen to be level 35.

    This does make me rethink my build a little. For what it's worth, the endurance cost and recharge numbers in the SherkSilver hero builder seem be be approximately on the mark. Am I deliberately crippling myself if I respec out of both of the AoEs? While they do eat a good chunk of endurance, they are definitely more endurance effective than the ST attacks as long as they hit at least 3 enemies. However, there are problems with both.

    AoEs in general are a bit problematic to me. I already have to watch out for aggro in teams, both Ice Slick and Arctic Air generate a lot of it. I suspect that it will be better for my survivability if I stick to ST attacks in teams. And solo, well.. often there aren't enough enemies that an AoE is worth it. ST attacks are better for domination, too.

    I already respeced out of Frost Breath. I thought the cone was very tricky to use. First of all, it always required me to reposition myself completely to hit multiple enemies, because the nature of both Ice/ and /Ice is such that encourages being in melee. Second, it is a narrow cone and not a very visual power, just sort of hard to use.

    Ice Sword Circle is beautiful and it's been nice to use it on top of Ice Slick. It fits well with Arctic Air and Chilling Embrace, too. Endurance cost looks horrific but looking at numbers, at 3 enemies it's actually considerably better than any of the ST attacks. It has a slow recharge and horribly slow animation and besides aggro, those are my main reasons of getting rid of it.

    I stick with my assessment that /Ice is a very controllerish secondary. Power Boost and Chilling Embrace are pure control powers, and the secondary effects in attacks are very noticeable. For pure damage you should look elsewhere, and comparing the numbers to /Thorns it seems pretty clear that endurance will be a problem when soloing pre-pet. It might help a bit to slot the blasts for endurance reduction and Ice Sword for recharge. It's just very hard to find the slots to do so.

    As for what I'd like to do to fix dominators, from the Ice/Ice point of view I'd like to get damage in some of the powers upped a bit. It seems off that the cold damage portion in Greater Ice Sword is same as in Ice Sword. I'd also like to have the order of powers changed so that the single target attacks would come earlier. AoEs and Chilling Embrace could be moved up in the set. Then I'd like the endurance cost of Ice Bolt and Ice Blast to be brought down so that they'd be in line with other sets's blasts when it comes to DPE. Animation time of Ice Sword Circle should be shortened to remove the second or so where you just stand there doing nothing.
  13. Yeah, damage per endurance on Ice Bolt and Ice Blast seems to be pretty abysmal, at least on higher levels. Ice Sword on the other hand seems relatively cost effective. This is tough because the blasts are easy to use, quick to animate and relatively quick to recharge and thus primary tools for building domination.
  14. Today I have plenty of household chores to do so naturally I found time to copy Jadis over to test and check the numbers on Icy Assault.

    lvl35 Ice/Ice vs lvl35 Wing Raider, no resistances that I know of.

    Brawl 11.59 smashing
    BoI 29.92 cold -> BI 2,58
    Ice Sword 20.62 lethal, 32.23 cold BI 4.56
    Ice Blast 9.57 smashing, 29.92 cold BI 3.407
    Ice Bolt 5.92 smashing, 23.94 cold BI 2.57
    Ice Sword Circle 24.97 lethal, 24.97 cold BI 4.30
    Greater Ice Sword 30.94 lethal, 32.23 cold BI 5.45

    The blasts and Block of Ice do clearly worse damage than the numbers in the planner. This is probably at least partly due to the fact that dominator damage scale for ranged attacks is worse than for melee attacks. Unfortunately the great thread from US forums has been eaten, and I can't check the "ranged brawl" value to see if the planner numbers correlate with that. Anyway, same thing probably applies to all dominator secondaries.

    Melee attacks compared to brawl seem to be within margin of error to the numbers in planner. On lower levels the difference is not that big, but on higher levels I'd say you need to take the melee attacks to do any kind of meaningful damage.

    I was actually going to test the endurance costs but found it too difficult, with Stamina my endurance refills too fast to get anything but a ballpark figure.

    EDIT: I just noticed that Ice Sword does way more damage than reported in the planner. What's up with that? Not that I complain.
  15. I would not give up the magnitude and duration boost in Domination for the longer durations controllers have otherwise. I love being strong when it counts, it's what makes the AT fun to me.

    I only have problem with the secondary. I do blast as much as I find time for in teams but it's more to achieve Domination that to make an actual difference with my damage. Ice primary is not very good for building domination, especially as I don't currently have any of the immobilizes.
  16. I don't know if you counted me in but I'm definitely not going to make it. I was way further from 38 than I remembered. So there's one sidekick less
  17. I'm a big super jump fan myself but Fly is the only travel power that lets you chat, get a drink, take a bio break, sort out your enhancements or alt+tab to a browser to check something without stopping. If that doesn't save time, I don't know what does
  18. Hehe, sorry. That was sort of tongue in cheek anyway

    Someone from US forums tested Icy assault numbers quite a while ago. I'll see if I can find the thread and check the numbers are same as in the SherkSilver builder, although I'm not sure if it included endurance costs. If needed, I'll try to muster up enough effort to check the assault numbers one of these days. The reason I distrust the planner numbers is because at least at some point right after the CoV launch they were taken directly from other ATs and were incorrect. Dominator powers apparently scale in a weird way too, so that melee brawl value is actually higher than ranged "brawl" value.

    Ice Sword Circle does do really nice damage for a dominator, but I'm going to respec it out anyway. Reason: IMO the activation time, which is over 4 seconds, is way too long to fit my dominator playstyle. 4 seconds often feels like a lot of time to not to be able to cast any controls. It's also too slow for building domination and has a long recharge. And it eats a good chunk of endurance. But the damage is definitely good and I'll be sad to let it go, I just feel that in most situations there are other powers that will benefit me more.

    I'm definitely not saying that Ice is a bad set, though. It's probably the best one out there for control, and the damage isn't bad although I'm surprised if it really is higher than Thorn. Thorn gets Aim for damage boost, though.
  19. [ QUOTE ]
    [ QUOTE ]
    You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway?

    [/ QUOTE ]
    As things stand on my Plant/Ice, I can run through missions without stopping using only Domination (to refill my Endurance), and maybe 1 blue in especially protracted fights. (pre-Stamina, pre-SOs)

    I'm guessing therefore, that the problem lies in the Ice primary - or moreover, in heavy use of the toggles in both, with the additional expense of the secondary tipping the balance. Do you fight regularly with Arctic Air on? Do you need to? How are you slotted for Endurance Reductions in your most end-heavy powers?

    Endurance is a problem for many builds, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything needs to be done about it, more that the player needs to manage his/her endurance more effectively. If endurance really is such an insurmountable issue for your specific build, then I'd list my concerns on the Suggestion forum using figures and extensive testing where appropriate - Cryptic have shown that they're more than willing to change endurance costs either in whole or in part where imbalances have occured.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    It's not an unsurmountable problem, it was fixed very neatly by getting Stamina at 22. I don't really have much trouble at the moment, although I will have to see how Greater Ice Sword and Bitter Ice Blast affect the situation. At the moment my biggest concern is recharge - there are very large gaps in my attack chain despite the fact that I have all the attacks from my secondary. But I come from a blaster/scrapper background so I'm probably expecting too much there. I will probably respec out of the AoE attacks when I have all the ST ones, so I can slot everything I have effectively and because I have some gripes with both of them.

    Obviously I wasn't running any toggles when I was running out of endurance even without them. Like I said, the ST hold and the 3 attacks were enough. I suppose I could have managed it better by holding less, balancing the loss of HP and loss of endurance, but it seems off to not hold something you can hold.

    I do question why Arctic Air is available at level 6 if you're not supposed to use it, though? It is not really needed when soloing, but in teams it makes a big difference . Much bigger than the puny attacks, but unfortunately you need the puny attacks to get Domination.

    I do applaud people who have time and inclination to do extensive testing but unfortunately I'm not one of them. I can only give anecdotal evidence that my time before Stamina felt more painful than on any other toon I've played up to 20. Other comments I've seen by people with Ice/Ice seem to mirror my experience. I'm pretty sure it's because with low accuracy even slightly higher endurance cost and slightly lower damage add up. Moreover, this was my first CoV toon so I had little infamy for enhancements. However, I do fine now and thus have no vested interest in it anymore. It's unlikely I'll start another Ice/Ice anytime soon.
  20. Going off on a tangent here, but I've been wondering if Dominator primary powers (including pets) do more damage than controllers' since we have higher brawl index? Does anyone know?

    Illusion is a bit strange beast among controllers. I would hazard a guess that most dominators will outcontrol an Illusion controller.
  21. You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway?

    It did become much more manageable after level 22 when I got accuracy SOs and Stamina. Before that I could and regularly did run out of endurance when fighting 3 even level minions using just my single target hold and the 3 first single target attacks from Icy Assault. Add Arctic Air and you have the ultimate end hog. You can't keep that power running without 2-3 endurance reduction SOs and Stamina if you wish to do anything else at all.
  22. I'm a Union girl myself.

    Oh, and Cynic has Ice/Ice too I believe so that makes three of us
  23. Oh, they will! Jack makes such a difference. He has a sword attack that makes me drool if I can just get him to use it.