Jade_Dragon

Considering the strength of Zombies, and their Vomit (which in the early days of the game was unresistable) this is probably working as intended. Taking on Vahzilok the wrong way can and will get you killed. There are still some people who dislike starting as the Science Origin because they can be so deadly in the early levels.

I find them fun, personally. I particularly like Confusing an Embalmed Cadaver in the middle of his friends. With luck he will take out the Reapers.

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Champions online will have power customization, so it may not be that its too hard.

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There's that game that might be coming and some people might mention its name but I won't.

As I said, though, even with power customization you would still have only the animations the devs GIVE you. This isn't like pen and paper where you can make up any effect you want your powers to have, there are going to be some basic effects that you will have to choose from, and that will constrain your appearance.

Power Customization is usually differentiated by Power changes by saying that the Customization is entirely cosmetic. That is, whether you use a Fire Sword, your Firey Fists, or a Fire Kick, it will do exactly the same damage, have exactly the same End cost, and take exactly the same amount of time to execute. (The latter is the hardest, but should be possible) The same with whether your flames are red, yellow, or green.

Making your flames do Ice damage, though, or making your foes run in fear when you hit them instead of doing DoT, that would be a far deeper change to the gameplay, and would be more like what the devs mean by "cottages". Likewise, changing Breath of Fire to a Tremor-like "punch the ground" would be a major change to the power itself.

Maybe such things will be added to the game later, but not for a while. And I would expect new Vet Rewards or other Temp Powers before duplicate Power Sets with the same theme.

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I started a grav dom yesterday because I grouped with a grav/elec and the Propel animations were cracking me up. I had to have one.

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Propel is both the good and the bad of the set. The animation itself is cool. There is nothing like watching the random stuff it comes up with. The animation TIME is the bad part. I suppose they could knock a second off of it, but if they had to lose the random object feature to do it, I'd rather they didn't.

Propel is what you either hate or love about Gravity, because you either hate or love it. Personally, I want to see it become a 5% cone. Essentially a straight line, but I'd just love to blast a car through a line of baddies.

The devs have said that they will never be making any major redesign to any of the existing Power Sets. That means no flaming fists instead of flaming swords. (Although Cremate comes awfully close) The original concept was that there would be enough variation in a Power Set that you could choose what you want, if you don't want a Fire Sword, you don't pick Fire Sword. Unfortunately, the devs did not anticipate the use of attack chains, or that the players would be able to use this technique to so dramatically raise their damage.

The problem is that if they change any of the powers now, they will have to start all over again rebalancing everything. The players will also be unfamiliar with all of their attacks, and will have to respec into the new arrangement of powers. This has already happened with PvP and that created a lot of complaints, doing that with every power set in the game for PvE would be far worse.

One of the devs described it as, "I could change the power Build Up to build up a cottage where the player stands. But the player wouldn't know what to do with that power, and would have to learn it all over again." Ever since then, we have used the phrase "building cottages" to refer to suggested major changes to Power Sets.

It's just not going to happen. Not here anyway. (And even if there was some game out there going to be released soon with the ability to let you pick whatever powers you want, that game would STILL only have the powers that the devs designed effects and animations for. You couldn't just walk into their offices and say, "I want my Furious Fire Fist power, make it for me now.")

If you do set them alone as an ally, though, don't have them say anything unless you want them to like call out to let you know where they are. They won't usually be right there at the entrance. If you do set something for them to say, they'll say it right as you enter the mission, so you can follow their speech bubbles.

Protector Bots will also not bubble your allies.

Bodyguard wasn't in at release, but I'm guessing that having both bubbles just made Bots much more protective of the MM himself than any other Primary, making for an imbalance.

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4.) Force Bubble's one of the goofiest powers the devs ever designed. It's nucking futs to think that the single target heavy hitters, like Cosmic Burst, don't have the base range to reach out FB's edge

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It's my believe that Force Bubble was the devs' attempt to create a "Wall of Force" power, a barrier that foes could not penetrate that could be used as a shield by the team. Unfortunately, there is no such barrier, and thus the mechanism of repel had to be used in its stead.

Therefore, because of the speed of movement of most foes, the time between tics of the repel, and the possibility that a foe may be resistant, it has to have such a huge radius because that is the only way to ensure it will keep foes out of its center 99% of the time. This is, to my mind, the largest flaw with the concept. (Now, if it slowed foes trying to enter it, it could be a smaller radius...)

I agree that Castle would never introduce any major changes, but minor tweaks, like adding DefDebuff resistance to the existing bubbles, shouldn't cause any "cottages".

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Repulsion Bomb is a fair offensive power, making 1 of 9

Compare that to Dark Miasma, also only 1 power that boosts your offensive prowess

Pain has 2 powers that boost you offensively solo

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I wouldn't call Repulsion Bomb an offensive boost, although you're right in that it is a direct attack. However, the two are not mutually exclusive. Storm has both Lightning Storm and Freezing Rain.

The problem with Repulsion Bomb is that it doesn't do anything for your attack chain, it merely replaces one attack with another. It does make Repulsion Bomb itself more useful, as there is no need to stop attacking to make use of its knockdown and stun effects. Still, I would not call it an "offensive boost", even on a Corruptor.

I suspect we will see Force Field perhaps altered into a similar set with some damage boosts, much like Empathy became Pain Domination, before it makes it to Corruptors.

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I think the consideration was that, for a Corruptor, Force Fields were seen as being too team-focused, and that thematically a villain might be more out for themselves.

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But I am glad /Sonic is nothing like that with the bubbles and AoE bubble and team focusing.


What a second....


EDIT: IMO I think that if FF was not villainous enough it would not be with MMs.

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IMO the issue with Force Field was not it's team oriented design, but its lack of a damage boost. Every Corruptor Secondary has either a damage buff or a res debuff. That includes Pain Domination.

Now in some cases that damage boost comes very late, as with Thermal, or is relatively weak. Still, Sonic may not be the best at damage boosting, but with Sonic Siphon, and Disruption Field, you've got more damage than FF is capable of.

I'm guessing that Masterminds, with plenty of damage from their pets, were considered to be okay without a damage boost. And in fact, they don't get the more offensively oriented sets like Rad and Kin, although I'm sure they will eventually. Those power sets still could get some nerfs, much as Dark got a weaker Twilight Grasp and Dark Servant, and even FF has a longer recharging Personal Force Field.

I agree with everyone in this thread.

I'm assuming you plan to support a team with your FF. If you do plan to solo, I would recommend Detention Field, while it is annoying on a team, while solo it will save your bacon. It might be a choice to consider for your second build.

And I'll second the motion to pick up Repulsion Bomb, maybe and Force Bolt too. They're really quite different, Force Bolt is for knocking foes away from allies in danger, while Repulsion Bomb is for protecting the tank. You knock everyone around him off their feet, not away, and stun some of them. The damage is icing on the cake, nice icing that makes the End and cast time expense worth it, but the main thing is knowing you can drop it on the tank any time you want and he won't yell at you. Unless you slot it for knockback, but don't do that.

Great idea, really, I'd like to see a whole Ranged set based on the "fling rock telekinetically" concept. And of course for Doms it would match Earth Control.

Logically the other set to be created to go with it would be Electricity (Electromagnetic) Control. (Since Earth Control/Electric Assault were released together)

I may be in disagreement with every other post in this thread, but I say take Empty Clips. It's not the damage, although that's okay for an MM, but, the knockback is VERY useful for mitigating damage. It can also draw aggro, if you want to use Bodyguard and take the alpha strike. The end cost is easily countered with an End reduction.

Whether or not you want to take any other attacks is entirely up to you. They can help through the 20s, but after you get to 32 they are no longer needed. You can keep them for the cool factor, or for the ability to take out a foe that is almost dead.

Both Empty Clips and Dual Wield have the chance to do knockback, but with Empty Clips if you fire into a large enough group, you have a good chance that at least one of them will be knocked back every time. As a Mastermind, large groups shouldn't be a problem for you, even solo, so I say go for the Empty Clips.

I'm Thugs/Dark, so it could very well be Dark's defensive nature. But I find my Bruiser well able to tank, as long as I keep on him with Twilight Grasp. Most of the time he doesn't seem to need it, but when he does, he seems to really start taking the damage fast.

I'm guessing it's just a matter of reaction time. Buff up your defenses, as suggested (I definately second slotting the Enforcers for Defense, even though I don't, that's a good portion of your Bruiser's defense right there, though. Almost like it's his Invincibility equivalent) and get some IOs. That should buy you the time you need to use your heals.

He will also hold aggro better once you get to 32 and he gets Foot Stomp. If you're giving him the first Upgrade, you might choose not too, Hand Clap tends to ruin aggro, not draw it. Still, I did use it prior to 32, but stopped using it and only use the second Upgrade on him now.

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So I was reading all the posts in this thread and I saw no one posted the "real" reason this thread exists.

You can deny it all you want but you know the OP wants to make a petless Thugs MM for the obvious reason.



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Actually, he wants to make a petless Ninjas MM. For the same reason.

Dual Pistols seems to be on the way, but Archery may still be a while. Although with Defenders and Blasters coming over to redside...

Yeah, if you had perma Hasten and AM, that's likely to be before ED. Although, maybe you still can perma Hasten, I'm not sure.

Anyway, you need to check your Enhancements, and if you have more than 3 SOs in any power, remove them. Look for IO's, Invention Enhancements, and try to find sets that will let you slot the equivalent of 3 SOs in more than one thing. For instance, Recharge and End reduction. You may want to transfer some of your slots out of some powers and put them in others.

Certain IO sets can also give you bonuses, which can, for instance, raise your Recharge globally for all powers. This is how you can get back to something like ED levels, although it'll never be how you remembers. You should still be owning with an Ill/Rad though.

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I find that air superiority speeds things up considerably and it costs less end for the damage then either your hold or immobilize.

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This is the one drawback to the Controller "attacks". While they deal damage while also caging foes, they have an End cost that reflects that. So yeah, grabbing an attack from the Pool can increase your soloing ability considerably.

(My Controller uses three Pool attacks with Blind to set Containment. With that combo, he can almost solo Bosses, he needs a little help from Decieve or Phantom Army, but a good portion of the damage is done himself. Of course, said Controller is a Scraptroller and not built for teams, I pretty much refuse any invite I ever get on him, and have him marked "Not Looking For Team")

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it seems to me that controllers are totally incapable of doing damage as they literally have no damage dealing primary or secondary...until they get pets.

How do you do it?

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Three pages worth of replies, but I'll go ahead and specifically point out where you missed an important point in your analysis. It really does seem like Controllers should be unable to deal damage, just as the devs described combos such as Defense/Buff-Debuff would be, back in Beta.

The devs were intentionally trying to avoid such characters, though, that could be created without attacks. And the solution for Controllers is that many Control Powers are ATTACKS. Just about every Control Set has a single target Immobilize, a single target Hold, and an AoE Immobilize that deal damage. For the single target powers, the damage is usually at least damage scale 1, the same as a basic attack for a Blaster or Defender. In fact, the Immobilize Controllers get for their Tier 1 attack is usually exactly the same Immobilize that Blasters get for the first power in their Secondary.

When combined with Containment, this should allow any Controller to solo through the early levels. Additional Control Sets have actual attacks, such as Gravity's Propel, Mind Control's Levitate or (the best of them all) Illusion's Spectral Wounds. These have at least a damage scale of 1.32, with Spectral Wounds doing 2.64, if Containment is set and the heal effect is not allowed to take place.

And while there is no reason to prefer either the Immobilize or the Hold as the power to set Containment, personally I tend to decide which based on the Set. For instance, with Earth I will usually set Containment with the Immobilize since it is a DoT, and the Hold does all its damage at once. Thus, I get the majority of the damage immediately. I will also (if I'm feeling brave) use the AoE Immobilize to set Containment, that lets me get the crit with both single target attacks.

It can also help the damage of a Controller a lot to pick up a Power Pool attack or a Vet Reward early on. Brawl does not get Containment (not sure why...) but Pool attacks do, so you can actually do respectable damage with them, and Vet Reward attacks do the same damage regardless of AT, and so they tend to do about double the amount of damage you do anyway, even if Containment doesn't effect them.

And also note this applies to Dominators as well. While obviously they have a whole Secondary full of attacks, in fact like Blasters, they actually have one and a half (or at least 1 1/3) Sets of damage dealing powers.

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Hmmm.... I knew I created this thread for a reason...

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You need to update your consolidated list. Repulsion Bomb does do the damage of a Tier 1 attack now. And I don't see any reference to adding Defense Debuff Resistance to the bubbles. I know that's been suggested.

Defensively speaking, I think the DefDebuff Res is all FF really needs. Where it lags behind sets like Dark and Rad is in its offensive capability. It doesn't need to have a constant damage boost, Dark has an occasional one with Tar Patch (and that can be made perma) and that does just fine.

The problem is finding a place to put it. Force Bolt, if overused, can disrupt a battle, and Force Bubble as currently designed forces foes outside of the area of any debuffs it might apply. Maybe FF could take a cue from Pain Domination and apply damage buffs to the caster? The problem with just adding damage to FF "attacks" is that unless you can make the attack while continuing to use your normal chain, you have simply substituted one attack for another. You have done nothing to boost the Defender's damage.

An End/Recovery boost might help offensively as well, although with Vigilance that would be more of a help solo than on a team to the Defender himself. (Controllers and Corruptors could make use of it, though, as could the rest of the team if it is AoE)

In short, you can build a Controller to have much the same capabilities of a Dominator, but you have to make some specific power choices to do that. The same goes for Blasters, although not to the same extent. Still, the Dominator is the specialist, it has a very specific playstyle. The Controller and Blaster are generic, on the average they have a great deal more flexibility and more choices in how they can be designed and played. They can come close to a Dominator, but never quite match it.

The best way to make a Controller like a Dominator is to take a lot of melee attacks from the Pool, and then once you hit 41 take ranged attacks from your Epic. That will give you the mix of melee and ranged that define Dominators. If you're style is to close to melee a lot on your Dom, the strategy should be familiar to you, a lot of Controllers call it "Scraptrollering".

You will definately want /Kin or /Rad as your Secondary, so you can boost the damage of your attacks, but Containment should do 90% of getting your damage to Dominator levels. You'll never do quite as much damage with only Power Pool attacks, but you'll also be debuffing your foes' damage or to hit, and healing yourself, which will make you much more resiliant than a Dom. You won't be able to take your full Secondary if you concentrate a lot on Pool attacks, but since Rad and Kin both boost both offense and defense with the same powers, it should be obvious which ones will be the priorities. Do pick up a couple of team support powers so your allies don't complain, though.

The Blaster, as mentioned, will do more damage, but will have less AoE control, and will be just as fragile defensively. I'll just repeat what was said above, which is that you want either /Energy, /Ice, or /Psi for your secondary. You also want to close into melee and use the "Blapper" strategy, not just because that's closest to what the Dom does, but also because you need to close to melee to use your single target holds/stuns.

While /Devices does have some fine controls (mainly stealth, although most people don't consider that control) I don't think it actually matches the Dom style because it has no melee attacks. Instead you have your mines you can plant to lure your foes into. It's not really a Dom-like strategy, although it is just as effective in its own right.

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Obviously "damage mitigation" is not the perfect term for this -- perhaps "death mitigation" would

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If you could time a heal so that it struck at the same moment an attack did, and applied its heal to reduce the amount of damage the attack did, then it would be considered mitigation. It would also counter the innate weakness of healing that it cannot prevent death due to an alpha strike, only recover the health after the fact. Since eliminating this weakness probably would make healing too overpowered it's for the best that this is just a theoretical mechanism that couldn't be implemented anyway.

This is really the problem, though, while you can compare healing to damage mitigation, there are a lot of factors that complicate that comparison. For one thing, the "mitigation" due to healing depends on how much damage is INCOMING. Defense or Resistance will mitigate a constant percentage of the damage that hits you, whether high or low. The amount of damage that healing mitigates is the constant, and whether the amount that hits you is high or low makes the percentage higher or lower.

In other words, if you say, "If I'm taking 10,000 HP per second, healing is better mitigation than Defense" that really isn't saying much if in an average battle you are taking 200 HP per second. (numbers exaggerated for hyperbole) Most potential for healing over time is wasted because either the target is already at full HP, and thus does not need a boost, or some of the heal is lost to the HP cap.

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You really think they'd make a new zone and then label it as an expansion? You're way off CF.

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Well, they might if it was a large number of new zones, and a couple of new Archetypes. However, they have already explicitly stated that Heroes will be able to cross over to the Rogue Isles and Villains will be able to get into Paragon City.

And I agree, it won't be as easy as flipping a switch. It will take time to move your "reputation" over to the other side.

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Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage.

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The only problem with Flying as a click power is, what if you are flying high over Steel Canyon, and poof, the duration runs out?

Although I can appreciate the humor of standing on the tram watching heroes constantly falling from the sky in the zone around you...

Depends on the AT. On my Dominators and Controllers, I prefer to go with either Rugged or Invincible. Smaller numbers of foes mean less targets to hold, so I can get more mileage out of my control powers.

On Brutes, Tankers and Masterminds, I'd rather go with Unyielding, the larger number of foes makes for more targets for my henchmen to fire at, and to hit me to build my Fury. On my Tankers I just enjoy being surrounded by foes, although since most of my Tankers have Invincibility I am probably taking less damage from having more foes with less damage, instead of less foes with more damage.

My more stealthy Scrappers and Tankers I will usually go for lower numbers and higher levels. And Stalkers, of course, do best one on one. Likewise with my Blasters it depends on if they're more single target or AoE.

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Um.... I play on Protector. I had no problems and felt no grind.

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And that playing Force Field...

(And yes, I DID feel a grind on my FF, but I haven't on many of my other characters. Which was the point, there is always some AT and power set combination you can level quickly)

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IMO I don’t think Side Switching is the most accurate terminology. It could be more like Dual Alignment, where you have a primary alignment (hero or villain from the real universe) that can not be changed. And a secondary alignment (valid only in the alternate universe) which can be switched and switched back again.

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Well, I suppose it's still possible that Heroes could only have access to Paragon City and Preatorian Earth, and Villains could only have access to the Rogue Isles and Preatorian Earth. But honestly, I think even though this is from promotional material and perhaps a bit soon to say for sure, this quote is clear enough:

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For the first time, Hero characters can become Villains and vice versa, enabling Heroes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and Villains to experience Paragon City™.

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It really sounds like we will have Hero ATs in the Rogue Isles and Villain ATs in Paragon City. And not just in the sense of Mayhem missions where you have an instanced zone which is a copy of Paragon City.

We are assuming that if you make the side switch over to Paragon City that you will no longer be welcome in the Rogue Isles. But that may not be the case. It could be that being of your "true" alignment (good for heroes and evil for villains) limits you to your "home" zones, while achieving the Neutral alignment (or starting as it) will give you access to Preatorian Earth. Then only those who "side switch" have access to all three.

That would solve the question of the Patron contacts, but would bring up the question of how you can betray Lord Recluse and not end up dead the moment you step foot in Spider City. Personally, I think it's the Neutral alignments that will be welcome in all three areas, and the Villains turned good and Heroes turned evil will be unable to return "home". Possibly sacrificing some options, but maybe gaining new ones.