Laevateinn
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Out of the box, a 480 damage AoE usable only once every 90s that only has enough accuracy to cap hitchance against even-cons, to be precise. It's great, but not really game-changing.Originally Posted by Aliana Blue
Some of these incarnate powers look absolutely sick. Seriously, an extreme damage AoE that can hit 40 targets?
Someone in one of the Leagues asked, when I mentioned the ridiculousness (we got the target caps for a reason), how often I was planning on having 40 mobs in range.
The answer should be obvious: With this kind of thing available, every single fraggin' time. -
Quote:Because power equals fun, and the more powerful a character is the more fun she is to play. Well-designed IO builds can take on greater challenges, run into frustrating situations much less frequently, are less reliant on teammates being competent, let you be a lot more flexible with team makeup, and are a way to keep investing and improving a character you love. Minmaxing can be fun all on its own; every build is a logic puzzle where you have to find a balance between budget, concept and performance that you can live with. Build design involves much more strategy than anything in the game itself, requiring good judgement, experience and even creativity (math, not so much - Mids' is there to do the math for you).Originally Posted by crayhal
If the game is playable with just SOs, how come people are spending billions on a build, and complaining about the price of purples and pvp IOs?
IOs are very affordable, even without playing the market or farming. People complain about prices because people will complain about any price that is not completely trivial.
As for people only wanting to play with expensive builds, nothing in the EULA forbids that and they're free to play or not play with whoever they chose. You're free to not join their teams and to put them on ignore. -
Sales have been slower this week, but I'm still regularly making 20m-30m markups per sale.
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You should not skip Howl. It is the only real AoE that sonic gets and is a quick -20% res to everything you hit it with.
When you have Invisibility toggled on you cannot use any powers that affect other people, whether allies or enemies, therefore the defense is of very little use. The concealment pool in general is not very useful, if you want a defense build take Fighting instead.
Siren's Song is very skippable on a rad with -ToHit toggles and defense to protect them. -
(in order of creation date)
Fire/Fire Blaster
Kat/SR Scrapper
Ill/Emp Controller
Inv/DB Tanker
Rad/Sonic Defender
Ice/Cold Corruptor
Fire/SD Scrapper
Fire/Kin Controller
Yes, that would be one hell of a team.
It's funny how the powersets go from relatively normal at the top to gamebreaking FotM builds at the bottom.
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Because the yellow tower caps Recluse's defense and phases him intermittently, PA cannot hit him, and thus cannot taunt him. They rely on their high threat rating to hold aggro. This is probably why you were asked not to put any debuffs on him.
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Quote:Congratulations. You've discovered that, contrary to what is often claimed, power does = fun.Originally Posted by RaikenX
I now, finally, after all this time...feel what it is like...to be truly....AWESOME!
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Even if you don't intend to use it for travel, it's a great place to mule BotZs and Winter's Gift.
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Quote:Dominate's true animation time (in Arcanatime) is same as Char's at 1.320s. This is nearly lightspeed when compared to most Controller single-target holds, which generally have Arcanatime animation times over 2s; I think the next-best one is Blind at 1.848s, some 40% longer, and Blind recharges a second slower. You are right that Char is a very close contender, which I should've kept in mind when saying that, however Dominate does not have a projectile, and the hold lands almost instantly as you fire it. It is a very fast, very responsive hold that stacks magnitude well, with good DPA to maximize proc damage. Things like -def, endurance drain and -slow are nice, but ultimately gravy on an enemy that is held and helpless.Originally Posted by Local_Man
Huh? How is Dominate "by far the best ST hold of any control set?" It has the same duration and Recharge as all the others (except Blind trades a slightly lower duration for its secondary AoE sleep). The cast time is the second fastest, after Char. Dominate has no secondary effects and does 30.59 base Psi Damage at level 50, which is heavily resisted in the late game by some foes. How is this better "by far" than other holds?
Fossilize has -knockback and provides Defense Debuff.
Char does more damage 33.65 over time and it is Fire, and animates slightly faster.
Grav. Dist. does the same damage as Char, and adds -knockback and Slow.
Block of Ice also adds Slow and -knockback.
Blind's cast time is almost as fast, slightly shorter duration but adds a small AoE Sleep.
Strangler has the same higher damage as Char and Grav.
Tesla Cage has some endurance drain.
I don't see how you can say any of these is "by far" better over the others. They are all pretty equal, with minor differences in animation and secondary effects. -
I would interpret the recent changes as nerfs to passive mitigation in general. Resistance sets have not been really spared (Energized nanite halberd, go!) In the specific case of invuln, it only started getting competitive with things like WP after the buff to typed defense.
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Rad. You have a slow (lingering radiation), haste (accelerate metabolism) and time stop (EM Pulse).
For making things blow up, I'd go fire blast. Sounds like a fire/rad corruptor. -
If you are a new player, I actually recommend Illusion. Illusion demands much less attention to be successful, offers a pet you can buff, is compatible with most concepts that use Empathy, and Phantom army is the most powerful control in the game, effective against everything from AVs to enemies with mez protection. The only thing of note you will miss from Mind is Dominate (by far the best ST hold of any control set).
Regardless of which control set you chose, 2 APPs stand out for empaths. Psi mastery has a buff that gives mez protection, but it's a clicky and takes much more recharge to make permanent (on the order of 130% from set bonuses). Power mastery offers Power Boost which increases the strength of your heals and the defense/ToHit from Fortitude. As a controller, you can Heal Other for around 1k and Fortitude for some +30% defense which is comparable with forcefields bubbles. However, you will need to train yourself to click powerboost before using fortitude, and remember that power boosted Fortitude does not overwrite a non-powerboosted one. Mind is not a big damage control set so you will always have anemic damage regardless of APP.
Generally speaking, your single-target hold and sleep should be slotted for damage, and purple sets should be 5-slotted. You can afford to skimp on slotting for Confuse since it starts out with a long duration and abnormally high accuracy. You should take Heal Other instead of Absorb Pain if you have to chose between the two because Absorb Pain makes you unable to be healed for a while after using it, and the heal fires 0.5s later into the animation (the cause of many squishy deaths, speaking from experience). Here is probably how I would slot a 'cheap' Mind/emp (no purple damage sets). You have perma-hasten, 20 ranged defense, and indomitable will is about 6.5s from permanent.
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Looking at my Ice/Cold today, I realized that by rearranging slots a little, I could drop Bitter Freeze Ray and Snow Storm and pick up Aid other/self. Set bonuses are not significantly affected.
I currently run with 32.5 ranged defense and around 31% S/L res, but I enjoy playing aggressively and hibernate, while nice, removes me from the action. In exchange for 2 powers I never use, will Aid self make a significant contribution to survivability, or should I just take fighting pool and go for the softcap? -
And the damage buff affects AoE attacks from both the secondary and APP.
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To solo GMs, what you need is softcapped defense, -Regen and good single-target damage. Imps are not effective because a lot of GMs have footstomp and that prevents imps from doing good damage.
Slot Char for damage (you can fit 2 purple procs in it, and it is the second best ST hold behind Dominate), pick an APP blast and work out a good attack chain, then try again. -
I think you're getting a bit emotional. I don't see this as a 'dominators > controllers' discussion, only that Mind's strengths tend to work especially well with Dominators' and its weaknesses are especially noticeable on Controllers.
To say that all sets are 'workable' is politically correct, but meaningless. All powersets are 'workable' if you have sufficiently low standards, spend enough, or have a high enough tolerance for frustration. Some powersets are better overall than others (if not, there would be no balance changes, ever). There's nothing wrong with playing powersets that aren't the most optimal or capable, but not giving people the facts when they ask for advice is dishonest. -
Quote:Plant is one of the top-tier control sets, along with Illusion and Fire, and this is definitely an advantage. But since flashfire is already up every spawn, the advantage isn't as big as Fire vs Mind.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
And Seeds of Confusion recharges faster than both and is twice as good as Flashfire.
Part of what I'm trying to say is that going from controller to dominator on a Mind is a much bigger difference than, e.g. on Fire. The huge magnitudes and durations amplify the advantages of things like AoE sleeps and aggroless controls into powers that manhandle content. The dominator that soloed MoLRSF was a Mind/Fire - and did it by confusing AVs. That's not something that either a plant or fire could do, whatever the AT.Quote:This is true of ALL Dominators.
There are sets for which the reverse is true. Illusion is great on controllers but it would never work as a dominator set since it doesn't build domination. Some powersets are more suited to the strengths of certain ATs than others. -
As Fire/, you will have much better damage through containment, hotfeet and imps, be able to neutralize KB and prevent enemies running out of sleet with the immobilize, and the control is only slightly worse than Mind. Flashfire recharges faster than alternating both Total Dom and Mass Confuse, and you have Cinders as a backup.
Mind offers some unique advantages, like aggroless controls, but this needs to be weighed against the solid, consistent damage advantage and the AoE hard control available for every spawn that fire provides.
Terror1 is right that Mind only truly shines on Dominators, who 1) are not dependent on Containment for damage, and 2) can stack incredible magnitudes of control with Domination, which lets them control everything from all-boss spawns to AVs with purple triangles up. -
Playing casually, all my characters have amassed more than enough shards/notices to get Very Rare alphas. I skip WTFs that I don't like (so far, mainly Sister P and Numina) and play only the ones I enjoy. My scrapper has 220 shards after getting her Cardiac Core Paragon.
So far, the only remotely annoying thing about the incarnate content are the 'shard TFs' that have been popping up. People on these TFs tend to talk about nothing but how many shards they got so far, how many more they need, how the droprate needs to be increased, etc etc. which is annoying since I team for the social aspect of the game. -
Estimated marketeering income is 500m to 1bn a day.
I can probably push it to 1bn/day if I really wanted, but then it would start becoming like work. I'd rather play casually and make a little less. -
Successful IO builds usually aim for recharge and/or defense, with accuracy/recovery/HP/regen as secondary build goals. In most cases you cannot stack enough resistance or damage buff to matter, and other bonuses are useless.
Typical build goals for a high-end IO build might include:
- have enough recharge to fire your best attack chain without gaps
- making some power (e.g. Hasten) permanent
- making some power stack a certain number of times (e.g. Rage)
- getting some amount of defense (45 is the softcap, but 32.5 to 35 is also common, so that you can eat a small purple insp and be softcapped immediately)
- being able to have 95% hitchance against +3 or +4 enemies
- have capped HP
- solve endurance problems
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Even though Fire/Kin controllers have a reputation for farming, they're actually pretty versatile. They have good survivability, incredible buffs, and excellent damage (although the first and last depends somewhat on what APP they take).
Ill/Rad and Elec/Psi/Ice have already been mentioned. -
I don't play characters that are derivatives of canon groups for the same reason I don't play EATs: I dislike the lack of conceptual freedom, and while Paragon Studios has produced some pretty amazing bits of storytelling, the CoH background as a whole has never struck me as being especially interesting or well-written. As arrogant as it may sound, I prefer my own characters, costumes and concepts, which I consider more original and creative.
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My Rad/Sonic defender has Hecatomb in Brawl. Originally I had both Manuevers and Vengeance 5-slotted for the recharge bonus. Then I realized that by taking 4 slots from Vengeance and using them to slot Hecatomb in Brawl, I gained another 5% recharge and 15% accuracy.
Some of my alts have Kinetic Combat in Brawl for the S/L defense. -
Most solo friendly: Brute, Scrapper
Most powerful teamed: Controller, Corruptor, Defender
Most powerful late-game: Controller, Mastermind
Most powerful early game: Blaster
Best at earning rewards: Controller, Brute, Blaster, Scrapper, Dominator
Most fun to play: Subjective
Most tank-like: Tanks, obviously
Most healer-like: Some Defenders, some Corruptors, some Controllers (although in CoH the buffs greatly outshine the heals)