Miladys_Knight
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Quote:Well it depends on how you are going about playing and what enemy groups you are facing. The problem is chain aggroing the entire spawn. As an example the blaster CAN NEVER get enough range in Siren's Song with range enhancements to be outside of perception range. Even if you take /Nrg and use boost range. (Adding in Alpha Cardiac into the mix does give you enough range) That means that you either have to have mitigation from an outside source like inspirations, defense set bonuses or team buffs.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
So you're saying Fire Breath, Psychic Scream, Tenebrous Tentacles, Fistful of Arrows, Buckshot, Empty Clips, Energy Torrent, Electron Haze, Howl, Siren's Song, and Frost Breath are all bad because they aggro enemies. God forbid.
If you are solo you don't get team buffs, if you have a primary with long animations or that is single target focused insps don't drop as fast as you use them. That leaves IO set bonuses as the only reliable method of mitigation. To add insult to injury if you get mezzed during the mob's alpha you can be dead before you can trigger another AoE power and you'll be long dead trying to survive using only 3 powers if you are out of break frees. Which brings us back in a vicious circle of why blasters under perform.
Your blasters may be able to survive just fine. Most of mine can (depending on power sets, enemy type, and difficulty, and my character's development in the IO and incarnate departments) but the aggregate blaster of all players in the CoX multiverse CAN NOT and never has been able to and that is the measuring stick for balance.
My personal metric is inspiration use. My blasters use roughly 6 times the inspirations of any other AT I play just to get slightly less survivability. I don't get to use them for anything but mitigation and the offensive ones that do drop I have to convert into insps that provide mitigation.
When I play one of my scrappers and I pretend to be a blaster and eat the candy at the same speed I can vastly outperform the blaster simply because I don't need any break frees, I need far fewer awakens, far fewer respites, and I can get away with the occasional purple or orange and combine all the rest into reds and blow the blaster completely out of the water as far as DPS is concerned. -
Quote:To be honest Ice/Psi doesn't give you all that much synergy. Ice/ can cap mob -rech all by itself rendering the -rech from /Psi moot.Originally Posted by Jharber
Yes, I kinda realized that nothing really went as well IMO with ice than ice/psi since both de-buff recharge. I also did not know I22 was coming out so soon. I decided to just stick with waiting to make my long awaited dark/dark dominator. I might try ice/dark down the line though since I really love the doms version of dark assault.
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Or we could just make it simple and give the blaster enough mez protection to ignore 1 application of mez and be done with it.........
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Quote:I know that to not be the case for certain.Originally Posted by Jibikao
From what I understand, if the enemy is "mezzed" (knocked back, held, stunned), then most of the enemies within that group will be notified even if you are at very long range. People do corner pull (hit and then hide in the corner before the attack lands) all the time and I see people use Nemesis Staff which has knock back and it always pulls majority of the group. The Black Wand is a much better way to pull because it only has -tohit debuff.
I've seen Sniper Rifle pulls and knocks down and alert majority of the enemy. I am not sure if he didn't stand really far enough or what, but I am pretty sure if you want to pull, don't use any attack with control effect. Control effects my exclude confuse and fear. I know knock back, stun and hold will alert.
My whole point is that if they want Snipe to be an aggro-less super long-range attack, they shouldn't add control effects in them.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=282489
You can read through this thread if you like. The tl:dr version is this:
Flash Freeze has a base range of 60 feet and a radius of 25'. If you move exactly to 60 feet and cast it and miss 1 mob in the spawn the entire spawn will aggro (because you are in their perception range) AND THEN those that were hit will take damage and be encased in the ice sleeping. (Flash Freeze applies both damage and a mez)
If you hit all the mobs some return fire can come back your direction between the time the damage is applied and the time the mez is applied but most often it is none unless you are closer than 60'
If you slot 2 SOs worth of range in Flash Freeze you have range 84 and radius 25. If you approach the spawn so that the closest mob is at 84 feet and cast it only the ones you miss will aggro since you are outside their perception radius. The others will all take their damage and then get mezzed.
If there is a boss in the group and domination is down the spawn will chain aggro even at 84 feet because the boss will take damage and not be locked down. They will launch attacks between the damage and sleep portions of the mez and then the minions and lieutenants will be asleep.
If Domination is up and you use flash freeze as above you get no chain aggro again because the boss will be mezzed along with the rest of the spawn the only mobs that will attack you are the mobs that were missed and not mezzed. -
A blaster plays like a hyper active child -
Run to the left to investigate this. Now run to the righ.... OOOH Shiney. Wait what was I doing? Oh yeah run to the right.... oh but what's that back there. CRASH! BANG!.... A time out!?!?!?! Aw mom do I have to.
2 minutes of hyperactivity nets a 5 minute time out.
The defender is Mom. She follows the hyperactive blaster, cleans up the milk that was spilled, closes the refrigerator door, turns off all the lights that were left on, puts the shoes that were tossed randomly away, picks up the strewn socks, cleans the hand and face prints off the window.
While the blaster is in time out she starts a load of laundry and starts peeling potatoes for dinner and actually gets ahead of the little disaster area.
The blaster gets out of time out and chases a moth around the living room, jumps over the couch, runs out the door and lets it slam behind him, "Aw mom do I HAVE to put my shoes back on?" Runs back in the house and tracks mud in, (Not your good shoes! Put on your sneakers!) puts his muddy feet in his shoes and runs outside where he picks up a stick and starts swinging it around. 10 seconds later he's back in and crying. He whacked the tree with the stick, it broke and his hands sting, and he has a cut where the sharp part of the broken stick hit him.
2 minutes of hyperactivity nets a 5 minute time out.
While he's sitting there waiting for his hands to stop stinging, Mom finishes peeling the potatoes, slices them and puts them on to boil. She adds detergent and fabric softener to the laundry, cleans the mud off the porch, checks the blaster's hands and send him off on his next mission.
The net result. The blaster had tons of fun during the 2 minutes he was active and completely forgets about the 5 minutes he had in time out for it focusing on the fun. Mom plods along taking each chore, slowly, carefully and methodically and winds up actually getting ahead of the blaster even though it took her twice as long to do so.
That's the psychology of it for me. It takes twice as long soloing stuff on my defender as it does on my blaster but I get to keep going and going and going. My blaster kills it NAO and it kills him NAO. I then spend 3 times as much time getting back from the hospital, buying inspirations, etc as I did killing stuff but it was a huge amount of fun while I was killing stuff.
My view is skewed. I only remember how fast and how much fun it was on the blaster and felt that I plodded along on my defender even though I gained more XP on the fender because all my time was spent playing instead of rezzing or coming back to the mission. -
Quote:Blasters are the highest made AT. They are also the highest abandoned AT.Originally Posted by Chyll
My last, last post.
And as I recall there were dev comments about how Blasters were some of the highest made type of AT and the most taken from hero to villain. The latter in particular, at least, indicates some prevalence of play that would seem to balance against 'worst performing'.
In short, YMMV. And I am far from sold.
I have no doubt that blasters are the most taken villain side as I have done so myself. I didn't stay however. Scorpion shield is just barely worth the trip to and from. The only way to get it is to switch.
Since we can now switch through the Paragon Market I know I for one won't be making the trip ever again. -
Quote:No, Some of the primary buff sets have self granted Mez protection (Forcefields, Sonic Resonance, Traps).Originally Posted by Chyll
Doesn't the average defender have less mitigation against Mez (their powers, by and large, are not self targeting while the blaster gets freedom to use some abilities), and access to the same general blast set mitigation so little real appreciable difference there. I cannot see, or agree, that blasters are at the bottom of the mez and, consquently, (following your logic) DPS food chain.
Primary Debuff sets (Dark Miasma, Radiation Emission, Storm) can floor the to hit of an entire spawn essentially soft capping themselves to mezzing attacks and damage on SOs alone.
Buffing defenders also do not HAVE to enter combat to fulfill their primary roll on a team.
The notable exception to this is Trick Arrow and it is the most under performing defender primary because of this very reason. (it lacks powerful to hit debuffs AND must enter combat to be useful) -
Quote:You are not correct. That is a when not an if. It's not presumptuous its statistical. That's the point that you keep glossing over. No blaster can come close to scrapper levels of mitigation. What you are engaging in is a false comparison.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
That's an "if" not a "when" and a "can" not a "will" and an overall extremely presumptuous statement assuming the blaster /will/ die no matter what.
Scrappers can come very close to blaster levels of damage. WHEN the blaster dies the scrapper pulls ahead in DPS.
The only cases that the scenario is true as you are putting it is when you take a single instance snap shot. Such as comparing 2 successful pylon attempts. Sure you have a blaster that succeeded to compare to the scrapper that succeeded BUT the blaster may have required 5 attempts while the scrapper did it the first time.
If you try to tell me, "Oh, it was the first attempt for both." Then you have a different issue (and another false comparison). You have non-equivalent levels of skill. The blaster player is more skillful if the DPS is similar but the mitigation values are wildly different (which numerically is the case).
The last case where you can get skewed results is in the case where the content is so easy that mitigation doesn't matter. If both the scrapper and the blaster are in little to no danger of defeat then DPS will be much closer and you will have a false comparison again.
If you want a true picture of comparative DPS you HAVE to have accurate comparisons. In this case you need to set up a scenario, have 2 players of equal skill and then calculate using all the time it takes to complete the scenario as a total. Then you need to increase your sample size to make sure that you aren't comparing outliers. The devs do this by data mining. What you are doing is attempting to present 2 non-equivalent cases as evidence.
If you want to put it in a "whole game" perspective I would almost be willing to bet that due to lack of mitigation AND lack of mez protection the aggregate Blaster has a lower DPS than the aggregate Defender. -
Quote:Mobs only chain aggro if you miss and are within perception range. That's why AoEs that are short range (ie:60' or less) are bad for blasters. If you miss one mob they all notify and aggro instantly. If you hit them all they don't aggro until a debuff or the damage is applied. When they chain aggro they queue an attack instantly and because of the way the game mechanics are they roll to hit instantly. Then, even if the mobs are subsequently mezzed, (Sirens Song is a good example here) their animations will complete, their attacks will fire all at nearly the same time, and land and do damage and/or apply mez.Originally Posted by Jibikao
If Snipe is truly designed to be ONLY used at LONG RANGE and causes no Aggro, then several Snipe powers need more work.
Energy Blast
Assault Rifle
Beam Rifle
I believe these 3 have either knock down or knock back. If a "control" effect happens, I believe majority, if not the whole group, is alerted. Your pull will aggro.
Is there a way to force Snipe to be only used at certain range? For example, if you are within 60', you can't activate Snipe. Is that even possible in this game?
This is what we mean by the alpha strike.
Being outside perception range of the majority of the spawn will only chain aggro the ones in perception range. Snipe range solves this problem with all most all enemy types. (Rikti drones being a notable exception) -
Quote:You can in a manner of speaking. When the blaster is defeated his DPS drops to zero. The scrapper will always pull ahead even if his DPS is significantly lower.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
It's completely fair. If you're going to compare two ATs in terms of dps (or anything else) you can't just ignore half of one of the AT's abilities.
Also, on rikti pylon thread the highest blaster dps and the highest scrapper dps were both at about 300 without incarnates factored in.
Their dps is equivalent, however the scrapper is more survivable, but you can't say the scrapper is both capable of putting out more dps and being more survivable cause that's not true. -
Quote:Right, but we aren't talking AVs we are talking Lieutenants.Originally Posted by Rikti
I don't like all these ideas of buffing a snipe like crazy with the only "nerf" being a recharge increase. If an AT had a power that could one-shot an AV, but only every two hours, it still would be overpowered.
If you can't one shot a lieutenant with it then arguably it is better to skip the snipe and just use single target attacks. The animation time is all ready too much of a cost. Extra recharge for triple damage is just making up the difference for the blaster all ready having been over charged. -
@DreadShinobi
Thank you for making my point so succinctly. Yes you can use pool powers to shore up a build BUT EVERY AT can do so and it stacks with what they all ready bring to the table. Pool powers are not unique to blasters so they convey absolutely no special benefit and certainly can't be brought into a serious discussion about balance. That merely points out the seriousness of the lack of AT balance.
To give a non-random example:
- Fighting pool gives you Tough and Weave (3 powers picks) for increased mitigation.
- Leadership gives you Maneuvers for +defense, Assault for +damage and 42.39% placate/taunt resistance (admittedly not much help in PvE), Tactics gives you + to hit and +perception and 36.33% resistance to confuse/fear. (3 power picks)
- Leaping gives you Super Jump (locked into this as your travel power) Combat jumping for + defense and mag 8.3 immob protection, Acrobatics gives you mag 9 KB protection (enhanceable to 10.2 with 1 SO), mag 2 hold protection, and 48.44% hold resistance. (3 power picks)
- Medicine gives you Aid Self and interruptible self heal that also grants 48.44% resistance to stuns (2 power picks)
- Fitness (which is now free) Gives you 48.44% resistance to sleep.
- Epic pool gives you your defensive toggle. (2 power picks)
Slotting 2 SOs per atribute for effect (and to avoid the ED cap) you get (using Electic as the Epic for the example):
10.2% defense to all positions/types
41.7% resistance to S/L
27% resistance to energy
and costs 1.51 end per second.
1 mez drops all those numbers to 0s due to supression and all you've gained is the ability to negate a single hold. You are still going to be affected by 35% of all other mezzes thrown at you (stun is more common than hold). The mez resistance isn't all that helpful. To give an example of one of those with better numbers a 30 second Longbow Stun grenade will last 20 seconds. More than enough time for the mobs to tear out your internal organs and show them to you.
You have 10 power picks left to split between 17 remaining primary and secondary powers and 3 additional Epic powers and 43 slots left to split between them.
No other AT gives up so much to get so little.
Quote:I guess you should have taken acrobatics thenOriginally Posted by Sailboat
Recently had a Stone/Stone Tanker held and killed fighting against +1s.
It doesn't burst any bubbles.Quote:Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
Hate to pop the bubble here...but corruptors and defenders cant cast mez protection on themselves nor other powers on themselves.....and area of effect powers wise they actualy get a smaller amount of protection then their team......thats why you for example will see some area of effect hold that doesnt effect anyone except the defender....and you only notice because their attacks cease and they stand motionless.
- Force fields, Sonic resonance, and Traps all have powers that convey mez protection on the caster.
- Radiation Emission, Storm, and Dark can all floor an entire spawn's chance to hit.
- Early game primarily buffing power sets like Empathy have some similar issues but do have tools to keep the caster alive. Later additions like Thermal and Cold have both buffs and debuffs to use and it isn't 100% necessary for a primary buffer to directly enter combat to still fulfill their primary function.
The notable exception to these is Trick Arrow and we know that is on the dev's radar http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=279734
This presents the problem of what to do with Assault Rifle, Dual Pistols, Devices and Darkness Manipulation. The first 3 lack these powers and the final one has a recharge of 120 seconds and a duration of 30 as opposed to 90 seconds and 10 seconds for all other power sets that have these type powers.Quote:Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
For the same reasons Miladys_Knight discussed, blasters would be the beneficiaries of a buff to mez protection powers like Clear Mind. The devs seem to think making me cast Clear Mind 4 times instead of once in a team of five makes the game somehow better; I disagree. I don't see why Clear Mind and its clones are so much better than Speed Boost that they have to remain so limited. Make Clear Mind an AoE buff like Speed Boost, and the problem may be solved indirectly.
In addition, I'd like to see 10 seconds of mez protection added to all Aim and Build Up powers on all ATs. I first had this idea before ever playing (that other superhero MMO), and once I saw this idea in action there, I was just more convinced it's a good one. Why? Getting mezzed on any squishy is a bummer, but getting mezzed during my ten seconds to shine can be mouse-throwing, chair-kicking, wake-the-neighbors infuriating.
Guess you should have turned your difficulty down then.Quote:Originally Posted by Sailboat
No, I was 50 and running Rooted. My point in this thread is that ot's not "complete" mezz protection.
Here's the autopsy report.
Even with that a single break free would have solved the problem and I'm sure that you didn't consume the mountain of them in your rise to 50 that would have been required to do the same thing with any blaster that wasn't ??/dev.
(In all seriousness you have my condolances but you get the picture I'm trying to paint. The inanity of these statements when they are uttered by blaster buff nay sayers are on the level of "OMG that wasn't hemmoroid cream that was super glue" to me. Not just irritating but almost as deliberate as the person that switched the super glue in....) -
Quote:I was hoping someone would mention these things. I didn't mention them because, to take them in order:Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
I like how you don't mention anything about defiance in your post or anything about clarion or anything about team buffs or anything about ranged defense or anything about killing the mezzers first or anything about mezzing/kbing the mezzers first or anything about acrobatics. All of which can reduce the number of break frees you need to use for when you actually do /need/ to use one, so the number of break frees you need becomes a reasonable amount.
Blasters aren't as helpless as you make it sound.
- No other AT HAS to take Clarion to be equivalent.
- Non-VIP blasters can't take Clarion.
- Team buffs improve everyone equally. If the blaster needs team buffs to be equivalent to the base state of all other ATs then something is wrong, whether you want to admit it or not.
- Team buffs don't exist when the blaster is solo. The reason most ATs got buffed (controllers got containment and increased damage, Dominators got revamped and their damage was taken out of Domination and put into their secondary, even Defenders got a damage increase in vigilance while solo and on small teams) is because they had difficulty soloing things that other ATs had little or no difficulty with.
- The highest amount of defense you can get with a blaster's power sets is 21.8% vs S/L, 16.4% vs Energy, and 5.5% to every thing else. Which leaves you with 12.3% toxic resistance as the only resistance underneath. That's for a ??/devices/Mace. If you choose any other secondary subtract 5.5% from each position/type. By the way that defense won't become available until you get your epic powers, it deflects virtually no mezzes that are flung your way as most of them are ranged or AoE, and it supresses as soon as you are mezzed. So there is no ranged defense in a blaster's power set.
- Not all blasters have access to IOs.
- It takes an average of 3 single target shots to kill a mezzing minion and 6 to kill a mezzing lieutenant. Since 45% of all mez will hit you. You are still going to get mezzed even on low difficulty settings.
- The mobs out range the blasters. I have been killed without even being able to fire a shot, even after the defiance revamp, by range using mezzers that wouldn't close, neither my tier 1 nor tier 2 primary would reach and my tier 1 secondary certainly didn't reach.
- KB is currently bugged and not ALL blaster power sets have access to it.
- Acrobatics is not part of any blaster power set that means that all ATs have access to it. This does not equalize the playing field.
- No other AT NEEDS breakfrees at anything like the rate that blasters require them. They ALL have solutions built into their power sets.
I never said blasters were helpless. They aren't even close to balanced though. -
I posted this before but this bears repeating here:
*Tank - Complete mez protection
*Brute - Complete mez protection
*Scrapper - complete mez protection
*Stalker - complete mez protection
*Veat - mez protection
*Kheld - Mez protection in Dwarf form and can switch forms to Dwarf while mezzed
*Master Mind - Multiple pets to absorb both the Alpha Mez and reoccurring Mezzes, 3 different secondaries that provide full mez protection vs hold, stun, and Immob for themselves and their team, and Buffs/debuffs that make it less likely to be be hit by mez
*Defender - Powerful Buff/Debuff primary that can effectively reduce the likely hood of being mezzed to 5% for themselves AND their team, 3 different primaries that provide full mez protection vs hold, stun, and Immob for themselves and their team
*Corruptor - Powerful Buff/Debuff secondary that, with the inclusion of a couple of pool powers, can effectively reduce the likely hood of being mezzed to 5% for themselves AND their team, 2 different secondaries that provide full mez protection vs hold, stun, and Immob for themselves and their team
*Controllers - Powerful AoE mezzes that can stop an entire spawn from attacking, Alpha Mez absorbing pets, Powerful Buff/Debuff secondary that, with the inclusion of a couple of pool powers, can effectively reduce the likely hood of being mezzed to 5% for themselves AND their team, 2 different secondaries that provide full mez protection vs hold, stun, and Immob for themselves and their team
*Dominators - Powerful AoE mezzes that can stop an entire spawn from attacking, Alpha Mez absorbing pets, full mez protection 65+% of the time with SO slotting only through the use of a single pool power and a cheap and universally easy to use SG base empowerment.
The blaster is the ONLY AT in the game that will get hit with 45% of all mezzes launched at them. ALL the other ATs in the game can limit being affected by mez to 5% or less.
All the other ATs in the game can use their full range of powers 95% of the time. In a late game heavy mez environment (which, with the exception of the ITF is every thing else) the blaster can potentially be locked into using only 3 powers for entire missions.
No blaster primary, secondary, or epic power set provides any kind of mitigation to any status effect: hold, stun, sleep, terror, confuse, knock back, immobilize, endurance drain, slow, -rech, defense debuff and -regen. A blaster's only recourse is to suck it up and repay the resulting debt or use a break free. Break Frees do not drop often enough nor do they have long enough a duration to be a reliable solution especially in the case of primary + secondary combinations that are single target focused.
No matter how much people try to down play that, it's still blatantly unbalanced at best and irreparably broken at worst. -
Quote:Tripling the damage would make a snipe a snipe. You take the time to aim at a vital spot, then "bang" dead target.Originally Posted by Mister Gerald
So far, all the suggestions I'm seeing here amount to: make snipes do something other than, you know, snipe. Good luck with that. Oh, and tripling the damage so as not to "waste" Aim and Build Up? People would still use Aim and Build Up on such a power. I know I would.
Personally? I like snipes just fine the way they are, long activation times and all (also a datamine point).
Using Aim or Build up with a triple damage snipe would be a waste. Triple damage means that it takes out a lieutenant (and/or a minion obviously) in one shot. With Aim and Build up it won't finish off a boss. The obvious intent would be to eliminate one problem mob before the spawn's alpha, from outside retaliation range. You could eliminate a mez using lieutenant before they could launch the alpha mez. -
One thread for each AT stopping issue is what we have and it looks like we aren't even addressing them all with the ones that are here.....
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Thorns is good. My personal preference is /earth. Ice is a primary designed to play in melee range and earth assault is a secondary that is designed to be played in melee range. The 2 sets combine very well.
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Mag 4 mez protection is really the only viable option because of the power sets that have "offensive toggles" as mitigation (Hot Feet, Lightening Field, Chilling Embrace). If you get mezzed even for a second you are detoggled and lose your mitigation until it recharges. In high level content it's pointless to even have these powers since they are off most of the time. Mag 4 means that you can handle facing off against 1 mezzer and survive the alpha mez but you can't survive 2 mezzers or 2 applications of the same type mez. You'll still need to use the occasional breakfree instead of one (or even 2) every spawn.
I could get behind no mez protection and 1000% resistance to mez if those toggles were recoded as "defensive toggles" so that they didn't drop on mez. 1000% mez resistance would mean that blasters were still affected by mez and the toggle powers that they do have would suppress during the mez but the mez would only last 1/10 its usual duration. That would make those 30 second holds/stuns last a more appropriate 3 seconds for an AT that lacks meaningful defenses, resistances, buffs, and debuffs. -
Nope. Blasters need the ability to use their attacks before they are defeated. My pet peeves are:
Excessively long animation times on the melee attacks. The damage scale is fine. As a "King of Damage" blaster, I should be able to get 2 or 3 melee attacks in, in the time it takes the mobs to get in 1.
Short ranged long animating tier 3 blasts. These are a guarantee that a mob is going to get to melee range and get a shot in on you. A nice standardization would be 40 feet of range for every second of animation time. -
Let the blaster choose. Have the tier 9 give 2 options and you choose one when you select the power.
Option 1) All other things remain exactly as they are now for blaster tier 9s but the endurance crash is removed.
Option 2) Triple the damage, double the secondary effects (both duration and magnitude), double the recharge, leave the crash in.
The blaster gets to choose which way they want it when they level up.
This would apply to all the currently crashless tier 9s too. Leave every thing as is but add a crashing version that does triple the damage, double the secondary effects (both duration and magnitude), and double the recharge as the other option. -
Double their recharge, triple their damage. Boom they are fixed. They are used as an every spawn opener, they'll one shot a lieutenant without wasting Aim and Build Up, and they are still not likely to be used when the battle comes closer.
No one is likely to use them as their only attack and stay permanently at a safe range as that would make leveling slower than ??/dev. -
Don't forget to take Arcanatime into consideration when planning out your chains.
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Quote:I've never found that to be the case for any of my doms.Originally Posted by Seldom
This is not entirely true. It should give more ranged damage options, and since some secondaries are light on range, it will allow them to more effectively fill that hole. It will also help those who want to stay purely ranged but don't have the high recharge to cycle through the limited ranged options in some builds. Plus it gives a dual use...those things can still be used in a different order for soft control, or after for good damage.
Since Doms are slot poor until the mid level 30s I find in low level play that slotting up my single target hold and the first 2 ranged attacks and the first melee attack is usually the best option.
In mid level play picking up and slotting up your primary AoE control and your first AoE are usually best.
By the time I get to the point where I can afford to add in extra single target attacks, I no longer need them.
With the exception of /thorns what my Doms have always wanted was more AoE damage or even the ability to replace the Cone with a non-cone TAoE OR replace the PBAoE with another cone. That way I could actually dispose of all the minions in a mob before my AoE control runs out prior to achieving perma-dom. -
Quote:Since several of us have uses for it, this statement is clearly lacking in factual support.Originally Posted by _Ail_
Time Bomb really is useless. You are almost always better off just placing another trip mine, and anyone who thinks otherwise is (IMO) deluding themselves. I have at least never really heard (even in this thread where people are scrambling for faux-reasons) of a valid reason for taking time bomb.
I would also venture to say that those of us that do use it and find it useful would be very happy to have it altered to make it more useful.
You also need to remember that not every one that plays this game is a VIP or has access to IOs. With SOs only Time Bomb fits very well indeed into to the trapping set up chain. -
Kind of moot for the dom since you have an assault secondary. You don't really need crush, lift, or propel.