Montaugh

well considering Dim shift's new recharge time it's not something you'll be tossing out every fight. It's long enough that I won't use it unless I have to use the power because I won't be able to count on the power recharging quickly enough. And I loved dim shift

I have to say it sucks to have so many long recharing gheto hold like powers. I'd just like a power the complements Crushing field. Moderately quick recharge, and decent duration. Even having applied crushing field the mobs are still knocked back with wormhole. You can hold them and then move them... but what's the point in that.

The changes don't really touch the control gap at all in terms of effectiveness for pve.

Dim Shift... longer recharge, shorter duration. Last thing we needed was for a nerf to our trinary form of control. I can see the shorter duration but increasing the recharge. Duration and recharge should match as we can't effect the duration of the power.

Wormhole... we lost our single target go where I say and got an area effect go there and scatter when you get there. It lost a lot of utility.

To me we lost control with these changes. We need a disorient that matches all other disorients in the game for controllers. A teleporting, knockbacking, disorient, area power just doesn't cut it as a secondary form of control.

Wormhole comes down to this... the power is trying to fill to many requests at one time. Only the requests are not working as imaginged.

People wanted a means to gather mobs into a tight group. Result turn a single target teleport into an area teleport effect.

People wanted an area disorient....Result turn a teleport with minor disorient and knockback into a disorient power, meeting the suggestion of the above.

It does to much and the end result is a power that does a lot of things but the only thing it does well is the teleport away from me. This function was ruined when it became an area of effect as we could not longer control what teleports away from me. It's lost it's primary purpose of go where I say, secondary purpose of a disorient control is ruined by knockback, it's trinary purpose of gathering the mobs doesn't work because of the way the mobs exit the wormhole, the stumbling disorient upon exit and the scattering of the knockback.

Wormhole is doing to much and none of it well.

Just take Illusion and Mind out of the control equasion. Illusion is really a summoner/damage and mind is for those that want all control with no pets. Illusion and mind are not your typical control sets.

This leaves us our 4 elemental sets. These are the ones that should be balanced against each other. Ice, Fire, Earth, and Gravity. These sets make up the typical controllers they should be similiar and only be slightly different.

Balance is not as simple as just removing propel and making it a disorient.. Gravity would then have a disorient before every other set breaking the balance inbetween the sets. We need to balance the effects as to when everyone else gets them. This makes it fair to all sets. It also keeps balance within the set... a knock up is better then a sleep but ice gets it's knock up before it's sleep.

Powers 1...immobilize all sets

Power two...
Attack in gravity
Holds in ice, earth, fire ((I doubled checked heh and here I thought fire had a disorient for some reason))

This is Gravity's first devation from the norm...

Power 3
Hold((gravity)) or area immob ((ice, fire, earth))

Power 4
Slow ((earth)), perception reducer fire/ice. Single target high damage attack ((propel))

Power five...
Sleep ((earth), Slows ((ice/fire)), area immoblize ((gravity).

power six
Fire/earth disortion. Ice knockup, Gravity phase shift.

Power seven..
area holds.. ((gravity, Fire)), sleep ((ice)), knock up ((earth))

power eight..
Area hold ((ice/earth)), Knock back/up ((fire)), teleport ((gravity))

Power nine.. pets in all sets.

Here is how the typical control set should be set up... it's a logical progression in terms of control. You start with the weakest and move up.

This is Earth Controls progression

Power 1 immobilize
power 2 hold
power 3 area immobilize
power 4..slows
Power 5..sleeps
Power 6...Disorients
power 7...knock up
power 8...area hold
power 9.. Pets

Now each set does have little quirks if they don't have an effect then their unique power should appear there. But if they have a unique power then it should be at that power..

Fire control...
1. single immobilization
2. Single hold
3. area imobilization
4. slow
5. stealth power
6. disorient
7. knock up
8. area hold
9. pets

Ice control..
1. immobilization
2. hold
3 area immobilization
4. slow
5. sleep
6. stealth power
7. knock up
8. Area hold
9. Pet.

Gravity Control
1. Immobilize
2. Hold
3. Area immbolize
4. Slow ((change lift to slow see below))
5. propel
6. disorient ((change dim shift to a disorient. I liked the old dim shift but it just was not typical player friendly))
7. Wormhole
8. Area hold
9. Pet

all the sets need to be rearranged so that control powers come at the same time. I beleive this is why earth is played so little... pet is seen as poor and it's hold comes in late.

Following powers for gravity need the following alterations..

Lift.. change to an area of effect slow. It would be a true slow - recharge and -movement. Gravity as a set is missing a mass slow it's a typical gravity power. Use the same casting animation, then apply the slow effect to the mobs as a visual cue use the visual effect from crush.


Dimension Shift... as others have said change the power to a disorient. Keep the visual effect the same, all animations the same ect... just change from a phase to a disorient. I really liked the phase shifting but many do not like the power. PvP is not a reason to keep the power around if it hinders the PvE experience which a larger percent of your population will enjoy.

Finally wormhole...teleport of mass teleport. *shrugs* I can find a use for either.

Basically this does involve remaking gravity 4 powers... lift, propel, wormhole, and dim shift created our control gap. Almost half of our set.

Many maybe wondering why I used earth as the template... earth actually has the most logical progression of powers in terms of power. All the other sets start out well but then they get jumbled and fall out of sync like in ice a knock up coming before a sleep.

Holds are our best form of control. But not the only form. Before you get your area holds you need to learn how to use your existing powers for when the holds are down. This makes you less dependant upon the area holds themselves.

I do beleive all holds should be ranged goes against a caster having to get into melee combat to use our abilities.

Now there is another option for controllers in general. All controllers should have an honest to goodness ranged attack similiar to propel in their power sets. With this we remove one power and give them that attack.

This change serves two purposes... no set does everything. Sets have an attack and a unique power.

Each set has a power that just doesn't mesh well with the set and is disliked by those controllers that play the set. So remove this one power that doesn't go with the flow of the set and give them a propel like attack in terms of damage.

Ice.. Loses area immobilization. Out of all the ice powers the area immob is the worst as they have no disorient. You could lose the sleep but again with no disorient area immobilization is a death trap.

This leaves them with no area immob, and no area disorient.
They keep the stealth power and gain an attack.

Fire looses bonfire, now I know many were thinking I'd take hot feet, hot feet should be a placeable slow like earth's slow.

I'm taking bonfire because it makes no sense in a fire control's theme. Fire can melt the earth it doesn't knock you back. A volcano/venting gas/explosions ((as I know someone will argue)) is an earth effect.
Fire no sleep, no knock up.. stealth power and an attack.

Gravity doesn't gain a sleep, and has no knockup. Teleport and an attack.

Earth control... loses salt crystals and.. it's disadvantage is it has no unique feature... no teleport, no stealth powers. It's the best in terms of pure control out of the four sets. This is also to make up for the pet which some see as sub par. I've never seen an earth controller so their must be some truth to that in game. or at least perceived truth by the playerbase.

Like I said this attack should be identical to propel in every way/shape/form.

Complete control set rework below...
Earth Control

Power 1 Stone prisoon
power 2 Fossilize
power 3 Stone cages
power 4 Quick sand
Power 5 ((insert new attack))
Power 6 Stalagmites
power 7 Earth Quake
power 8 Volcanic Gasses
power 9 Animate Stone

Fire control...
1. Ring of Fire
2. Char
3. Fire Cages
4. Hot feet ((made placeable like earth's))
5. ((insert attack))
6. Flashfire
7. Smoke
8. Cinders
9. Fire Imps

Ice control..
1. Chillbane
2. Block of Ice
3 ((insert new attack))
4. Shiver
5. Flash Freeze
6. Artic Air
7. Ice Slick
8. Glacier
9. Pet.

Gravity Control
1. Crush
2. Grav disortion
3. Crushing field
4. Lift ((changed to a slow))
5. propel
6. Dim Shift ((changed to disorient))
7. Wormhole
8. GDF
9. Sigularities.

There you go... Fire/ice/Earth and Gravity all balanced against each other. Each set able to do somethings but not everything.

Illusion is your summoning set
Mind is your pure control set.

To fix the control gap you must first understand where and how the gap lies in the set. Every control set but controllers have at least 3 effects to use inbetween recharging of the area hold.

Effects such as ... multiple pets, sleeps, confuse, knock up, imob/disorient, fear.

We have 4 single target effects. 2 of which are attack powers.
we have 4 area effects.. 3 of which can not fill the gap inbetween our area hold currently.

To close the cap on other controllers we need 2 effects that will take the place of our hold while it recharges. Teleport/sig are our third effect.

1 aoe disorient that mimics crushing field in everyway only is a disorient rather then an immbolization. This with crushing field fills the typical immob/disorient. Propel is the most logical canidate for this change.

and 1 other area control power. Phase shift was it but the power is hated by many and loved by few. I loved the power as it was personally... the change ruined the power as anything but an oh crap power in a pve setting.

To make the power 'useful' Change Dim Shift to the following... Area slow(movement and recharge)), -end recovery. The power should recharge as fast and last as long as the old version of dim shift. ((about half the recharge of GDF)) The power doesn't drain end but stacked can reduce end recovery... excepts slows range, end reducers, recharge, accuracy and end recovery enhancements.

Keep the visual effect the same just change the effect of the power.

Description of the new Dim Shift...
You partially phase your targets out of reality. This attack slows the movements and reaction times of all effected foes and reduces their ability to recover endurance for a period of time.

Effect... area of effect, slow movement/recharge, - end recharge.

Dim shift is now very useful, meshes well with kinetics and end draining powers in general. Offers a form of control no other controller has... endurance control. Keeps in line with gravity as a theme.

Gravity after these changed looks as follows...
3 single target attacks. 1 hold, 1 immob, 1 attack
4 area powers... 1 imob, 1 disorient, 1 teleport, 1 slow/end control, 1 hold.
1 pet ((controlling))

while our hold refreshes we have immobilization/disorient and an end draining/slow power. This will allow us to actually control just about as well as other controllers. We don't have sleeps, or knock ups but in their place we get end reduction and a teleport power.

just thought of something about wormhole and pvp..

Wormhole is now an area of effect, a disorient AND knockback. So does that mean if we use it in pvp we don't only offer mass protection from 1 mez effect but two...