Oedipus_Tex

It's hard for me to think through what effect a damaging version of Force Bolt would have on the 4 ATs the power is available on. It seems great for Masterminds. Controllers probably wouldn't get Containment so I'm unsure it's worth casting. A second T1 for other Defender/Corruptors is hard for me to rate.

Another idea I had relates to the "Dizzied" status effect I mentioned above. The "Dizzied" status could dictate that the enemy is unable to try to stand up for some period of time after being knocked down/back. It's also something I had thought about as a fix for Ice Control's Ice Slick power: enemies who fall get up more slowly, too.

The "Dizzied" status effect would be enhanced by Knockback IOs and enhancements. Powers like Ice Slick would have the value hard-coded in at a decent value, while powers like Force Bolt and a few choice other powers could enhance it, and using Power Boost would have some effect.

Agreed but I'm not going to rehash what I've written in 50+ other threads every time I post. These suggestions are in addition to other things.

Regardless, I'm not sure I'd call the ability to knock an eney out of Phase/Intangible "highly situational." Maybe highly situational like Benumb is highly situational, especially attached to a better version of Force Bolt.

I think Repulsion Bomb would be cool if if we ignored its name and reversed its original design. Enemies within 15ft of the target all get sucked next to the target (via teleport).

I've often suggested that Force Bolt should cause a collision of forces that locks enemies out of intangibility for a period of time (e.g. Carnies). Another option is for Force Bolt and a couple of other powers to apply a Dizzied status effect that prevents the use of certain abilities.

Of course that wouldn't be as necessary if they implemented my suggestion that the damage taken from a fall that results from a knockback be multiplied by the mag of knockback that triggered it (with some limits).

Agreed.

Mind Controllers as top tier is not close to the mark, so it is not clear what you are talking about. On Dominators, maybe, but I still prefer my Ice Doms once both sets types get IOed.

Do you actually have an Ice Dominator from which you are drawing these conclusions or are you just arguing to argue? You are kind of all over the place and it's apparent, frankly, that you really aren't very familiar with the set, particularly in terms of its performance at the "top end" you keep bringing up in this and other threads (e.g. the Archery/Psi Blaster discussion).


EDIT: Just re-read that, sorry, it was ruder than I intended. I just mean, do you actually have an Ice Dominator with IOs and incarnate abilities to compare to a similar character with other sets? I have a Ice/Fire Dom, my little brother has a Earth/Fire Dominator with a nearly identical build (I built both characters). I've played both and both are very good. Definitely not as huge a gap as some people seem to think based on pre-IO performance. The main thing is just that the Ice character has more trouble at the start of the fight or against enemies with a lot of +ToHit, the Earth usually has more trouble if he finishes a fight quickly and runs off to the next before powers are recharged: no Arctic Air and no stacking with Contagious Confusion or Cognitive. Cognitive + AA is incidentally where a lot of my additional mitigation comes from, and that particular synergy is less than 8 months old, so I doubt if many players at all have tried it.

I also have to admit I don't know exactly what you mean by the farming like a Brute comment a few posts ago. I think Ice is probably better than Plant at that if what you are talking about is Fire farms. Earth might beat Ice. But I can definitely fire farm with my Ice/Fire at around 50+3 with bosses. Not as easily as a Brute due to modest HP and lower capped resists, but easily enough. If you're just talking about finding some map to run around against 50+4s that's unquestionably possible and I've done it many many many times on the Ice/Fire Dominator, again possible because AA has no recharge so it is always ready for the next group no matter how fast you go.

EDIT2: Of course I wrote all that, and then right after went into Dark Astoria and got my butt handed to me by the Knives of Vengeance. I have no idea how other Dominators do with that, but without a good hard mezz, forced to fight something that seemingly ignored -run speed, I was toast, even at +2 (to my +3). ut a lot of that comes down to the decision to increase the ToHit of mobs in incarnate content, which naturally effects Ice Control, because when its mitigation is entirely tied to being able to mimic a Scrapper.

Sideline, but I've found Cognitive great on Ice Control characters.

I also have those sets and I am saying is that with IOs, Ice is not as far behind as you think once it starts plugging holes. When other sets get IOs, they improve but gameplay doesn't radically change. Ice is more like "Where the hell did THAT come from?" I would definitely say my Ice Doms give my Mind a run for his money. AA is a freaking awesome control power with no real recharge once you tame it: it's built for steam rolling. Mind Control, not so much.

I wouldn't say no to unresistable knockdown in Ice Slick and alonger confuse in AA. Or Glacier with half its current recharge. But a lot of that has more to do with the journey to IO-hood and not the final destination.

EDIT: Specifically, what I disagree with is that anything given IOs improves the same amount. I don't really feel IOs significantly improve Sonic Resonance, for example. But Ice is in a weird position: it has a very good power that only unlocks its potential specifically after you add defense and reliable mezz protection. So, it's not quite the same as just throwing survivability at another character. The survivability compounds on itself and produces something a lot stronger than what you might initially expect.

It being near the top isn't really concern of mine. It having an immobilize superior to a blast is, though.

I would probably give Roots the Fire Cages treatment. That would lower it as follows:

Current: 3.06 x 3 Lethal + 3.06 x 3 Smashing + (If containment: 6.12 x 3 Lethal) = 36.72

Revised: 3.36 x 3 Smashing + (If containment: 3.36 x 3 Lethal) = 20.16

That puts it exactly even with Fire Control, still ahead of other control sets and, for its recharge actually still a fairly impressive power. Not an immobilize nuke, though.

We should note that when other damage powers outperform similar damage powers, they tend to do it at the hands of unusual calculations. Not Roots. It just straight up deals twice as much damage as everything except Fire, and about 1.5 times as much as Fire, whose secondary effect is supposed to be "more damage." Plant doesn't have a real secondary effect so I am fine with giving it a few edges, but this one is waaay too out of line.

I would ultimately love to see the set toned down some and it pick up a stronger secondary effect of +Regen. That theme already appears to be running strong in it.

I more or less agree. I have some quibbles with it but then I always do. My general take is that is a powerset is only somewhat over or underpowered that it's okay.

In any case, there is some history here: the last time Tater Todd and I debated Roots was during the Dark Control beta. Dark Control originally had Root's damage values. We and others had a protacted argument about it, then in one of the beta builds the numbers were reduced to their current values. Had Dark been released with the originally intended values, it would have rivaled Plant. But no set is allowed to rival Plant, because Plant is broken. This issue is at least on some developers radar in terms of new sets.

There's a reason I keep saying if Plant or Fire were released today, the boards would be flooded with people saying these were the worst powersets in the game's history, as evidenced by Smoke, Bonfire, Tree of Life, and Spore Burst. That's because most beta testers don't seem to actually test sets as a whole. Instead they scan individual powers and make sure no single power is worse than the best something else has to offer.



Todd, you are an all around good guy and I don't like to argue with you, but what you're suggesting is along the lines of saying that the way to fix Shield Charge was to give all other sets something comparable. It just doesn't work. It's unsustainable to just keep pushing values up and up. And it doesn't just effect Controllers or Dominators. Corruptors, Blasters and Defenders are frankly getting screwed by Plant Control.

One of the funniest things I read recently in the Staff Fighting feedback section was that powersets would be more popular if all of them were "above average." I'm still not sure if that was intended to be sarcastic.

Fixing a grossly overperforming powerset IS "building up." I'm not here to to wrangle power by misleading developers.

A policy of buffing powersets but never fixing major violations of balance formulas is unsustainable. It is, in fact, how we got where we are now, where all of these other sets NEED a buff.

The problem with objectivity is sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I have Plant Control characters who would be weakened by fixing it.

There are some points that are debatable in powerset discussions because they come down to context. But there is no context in which Root's damage values are justifiable in relation to the other Control sets or to powersets in general. None. Zero.

I personally believe asking the developers to buff a set is a matter of ethics. I'm telling them that in my unbiased opinion the set needs help. With Plant, concealing what I know to be extremely damning data while demanding fixes to other sets is to me tantamount to lying. The set is ridiculous, not just ancedotally but identifiably, based on numbers that are completely out of alignment with what has been established for other sets. There are two possible ways to deal with it:

1) Buff the damage of all other Control sets, along with Blasters, Defenders, Corruptors (at a minimum) along with all other ATs that are supposed to specialize in AoE powers
2) Fix Roots

The choice is pretty obvious to me.

Now, to understand how outrageous those numers are, we need to delve into a little geometry. A radius of 30ft vs a radius of 15ft doesn't mean Roots is "twice as big" as standard AoE blasts. There are two ways to look at it, as a circle (if you care only about stuff basically on the ground all at the same level) and as a sphere (if you care about the true area). A 15ft radius gives you 706ft area in a circle and ~14,137 ft in a sphere. Root's 30ft radius in comparison gives you 2827 ft in a circle and ~113,097 in a sphere. The sphere created by Roots is 8 times larger than standard AoR blast powers. And it recharges in half the time.

The power is only given that radius and recharge on the assumption that it's a "control" and not a "blast." And yet it's quite clear that this power has assumed the role of a Blast. And then there are all those procs to consider.

At best, Roots should be doing the damage of Fire's immobilizes. In fact, even the numbers on Fire's cages in a game now filled with damage procs and incarnate powers are eyebrow raising enough that I'm convinced a review of all Control sets is in order. But at least Fire adheres to the basic metric: it gets the same base damage as other sets, then tacks on a little DoT. Plant just straight up doubles the numbers. It would be like having Explosive Arrow randomly deliver twice as much damage as every other AoE. It just isn't done with attack powers. And since this power is clearly an attack, it needs to be brought in line.