Oedipus_Tex

Unless they change it, Controller because your route to Power Boost is more direct.

I actually don't find Time's PBAoE that amazing. More or less on par with something like Choking Cloud, which is useful for melee-ish characters but skippable enough. Not bad a panic button power, but I'm not sure I'd be wading through melee just to use it.

I wonder if Beam Rifle won't be a very interesting set to pair with Storm. Storm lacks -Regen but dishes huge damage to AVs via Tornado. Beam Rifle contains -Regen. I'm not sure if it's enough to make a huge difference yet. Beam Rifle is also generally not a huge AoE damage set, which Storm makes up for. And I believe it also has a Stun which can stack with Thunderclap.

Sonic is technically "better" due to the large amounts of -Resistance.

Issue 21 introduces Beam Rifle, which is a blast set featuring some -Regen. Since that is completely lacking in Empathy, it might be worth consideration.

Radiation is still a very nice power set. My favorite aspect of Radiation is the Tier 3 stun/blast combo.

-Defense gets a bad rap, IMO somewhat unfairly. If you a PUG a lot it is actually somewhat better than it sounds, because most teams these days contain characters scattered across multiple level ranges who either aren't yet fully slotted or are exemped below their normal max performance range.

I agree that a Controller might also be a consideration for you. Illusion/Empathy technically allows you to do very little fighting at all, because the pets do most of it for you.

But really almost any Controller or Defender set will pair servicably. The only ones I'm not particularly crazy about are Electric Blast, Assault Rifle, and Energy Blast.

One of the dirtiest uses of Mass Hypnosis and Hypnosis is that Dispersion Bubble does not provide immunity to it. When you come up against Circle of Thorns with D Bubble, you should throw Mass Hyp at the crowd even if you think it might immediately get cancelled. Mass Hypnosis on a Controller has a 50% chance to Overpower, and Hypnosis sleeps a boss in one shot. This has a chance to detoggle the bubble, and even if they immediately wake up they are still detoggled for a while. This also works wonders against enemies wielding Hurricane, particularly when on the Katie Hannon Task Forces where I believe you come up against boss-level witches wielding that power. If I remember right, the AV also uses it, and sleep was able to suppress it each time she tried to turn it on, because AV don't get sleep protection. AVs with aggressive toggles are rare, but not completely unheard of.

Another other use is to cast it just before Total Domination. Because Mass Hypnosis doesn't alert enemies, only anything that both powers miss alerts to you. If you are able to select a boss as your first target, Mass Hyp --> Total Dom --> Dominate will generally eliminate them from any possibility of responding, giving you a roughly 40% chance to have to deal with one or two other bosses, with everything else unable to respond.

Your suggestion is well written. I will say however that I would probably not be a big fan of this. While Spirit Tree is not a game changing power in its current form, in terms of Plant Control as a whole I don't think that increased healing capability is really appropriate outside of a Controller's secondary. Of the various Control sets (or, really, all power sets in the game), Plant Control would also be one of the last I'd consider buffing.

I like that you are doing research in order to improve your character concepts.

There is a fairly extensive article on Chinese names here:

http://www.top-100-baby-names-search.com/chinese-male-names.html

I'm not sure how reliable it is. It is a good idea to do further research any names you pick up on.

This article explains naming traditions:

http://www.thetop100babynames.com/Nationality/ChineseBabyNames.htm

Again I am unsure how accurate it is. At least part of it is lifted directly from Wikipedia. The challenge will be finding a name that was appropriate 600 years ago. You have to be careful not to accidentally pick a name like "Brittany." Of course, sometimes names that sound ridiculous now were legitimate in their day, like "Nimrod."

Another possible source of names is to look at historical events from the time period you are working with. 600 years ago might put him in this period of Chinese history, although admitedly I'm not an expert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty

Too bad Ignite didn't get buffed when Burn did.

Nice write up.

A couple of comments:

Power Boost works with Farsight. This probably benefits Controllers more than Corruptors/Defenders. Power Boost is more powerful for Controllers than it is for other classes. Power Boosted Farsight with 2 level 50 Defense SO grants a Controller somewhere around +24 defense to all for 2 minutes. Theoretically, it is possible to soft cap a Time Manipulation Defender on SOs using Power Boost and a few armors. The theoretical Controller build I made ended up at 42 defense to all, but would need Cardiacs to balance endurance. Adding a few IOs makes it extremely easy to soft cap. This is before considering the -ToHit toggle.

Power Boost also works on most of Time's other powers. For example, it enhances your heals.

Weaknesses are timing Power Boost and Farsight correctly. Although it really isn't very hard most of the time since you can cast it out of combat.

Distortion Field stacks on itself. Its actual hold is not that great. However, it should accept the Chance to Hold proc, and multiple DFs on top of each other multiply the hold chances.

You can also take all 5 APP powers. My Mind/Time SO build on beta has all 5 powers from the Primal APP.

The idea of Ice Elec and Fire trollers with early access to Indom Will is also pretty huge to me. It might even be possible to make near-perma builds for exemping.

A cartoon hero is a hero because we say he or she is. It's sort of like why Paladins in fantasy games can kill indiscriminately without losing their holy status. Word of god (the creators) is that these are heroic actions because the enemy can't be reasoned with. The situation is ridiculous, but the point is to give the good guys an excuse to fight warehouses full of relentless enemies.

I was just going to suggest that adding a Mag 100 immobilize might do the trick but I see someone beat me to it. That is how powers like Rest keep players from running around and why Turrets and Lightning Storms dont chase you.

I have no issue with this. I especially have no issue with people wanting it. <shrug>

I hope this happens.

I'm not much of a powerset snob. That said, Sonic Resonance is truly bottom of the barrel. And yes, I would say it is worse than Force Field. A few Resistance debuffs do not fix the 4 of 9 powers that accept no IOs at all, the massive Psi hole, the unreasonable recharge on Liquefy, the complete lack of resistance to meaningful debuffs that even Defense sets like Cold Domination gets, or the inability to utilize Power Boost in a meaningful way. The set feels like it was built to settle an argument about whether Buff/Debuff set could have no heals and still be useful. And interestingly, every single set in that category released prior to City of Villains--Force Field, Sonic Resonance, and Trick Arrow--is now on the list of "worst of" power sets. It almost feels like when a set gives up healing or regen capability in this game, it's punished extra hard for it. (Cold Domination, however, is an exception.)

Prior to the invention of incarnate abilities, rock bottom status would have gone to Ice Control/Sonic Resonance as a special contender for worst-of. It's rare for me to label a combo "unplayable" but if anything was, this was it. Sonic's runaway endurance costs combined with horrible damage mitigation capability combined with a nearly defenseless pet, all wrapped in a neat package of never seeing your blue bar again. I cannot possibly exaggerate how awful this combo truly was.

I will give honorable mention to Force Field on Defenders as a truly struggling power set. Now that you can cast AoE Power Boosted shields, there is very little to recommend FF on a Defender any more. My FF/Ice character was the only one of my heroes who was unable to solo Trapdoor in the incarnate mission. And any power set where people routinely take 4 powers and skip everything else can't really be said to be operating at capacity. I still give this one higher marks than Sonic only because in the 10-45 game, it actually is pretty good. It only falls out once IOs enter the picture. However, the set is also the victim of the collective fantasy that knockback is a comparable debuff to something like -Regen or -Resistance when wielded by players with infinite levels of skill. Meanwhile powers like Force Bolt are so unimpressive that they provide the template for Veteran powers with slightly longer recharges and much increased damage.

And now my deductions...

Synapse: 20
Back Alley Brawler: 39
Manticore: 22 - 1 = 21
Positron: 14
Sister Psyche: 20 + 1 = 21


Statesman: Dead
Citadel: Dead
Numina: Dead-ish

I'm a little late the the nuke, so I'm going do it with Build Up: -25 damage to our remaining players. Four still have to die, so have at it.

Synapse: 45 - 25 = 20
Back Alley Brawler: 64 - 25 = 39
Manticore: 47 - 25 = 22
Positron: 39 - 25 = 14
Sister Psyche: 45 - 25 = 20


Statesman: Dead
Citadel: Dead
Numina: Dead-ish

I got a screenshot of the Corruptor version, but due to a bug wasn't able to look at the values on a Controller.

I just read this today on the open beta boards and wanted to share in case you haven't seen it:

Unfortunately what I saw of Poison on the test server today didn't especially impress me. It might still change. The AoE added to Poison's single target debuff powers is just 8ft radius. the PBAoE power looks somewhat serviceable but I dont know many Plant trollers who hang out at 15ft radii from enemies.

As much fun as Storm is, I doubt if many teams are particularly excited to see one. To some extent on teams /Storm is like a weaker */*/Ice Dominator. Lots of fun but the damage and best power are replaceable. Play whatever you want though.

So... at any given point in time, is Praetorian Vanessa DeVore alive or dead?

Not that I really care whether she lives or dies, but the single player storylines shoved into a multiplayer game are part of why I stopped reading mission text. If she is "dead" will she still be standing around in Praetoria as a trainer? Does she resurrect everytime we have to refarm this trial and is dead immediately after? When I am running Lambda just after an Underground am I correct to assume she is still dead or did time reset and she is alive again until the next time I run Underground?

Seems like we have a case of Schroedinger's Carnie.