PrincessGrace

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Hot Feet is on ranged damage scale, not melee damage scale. (Kane1 March 10th)

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I'm happy to throw this in as an issue if other people agree.

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Whirling hands and ice sword circle are PBAoEs and are on the melee scale. Sounds like an issue to me.

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As explained above, both those have a much shorter range than Hot Feet - Whirling Hands is 8 feet, ISC is 10 feet (while Hot Feet is 20 feet). Same reason PSW is ranged scale too (25 feet range). Not an issue.

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Hot Feet is on ranged damage scale, not melee damage scale. (Kane1 March 10th)

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I'm happy to throw this in as an issue if other people agree.

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Whirling hands and ice sword circle are PBAoEs and are on the melee scale. Sounds like an issue to me.

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However, I do feel that the recharge of Power Boost is too long. It's a staple self-buff power like Aim and Build Up, which both have 90 second recharges. What's more, it's typically used with the like of Flashfire and Wormhole, which typically have a 90 second recharge.

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I'll get tarred & feathered for saying this, but I don't have a problem with power boost's recharge. You get it not too long before SOs, so having it 3 slotted and half the base duration isn't too much of a wait. Outside of PVP the best use of power boost is in tandem with your opening AOE mez attack, the other good uses are just icing on that cake. Aim only gives to-hit & damage. Power boost gives (with the appropriate ancillary powers) to-hit, mez duration, heal, defense, and anything else it might boost that I don't routinely use it with.

Of course the comeback in the past is the blaster version is on a shorter recharge. I can't argue against that or getting a buff. All I can say (and keep a clean conscious) is I genuinely don't feel it is needed.

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Highlight that Dominator contribution against AV doesn't scale properly with number of Dominators. (Princess Grace, Protea, February 26th)

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How does this work:

Contribution against enemies with PToD doesn't scale smoothly with the number of Dominators. If there aren't enough Dominators to hold the enemy through the PToD, then their contribution isn't that great, while if there are enough, any more don't contribute a lot. This is because the PToD have only two states, rather than varying more continuously.

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It sounds good to me, although with the relatively recent rollback of debuff resistance I'm not 100% certain it still applies. The -speed, -recharge (which our AT has in abundance), -def, and -regen are back in the realm of working again, even if the effects require stacking for a noticeable contribution.

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Maybe a better approach would be accentuating the triple nerf (bad Acc, short duration, long recharge) as being the problem.

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*AHEM* Quadruple nerf, you forgot about the unexplained 10 target cap. And of the four this is the one I'd like to see fixed first.

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However, my inclination is not to include this in the list, because I don't think reducing it will really help /Energy's overall problems. I'd rather /Energy were looked at as a whole, but last time it was discussed we couldn't achieve consensus.

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But putting aside the question of AOEs, that *IS* the problem and difference between the "poor" single target damage of energy assault and the "good" single target damage of ice.

Per your attack chain generator a single target ice chain (bolt, blast, bib, sword, gis) is:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Total Attacks: 30
Total Time: 56.18
Total Damage: 1719.36
DPS: 30.60
Total Endurance: 246.58
DPE: 6.97
</pre><hr />

The current chain for energy (bolt, blast, burst, bone, total focus, snipe) is:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Total Attacks: 30
Total Time: 73.77
Total Damage: 2123.08
DPS: 28.78
Total Endurance: 293.49
DPE: 7.23
</pre><hr />


Now with *ONLY* changing bolt, blast, and burst to be a 1.5 second activation (bonesmasher already is but leave TF and snipe) you get:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Total Attacks: 30
Total Time: 65.59
Total Damage: 2020.18
DPS: 30.80
Total Endurance: 279.34
DPE: 7.23
</pre><hr />

It evens out the DPS complaints very very nicely.

Now if you change the 3 blasts to be equal casting times of ice's blasts you get:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Total Attacks: 30
Total Time: 56.92
Total Damage: 1951.99
DPS: 34.29
Total Endurance: 270.19
DPE: 7.22
</pre><hr />



Given energy's lack of aoe performance, that actually might be fair. But you are talking 2-4 DPS in any situation so not a big deal in any event.

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Damage listed on power selection screen doesn't make sense. (Chefshift June 1st)

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Anyone care to do an analysis of the situation? Perhaps we could identify just a few miscategorized powers. Or is the whole thing just a big disaster?

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That, IMO, is bigger than just dominators.

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And the tricky one for the day:

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Targets that are missed by an attack aggro and retaliate before damage is reported on those that were hit, and before misses are reported. (Liliaceae June 2nd)

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Is this a quality of life issue, or something more sinister? Is it worth including something like this in the list?

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It depends on the attack as best as I can tell. Mesmerize has a "significant" delay before the miss is reported, but the damage &amp; aggro happen immediately. Power bolt damages at the beginning of the animation, leaving you stuck for the remainder as it shoots off, while power blast (assuming I don't have them mixed up) damages at the end but you are free to act immediately. Confuse will show purple dots immediately but does not report a miss until the animation is complete. I see this a lot in scrapper sets, probably others but I'm not nearly as familiar with them. It seems to me just a characteristic of the game as implemented and in the same line of reasoning as the animation times themselves are not considered in the balancing of the powers.

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We still have a long list of under discussion items to address. This one looks pretty easy:

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Animation time of Power Bolt is excessive. (Chefshift June 1st)

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Any thoughts?


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All of energy's blasts are in the 2 second animation time ballpark. Dead horse, IMO, at least until the devs begin to balance powers around animating times as well.

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Second, for Ice Control&gt;&gt;Flash Freeze. The range on this power is horrible. It's only 60 feet. Mass Hypnosis is 80 feet, and Spore Burst is 70 feet. Why is ice's shorter? This is supposed to be an alpha control or 'oh crap' power, but you practically have to sit in the target's lap to put him to sleep. That's not good for a power that aggros and does not take out bosses (sans domination). It also has the longest activation time of the three powers... 2.37 vs. 2.03 (mind) vs. 1.37 (plant). On top of that, Spore Burst costs less endurance (13 vs 15.6). Lastly, it's the latest arriving of the 3... lvl 18 vs 8 vs 6.


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IIRC it has 2x or more recharge without any additional duration, so it cannot be made permenant like the other two. And of all the faults of flashfreeze, that one seems to be the worst.

One extra wrinkle in this duration/resistance dichotomy though is all the added recharge floating around. They might resist the duration for longer, but I can stack the mag faster now to break their protection.

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and not a single person has bothered to go to the character creation screen and confirm it for me! Interestingly however it has been fixed, so you're all off the hook.

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"Character creation screen"?!? Whazzat? I don't remember the last time I actually read anything on it, outside of the names of the powers. It isn't like it is very helpful.

So, um, yeah. There.

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Hey Princess Grace, you listening? Feel like running that Python script of yours again?

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Sure, the numbers came out the exact same as they did a year or so ago: 50 up, 25 down on the animation. And that is expected since all I have are the original demos from way back when we went down this route the first time.



Give me some time to make a few new demo files against something with PToD and I'll get back to you. Before this topic came up I was knee deep in RWZ PToD and I don't recall them looking or acting out of the ordinary.

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Lately, I have noticed that the purple bubbly effect of Confuse (from Mind Control) seems to appear and disappear on enemies at random. I don't know if that is due to some issue with my system or the game, regardless there it is.

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I was going to start a thread about this because I've been seeing it lately too and thought it was just me.

At least now it is just 'us'.

I was paying attention to confuse last night, what might be happening is the purple bubbly effect is present for the regular confuse duration and not present for the domination packed boost. But I didn't specifically test that one out to be sure - yet. The confuse dots are definately being lost while critters are still confused right now.

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oes with guns drawn (eg Fallen Gunner, Ripper, Longbow Seargent) appear to still be attacking when held by Dominate or Total Domination, which is misleading for players. If the gun is not drawn they go into the regular "Aah my head!" animation.


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Does this still happen? I haven't seen the "trembling piece" animation for a while - but then I haven't really paid attention.

Wow, now that I've played a fair amount with this buff it helps out in general PvE quite nicely despite it apparently being broken and not receiving the large team benefit. It is almost too easy now.

Perhaps we don't need that large team slip differential after all.

(Wanna bet 5 infamy I get nuked into oblivion for making that statement?)

Wow, this is amazing. Thanks for doing this.

As a quick, dirty, and unscientific roundup I averaged all the damage types at the bottom of the lists. IIRC Toxic and lethal averaged 0.92, smashing and psi averaged 0.94, and the rest 0.97. It is odd that lethal is more resisted than smashing. It is also suprising that toxic tops the resisted chart, and psi is tied for third with smash. That is all unexpected.

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I really think the devs need to bite the bullet and have dominators get corrupter level damage (without scourge) so that there will be more dominators in the game and quiet all the detractors. Its not a real big deal, blasters and tankers both have pretty high secondary AT modifiers, why not us?

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I came to this conclusion a long time ago. It might not help all that much, but it definately is NOT going to adversely affect our game balance. We will still be far from overpowering.

Most of this game rests on a precarious system of balances. The balance relationships between controllers &amp; defenders and scrappers &amp; tanks are finely honed and delicately balanced. It isn't necessarily fair right now, but it is very difficult to improve one side or the other without scrapping the whole thing. Dominators are somewhat free of these constraints. We are moderate mez and moderate damage in a game of extreme damage, buff bots, and buff receptacles. We are somewhat outside of the whole balance equation in CoV. We can get tweaked a lot (up or down) without really affecting the overall balance of the game. Heck if it wasn't for potentially psychic shockwave, we could probably get controller mez and blaster damage and NOT really overpower the other ATs.

But then we've had this discussion before. Heck we had all of these discussions in this thread before.

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More HP.


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Makes you better on a team how, exactly?


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That depends on how much more HP you get. 5x and people will take notice, you would be a damage absorbing machine.

Otherwise we had this discussion before I7 came out. Buff this an insignificant amount, buff that an insignificant amount. The problem is, and was even then, that small buffs are not going to change people's perceptions. At least it is not going to change the beliefs of someone who is adamantly seeing only what they wish to see.

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I'm pretty sure the solution to this is having the dom bar drop after domination is activated, thereby not allowing you to cast it again even though it recharges before the first one wears off, or possibly even coding the power so it can't be affected by -recharge buffs.

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That would be the ideal fix, IMO, if this is deemed worthy enough for a fix. Why? Because once domination is over with, my dom bar would be half to 2/3 charged again. Trigger dom, hit power boost, hit an AoE, then mash mash mash mash, refresh that AoE once, and mash some more to really reap the benefit of that damage buff. I wouldn't lose the beneficial charge from all this attack mashing.

Of course that would probably prove to be too good eventually, and something else get nerfed in the process.



And since we divorced ourselves from the OP a long time ago:
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Let's face it, an even level boss that can do 1500 hps of damage (basically one-shotting everyone except a brute) would require an insane amount of healing, and I doubt that any toon could keep up with it.

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You could always recruit a good dom and hold that SOB instead.

Edited, to make up for my uber skeelz as an editor

I'm not a PvPer so I'll leave that to them.

But domination coming back faster is a good thing. Thanks.

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Actually most of us in Scrapper-land think Scrappers own.


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That is so true - we do think we own.

One interesting thing about the dominator &amp; difficulty slider comments above - difficulties 1, 3, and 5 (once you are slotted for it anyway) are all easier than either 2 or 4. Level isn't as much of a threat to a dom as numbers. But then a dominator doesn't exactly have the ownage reputation of a scrapper.

Wow, excellent guide. Thanks for taking the time to improve on your original.

I 100% agree about levitate getting you out of the intro quickly. I also liked your claim about the core PvE powers - your single target controls and your two low level blasts. That is pretty much what I found the most useful too. I didn't even bother slotting in damage or duration until my teens when DOs became available, the best use of those slots with TOs was accuracy and recharge.

I disagree with you about Mass Hypnosis though. I actually find it is a pretty useful tool. It does not cause aggro. With just a single accuracy and recharge DO it is accurate enough and recharged for almost every fight. I mostly use it to disrupt the alpha strike so my team can engage safely - that is almost essential on a large team with a mdest amount of melee sorts. I will also usualy have 2-3 mobs confused or held by the time it passes. Mass hypnosis is also useful for pulling - sleep the mob and then wake up the guys you wish to fight. It can also occasionally be used to bypass a mob you do not wish to engage but is otherwise blocking the way. You just need to remember it is a tool - it will not save your life but it will make some common stuff much easier.

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Are we talking about PvP here or did you just try and solo Requiem at level 10?

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Actually it doesn't matter. Barring the situation of tackling stuff that is way beyond your level, getting one-shotted by anything is equivalent to the game randomly deciding it is time for you to die. Even getting 95% swatted isn't fun, since usually that other 5% has already been queued by another critter before you know what happened. And not being afforded an opportunity at all to respond isn't challenging in the sense that an adventure game is fun to play, it is challenging in the sense that draws people to Roulette or slot-machines.

So it really doesn't matter if what one-swatted you was a stalker, AV, nasty boss, or even a lucky minion. It sucks regardless of how it happens. Relying on random insta-death (from the dieing player's perspective) isn't challenging, it is a design crutch. It might have been fun back in the SNES days but this isn't Super Mario.

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I liked all but one part of your guide. the part that says its alright to do just your missions.

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JC2k4 said "don't be afraid to be selfish and run your own missions". What I read into that is "Accept the fact that sometimes you have to make an executive decision to keep things moving along at a moderate pace" rather than "be a complete smacktard and force everyone through your story arcs". Sometimes you do not have a lot of good options to pick for your group. Side-kicks and exemplars are great, but unless you have enough to completely flip-flop the team (and are able to convince people to exemplar non-50s) you can consider those players' mission picks to be dead. Some missions can be dreadfully long (like clearing an outdoor map) and not everyone will want to stick it out.

Having said that, usually the first thing I do after exiting a mish and all the mutual-admiration-society stuff is ask for next mish requests. There is a world of difference between being a benevolent well-intentioned dictator and a selfish smacktard.

One thing I would recommend mentioning though is don't be afraid to ask people to adjust their difficulty levels. The BEST use of the difficulty slider, barring bragging rights on the forums, is the ability to tweak the level of critters in the mission for the group you have. Just because the lone lvl44 scrapper or tank can solo on invincible doesn't mean his more numerous 41 and 42 squishy teammates want to be facing +5s or +6s all night. But setting that 41 defender to invincible when the rest of the team are 42s-44s will still provide a fun little challenge for the higher level guys without being overly frustrating for the mission holder.