Streethunter

Yes, you can compare them. People likely have and will continue to compare different powersets, in sharp contrast to arguemnativat assertions that it cannot be done. You actually can compare apples and oranges too, btw. They're both fruits, once has more vitamin C, one is crunchier, and so forth...

Can you compare them in a way that nobody can dispute? No. Because there's always going to be somebody who disagrees. That's life on the interweb.

The more I think about it, the more I find a single-target-oriented powerset to be the wrong kind of support for a mass-pet class.

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Basically each pet can be seen as worth 10% resistance damage, except the resistance is their health splitting the intiated damage.

So if you lose 1 pet it's like losing 10% resistance.

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I thought the way it worked was that each bodyguarding pet takes 1 "share" of the damage, while the MM takes 2 shares. So, if the MM gets hit for 100 points of damage while he has his four minions in BG mode, the damage get spslit into 5 sahres; the MM takes 2/5 of the damage and each minon takes 1/5.

Is this incorrect?

Bodyguard was introduced a looooooong time ago, but the devs never got around to providing any official in-game information about its existence. Of the three draggable commands (Heel, Follow, Attack), none of them provide the means of activating BG mode (as Bookkeeper says, it consists of putting your pet into a Defensive stance along with the Follow command). You don't even get an icon indicating Bodyguard is in effect. Even your auto-powers get an icon, for Pete's sake.

You basically have to hear about it through the grapevine. Then you drag the Follow command onto your hotbar, right-click to edit it, and then change "aggressive" to "defensive".

Pretty lame that after years there aren't more tools for easier pet management. You really do need a Go To button as much as a Heel, Follow, or Attack. Very off-putting to folks who don't frequent the forums.

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I think Bookkeeper_Jay's point was that comparing different functionalities generally don't get you very far, thus he compare's the only aspects that can be; general playstyle roles. What Bookkeeper_Jay provided was a qualitative comparison, when you seemed to be asking for a quantitative analysis. And his point stands, certain aspects of Poison are difficult to compare. How does -Special, -Heal, or Paralytic Poison compare when Pain Domination has no equivalency? From the 'other side of the coin', how do you compare the +regen in Pain Domination when Poison has none?

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You draw comparisons the same way countless threads in this forum form evaluations, including virtually all of the build guides: when you run out of close analogues, you weigh utility, and basically make a list of pros and cons. Poison Trap doesn't have to be similar in nature to, say, World of Pain in order to gauge which will contribute a more consistent level of effectiveness. Everyone seems to be able to agree that Poison Trap is--to be generous--a highly situational power, and everyone can agree that getting a constant boost to accuracy, damage, and DR is always welcome. Point goes to PD. And so on, down the line.

Having said all of that, I started playing my Necro/Poison mastermin today, and it certainly defied all of my fond memories. Alkaloid, Envenom, and Weaken each drew large quantities of END (13-16 a pop), and generally didn't make my character more effective in PvE either solo or in groups. Not sure if anything's changed, or I just had "memory creep", but brother was it a bummer. A PvP powerset? Maybe. A powerset for people who devote themselves to fighting AV's all the exclusively? OK, whatever--not relevant to how the vast majority of folks play. Anyway, I'll bring PD online with another build and make my own quantitative analysis.

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You can't compare a massively debuffing set to a minor buffing and heavy healing set.

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In general, statements along the lines of "you can't compare things that are functionally different" always bothers me. Not only is it possible to do so (in fact, comparing things that are functionally identical is rather pointless), but that's exactly what you go on to do. Both sets have healing. That can be compared. One set has debuffs and the other has buffs. Those are not apples and oranges, but rather different sides of the same coin; for instance, an accuracy buff can be compared to a defense debuff, as both improve chances to hit (same goes for damage debuffing/resistance buffing, and so forth).

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Poison stems from its ability to weaken the hell out of an enemy, while Pain Domination has the ability to strengthen its allies with minor buffs, while also throwing in a couple great self buffs for the most part.

Pain Domination cannot handle stronger enemies like Poison can, and thus- in most situations- Poison will outpreform Pain Domination, while in more moderate to minor situations with reasonable enemies, can out-preform Poison.

Poison for powerful enemies and AV soloing/PvP

Pain Domination for your other moderate PvE and PvP needs.


P.S.

Pain Domination can handle larger numbers of reasonable enemies. Poison was (as has been discussed) probably created with PvP in mind.

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Now see, that wasn't so hard, was it? Bravo!

Do the buffs from Enforced Morale and World of Pain really seem minor?

Thanks for the advice, guys.

Say, I've been away from the game for a good while. I can't recall all the stuff about building binds and macros. Anyone know how I can assign both Build Up and Aim buffs to one key?

I've been away from the game for a good long while. In its day, Poison was extolled for its single-target heal and a varietty of debuffs. I've been looking at the Pain Domination set and it seems to be in many ways a better set--on paper, anyway.

Not only does PD seem to handily steal all thunder when it comes to healing, but anything Poison debuffs--accuracy, defense, resistance, speed--PD seems to have a buff for. All other things being equal, a buff is better than a debuff; not only does a debuff require accuracy, but a debuff only lasts as long as the debuffee lasts (and ideally, that should not be long at all).

My question isn't if Poison is any good--I know from experience it is effective at what it does. But I have to wonder if PD is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room?

Alkaloid < Soothe, Soothing Aura, Nullify Pain
Antidote < Enforced Morale
Elixir of Life < Conduit of Pain

Like I said, I've been away, so I don't have the empirical evidence that you guys are likely to have. I do notice that PD is stair-stepped so that at lower levels it's nothing but healing, with the buffs reserved for higher levels. That makes it tough to draw a straight-up comparison between, say the Envenom debuff and the Painbringer buff. I'll be rolling a couple of mastrminds (Necro/Poison and Thugs/PD), but in the meantime, what say you?

My apologies. You are correct, wrong forum.

D'oh!

EDIT--Sorry, wrong forum.

So, just came back to CoV after a long hiatus. How does Poison stack up now in relation to Pain Domination? Poison was once extolled for having the only single-target heal, but from reading PD's powerset, it seems to handily trump li'l ol' Alkaloid. And the various poison debuffs to foes seem to be outmatched by PD's buffs to allies--all other things being equal, buffing an ally is stronger than debuffing a villain (first, because the debuff can miss, and second because the debuff goes down when the debuffee goes down).

But again, I'm rusty to the point of being newbish. Does Poison offer anything over PD that I'm missing?

Aim? I assume it's for the damage boost, since extra accuracy is genreally unnecessary? The description describes the damage boost as being modest, but the stats say +65%. Guess that's worthwhile.

I've got a 24 blaster that needs a power and I'm not sure which powers to take.

Currently, he's got the following:

Energy Blast: Power Blast, Power Surge, Energy Torrent

Electricity Manipulation: Electric Fence, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Build Up

Pool Powers: Air Superiority, Flight, Hasten, Swift, Health, Stamina

Currently entertaining:

Kick and (later) Tough from the Fighting Pool--Because as a blapper I could stand to have some damage resistance (even if it's not a lot).

Power Bolt--Because I'd have another ranged attack. Problem is, I already have more powers than I can slot to my liking.

Lighting Field--Initially thought this would be great for a blapper, but I've played with it and I have come to dislike the Endurance drain and the trifling damage (essentially, it's another slot sink).

Lightning Clap--Be nice to knock foes off their pins so I can mitigate their melee damage while I'm bopping them, but I've never heard anyone say anything good about LC.

Any thoughts? Any options I'm neglecting?

I wanted the Kinetic Crash for my 23 Energy/Electric blapper the moment I saw it offered KB protection. Of course, that's assuming that "3 pts of protection" is as good as I think it is. I hate getting knocked over. While I'm at it, I figured I woldn't mind having all of my recharges sped up either. The downside seems to be that damage bonuses are de-emphasized, and that most folks really don't need tons of extra KB bonuses.

Anyway, has anyone experimented with this enough to figure what an ideal power to stick it in is? I started slotting it into Power Burst, but again that's sucking away damage where it needs to be maximized. I might stick it on Power Blast despite its low chance for KB, because it will get a healthy recharge boost.

I'm also tempted to get the set twice, just to double-dip the KB protection (hopefully it'll stack).

What do you guys think?

Darn, only a couple of claws guides. Both are old.

Worst of all, the one for Harbinger is incorrectly linked to the "Scrapping with Style" guide for Dark Melee.

Please help me understand the use of Placate for my new stalker.

I Placate an enemy, but other enemies can still attack me. If they thump me, my Assassin's Strike gets interrupted. So, what's the strategy here?

I'm trying not to be overly critical here, but if this guide simply pertains to a single power combo, the title should indicate that rather than imply that it has broad utility.

No offense, but honestly? I doubt that I'm the only one who would regard someone I heard bragging about soloing AV's when all they did was delegate the bulk of the risk to proxies that the AV can't even hurt (and is too dumb to change his hopeless tactics) as underwhelming. IMHO it sounds like bragging about dominating Doom in god mode--or bragging about dominating Doom by supervising someone playing in god mode. Minimal risk = minimal challenge = minimal accomplishment = minimal bragging rigts. YMMV, but there you have it.