Super_NA

Didn't read all the thread, but here goes.
My 44 corruptor has the AoE Immobilize, and the Web Cocoon.

The animation time on these is RIDICULOUS.
The animation time alone means that i'm actually never using neither of them, since i could do 3-4 attacks instead.
It is because of this animation time that i will respec out of both powers.

It needs a serious fix, freezing for 5 seconds to land a weak hold is a good way to get killed.

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This is great 'cause I always save my Domination for bosses and if I have good mez protection, I can at least survive better since I have Aid Self to prolong the fights. Good job

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I just want to point out a thing to my fellow Dominators.
My first dominator, now lvl 50, was lucky enough to be what i myself consider the best build: Plant/Fire. I consider Plant to be the best control, and Fire to be the best damage, so i admit, i had an easy ride to 50, soloing on ruthless. And i did like you. I "saved" domination for hard fights.

In the last levels, i changed my play style. I stopped using Domination only for Bosses, and i started using it as soon as it was ready. Remember, domination is not just better holds. It's also better damage, and a full endurance bar. (and soon mez protection).

I was definitly surprised at how often it was ready. I had not noticed the recharge reduction, since i used it only for the mission's end boss, but after using it all the time, wow. We are talking 5-6 dominations per Mayhems. With Hasten, it's really nice.

Now that i've started a new dominator (fire/energy), i noticed that this new way to play makes me a lot more efficient. I do missions a lot faster. Sure, sometimes, i get to the boss and domination is down. Oh well, i pop 1-2 inspiration, perma hold the boss, and kill it, or at least build dom on it.

So, ya, my new dominator advice? Use domination as soon as it's up. If your team has 2 doms, they can alternate, it will almost always be ready.

Now, if only those AoE holds would recharge faster....

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That Dominators' primary power sets are all Controller primaries is also maybe part of the problem. Do you think it's any coincidence that Plant is considered the most balanced (I hesitate to use the word "best") primary when it was also the only one made specifically for Dominators? The devs want us to stop looking at Dominators as the "CoV Controller" but I certainly can't find much reason to do so.

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So true. Just take Gravity. 2 powers that are attacks when Dominators get an attack secondary? Lack of thinking there.

Contribution to large team is indeed the problem.
First, let's set aside seeds of confusion and Plant domination.

Now, CoV is a fast paced game. The ATs make short change of mobs because of the general high damage output.
Because of that, groups will go from fight to fight very quickly.
And because of that, it is impossible for a dominator to have reliable AoE crowd control every fight. Except plant. Earth could, but there is no earth doms.

Since the recharge of AoE holds is so slow, and that doms can't control every fight, well, that means that the teams must be able to handle a non-controlled mob. And if teh team can handle a non-controlled mob, well, err... they don't need you.

What of single holds and soft control?
You don't need a dom for that either. Many other ATs have single holds. Ice or Dark corruptors. Mastermind pets. Even brutes and stackers can stun opponents. Same for soft control. Is it normal that a /dark brute with oppressive gloom offers a more reliable control then a dom? Or a /dark MM with Fearsome Stare? How about Siren's Call from Sonic primary?

As a dominator, there are many situations where my teamates just plain outdid me when it came to controlling mobs.

I think that to help dominators, first and foremost:

1- Every set should have a Seeds of Confusion equivalent power (meaning a from of control that would be ready almost every fight). With Seeds, Spores, and Vines, and Creepers, the Plant dom can exerce some control every fight. Not so with the other sets.

2- The endurance issue must be solved. Using our attacks is a good way to lose a lot endurance fast. Even using Domination, i often run out of endo before Domination ends.

The Supergroup mode bugs are back.
Exemple:
I have a character with Monster legs, Insectoid pattern, green/red Blend patterned.

When i it SG mode, my legs become Green/WHITE. But i can't edit it because the SG settings show my characters has having monster FURY legs, without any option to change the color. Help?

It also ticks a DoT, Disorients, and Debuffs Defense.

As a dominator, i so far have Water Sprout and Bile Spray.

I like the PPP so far, but i have one comment:
The endurance cost is really really deep. Specially since other Patron choices for dominators offer some +endurance powers/drains. Choosing Leviathan is forsakening an endurance source, making it cost so much is even worst.

Only reason i can still enjoy it is that i'm /fire, so i have consume.

So, ya, please reduce the cost on Sprout and Bile Spray. Specially since the spray does silly damage compared to my firebreathing, having the high end cost is ridiculous.

The question the devs need to answer is:

What kind of usage are the players expected to do with these?

For exemple, players are probably not expected to use these every single missions. Then it becomes a permanent buff and they'd need to rebalance the entire game. So, how often are we expected to use these?

As players, we need to tell them what we expect too.
To me, rule #1 is: The buff needs to be worth the hastle.

Say, i'm by technician Naylor in deep Nerva, and i have a mission in the portal... I need a good buff to actually go back to my base, spend Salvage, and come back. For 10% run speed, i'm definitly not going.

So, what DO i expect as a player?

- I expect a buff that is as strong as using an inspiration, but lasts a lot longer (15 minutes).
- I expect to choose when this 15 minutes start (delayed activation with a click) so that i don't lose 75% of it in travelling and zoning.
- I expect it to cost about the salvage a player would get after 5 missions. That would mean, 1 buffed mission every 6 missions. Sounds about right, means you can collect during broker, get a buff for the mayhem. Collect during an arc, get a buff for the EB at the end.

Currently, it's yet another base feature that does nothing. Like having a teleporter that get's you nowhere closer to your mission then the hospital. Like having no IoP yet. Like a mission terminal that heroes can't use and only give 1 lvl 25 SF for villains.

There is currently NO reason to have a base. Zero.

Yes to BRB.

And a Beach Ball in Pocket D please.

Power Set: Morphing
Scrapper/Brute Primary, maybe tanker second, or Stalker primary.

Note: Remember this is a melee set, not an armor/defense set, so that's why all forms don't give any def/res/end/health.

Also, i can't think of names for attack, sorry.


1- Claw Swipe : You hit your ennemy with the side of your hand. Deals minor damage, but recharges very very fast. (Minor Smash/Lethal Damage, Recharges very fast)

2- Lychantropy : You transform into a werewolf. While in wolf form, you are more precise with your attacks and your powers recharge faster. You can only use 1 animal form at a time. (Toggle: Self + ACC + Recharge)

3- Upperclaw : You hit your ennemy with a great upper swing of your claw. (Moderate Smash/Leth damage, recharge moderate)

4- Greater Claw Swipe : You swing your claws in a great arc around you, damaging all foes in it. (Moderate Large Cone Smash/Leth damage, recharge moderate)

5- Bear Form : You transform into a huge beast, taking up the features of a bear. In bear form, you are slower then in wolf form, but you hit harder, enough to stun an opponent. You can only use 1 animal form at a time. (Toggle: Self +dmg, + chance to disorient on attacks)

6- Devastating Blow : A powerfull blow (Superior Lethal/Smash Dmg, recharge long)

7- Howl : You howl at an oponent, taunting him. (single target taunt)

8- Killer Instinct : Following your animal instincts, you deliver a fatal blow to your opponent. This attack has a chance to do double damage and to affect more then one opponent. (Extreme smash/leth damage, chance for double damage, chance to affect many mobs)

9- Reptile Form : You take the aspect of the snake. While in snake form, all your attack are poisonous, and you emanate a toxic aura that will greatly debilitate your opponents. You can only use 1 animal form at a time.(Toggle: + Toxic moderate DoT to all attacks, Small PBAoE aura of -DEF, -ACC, -RES).


Note: basically, this is a 5 attack set + 1 taunt, but with 3 "forms". It is weak from not having a build-up power (ouch) and no built-in secondary effect to attacks, but makes up by versatile buffs. You can decide to play as a scrapper on Hasten/Tactics (wolf), as an energy melee on assault (bear) or as a powerfull debuffing snakes.

A player would probably switch according to team buffs, solo vs team situation, etc...

Power Set Name: Soul Manipulation
Primary/Secondary/Pool: Primary
Arch-Type: Controller / Dominator


Note: I will highlight in orange the powers that i really like. The rest, like most Controller set, is fillers.

1- Ensnare Soul: You trap a soul with your powers. The target is held. Deals moderate damage. You basic single target hold . Animate like blind / flash grenade

2- Remorses: You manipulate a target's soul into feeling terrible remorses about it's actions. The target is unable to move, and suffers a penalty to its damage potential. Your basic single Immo, but with a -DMG instead of a DoT. Animates like Subdue.

3- Soul Wind: Call forth the souls of the undeads to blow upon your ennemies, sending them flying backward. Some ennemies will be left disoriented by this uneery wind. A Cone Knockback with small chance of disorient Animates a bit like Gale but with the sound of Ghost-blast

4- Slumber: You command the souls of your ennemy to sleep. They will awaken if damaged. Just a classic AoE Sleep

5- Field of Confusion: You command wandering souls to dance around you, creating a field of whispering voices. Ennemies entering the field have a chance to become confused or to cower in fear. This is a PBAoE Toggle effect that creates a Fear/Confuse zone. Think Artic Air without the slow but with better fear. A large whirlwind of greenish ennergy with screeming faces like cloak of fear.

6- Soul Trap: Summon a Beacon of light that will draw your ennemies' souls to it. Ennemies entering it's area of influence will be pulled towards it and can become held by it's power. The Beacon cannot be attacked .
Ok, this is basically an ground-target AoE pulsating Hold field (much like Volcanic Gas) with a beacon in the middle. Mobs into the field are actually pulled towards the beacon. This is a new game mechanic: with all the existing pushback/repel/knockback powers, this would be the first "pull-in" power . The beacon would be some bright sphere of light, with a nice eery female voice song. Mobs would just slowly slide towards it, even if they try to run away. Mobs that becomes held are in Blind animation.

7- Will-O': You summon the soul of a fallen ennemy under the form of a Will-o'-the-wisp that will go and distract your adversaries. The Will-O' deals no damage, and cannot be damaged. He is surrounded by a strong taunting aura, and will cast taunting beams. He will disapear after a while. This is a summon from a dead mob, like soul extraction. And it's another new concept for a controller: using taunt as a control power. Basically, the little Will-O just gets aggro with taunts.
A flying ball of shifting colors .

8- Radiant Soul : Empower the soul of one of your allies, making him become radiant with courage and light. Ennemies close to him will become blinded by his presence, and will remind held in awe. This is an ally-target PBAOE hold toggle. In itself, a new mechanic of control for controllers/doms. Duration/pulses would be similar to cloak of fear. Target ally is just very shinny, and mobs around him become blind.

9- Soul Collection: You capture the soul of a fallen ennemy to be summoned into battle for you. This pet will stay with you until you zone. You can store up to 2 Souls, but can only summon one at a time. Capturing a third soul will replace your oldest one. Stored soul remind with you even after you log out. You can capture ennemies up to the leutenant rank, and up to your level.
Ok, this one is a bit more complicated, yet simple. When you get this power, you get 3 sub-powers (just like a Kheldian form, or a mastermind summon):
1- Capture Soul
2- Summon Oldest Soul
3- Summon Newer Soul

To capture a soul, just cast Capture Soul on a fallen underling/minion/leutenant. This "captures" the soul and "stores" it in your Newer Soul slot. If there already was a Soul stored there, it moves to the Oldest Soul slot. Any Soul that was in the Oldest Slot is erased.
So basically, you can always have 2 stored souls at any time.
Using the appropriate summon sub-power, you can summon a pet, like any controller pet, that will act like the summoned soul.

EXEMPLE: You are 32. You do a freakshow mission and capture as your first soul a Freak Stunner. You can now use your Summon Newer Soul sub-power to summon a Freak Stunner pet. Later on, you kill a meat doctor, and decide to capture it. You now have a Meat Doctor in your Newer Soul power, and a Freak Stunner in your Oldest Soul slot.
You can only summon one up.
Later, you capture a Blood Widow. She becomes Newer, the Meat Doctor is Oldest, and teh Stunner is lost.

Ok, so this is a bit complicated, but i miss the feel of the charm classes in other games. I believe this would be fun to collect and use the best pets available, and to have to renew the hunt for pets each time you level (because soul-levels are static, must find new ones each time).
As for LTs beeing too strong, i don't know, i figure 1 LT = 1 Jack/Stone/3 imps...

A Supatroll Gladiator!

/rave

well, my villain has it.

Some updates:
Winter hordes give Cold warrior after 100.
Mu Guardians givae a gladiator after 100.

Side notes: Arachnos-related badge (Mu guardian, Seer, Spidersmasher) are currently bugged on hero side.

In fact, there is so many bugs with badge right now... i'd advise players to just take a break from badge hunting until some serious fixes are made.

Nice guide.
Any chance to update it with specific specialized items and their effects/role?

Like turrest, force fields, robots, and all those gizmo i see on my crafting list.

200 Cage Consortium Captain does nothing

Can you ask your "red names" that confirm the current Hero-side Fortunata Badge bug to also confirm Mu Guardian bug? With the holiday event, Mu Guardian arent that hard to find, and no Gladiator was awarded my hero after well over 100.

What's the bad guys? Snowmen?

Confirmed that Hero Arachnos gladiators are currently bugged, as we just killed over 100 Fortunatas for no badge. Explain why our 100 Mu guardians didnt work 2 days ago. I hope the fix gives it retroactively...

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So that makes 8 contacts for 35-40. That's not enough? (Not to mention that the second respec was opened at 34 and there's a costume mission at 40.)


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I thought like you at first.
Hardcase has a LOT of mission, carried me well into lvl 36. Then i did Leery, Sonata, and the other 6. And yet i came out short at lvl 38.8.
See, many have very short arcs (like Leery). Other stop talking to you (like when i failed Naylor on the Rularuu mission). The TF brought me to 39.3, but that was just an evil TF with an evil ending.


Here are a few ideas for Paper Missions:

Carnies
Performer abducted! : Well, aparently some famous performer were abducted. Time for you to steal a ransom for yourself!
The circus is in town! : And you just happen to HATE clowns...
Carnies feud with the Family opver territory: Time to make some influencial friends and rescue these losers.

Devouring Earth
Wild Creatures trashes parking lot : And your car was in there. Grr.
Arachnos scientist discover new Mutagen : Apparently some substance carried by the DEs is worth a lot o money....
Arachnos scientist kidnaped : Alright, let's do one for Recluse...

Crey
Player Name is a phoney! : Or so the Countess thinks. Time to ruin a few of her assets, to teach her to insult you.
Creyptic Studio impenetrable : Apparently these research labs have unbreakable security. We'll see about that.
Crey develops new weapon : New weapon. You like the sound of that!

Mu Guardians are Bosses.
So you need to have an 8 men team run lvl 15 missions i'd say. Might be worth looking at the villain base in bloody bay too.
In my entire Villain career, i must have fought a big maximum of 8-9 Mu Guardians.

For Wailer Queens, well, i did all the Hardcase missions on Ruthless in a duo, then all the Sonata missions. Then, i specifically hunted St-Martial, killing all lvl 38 on Wailers. That's how i got over 100 Kings. I would expect to get the Queen by then. Unless, of course, the fix came after i did all that.

The fubbared thing is that we know some glads need over 300 kills, and we know some badges need over 200 Bosses.

When you say that Wailer queen is fixed... does it count those we had already killed?

I have kill 100 Wailer Kings and at least 200 queens so far....

Hey there Taser.
A few comments:

About the rumor that Gladiators count toward kill badges:
This is from beta. At that point, Gladiators counted as regular mobs (hence the bug that gave Infamy and huge XP). Since everyone used Cobras, some players got Mongoose that way. This has been fixed and you can't get badges that way.

About the healing thing, that's very unterresting. Would explain how my dominator, who doesn't have any heal powers, started his healing badge. Would also mean i could open that badge on my tanker. Although i don't think it would be practicle to do that... Well, unless you set it do last man standing and have a friend go 3 wardens against 3 wardens, and go afk forever.


For balance, Calibans are also a bit contravertial, for 250, they are indeed underpriced.

Your comment on Wailer Queens... that's a guess right?
Your guide for Mu Guardian... that's a guess right?

BTW, killing 300 Arachnobot Disruptor does nothing (ya, i got time to spare)

Oh and the 35-40 Strike Force... guess what? CIRCLE OF THORNS!