Syndace

Ice Control!

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=282489

Seeing as ice/fire has been my main for years... I fully agree with this. I have brought it up before but was overshadowed by gravity folks.

Ice control is great... but shiver and flash freeze are very lack luster. Jack Frost finally got much needed love so I am thankful for that.

Flash Freeze should be a very quick targeted aoe ice explosion that instant sleeps/slows enemies. Mechanics wise that is a reduced cast time, possibly improved FX/animation, and no delay/damage tick. This would make it viable to open with and allow ice slick/artic air/glacier to safely be executed from inside the mob.

For shiver... I dunno. Adding a debuff or maybe small damage component would be nice but I still don't think I would use it. If it was a quick PBAoe slow+damage debuff then maybe? I dunno.. dev's could get creative with this though Im sure.

My hands down favorite dom of all time has been ice/fire/ice. So ice slick doesn't benefit from domination... that doesn't mean it isn't an amazing power. Low levels can be rough, but a high end build works very very well. Most high end builds do but I love the way ice *can* be made much better. I always throw out ice slick, sleet, ice storm and by that point everything is so busy flopping around it's okay to jump right into the mob letting arctic air do its thing. Glacier is a rock solid power at this point too and is up every other mob. Ice shield and IO's push some good defense numbers for surviving. Once everything is locked down and debuffed fire makes it easy to finish off what's left.


This combo excels more on teams and is good for DPS and some soft controls against AV's. Sleet's huge -res -def dubuff helps any dominator set out but fits thematically with ice/fire and makes /fire do that much more damage. Sleet and ice storm also add a little extra to the slows that ice already has. Solo is pretty easy too but I prefer fighting fewer enemies that are higher level. The sleep is nice for solo play too and a cheap purple set mule. Jack frost is okay, but I feel like ice control should get two of him because on his own he isn't nearly as great as the other control pets imo. The AoE damage potential between combustion, fire breath, sleet, ice storm, and the judgement power are pretty good. Not the best but not bad by far.


Anyways... it's a fun thematic set in which ice control is complimented very well by fiery assaults damage and ice mastery's tools. It's very flashy too.. Glacier is my favorite power ever because everyone on the team knows when you completely lockdown a mob.


So overall sure there are probably better combos on paper but ice/fire was a blast to take to 50 and is my main pvp/pve character.

I think an ice/fire mix of Autumnal would be awesome. I'm excited and will play whatever is new when it comes around. I have always wanted another dom to compliment my ice/fire/ice. Fire/ice didn't work out very well but an Autumnal/fire sounds like it would rock my socks!

Dark/Void control would be cool provided it gets new animations/effects. I love the dark powers when it comes to ghost widow, warshades, and the judgment nuke. The legacy dark blast/melee just isn't very visually pleasing in my opinion. A rehashed control set using those legacy powers/animations would be very lackluster.

No one is stupid or lazy. The devs know exactly what is going on. Bionic_Flea is right though. It's not a very good tactic to complain and call them names then request changes...

The 'new' post i13 devs are paying attention but the upper management is thinking business when it comes to a 7-8 year old game. How do you generate income and keep people paying? How has it worked in the past? Well.. new content/powersets is a no brainier. The new VIP system and paragon points was an incredibly smart move as well. The limit of staff and time as well as small pvp community prevent us from seeing the extensive pvp changes we have requested. Not only that....

"jobs.businessweek.com/a/all-jobs/list/q-paragon+studios
Jobs 1 - 7 of 7 – Paragon Studios is seeking a talented Sr. Server Engineer to contribute to the development of server systems on an exciting new project"

So I can see where a new project would suck a lot of time and man power. I am surprised however. Something as simple as fixing mez duration on some powers that have broken pvp rules shouldn't be sat on for so long. The poison control fix was a good step...


TS and HD I can see being debated amongst the dev staff.... if it would help would you guys want to host an event on the test server for zone pvp without TS and HD to see how it goes? If the pvp community can participate and give feedback other than "lol devs omg pvp derp derp" would you (the devs) be willing? I'd be interested to see how it settles the melee versus ranged debate. I don't think melee will have much of an issue now that there are KM scrappers.

Dom earth control stalagmites and controller mind control AoE's have base durations more than the intended 4 second base duration rule. The time stop hold on corruptors has a base longer than the 2 second rule.

I remember people talking about stalker placate not working right when secondary effects on some primaries are triggered or something...

I wish KM would be considered a bug as well but oh well.

KM on a scrapper is mad OP.

Awesome. Can we fix stalagmites and controller mind control aoe now? Thx.


On the note of new incarnate powers...

This has been mentioned before and time and time again. I agree every single time and glad the OP brought it up again. Zwillinger I would love to hear your insight on this if you are around. 32 hero/villain merits for one pvp IO is ridiculous.

I've been saying for years that we should have the ability to trade in 400 reputation for rewards, reset back to zero, and have a timer set on reward claim to prevent "farming". Rewards could be PvP/purple recipies, cool temp powers, reward/hero/villain/astral/emp merits, rare salvage, or even pvp costumes. I'm sure the pvp zones would be more populated if there was more of an incentive. I personally zone pvp just for the thrill of a good chase and defeat, but I know it would be even more fun if I could use all the accumulated reputation I have across all characters. People can spend a few hours doing trials or whatever and get a bunch of rewards where as we get nothing for a few hours of pvp. I haven't had a pvp IO drop in 5 months after hundreds of defeats. People wouldn't have to farm these IO's if they weren't so hard to get normally...

I know the system keeps track of who has defeated who because of the defeat list under the personal info menu. Something could be done with this too. Why not keep track of a kill/death ratio per zone sitting in let's say Recluse's Victory? These could be displayed personally or publicly to enhance the pvp purpose. A lot of pvp type people, myself included, like stats. They are fairly meaningless but fun!

What are arena ratings for? Are there rewards for having a good arena rating? Do you think more people would be inclined to arena pvp if there were rewards there too?


Pvp does not need to be "fixed" but rather enhanced. It doesn't even really "need" anything. The pvp population just wants some love. Devs you did a great job with incarnates and the new trials. Surely you can squeeze in a few pvp changes to tide us over for another year. If you invest in us we will keep investing in you.

You all take this way too seriously... it's like someone upchucked e-peen pride all over the last two pages of this thread... and in your sigs (some more obvious than others).

I am amused and therefore love you all.

Kill seeker and Velociteh you both have good points. Again I will state I don't think psi is broken, just very good compared to a lot of sets. After thinking about it, I think you guys are right. If anything the other sets need some love. Blaze and bitter ice blast could use a little bump in their damage.. but whatever. PvP is pvp we'll see what progress is made over the next few months and go from there.


I think issue 21.5 is going to bring some great pvp changes that we have wanted to see for a while. Zwillinger mentioned the controller poison hold duration is being fixed and posi mentioned some tweaks in the works...

Damn! Oedipus_Tex that build is great. Totally different from mine I like it. I've pulled a few ideas from it for sure thanks man.

Chaosdragon, I looked at the powers you picked and if budget is an issue I would follow a similar power selection choice as Oedipus but you could take slotting ideas from my build. You went with aid self, fighting pool, and fire mastery as Oedipus did.

Mine build was *fairly* cheap and I do not have many purples sets outside of the confuse and sleep sets.

Ice/fire

Ares, Xanatos, Silit. You all made great points.


Can we please just remove TS and HD now plzthx.

Not a bad build for RV at all. You've got your HP up there.. not capped but not bad. The bonuses and power selection look decent. KB protection is there along with some crazy procs. I'm not a fan of 5 slotting devastation's but hey to each his own. I usually go SS/SJ on all pvp characters but archery is just one of those silent killers that works really well with fly in zone. You can spam tier 1, 2, and 1 attack by the time people realize they are getting attacked then land a nice blazing arrow. Again this only works in zone on people who are preoccupied with other people.

You've got super speed for when you get hit with -fly so that's good. You may want to consider afterburner for -fly protection and fast flying? I dunno I haven't tried it out yet. Instead of energy punch try taking stunning shot and slot the stun set in that. It's amazing how effective a well timed short stun can be after your initial attack chain.


As far as incarnates I went cardiac for the added +range although musculative is never a bad choice for extra damage. Reactive interface for the DoT, destiny heal, and ion/pyronic are my favorite judgements.