Quote:
It's useful for frankenslotting and sets.
| This thread also raises the question for me: if terrify can take -to hit enhancers, then what -to hit does it enhance? |
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
Mind isn't underpowered. Not solo, not in groups. It's a wonderful control set, right up there with earth & plant. It's THE ideal control set for a team which is running without a tank or without a healer. It's also, in my opinion, one of the best control sets for helping a team survive when they get in way over their head. Mind's number 1 advantage is that you can control mobs without taking alpha damage, something none of the other control sets can claim. And anyone who doesn't like confuse on their team hasn't done the math in recent years. As for comparisons, my mind/storm can tackle a mixed 16 mob spawn of +2con (like an 8-man team spawn), solo, unless the mob type has some particularly annoying powers. Granted it does take a while, my damage output is lackluster, but I can do it safely. And except for fighting AV's (real av's, not the newer wimpy sort), she makes a tank entirely unneeded on a team. Although some skilled tank herding is always nice... but how often do you see skilled tank herding? not in a PUG anyway.
Terrify does as much damage as mesmerize or dominate, but it does it to up to 16 targets in a good sized cone. And unlike ancillary or secondary set powers, Terrify gets double damage from Containment. Slotted up with a posi-set and 1 recharge, it becomes a really nice attack power. It does have a fear effect, and granted, when on a team (or for that matter even if you yourself have something like freezing rain), the fear component doesn't actually *do* anything for you. I would be in favor of *replacing* the fear effect with a moderate -tohit debuff, since then it would offer consistent mitigation benefit on teams, or paired with AoE-DoT secondary powers. However, I don't feel it's broken at all. None of the other fear powers which include -tohit do any appreciable damage. Terrify actually hits pretty hard, and I kinda like it that way.
There are only 2 things which are really broken in the mind control set:
1) Telekinesis has been repeatedly nerfed due to its being overpowered in pvp, and sometimes just because of game mechanic changes, but now that it's pvp behavior has changed, all that is left is a fairly lackluster pve power. It's hitbox (the sticky bit that holds extra mobs) is a bit small, the endurance cost is way high, the repel effect used to work in a column, but now repels each mob radially from the caster, this causes excessive scattering (exasperated by the small sticky-hitbox), and it is limited to hit only 5 mobs, which is a huge weakness in anything but solo play... and in solo play you can't use it because the end cost makes you unable to do anything but run telekinesis really. Add to this the fact that numerous boss types will break out of this power (freakshow tanks seem especially good at this) which puts the power on it's overly-long cooldown, and releases the whole set of mobs you had so carefully cornered and spent a bazillion endurance on trying to hold. And of course if you don't target the bosses, then aoe damage will kill your anchor and ruin the hold anyway. It's a power which was once quite good, in skilled hands, but it's been nickle & dimed down to a pretty unimpressive power. I used to love it back when it worked better. It's just not all that impressive anymore, and I can't find any compelling reason to take it. Which is a pity, because it's one of the truly unique powers in the game. Unfortunately skill isn't enough to make the power good anymore. it needs a little Dev lovin. Especially since many of the limitations of the power were put in place to curb it's overpowered status in pvp... but now in pvp it's just a standard 4 second hold, and the pve version shouldn't need to keep suffering in my opinion. The two main aoe holds in the set are on a 240s cooldown (compare that to the 60 second cooldown on plant's confuse cone), so making telekinesis a bit of a better spot hold would not overbalance the set at all.
2) mass confusion & mass hypnosis have a bug where one can end up canceling the other. It's clearly a bug, these two powers don't work together correctly, and it makes using mass hypnosis to set up containment on confused mobs unnecessarily tricky. Considering confuse does not grant containment, and mind control has no imob, that's a pretty significant issue.
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
When people talk about sets being underpowered, they don't mean they're useless.
Since the games been out for 5 years or so and tweaked over 16 issues, it would be surprising if any set has only 50% as effective as another. Maybe 80% or 90% as effective, but there aren't any huge outliers anymore.
When I first played Gravity Control, for example, I was amazed at the single target hold because I'd played Blasters before. With just a few DO's I was holding multiple targets easily. All through my career I pulled off amazing feats of control, or so I thought, because this was my first Controller. I've since played Plant and Fire, and reckon they both rip through content more quickly. I'd say Gravity underperforms, but I dont feel weak or useless on my Gravity Controller when I go back and play her. I'm too busy revelling in the cool factor of throwing furniture, teleporting bad guys en masse and generally beating the crap out of everything with one of the fundamental forces of the universe.
On the main topic - my main experience with Mind Control is Villain Side on small teams. I'd say Mind definitely underperforms in that little niche due to the lack of a pet against all the EB's I faced.
Eh ... who needs -ToHit on Terrify?
Gimmie 10 seconds of enhanceable Immobilize on Terrify instead and we'll call it even.
Telekinesis in PvE however has been nerfed into the ground. It needs to have a larger AoE around the anchor ... the anchor needs to repeatedly play the flinging of dirt upwards animation, as a cue to teammates (and the controller themselves!) who the anchor is ... and it needs to have a max targets limit of 16! >.<#
There, I said it.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
I always attributed the -to hit in fear type powers to the fact that they're frickin scared ******** and can't think well enough to effectively fight...
but, anyway, i agree with the fact that this thread isn't being really productive and it's probably threads like this that the devs look at and say "look at these imbeciles." Enan, man, i love your guides and i've read them several times, but i think you just need to let this one go, bud. To the people who are free to think their own thoughts, you're looking kind of annoying and defensive in this thread. Arguing for the sake of arguing, ya know?
ANYWAY, to keep this post productive to the OP...I think that the power should have -to hit based on how i interpret why any fear power has -to hit in the first place, however, maybe they wanted to limit the -to hit only to dark-type powers, because that is their staple after-all aside from the negative energy damage.
This thread also raises the question for me: if terrify can take -to hit enhancers, then what -to hit does it enhance? do u end up with some -to hit up from 0%, or does it just enhance 0 -to hit up to....well 0 -to hit? lol