If you could cancel the Cottage Rule. . .

I've done a good bit of testing of Dimension Shift. Unfortunately, no one else has ever confirmed the conclusions I drew, but here they are again: Link 1 and Link 2 (The last post of the second thread is where I think I finally got a handle on the mechanics of Dim. Shift.)

Here's the basic run down:

Dimension Shift has three effects attributed to it in game: a mag 3 immobilize, a mag 3 intangibility, and a 100% reduction of threat level. Two of these effects are fairly clear (but I will come back to the immobilize because it is treated oddly). Intangibility is a confusing status effect. It is marked by 3 things: the enemy is unable to affect others, the enemy is unable to be affected, and the collusion detection box is removed, allowing players to pass through them.

Assume a mob of one even level boss, one even level lieutenant, and one minion. All of them are struck by an unslotted dimension shift. The minion and lieutenant will be immobilized, intangible (meaning you can pass through them), and unable to affect or be affected by other entities. The boss also will not be able to affect or be affected by other. However, he will not be immobilized nor will he be transparent. The boss will move toward the player and appear as if he is unaffected, but his attacks will have no effect.

So what is happening in this case? All mobs have an inherent level of mez protection (minions = 1 pt, lieutenants = 2 pts, and bosses =3 pts). The magnitude of Dimension Shift's intangibility and immobilize are only 3 and, like the standard single-target hold, cannot overcome boss level mez protection. Why then is he still unable to affect the player?

I purposed that Intangibility is not a single effect in itself, but a combination of three effects: Affecting-Only Self, Untouchable, and a third effect that removes the collusion detection box. The problem is that only the third portion is following the rules of mez protection. The first two are affecting the target any time that Dimension Shift lands. I have even tested against GM's and found that they always enter a period of being unaffected and unable to affect others. However, they are not immobilized nor do they have their collusion detection removed. The problem grows more complicated beyond this. The portions of Dimension Shift that seem to obey the standard behaviour for mezzes are oddly affected by level scaling. Rather than the duration of the effect scaling with level differences, it seems that the magnitude is scaling!

Taking the example of the boss, lieutenant, and minion but reducing them a level will result in all the mobs being immobilized, intangible, and only affected by themselves and able to affect themselves. Why? The effectiveness against -1 enemies is multiplied by 1.1. So the magnitude on the boss that was previously mobile and retained his detection box is now effectively 3.3, enough to overcome boss level mez protection.

Furthering the confusion is that fact that Dimension Shift can be slotted for Intangibility magnitude.

I predicted the level at which an unslotted Dimension Shift would stop affecting minions and lieutenants with the transparent effect and hit box detection in just the same way as the boss in the first example. You can see those predictions in this post.

I would be eternally grateful if someone more in the know and better with numbers would confirm these tests. So far, no one has had enough interest to attempt it for themselves.

Also, apologies for the derailment. I just hate this power soooo very much.

I'd make empathy do more for the player when solo. A rule would have to be that every primary should have about 2/3rds of it's powers, powers that the player can benefit from when solo. In empathies case it is basically the other way around.

I would replace Gravity's phase with the following power:

(26) Black Hole: You summon an extremely powerful gravitational field within your line of sight. This field draws enemies into it, stop most foes from moving and even immobilizing some weaker foes. In addition, foes may be assaulted by rapidly changing gravitational waves, causing them to be knocked up or down. After a period of time, the black hole disappears.
Recharge: 120
Duration: 30
Endurance: 20
Effects: Reverse Repel, Knockdown, Knockup, Mag 1 Immobilize

Actually, the Dimension Shift power COULD be converted into a Toggle ... but you'd need to live with a consequence of the power being an "intermittent" Phase power.

Activation: 5s
Intangible: 4.9s
Immobilize: 10s

If you do something like that, every 5 seconds there'd be a 0.1 second window of opportunity during which affected targets would be able to "attack out" of the Dimension Shift. Most of the time however, their attacks would fail. The Immobilize effect would double stack on itself so that when the toggle drops, affected targets couldn't immediately move. The Intangible effect would thus expire a fraction of a second before it gets reapplied.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

All blaster secondaries. I know a ton of people love blasters, but I hate the class with a passion because its the only class besides dominators that has two purely offensive powersets. Dominators work because control is the primary aspects, blasters have no control, no survivability, etc.

And empathy. Ohh, empathy.

Empathy is a powerful team set. That said, alone it sucks horribly. Get rid of absorb pain completely (such a ****** concept) and combine both auras. For one thing, a set called "empathy" needs a confusion. Put it where the first aura goes, make it an AoE cone or a fast recharging single target persuade "showing the enemy empathy and making him question his loyalties for a short period"

Absorb pain could be turned into any number of things, personally I'd love to see one of two items

- Team Stealth toggle, effectively enemies "see" you but because of the empathetic aura you exude they aren't sure if they should attack you yet. Add in an unsupressable

- Single target +res shield, 20% resist to all, enhancable. Call it "Understanding Embrace" or something similarly empathy-ish.

And I'd love to see adrenaline boost changed. Increase the regen and recovery on the combined aura described above and add in +50% recharge, and make adrenaline boost a targeted ally toggle. You essentially make one ally unkillable as long as you've got endurance, "Bond of Empathy" or something like that. I mean, for a healing T8 wouldn't it be great to be able to buff someone into a true level of God mode. +20% defense and +40% resistance, +10% tohit, mag 10 protection and 60% resistance to all existing debuffs of any kind. Make it cost 1.2 eps and you've got a great power.

If Castle were to recode Dimension Shift as a Toggle ... I'm thinking it would look something like this.
Note that such a change would NOT require *breaking* the Cottage Rule ... while at the same time GREATLY enhancing Player control over the power.



Dimension Shift

Level: 12
Type: Toggle
PvE damage scale: 0.000000
Accuracy:1
Modes required:
Modes disallowed: Disable_All
Range:60 feet
Activate period: 4 seconds
Interrupt time: -
Cast time: 1.17 seconds
Recharge time: 90 seconds
Endurance cost: 1.73
Attack types:
Effect area: Sphere
Radius: 25 feet
Arc: -
Max targets hit: 16
Entities affected: Foe
Entities autohit: Foe
Target: Foe
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Nofity Mobs: Always

• +3 Intangible, Unknown for 3.9s PvE only
• ThreatLevel -1 for 4.1s PvE only
  Effect does not stack from same caster
• +6 Immobilize for 4.1s PvE only
  Effect does not stack from same caster
• Grant "Temporary_Powers.Temporary_Powers.NoPhase" (-) [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
• +3 Intangible, Unknown for 8s If target is a player
  Suppressed when Phased1, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
• ThreatLevel -1 for 8s If target is a player
  Suppressed when Phased1, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
• +6 Immobilize for 8s If target is a player
  Suppressed when Phased1, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Turning both Black Hole and Dimension Shift into PBAE toggles is a great idea - I might even be willing to take Black Hole on my Dark Miasma characters if the Devs did that. Otherwise I think the single target caging powers in /FF and /Sonic are just more useful (and even then, only situationally useful, and not that often).

Something I thought of that might make them more handy is if phasing powers like Black Hole and Dimension Shift had a stun on them that was 5-10secs longer duration than the intangibility - after all, being phased into a different dimension must be disorientating. A 10sec Intangibility followed by 10secs of Stun, with a 45sec base recharge, would be quite handy - with two nearby overlapping spawns you could take one of them out of the fight while your team dealt with the other spawn, plus the stun would ensure that you didn't receive an alpha strike for your troubles. Because I think one of the problems with Intangible powers is that all of the affected mobs wake up at the same time, so unlike most other control powers (especially hard controls) you can't use them to mitigate an alpha.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritfox All blaster secondaries. I know a ton of people love blasters, but I hate the class with a passion because its the only class besides dominators that has two purely offensive powersets. Dominators work because control is the primary aspects, blasters have no control, no survivability, etc.

I'm one of those people that love blasters, so I couldn't disagree more. A well-built blaster just defeats things so fast you don't need to waste time with controls. Besides on my L50 blaster I have /Energy as secondary and I didn't take any of the attacks (well, except Total Focus, but I have it slotted as a control and only use it when I need a boss/EB stunned quickly, in combination with the stun in my primary) - my secondary is mostly self-buffs that support my primary. In fact most Blaster secondaries aren't just offensive powersets, they're a mix of utility, self-buff and control with maybe a few offensive powers (usually melee) thrown in.

Besides, what you want already exists - you've named Dominators (though I often wish that Dominators had their assault set as primary, like every other CoV archetype has their attack set as primary, with control as secondary), but there's also Corruptors - just take a control-heavy secondary like Dark Miasma or Storm Summoning and you have what you want. You may just have to accept that Blasters aren't for you - I have a similar arrangement with Defenders.

Immobilize + Stun = Hold
If you're going to throw down a Stun along with the Immobilize, stop beating around the bush and just make the combination a Hold power instead of an Immobilize + Stun. The only "reason(s)" to go Immobilize + Stun are (a) Cottage Rule, and (b) so that the durations/magnitude on the Immobilize and Stun can be different from each other.

As for mitigating a re-alpha from mobs coming out of a Dimension Shift, it ought to be easy enough to code a -75% Damage Debuff onto the power which last 4 seconds longer than the duration of the Intangibility effect. That way the re-alpha "is allowed" but winds up "wasting" most of the power of the attack(s) during those 4 seconds after rematerializing in OUR dimension. Re-alpha mitigation ... solved.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...