Re: Mutant Controller Phase Shift Power

First off, many in this game consider the group-intangibility powers to be kind of useless. Most teams have enough AoE damage potential that they can obliterate the weaker enemies in a short amount of time, and a power like this only increases the amount of time it takes to clear out a group of enemies. I would strongly recommend that you respec and drop this power, unless you solo a lot.

If you want an individual foe intangibility power, you'll need to get a character with either Force Fields or Sonic Resonance. Those two sets get single-target intangibility powers, though they run into the same problem in groups, just not as badly.



Also, since you're new to the forums, welcome! However, if you have related questions (you have two on your Gravity Controller, for instance), you can put them into the same post. Also, your origin isn't really relevant, since it has little to do with the powers in question, so we don't really need that. :-)


Hope this helps!

A couple of things before I get to answering your questions:

1) Welcome to the game and forums. Since you are new here, some of us may give you posting etiquette advice (like my next two points). This is meant to be helpful, and not mean

2) If you have an active topic already, you can ask followup questions related to that topic (like, how your characters powers work) in the same thread. It keeps the clutter down, and if your topic title is generic enough, those of us inclined to help, such as Aett and myself, will read through the whole thread and answer new questions as they come up.

3) The fact that the character is a Mutant has almost no bearing on the character's abilities aside from the fact that you got the Mutagen power and it will affect your 33 Month veteran's reward. More helpful when asking these sorts of questions it to let us know which Archetype (which you have done) and Powersets you are asking about.

The reason we need to know about Powersets is because no Controller Primary grants access to Phase Shift, which is Pool Power from the Concealment Power Pool, and only affects the character using it. Gravity Control grants access to Dimension Shift.

If it is Phase Shift, your teammates are taking damage because you are the one "out of phase." If it is Dimension Shift, it is a targeted Area of Effect attack. A to-hit roll is made against each target in the area of effect, it can miss one or all of the targets. If you are attempting to shift a large group, the maximum number of targets who can be affected is 16. Anyone you don't hit can still attack. This is why your teammates are taking damage.

There is a graphical cue to which enemies are shifted. If the graphical cue is missed, when you attempted to attack a shifted enemy, the words "unaffected" will appear over their heads.

That being said, Dimension Shift, in my opinion, is best saved as an "Oh! Crap!" button. Since it is AoE rather than single target, if you use it early in a fight, you could shift out the very target that your team really wants to get rid of first, and who has now become untouchable for the next 60 seconds (granted they aren't doing much, but it is unlikely the whole team will be focused on them when the shift drops). Dimension shift is great for when the group is starting to get overwhelmed. Drop Dimension Shift, and have the group fall back around a corner. The enemies you miss will follow the group and continue to attack, but the number of attacks should be drastically reduced.

Phase Shift is part of the Concealment Power Pool, and available at level 20 if you have two of the three previous powers of the Stealth Pool. But this does not provide the power that you want.

There is no power that lets you Phase Shift and still attack (or buff / debuff, for that matter). This would quickly become an optimal power that it would be stupid not to take, as it would render the enemies trivial. Phase Shift inflicts an "Only Affects Self" condition on you for that reason.

P.S. I'll echo Aett's advice that you respec out of Dimension Shift (unless you solo a lot) since it seems to be causing more problems than it solves. On the plus side, tomorrow (Wednesday the 28th), the next Issue (game update) goes live. With that update, we are being granted a free respec ("freespec"). A respec will let you rechoose your powers and slotting (but not your origin, archetype, primary or secondary powersets) from level one.

And this I'd argue against (respeccing out.) Learning what it does and when to use it is part of any power, and I tend to find Dimension Shift (situationally) useful.

That said, you don't even have to wait for (or burn) a respec to do so. Go to any trainer. After level 10, you'll have the option to create or switch to a second build. You can use it to switch (every 15 minutes) between, say, a solo and team build, or to try out your ideas for a respec before using the actual one, or go for concept vs team or whatever else you want. (They do, of course, use their own enhancements - they're not shared between builds.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Tell them ahead of time, like at the start of the mission. A little prep work goes a long way.

My Arcs
-----
Mission Architect Handyman

Your a sharp cookie, Zamuel...why didn't I think of that? A little prep work goes a long way.

Figured I'd welcome you as well. Always nice to see new blood in the game I love.

"Gravity Controller" would be preferable. It is pretty universally accepted when asking about a character to say something like "Gravity/Thermal Controller". If you said "Gravity Mutant" you could be referring to either a Controller or a Dominator, as they share primary powersets. If you said "Fire Mutant" it would be even more confusing, because 7 different archetypes have access to Fire based powers.

I'll explain further in answering your next question.

Obviously, I'm not Lightfoot, but I can answer that question.

Your character's origin doesn't affect anything about it except which specific Enhancements you use. Dual Origin and Single Origin enhancements are based on your origin. The only thing different about them from origin to origin is the name, they do the exact same thing across all origins. A Visor and an Illumination Grenade both enhance accuracy in a power, and if they are the same level they enhance it by the same amount, but they are for different origins.

My Claws/Regen scrapper, for example, is Science origin. If he were Mutant, Technology, Magic, or Natural origin his powers would be exactly the same.

Origin is pretty much just a roleplaying consideration. It is just HOW you got your powers, rather than what your powers actually ARE.

The only reward origin has ANY affect on is the Veteran Reward powers Nemesis Staff and Blackwand. Mutant and Magic origin give bonus damage to the Blackwand power, and Science and Technology give bonus damage to the Nemesis Staff power. Natural origin gives bonus damage to both. Those are 33 month Veteran Rewards (which are freebies you get for keeping an active account for a length of time, they're awarded for every 3 months). Since you get them at 33 months, you don't need to worry about them for quite a while yet.

And, no, there is no way to get them any sooner than that. Figured I'd answer that one before it is asked, it's a pretty common question.

Hope that helps. Welcome to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles!

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

heat exhaustion is an single target enemy debuff. and you are not a gravity mutant. you are a gravity controller. no one will know what you are talking about if you say gravity mutant.

Heat Exhaustion is a potent debuff on the enemy it's cast on. It drains ~10% of the targets endurance, reduces their damage output by 50% and reduces their regeneration by 500%. It's very useful on a hard target like an AV, it'll shut off their regeneration and reduce their damage output.

Oh, I suggest you refer to your character as a Gravity/Thermal controller; that way we know what your character is. As has been mentioned Origin (Magic, Natural, Mutation etc.) is, for all practical purposes, meaningless. It has absolutely zero effect on your character beyond the store you buy your enhancements from and the semi-useless origin power. (Well, and the 33 month veteran award but you've a long time to wait for that yet) It's kind of like saying your character is Blonde, a bit of flavor but otherwise it has no effect.

You may want to post your questions in the Controller forum, they'll be able to give you good advice about your powers and how to slot them. They'll be able to help you out and they won't jump on you foaming at the mouth