Alternative Pain Domination

While I don't think Pain Domination was a strictly necessary addition (Villains already had Thermal Radiation, Radiation Emission, Dark Miasma, and Poison for all their resurrection needs), I think it turned out alright looking at it. The concept of manipulating pain in its purest form is a superpower idea I came up with myself. However, they made it TOO much like Empathy. Here's a few ways I'd change it to make it fit the concept better:

First, the minor ideas:

Soothing Aura is a fine concept, but I don't like the animation. I wish the 'sphere of motes' animation was at least optional.

Painbringer's still too much like Adrenaline Rush - it would make more sense if suppressed the target's ability to feel pain, resulting in a massive damage resistance bonus and an endurance discount on its powers, rather than the regeneration and recovery rate bonus.

I just want to say I really LIKE Enforced Morale - not only does it make perfect sense, it's funny!

Now the bigger ideas:

I think it would make sense for there to be one other debuff in the set, possibly replacing either World of Pain or Soothing Aura. One idea would be remodeling either of them as an equivalent debuff for enemies, but I think a better one would be:

Agony - wracks an individual target with pain. While you keep this power active, the target's accuracy and defense are all severely reduced. In addition, any resistance it might have to control and status effects is also weakened, and the pain may even periodically cause it to writhe helplessly, or failing that slow it.

My biggest issue is with Conduit of Pain - obviously the set needs a resurrection power if it's supposed to be "evil Empathy", but how exactly does manipulating pain in the manner Conduit of Pain does bring back the dead? Here's my idea:

Forced Life - Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "that which does not kill me makes me stronger." It stands to reason, then, that that which brings you back from the dead can make you powerful indeed. With this power, you send a sudden shock of incredible pain through a defeated ally's body - the pain is that certain, special kind of "good hurt" that reminds the target of what life it has left and how much it wants it. The target comes back to life, but is weakened by the pain while it lasts. It's accuracy, damage and defense are all reduced for a while, but since its in pain already, further pain means less to it, increasing its damage resistance for the same duration. When the initial effect wears off, however, it experiences a kind of reckless euphoria that greatly increases its accuracy, damage, and defense, but also decreases its damage resistance, for a long time thereafter.

Ill just hit on one point here as its late for me.

The thing Pain brings that no other set before it redside is a decent +regen power. One of the issues of why people wanted a empathy like set was because Hamidon. Hamidon is able to do a -heal on whoever is hit by it or the green mitos. This would make it so no one without amazing regen could tank him, the EoEs are not enough. This is why when the set first came out people were less than pleased with it. It only has painbringer to offer +regen (unless you count the MM toggle and we dont 8p)

There are many other issues with your sugestion but ill let someone else cover it.

Is it too easy to say 'Cottage Rule?'

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Resurrection powers aren't literally raising the dead, just waking someone up after they've got stunned and fallen over. After all, you can buy a pale green pill from the shops for 200 inf that has the same effect.

A good sharp shock to the nervous system makes sense in that context.

From what Ive played of Pain Dom (up to 35 on a Corrupter) I have to say I quite like it as it is. It initially looked a bit poor on paper, but I've been amazed how useful Soothing Aura is as an animation-time free heal. Whether the powers make 100% sense in terms of concept is irrelevant in some way becasue the game mechanics mesh together so well. And I tend to re-interpret powersets a bit anyway rather than stick to the spirit of the powerset and power names.

The only thing I would want to see changed is the Corrupter aura replaced with the MM version. Regen instead of the tick heal. Good for low HP toons, bad for everybody else...