re: incarnate content and softcontrol


Adeon Hawkwood

 

Posted

Soft control is largely ignored by +4 mobs... Do you all think that the soft controls of an elec dom, for instance, will be largely useless in incarnate level content? Or do you think that with the "very rare" level boost slots will make soft control more viable, as it will give us a target only +3 or less? In the future, also, as incarnate level content goes up, will soft control still be viable, even with incarnate slots?


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Hew in drag baby

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch View Post
Soft control is largely ignored by +4 mobs... Do you all think that the soft controls of an elec dom, for instance, will be largely useless in incarnate level content? Or do you think that with the "very rare" level boost slots will make soft control more viable, as it will give us a target only +3 or less? In the future, also, as incarnate level content goes up, will soft control still be viable, even with incarnate slots?
I'm not sure it's fair to say that soft control categorically suffers more from the purple patch than hard control. After all, hard control's duration is cut by more than half against +4s, and your chance to hit with hard control is likewise reduced.

It seems to me that fixed-duration, no-Tohit-check soft controls like Ice Patch and Earthquake perform very consistently against higher level foes.

(It is fair to say that hard control is generally better than soft control, all else being equal, and particularly when we're talking about Dominators, whose inherent power favors hard controls over soft.)

You're right about endurance drain, which is an all-or-nothing proposition, and therefore any modifier that prevents you from draining the target completely renders your end drain effectively useless. Everything else, not so much.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
Nice build

 

Posted

Unfortunately, elec does not have any of those nice soft controls. It has

pbaoe drain
aoe targeted sleep
an almost useless confuse you will never be able to line up in incarnate content

The drains will be trivialized by level difference. I think the sleep is 100%? useless.... That is kind of where I am headed. Without some of the nice kd/ku, the soft controls of elec seem really weak in comparison to other potential controls available to doms/trollers, especially up against purples.


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Hew in drag baby

 

Posted

Well my /dark stalker has always done just fine on Mothership Raids against +4 enemies and she relies heavily on the -tohit.

My plant/ice dom still gets protection from the slow and immobilize and knock in her powers even on +3 enemies. I haven't taken her against +4s except on teams so not so sure how much was me and how much was the group.


"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch View Post
Unfortunately, elec does not have any of those nice soft controls. It has

pbaoe drain
aoe targeted sleep
an almost useless confuse you will never be able to line up in incarnate content

The drains will be trivialized by level difference. I think the sleep is 100%? useless.... That is kind of where I am headed. Without some of the nice kd/ku, the soft controls of elec seem really weak in comparison to other potential controls available to doms/trollers, especially up against purples.
You may be right, but if I understand this incarnate thing correctly, we've seen only a small part of it. There is a chance that the "Beta slot" will address these concerns. For now, soft control is at a bit of a disadvantage, but it may not always be so.


Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

@vanda1 and @nakoa2

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Obitus View Post
I'm not sure it's fair to say that soft control categorically suffers more from the purple patch than hard control. After all, hard control's duration is cut by more than half against +4s, and your chance to hit with hard control is likewise reduced.
I think this is true for some types of soft controls and not others. Confuse and Sleep are, like hard controls, just reduced in duration but otherwise work the same way as normal (in fact Confuse is sort of buffed since the damage confused enemies do is higher relative to your damage).

Drain and Knockback though will suffer somewhat. Drain's problem is pretty obvious, despite being a soft control the way NPC endurance works means most of the time it's pretty binary either you floor their endurance or they continue to attack. The purple patch hits it coming and going, it decreases the drain per hit and decreases the duration of recovery debuffs (which means you need to apply those more frequently). Knockback is less affected, but the reduction in magnitude means that in some cases enemies with a bit of KB protection end up not even being knocked down.


 

Posted

Myself and a friend have been playing a pair of Doms through the new content. I am an Ice/Icy/Ice Dom, and they are an Elec/Energy/Ice Dom.

I've not felt the slightest bit disadvantaged versus other "hard control" Doms and Controllers, at least in my personal experience. Obviously, YMMV. I mainly run with a Cardiac Core uncommon boost, for reference. It's my feeling that any Dom has enough tricks up their sleeves to noticeably contribute to +4 encounters, just so long as they've made sure to learn to use said tricks effectively.