Dark Control & Visceral Essence

Back in 2007 I posted an idea for Dark Control and a secondary to accompany it. I figured with all the new changes to the game and the advancements of technology over the last couple years I would revisit the idea.

Again I present Dark Control and Visceral Essence. I haven't touched the original idea, this is more like a general blueprint that the power sets could take.

Primary

Darkness Control

Shadow Shard – You call upon dark energy which you can fling at your foe, causing moderate negative damage. The shard of negative energy is able to lower your foes accuracy for a short while. Recharge: Fast Damage: Moderate

Shadow Rapture – Your foe is trapped caught in a haze of negative energy, unable to move to defend himself; your negative energy causes moderate damage over time while lowering the accuracy of your foe. Recharge: Moderate Damage: Low DoT

Shadow Crawl – You hurl a ball of viscous negative energy that explodes on impact, causing damage to the target foe and any foes in the vicinity of the explosion. Aside from taking some damage from the explosion, the foes are caught in the dark fluid and immobilized. Shadow Crawl reduces the effected foes recharge, accuracy, as well as minor negative energy damage over time. Recharge: Slow Damage: Minor DoT

Dark Burst – You are able to channel an explosive burst of pure negative energy which causes high damage, as well as severely lowering the target foes accuracy and defense to energy and negative energy. Recharge: Slow Damage: High

Shade – You are able to phase into a corporeal form resembling a shadow. This shadow form provides defense to all types of damage, as well as a moderate boost to negative and energy resistance. While in this form you are hard to see but can be detected at close range. Recharge: Long

Visage of Darkness – Peer into the mind of your foes and bring forth their worst nightmare. Foes targeted with this power will have there recovery, recharge, and damage decreased for a considerable amount of time. Recharge: Long

Hands of the Shadows – You are able to call forth spectral essences to hold your foes in place. This power is able to affect any foe near your target. Since the spectral essence is pure negative energy, the target foe is more susceptible to negative energy damage. Recharge: Very long

Dark Attunement – By focusing your energy, you are able to boost your holds, debuffs, and recovery rate for a while. This power does come with a drawback. Since you are so in tuned with the dark aspects of your power, you are highly susceptible to holds, and immobilize powers. Also, you are highly vulnerable to energy damage. Recharge: Very Long

Mire Imps – Using complete mastery over the nether-realm, you are able to summon forth 3 shadow imps to do your bidding. Shadow Imps are able to be healed and buffed like any other ally. Shadow Imps are able to assist you with range or melee powers. Shadow Imps are highly vulnerable to energy damage. Only 1 set of summoned imps may be present at any given time. Using this power while imps are present will cause your imps to despawn and be replaced with a new set of imps. Recharge: Very long

Secondary

Visceral Essence

Dark Empathy – Your connection to the netherworld allows you to sacrifice some of your health to heal an ally. Dark Empathy also grants a boost to health and negative energy resistance of target ally. Recharge: Fast

Dire Drain – While you toggle this power, your recovery rate is lessened, but the target foe suffers a severe reduction to their regeneration and recovery. Dire Drain also affects foes in range of the target, causing them to suffer a reduction in their regeneration, but at a moderate level. The stronger the foe, the greater the strain on your recovery due to harder concentration on your part to maintain the drain. Recharge: Fast

Eye of the Ethereal – You channel the spirit of a specter into a target ally. This specter grants a boost to recovery, regeneration, damage, and defense. Since this specter is non corporeal, target ally suffers a huge penalty to accuracy as a result. Recharge: Very long

Negation – Target ally is infused with negative energy which causes a temporary phase into the netherworld. Target ally is infused with such a level of negative energy, negative status effects are cancelled out for a while. Negation also grants target ally with stealth and defense to negative energy and energy damage. Recharge: Slow

Essence Convergence – When you activate this power, you merge with the target foe linking of your essences. When you are attacked by the target foe, you only sustain 25% of the incoming damage, and the attacking foe will sustain 25% of the damage dealt as a response to attacking you. The longer this power is activated the more taxing on your endurance it becomes. Recharge: Long

Crossing the Divide – You are able to revive a fallen ally with Crossing the Divide. Revived ally is possessed with dark energy which increases the ally’s strength, resistance, and regeneration. Once the divide is crossed, the revived ally will become weakened for a short while, losing 50% health and endurance, as well as becoming disoriented for a short time. Recharge: Very long

Spirit Asylum – You use your powers over the ether to create a spirit asylum at a location in your area of effect. Each time a foe is defeated, the spirit of the foe is drawn to the asylum, and all allies in the area of the asylum receive a boost to their accuracy, damage, defense, recharge, recovery, and mez resistance. Recharge: Very long

Well of the Furies – When you activate this power, your powers cost no endurance for a long time. During the time this power is active, you also receive a great boost to the secondary effects of your powers. Recharge: Very long

Through the Mist – You summon a large mist of negative energy to the foes location. All foes caught in the mist are overwhelmed and suffer massive damage while in the mist. Movement speed and recharge of enemy attacks are severely reduced. Damage: Superior Recharge: Very long

This kind of thing really should go in the Suggestions forum, since Control sets apply to Dominators, too. Also, the possibility of a Dark Control primary and/or a Dark secondary has been discussed (and worked on) by the devs . . . They have said that it will really require a bunch of sets and a lot of time to do. It is not off the table, but they don't appear to be in a hurry to add it to the game.

Your suggestions have several things that I think are very unlikely to happen. A ranged AoE damage power in a controller primary? An Unstoppable/Light Form type power in a controller primary? I wouldn't count on it.

Let's take a look at your suggestions, and reduce the language down to what they do.

Primary Darkness Control

This post is kind of a response to Local Man's post on the control set. I wanna preface my comments by saying that I understand your concerns about creating an overwhelming powerset, or one that hardly belongs in the grouping of "controller primaries" at all, and echo them to a degree, but feel that you come down too harshly on some ideas that have some potential, if perhaps with a bit of tweaking.

If I want a set that's identical to existing control sets, the opportunity is already there for me to play those sets. I think breaking free of some of the mechanical "Archetypes" of a controller set is not only acceptable, but desirable, and also LIKELY for any set produced for the AT. Looking at the fundamental ways the most recent powersets in other AT's differ from their bretheren points to this. Kinetic Melee. Dual Pistols. Dual Blades. All "break the mold" of their predecessors in various interesting ways.

That being said:

Wether it's okay to have 2 kinds of Debuff in Shadow Crawl is all dependent on how STRONG those debuffs are. AOE immobs tend to be on short recharge timers, and have massive radii, the durations have to be modified for stacking. Definitely a sticking point for the power, because of the amount of +Recharge and the magnitude of Recharge slotting that can be directed at this power, there exists the risk of creating a "One stop shop" power where all you need to do is spam it and stack it is very real if the values are too high.

Dark Burst could serve as an alpha soaking control power instead of a "High damage AOE". Really strong Debuffs but on a very short duration, "reasonable" damage, maybe a %-chance knockdown effect, and a long recharge timer. Giving you a chance to set up your other controls on tough spawns, but not giving you a "Second fireball".

Comparing Shade to Light form is a little off the mark I think. Light Form is strong recovery buffing, and high resistance to most damage types. Shade is "Moderate" resistance to the 2 "Energy" types, no resistance to any other type, no recovery buff, but with stealth, on a long recharge timer. It's a little odd, but I'd be more worried about it being too over specialized and not available often enough rather than being worried about it being too good or AT inapropriate.

Visage of Darkness doesn't claim to be Terrify. As described, t's a pure debuffing power with no damage. Even if it was a terrorize (or is meant to be?), Defenders get Fearsome Stare, a high order cone Terrorize power with high order to-hit debuffing and chance for "Overpower". The only question I raise is I'm noticing a lot of debuff in this set. While this could be the set's "focus", much like Slowing for Ice, Damage for Fire, Loose Control and Misdirection for Illusion, Location control for Earth, and so on, I would be wary of the amount of stacked debuffing available to the set, especially in the context of strong debuffing secondaries like Radiation, and Cold.

On the subject of AOE holds having a debuff, I'm fairly certain Ice Control's glacier has a strong recharge and movement debuff in it, but I'd have to double check. The set tosses out so much slow that it's difficult to say for certain from memory.

Dark Attunement being a "Power Boost" clone doesn't have to be overwhelming. Power Boost's base values for its buffs are incredibly high, this I consider a mistake that doesn't need to be repeated. Long cooldown, along with the mentioned drawbacks could keep the power from overwhelming things. The question is; is "Mez Vulnerability" an appropriate, or even doable drawback? Mez Resistance Debuff is one way to do it, making any mez that hits you last longer. But protection from mez completely cancels this out, not to mention the fact that your enhanced debuffs and controls will likely prevent you from even getting hit by a mez. Perhaps something a bit more dodgy, and dangerous, could serve as the drawback. Max Health debuff and a Regeneration Debuff and some Heal Resistance? Make you think twice about using the power, because it makes you really "ride the edge".

Mire Imps doesn't have to be overpowered. It's all in the execution and details. "2 gremlins? That's twice as many as any other set. Electric is overpowered." With proper adjustment of the offensive powers the Mire Imps have, it would be easy to reign them in.

But yeah, overall I worry about the amount of stacked -To Hit that this set could muster. Maybe I shouldn't, but that's my chief concern in a nutshell. The difference between Ice and Dark, with Ice's -Recharge, is that the enemies still all get to attack, it just takes a while after their first attack chain. Enough to-hit debuffs on the other hand, and you're out of danger completely, indefinitely.

Now, for this set:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Novella Visceral Essence Dark Empathy – Your connection to the netherworld allows you to sacrifice some of your health to heal an ally. Dark Empathy also grants a boost to health and negative energy resistance of target ally. Recharge: Fast

A little vague for my tastes, but the idea fits well with a dark theme. How much is "some of your health" and how much is healed? The amount sacrificed compared to the amount healed would have to be disproportionate to be worth anything, but in that case, the recharge would have to change to something longer. If you want to keep the recharge as is, the amount sacrificed and healed would have to be dropped substantially to levels approaching something similar to storm's O2 boost, but with maybe a bit more healed.

Quote:

Dire Drain – While you toggle this power, your recovery rate is lessened, but the target foe suffers a severe reduction to their regeneration and recovery. Dire Drain also affects foes in range of the target, causing them to suffer a reduction in their regeneration, but at a moderate level. The stronger the foe, the greater the strain on your recovery due to harder concentration on your part to maintain the drain. Recharge: Fast

I kinda like this -- it's almost a teaching tool for targeted toggles. Are you talking hasten-like recovery or slowed to a crawl recovery?

Quote:

Eye of the Ethereal – You channel the spirit of a specter into a target ally. This specter grants a boost to recovery, regeneration, damage, and defense. Since this specter is non corporeal, target ally suffers a huge penalty to accuracy as a result. Recharge: Very long

A griefer's new favorite weapon. A "huge" penalty to accuracy is too much. Inspirations to re-up myself to the level that I once was at should not be required to make this power likeable.

Quote:

Negation – Target ally is infused with negative energy which causes a temporary phase into the netherworld. Target ally is infused with such a level of negative energy, negative status effects are cancelled out for a while. Negation also grants target ally with stealth and defense to negative energy and energy damage. Recharge: Slow

Phase, again, takes things completely out of sync, meaning they can neither hit or be hit. I see where you're getting the idea from dark miasma (lol black hole...), but this would make characters nigh unkillable.

Quote:

Essence Convergence – When you activate this power, you merge with the target foe linking of your essences. When you are attacked by the target foe, you only sustain 25% of the incoming damage, and the attacking foe will sustain 25% of the damage dealt as a response to attacking you. The longer this power is activated the more taxing on your endurance it becomes. Recharge: Long

I'm not sure what to think of this power. I'll come back and edit this part when I think about it more.

Quote:

Crossing the Divide – You are able to revive a fallen ally with Crossing the Divide. Revived ally is possessed with dark energy which increases the ally’s strength, resistance, and regeneration. Once the divide is crossed, the revived ally will become weakened for a short while, losing 50% health and endurance, as well as becoming disoriented for a short time. Recharge: Very long

Really clunky wording. Technically, "crossing the divide" would be completed when the character comes back to live. I like the mechanics, but your description needs work.

Quote:

Spirit Asylum – You use your powers over the ether to create a spirit asylum at a location in your area of effect. Each time a foe is defeated, the spirit of the foe is drawn to the asylum, and all allies in the area of the asylum receive a boost to their accuracy, damage, defense, recharge, recovery, and mez resistance. Recharge: Very long

A very, very small boost, sure. Mere single digit percentage points is all this could grant, and it'd have to be capped at a certain number, otherwise it would be abused. Put this in a BAF fight? Team full of juggernauts.

Quote:

Well of the Furies – When you activate this power, your powers cost no endurance for a long time. During the time this power is active, you also receive a great boost to the secondary effects of your powers. Recharge: Very long

Change the name. Also, change the effects. Way too overpowered, unfortunately. Your next power might not cost any endurance, but that would be about it.

Quote:

Through the Mist – You summon a large mist of negative energy to the foes location. All foes caught in the mist are overwhelmed and suffer massive damage while in the mist. Movement speed and recharge of enemy attacks are severely reduced. Damage: Superior Recharge: Very long

No, can't work. Nope, never. Not in a million years. You're trapping them, you're neutering them, you're making them melt. It's way, way too strong for a controller secondary t9. It's like an aoe lightning storm with more damage, stupid-high debuff, wrapped around a brute and put on a 4 minute recharge. It's gamebreakingly good.

I really like the idea for the sets (and holy god do I want some kind of dark sets for controllers) but you're basically creating tanks out of characters that aren't meant to be. Even without IOs and temps and procs, a lot of these powers by themselves are just so incredibly powerful that they don't even compare to any potential shortcomings the sets might have.

Hmmm

See, I dunno where you're getting all these odd ideas for Dark powers when there's already like 40 darkness-themed powers in the game to draw inspiration from, half of which already have a control-like component. Heck, there's even Dark Miasma for defenders, which can't be a DIRECT port due to giving most controllers 2 pets and being very control-ish in its own right, but otherwise would be a better starting point for a secondary than making an all new one from scratch.

Now, it's okay to want a new powerset to have some new bells and whistles and maybe an advantage over existing sets. However, you have to temper that with balance. After all, it'll be bad enough when everyone and their mother rolls a dark/dark controller just because it's the new shiny, but what if it was the most powerful combo in the game? No one would ever roll anything else, and those who did would be at a severe disadvantage.

The devs know this, and have made new powersets not all-too-awesome numbers-wise. They may give sets a unique mechanic (Combos, swap ammo, power sapping) or may implement odd single powers to give the set flavor to set it apart from the mold, but they still follow a general pattern of the other related sets.

For instance, Mind control has a full attack chain that can keep a whole group of enemies from retaliating at ALL by level 6, whereas most the others just have a hold, an immob, and an AoE immob, and then some odd trick at around level 8. You're still getting pelted. However, later on, Mind trades its pet for a mass confuse, something no other set has, but the numbers show that having a pet is simply better.

Illusion is pretty much the opposite. A ton of pets and invisibility effects to re-direct agro, but not much in the hard control department. It used to be king of the hill until the devs started adding enemies that couldn't be taunted, KB'd, or Fear'd. Heck, since they're not even trying to hurt you, even the invisibility abilities are wasted.

What you're doing seems custom-tailored to solo AVs like a illu/rad AND farm like a fire/kin. Seems odd.

Oh, and, one thing i think that bears mentioning above all else: The ability "Dark Attunement", you say the character becomes "more" susceptable to mez. I'm gonna explain why this is weird: The way Mez works, you start of with mag protection 0. If you go UNDER that number, you're mezed. If you have a break free or an anti mez ability, you get Mez protection points. Like 10 or whatever. NPCs have some inherent protection. Minions have 1, lts have 2, and bosses have 3. However, PCs have 0 and so basically this power would mez you unless you popped a BF first =/

_MalK_ did a nice job of explaining most of my objections to your set. I'm sorry if it sounded so critical, but that was my opinion -- it is just not workable, as it has too many problems. The high damage combined with high debuffs in a Controller primary simply don't make it viable.

Control sets generally follow a certain pattern. There are at least two single target control powers, three AoE control powers (assuming you count Phantom Army as an AoE control power, which it is). All but Mind have one or more pets, and Mind trades its pet for an extra AoE Control power. They all follow a certain structure and certain trade-offs. Even the newest one, Electric Control, has the single and AoE Immob, Single and AoE Hold, and pets. It has 4 unique powers, but those 4 unique powers still have a substantial similarity to certain other control powers. Jolting Chain is a chaining knockdown instead of a knockdown patch (Earthquake and Ice Slick). Static Field is a pulsing Sleep patch, and several other sets have control "patches." Conductive Aura is an endurance drain toggle, and Synaptic Overload is a chaining confuse. All of those powers are very, very low damage, and they don't really stack from powers available in the various secondaries. The only significant debuff is Endurance Drain, which is a fairly weak debuff.

Any debuffs in the Controller primary are usually limited to one main aspect. For Electric Control, it is desiged to drain Endurance -- which is not very powerful until you can drain ALL the endurance. Earth Control has Defense Debuff. Gravity has Slow (but not -Recharge). Ice has Slow (and -Recharge, but very low damage). Fire gets a little Damage over Time but less control. Illusion, Mind and Plant really don't have secondary effects. And these are not overly powerful debuffs.

You can make up any set you want and it can be as overpowered as you want, but if you really want a set to be potentially implemented into the game, the Devs are going to want it to comply with the balance standards that they have in place for the rest of the game. That's what I was pointing out -- you put a huge amount of debuff into a proposed Controller primary, and from what we have seen, the Dev's simply won't do that because it would be overpowered.

I provided what I felt was reasonable feedback on an idea that has major problems. I'm sorry if you didn't like the feedback, but I think the criticism was valid.

My only thought about the proposed primary is that it has considerable debuffing (which should be reserved for the Secondary set) but very little actual control, which kinda defeats the purpose.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Hopefully the OP isn't too discouraged. I don't think any of the folks commenting are out for blood. We do see a lot of suggestions for Dark Control. Some of these suggestions are not bad, even if they wouldn't all necessarily be together in one set.

In terms of patterns for Control sets, I'm not sure if there really are any that are hard and fast. Based on what we can see in existing sets, though, for a set to get a "control significant" debuff (which is what I think of -ToHit as), it is usually paired with soft control. Ice and Electric are the models of that type of set. Also, all of the sets with significant debuff are very low damage. FWIW a power that does only debuff can show up in Control sets: see Shiver, Quicksand, Smoke, etc. Spirit Tree also comes out of nowhere with its Regen boost. The key is that in none of these cases does the set have a lack of actual mezzes of some kind.

(BTW to the question that was asked earlier, yes, some AoE holds do have debuff. Glacier does -60% or something Recharge or so, I am too lazy to look it up).