Quote:
I like your suggestion about SoC. I think that a lot of people would still cry out for the damage of Carrion Creepers to be reduced as well though but making it not perma would probably solve a lot of issues/worries.|
Originally Posted by EricHough
My only objection to your changes is in Seeds - it really IS the only regular AoE hard control in plant and reducing it to mag 2 makes it basically useless for controllers and non-perma-dom's, since you only get minions with that and since the set offers no other confuse to stack with it you will never get any better. Really, you don't need to kill the control, just set the recharge to 90s like all other every spawn controls, halve the duration (which would still make it roughly twice the duration of most AoE stuns) and give it a 0.9 base accuracy (slightly higher than fire/earths AoE stuns to allow for cones being harder to use).
Do just that, fix the damage on roots and bingo - the set is balanced a lot more like fire. Light on control (1 every spawn AoE control, 1 AoE hold on a long recharge, 1 AoE immob and a single target hold and immob, just like fire) and heavy on damage - fire gets hotfeet and better damage in the immobilize, plant gets carrion creepers. |
I don't think that Plant Control should be anywhere near as strong as Fire Control though...I think that's just one of the reason why the set infuriates others.
Quote:
These changes are exactly what I had in mind. I'm not sure why Seeds or Fearsome Stare have an accuracy of 1.0 while Terrify (and Siren's Song) has an accuracy of 0.9. This and correcting the damage on Roots won't be enough to topple Plant from its loft, but it will close the disparity.|
Originally Posted by EricHough
My only objection to your changes is in Seeds - it really IS the only regular AoE hard control in plant and reducing it to mag 2 makes it basically useless for controllers and non-perma-dom's, since you only get minions with that and since the set offers no other confuse to stack with it you will never get any better. Really, you don't need to kill the control, just set the recharge to 90s like all other every spawn controls, halve the duration (which would still make it roughly twice the duration of most AoE stuns) and give it a 0.9 base accuracy (slightly higher than fire/earths AoE stuns to allow for cones being harder to use).
Do just that, fix the damage on roots and bingo - the set is balanced a lot more like fire. Light on control (1 every spawn AoE control, 1 AoE hold on a long recharge, 1 AoE immob and a single target hold and immob, just like fire) and heavy on damage - fire gets hotfeet and better damage in the immobilize, plant gets carrion creepers. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by EricHough
Except that fearsome stare doesn't really work as a full control on dom - yes, you do delay the alpha and mitigate it somewhat with the -to hit on FS but unless you use a second control after FS you WILL eat a large part of the alpha. It doesn't help that dom's have pretty much the worst debuff modifer of any AT that gets powers like FS. On my dark/dark dom I find I pretty much have to open with FS then move in and fire off heart of darkness, then follow up with damage. If I open with fearsome stare then start attacking, I take way more return fire than is healthy for a low HP dom. If I skip FS and stealth in, then fire off heart of darkness for some reason EVERY single mob in the group gets to alpha me before the stun takes place. So for a dom I find dark control to be pretty sad, since it takes me 2 control powers to perform the funtion of 1.
|
Quote:
| Now on a controller I don't have that problem - my dark/dark controller can open with FS (slotted for -to hit) and follow up with the cone immob and rarely take any return fire. What little he does take can be made up with a heal. In fact, I have enough -to hit between FS and living shadows that I rarely have to use darkest night. |
In a pinch I would basically do this to Plant Control:
1) Reduce damage on Roots to correct values.
2) Seeds of Confusion keeps current values, but chance to Confuse drops from 100% to 95%.
Some people will probably scream about #2, but it is really no different from lowering the accuracy cap of 95% for this power. You already have a 5% chance to miss, this makes it 10% instead without punishing you until you IO with +Accuracy. (This is actually how I think every Control power should have worked instead of having base accuracy lowered).
Quote:
I shall be the first to complain about that idea (and I don't even play a plant control character) and would much rather simply have the standard reduced accuracy modifier*. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
In a pinch I would basically do this to Plant Control:
1) Reduce damage on Roots to correct values. 2) Seeds of Confusion keeps current values, but chance to Confuse drops from 100% to 95%. Some people will probably scream about #2, but it is really no different from lowering the accuracy cap of 95% for this power. You already have a 5% chance to miss, this makes it 10% instead without punishing you until you IO with +Accuracy. (This is actually how I think every Control power should have worked instead of having base accuracy lowered). |
It IS different in that you CAN make up the lower base accuracy with slotting/Tactics/etc.
There's absolutely nothing you can do to improve a %based Chance to proc.
There's nothing I would dislike more than using a power, having it HIT, and it not doing a damned thing anyhow.
*AoE controls don't have a lower hit cap. It's still 95%. The difference is that their base accuracy modifier is lower, in the case of typica every spawn controls it's 0.8, so when you multiple that by the base 75% chance to hit you get 75*0.8=60% base accuracy for the power. Slotting 2 even level SOs brings that to ~99.5% tohit, which is then capped to 95%. (Note that this is against even levels, higher levels of course require more accuracy, which is still doable.)
Giving the power a 95%chance to proc combined with the 95% hit cap means that at most your total chance to land your control is 90.25%.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
Quote:
I believe this is because your stealth suppresses at the start of Heart of Darkness' animation, giving the mobs ~2seconds to notice you and initiate an attack. Once an attack has been initiated, you can't prevent it. (With the exception of interruptable powers.)|
Originally Posted by EricHough
If I skip FS and stealth in, then fire off heart of darkness for some reason EVERY single mob in the group gets to alpha me before the stun takes place.
|
It sucks. I really don't like Heart of Darkness being a PBAoE, and I really, really dislike the Dev's fondness for putting PBAoEs and Cones in the same set.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
Quote:
Never played grav, never will. The changes they made don't make the set anymore competitve.|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
[*]What's the final word on the gravity tweaks? Were they enough to improve the set's performance versus other controls? Are you satisfied with the changes to Dim Shift, WH, propel and sing?
|
Quote:
| [*]What's the final word on dark control? Was it worth the wait? Is it the special thing mentioned by devs or so many months ago? How does it rank versus the other control sets? |
Quote:
| [*]What's the final word on dark assault? Was it worth the wait? Is it unique/special enough to justify why it wasn't created a long time ago? How does it rank versus the other assault set? |
Quote:
| [*]What's your take on the latest announced and rumored power sets? Are you okay with no new control or assault sets anywhere on the horizon? Are you okay with Radiation Defense 'beating out' Air Control at the Pummit? |
Quote:
| [*]How is dominator population these days? Has it increased, decreased, remained unchanged? |
Quote:
| [*]How are dominators handling new content and iTrials? Better, the same, or worse than other ATs? |
Quote:
| [*]What's the status of illusion control proliferation? Will it be proliferated? When? Will it need changing? |
Quote:
| [*]What other sets are in need of 'tweaking'? |
Quote:
| [*]What other sets would you like to see created? |
Quote:
Fire has much better control than you give it credit for. And mind is an anomally that needs to be ranked differently for controllers and doms. For Doms its the #3 dmg set, for trollers its #9, mind would also be at the bottom of the barrel for control for Trollers, but easily near the top for doms (not higher than plant). Depending on what you're fighting, since confusion is a very variable damage contribution, Fire can go on par if not outdps plant for controllers, but not doms. PermaPA is highly over-rated as well.
|
Originally Posted by Tater Todd
Oh and since we are talking about Tiers here's my opinion of where the control sets stand. I'm am ranking by Control and then Damage.
Damage across the board 1. Plant Control 2. Fire Control 3. Illusion Control *Controllers Only 4. Dark Control 5. Gravity Control 6. Electric Control 7. Earth Control 8. Mind Control*Debatable 9. Ice Control Control 1. Illusion Control* Only with Perma PA 2. Mind Control 3. Plant Control 4. Dark Control 5. Earth Control 6. Electric Control 7. Gravity Control 8. Ice Control 9. Fire Control |
Quote:
Fire has more control? How so? Or are you talking about the fact that it's control is killing things before they can to much to you? Or are you referring to hot Feet? Bonfire? I'm curious because I've never been of Fire Control...Fire anything no matter what game is not my thing. I'm a water, wind dude through and through.|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Fire has much better control than you give it credit for. And mind is an anomally that needs to be ranked differently for controllers and doms. For Doms its the #3 dmg set, for trollers its #9, mind would also be at the bottom of the barrel for control for Trollers, but easily near the top for doms (not higher than plant). Depending on what you're fighting, since confusion is a very variable damage contribution, Fire can go on par if not outdps plant for controllers, but not doms. PermaPA is highly over-rated as well.
|
I still think that Fire out damages Plant on Controllers but everyone else says otherwise. I would like to see some numbers so I can ease my mind. Fire has Bonfire, Cages, Hotfeet that works with containment, Fire Imps...maybe I'm missing something? A Fire/Kin and Fire/Rad still kills slightly faster than a Plant/Kin or Plant/Rad but I digress.
Why would a mind Dom deal more damage than a Mind Controller? Shouldn't it be the other way around due to containment? Hrmm or maybe it's the fact that you waste time trying to set up containment...?
Mind Control needs it own section...it's it's just weird and different from all the other sets lol.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Oathbound
I shall be the first to complain about that idea (and I don't even play a plant control character) and would much rather simply have the standard reduced accuracy modifier*.
It IS different in that you CAN make up the lower base accuracy with slotting/Tactics/etc. There's absolutely nothing you can do to improve a %based Chance to proc. There's nothing I would dislike more than using a power, having it HIT, and it not doing a damned thing anyhow. *AoE controls don't have a lower hit cap. It's still 95%. The difference is that their base accuracy modifier is lower, in the case of typica every spawn controls it's 0.8, so when you multiple that by the base 75% chance to hit you get 75*0.8=60% base accuracy for the power. Slotting 2 even level SOs brings that to ~99.5% tohit, which is then capped to 95%. (Note that this is against even levels, higher levels of course require more accuracy, which is still doable.) Giving the power a 95%chance to proc combined with the 95% hit cap means that at most your total chance to land your control is 90.25%. |
Maybe, but that is why I said if that happened, Seeds of Confusion would get to keep its above average Accuracy mod, Recharge, and mezz duration.
If we choose not to change the Confuse chance as I described, then full stop, I think Seeds of Confusion needs its recharge changed from 60 seconds to 90 and its mezz duration cut in half. The 37.25 second duration (versus 14.9 in Flashfire and Stalagmites) is ridiculous for a power with its recharge and accuracy. It needs to give something up. And not something IO builds can just ignore, because the whole point is that Plant Control is overpowered.
A 95% chance to mezz instead of 100% could conceivably allow the power to keep its current stats. Note that this change would be in sync with the mechanics of the other AoE confuse which never gets brought up, Synaptic Overload, because its hit mechanics limit it.
Quote:
Flashfire and Cinders are both very good aoe hard control. Fire Cages is also fabulous softcontrol, especially with a grav anchor proc. Char is also better than every other ST hold bar Dominate. |
Originally Posted by Tater Todd
Fire has more control? How so? Or are you talking about the fact that it's control is killing things before they can to much to you? Or are you referring to hot Feet? Bonfire? I'm curious because I've never been of Fire Control...Fire anything no matter what game is not my thing. I'm a water, wind dude through and through.
|
Quote:
| I still think that Fire out damages Plant on Controllers but everyone else says otherwise. I would like to see some numbers so I can ease my mind. Fire has Bonfire, Cages, Hotfeet that works with containment, Fire Imps...maybe I'm missing something? A Fire/Kin and Fire/Rad still kills slightly faster than a Plant/Kin or Plant/Rad but I digress. |
Quote:
| Why would a mind Dom deal more damage than a Mind Controller? Shouldn't it be the other way around due to containment? Hrmm or maybe it's the fact that you waste time trying to set up containment...? |
2) Mind for trollers is awful because it's so bad at setting up containment, and it's dmg suffers because of it. Illusion can get away with it because it has a very unique niche. Mind does not have that niche, infact Mind's biggest niche (easiest perma av control) isn't even possible for controllers, it's a dom only trait.
3) Semi related to the previous, but it can't be stressed enough, not having an aoe immobilize on a controller is just bad, aoe immobs are the bread and butter for controllers. They're massive sources of damage and softcontrol for them.
I've played CoX since launch, and Doms have been my favorite since CoV, so with that said I can really appreciate the changes that have occured with Doms, for the most part Doms are fine as is, with whatever changes occuring on the individual powers or sets.
Myth #1 how many powers benefits from Domination is what makes a set a good set or bad set.
I know this has already been mentioned but Earth and Grav are good counter examples to this. Grav has a lot more powers that benefits from Dom than Earth, and yet Earth is a stronger control set. While domination is a factor in how good a set is, its not the only factor, its also the mix of powers within a set.
Myth #2 Dominations only benefit is its effect on control.
One of the PIA in playing toon at the higher levels if your depending on acro for status protection is amount of mez being thrown around.
Darkness Control - I'd rate mid to upper tier control set, it really does have a nice mix of control powers, what hasn't been mentioned here, is that its AE Hold power despite being a pet power( targeted location), does benefit from Domination.
Dark Assault - Overall its a nice set in terms of utility and punch. The only complaints for the set I have, is they didn't include the same graphics in DC in DA, and that really there isn't much new here, truthfully as is, they could've built the set years ago.
DC's pet, I agree some work needs to be done on its sound effects, but other than that once slotted its actually fairly decent in performance. And as to its appearence, I'm glad its not a dark clone of Electric/Fire's pets or giant ink blot like Dark Miasma's. And actually canine like animals feature strongly in a lot of myths relating somehow to death( Cerberus, Fenris, Anubis, various Native American myths etc)
I'm going to respond to myself:
1. Gravity tweaks were solid. Dim Shift is still pretty useless. Not as useless, but there's really no point picking it over any other gravity power.
2. Dark control is okay. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. My biggest problem is that when doms were skipped with the previous round of proliferation the reason provided by the devs was that doms had a surprise in store. I think this got a lot of people excited, but I personally don't think Dark Control lived up to its hype. Especially when Beast Control was leaked first.
3. Dark Assault - looks really good. Haven't played it much myself, but it's on my list. I still don't think it should have been delayed this long. And I think it was a major slap in the face that blasters got dark manipulation first with the excuse that it was actually just a 'port' of powers in game already. Uh... what is dark assault then?
4. I am not pleased with the announcement of the new powersets not including any control sets. It took forever for us to get electric control after CoV release. Then forever and a day to get dark control. Now we're apparently going to have to wait even longer for the next control. Meanwhile, we're seeing yet another blast set being added. And we're getting a new buff set. And 3 new melee sets were just added back to back to back. And there was blast, buff and melee set proliferation as well. Hey it's great that new sets are being added, but some equity would sure be nice.
5. Dom population has been up, but despite all the tweaks and promises it's not lighting up the servers. Too bad because for my money this AT is the most well-rounded and fun of them all. I think there's a catch 22 with the lack of dev time in new control and assault sets. Why make more control/assault sets if the population is lower than others? But why play a dom when you're not getting new sets at the same rate of other ATs? I believe that new sets, truly special ones, not cobbled together or underwhelming like with dark and dark, will attract more players to the dominator.
6. I think doms rock the new incarnate stuff. However, I think permadom is almost mandatory in DA. Mobs toss out so much mez and kb that without domination, you get punked pretty fast.
7. Illusion. I'm not even a huge fan, but why this set has still not been proliferated is beyond me. The only reason I can fathom is the devs plan to change it. However, if they do, they'll upset longtime controller players. What to do? I'm thinking dark control was a poor attempt to satisfy the illusion cry.
8. Ice control needs help. It sits rock bottom in the control sets and not because the others are so much better. Its biggest problem is its self-conflicting nature and redundancy. The sleep and cone slow need work. I'd also toss fire control out there. It's pretty solid, but I'd put it in the bottom 3. Maybe just some numbers tweaks would improve it. I think there are just too many skippable powers or ones that need heavy slotting to work properly. Even the imps aren't all that anymore. They're just too soft.
9. New sets I'd like: water control if there's plans for water assault to go with the water blast set. Air control sounded interesting. Those 2 would round out the elemental sets. Some sort of tech or gadget control a la traps. Some sort of weapon assault sets. Some sort of natural punching assault sets. I'd love Super Strength on a dom.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
Just curious to find out what everyone's thoughts are on:
|
Please buff Ice Control.
I wanted to comment about Dark Assault. In the thread I've seen a couple responses stating that it's damage is low. I'm confused as to why anyone would think that. It does require you to be in melee range to get the best damage out of it, but it's got great damage, plus a heal in life drain, plus a bit of -to-hit. To be honest it's now my favorite assault set.
Not all of the powers in DA are great, but Engulfing Darkness is one of the best AoEs in assault sets. Smite, Midnight grasp and Gloom are all very good dpa/damage. Life drain is a bit less awesome damage, but makes up with the heal.
All in all I think Dom's are in a pretty great state. One of my favorite ATs.
Quote:
Thought I'd chime in as I am doing DA stuff currently on my Dark/Fire dom.|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
I'm going to respond to myself:
2. Dark control is okay. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. My biggest problem is that when doms were skipped with the previous round of proliferation the reason provided by the devs was that doms had a surprise in store. I think this got a lot of people excited, but I personally don't think Dark Control lived up to its hype. Especially when Beast Control was leaked first. 6. I think doms rock the new incarnate stuff. However, I think permadom is almost mandatory in DA. Mobs toss out so much mez and kb that without domination, you get punked pretty fast. |
First, I don't have permadom and I am having no problems running DA missions at +2/x4. The only problem I've had is I died several time to Black Scorpion because I couldn't eliminate his Arachnos minions and I can't tank stealth strikes. I could probably run a bit higher on settings. I only occasionally need to hit break free.
One beautiful thing about Dark is that I can safely take a boss and a Lt. out of the fight with my Confusion at the start of the with no domination and I don't draw agro. This is huge for missions that present strings of bosses because I don't have perma-dom yet.
Another great thing is the ability to completely negate the alpha strike with Fearsome Stare which even now is perma. While it's not absolute control, it cuts down damage by a large amount even if I follow up with my immobilize and Rain of Fire.
Having three pets perma is great, especially since Haunt comes so early. Also unlike Fire Imps and the Umbral Beast my Haunts are targeted and recycle quickly. This means I can start a fight by summoning them on a mob and ducking back so they cause havoc before I come forward again.
The only group I have issues with is Nemesis because they are resistant to both Fear and Confusion which negates my most used powers and I am not perma-dom.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Do just that, fix the damage on roots and bingo - the set is balanced a lot more like fire. Light on control (1 every spawn AoE control, 1 AoE hold on a long recharge, 1 AoE immob and a single target hold and immob, just like fire) and heavy on damage - fire gets hotfeet and better damage in the immobilize, plant gets carrion creepers.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13