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yes. agreed on all counts. if PA is getting changed, it better be changed for trollers too. otherwise i'm calling slap in the face to villains and dominators especially so.
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Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Sigh. Another round of proliferation hysteria, so soon?
Phantom Army is not overpowered because it comes with a price. The price you pay for having Phantom Army is being stuck with an otherwise Roll tier primary, and not being a brute. Now, if the devs decide they don't like Illusion Control being 1 great power, a couple decent powers, and everything else garbage, that's fine. But that's not a proliferation problem, and it's not a dominator problem. It's a set problem, and PA should be evenly dealt with across both archetypes. And, as long as the devs remember that modest reductions in the great power must be matched by much larger increases in the poor powers, to account for substitution effects, I'd be okay with that. |
Please buff Ice Control.
I think Illusion is shaky, but fine. It is not overpowered. It is not breaking anything. It is in the top tier of controller sets, yes, but it isn't the best.
After reading more of the thread and thinking about it myself, I'm going to have to agree with the sentiment that if Illusion isn't too strong for Controllers, it certainly isn't for Doms.
As has been stated, Controllers can boost PA's damage indirectly through debuffing. Dom's wouldn't have the ability to do that. Seems like an even trade to me.
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And that's probably what's going to ultimate derail any attempt to proliferate Illusion to Doms. They will need to change things to proliferate, they'll take a lot of heat for making those changes, testing will be bogged down in people simply demanding things to be the way they want, the time would be better spent on carp melee.
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Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
yes. agreed on all counts. if PA is getting changed, it better be changed for trollers too. otherwise i'm calling slap in the face to villains and dominators especially so.
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Originally Posted by Steel_Shaman
As has been stated, Controllers can boost PA's damage indirectly through debuffing. Dom's wouldn't have the ability to do that. Seems like an even trade to me.
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I'm actually not sure this is true. I don't have Mids in front of me, but I'm going to address the basic framework.
Controller debuff is limited to only some of the sets. Sets differ wildly in how much -Resist they provide, with a few providing none (Empathy, Force Field), and a few providing quite a bit (Cold). Kinetics is in the weird position of being a normally very damaging set that can't boost its pets.
The standard value for Controller -Resist is -22%. However, pets are exempt, so Controllers get -30% from Sleet and Freezing Rain. Time Manipulation has a special mechanic that allows -27% Resist on certain targets if you plan for it; this "special" mechanic doesn't actually lift Time's -Resist above Sleet, though.
All of this is important, because with any Dominator secondary you can access Sleet, which has the same -Resist values as the Controller (and Defender) versions, and only a 30 second duration to seperate them (Controller: 60s, Dominator: 90s). The Dominator version of Sleet is somewhat weaker than Controller Sleet because of the duration, but it's not clear to me that it is weaker than other Controller sources of -Resist, given that those powers mostly have lower values. There are a couple of exceptions but overall Sleet is extremely powerful on either AT.
Overall, in the -Resist arena, it is not a clear win for Controllers.
Now, -Regen. No question here. Drain Psyche is a -500% Regen debuff that is enhanceable. Controllers can't touch this. Moreover, because we just established that Controller debuffs come from their secondary, in order to even try they need a set that has both -Regen AND -Resist--they can't go halfies and pick up the second debuff from an APP.
Whether this is more or less of an advantage is hard to establish. On the one hand, it means you can pick from a couple of sets to see the big advantages. On the other hand, by my quick count only four Controller secondaries--Radiation, Cold, Dark Miasma, and Thermal--have both significant -Regen and -Resist, so if you want both you have to be selective there too. Some people may say that because only one Dominator combo yields significant debuffs that it's okay, although it may also mean the set is even more lopsided than on Controllers and pigeonholes you into a few very limited options.
Personally, I'd argue having damage values near-ish to a Blaster combined with an invincible army to tank for you should be enough though. Maybe somewhat more justified now that Blasters have crashless nukes... but again, only somewhat.
[NOTE: There is a sort of shell game that goes on with Cold Domination in particular every time this topic comes up that I hope to avoid this go-round. The up time of Cold Domination's -Resist and -Regen before IOs hovers at arounds 50-60%, due to the excessively long recharge of these powers. So, just a warning ahead of time, if someone is going to counter arguments about Dominator performance with an "IOs don't count" style of rebuttal, they also need to make them not count for Cold Domination. The same applies to other sets too, of course, but especially in Cold's case.]
Drain Psyche is only in one set. Traps has -1000%, Rad has -1000% (-2000% if you use EMP). Rad also has -def and -res. And +rech to help perma them. Time has all of these as well, but only about -200% regen.
Whereas, only Drain Psyche, one power in one set, has any sort of compatibility with PA. And thats only against big game. There is Sleet in the APP, but there are 7 other epic/patron pools that could be chosen. And that Sleet can't be perma without heavy IOs.
So in all of the Assault sets, there is one power that can situationally provide help to PA. If you take APPs into account you can bring that up to a whopping two.
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Actually it can. although the sleet patch only lasts for 15 seconds the debuff it applies actually has a duration of 30 seconds so as long as you keep the target in the patch for the 15 seconds the effective duration of the debuff is 45 seconds which is permanent with SOs.
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Originally Posted by Mad Grim
And that Sleet can't be perma without heavy IOs.
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Also excuse my rebuttal :P but I think that a vast majority of Illusion players proc their toon out like crazy to squeeze out that extra damage. If you say "No one uses procs on their Illusion/ Controllers." I sure do so that's at least one person! The devs also include edge cases especially in this situation and I've going to be one of those people who will push the limit. That should be a concern to them even more in this situation!
/Storm has Freezing Rain which puts Controllers and Doms on equal footing. With the AH proc you can get up to -50% Res. -30% No proc
/Darkness Affinity in SUPER extreme cases can have two Tar Patches out at the same time which puts the controller at -60% Resist.
/Cold is a situational case since it takes a crazy amount of recharge to get Heat Loss even close to perma. With Cold a controller has the potential of debuffing a mob up to -80% due to the AH proc in Sleet and the -RES from Heat Loss. -60% No proc
/TA gets up to -50% Res. -30 Res no proc.
/Poison...one of my favorites since I first started playing COH dishes out high levels of -RES as well. roughly -90% RES on your main debuffed Target and -75% Res on everything else. Even without procs poison can dish out roughly -50% Res.
These sets are great for improving the performance of Phantom Army by debuffing the mob to the floor and quite a few of these sets have great survival tools as well tools for -Regen and APP Blasts.
I still don't see how Sleet can contribute that much compared the above high debuff sets. One can also factor is other powers like the damage of /Poison Trap and Oil Slick Arrow.
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Traps is not available to Controllers.|
Originally Posted by Mad Grim
Traps has -1000%
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| Rad has -1000% (-2000% if you use EMP) |
Drain Psyche slotted with 2 Heal IOs yields -916.6% Regen. Slotted with an actual effort to raise it, the number in Mids I'm getting is -987%.
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| Rad also has -def and -res. |
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| Whereas, only Drain Psyche, one power in one set, has any sort of compatibility with PA. |
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| And that Sleet can't be perma without heavy IOs. |
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| So in all of the Assault sets, there is one power that can situationally provide help to PA. If you take APPs into account you can bring that up to a whopping two. |
Arguing otherwise is like saying "Illusion/Cold isn't that great because Illusion/Force Field is only so-so."
Everything isn't a number. Its still two powers, doesn't matter how many sets can use it.
So if you're gonna use Sleet as the basis of your argument, what about the Contoller APPs? They give them high (with containment) damage powers. So you already have damage dealers with PA.
The assault sets don't synergize with PA any more, and actually less, than the support sets.
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Originally Posted by Mad Grim
Everything isn't a number. Its still two powers, doesn't matter how many sets can use it.
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I'm not sure what you mean here but I think you missed part of my point. The set could be "lopsided" without necessarily being "overpowered" (my words) if it turns out that one specific build or combo (in this case possibly Illusion/Psi/Ice) is significantly better than all other options. I'm not quite convinced it is, but some of the arguments used to counter what I've said about the powers available to that combo could be the foundation for that argument.
Anyway, what I was mainly responding to was the statement that Dominators aren't competitive with Controllers because they lack debuffs. You have to pigeonhole yourself somewhat to get those debuffs, and there are many more possible objections to a possible powerset combo than just "it's overpowered" (quoting no one particular). You also do not necessarily have to have debuffs if you already have good DPS.
They are definitely going to have to walk on eggshells about the issue. For better or worse, Phantom Army is one of this game's signature powers and anything they do (including doing nothing) is going to probably attract criticism. FWIW, I'm okay with the power as an oddity but at the same time very, very glad this is the only video game I play with a power with those functions.
Also note that there is what we can call a stealth way to nerf the crap out of Phantom Army. It's actually already been partially done, with few people noticing. I'm being cryptic, but there are two specific changes to the game in the past few years that might as well have "we were trying to discretely nerf Phantom Army" painted on them, whether they were specifically thinking of it that way at the time or not. I suspect they were.
I'm curious what you're talking about with the stealth nerfing. What two changes?
Only thing I can think of that directly changed PA was making Hami able to kill them.
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Don't forget Dark's insane -regen between howling twilight and twilight grasp.
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Originally Posted by Tater Todd
/Darkness Affinity in SUPER extreme cases can have two Tar Patches out at the same time which puts the controller at -60% Resist.
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I'd still play illusion on a dom if phantom army was replaced. Would be better if they made phantom army into creatures that can be hurt if possible. If they left it as is, that would be fine too.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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They also take damage from quite a few things in iTrials such as the explosions from crates/vats in the Lambda and Marauder's nova fist thing.
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Originally Posted by Mad Grim
I'm curious what you're talking about with the stealth nerfing. What two changes?
Only thing I can think of that directly changed PA was making Hami able to kill them. |
I've also noticed that they take fall damage. Not much, and it can't kill them, but its there.
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That's because fall damage is untyped. They actually discussed it in a Coffee Talk. Phantom Army is immune to all types of damage. If it hurts them then it is untyped. Like Hami
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Originally Posted by Mad Grim
I've also noticed that they take fall damage. Not much, and it can't kill them, but its there.
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This is one of the cases , where a set was nerfed too much , that all that is left is Phantom Army .
Flash used to be low recharge , to offset less control at lower levels , and cause controllers had to move in close to use flash . thus endangering them to AOE .
Spectral Wounds used to be higher damage ,offset was that partially healed up .
Superior invis used to be high def equel to tankers , that is why the extreme endurance cost
Now it is rubbishe defense , but the extreme endurance cost remain .
Grant invis well the def value even supressed says it all .
Spectral Terror wasn't even used back then cause the mobs would run away aggro other mobs and bring them all back to you , till fear fix.
Everything balanced but the negative still remains .
So yes Phantom Army is the last power remaining in the set .. oh the old days of 9 phantom army and 2-3 decoys and 3 phantasm out .
Illusion set past infact allowed a total diverse playstyle , from stalker - tank - MM , at the cost of being one shot , if things went wrong .
I rather them go trough Illusion itself , they can't touch Phantom Army .
But the rest of the power have become , less then other controllers powers .
If you want damage gravity is the damage control set . since it still uses the old values.
If you just want illusion set it self , well not much left in that set , that powerpools cannot duplicate in a minor way .
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I have heard the ancient lore of all of the other control sets but Illusion! This explains so much...wow.|
Originally Posted by Lonelyshade
This is one of the cases , where a set was nerfed too much , that all that is left is Phantom Army .
Flash used to be low recharge , to offset less control at lower levels , and cause controllers had to move in close to use flash . thus endangering them to AOE . Spectral Wounds used to be higher damage ,offset was that partially healed up . Superior invis used to be high def equel to tankers , that is why the extreme endurance cost Now it is rubbishe defense , but the extreme endurance cost remain . Grant invis well the def value even supressed says it all . Spectral Terror wasn't even used back then cause the mobs would run away aggro other mobs and bring them all back to you , till fear fix. Everything balanced but the negative still remains . So yes Phantom Army is the last power remaining in the set .. oh the old days of 9 phantom army and 2-3 decoys and 3 phantasm out . Illusion set past infact allowed a total diverse playstyle , from stalker - tank - MM , at the cost of being one shot , if things went wrong . I rather them go trough Illusion itself , they can't touch Phantom Army . But the rest of the power have become , less then other controllers powers . If you want damage gravity is the damage control set . since it still uses the old values. If you just want illusion set it self , well not much left in that set , that powerpools cannot duplicate in a minor way . |
It's true the only thing left in Illusion now is 3 decent powers...well 4 counting Deceive lol.
It's a darn shame that they cannot scrap the set and start from scratch...if they did the NCsoft building will probably have to go underground LMAO.
I think the fact that Illusion hasn't been proliferated has more to do with the Devs wishing they had never made Illusion in the first place rather than them necessarily thinking that it would be overpowered on Doms. Giving the players anything that can't be countered is a bad idea, and invulnerable henchmen pretty much top the list of dangerous ideas.
In fact my Illusion/Kin can Take out a big +8 mob with only 1-2 uses of PA...and that's impressive when you consider the only one who was buffed from Fulcrum was you and Phantasm.