New efforts!

[Arcana]

I herded the wall in Cim with my kat/wp from level 48 on, meaning the opposition was +2 to +4 to me.  Not enough burst aoe to just annihilate entire groups, so I'd remain aggro capped for some time with each herd.  The trick, of course, was to get divine avalanche stacked high enough that one or two hits still left your defense soft-capped.  Every once in a while they'd stack a few lucky hits and you'd see a cascade failure, at which point you would need to back off for a moment until the debuffs passed and you could re-establish your defense.

The other problem with Kat/* taking on Cims was depending on what was in the group, if they started stacking defense themselves you had to back off or DA would stop hitting, and that would be that.

[LaughingAlex]

Cims aren't tough one on one.  They become tough when you try to group them up too tightly due to the combination of them having stacking debuffs and also stacking buffs.  In effect, Cims took the force multipler trick and turned it around against the players.  In my opinion, that's actually a very good way to make enemy NPCs that are easy enough to defeat for average players, while still posing a challenge for strong players.  They aren't just AoE-bait.

Thats exactly the design philisophy I had for my AE mobs; I wanted them to force multiply enough that they weren't just pushovers, and enough so that advanced players who could take the initiative were the ones to beat them, but I also wanted to ensure lesser players couldn't get past them(specifically, those that were to hesitant, and relied on the trinity to much would be crushed for letting the mobs do what they wanted to do.  I wanted people who had strategy in mind win, but not those who had none.)

Granted, aggressive teams with good players would be able to beat them.  But they had to seize the initiative, use crowd control vigilantly and always be pro-active.  Reactive teams wouldn't last(Especially against the mobs with fulcrum shift, which would kill players near instantly after a short amount of time).

[Ironwolf]

I read these and it baffles me - I used to clear the towers on my Sonic/Ice blaster on the ITF. I think Blizzard and all the stacked slows and sleeps must have been the reason. I never had any trouble at all - it was an IO'd out monster though to be fair.

[Ankhammon]

I read these and it baffles me - I used to clear the towers on my Sonic/Ice blaster on the ITF. I think Blizzard and all the stacked slows and sleeps must have been the reason. I never had any trouble at all - it was an IO'd out monster though to be fair.

Wait.. Sonic/Ice blaster with Blizzard? Maybe Sonic/Ice fender?

Whachu talkin 'bout Willis? :)

[Arcana]

Thats exactly the design philisophy I had for my AE mobs; I wanted them to force multiply enough that they weren't just pushovers, and enough so that advanced players who could take the initiative were the ones to beat them, but I also wanted to ensure lesser players couldn't get past them(specifically, those that were to hesitant, and relied on the trinity to much would be crushed for letting the mobs do what they wanted to do.  I wanted people who had strategy in mind win, but not those who had none.)

Granted, aggressive teams with good players would be able to beat them.  But they had to seize the initiative, use crowd control vigilantly and always be pro-active.  Reactive teams wouldn't last(Especially against the mobs with fulcrum shift, which would kill players near instantly after a short amount of time).

Many people had this idea, but to be honest in most of the missions I was asked to review few really understood how to do this particularly well.  Its a very tricky thing to do, particularly in a way that would work across a wide range of diverse teams.

[Arcana]

Wait.. Sonic/Ice blaster with Blizzard? Maybe Sonic/Ice fender?

Whachu talkin 'bout Willis? :)

Sonic/Ice blasters wouldn't have Blizzard.  Sonic/Ice defenders don't possess sleeps.  A Sonic Attack/Ice Blast something-or-other would be pretty powerful, though.

More likely, a very strong Sonic/Ice blaster build would work by using Ice Patch to keep Cims away, which would nullify most of their powerful melee attacks and prevent defense buff stacking making them difficult to hit.  With well slotted Sirens and good ranged defense you could do decently against Cims on the wall solo.

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful Siren's Song was when solo.  If you hadn't played with it, you literally cannot imagine what that power did in actual combat.

[Vee]

Interesting.  So it is quite possible, even likely, that I simply stumbled onto an attack chain that overall outperformed his fancy IOs.  :)  Honestly, I don't know what his attack chain was.  I just always found it weird when he would say he hated playing his BS/Reg scrapper because he was constantly dying, when I seldom died and almost fought on autopilot because I seldom felt like I was in any danger with my Kat/Reg.

Another possible factor is slotting. If he was getting the base 15% defense per whack of parry while you were getting somewhere between 20 and 23 per DA from having some defense pieces in there it would make a significant difference. Of course your dps would probably take a hit from that which would in turn affect your survivability but figuring that out would require doing some actual math.

[Vee]

Sonic/Ice blasters wouldn't have Blizzard.  Sonic/Ice defenders don't possess sleeps.  A Sonic Attack/Ice Blast something-or-other would be pretty powerful, though.

More likely, a very strong Sonic/Ice blaster build would work by using Ice Patch to keep Cims away, which would nullify most of their powerful melee attacks and prevent defense buff stacking making them difficult to hit.  With well slotted Sirens and good ranged defense you could do decently against Cims on the wall solo.

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful Siren's Song was when solo.  If you hadn't played with it, you literally cannot imagine what that power did in actual combat.

I loved Siren's Song and it always surprised me how few sonic blast players seemed to take it. It was especially amazing on fendurs/corrs as you could sleep entire mobs then run through your whole gamut of debuffs at your leisure without waking them.

[Ankhammon]

Sonic/Ice blasters wouldn't have Blizzard.  Sonic/Ice defenders don't possess sleeps.  A Sonic Attack/Ice Blast something-or-other would be pretty powerful, though.

More likely, a very strong Sonic/Ice blaster build would work by using Ice Patch to keep Cims away, which would nullify most of their powerful melee attacks and prevent defense buff stacking making them difficult to hit.  With well slotted Sirens and good ranged defense you could do decently against Cims on the wall solo.

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful Siren's Song was when solo.  If you hadn't played with it, you literally cannot imagine what that power did in actual combat.

Believe me, I know exactly what you are talking about with Siren's Song.

I would be running Siren's, then shiver, then run in for the ice patch with chilling Embrace running and go to town with the damage. A touch slow with not a lot of aoe but could work the wall with no real trouble.

[Pyromantic]

I loved Sirens Song.  My first character on my own account was actually a sonic/ice blaster; which I believe ironically led me to love controllers (since in a sense it very nearly was one, though I suppose it could most accurately be described as very nearly a dominator.)  One of the characters that is high on my wish list is a sonic/mental blaster.  Solid control, a really nice way to safely use drain psyche, and a metric ton of cone aoe damage.

[LaughingAlex]

Many people had this idea, but to be honest in most of the missions I was asked to review few really understood how to do this particularly well.  Its a very tricky thing to do, particularly in a way that would work across a wide range of diverse teams.

I think, the real challenge is one needs to have a scope.  I chose a scope of "punish those who don't take the initiative, reward those who take it".  My testing of the mobs were also aimed at that, or would have been.  My AE arch was in it's early alpha stages when the shutdown was announced :(.

Edit: Another thing was, had I been able to finish it, my target audience was to be advanced players, I decided, rather than the lowest common denominator.  This decision was inspired by harder doom Wads and marathon scenarios that were made for advanced players of those games.

[Arcana]

I loved Siren's Song and it always surprised me how few sonic blast players seemed to take it. It was especially amazing on fendurs/corrs as you could sleep entire mobs then run through your whole gamut of debuffs at your leisure without waking them.

There was a lot of prejudice over sleeps in general.  But when the devs hand something like that out, you have to take advantage.  There were three mezzes I considered to be "devs must have been drunk when they made them and don't want to nerf them and admit it."  EMP was one (specifically the radiation emission version, not the epic version which was different).  A long duration mag 4 AoE hold?  Sirens Song was the second (handing blasters a mez better than half the stuff controllers got?).  And Touch of Fear was the third (once terrorize was turned into the modern version, ToF could actually be slotted to incapacitate two bosses simultaneously.)

[Auroxis]

As far as Blaster sets go, Siren's Song helped define Sonic Blast as a control+single target specialist powerset. Supposedly, Howl being the only "real" AoE power and it being a cone (no synergy with blapping secondaries) was meant to balance it out. But then out came Mental Manipulation which enabled a cone attack chain for Blasters (together with static discharge from the APP). Not an amazing attack chain, but a solid one nontheless which more than patched up that AoE weak spot.

Defenders always had it good with Sonic Blast, especially after getting access to pets via the Patron Power Pool. They weren't usually relied upon to deal massive AoE damage in the first place so AoE wasn't much of a concern.

It's only on Corruptors that it was an "average" set, since their lower debuff values and good base damage made more AoE-centric primary powersets shine.

[Nightmarer]

The other problem with Kat/* taking on Cims was depending on what was in the group, if they started stacking defense themselves you had to back off or DA would stop hitting, and that would be that.

Tbh best performing char I've seen against Cimerorans was my friend Cynic's Spines/Invuln Scrapper. On same ITF, he could herd them without major problem, while myself on my Kat/Invuln had a hard time against Cimerorans. As per first hand experience, easiest char I've had myself against ITF was pretty much any /DA scrapper, either my DM/DA (Siphon Life was awesome for this TF), my MA/DA, being Dragon's Tail the lifesaver here and 3rd would have been my Kat/DA because te synergy between these powersets turned out to be awesome.

[Pyromantic]

There was a lot of prejudice over sleeps in general.  But when the devs hand something like that out, you have to take advantage.  There were three mezzes I considered to be "devs must have been drunk when they made them and don't want to nerf them and admit it."  EMP was one (specifically the radiation emission version, not the epic version which was different).  A long duration mag 4 AoE hold?  Sirens Song was the second (handing blasters a mez better than half the stuff controllers got?).  And Touch of Fear was the third (once terrorize was turned into the modern version, ToF could actually be slotted to incapacitate two bosses simultaneously.)

I'm kinda surprised you didn't include Fault in that list.  With good slotting it was quite possible to perma-stun groups of bosses.

[Ironwolf]

Wait.. Sonic/Ice blaster with Blizzard? Maybe Sonic/Ice fender?

Whachu talkin 'bout Willis? :)

Nope it was Snow Storm!
Cold Mastery   Snow Storm  35  Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Recharge, -SPD 
Cold Mastery   Flash Freeze  35  Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Cold/ Lethal), Foe Sleep

I had 3 sleeps on my blaster and it was possible to sleep almost anything in the game - even some Arch Villains! What people don't know is with 3 cycling sleeps you can sleep even huge groups being hit with AoE's - they briefly wake fire a weak attack and sleep again. Even Fire Rain with a Corruptor scourging them and they would be slept.

My normal attack chain was:
Amplify
Siren's song
Buildup
Shockwave + knockback to knockdown IO
Howl
Frozen Aura
Snowstorm a second group

and throw in any holds or more sleeps if necessary. Ice Patch + Chilling embrace if needed

I found a true ranged blaster where all my powers were to keep my foes at range. I only had one Melee power I used - Frozen Touch.

Throw in Shiver, Dreadful wail and Screech and it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
 

[Joshex]

So I take the lack of replies in the wake-up thread to mean there is no new news?

There was a lot of prejudice over sleeps in general.  But when the devs hand something like that out, you have to take advantage.  There were three mezzes I considered to be "devs must have been drunk when they made them and don't want to nerf them and admit it."  EMP was one (specifically the radiation emission version, not the epic version which was different).  A long duration mag 4 AoE hold?  Sirens Song was the second (handing blasters a mez better than half the stuff controllers got?).  And Touch of Fear was the third (once terrorize was turned into the modern version, ToF could actually be slotted to incapacitate two bosses simultaneously.)

Ah yes, Trolling. don't forget Electric Control, it could be built into the most powerful sapper in-game, it can incapacitate the majority of an AV's skill set permanently just by standing near them. it's kinda funny to see how much of their powers are Auto or require 0 end.

even -end protection wont help much. Then there's Trappers Troller+Scrapper a good trapper should make the use of their sets most freem features and pump up their regen, heal, def and damage. for electric control this gives them time to sap all your end before you can defeat them. It's a trick I was building to troll recluse, had regen boosted nigh the 2000% cap could be over it with incarnate. had massive heals on top of that. And of course Endmod sets and bonuses. add on the def and res bonuses and he could probably stand up to recluse, even made a provoke build.

talking about this just reminds me that I never did finish that toon to test my theory, best support toon I ever made and that was just with normal IOs. dang NCSoft open the game back up I desperately want to test it!

[Tubbius]

I just want to hit some Rikti right about now.  :(

[Solitaire]

I just want to hit some Rikti right about now.  :(

Skulls would even do right now!

[ukaserex]

But then out came Mental Manipulation

I very much enjoyed my MM/Fire blaster. I loved Ice/Ice. I loved Fire/Fire. Ice/Fire and Fire/Ice - not so much. But MM/Fire was without question my preferred character, in part due to Mids' and the ability to soft cap s/l defense, as well as melee defense. (if memory serves - it's been a while and I'm not home to bring up Mids' to confirm.)

But, I did love literally herding freaks with that blaster.