About MPs

[Klodovik]

Dominates are already a pain, anymore power to them and they need to be removable. Even if Dominates don't outright stop a nano cast, (with a number of professions though, they do) they still affect nano AR sufficiently enough. If you want an actual disabling of casting that's what NSD is for.

Dominates were intended to force other people to cast lower versions of their top nanos, when facing a MP, not to shut them down. Sadly, 125 pts debuff ain't doing even that trick anymore (unless you are tl4 LOL).

NSD is getting even more useless with incoming balancing patch (added immunity).

[msbish]

Dominates are already a pain, anymore power to them and they need to be removable. Even if Dominates don't outright stop a nano cast, (with a number of professions though, they do) they still affect nano AR sufficiently enough. If you want an actual disabling of casting that's what NSD is for.

Yeah as i said, halfen the duration on dominates, while u dubble the effect, allmost evry proffesion can stil cast all there top nanos with just dominate, and most with nuke debuff also. im talking from a tl5 perspective and i can imagine how it must be for endgame mp's..even worse

and NSD is to dangerous to cast to be usefull in pvp, it got incredibly small chanses to land and u gotta stand stil for a long period, and suffer a long nano recharge when u resist, the only time i use it on bs myself is vs a doc.

[Hacre]

As I said, there are professions in the current PvP climate that very much feel the pain of current dominates. They're not exactly low on the PvP food chain either.

Solders are screwed out of AMS5 with a dominate.
NTs are screwed out of top LE nukes with a dominate.
Enforcers can't cast their deck nanos with a dominate.

Etc.

I'm all for MP improvement, lord knows you need it, but don't play down the things you have that still have an effect. I'd rather see some attention to MP defenses and pets, maybe NSD than Dominates as they still have their place.

[Klodovik]

Solders are screwed out of AMS5 with a dominate.

Ah, gee. We can lower their reflects by 2%. Powerful indeed.

NTs are screwed out of top LE nukes with a dominate.

They are surely not. Unless they are some weird NR2 setup, LOL.

Enforcers can't cast their deck nanos with a dominate.

This is the only thing I believe you.

However, it all fells down the drain given the fact majority can already self them and if opposing side has at least 1 MP, well... You know how the story goes in that case (CM plx).

Works for AMS V as well.

I'm all for MP improvement, lord knows you need it, but don't play down the things you have that still have an effect.

They are outdated, stop fooling around. Their effect is noticable only at tl4, damn it.

I'd rather see some attention to MP defenses and pets, maybe NSD than Dominates as they still have their place.

I would rather see some major boost all over the deck, including pets and defenses. Especially now, when we are going to lose our blockers.

[Hacre]

They are surely not. Unless they are some weird NR2 setup, LOL.

They surely are. The only effective NT setup at TL7 is an evade setup. Any sensible NT perks NR1 due to UBT, drains and GTH flying about. With that (speaking as a full Alpha symb NT with scouts in all spots except where Ofab makes sense, so boots and spec ed helm), Dominate MC stops Izgimmer's Double/Triple.

[Essessceeaych]

Solders are screwed out of AMS5 with a dominate.

That's IF you can get the dominate off before they cast AMS...which happens VERY rarely, and the soldier quickly learns.

[Phargus]

Ah, gee. We can lower their reflects by 2%. Powerful indeed.

It's 3% actually. Nerf mps!

[Xtremtech]

Perhaps it would be better to consider the relative power.

Dominates have remained stable in debuff value while skills-budgets for nanoskills have more than doubled. That means that they are now incredibly weak compared to their original intended power level. For example, when they were designed, a debuff the size of a dominate was able to take out the top 10 Doc single heals. Nowadays, you're lucky if you take out one top nano from a line.

It also used to be the case, that Dominates would affect all of a profession's nano-lines. But with the rising budgets available to players, dominates don't really touch RK lines at all any more for any profession - including major tools like UBT, Calms/Snares, Dmg shields etc. Many of those lines that are no longer scratched by Dominates are still the top versions of their kind for that profession, so entire lines now escape any real effect from Dominates where they used to all be heavily affected. Even SL lines can escape dominates these days due to rising skills budgets.

It used to be the case that Dominates had a sizeable effect, even against nano-specialists who could be expected to have higher skill than their top requirements, due to needing to land hostile nanos. These days we're discussing whether non-specialist nanoskill professions like Enforcers or soldiers even lose their absolute top requirement nanos when including things 8 hour CMs.... in the past, such non-specialist professions could be really quite crippled by a well placed Dominate.... not just lose their absolute top nano.

And this is not in an environment where other major stacking debuffs have been added to the pallete. The only real MP nanoskill debuff increase has been the increase from Mind Quake (-100) to MIMQ (-150). You can't really count NSD - ENSD which was only about making the shutdown an actual shutdown after skills budgets exceded NSD's -2000 debuff. It's not a real functional increase.

Compare that to Trader debuffs for example, whose old RK Divest/Plunder combo maxed at -415... but whose nanite enhanced versions max at -650 to all nanoskills. That's more than 50% increase.

Note too: Improved Divest for Traders debuffs -325 on all nanoskills and weapon skills and -150 AAO at 90% NR Def skill. Dominate debuffs 1 nanoskill for -125 at 100% NR Def skill. Whereas well used Dominates used to compete reasonably well with Trader Divest in terms of effectiveness against nanoskills, that has not been the case for a very, very long time now. The relative power of the Dominate has slipped massively to what it used to be.

There's a very strong argument for increasing the power of Dominates to take into account some of these changes. Increasing skills budgets and line extensions have weakened the effect of Dominates massively. Dominates have gone from being a tool that affects all professions' lines to affecting a few nanos - even for non-specialist opponents. MPs have seen very little increase at all in nanoskill debuffs via other tools, so there's been no catch-up there. And the relative power of the Dominate Vs other nanoskill debuffs in the game has dropped massively too.

X

[Kinkstaah]

Thing about dominates though, is when they stop people from casting the 'top nano', there isnt a lower version available that didn't come from RK etc.

Unless you're talking about Soldiers, who can use a very viable lower AMS. This is a situation where a dominate is working correctly, causing a few seconds of confusion and/or whatever. Dominates however should stop doctors casting BI, forcing them to downgrade, advs from top heal etc, the main problem is classes are always going to be closer or further than 125/250/whatever value is placed on a dominate.

Would be good if a variable existed that when cast a dominate, the top nano of any line was simply unavailable.

[Xtremtech]

Thing about dominates though, is when they stop people from casting the 'top nano', there isnt a lower version available that didn't come from RK etc.

If you doubled Dominates from -125 to -250, then you'd probably still catch a few more nanos out, particularly when used alongside MIMQ for example. Advies would not just lose Beauty of Life - they might lose Light of Life too. A Doc might lose Bone and Flesh Eater. MAs would lose Soul of Rubi and Flourishing Heal etc. etc.

You're right though, that there's certainly an element of some lines having only a single non-RK nano at the top of them, in which case increasing the debuff wouldn't necessarily have a direct effect on the number of nanos lost. The disparity between the skills budgets on RK nanos Vs post-SL ones does make it more difficult to correct this issue... but increasing the Dominate debuff value would still have some effect. As things stand too, nanospecialist professions may well have enough cushion on their nanoskills to allow a Dominate to have no effect at all on a given line... increasing the debuff value would affect more of those - or would force a greater sacrifice to get that cushion.

But also, keep in mind that Dominates are not only about taking away nanos from the top of the lines. It's also about reducing 'attack rating' on hostile nanos. The relative values of the debuff against nanoskills budgets and against other debuffs has weakened the ability to produce lower landing rates on hostile nanos of course. So as the nanoskills budgets and NR budgets have soared, the ability of Dominates to affect the landing rates of hostile nanos has withered.

X

[Klodovik]

They surely are. The only effective NT setup at TL7 is an evade setup. Any sensible NT perks NR1 due to UBT, drains and GTH flying about. With that (speaking as a full Alpha symb NT with scouts in all spots except where Ofab makes sense, so boots and spec ed helm), Dominate MC stops Izgimmer's Double/Triple.

I simply can't believe that you have only 2364 in MC as a top-notch equipped NT, even with NR1 perked. And even if you do, it's most certainly not good enough reason NOT to enhance our prehistoric part of tool-set.

It's 3% actually. Nerf mps!

Don't tell me you have exactly 1528 in MC and 1491 in TS.

But OK, just swap that AAO HUD item with this for a sec, and you will gain access to that extra 1% back. It's easy to hotswap these back and forth today anyways (0,1 sec equip time).

[Hacre]

I simply can't believe that you have only 2364 in MC as a top-notch equipped NT, even with NR1 perked. And even if you do, it's most certainly not good enough reason NOT to enhance our prehistoric part of tool-set.

I said nothing about not improving things. In fact all I said with improving Dominates is if they get stronger they need to be removable.

I then went on to say that they still affect some professions when it comes to accessing some of their top tools. That is all. You're arguing for the sake of arguing.

[Klodovik]

I said nothing about not improving things. In fact all I said with improving Dominates is if they get stronger they need to be removable.

No one is arguing about that. :shrug:

I then went on to say that they still affect some professions when it comes to accessing some of their top tools. That is all. You're arguing for the sake of arguing.

No, I'm arguing because you are trying to show that they are still pretty useful, while they are not. They are merely an annoyance (omg, 5 minute debuff I can't haz removed, nurffffffff!!!1).

They mostly affect only green PvM borderline equipped toons, or in some rare cases, highly NR equip oriented toons (guess what's used as defense check on dominates - yes, that's right).

That is all.

[gaia]

I simply can't believe that you have only 2364 in MC as a top-notch equipped NT, even with NR1 perked. And even if you do, it's most certainly not good enough reason NOT to enhance our prehistoric part of tool-set.

Dominate can probably do some small difference on NR2 NT..
The only problem - I cant land dominates at all on such NT with my 2500-ish nanoskills.
I tried to land dominate on him about 20 times per BS round and get a lol message from him after, saying that i should not waste my time on dominates.

[Mountaingoat]

I simply can't believe that you have only 2364 in MC as a top-notch equipped NT, even with NR1 perked.

I have 2369 MC on my NT perked NR1 with 300 symbs in.

[Klodovik]

I have 2369 MC on my NT perked NR1 with 300 symbs in.

Great. And how much NR you have?

[Mountaingoat]

around 2900

[Hacre]

I have 2369 MC on my NT perked NR1 with 300 symbs in.

Which sleeves? Scouts or Ofab?

[Mountaingoat]

scouts

[Klodovik]

around 2900

Awesome. Good thing MPs have NR debuffs. Oh, wait... They don't. But you knew that already.