RelativeQuanta

@EnjoyTheJourney What's your logic around taking Fire Blast and skipping Consume? I ask since on my Illusion/Fire/Fire Dom, I've tried a few times to make Fire Blast work in an end game build and I just... can't. It's just totally outclassed by Blaze which then gets priority for Apocalypse which then means, from a DPA standpoint, that Incinerate is also better. Blind fills the only hole in my fully ranged chain too, so I don't need Fire Blast for that either. For consume, I've found that if I exemplar below 45 (or use Barrier Core instead of Ageless), it keeps me from going dry on end and it can slot Synapse's Shock for recharge resistance. Seems well worth the power and 4 slots.

Any chance you can share a data chunk? For some reason my Mids install can't open any files since I updated it the last time.

Again, I'm NOT spitballing any changes. I was merely stating what's possible through encounter design. It's very possible to design an encounter that's challenging for all ATs while at the same time not overly punishing some ATs.

Only if it has the proper amount of lotion!

Such a delightfully hostile response to my non-suggestion of a comment. This information about PEBCAK is good to know. No tuning necessary. This even helps meet the request that encounters have counterplay.

My only point is that it *is* possible to redesign AV mechanics in such a way that one-shot mechanics are not a thing but they're still dangerous to tank-type characters. You example isn't exactly a counter point though. The comparison should be that an AV currently does 1000 damage in smashing. At 71% resist, you take 290 damage. If I change the total damage to 500 and make 29% of it irresistible, you would still take 290 damage. The AV is just as dangerous to you as before the change but to an unarmored character, they take half as much damage. Again, I'm NOT suggesting that this should happen. It's just a counterpoint.

There are actually many different designs that can relieve the problem of "squishes" getting one-shot vs immortal tankers. A VERY simple one would be to lower the AV damage, but make some fraction of it unresistable. This way, the "squishy" takes less damage but the high resist ATs still face some danger in fighting the AV. So let's not pretend the problem can only be solved with the status quo. However, I don't think any change like that needs to happen in CoH. From what people have suggested in this thread, it's either a particularly dangerous AV or the difficulty setting were dramatically turned up. If it's a single over-tuned AV, Ultimo's desire to have some counterplay can be fulfilled just by lowering this AV's damage.

I totally agree. I previously was all in on blasters though there were definitely signs that Doms were actually my preferred playstyle. That early build also doesn't show that I had previous versions with two ST holds. I've also totally fallen in love with confuse powers

I'm aware of the power of inspirations, especially since they lengthened their duration to 1 minute. Not sure why you're pulling out my comment here. It's clearly a reaction to things other people have been saying in this thread that either suggest, or directly say, that the trinity is a thing in this game. Did you miss my link to the The Holy Trinity isn't. Advice for veterans of other MMOs thread?

Ok, so there are definitely two arguments happening here. I'll put it more bluntly. Ultimo has stated an opinion about what he things encounter design should be. He's not arguing about what is. If you want to speak constructively with him about this, explain why his opinion is wrong not make a restatement about the facts of the design. I would also point out that the prevailing opinion in this thread about leveling, non-hardmode content is exactly the trinity design. Which this game supposedly doesn't follow (except for the times that it does).

I was speaking of regular content. Nice to know that my build should work, though I'd have to switch to Vigor Radial from Intuition radial to get the needed to-hit. Though, I'm not likely to ever try. Thanks!

It seems like there are actually two conversations happening here. You tried to tank a AV with a squishy character. You died by design. The fact that a AV can one shot a character with no potential for counterplay is bad design On point 2, I actually agree with Ultimo, though I think City of Heroes has gone too far down the trinity design (despite statements to the contrary!) to really change this. Any changes to this formula would seriously disrupt the way the game plays.

How much accuracy/to-hit is needed for a 4*? Am I fine if I'm at 95% chance to hit against +4?

I've now gotten my second dominator to level 50 where I FINALLY had a character that used fire that I managed to stick with past level 20. Performance level: Solos quite well at +4x8 and I've managed to beat many of the AVs at +4x8 on the Maria Jenkins arc with some exceptions where I turned it down to +1x8 (like Infernal or I didn't feel like slugging it out with a bullet sponge). No daggers or temps used, but plenty of purple and green inspirations (usually, just what I collected from soloing with some exceptions). Tests on pylon dummies have defeat times around 75 seconds with my usual setup. Endurance is generally not an issue even if Ageless isn't going thanks to consume. I found that I really didn't need the fighting pool thanks to Superior Invisibility giving me constant first mover advantage, which is REALLY nice. My build goal with this character is to maximize damage as much as I can (including AoE when possible), so any tips here would be welcome. Though, Mace mastery is out as it's too far outside my concept. Stuff I tried: Initially, I had Soul mastery and would run both embrace of fire and soul drain, but found that soul drain was inconvenient since I really only ever used melee on stragglers or AVs so fire mastery worked better. (that and RotP is very satisfying for those times I do die). Slightly better damage with Melt Armor too and Fireball benefits from embrace of fire I've tried completely proc'ing up incinerate but found it made at most 5s of difference in pylon defeat time which isn't worth the loss of 10% recharge and 15% accuracy I took grant invisibility for a bit as a LotG mule and so I could cast invis on my phantom. I didn't find it helped so I went elsewhere for the recharge My questions: Right now, I have blind completely proc'ed out so it's a regular part of my rotation so I regularly have 2-3 stacks of damage boost, is there a better way to do this? What about Ice Mastery? I haven't tried it yet, but mainly because I'd lose out on a fireball-like AoE (and I'm starting to love RotP...) Stuff I like to have: Flight is part of my concept but I can live with just one flight power if it would make that big of a difference 122.5% global recharge before hasten so I can have perma-dom without it for those times I have to afk for more than 2 minutes Thanks! Xal'Iflalmue5 - Dominator (Illusion Control - Fiery Assault).mbd

Ok, just took on Nightstar again. The heal back is definitely not greater than the damage delt by the decoys. Thanks @Frosticus and @Luminara

I did not know this and it would have helped immensely. I'll have to try again and make sure to stun her! I use lores if I remember them. It's my one non-T4 at the moment. Well, the next time I'm taking on an AV with high psy resist, I'll save my combat log and check. I'll follow up here if no one else does with the answer. Though, I'm fairly certain they likely don't heal back more if they have psy resist. Illusion is one of the oldest sets on Controllers and a bug like this would have been caught, right?

So, I was working my way through the Maria Jenkins arc at +4x8 on my illusion/fire dom and I noticed that while 54 AV Chimera was practically a pushover, I couldn't beat 54 AV Nightstar. I'm guessing that her 50% psychic resist was what was doing me in, I just didn't expect that psychic damage was quite that large a portion of my damage. Today, however, I started wondering about the heal back portion of PA's damage. It's also "resisted," right? There's no chance that the 50% psychic resist + purple patch only affected the damage and not the heal back, right?

I'll expand a bit on what @Uun has stated. I've had a similar error in thinking in the past. Dominator attacks frequently have longer recharge times than blaster attacks which means, despite damage scale differences, dominator attacks will deal nearly as much damage (or more!) damage than blaster attacks. Let's look at fire blast vs fiery assault: Blaster Fire blast: 62.56 damage + 9.3842 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 3.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s Blaze: 132.6 damage + 14.0763 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 4.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s Dominator: Fire blast: 86.6 damage + 7.9245 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 3.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s (~126% of blaster damage) Blaze: 120.5 damage + 11.8867 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 4.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s (~90% of blaster damage) Considering that your average dominator also runs far more +Recharge than your average blaster, they end up doing similar or more single target damage than blasters. They only really fall behind in AoE damage (no nuke outside of judgments). TL;DR: Dominators are DEFINITELY a DPS AT.

I like how with two of the berets, you're either fresh out of basic/AIT or a four-star Ranger general (which doesn't exist, highest is COL commanding the 75th Ranger Regiment). Unless, of course, things have changed since I left the Army.

Ah, ok. So, the gloom slotting was more to get the ranged defense than the movement increase. Since you're not melee adverse, I do highly recommend you use at least smite, it's got a really good DPA.

So, I'm really not sure I understand what you're going for here. Your changes neuter the damage from Life Drain and lower the damage from gloom and Moon Beam, all your hardest hitting attacks. Why are you trying to use combat teleport but not taking your melee attacks? I'm not trying to be harsh, I just don't think I understand what your goal is. As far as perma-dom goes, your latest build should have it, but you'll have to be on top of refreshing hasten ASAP and making sure you're not too busy button mashing to allow domination to cast.

So take a look at the build I posted. It's perma-dom and perma-hasten. You need at least 122.5% recharge to get perma-dom and that leaves no wiggle room (activating powers just as dom comes off cooldown will make you miss the window). This means you're not at perma-dom with your latest build. If you're including hasten to get perma-dom, you need a comfortable buffer over 122.5% because you won't have hasten up all the time.

Take a look at this. There's probably more that can be done, but this will massively increase your recharge rate. I don't think I added too much damage outside of what you'll gain from recharge. I did have to swap out the teleport pool and soul consumption for the stealth pool to mule LotG. I think you'll be fine with perma-dom and 3.5 end/s. Other than that, I tried to leave everything else alone. I do recommend trying out the melee powers at some point. Celina Wild - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd

Any reason you don't want to use purples, ATOs and PvP sets? If you're going to be exemplared a lot, those are the only sets that will work from level 1-50. Other than that, what are your other build priorities? Like, do you prefer to do more damage at the expense of defense/resists?

I suppose I was thinking more about level 50 slotting. Basilisk's Gaze is almost too good at 7.5% recharge for only four slots. This means slotting an ATO in your hold is only going to get you 2.5% more recharge. You're generally only going to have one of each of the other control types and they all have purple IO sets that give 10% recharge, so you're aren't "gaining" there. But you're very likely to have multiple attacks, so if the ATO could go in an attack (and had +10% Recharge) you're much more likely have a bigger gain. Or just have a new opportunity. I currently am working towards a build that's squeezing out more +Recharge by slotting 5 purple sets and deliberately using 5 slots of non-superior Ascendency of the Dominator on spectral terror to squeeze out an extra 2.5% of +Recharge over using cloud senses. So, maybe I'm overthinking stuff.