oedipus_tex

I'm glad you said this. I think a lot of people overestimate how effective a Dominator's controls actually are. For example, Flashfire, Wormhole, Heart of Darkness or Stalagmites in Domination mode are a Mag 6 Stun. That's pretty awesome. But any of these + Thunderclap on a Controller is Mag 5 which will stun bosses just as well. It's true the faster animation time is helpful, and having to slot two powers versus one isn't a clear win for the Controller (on the other hand, maybe it is, since control powers slot so well and Dominators have access to relatively few of them, with most bunched up in the Control set). Beyond this though, a Controller doesn't need an expensive end game build to do this reliably. Dominators do. Dominators stand close to alone in leaning so heavily on an inherent to justify their tradeoffs. /Storm is an especially good set for comparison because it is also a backloaded damage set that does damage close to or comparable to an Assault set while still retaining excellent stackable -Resists for the team and a boatload of added safety from knockdown no Assault set comes close to. For another example Dominators also get a Mag 6 hold on a 240 second recharge that has low accuracy you can overcome with a lot of preparation. Not terrible, but when some Blasters have actual nukes with 100 second faster recharge, some with Mag 3 Holds they can slot a reliable additional +2 Mag that has 1.3 accuracy its hard not to feel a pang of jealousy. I do like your idea for some mechanism for delivering more damage. I'd also still like to explore adding more control to Dominators though. Some of the Assault sets are especially good places to look at. Why are Electric Blast and Electric Manipulation so much better at flooring endurance than Electric Assault? What even is the key power in Electric Assault? Build Up? Voltaic Sentinel?😄 All the really fun powers were reserved for other archetypes--Lightning Rod, Thunderous Blast, Power Sink (in the APPs) even Short Circuit. It's basically a combo of mostly generic attacks with electric particle effects. Rather than view this as just a criticism, hopefully it's also an opportunity. For starters, I'd add a Power Sink effect to the Build Up in this set so it actually has a chance to use its endurance drain when comboed with something other than Electric Control, which it doesn't right now combo with particularly effectively anyway.

You're correct, any power with travel time that is fired before you activate Hibernate will still hurt you, because the effects of the power are locked in the moment the power fires. This is also seemingly the case for Containment by the way. If you queue up two powers back to back that interrupt a control effect, both will do Containment damage even if the first power disrupts the control. This is mainly visible with Sleep powers like Mass Hypnosis. A chain of Mass Hypnosis > Energy Torrent > Terrify will usually do Containment damage from both Energy Torrent and Terrify despite one of the attacks waking up the enemies.

If you're going to be using Static Field a lot then you probably want a secondary with the following characteristics: Avoids DoT (this interupts Sleep) Contains knockdown (an enemy that is knocked down loses its chance to respond before Sleep is reapplied) As an Electric Control character, you probably also want a secondary that either magnifies Endurance Drain or does its own -Recovery. Of the available secondaries, 4 sets stand out: Energy: No DoTs, has endurance drain multiplication in Power Up, excellent damage Icy: The one DoT suppresses against enemies who are Sleeping (nice), has endurance drain multiplication in Power Up Earth: Similar to Icy except the DoT does wake enemies; has lots of knockdown though Psi: No DoTs, reliable single target knockdown in TK Thrust if kb is converted to kd, has no Power Up but does have -Recovery in drain psyche. A good choice if you plan to spend a lot of money As for the other secondaries: Dark stands above the others because it has a Power Up Equivalent. Dark has DoT but the -ToHit might make it okay if you hold off on AoEs until enemies are prepped Fire, despite its DoT, is a mostly single target set and may be okay. You don't really need Consume though if you go Power Sink which many Elec Controls will Savage is never a bad set for anyone, however of the available Control sets I'd rank Electric either last or second to last for pairing with it Martial isn't really bad, isn't really good, Caltrops and Explosive Shuriken are out. Reliable knockdown in the PBAoE attack though Electric has its own endurance drains that can stack with Electric Control but is just not a great set overall. Has no Power Up equivalent which is a major set back for a set that in theory would pair well with the Electric primary Thorny has poor synergy overall and not much to recommend. I guess the -Defense can help enemies Confused by Synaptic Overload kill each other Radiation is not a set I've played with much. I find its heal special mechanic too finicky the times I've tried it. Doesn't seem to pair especially well or especially poorly with Electric Control You can also read my guide about sapping here:

I main Elec/Psy and have around 100 Vet levels. It's a fun build that is very different from other Dominators. I wish that Synaptic Overload and Static Field benefited from Domination, but he's still fun to play. My build incorporates Fold Space to drag enemies into range and Power Sink to floor their blue bars. I'll post in a bit when I track it down.

In Bonfire or Earthquake you can expect the proc to fire 90% of the time, so there's that. Wormhole too, if used on a big enough group. (Ice Slick has a 0% chance to proc because it cant slot it). It also has good chances to fire in the APP powers Psionic Tornado and Energy Torrent but I haven't measured specifically how likely it is to fire. It fires 90% of the time in Water Spout but that power may not recharge fast enough to justify slotting it. There seems to be some debate about best practice.

Don't quote me because I might be misunderstanding the power. However last time I looked at the power definitions for Hibernate I thought it included a flag that cancels the effect if you are Held Stunned or Slept. Normally, if you were one of those things you couldn't activate the power anyway. But I did wonder if you happen to be hit by a "Sleep after a 1 second delay" type power if it would fire and cancel the benefits of Hibernate. I assume delayed damage would work the same way like other posters mentioned, altho that shouldn't deactivate the power (unless it kills you).

With Arctic Air you need to worry less about the actual slotting of Arctic Air itself and more about the overall build. Specifically, you need to have enough endurance to keep it running alongside the armor you need to be that close to enemies and the mezz protection to keep it from detoggling. Without mezz protection even the most minor nuisance mezz will detoggle AA. Controllers can take Indom Will from the Psi pool and Dominator can go perma dom. Life without mezz protection for an AA build is one where every half second sleep disrupts your main form of mitigation. Not for the faint of heart. Even after all the effort it takes to get AA functional, it's still not on the level of the controls available to other sets. It is, however, very interesting, so I enjoy it. It needs a buff on Dominators for sure though, as they eat the double penalty of lower mezz duration and inability to Dominate with the power, which actually means its more effective for Controllers.

Mainly the reason I'd rate Thermal so high is the combination of Resistance, reliable heals, and a Benumb-like power (just the -damage and -regen tho) in Heat Exhaustion. Heal used on players is so-so. But heal for Lore Pets is invaluable. Comboed with +Resist and -Damage it's just a great overall package. Plus the ability to reliably heal yourself is just a good baseline thing for a Controller to have. On a team, Thermal also has a hidden special something that I don't think another set has (tho I haven't looked super close). Thermal can make the team ward off run speed and -Recharge debuffs. Probably not that amazing on an 8 man team, pretty incredible on a 2 or 3 person one though.

I think part of it can be explained by how people view the revived CoX in different ways: Some people see it as a straightforward revival of the original game Some people see it as an opportunity to build an entirely new ruleset or sequel in the same way D&D transitioned from V2 to V3 to V4 and so on Some people see it as base game receiving an "expansion pack" that extends but does not totally replace the original ruleset In Dungeons and Dragons I mostly played Clerics through 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition, and also played that class in MUDs and MOOs that were loosely based on those rules. There's a concept of "Cleric-ness" that follows from ruleset to ruleset even though the exact rules don't apply in each case, and the nature of the challenges/adventures and gear you can find varies wildly. Each CoX revival server has to make its own decisions about how to interpret "Dominator-ness"... the Homecoming team has already started this by reinterpreting the DPA of the Assault sets and making some other changes, like converting the Knockback protection in the AoE immobilizes into Knockback resistance. Speaking purely for myself, I am a player who plays on a few servers and who also has his own bin engine where I can build my own powers and sets. Right now I'm in the middle of ____________ Control, which, if it feels complete enough, I will eventually publish to Ouro dev for servers to pick up and install if they think it fills a niche they'd like to add for the class. Doing this requires sketching some idea of "Dominator-ness" and what that means across the gamut of servers, thinking about what is over or underpowered in context, and writing some guidelines for potential host servers on how the powerset relates to the existing Control sets, the overall game, and any options they might want to tweak. For me, the question of whether Dominators need a "buff" is open ended. It depends a lot on what you think "Dominator" means and whether you view a particular server's project as a purist revival, an ambitious sequel, or something in between.

Thermal is an underrated set IMO. Not quite Cold Dom levels of soloability but damn good. On a team I'd probably rather have a Therm than a Cold to be honest. It's definitely loads better than the other heal sets like Pain or Empathy. Only really held back by the difficulty of stacking Melt Armor due to its recharge and small radius.

I don't have the new mids so can only comment on what I can see big picture. I'd drop Tactics and Vengeance. Tactics isn't a bad power but not something you really need for Illusion. I can't investigate your powers without the new Mids, but from what I can see at a glance they seem already well slotted for Accuracy, and your Poison powers reduce Defense. Usually Tactics is used on builds where you are skimping Accuracy (e.g. to add procs instead). I'd probably take Combat Jumping over Hover here. Hover is great for other Illusionists, but as a Poison you'll be in enemy's faces a lot. You can use a jetpack when you need to get off the ground. Meanwhile the mezz protection versus Immobilize that Combat Jumping provides is vital for maneuverability. I'm unsure how attached you are to the Mu APP. Mu does offer good endurance management due to Power Sink, a resist armor that offers Energy resistance, and a good AoE blast in Ball Lightning. I'm less sold on the usefulness of the Guardian pet. Just to put some alternative ideas in your head, IMO if you really want a pet that will offer destructive oomph, you could go with Leviathan for Water Spout. Then you still get your Resist armor, and a heal/recovery combo in Hibernate that doubles as an escape valve if your Poison aura pulls too much aggro. Then you could add Phantasm back to the mix (skip the slow animating Bile Spray). Some people may not like how Water Spout can make enemies turn and run if you don't use it with an Immobilize, but I've had few issues with it. Two big pluses of Water Spout is it doubles as a control, which Illusion is short on, and enemies can't kill it, so you can let it loose and not worry about what it is up to. The Spout also seems to be better than most pets about not aggroing other enemies on the map.

IMO the limitation with the Dominator ATO sets is they go in Control powers instead of attacks. For most characters there are no more than one or two powers you could slot them in. One thing that may be a surprise is that as an archetype Dominators actually have low access to control powers outside the actual control set. Everything in the class is balanced around the possibility of Domination mode being active. So there are no Hold powers in the APPs, and in all of the Assault sets only the one Hold in Seismic Smash, which does nerfed Hold stacking in Domination mode. This is partly why the class benefits so much from perma-domination and recharge in general.

I don't think the original intent was to make Dominators impossible to mezz, only to make them significantly better at dealing with it than most other squishies. For a while if you wanted a mezz protected squishy they were the only show in town and it was a selling point for why you would pick one. That is where I think they have lost ground and why it would be justified to restore their ascendant status as being unusually good at warding off mezzes. Their access to mostly perma mezz protection also wasn't accidental. By the time the developers revisited Domination to move the +Damage out of it, the mezz protection was an established aspect of permadoms. The changes made to Domination in the years since focused on not disturbing the status of permadoms while elevating non-permadoms to be more competitive. The developers were very explicit that permadom was being carefully preserved as an end-game state and that they were balancing the class around that level of performance.

I miss the insane version of Lightning Storm back when recharge used to carry over to pets. It was glorious.

My opinion is more rooted in "City of Heroes Writ Large" than "City of Heroes with the Homecoming ruleset." IMO there is definitely room for a server that rethinks the balance equation for IOs. CoX right now is sort of like MUDs and MOOs were in the late 90s and early 2000s, you have all these models flying around with different development visions, all based on a vaguely D&D second edition game, but each with its own focus. I'm actually surprised a hardcore PVP server that focuses purely on PVP at the expense of PVE hasn't emerged yet; I imagine given time such a server will appear. I also imagine in time a server that clamps down on farming and adds other challenges will appear that implements some of the suggestions that some players feel will "wreck the game." IMO there really is no wrecking the game with where CoX is currently, just these assorted different flavors. The real question for me is "Is Homecoming the right server for some of these drastic changes?" To be honest I'm not sure. I adore the Homecoming team and what they've done with their content. I think Powerhouse is an incredibly gifted powers designer and am always checking in on his latest work. I also find Homecoming to be the most balanced of the servers. It's also a fact that Homecoming has probably strayed further from the "original" CoX than most other servers, at least power for power. Most of the Blaster and Dominator secondaries have been redone with DPA balances that don't exist on other servers to my knowledge. They do seem at least somewhat willing to adjust player power downward to encourage balance. So I guess it's question of developer intent. But no I don't think anything could happen that could "wreck the game" because "the game" is available for anyone who wants to spend the time to download and edit it.

If you ever need a good example of how far off the mark some of the Dominator powers were before Homecoming got ahold of them, go look at the original Icy Assault > Chilling Embrace: Yes folks, you too can enjoy a 10ft radius slow aura that detoggles if you get mezzed and the enemy escapes with about 2 seconds of running (note to developers: tiny radius run speed debuffs kind of defeat the point. 🙂 ) Homecoming did make this power much better. But I think Dominators as a whole could still be taken further given the shaky place they started from. And if I was talking to the devs over at Cake, Thunderspy, or anyone playing on a private deck I'd say those Dominator versions need updates urgently.

I honestly can't see a huge shift in power from Dominators getting mezz protection that is independent from Domination. Since issue 6, Dominators were always supposed to have better mezz protection than the other squishies. It was built into their inherent, and other archetypes had very few avenues for mezz protection. The Force Field/Sonic/Traps sets, and Indom Will in the Controller APPs. I can't think of any reason for lowering their mezz protection Mag and can think of many reasons it should be highest of any class in game, given how much other archetypes have encroached on Dom territory. By around issue 16 or so it was clear the developers were balancing Dominators around permadom. Most changes to the class have tended to happen to what happens outside of permadom, to pull that performance upward, rather than adjust how Dominators perform in peak form. I think it was Castle who I remember explicitly stating he was doing whatever he could to preserve permadom performance since that was the main attraction people had to the class. Something that I hope doesn't get lost in this though is that it's not just permadom that constrains Dominators, but long recharges in general. It happens that going permadom fixes both issues. But a hurdle for this class has always been 90, 120, 180 and 240 second cooldowns that lead to a lot of standing around waiting for things to recharge. Unlike Controllers, a Dominator without a Control power has almost no mitigation. I wouldn't be against slashing all of the longer mezz recharges/end costs in half in return for half mezz durations.

I think to understand how Dominators came about its helpful to understand the mindset of the folks who created them. Dominators were meant to exist as a Blaster/Controller combo on teams that consisted of: Brute Stalker Mastermind Corruptor Other Dominators The early dev teams had a strong affection for "blapping" as a concept. They just really seemed to want that to be a thing, maybe afraid of what imbalances they were creating by making an MMO where players could freely Hover and Fly. With no Blaster Manipulation secondaries on the villain side, Dominators inherited those. You'll notice the count of set types villain versus hero side was mostly maintained: 2 armor sets 2 melee sets 2 buff/debuff sets 1 control set Leaving out Mastermind pets, the only variables are settled by the Assault set which is actually a combo Blast/Manipulation set. This works out to the Blast set (2 hero side, 1 1/2 villain side) and Manipulation set (1 hero side 1/2 villain side). To be blunt, the original model for Dominators sucked to play. It turns out you can't just grab Control powers and Blast/Manipulation powers together and make it work, even with sometime access to Mag 6 mezzes. Because of this, the Domination power was retooled several times, first adding endurance bar refills and mezz protection, later swapping around damage. I still think Dominators are a fascinating class, but am not sure the class ever got where the original team wanted it. They were picturing a glass cannon in the vein of a Blaster/Controller and I'm not sure that was ever going to work as envisioned, especially after the doors were thrown open to mix any of the 10 classes together.

"Domination" is a power that is exclusive to the Dominator class. Unlike most class inherents, this is an actual clickable power they get at level 1. It can only be clicked when the "Rage" bar is full. Rage on Dominators works more or less like Rage on Brutes. Using attacks builds the bar (though Dominators do not build Rage through being attacked by enemies). Instead of raising the Dominator's damage like a Brute, all Rage on Dominators does is build progress toward filling the bar. When the bar is full, you can click the Domination power, and the following things happen under the hood: Your blue bar (endurance) refills You get Mag 8 mezz protection to all known mezz types for 1 min 30 sec. The mag is lower than armor sets but also has no holes. You get full coverage kb protection and resistance for 1 min 30 sec. Your Rage bar is locked at 100% for 1min 30 sec. You get tagged as "Being in Domination mode" for 1 min 30 sec. Under the hood, this is done by repurposing the "stealth" stat, filling it temporarily. The final bullet there is just a flag that individual powers look for. Each power has to be specifically coded to react to the Domination tag. As a general rule, it adds a second mezz of equal Magnitude for a 33% longer duration. However, this is not consistently applied across all powers and is mostly a rule of thumb. After 1 min and 30 sec, Domination is supposed to crash. In technical terms, the power is supposed to empty your Stealth and Rage stats. However, if you have enough global recharge, you can actually recast Domination before the 1 min 30 sec moment when the Stealth and Rage stats are affected. If you do this, you reapply all the benefits from the bullets above, and also reset the time before the bars crash. In other words, you avoid the time period where you have to build the Rage bar. As long as you can keep clicking within 1 min 30 sec, you can avoid the timer on the crash happening and infinitely keep up the benefits of Domination, hence "permadom."

IMO the difference between Dominators and other archetypes is Dominators have mezz protection built into their inherent. It's a strong part of the class' identity and was nearly unique to them until mezz protection was proliferated more widely among squishies. The AttribMods for Dominators having mezz protection already exist in the class power definitions, so all that would be required is moving them or adjusting them in some way. One option that might work is just changing the Protection from 1m 30sec to something like 8 min. Then even non-perma doms would have mezz protection most of them time, as long as they were semi-competent about reapplying it occasionally. Or they could move the AttribMods out of Domination to the T5 "self buff" powers Dominators get in their Assault sets. Build Up, Power Up, Envenomed Blades, etc.

I'm not sure if "buff" is the right word. Dominators on Homecoming play differently than other servers. In 2019, the team made a pass through the Assault sets to normalize the damage of the powers. This did a lot to fix some of the major gaps in the sets. If you happen to play Dominators on a server where they have implemented the crashless nuke and sustain rules for Blasters but not fixed Dominator Assault sets you are sure to feel this archetype underperforms. That said, even on Homecoming I'm not sure the Assault sets were taken far enough in the buffs. In my mind Dominators should absolutely rule in two areas: having incomparable control of the battle field, and being the squishy archetype with unusually good mezz protection. They've lost ground on both counts. IMO the right move is to move mezz protection out of Domination mode and give this class native mezz protection at all times, in the style of a melee class. Doing this wouldn't buff permadoms but would hugely buff nonperma builds. It would be a unique identity in keeping with the goals of the class. I also happen to think it's consistent to comics. Dominators should be all but impossible to mezz. The second thing I'd like to see is another pass through the Assault sets. Many of them are "samey." They seem hemmed in by very restrictive design rules. With such minor differences between several of them (in particular: Thorny, Icy, Electric, and to some extent also Martial and Radiation) I find myself not wanting to build more Dominators. I think with the Assault sets there was a tendency to believe by the OG devs that just grabbing a few blasts, a few punches and Build Up you had an "Assault Set." IMO these sets need unique mechanics to make them stand out. I guess there are some other things I'd add. Domination mode should be more generously and consistently applied so that sets like Ice and Electric Control can benefit from it. That would help the sets a lot.

It would help a lot to know what archetype you're most interested in, because builds do tend to depend on the character's class. For Dominators, I have a build guide out there somewhere called "Building a Trust Fund Dominator" or something similar to that that walks through big picture for that archetype. There are similar guides for most other archetypes.

Arctic Air. I've been fascinated by this power for years. It's a cool idea that doesn't quite pan out--you end up spending a lot of resources getting the mezz protection, recovery. and personal defense you need to use a power like this, and then still end up behind most other Controllers or Dominators. But there's something insane about Arctic Air and Ice Control more or less having to act crazy to prove its value has always drawn me back. I've had more Ice Control characters over the years than any other set. Still think it (and AA) need buffs. But it's still conceptually a fascinating power. I want it to be more powerful but not fundamentally changed.

The Sudden Acceleration KB to KD IO converts all of Singularities knockback to knockdown, including his Repel aura. If you can stand the sound effects, its worth trying. You can use Teleport Other to port Singularity right on top of folks or Wormhole them onto him for infinite laughs.

The way to use Fold Space is to tap it when you're confused by the layout of the battle and need to vampire some enemies for health and recovery to stay alive with Drain Psyche. It's not a replacement for Wormhole, more of a reliability check. It helps that the recharge is close to Drain Psyche so you can chain one into the other. One habit its worth getting into by the way is to tap Combat Teleport just before Drain Psyches you really need to land, like against AVs. It stacks +ToHit. If you're careful you can actually underslot Drain Psyche for Accuracy and rely on the +ToHit to max out your hit chances. Helps to Combat Teleport before an AoE Hold as well to increase its chances of landing.