oedipus_tex

For me the two worst pets on Dominators are Fire Imps and Gremlins. Neither of them has good protection, and their AI often makes them aggro nearby packs. On an Electric Dominator I'd personally rather take the Mu patron pet than the Gremlins. The Mu guy won't wander far and mostly stays alive. The Gremlins will invite the entire map to dinner with the wife and kids.

One pet that I think gets slept on is the Dark pet, Haunt. These guys last a shorter duration than "true" pets, but can be perma'ed. One bonus with them is they will attack whatever you launch them at relentlessly, so the damage is more focused than other pets. It's most useful against bosses in my experience. Haunts do die sometimes, but even at +8x4 they often survive for me, due to all the -ToHit in Dark.

I have one of these at 50 named Iceberg Salad. Anyway, this is a very low damage support character. Emphasis on low damage. On the positive side, Arctic Air combined with Entangling Aura is cool looking. I don't play him too much. I feel like a damage leech. The buffs from Nature are good tho, and I can pretty much count on being the only Ice/Nature around.

RE: Sleet I'd like to take a power analyzer and watch how long the debuff lasts. I was noticing a while back that enemies still inside Sleet when it expires seem to lose their -RunSpeed and it made me wonder if the same happens to -Resist. I don't know if the debuff wearing off when the patch expires is a bug or the result of bad observation on my part.

RE: Energy vs Fire I consider both good, but what makes Fire stronger to me is you can use it from range against an AV without risk. While you can risk a ~2.5 second point blank animation up close, I don't like to do it. Energy's single target damage is a wash in the main situation I need it. Plus, Consume is amazing. Energy is still a fun, hard hitting set, but for me it falls into that valley I talked about in the "What would you change about Doms" topic where the Dominator trading away armor for controls falls flat in some of the most important fights.

Gravity/Storm is a strong contender for this IMO. Good damage from early on due to Lift/Propel. It's a much smoother ride than a lot of other /Storm pairings. After level 40 or so, any /Storm is good, but the ride there is bumpier.

Lately I've been back into my Elec/Psi/Mu Dom, who is now vet level 74. There was a period where I was less enchanted, but I kept trying out builds until I found something that really worked. The trick turned out to be taking more melee attacks, and picking up Cross Punch for situations where enemies strongly resist Psi. Electric Control could stand some updates on Dominators; Synaptic Overload should Dominate, and probably Static Field should Domination on the first pulse. Still, this character satisfies some part of me that enjoys watching enemies go helpless.

Energy is very good but what makes Fire more attractive, for me, is Consume, for the blue bar refill + 50% resistance to endurance drain. It's not quite as strong as it used to be because endurance tools have gotten better, but it's still a "gap closer" that pretty much makes makes Endurance costs negligible. Energy is definitely one of the stronger sets though. Total Focus comboed into Whirling Hands is really impressive. Energy is one of the few sets that I feel earns the right to be in melee. The payoff is high enough to justify it.

This is just IMO: The "sum it up in one post for a new player" version is I'd say the two strongest Dominator primaries are Dark Control and Plant Control and the two strongest secondaries are Fire Assault and Psi Assault. So any matchup between those sets is likely to result in a very powerful character. Plant/Fire, Plant/Psi, Dark/Fire and Dark/Psi make up my round up of top picks. And any secondary or primary combined with one of those sets is likely to be very good. My second tier grouping would be Fire and Earth Control (for the control sets) and Savage and Energy Assault (for the assault sets). You also have sets like Mind Control that to me are hard to classify. It's not bad solo, but long recharges on some key powers make it not particularly suited for fast moving teams the way the above sets are. It would rank higher for me were it not so similar to Dark Control but (IMO) mostly weaker. That isn't to say you can't still roll other characters. It's just that a lot of other builds (IMO) you really need to study the powers and have a good idea of what you're getting into. Ice and Electric Control particularly fall in this category. As for Gravity, you're unlikely to end up with a truly bad Gravity Dominator; however, what you can easily end up with is a "Gravity Dominator who would be x4 more powerful as a Controller," because Gravity is a blast/control hybrid set. That bothers some players but not others. In my experience there are a few Gravity Dominator combos that work really well and a few duds that would be served better by rerolling as /Kin, /Cold, /Poison, /TA, or /Storm trollers.

Kira pretty much nailed it. You won't get the feel for late game Savage until the late 30s, because two of the key powers unlock then. One of them is a blast that looks like an angry bird, the other is a melee attack that teleports you to melee range. Together they change the set so much that it's hard to know Savage will 'feel' until they unlock. This is different than most other Assault sets. The first time I played Savage, having a bird be such a prominent attack actually ruined my concept, so be prepared for that. Luckily I was able to retheme the toon.

In my opinion Gravity and Dark are tied. Earth is good. Worst is Electric's Gremlins IMO. I specced out of them on my Elec/Psi.

I agree. That is one of the discussion items that came up in the thread. That was done for Blaster T1 and T2 powers many years ago in one of the issues. The main beneficiaries of the fix would be Controllers more than Dominators, but it would still be nice to have some consistency. The powers were originally meant to be identical. The cast times are different because the original design team didn't realize how strongly animation time is tied to damage output.

For comparison's sake, here's a comparable Elec/Psi which I consider a much better "investment" than Ice/Psi in pure utilitarian terms. Now I'll be first to admit that Electric Control has its own issues: mainly what I listed in the first post in this topic, Synaptic Overload chains don't Dominate because of technical limitations with pseudo pets, and its sleep power only shines when paired with a set that doesnt do DoT. Again, meant to be played with Barrier as the Destiny choice.

You had asked about builds, so here's one for Ice/Psi to start you off. You'll note Ice has some issues with slotting: There's no good power to put the ATO +global damage power in where it will fire a lot. This hurts; with most sets you can put it in a medium recharging mezz to boost your damage. With Ice that doesn't work well. I put it in Glacier, wish I had a power like Static Field, Heart of Darkness etc with a faster recharge. Ice Slick doesn't take +100% recharge proc, as noted. I assumed the Destiny power is Barrier, which would finish capping Range. This build isn't terrible. However, like I mentioned, spending this kind of money on a different /Psi Dominator would likely net you a stronger character. Ask on the forums if you have questions/need assistance.

/Psi will be the easiest go of it IMO. The healing helps cover for Ice's gaps in control and the -Recharge from Ice and Psi stack together. /Fire isn't a terrible pairing. Maybe /Savage or /Dark could work too. If you want to an especially poor pairing that demontrates many of the topics of this thread, go with something like Electric Assault. I'd probably not roll a melee set. Although Arctic Air is PBAoE power, logistically you'll likely want ranged attacks so you can position the aura around all enemies. That's probably Ice's greatest vulnerability, enemies outside Arctic Air. I'm serious about the mezz protection. You'll want it ASAP or Arctic Air is a bust. It's a good idea to learn the "Ice Slick around a corner" trick as well to shut down alpha return fire. I expect what you're about to discover is that Ice Control is a great way to spend heavily on a build to become functional but still land significantly behind other sets. It has a reputation for a reason. Fun to play, but very needy.

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can walk me through the math on Hoarfrost. I'm pretty familiar with Resistance powers, but +Max HP is a bit murkier to me. If I remember right, Arcanaville used to say that +Max HP has the same effect as Resistance. However I can't quite seem to get that result when I puzzle through the math; If you have 1000 HP and 0 Resistance and take 500 points of damage, you now have 500 HP If you have 1500 HP (50% increase) and 0 Resistance and take 500 points of damage, you now have 1000 HP If you have 1000 HP and 50% Resistance and take 500 points of damage, 500 reduces to 250, and you now have 750 HP So, I'm not getting the result I expect, which means I'm either doing the math wrong or misunderstood Arcanaville's point. How does it work in real life?

I think part of the reason Ice is one of the weaker sets is the developers believed -Recharge is more useful than it is in reality. For a long time Ice was the only control set with a "safety" secondary effect. We didn't get a new one until Electric Control and Dark Control, the final two sets added before shutdown.

The Homecoming Development team is very good. They've been revisisting lots of archetypes and powersets. It's my assumption they'll eventually get around to the control sets, and in we'll see movement in the mechanics. Ice Control for Dominators came out nearly 15 years ago. I don't think it's been touched since. It's always lagged behind other sets. I'm eager to see what they eventually do with it. Anyway, just because we talk about something in the thread doesn't mean we'd get all of it. The point is to discuss different ideas for changes. I doubt very much if the developers would implement all of it, although they've made some very large changes to other aspects of the game, so who knows.

That's a fine criticism. I disagree that what I've suggested approaches "tank mage" though. Mostly what I've suggested is more equity between the powersets. I see from your other posts you've played Mind Control, so your baseline assumption may be that all sets play like that. I'm here to tell you they do not. In the case of Ice and Electric Control, the only AoE hard control that Dominates is the 240 second recharge Hold. The reasons for this are a combo of the powers being unusual and the tech being limited at the time. I also feel like you're conflating some of my statements about Arctic Air with a request for amazing defenses or something. I haven't rquested anything other than slightly better base defense stats, or possibly a better ATO, along with moving mezz protection out of Dominaton. Try to run Arctic Air on a build without extensive IOing and mezz protection and report back to me how that goes. You will find, like most other players, that this power requires a lot of planning and there's a lot more to it than being an "autohit confuse."

I actually got curious about how many Ice Control characters I have on Homecoming so I went and looked. Obviously this doesn't give my opinion more weight. But it's a set I and many other players are very familiar with, and as much as I want to have a community discussion, I feel like "having played the set" is a pretty low expectation. On live I also had a 50 Ice/Fire Dom, a 50 Ice/Energy (outdated now due to Energy changes), a 50 Ice/Thermal Controller, and a 50 Ice/Rad Controller. The set is different, kinda fun... but, frankly, weaker than most other control sets. Character names are wonky because I tend to play for a while, get bored, and swap the same character name to anew archetype and powersets.

Before you post again about me or someone else being out of touch you could try using the power. Thanks. I want to give everyone's opinion respect but that's hard when you are coming into the discussion so loudly about a power you don't have any experience with.

I hear you. I respect that you have a different opinion, so thanks for discussing. Now, I'd argue that with Arctic Air, we have a pretty good idea how it will perform if buffed because Controllers get Choking Cloud and Entangling Aura. They also generally have access to better heals and self defense than Dominators. On Controllers I'd still rate Arctic Air "okay, not amazing." Don't get me wrong. It's fun and different, and I agree its the signature power in the set. It's just not significantly powerful, and it takes a lot of work even to get it to where its usable. Running Arctic Air versus Arachnos, Malta, Knives of Vengeance, IDF, Resistance, etc is a lesson in how difficult it is to survive standing within 25 feet of an enemy with only a toggle power and an ice slick to protect you.

Well, you don't need just defense and resists. You need mezz protection or its lights out. Also likely some kind of healing, and of course damage. You can get mezz protection from permadom or other sources, but it needs to be planned for. Overall I think Ice is the hardest set to build for. It's very needy and doesn't do you a lot of favors. Even Ice Slick can't be slotted with a +100% Recharge IO like Bonfire or Earthquake. Worst part of it is, once you've done all that to make yourself able to withstand the pressure with Arctic Air, you're not significantly better off than if you had rolled a set other than Ice. You've just managed to cover Arctic Air's holes to make it functional.

Well, no, it's not semantics. The power has a cap of 16 targets just like many other controls do. Did you know on Controllers you can combine Arctic Air with Choking Cloud or that cool looking Nature power I forget the name of? It won't mezz a boss but it will disable a crowd even more effectively than what we're discussing. Controllers have longer Confuse duration too, so they can keep the crowd confused better than Dominators, and nothing breaks. The unspoken element of Arctic Air is this: in order to use it you have to stand within 25ft of whatever you're controlling and not get killed or mezzed. That's easier said than done. It's part of what makes Ice Control different. The control lasts as long as you can withstand the pressure. In order to pull it off, you have to plan for it. There are no super effective Ice Dominators who just happen into being the way there are Plant. Fire, Dark, or Mind Doms.

I want to apologize for how I worded that last post. On re-reading it I can see how I could have responded more appropriately. As a point of reference, Arctic Air does not have an unlimited target cap. It has a target cap of 16, like most PBAoEs. I also think we are leaning too hard on the word "autohit." AA is "autohit" only in the sense that it doesn't roll for Accuracy. However the irony is, if it did roll for accuracy, it would probably be more effective. It has a 30% chance to apply its Confuse effect each pulse, which you have no control over or ability to improve. If you average out a 30% chance to Confuse over the likely saturation point of the power (ie the point where the duration of the Confuse overlaps with getting re-confused) you'll find that it comes in much lower than than the 95% chance to mezz of other controls. An AA that could confuse bosses more easily would certainly be powerful, but Domination is generally meant to be powerful.