Tater Todd

*Sneaks into thread* I don't think a direct port from Controller to Dominators would be that disadvantageous but I can understand why the Devs would want to make set adjustments so Dominators aren't getting shortchanged. As stated by others, Dominators would constantly out threat/taunt Phantom army especially if it's an AOE/PbAOE focused Dominator. I agree with Keeping the option to have mirror duplicates. It's set defining. When it comes to utility or damage I'm in favor of replacing the taunt in PA with some form of soft control for example a mag 3 KU/KD(now that we have the new KB system in place) or hard control with a short duration. A chain soft control power is also and idea or maybe a soft control toggle emitting from PA. Dominators don't do a crazy amount of damage by default so the fear of an Illusion Dominator over performing seems flawed. Keeping PA unkillable is fine especially considering it's much more difficult for Dominators to achieve perma PA. Nerfing PA's damage or uptime while keeping Phantasm and Spectral Terror the same as the Controller version would be a huge loss for Dominators.

I jumped the gun and donwloaded the new update without a second thought 😓. The fix that was posted in Discord didn't work for me for some reason so I went ahead and uninstalled everything and then downloaded the 2.6.0.7. version on the first page.

I think this is one of those to each their own situations. For example I actually take jolting chain and Conductive Aura you do not and that's fine. I love the fact that Conductive aura often procs a make shift hold or a forced animation when a foe is drained. It adds a small layer of safety for a few microseconds while I wade in the deep of the battlefield. My favorite pairing with Elec Control is Earth Assault so believe it or not my reason for using Jolting chain and Conductive Aura is for added mitigation purposes. I never mentioned focusing on draining a mob but even if you don't slot Static Field with an End Mod it still does a decent job at draining the average minion or lt. When I mentioned procs placement I was mostly referring to heal procs like Power Transfer which can make your elec dom or troller very hard to kill. Electric Control does not require high recharge that's true and it can do just fine without it. I just personally love being able to throw out my mezz powers often especially when I am up against tough and resistant foes like Arachnos, Talons of vengeance or malta to name a few. Plus it helps out a great deal against AVs. I also stated at the beginning of my post that I was giving my personal biased review so that that with a grain of salt. I by no means am an expert or a Dev. I'm just some schmuck that barely knows my head from my arse lol.

So I really want to write up an entire paper on the control sets and give them different ratings according to Control, Kill Speed, Survival and etc but I don't have the time nor the energy :P. I would be more focused on doing something like that if I was writing something to a Dev to plead a case for a review or go over. I'm going to give my personal biased rating on the sets and I'm going to look at the in a Vacuum... a Dominator vacuum so to speak. 1. Dark Control- This set is a force to be reckoned with and is a sleeper. It's often overlooked in favor of sets like Plant Control or Fire Control yet with the right slotting Dark Control can rival the damage and control of sets like Illusion, Fire, Earth, Plant and Mind. The major issue with this set is that it's TOO good so you're often forced to skip an amazing power or two which is interesting because there are other control sets that are pretty much 2 or 3 good powers max. Another issue with this set is for it too truly shine you need to be very active which can be a problem for new players and it can be a problem for very active Dominator secondaries. Dark Control excels at kill speed, hard & soft control and moderate tanking due to Haunt and Umbra Beast. 2. Mind Control- I'm not a fan of this set. It feels unfinished to me...or I should say it feels OLD but one cannot deny it is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to lock down. One of the issues with Mind control though is the lack of damage. Even a fully proc'd out Terrify isn't enough damage wise compared to Plant, Fire and Dark control. Also mind doesn't have any way of shutting down mobs at low level besides Total Domination, ST Mezz spam and Terrify. Mass Hypnosis (and Mesmerize) has it's uses but overall it's not a great power to have on a fast moving team but it's worth keeping due to it's uses in various situations. Mind control is not very new player friendly or damage focused. There's a lot I want to talk about when it comes to this set but I'll save it for another time. I would steer clear of this set until you have a better understanding of the game. 3. Earth Control- Earth Control loves high recharge builds. This set really doesn't come together until you are able to double stack Earthquake, perma(or near perma) Volcanic Gasses and perma Stalagmites. Earth Control can completely shutdown an entire room even more so than Plant and it can turn the tide of a battle as well as Dark and Mind. Earth control's biggest issue is the lack of damage but that can be somewhat circumvented with the right procs. Procs also increase the potency of Earth Control. Power Boost works well with Earth Control too. To give you an example of what a Power Boosted Earth control Dom can do I will list some numbers for you. 60 ft -35.5 To Hit, Constant fast ticking KD, -28.96 Defense, 60 ft Mag 3 Hold pets that keeps everything held for over 10 seconds and possibly Mag 5 on some if you slotted VG with the Lock down proc. To top it all off you can stack your St hold on a Boss, EB or AV meaning you're potentially dishing out 11 mag holds if Lock down procs. 3. Plant Control- SIGH, I'm not going to say much about this set due to the fear it might one day get nerfed lmao but let's say this set and I have some history. So you might ask Tater! Why did you rate this set so low? Well, this set DEVOURS new players...almost as much as Fire Control which is hilarious because most new players flock two those two sets. Plant and Fire Control require a skilled hand to make it turn into the monster it really is. Seeds of Confusion is like Mind Control in a bottle and it's up every mob BUT it generates aggro and often gets an unskilled player killed every. time. Carrion Creepers is like a slow moving far more damaging version of Shadow Field/Volcanic Gasses but it can generate threat which keeps you and your team alive. Don't depend entirely on Creepers and SoC until you have a decent enough amount of Res or Def; that alone can be enough if you are an aggressive enough player. With the right build and skill you can skip your T7 Hold and your pet even though I wouldn't recommend it since getting rid of Vines and Fly Trap is a huge DPS/Control loss. But in an extreme case Plant Control can easily out do Earth Control when it comes to surviablity and that's due to all the damage Plant Control can dish out. The only thing that will give you problems are hard targets like AVs. 4. Elec Control- A busy control set much like Mind, Dark and Grav. I would say that Elec is the busiest set even more so than Mind. This set favors melee and you should be in melee if you want to up your survival chances which is ironic. In the past I would rate this set lower when it comes to survival due to it's low damage (even with procs), need to be in melee and because -end, -recov, confusion and sleep just wasn't enough but recently there have been proc changes and additions. With the right build and procs this set can get kinda tanky and it provides endurance to your team. Since this set is so busy I would not recommend an assault set that demands a lot of attention...unless you feel comfortable with both sets. This set loves procs and recharge and with enough recharge it can get down right devastating control wise. Double stacked Static Field is almost as strong as a T7 Control against most mobs and at times reminds me of a mix of Earth, Mind and Dark due to it's layered mitigation. 5. Gravity Control- It's rare to see Grav doms but the set is still a force to be reckoned with on a Dominator. Even without the Overpower inherent Gravity Control still deals respectable ST damage which can be a godsend for some dom secondaries and Propel spam provides conal soft control which can be helpful at times. Wormhole's mag isn't increased by domination BUT the stun duration is increased and wormhole has so many great uses and is up often. A highly skilled Grav Dom can also use Dimension Shift well enough to keep their teammates alive by stopping overaggro, patrol teams or incoming mob groups. Please be courteous with this power and don't overuse it. Gravity also has one of the Tankiest pet in the game that can hold and immob baddies. Singularity loves tanking for you and will run into a mob if you or a close friend are being overwhelmed. The late changes to Gravity Control really shoots this set right up the list when it comes to survival. 6. Fire Control- Like I said earlier is a set that attracts new Controllers and Doms and gobbles them up and spit them out. Why? One sentence. Fire Cages Spam = Dead Fire Control toon lol. I'm not a fan of Fire Control but control wise it is decent and can be sometimes very effective. Ho Feet dishes out fear and deals excellent damage. Flashfire much like Earth Control's Stalagmites can be made perma which makes the power potent. Smoke adds a tiny bit of -To Hit and -Perception which can surprisingly help with survival esp if you are close to the defense or resist cap and you want to add a little bit to your survival. Cinders is a pbaoe hold which is dangerous but it's the trade off you have to accept since Fire Control deals a lot of damage. Bonfire...*weeps* The SA and Overwhelming proc alone has turned this power from one of the most easily skipped to one of the most beloved powers to Blasters, Controllers and Dominators everywhere. Imagine if Ice Slick and Caltrops had a baby...yeah that's Bonfire and to add insult to injury it ticks faster than Ice slick which means it KDs baddies more often that Ice Slick. You should of of seen Bonfire when the Overwhelming Force proc first dropped. KD would tick so often that mobs would pop in the air twice or sometimes 3 times before they would even land. That's due to the fact that Bonfire ticks SO often...in fact it probably ticks faster than Caltrops. Then the devs on live spoke with eldritch tongues and somehow nerfed/balance the KD rate of Bonfire without changing how often it ticks without the KD procs. I still don't know how they did that. Fire Control is at a good place right now but it can be a touch set to master for most especially if you are fighting Arachnos but lets be honest Arachnos is a natural enemy for most ATs lol. Fire Control can climb up the ladder too when it comes to control if a skilled player is using it but overall it's low on the list when it comes to control. 7. Ice Control- Ice control comes in last and this is even after it received a few direct and indirect buffs. This has more to do with the Devs in my opinion overvaluing -Recharge. A majority of powers in the set only do one thing and it does that one thing extremely poorly except for Arctic Air ❤️. Arctic Air is amazing and pretty much carries the entire set. It's an expensive power but potent and it gets silly with procs...did I mention that it hates your blue bar? The only issue with this power is that it generates threat which means your the first thing that gets dropped or mezzed when you're in groups. Permadom helps keep you from getting mezzed but Ice control doesn't offer much when it comes to layering down mezz. Ice Slick is nice and it needs no slotting but the KD of the power ticks far less than Earthquake and Bonfire which means mobs often have time to hit you in between falls which is fatal. Ice slick much like Earthquake and Bonfire can be cast using the line of sight trick but since Ice slick has slow ticking KD I would steel yourself and prepare for the alpha hit. You will still have to deal with aggro from this power regardless if your team has a capable Tanker/Brute. Glacier is your typical pbaoe hold which can be nice for shutting down mobs or slowing Bosses and EBs... that is if your survive all the aggro going your way which is unlikely. And that's it. Shiver is dead weight since Arctic Air and Frostbite alone will debuff a mob near the -Recharge cap and the entirety of Ice Control alone is not enough to push AVs to the -Recharge cap. Even after numerous buffs Ice Control still falls short but there are ways to make up for how lackluster it is. Focus on bolstering your defense/resists. Pair it with a high damage set or a set that adds survival or utility like Dark Assault, Earth Assault and Fiery Assault to name a few. Sorry about the typos and the numerous errors in this post but I was writing this in a hurry lol. Maybe one day I will go more into detail and grade each set fully. Oh and I appreciate the kind words everyone! Sorry for the lengthy post but I felt like it was justified since this might get viewed by new players or players who are new to Dominators.

I do agree that Ice Control is the weakest even after all of its direct and indirect buffs. I was going to give my opinionated Tier list but ironically this thread is not a good place to post something like that no?

Earth/Earth feels like a ranged Tanker...or should I say a current Tanker considering the recent range and radius changes haha.

My wish list version of Stone Melee for Stalkers: 1. Stone Fist 1. Stone Mallet 2. Heavy Mallet 6. Assassin's Spear (The Stone Spear Animation from Earth Assault but slowed down of course) 8. Build Up 12. Placate 18. Fissure from Earth Assault or Tremor from Earth Assault (Fissure has a radius of 10 and is a mag 2 Disorient/Mag .67 Knockback. Tremor deals slightly more damage has a radius of 15 and deals Mag .67 Knockback) 26. Hurl Boulder(Dom version) 32. Seismic Smash

As much as I love Dominators (which is a VERY strong love considering that I pretty much LIVE in the HC Dominator channel) I barely played them for the first few months when the game came back. The new version of Blasters are what I always wanted my Doms to be like. Doms often are regarded as "Too Strong" or "OP" when in reality they require an extreme amount of skill and know how to make them perform on a level akin to a Scrapper or Blaster and that's considering Dominator Outliers like Plant/Fire or ???/Martial Assault before the adjustments. I still feel like Domination needs tweaking but I'm stumped when it comes to what I think would be a good solution for them :/.

I do Six! I miss Galaxy City so I like to hang out with the big guy and talk about the good old days : 3.

That makes sense especially since the animation transition was so smooth and I noticed the "hiccup" when I was fighting chaotically fleeing COT Possessed Scientist in PI.

On Aeon I made a Dual Pistols/Nin Blaster with the option "No Redraw" selected for my Pistols. I noticed a small hiccup when I queued up Blinding Powder after a DP attack. My character played an extremely short animation of him drawing his blade before firing the Blinding Powder ability. It was as if the redraw animation for the katana played for 0.5 seconds but then the animation for Blinding Powder interrupted the Katana animation and took priority. When this happened my character played the BP animation while holding the katana in his right hand. Sadly, I have not been able to replicate this behavior no matter how much I have tried.

I actually liked the fact that Build Up and Calling of the Wolf activated the Draw animation. It looked really cool to me but if it's not supposed to behave that way I understand.

I made a Katana/Ice Scrapper for testing (My first Scrapper ever! wow). Everything looks good so far. No issues with flow if the weapon is already drawn before engaged combat or not drawn before engaged combat. I will be able to test out the other versions later today as well.

To touch on what a lot of posters here have already said I didn't learn about proper slotting until very late in the game's life so a lot of my old forum arguments were definitely on the "Why would you bring a Defender along?" train. Now that I'm older, I'm able to see the true value of a Defender and I'm able to step back and see how buffs and debuffs quantify a teams survival and kill speed exponentially in comparison to "late game-watered down support" and slightly higher blast damage. When IO Sets, procs and Incarnate abilities are factored in I think Defenders take the win. Exemp'ing down for trials and events seems to be even more common place than it ever was on Live in my opinion; so that's yet another reason why I find Defenders to be a better choice (which is saying something because I'm very much a "Redside, 'till I die" kind of person). Mastermind Henchmen AI Updates: Testing Mastermind Henchmen set to Go To are now free to move within a 30' radius of the selected position in order to attack foes. I tested this out on the Mastermind primary I'm most familiar with...Mercenaries and I feel like it should be reduced down to anywhere between 20' - 25' radius due to some issues with pets getting KB'd down hill out of my line of sight. This didn't often but it was a concern Call of the Sandman: Chance to Heal Self: Testing This proc should no longer trigger more than once when used on AoE powers PPM increased from 2 to 3 This proc change will affect a lot of builds in a negative way...mostly Powerset Combos like Ice/Ice Tankers since this Proc helps with the overall survival issues of Ice Armor. The proc change also affects powersets that make use of "dead weight" sleep powers in Blast and Controller sets for example. I think a better way of going about this is to reduce the incoming heal by a certain percentage. That way it doesn't make the proc pretty much useless to a decent amount of folks which is the way it is now currently on Aeon/Brainstorm. The current beta change makes the proc only useful to Electrical themed powersets. Corruptor > Dark Miasma > Tar Patch: Testing The Corruptor version in Tar Patch is now showing the updated Tar Patch values correctly. I've seen no issues here so far. The proposal of increasing the Accuracy of Twilight Grasp to me sounded a bit absurd and I laughed it off but after further review I can't believe I'm saying this but I agree. I was looking at what Twilight Grasp "brings to the table" "in an vacuum". When you factor in the fact that Dark Miasma is littered with some of the slowest activations and buffs/debuffs in the game it makes sense to up the accuracy a bit to compensate. Again, I'm not a fan of these changes to procs and support sets but I am able to see that there's a bigger picture here and I'm looking forward to what that may be. I also trust that the HC Devs know how this will change the playing field and they will address those issues in due time and I appreciate you all for letting us express of frustrations and concerns with the past, current and future changes.

We have yet to see the "bigger picture" so unsurprisingly a lot of us are reacting because changes are being made to procs, psuedopets and powersets that have been around since the game began. Being emotionally reactive is all we can do because from our perspective these changes seem random. Personally, I'm still torn on how I feel about these proposed changes. Procs builds are my thing so I understand the Ire about the proc and powerset adjustments but I also understand that Corrs, Controllers and MMs have been using the Defender version of certain powers since...forever. (Sometimes, I feel like why should one even run a Corruptor with most sets. It feels like the game is ever in the favor of a Defender over a Corr but that's an off topic discussion for another time.) I imagine there's a lot on HC's plate and I understand you guys are volunteers that are probably dealing with life's many pitfalls & hurdles case and point; this area is on lock down due to multiple reported disease cases. You've gained a lot of my trust with the Snipe and Dominator changes but other unresolved changes like the issues with Burn make me hesitant. I'd rather Procs, Dark Miasma and Tactical Arrow stay as is but I'm fine with changes if they are fair and balanced in the long run (plus fixing Trick Arrow is an added bonus.).

Exactly this. I often bring up this conversation whenever folks argue that Illusion shouldn't be ported over to Doms. Arguing that Illusion wouldn't work because none of the powers would benefit from Domination is a failed argument when we have sets like Electric, Earth and Dark Control as options. Phantom Army isn't a problem either since my Ill/Storm Controller out taunts PA with ease...a Dominator would be no different. I'm going to stop now because you know me I always find a way to change every discussion into a Dominator focused one 😝.

This entire thread makes me nervous and I'm having a difficult time reading it without feeling sick🤢.

Count me on that too. I want to be truly greedy and hope that it's possible to stack 4 auras in total! lmao. 2 Regular auras and 2 Path Auras or maybe 3 regular auras and 1 Path Aura or just 4 regular auras! This change has made me drunk with power! AHAHAHA!

My Satanic cult gang member (who is TOTALLY not a Hellion btw 😉😎😈) loves these Aura changes!

I've found what I believe is a bug. Selecting your Path Aura first and then set your regular aura second will cause the editor to clear the path aura your first selected. It looks like it behaves if you select your regular aura first AND THEN your Path Aura. I would like to say this again this is an amazing change and I'm beyond excited for someone who barely spends time in ICON/Costume Creator screen. I look forward to more costume creator changes down the line!

I agree. This set now looks very meaty and stronk. Hopefully this will persuade folks to give the set a try once it hits the live HC servers :D.

I am so confused...The Devs just fixed the proc. For the longest time the Proc was only firing on the pet and benefiting the pet. The way the proc has been recently behaving was a bug and was unintentional. Are you saying that you want to proc to give build up to you and the pet? That's definitely something that needs it's own thread. The patch notes here are only listing fixes and changes that were dropped this current patch.

They Jaunt change is fine with just modifying it's recharge. This change is just too much honestly.

Thank you for producing the data right before the 1 year mark Cipher! It's been one heck of a ride and I enjoyed every bit of it! Keep up the great work!😁

I too would like to voice my disappointment that the +Special was removed. I know the set already has at least 2 unique things going on with it but I think removing the + Special was not a great idea. I would even settle for a + Special that boosts only half or a quarter of what Power Boost grants on Defenders.