Coyote

How about a post-death debuff mechanism (auto-hit, of course), that isn't activated if the mob is mezzed when killed? Boy, would THAT bring AoE Controls back in a hurry 😉

No. Tornado does very high damage anyhow, and you want to put a Force Feedback: Recharge into it, and you want a KB to KD IO into it, so you only have 4 slots for Dam/End/Rech (4.5 if you use the Overwhelming Force IO to change KB to KD). You'll get a lot more damage out of slotting damage/recharge, and probably Endurance since Storm is hungry.

It's not "more control" that Dominators (and Controllers) need in the end game. It's "more VALUE to controlling mobs over just damaging them" that is needed. Their controls don't need to be made stronger, but they do need to be made more useful. The simplest way would be to decrease damage in the end game. Heh. And that's neither simple nor a safe nest to poke a stick at. Other design ways that I can think of are more complicated.

In general, I don't like the idea of balancing everything to the best value. So it would mean something like normalizing around a 1.5-1.8 animation time. Another option would be to leave the animation times as-is, and figure out the "cycle time" of a power with, say, 50% Recharge enhancement. Then, normalize the DURATION of the Holds and the DAMAGE of the Immobilizes so that if a power takes 20% longer to cycle than another, it does 20% more damage (or hold duration). Then, they end up being slower and harder hitting, or faster but don't hit as hard. And it would take less time than working on animations.

I wouldn't bother with Defense Debuff, as it already has a really high debuff, and go for Rech and End/Rech IOs. I think there's a set with both of those that gives 2% damage bonus with two IOs from the set, so that would be a good start.

With procs you can set up all Controllers to do at least decent single-target damage. AoE will be a problem, so it depends on what you want to do with your difficulty level: if you want to raise the level but not the numbers much, you're fine. If you want to raise the spawn sizes, then you'll need some with good AoE. AoE Controller options: Primary: Plant, Fire are good... Electric, Dark are okay. Secondary: Poison, TA, Storm, Traps Single Target Controller: all are okay, the good ones are Illusion, Gravity, Fire, Dark and maybe Mind. Secondary: Poison, TA, Storm, Traps, maybe Cold and Time Also, are you willing to wait until epic pools for AoE? Ice and Earth APPs can shore up AoE damage a lot, and open AoE damage to a lot of combinations. Some top ideas are: Plant/Poison, Illusion/Traps, Gravity/Storm.

I wonder if it would be a good solution to give Resilience an increase to its Resist value based on current HPs, similar to how Super Reflexes now works. With only one power getting this it wouldn't be as strong as stacking multiple powers on a SR character, but it would increase the amount of damage mitigation available to a Regen character, that scales up with incoming damage.

I don't know about his special -Regen debuff resistance... but -Resist debuffs always work as listed on the can (other than being lowered for level differences). A Tar Patch or Enervating Field will always increase the team's damage by what the power's debuff is supposed to be. Well, unless you reach the -Resist cap, which in practice wouldn't happen with almost any team. Unless it's a dedicated Dark/Sonic superteam or something like that. So adding a debuffer with good -Resist should always be good... TA, Poison and Cold are some of the best options, but Dark, Rad, Traps and Thermal also are solid and provide -Regen.

Ice gives -Recharge, which is useful but not great. But losing an AoE opener that mezzes the entire spawn besides bosses (Stalagmites) is a big loss. Arctic Air is a good power, but I'd rather shut mobs down at the start of a fight. Quicksand vs Shiver isn't a big deal, as I don't see either as that great. Jack vs Stoney is close... Stoney is a bit better, but Jack does do more damage. Volcanic Gases is a lot better than Glacier, but with the long recharge it doesn't have a great effect. The main difference is in Stalagmites vs Arctic Air. If you do go Ice, I suggest a secondary with a -ToHit debuff, then you run a character who nerfs enemy attacks rather than prevents them. See this post for why: Ice/Rad design and why it works Options are Rad, Dark, Time, Plant. Not Poison, because it takes too long to get Noxious Gas.

This is a good explanation. I'm having success with a Regen Brute (though he sucked until the 30s), largely because I treat the defensive clicks as kind of a rotation, and use them pre-emptively. If you wait to take damage and then set up the regeneration, things can get rough. Especially with an offensive set with slower animations. Given that it's easier and more intuitive to react to damage rather than anticipate it and set up defenses ahead of time, it seems like if you DO set up the defenses properly, you SHOULD have top-end performance. But instead, you have to set up the defenses just to have a balanced result, and if you don't, the set is quite weak. I don't think the concept is that bad... as stated, having a "different playstyle" defensive set is not a bad thing. But if the playstyle is more difficult and active, then it probably should result in higher performance when done right.

Exactly. Who needs control or defensive debuffs when teams steamroll almost all content? But the solutions don't exist or are impractical or are too hard.

Just to address this comment and situation. There are players who play on "high end" teams, usually supergroups, or veteran characters usually not on pickup teams, and so on, where the characters are generally highly tuned defensively. These teams generally don't care much about incoming attacks, so don't see a need to waste animation time on Controls, and see Tanks as useful mostly to Taunt mobs in order to group the mobs around them... thus, Controls that prevent the mobs from moving to the Tanks are actually detrimental. These teams have no need for Control and in fact may prefer no use of it, so all they need are debuffs (especially -Res) and maybe buffs... and damage. So on a team like this, a Dominator may not do anything other than use their secondary... which is a mix of Range and Melee attacks, like a Blaster. So, in specific end-game situations, Dominators ARE like lower-damage Blasters. The rest of the game, no... but it's not an unreasonable claim to make, as long as it's limited to the scenario of RFD teams (Rolling Furballs of Doom).

My TW/Reg Brute looks fine, but that's because the damage mitigation from reliable knockdowns gives regeneration a chance to work, and also a chance to use the click powers, and also both sets benefit well from slotting IOs for +Recharge. Regen works fine when paired with a set that provides knockdowns or +Defense to slow down the rate of damage, so that the regeneration rate can keep up. It's not good at all when paired with a set that doesn't do that, or against ranged opponents. I also run an actual "defensive rotation" with IH, MoG, and Melee Hybrid. Before getting something like that, well... its lasting power is not especially great, but it IS especially weak to alpha strikes. Probably some damage resistance or +Absorb to mitigate the alpha is what it needs the most. There are also rare cases where resistance to Regeneration debuffs would matter, but I think it just has problems against the base case of "a lot of damage coming in", AND against "a lot of debuffs coming in", which tend to compound each other.

My Controllers open up with control like Dominators, then attack debuff attack in most cases. With procs increasing the damage of Holds and other powers significantly, pets are just collateral damage (heh) rather than a major source of damage. Stalagmites (300 damage), Frost Breath (450), Ice Storm (400) are pretty good AoE damage for a non-blasting AT. I've always seen Doms as comparable to Controllers, and other than a few very busy buff/debuff sets (EA, Kinetics), played Controllers to do damage with their controls that can be slotted for it. Overall point is: Doms are closer to Trollers than to Blasters.

We need to run Bopper through some of those cloning operations in the Rogue Isles. I'm sure out of 20+ versions, some have to be working fine. Granted, some may come out looking like zombies or Lost Anchorites, but that's a price that we're willing to have them pay.

Yes, and as a Controller you have a 25% chance to get a Mag 4 Hold anyhow and Hold a boss in one shot. Every 10 seconds. But at a pretty low chance. Probably not worth using. Same as Snow Storm. Best place for damage procs is click powers, not location patches or toggles... patches and toggles check on a 10 second timer, which gives them a pretty low chance of going off. /Storm really likes to use Force Feedback's chance for Recharge IO in both Tornado and Lightning Storm (both have a 90% chance to activate when you summon). Lightning Storm makes regular attacks and procs in those are treated like click attacks, so it's not a bad place for damage procs. But it also wants solid slotting, so 5xApocalypse plus FF is my choice. For Tornado, I use the ATO that summons an Orb... it's also a 90% chance like Force Feedback. Add in FF and an Achilles Heel, and that leaves only 3 slots for damage/endurance/recharge slotting (though the ATO has a good Recharge enhancement value). Surprisingly, for Electric, the place to put procs is Jolting Chain. It doesn't do much damage base so enhancing it isn't useful, so procs are the only way to make it do decent damage. And with 3 damage procs (including Apocalypse, which you can only slot once 50), it actually does decent damage for a Controller blast.

Absolutely. The proliferation of damage in the game, for multiple reasons, has made debuffing and control far less useful in the end game. I think this is what needs addressing, not saying "well, if damage is king, let's just balance ATs by giving everyone more damage".

Yes, but time is only one measurement. I would expect a Blaster to solo AVs faster than a Dominator, but if the Dom can perma-Hold or perma-Confuse the AV, then it does it more safely. It seems to me, that trading killing speed for safety IS a fair trade-off. Assuming, of course, a fair trade... 5% increased safety vs double the speed may not be fair, but surely there is some point where it would be. So the great safety of perma-mezzing is certainly worth some level of killing speed trade-off. Also, ironically, the greatest difference in damage is caused by mixing in a low-damage Hold or Confuse even with a +Damage proc slotted into it. But that Hold/Confuse is needed for safety. So it's a deliberate trade-off. But Doms can solo many AVs where Blasters couldn't, while Blasters can solo some of the same AVs much faster. Is this really unbalanced?

It's more of a public service, really. I mean, if I delayed my dinner today so I could show people the errors of their mistakes, it was for the good of society 😄

Pets are generally fine soloing because you should be Controlling most of the mobs. If you're soloing as a lower team count, then you should be able to keep the pets safe a good amount of the time. If you're soloing as a large team count, you should be using a lot of AoEs, so generally you'll keep aggro and keep them safe, in addition to AoE controls. On teams, it's a lot hard to keep them alive on your own, though it depends on the team. Some teams will run multiple Barriers, or enough AoE defense/resist buffing to keep them alive, and some won't. I would say they're situational on teams rather than automatically useless. Just because there are some teams where they get pasted within a spawn or two every time you summon them, doesn't mean that they can't be useful in other teams. For one power and some reasonable set bonus options, I think they're worth taking and generally using, but I agree that there are times when they're not useful.

Are you sure you have a point here, or are you just trying to prove Leo's point instead? Mighty generous of you, gotta admit.

Blasters hit significantly harder than Dominators (as an average) in all situations: burst single-target, sustained single-target, burst AoE, sustained AoE. I don't really have a problem with this, Damage is the reason for Blasters. I really don't see a reason to compare Dominator damage versus the AT that should be tops in damage, and find Dominators lacking because they don't match up. Should any AT match up to Blasters? I think they look fine compared to Defenders and Corruptors, or to Controllers in single-target (obviously, Controllers generally are the worst at AoE), or most VEATs or EATs (except Crabberminds, but those also have problems in AT fights or against high-AoE Bosses). Looking at that, I don't necessarily claim that they are perfectly balanced, but IMO any buffs to their damage really belong only to the melee attacks (to give them a worthy reward for the risk).

Hm. I've soloed AVs with all kinds of ATs, and I think that there is a fundamental disagreement here. You see... WHY do Doms need an all-ranged attack cycle to solo an AV? Because they should do it the same way as Blasters or Defenders, who DO have a full ranged attack set, and far better passive defenses? I assure you, it can be done... I beat the Kronos Titan with a Plant/Savage at range, but it's still a case of using the wrong tactics just because it's the standard tactics for squishies. However, in many cases, Doms just have other options: Mind and Dark can perma-Confuse an AV, and use melee attacks. I just used Mind/Nrg against an AV this weekend, actually... the AV never shot at me. And /Nrg needs Total Focus in the attack cycle. But you know what? While it was slower than a Blaster with capped Ranged Defense and a Sustain, that Blaster will get hit occasionally. And hopes that it doesn't get RNG'd to get hit twice in quick succession, because a lot of AVs will 2-shot you. The Mind/Nrg never had to worry. Ele/Earth will be in melee with Seismic Smash, because adding its Hold Mag will allow perma-Holding AVs. Fire/Psy is in melee, because it can perma-Hold AVs. Dark/Savg will perma-Confuse so it can add in a melee attack. Held/Confused AVs won't kill pets, so at this point, adding in the DPS from pets helps make up for lower damage and losing DPS by using a Hold or Confuse a lot. In the end, a LOT of Dom builds can solo AVs, but not necessarily the same way as almost all Blasters, who depend on Ranged Defenses plus Sustain. (note that the Plant/Savage kind of did that, with Spirit Tree being a kind of Sustain power). Doms do have some damage issues largely related to the fact that they mix melee and ranged into just nine powers, but I don't think that it's a scalar problem for them. And, to be honest, Homecoming did that Assault set balance pass last year that really went most of the way towards solving their issues, with a lot of attack animations sped up, and after that I don't really see a set that I feel is severely underperforming.

I've also found it very useful for damage mitigation. In soloing or small team scenarios, slowing mob movement is quite useful. On large teams, the aggro from it can be a bit risky, but.... if you're a Blaster on a team, and you're in PBAoE aura range to pull aggro from Reaction Time, honestly, you're pulling more aggro from your AoE and PBAoE attacks. Due to its larger radius it can aggro a small number of mobs that wouldn't otherwise have aggroed on you, but on the other hand the Sustain effect is more than enough to deal with those mobs shooting at you. So even on large teams, it should still be a net plus for survival.

I think you missed the point of the "secondary damage" argument. A POWER doesn't have a damage scalar, an AT does. It makes sense that an AT whose attack set is a secondary powerset would have a lower damage scalar than one whose attack set is a primary powerset. However, once an AT's purpose is conceptualized and then realized via AT scalars, it doesn't matter whether a particular power comes from the primary or the secondary. So a Dominator should use the same scalar for ranged attacks from their primary as for ranged attacks from their secondary. But it's eminently reasonable that their ranged damage scalar is lower than that of a Blaster, whose primary powerset is "Ranged Damage". There seems to be a more reasonable argument to make that the melee scalar could reasonably be raised to match a Blaster's, though I'm not actually advocating it. Just saying that there isn't an automatic argument against it.