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My opinion is that Domination does not require change. This is hardly radical. The title of the thread is "It's time to recognize Domination is bad", but the complaint has essentially become "Domination is bad because it doesn't work the way *I* want it to work." The followup posts which vaguely fall in favor of the premise of the OP have been variants of "Permadom is too good, and it isn't easy enough to get to permadom." There are plenty of quantum leaps in this game: The AoE nukes aren't available at level 10. The VEAT specialists don't even unlock until the 20s. T3 pets are in the late 20s, and the final upgrades aren't until the T9s. There are folks who want powers like Dull Pain to be perma (more easier than it can be made, I suppose). Folks want Mind Link to be easier to perma, they want their defenses to be higher and their resists to be stronger. All of these wants can be already be addressed in different ways: IO choices, power choices, empowerment buffs, Incarnate choices, team buffs, etc.... yet a favored solution is to crack the code and add a bunch of new mechanics to an AT that is not only working but (to some folks way of thinking) has too wide a spectrum of performance! The most straightforward fix to making permadom "easier" to achieve is to turn down the recharge timer or increase the duration... but instead of proposing that, we have to entertain the idea of a change that will make the Dominator AT challenge the Brutes for thrill-seeking, and why again?

I counter with this: If you play a tank with a Resist/Defense hole against certain enemies, your "damage" drops by a helluvalotmore than 20% if you are unable to hang with those enemies and attack them. I suspect that folks aren't noticing this (or just aren't remembering it) because they are playing ATs with soft-capped defenses. Building for Defense across all ATs is almost certainly more common than building for Permadom. This thread is literally just another: "I have ideas how to radically change a core (as of CoV) class. Let me spitball some rationalizations for my ideas in the forums." The only post in the thread that leaned towards there being an actual issue that got me curious was Hereclea's post about how she felt that her Dominator was weak when exemplared to level 20 (specifically when teaming on TFs like Synapse)... but that is because I'm curious about the specifics of her build as far as power choices. The OP specifically wanted to avoid build discussions, so I've let that lie.

I play content more than anything else; it is the regular content that drops most of what I want (non Inf) for 'high end builds' (Catalysts, Purple and PVP recipes). As near as I can tell, lvl 50 common recipes are the funding source for all my lvl 50 recipe builds. I experimented with 'farming' AE (foolish me, I didn't know there was an 'Inf' exploit) for a little bit, motivated entirely by the drops! This was with a Mastermind, and I was actually experimenting with different combinations of IO slotting. Prior to that AE farm experience, that very same toon (The first on HC) had run a lot of lower level Ouro missions to collect merits, salvage and seed Inf. Those were used to get into the market. He played the market, made his first BInf and then I switched to other toons. These days, a new character starts with 200 MInf to get started at the P2W and to have seed money to turn its own recipe drops into more useful/desirable IOs for the market. By the time that toon is lvl 50 it usually has its full kit of IOs, short of the Purples, and will have at least that 200 Minf still available. Those non-Purple IOs were either bought off the market or pulled from the SG tables... there are a few categories of sets I know will be more expensive on the market or otherwise are in short supply, so those get saved. As a new level 50 is playing Incarnate content, they will be marketing... by the time the Incarnates are advanced, that toon will have ~ 1BInf of its own, from the Market mostly. I bought Winter packs during the sale, but I haven't even touched them! My builds don't gravitate towards those sets, so they are literally just there in reserve for the future where I want to slot Winter sets. I actually don't like all the clutter in my account email, so I only rarely play with packs of any type.

As near as I can tell, the (inappropriate, IMO) request is that there are a few people that feel like there is some lop-sided play in the Dominator AT. I disagree with that assessment. My opinion is that the Dominator AT plays like most other CoH ATs (classically) in that at some point in the life of the Dominator it blooms into a class of character very distinct from the other ATs. Along the way, hard choices have to me made between controls, attacks, but this is literally no different than any other AT. We can talk about a "wall" for Permadom, but this wall is one that is particularly easy to hop over (or just install a door in the wall to walk through). Edit: From GalaxyBrain's latest post (just above) I accept that people may roll up Dominators not knowing what they are getting into. I remember (on live) those disappointing early missions hunting Snakes in Port Mercy. Those early disappointments didn't mean I gave up on the class because the game made it unfair! Try tanking at low levels with very few slots and no IO set bonuses and tell me that it doesn't feel like there is a "wall" in performance.

Precisely. My Dominator wasn't strapped for Inf, yet my choices of powers, slot allocations and IO choices were not specifically chasing Global Recharge and IIRC that toon didn't achieve Permadom until lvl 31. While leveling up, that toon didn't feel gimped, but it certainly felt much more powerful once I was getting the Mez protection, the +Magnitude controls and the Endurance refills. Once my Dom hit level 50 and the Superior / Purple sets become usable (and scale with level) Permadom becomes available at lower levels... but that doesn't mean that my Inf-rich character is 'better' than other lvl 20 ATs, it means that I'm playing an exemplared lvl 50 with access to beaucoup set bonuses! This is no different than ANY OTHER LVL 50 that exemplar's down to play low level content. Pay attention to the levels of the people you are teaming with on low/mid-level content and you will notice that it usually isn't the exemplared lvl 50s that are struggling, it is the folks who simply don't yet have the slots (or are still getting a feel for their powers). One other point I'm reminded about my own journey with my Dominator: More than any other build, my Dominator was the one that I had to make hard choices about not just which powers to take but how to invest the slots. I found it to be a real balancing act between both Control and Offense, independent of the chase for Global Recharge. Even though the choices were 'hard' for me, I had many different choices. I think I may have used more respecs on my Dom than on any other character except for my multi-build VEATs. The game gave me all the tools to do this. I could totally play this toon differently, but I like the way it is. I don't need the Domination mechanic to change because I've already seen how to use it with a different variety of builds under different constraints. I know the OP didn't want us to argue for 'build moar betta', but this request (completely change the mechanic so more people can get permadom at lower levels, or not have to make actual build plans) seems like asking for a handout. Are we going to get threads asking that Tanks get more inherent Defense and Resistance so they don't need to slot such powers as much as they do? Or that every toon gets an inherent +5 Res (all) or +3% Def (all) because "every build uses those expensive IOs"?

For non-attuned enhancements, 1 converter converts among the same rarity for sets that exist at the level of the enhancement. 2 converters converts among the same type for the sets that exist at the same level. If you want Karma's you have to be converting in the range of 10-29 (ideally 10-14, because there are fewer sets below level 15). Gift of the Ancients is in a wide range (15-40) which cover a LOT of sets. I have a lot of experience converting recipes at all sorts of levels. I typically stop converting (usually lvl 50 commons) after spending 2 converters to get to a rare and then 3 or 4 rare rolls. This puts an upper limit on my out-of-pocket inf at about 1 Minf. I know which recipes go for at least 2 Minf, so I'm doubling my Inf. This is a small potatoes strategy, but I am past the point of needing to generate HUGE profits... this conversion process is literally just a way for me to consume drops and make new IOs available on the market. I don't have a bunch of junk IOs taking up my AH slots, so other players must be finding something useful to do with them. Now in the case of PVP and Purples: The SG base has so many of these stored (from running content) that when it comes time to slot a character with them, I play converter roulette to get about 80% of what I want and then I go to the market to fill the gaps. Purples DO drop, its just that they aren't guaranteedTM. If any other EbilTM marketers want to chime in, I'm sure they can offer you more encouragement. I have a few other tricks, but EbilTM has its limits.

Many of us love EM, and with all the suggestions made over the past year I have faith in the Homecoming team to review. My personal opinions (as another Invuln/EM tanker) are that I don't want gimicks, I don't want more AoE. As far as tanking with it, I want it to be the premier single-target Tank secondary, preferably by improving damage, and shortening animation (and possibly recharge) times. I think the Stun secondary effect (and power choice) is absolutely fine, and my opinion is that it was almost entirely due to the Stun effect of EM in PvP that led to the nerfs and the steadfast refusal to revisit them by the original team(s).

Here I come to argue that I want to keep Hasten as is for builds I have yet to make, but you have proven to me that I don't exist. I donate all my Panacea procs to the game to heal the damage I was going to do, along with a Scaling Damage Resistance IO. /em puff_of_logic

Vernon Von Grun approves this message. Also BEES!

Spoilers: The Clockwork have a special weakness that belies their origin.

Grouchybeast is actually underselling this point, because the 12 MInf cost will buy you that very IO at ANY level (10-50) Or catalyzed if you prefer.

This sort of comment reinforces my opinion that the original post is looking for a problem to fix. We HAVE levers for tuning performance, but the OP implied that there was something distasteful (perhaps only in attitude) about leveraging power choices and IO slotting to achieving permadom. Rather than jump immediately to "we must change the AT", why not consider alternate options. I personally don't think we need any, but if it is simply the bar you want refilled faster why not propose a new type of Inspiration that does it?

No matter how sincere the suggestion, I am NOT going to throw snowballs at my Fire Imps just to maintain Domination.

You are in luck! The HC devs have implemented the converter system which allows you to converter non-common recipes and IOs from one type to another type (and rarity as well!) It is orders of magnitude less expensive to get the the PVP/Purple/ATO/Winter enhancements that you want then it ever was on live. The fact that you can convert uncommon and rare recipes into IOs that PEOPLE WILL BUY will put you on the path to accumulating the Inf you need to buy the ones you want, even if they never drop (ehem, ATO).

Building up to Domination is already a PITA at low levels. At high levels, it is very common to be facing large groups of opponents who utilize stuns, holds, etc. and quite frankly the Mez protection from Domination is at least as important as the +Magnitude on controls... and more so than the Endurance refill (on some builds). In my mind that is the entire motivation to achieve permadom. It's not "AFK for 90 secs", under this proposal it will crash if not "scrambling to attack everything in sight". That is the deal-breaker for me. I don't want to adopt a Brute style of play to be permadom, at any level. I think it might even be worse than the Brute situation, because the Domination bar only fills on making attacks and not also by being attacked (like Fury).

There are several pieces of wisdom in the above quote. I especially like that it is explicitly and succinctly explaining the value of the AH as a mechanism for distributing drops across all levels of play. There is no CoX variant where it is preferable to allow AH transactions for some recipe drops but not others. The closest current in-game example of the OP proposal is the incarnate 'salvage', but even with those drops being character/account bound (depending on type) the fact that those are explicitly only useful for incarnate-level characters AND that the drop rate / low-bar of generating the specific salvage necessary means that the situation with incarnate salvage is nothing like the situation with AH recipes/IOs.

This is very much how I feel. Perhaps ironically I'm really happy that the HC version of the game right allows most ATs to "feel" more distinct from other ATs at earlier levels, whereas on Live (especially early days) it might not have been until lvl 20 or so that your AT started feeling like an AT and not just somebody running between zones punching/shooting things. Dominators get their 'taste' of this very early, but for very limited periods of time.... getting to higher levels means several things that progress naturally from the leveling up process: 1) They get more powers to use to fill up the bar faster 2) They get more slots (and power choices) to make IO choices that help them chase the bonuses they want (for PermaDom, it is Global Recharge) 3) The (non-Global, non-proc) IO effects get more powerful as they level To me, this is the feel of advancement for this AT. I don't want to be 'given' Permadom at low levels, especially not at the price of having to radically change play styles for all content in the game. I can totally understand why folks want this sooner than later, but this suggestion feels like a solution in search of a problem. For the record: I don't like the idea of having to 'rebuild a bar' while Domination is active. It simply feels like trying to map the Fury mechanic from Brutes onto a different AT.

This is a good point. The Purple set bonuses aren't that imaginative/different (nearly identical set bonuses, by design) with the main difference usually being a flavorful proc as the 6th piece. I'll admit that I try to find good fits between low-level powers and ATO/PvP/Purple sets just for low level flashbacks/TFs, but sometimes the set bonuses I want are in the less-desired sets. Obviously the Purple sets are generally the key to high Global Recharge and certain resists... is that what this is all about?

I guess I was expected to get out of the thread almost immediately, except that my "permadom" was built differently than those I later saw in the forums, and despite one very well-meaning user sharing suggestions I didn't go with them. Does that mean my opinion is welcome or not? Ironically, there are a variety of optimized builds (for all classes) including Dominators. I play mine at levels below which permadom is possible (solo) and still have plenty of fun. At higher levels I expect to have a certain level of performance from certain toons when playing solo, and my permadom fills that niche. I also have a tricked out Controller, but that toon offers me a different play style. I understand the suggestion, but I wouldn't like it... primarily because my Dom already feels like I playing "too aggressively" with madcap clicking and circling among targets.... not because I'm trying to trigger +Recharge in attacks but because once the control slips, I'm wide open. Every once in a while I will actually pause from fighting to spawn a crafting table, travel between missions, check the AH, whatever. I like that my domination bar is sitting there ready for me to get back to business. The last thing I want is for Dominators to be more like Brutes (or Controllers). The italicized question at the end of the snippet seems odd. Is a build going to be earn points for uniqueness by delaying a primary power pick? For 3-slotting hasten instead of 2-slotting? For 5-slotting Gravitational Anchor but not Catalyzing ATOs? For 5-slotting Hold sets instead of Basilisk's Gaze? For favoring a Miracle proc over a Numina proc in Health? Is a build not "my own" because I copied a bind from the forums? I will freely admit to chasing Global Recharge on my Dominator, because I wanted Domination to be permanent... just like people chase T4 Destiny powers, or chase 45% positional defenses, of HP caps, or S/L/Fire/Cold resistances. Folks will use their power and IO choices to chase what they want.

I am beginning to miss the 'nerf Brutes' suggestion threads.

I have a Dark/Time (for concept, I like the visuals of the Dark primary but not the Dark secondary for this toon), so I can only discuss my primary choices: Gloom @ lvl 1 The damage-over-time took some getting used to, but playing up the toon got me used to it. I 'waste' some damage, but mostly I fire at a target then switch to another assuming a hit that will eventually take it out. Also useful for enemies that would spawn a pet if they got a chance to 'relax'. Umbral Torrent @ lvl 2 I didn't want this particular build to be Melee oriented, and with no other power choice this is what I got. I make the most of it as my build didn't allow for Tenebrous Tentacles (heresy?) and so this is one of my AoE attacks. With range buffs (10%) and KB->KD slotting it provides a nice mix of damage, control and notifies the next group down the hallway that I am coming for them next. Aim @ lvl 47 As Dark/Time, I have Chronos as my build-up at level 10. I don't need TWO clicky powers for boosts at low levels (mashing other buttons) so I delayed this as a backup for x8 content at 45+. For comparison: I have Chronos 6-slotted with Gaussians and on auto-fire every 22 seconds. Moonbeam @ lvl 8 With the updates to snipes, I am using this as the main single-target attack. 5-Slots with Sting of the Manticore plus Gladiator's Javelin Toxic proc. It is available to often to proc every time, but it does trigger for extra damage of a different type. Life Drain @ lvl 26 I honestly don't use this attack as much as I should, but should I want a little extra healing I add it to the mix. I have it 6-slotted with Gladiator's Javelin. I could swap this out for Tenebrous Tentacles if I wanted the extra AoE and/or wanted different set bonuses. Blackstar @ lvl 32 Standard Nuke. Don't skip. I skipped: T1 Dark Blast: My preference was for higher damage. T6 T. Tentacles: I like AoE, but I felt like making a different choice in terms of the visuals of the attack chain. T7 Abyssal Gaze I am a fan of holds, and it could be a 'proc monster' power, but I am hesitant to break up another group of IO bonuses to make a proc monster attack that would only fit into my build at lvl 38 or 44. I would recommend trying this (as a proc monster) if you can fit it into your attack chain at a lower level. The odd (pool/epic) choice attack powers on this toon include: lvl 12 Arcane Bolt: partly for concept, partly to allow Rune of Protection. 5-slotted, its roughly on par with Gloom. lvl 44 Repulsion Bomb: I wanted a no-brainer Epic pool that wasn't too intrusive visually, and would let me mule Defense and Resist enhancements... I opted to go with this AoE (slotted with -Res) for Damage. I don't use it that often, just mixing it in against certain opponents. It's a little too slow for my taste, and I'm not sure if my Endurance bar could take Repulsion Field. I don't really recommend going into pool powers for attacks, and so I am considering my options on Repulsion Bomb.

I think the Epic Fire Pool has Bonfire... not sure how it is in the Epic Pool, but as a Dominator primary you can always have one up and slot it with the Overwhelming Force KB-KD proc. For your purposes (as a Blaster) the Force Feedback +Recharge proc may be the only other slot worth investing in. The Presence Pool's Provoke isn't good at keeping mobs from running if they want to run. A better power from the presence pool is the PBAoE Invoke Panic, but you will have to be very Blapper to get the most out of it. The recharge timer is one the order of other AoE holds. I *like* the Presence pool on some AT but not on Blasters.

Or Infamy perhaps. Definitely not Information.

I understand the logic, but I disagree that it is ill-advised. Once I'm in combat, I am getting a significant damage (and toHit) boost every 20 seconds.... which is pretty much 'on demand'. If I'm somewhere in my attack chain when I want more, I have the other option (in my case, Aim) or Red inspirations. Like I said, I don't play on farm maps but I run x8 content at lvl 50... and to clear maps I want as much DPS and I am less concerned about specifically targeting bosses (especially at lower levels like in the Hollows) an moments of opportunity. I assume that the OP's mention of farming wasn't focused on boss-hunting in Grendel's Gulch. For the record, once I am engaged I am not waiting for Sniper Shots on Moonbeam either. About Rune of Protection: I think a better slotting for a 'panic button' power would simply be two slots of lvl 50(+5) recharge. I think the extra HP is only on the order of about 20, and the resistance from the set is on the order of 2%. I think looking to fit in a Preventative Medicine Absorb proc or an Unbreakable Guard +HP (7.5% vs. 1.5%) or a Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resistance would be better choices for the slots and offer more utility. I know this is supposed to be a 'budget' build, but those three combined should cost less on the AH than a single LotG Def/Global recharge. I offer apologies if I'm sounding too min-max; my own build has a few particularly non-max choices made for concept reasons!

Some folks are just farming responses...