Golden Azrael

ERm. Elec. Elec. Patron Elec. Great, great control. Damage is so-so. But next to the 'long play' foreplay of control in abundance, who cares? No damage queen here... So? 1st of all. Grab all the powers you can on the way to L50 including the Patron Elec set. That way...you (!) can decide what Elec Powers you like and don't like. The Sleep and Confuse are, to me, mandatory. Keystones of the set. The Elec Assault has a sound snipe and blaps to put the mob under the kosh when slept. Great fun to play. But not overwhelmingly damaging...but fun. And that's why I like to play it. Pulling legs of spider fun. When at L50. You'll have to make decisions on what powers to leave out if you want to include Hasten and other powers that can allow you to 'defence' cap your elec domi. So you'll maybe be wanting: Perma Domination. Perma Hasten. Defence soft capping. This comes at a price. (Which I'm still in denial about...) When you've had journey to L50 fun you'll be in a better mind as to how to build your(!) elec domi to your custom satisfaction. I have a sound elec/elec/elec patron Dominator which is softcapped, perma hasten and perma domination. It's tuned to the way that 'I' wanted it built. There are flavours of builds. Such as? Pet based. You can have the Gremlins, The flying electricity sentinel orb, the floating Mu from the Patron and?????? The Incarnate Pets: storm clouds. I make that? 6 pets. Now. Some of them (looking at you gremlins...) can be 'fragile' in +4 x8 content. But if you have barrier? You can offer Pets some az whomping protection from their fragile selves. (The floating orb...to counter act the 'fragile' argument...can't be hurt or hit!!!) And the Storm clouds? Are fantastic mitigators in the fog of war. 6 pets. By the time any mob gets to you? There isn't much left of them. If they're not already slept or confused before you havok punch them. See? Unlimited POW-URHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! You can also do a...hybrid build of less pets and utilising a form of perma unstoppable...which is very risky at intervals...but very exciting... There's also a 'high defence' scorpion armour build which involves that Spider pet. My favourite build is the one I've outlined: PETS. MOAR PETS!!!! Azrael.

Where to start? Elec. Elec. Elec Patron. Great control. Powerful sleeps and confuse keep the aggro' off. Stone. Stone. Sound control and brute melee. Fire. Stone. Melt control them. Bash their face in with teh hammer. So you have emphasis on Control, brutal melee or fire melting damage. Try them all up to Frost Fire in the Hollows. By then you should have been slapped around...enough to see one mitigates aggro' the best. You can make 'any' power sets 'work.' But I found the 1st two above safer. If you've come from melee alts? You're going to have to learn you can't just run into a mob and get hit whilst you hit them. Do that and you'll be dead in 2-3 punches. It goes like this. Control. Close the gap to melee. More control. Then Blast, bang, wallop! You can play dominator's at range or melee or a combination of both. I like the control blapper approach. The dance of death: Control. Control. Blap. 1, 2, 3...1,2, 3...etc. Like a Waltz...of doom. Oh yes. Then you press the Dominator button. God head. Dominator. The art form of ATs. You'll be very pleased once you've mastered them. Then you'll be a super-man, my san. And much enlightened from your melee roots. Azrael.

I've wondered about auto'ing hasten and Domi button. I find my Domi button 'drops' at times. (It may because some of the combat is queued up...and thus the time goes over my Domination overlap.) So that's if I have Domi button auto. It seems to happen more often (the domi drop) if hasten is active. If I have my hasten button on auto. Great. But... ...I have to remember to hit 'Domination' button (and deep in combat...sometimes I forget. 😛 ) Then it's a mad rush to build up the domi up again. 😄 Terrible feeling of 'oh dear' when it drops. By accident. And with hasten on auto the domi button comes up rather often...(Panic to find it on screen and click in time....) Luckily my Domi build has defence cap. That helps when Domi drops upon occasion. Catch 22. I really like perma domi and hasten. Azrael.

Singularity. A great pet. Azrael.

1. Elec. Elec. Patron Elec. (It's not the damage through put...it's the absolute mastery of the battle field....slowly torturing enemies to death.) 2. Stone. Stone. (Imperious control of the battle field...with punishing, bone crunching melee to back it up.) 3. Gravity. Energy. (Kinetic 'hard control' strategy backed by a new energy mechanism for emphatic melee combat. Difficult to master but rewarding.) Yes. You have to 'rewire' your brain coming from a Brute, Scrapper, Tank or Sentinel background. But that's why you're here, right? You want a challenge? Dominators are the combat art form AT. Azrael.

...if you want a Dominator that will hang on the coat tail of a blaster? ie a more damaging emphasis than a control emphasis? 'TeH FiRe...' I've seen well built Dominators with Fire/Stone that looks great fun. They get locked down, melt and the stone melee delivers the gift for what's left. A more expedited Dominator. Azrael.

Hello Odeipus_Tex. A very well reasoned post. A thought provoking read...and probably broadly represents a live and post live Domi' existence/and potted history. A re-booted blaster (long needed and necessary...) was always going to eclipse any dominator in terms of raw damage out put. But a Domi will eclipse it in control. That's at the core of the AT. As it should be. I'd like to see Dominators get a 10% boost whilst in Domination. Scrappers and Brutes are popular for a reason. Scrappers were always teh 'chosen' ones on live. Most of a blaster's damage with most of a tank's survive-ability. Win. Win. So the threat of defeat is much less apparent than to compared to the squishie club. But the use of Incarnates has pretty much levelled the playing fields in broad terms for sub-50 content. That makes sense if you're becoming 'godly' incarnates. So, on the coal face of 'really difficult' content? It's as you were. As it always was. It comes down to how you like to play. Do you like to wham, bam, thank you, Ma'am...kill ('arrest') stuff in seconds? Or... Pull the legs off the spider slowly, inflicting a slow humiliation on your foe? The 1st of that might be fire anything with lots of AoEs...coupled with strong ATs, eg Scrapper, Brute...and the reforged blasters (I can farm with my fire/fire blaster...but mezz content outside of fire farms like +2-4 Carnie...I don't do as well on...so depends on mob...) The 2nd question. It's Dominators. It's controllers. It's contact sport vs chess. Solutions? You 'can' play a Dominator 'naked' of any armour or defence and say it comes down to skill. I'd say, ok. More power to your arm. However, in practical terms, when that one dice roll goes against you or that one +4 mob gets through and taps you on your crystal chin? (Tweet, tweet, tweet....stars....stars....more stars...) My solution is called the 'Holy Trinity.' Perma Domi. So you can't get mezzed or stunned with melee or mind attacks. Perma Domi? It's lock down. You have an aura of godly confidence (and ability) that nails down a mob or two... (And the only chink in that armour is your own hubris or concentration....) Perma Hasten so you can control fast and reapply control fast and hit with your heaviest attacks fast and re-hit with those heavy attacks fast. Defence Cap. Not getting hit as a domi is an absolute priority to being able to control at distance to allow you to close to melee. Not being hit in a mob is essential so you can reapply the controls and begin the dance of control and blast/blapping to thin the herd. Epic Armour. If the dice for defence cap fails, having a chin that can take a hit, or two or three(!) is really important. It's a fall back. But as you can see there, the mobs have to get through Perma domi controls, Perma hasten controls that lock down a mob so you can attack with blasts and blaps on a herd thinning rampage. The defence cap is your defence line that allows you to do this unhindered...and lastly, anything that gets through (rarely) has to deal with a dominator that is way stronger than their reputation suggests. Conclusion. I teamed with my Duo-Partner who suggested it was much ado about nothing (they have never got a dominator up to L50...or built one to as high a standard...) as the elec/elec/elec dominator locks down a eg. +4x8 Carnie Mob and? Doesn't do a lot of damage. Obviously. (It's not fire...ofc. What is?) It takes time to whittle the carnie mobs down whilst doing 'elec' style damage...which is long play wholesale damage. The moral victory being? I was still getting hammered by the mezz spams of loads of Carnie Queens with pet summons whilst the Ass(!)/Devices blaster hit the floor (after doing some good initial damage...) Who was left standing in the end? *smiles. I wasn't leaving until the Carnies went down. IT was a pitched battle (doing dominator style damage...and then you have the handicap of doing elec damage on top of that...) And go down they did. Right down to the last Carnie Queen. And you have to enjoy that style of gameplay. Or not. If you want to 'bang' the content with a fire sentinel or brute or scrapper. You can. If you want the 'long play', ladies...then the Dominator may be your thing. Azrael.

So you won't be sitting next to any noisy eaters in CoH? You know, the superhero that eats toffee with their mouth open? Or blows their breath out whilst eating...fast food..? I can 'put up with mud pots but their incessant, rasping plopping and 'schlorp'...yeah. I can 'see' how that would be annoying to some. Luckily, we can turn down the sfx so they are less obtrusive. Sound fx. A very personal thing. I never minded the ice blaster sfx...but my duo partner couldn't stand them. I always thought they were subtle and low key. He didn't like their 'swishhh......ft, ft....' sound. *looks. ...for myself, the 'perma whine' of the Peace Bringer's power sets... ('urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...' etc.) Er...yes. Back to the topic. Mud Pots. Unless you're trying to 'eat them' are very useful. I had my mud pots on live Stone/Stone Domi. Very end heavy. But good to entangle mobs with slows. It makes a difference to incoming damage. And any brittle Dominator should have that in their defensive 'soft' armour. It's another layer of defence. Which then provides time. To unleash? Stone Spears. Stone Hammer etc. Adding Stalactites and Volcanic Rock to that mix and between them falling over, choking...the remaining foes will treacle their way towards you...right into a stone hammer...and seismic smash. Azrael.

Some good points there, Dr. Causality. The chief point, slows mitigate incoming damage whilst the mobs 'panic' in trying to run away or wanting to attack the cause of their malaise. That indecision buys you time as a Dominator to control, attack...control...attack...etc. So that 'World of Confusion' proc seems to make sense to add to that 'malaise.' Time is a very valuable commodity. It can mean victory or defeat. That's why slows are so important. Immobs etc. That could be the second or two you need...to unleash 'the gift.' Azrael.

You'll find it compelling. 🙂 Very addictive. Dominator's are an art form. In play. As an AT. As a build. Perma Domi? 'I'm a GOD!' Perma Hasten. Lots of fast controls, fast melee. Control. Blap. Blast. Control. Blap, blap, blast. etc. Inside the melee mob. Elec/Elec. Domi? Sleep...confuse....(blap....blast....blap...blap....blast...) 'That's going to hurt in the morning, son.' Stone Stone Domi? 'Fall over...fall over...can't breath...vocanic...gas....*choke....fall over...Hammer....Stone spears...Hammer....seismic smash....mud pots DoT...slow...' *when you press than 'Domination' button...all those controls....happen...for longer...and....gives the dominator the luxury of time...blap...blast...control...blap...blap...blast... The most two fun dominators I played. L50'd on live. So much fun. I re-rolled for HC. Elec/elec/patron elec and perfected the build with great domination, recharge, sublime control, damage wholesale... Azrael.

Yes. On my Stone/Stone Domi on live. Slow is always good. The slower the mobs are to close down your Domi the better. As for Procs. Experiment. Azrael.

Forget containment. You're a Dominator now. Sounds like you're in the habit of 'control control' for containment. When you need to be? Control, control WALLOP!!! (Close to melee!!! Control Close to melee. Control. Close to Melee...) It's like a one two three! Waltz of death. Juicy melee damage. Don't forget your snipe either. (Which I also use in melee..) A controller mixed with blaster blapper. It's risky. But very rewarding. Azrael.

Illusion/Rad. (And I have Stone Epic for extra fun.) Azrael.

I have Storm with mine. Azrael.

Clarion is a good baseline Incarnate to cover the mezz hole of Defenders and Controllers. If you're defence capped, then you can go Ageless for uber speed and stamina. Having both? Even better. Then you can test change according to the mobs you fight in a given mission. Azrael.

Kinetic healing is more risky as it's combat centered. ie. It's based around the mob you're fighting and if your ally is nearby? They get the heal off the mob. Tricky to master. But rewarding when mastered. The kinetic set is challenging.. But oh so potent and well worth its reward. Azrael.

I have a L38 elec/elec blaster. Haven't got around to the epic yet. It's...ok. It doesn't have the fluidity of the Energy/Energy/Fire epic blaster that I got to L50. Shame Elec's 3rd tier blast isn't like the one on the Elec Sentinel. High damage. BLAST! Two AoE's back to back is a way to get yourself killed in the Hollows early on. I do like the blaps. Havoc Punch being a perennial favourite. 🙂 I pursued my elec/elec/Mu Dominator more. Control. Blast. Blap. Unlimited power. Sure, it doesn't have the damage througput of the elec blaster...but the POW-rUh??? Perma Hasten/Domi. Mob ownership. Is intoxicating. Azrael.

Kin/Rad is a compelling Defender set(s). You can buff your own health, stamina, speed, damage... Good for self. Compelling for team. Azrael.

Energy. Energy Aura. Elec Mastery. (Havoc Punch for the 'lights out' punch.) Lots of fun. Azrael.

The character slots are free. And we don't have to pay subs anymore. So? We can now try 'lots of stuff.' Pick any defender combo. Play to Level 8 using double xp if you wish. Do Atlas then go to the Hollows. By then, you'll have a good idea if the attack chain is any good and if it feels good to play. If you eg. Like Radiation. Try it with various 2ndaries to see which suit you best. Eg. Sonic, Energy or Dark or Ice...or Fire...or...etc. Because you're only testing to L8 you can try lots of things quickly and see which have got the 'feel' you're after and which...just don't seem to 'get going' for you. After you've found something that feels right? Or couple you like the feel of? Keep going until eg. L22 and slot SOs to see if it maintains that 'good feeling' and even gets better. Kinetics and Radiation is also an interesting combo'. Kinetics is tough to master but very rewarding as the set is so self contained. Azrael.

Ah. So your Ill/Rad is 'only' 26. It's got SOs. Hmm. Could do with getting your Phantasm pet. Push the defence numbers a bit higher. Getting to L32 on that would help a bit. The more you play it the more you can solo like a 'demon.' I can solo all the time with mine. Don't have to be an 'elite' type player. I love doing 'stupid' things. I learn from them. 😄 The Illu Rad becomes more forgiving over time. Put those anchors on the boss man and the minions evaporate with the Phantom Army. Spectral Terror for Mez lock down and Phantasm to help put the boot in. And the choking cloud picks up anyone who thinks about getting 'too smart' for their own good. 😉 And I love my 'Stone Epic' melee set for dishing the retribution. All in melee. 😄 If solo is all you do? Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, Phantasm (Loads of pets...try and get Phantom Army Perma...that would help massively...in soloing like a 'demon') and with the choking cloud plenty of protection between it and Spectral terror. I have zero problem soloing at all. I can't be hit. But I send swarms of pets in for damage, lockdown and to melt mobs. It's a grower. 😉 Radiation can take a bit of patience to begin with but as you get into it...and post L32 Illusion with yet another pet and epics pending.... Azrael.

I'd agree with this post. I've gone toe to toe with War Mace/Regen brute on my Shield and B Axe brute. It's a case of who gets the last or 1st hit in at a given point of fury building. They both hit reasonably hard. I won't deny that in playing War Mace has a lovely feel and edge to it and some great hitters and some lovely AoEs. But B Axe is far from terrible. It will more than hold it's own with War Mace in a brute duo. I'd recommend any player to 'try it' 😄 Both of them. And judge for yourself. The slots and game are now free. Roll both to L8 and you may find you'll play both to L50 as they both have a lovely 2 dimensional sense of fun about them. Both sets grow with you. Any defficiencies it has vs War Mace are flattened with shield charge when a regen brute has taken a kicking or passed out *needing smelling salts* from the alpha taking. Regen' is enlightening. I'd recommend to take it on Brutes. It looks great fun to play...with War Mace. The Regen' grows stronger over time. Azrael.

It's just the relatable experience of the early experience of Dominators which you, I and other players have experienced. I remember being so frustrated with them to begin with. I had to take 'breaks' from playing them wondering what all the fuss was about. Until one gets a Domi to L8, 12 (for DOs..), L22 (SOs...) 32 (aha...I think I'm a demiGod...) and L50 with a set build...(i'm gOd...POWURRR!) That can be a testing journey. It was for me 1st time around. And I forgot the initial pain I had on live when I returned to it on Homecoming. My DUO partner has yet to stick with a Domi past the pain threshold and thus doesn't get the appeal (yet...) Or if a 'Sentinel' only player who tries a Blaster or Domi and wonders why you can't just zoom into a mob without getting a fat lip.... Fun to watch...but one has to experience the pain of a Domi 1st hand to enjoy the heady divinity that comes later... Azrael.

They seem aimed at different things. One is an AV or Boss killer. Though I find with Ill/Rad I can take mobs as well. I'm right in the middle of them. 😄 If you like Illusion that much. Then just play each of them until you hit L50. You should have a good idea of why you like each one by then and what they are good at doing. I'm guessing you like the L40 one that bit more unless you got bored of it and are now playing the L20...? Which is which type? I've used Trick Arrow on Def' and Devices on a Blaster. The idea of pre-planning to tie mobs into Knots. Nimble of thought and planning combat in advance. It's its own thing. And gives a different flavour to other AT or Power types. It's different and can be enjoyed on a more strategic level rather than all out blasting, for example, with a fire/fire blaster vaporising the mobs or a fire brute just melting the mobs with burn. Both of which I have and can do. Azrael.

Np. If you're curious, it's good to ask about comparing two things. And ask people's opinions. Always good to do that. CoH community is the best for that. However. It's not like we have to pay for more server slots...or the 'running sore' of debt like in the old days. It's quite easy to say. 'Roll one.' 'Try it.' It takes 'no' time to get both to L8 and you'll quickly get the idea of one's 'feel' vs the other. CoH is back from the dead. Here's your chance to roll the 1000 alts you never did on live. Sure. Ask for opinions and help. But nothing beats trying something for yourself. It's profound. It's the way we really do learn. *(Points to self for trying an SR/SJ Tank, an ice/ice/ice Tank, an Ill/Rad/STONE troller....things I didn't get to do on live.) Azrael.