The_Cheeseman

Couple of notes: Interface doesn’t proc on non-damaging powers, therefore it has no effect on Mass Confusion. The Contagious Confusion proc effect only lasts for 8 seconds, making it essentially worthless for stacking mag on anything important. However, when slotted into an AoE, it has the potential to proc multiple times, overlapping on the same target, thereby allowing you to confuse bosses/EBs (even as a Controller) long enough to neutralize their alpha strike, while also modestly inflating the radius and target cap. Being an AoE with a long recharge, the proc will have a capped proc chance, making it very reliable in that regard (much more so than Overpower, anyway). I still think people are underestimating how valuable the non-aggro nature of Mass Confusion is. Slotting the Malaise proc does turn it into what is essentially a worse version of Seeds, and is definitely not optimal. How many folks commenting here have played with Mass Confusion with Coercive Persuation slotted? Granted, my experience is from a Dom’s perspective, but I would think CP in MC would be even more valuable for a Controller, who can’t natively hit 4+ mag reliably. As established above, a non-aggro AoE confuse allows you to damage the MOBs, thereby getting exp and drops from them, and lose all aggro generated by that damage before the confuse effect wears off. This basically means that you can kill a spawn with zero risk, as nothing is ever able to aggro you. That’s a good deal more useful than an AoE sleep. Especially considering that it’s entirely possible to get Mass Confusion’s duration longer than its recharge. No offense meant, but when we have assertions like that Interface ruins non-aggro powers, I start wondering how much actual experience people have with the set.

Well, if that’s the case, it’s still functionally equivalent, so it’s cool with me! EDIT: Upon further testing with your explanation in mind, I am inclined to agree with your assessment. It doesn’t substantially change how I use the power, but it does make more sense from a technical standpoint. In any case, any hard control power that enables me to defeat entire spawns in perfect safety is cool with me, whatever may be happening under the hood! I’d also like to draw attention to the fact that, when two people treat one another with respect, even when you’re proven wrong, you can thank that person for teaching you something valuable. Everybody wins!

Thanks for stating the obvious. Everybody is aware that Mind Control was a Controller set first, my point was that, these days, it’s so much better on a Dominator that it may as well not be an option for Controllers. And yes, Of course Domination is the reason why. That’s a fine Idea, as well. Not sure what about my suggestion you feel damages my credibility, I was just making a suggestion. Again, this is obvious. What’s your point? No, the main benefit of a non-aggro AoE hard control power is the ability to lockdown a significant number of MOBs without aggroing any other nearby MOBs. By using a combination of Mass Hypnosis and Mass Confusion, you can neutralize an entire room full of MOBs while invisible and then just murder them at your leisure. It’s an unparalleled level of MOB control that provides a multitude of strategic options and allows you to start every encounter on your own terms. I never implied that a T9 could not, or should not, be an every-spawn control power. I said that, in my opinion (obviously), Mass Confusion, specifically, is too powerful to be an every-spawn control power. It’s very relevant for a squishy AT that usually prefers not to eat a spawn’s alpha strike. Mass Confusion allows you to effectively queue-up the next spawn for slaughter while the rest of your team is still working on the last one. You can run ahead, toss MC, and let the MOBs contribute some DPS against themselves, softening up the spawn ahead of time and making overall clear time faster. It’s also great for splitting-up tightly-packed rooms. If there are several spawns in close proximity, you can MC a bunch of MOBs in the middle, thereby allowing your team to engage one half of the room without the opposite side aggroing (you can also use Mass Hypnosis for this, but you lose out on the extra damage). Finally, it’s just plain incorrect to claim that dealing any damage instantly negates the benefits of non-aggro confuse. Confused MOBs don’t register aggro, which means that you can drop Mass Confusion on a spawn and kill/pull away any other MOBs nearby, and the ones that were confused won’t aggro after confusion wears off. You can also nuke any of the confused MOBs without aggro, as long as there aren’t any non-confused MOBs in aggro range to see it, and they won’t even notice. I have personally used Mass Confusion on a spawn, tossed fireball right into the middle of it, let the MOBs kill each other, gotten exp for those kills, and none of the survivors ever aggroed me. Note: The previous paragraph is corrected downthread See above how this is just flat-out wrong. So how about this: why don’t we have a civil, polite conversation about game mechanics, without all the smugness and condescension? Because it really isn’t doing you any favors, here.

Mind Control is a Dominator set. Period. Honestly, I think the easiest solution would be to just turn Telekinesis into an AoE immobilize, solving both the MOB scatter and AoE containment issues. It also wouldn't really affect Doms much, which is good, because Mind is pretty OP on Doms, already. Also, comparing Mass Confusion to Seeds of Confusion is a bit misleading. On paper, Seeds seems to be superior, just due to the recharge. But you really shouldn't underestimate the fact that Mass Confusion is essentially a spawn delete button that doesn't even cause aggro. Seeds is a great every-spawn control power, but it's not in the same league as Mass Confusion. Mass Confusion's recharge is entirely justified, I believe. You can already get it down to around 60 seconds--much lower than that and you seriously risk trivializing the entire game.

To be totally honest, it’s my opinion that if you aren’t going for permadom, you probably shouldn’t be playing a Dominator. With permadom, you can be an immortal god that solos TFs and carries entire teams through tough content. Without it, your a squishier Controller with decent, but unremarkable, damage output. Go big or go home.

My main character is a demon, so I have created several incarnations of her with different power sets that represent various aspects of her portfolio. Allows me to try out different play styles while still enjoying the RP of my favorite character.

Sadly, I don’t remember exactly how it’s done, as I only used it that one time. It involves entering a slash command while the zone select window is up that includes the zone ID#. I just copy/pasted the command, and I can’t recall where I found it. It may have been a tell in-game, actually. I’m not comfortable exploiting bugs, even for mostly harmless purposes like that, so I didn’t bother to keep records of it. I also have no idea what kind of mischief may be possible if used maliciously, somehow.

There's a way to get to the original Outbreak zone by exploiting Long Range Teleport. It may or may not be why my villain character has Isolator...

Hmm... Can't say I agree with those changes, but to each their own.

Dominators have very nice damage, their ranged damage mod is 0.95, which is only behind Blasters and Kheldian Nova Forms. But the biggest aspect of Dominators that sets them above Blasters, in my opinion, is that we are among the ATs most capable of straight-up carrying a team through content. If you're just running in teams that nuke everything dead in 5sec, then it doesn't really matter what AT you're playing. But if your team is actually being challenged, there's nothing better than a Dominator. We can trivialize the vast majority of content in the game just by perma-mezzing AVs or GMs, and there is no trash spawn we can't obliterate by ourselves if necessary. I never have to worry about being unable to finish a TF when I am playing my Dom. I've never felt more powerful in an MMO than I do playing my Dom. It's addictive, and it's spoiled me for every other AT.

Here ya go. Mind/Fire/Fire, Permadom down to level 22, softcapped to Ranged, perma-hasten.

Yeah, any powerset with a ST Confuse can lockdown AVs and almost all GMs (any GM that doesn't also have PToD, lookin' at you, JACK!) without ever having to engage (or even break stealth). It's also fun to make them clear all their own adds for you, before you start killing them. I love to do that to Hro'dotoz at the end of LGTF, and Scrapyard murders his entire entourage of protesters.

I don't necessarily agree with you, there. From a practical standpoint, it's true we cannot control our feelings or implicit biases, but we certainly can control how we behave and whether or not we act on those biases. Everyone has prejudices, but racism is specifically when you consciously believe one race to be innately superior to another. That is a belief, not a mere bias, and can be consciously changed. Part of being a mature, empathetic person is acknowledging your own biases and making the effort to account for them in your behavior. Also, I would argue that racism is inherently bad for society, as it wastes the potential human capital of oppressed minorities, fractures social cohesion, and contributes to economic inequality and poverty, all of which are a drag on the economy. It's all well and good to argue about intent, but that is--often deliberately--rather difficult to ascertain. Everybody is entitled to make mistakes, obviously, but the true test of character is whether or not you learn from those mistakes and change your behavior. If you continue to do something that you know causes harm to others without some redeeming value to offset that harm, you're being an @$$hole, even if it wasn't your original intent.

I mean, it's true that those thought-police, call-out folks are annoying and counter-productive, but that shouldn't really affect your decision-making in these kinds of situations. Just because they are being @$$holes, it doesn't mean you should, too. The real problem IS the possibility of causing harm to a vulnerable person. The angry, reactionary Left may be making their point badly, but they're still right, in this case.

I mean, I feel like people who complain about "triggering people" are kind of missing the point, here. Yes, there will always be people who will get upset about just about anything, that's life. But one of the most important aspects of living a happy, productive life is to not be an @$$hole. We're not saying you should follow the rules set forth by progressives, we're saying that you should be empathetic to fellow humans and at least try not to do things that unnecessarily cause unhappiness in others. There is an infinite variety of characters you could make, so why choose one that you know will hurt some people? You can't avoid all triggers, but if you consider yourself a mature, responsible member of society, you should at least make an attempt.

My main is a dom, I know that all too well. But I feel like <1% defense isn't really worth 4 slots. You could get another power to 5 slots with that, and there are a lot of good sets that have their best bonuses at 5.

Well, if it is the last 2% you need to hit softcap, it is pretty valuable. I just prefer to get my defense elsewhere.

Like 2% or thereabouts. Definitely not worth slotting for Defense, just stick a LotG +Rech in there and call it a day.

Yes, according to my observations, the AVs in LRSF are scripted to check every few seconds for player characters in range and automatically aggro them. There didn't seem to be any perception check, as even at max range for my confuse, they could still see through my invis (65% from Concealment/Stealth+IO, for reference) I believe this script starts running as soon as they enter a combat state for the first time. After you've aggroed them once, you can see a periodic animation "tick" where they appear to enter combat stance for a second before returning to idle. It's basically the only reason the LRSF isn't completely trivial for a mind dom. Needless to say, this knowledge was gained through repeated deaths (though I did manage to finish it).

As other have said, redside has fewer people (it's pretty easy to go hours without seeing another player) but it's content is far superior for soloing. The missions are generally better written, and the zones are mostly self-contained, as opposed to blueside where they make you run all over the city. Overall, I'd say that if you're the type who likes to take it slow and really get a feel for how your character plays on its own while enjoying the storylines, redside is great. If you're more interested in teaming and leveling at a faster pace, go blueside. Nobody mentioned goldside, but I personally think Praetoria is the best content in the game. You can chain missions 1-35 without ever having to search for new contacts or do random paper/radio missions. The arcs also award a huge number of reward merits for the time invested, so it's your best source of early cash. If you finish all the Praetoria missions for all 4 factions, you'll end up with a couple hundred million inf at the end. You should also know that you can be a Rogue or vigilante and hang out on either side. You can't get many of the contacts from the opposite side, but you can still team with others, do TFs/trials, whatever.

Thanks! Glad I wasn't totally off, I haven't had to consider the exact value in years. Once I finished my dom's build, I just knew the number was not high enough for me to care. 😉

I stuck it in Rise of the Phoenix on my dom, since I had no slots to spare for it. The proc is only for you, and doesn't care what power it's slotted into, or if it ever gets used. Pretty nice for a one-slot wonder!

Another difference of note is mez protection. AVs have base mez protection equal to a Boss, but most have the Purple Triangles of Doom which grants them +50 mag mez protection vs everything except sleep and immobilize for 2/3 of the fight. GMs, on the other hand, have very high base mez protection (I want to say around mag 70-ish? Somebody correct me) but usually not PToD (Jack being a notable exception). Oddly enough, Elite Bosses have higher base mez protection than AVs, which means that when you face a downgraded AV as an EB with purple triangles, they’re harder to mez than the true AV would have been.

Mind Control. Everything is my pet, and I don’t have to care if it dies.

Oh, almost forgot the biggest tip I can give you: use Domination. Don't sit on it. Don't save it for an emergency. Pop that sucker like bubble wrap whenever it's up. It's awesome, and not using it is a waste of your potential.