The_Cheeseman

Makes sense to me, since it would be in the context of a completed build list. Keep up the good work!

A bit of a clarification, here. Mesmerize, the T1, damaging sleep power in Mind Control, has a baseline magnitude 4 sleep. This means that it can sleep a boss in one shot. However, since it also includes a damage component, it cannot stack further magnitude. Mass Hypnosis is a magnitude 3 sleep, so it will take multiple applications to sleep bosses outside of domination. It is notable, however, that most AVs lack resistance to sleep and immobilize, so they can still be useful in situations where you need to keep an AV out of the fight for a time.

Not sure what you're asking here. Dominators can already solo AVs, I'd even call certain Dom builds premier AV soloers (I have soloed the LRSF and several GMs, on mine, for example). What we have been discussing is whether it would be OP to give a build that can already solo AVs and GMs more tools to trivialize even what little content they can't already solo. Heck, I bet an Illusion Dom, if properly built, could solo several Incarnate Trials (though, it would take longer than I'd be willing to spend).

Yeah, I soloed my mind/fire/fire exclusively, until level 41, at which point I started wanting to get TF badges and such. However, I had a finalized build in mind, one I played back on Live, and was buying attuned set IOs along the way, allowing my to achieve perma-dom by level 33. This was my first character, so it's entirely doable to get that kind of inf without an existing 50, but you really have to know exactly what you want and how to most efficiently get it. Therefore, my experience may be different than somebody who is just trying to get by on dropped SOs, or whatever. I emphasize, though, that Dominators are the AT that most rewards IO investment, so I advise you to go big, or go home. The build is ridiculous at endgame, but isn't particularly strong while leveling. Mind Control is a very polarized set: it's a bit weak normally, but arguably OP during domination, so your power spikes exponentially when you achieve perma-dom. The main issue is that (in my opinion) the most effective way to play the build is via hover and ranged defense, which means you can't take the melee and PBAoE powers from your secondary. This makes your DPS, pretty weak until you get Blaze and Fireball (though I suppose the snipe changes make it pretty effective now, too). You shouldn't have any issues locking down MOBs, but it can take a while to actually kill them. This can be mitigated by making liberal use of confuse, however. As for EBs with purple triangles, you'll eventually be able to confuse them, regardless, but pre-perma-dom, you're only real option is to chew 4 purples to reach defense softcap, then munch as many reds as you can carry and nuke it down before your defenses drop. I ran my dom solo through all the First/Night Ward arcs, and the Sirocco patron arc, so I faced my fair share of tough EBs. Some of them required multiple attempts, but they all fell, eventually. As the above poster said, Mind is basically unstoppable IF you can control when and how you engage your foes. Mind has some really great, reliable "oh crap!" buttons, notably the fast-recharging Mass Hypnosis, but unless you are building defense from your IO sets, it's entirely possible that auto-aggro MOBs, like ambushes, can kill you before you get the chance to react. This is one reason I think it's vital to build to softcapped defense, even when you mostly rely on active defenses like controls, because the game can be pretty merciless in how some missions exploit your build's weaknesses. Finally, I know that, personally, I always lose interest in a character if I level too quickly. I don't know why, but when I skip significant portions of the leveling process, I just feel less invested in the character. That's why I didn't join a single team on my dom until 41, when my build was mostly matured and I was ready to start knocking out TFs. There are a lot of ways to enjoy the game, so if you find yourself losing interest in a character, maybe try doing something you've never tried before, like soloing to the level cap, following a chain of missions you've never done before, or something similar. It's always great to discover something new about the game you love!

Great idea! I applaud you for taking on this responsibility, and I hope people will benefit greatly from it. Question about tags: how do you define, "solo friendly"? Because my build is extremely powerful for soloing AVs/GMs at end game, but blooms rather late, as most of its damage comes from later power picks. So it's not so easy to solo level, but superb soloing challenging content once complete.

Great tips, here. I would like to especially emphasize the Panacea proc, as not only does it help with health regen, it's also the single biggest increase to your endurance recovery you can get from a single IO. It's one of the best overall IOs in the game, and worth every penny to get.

I have to strongly recommend against slotting Mesmerize. It's too weak to be a useful addition to an attack chain, it can't stack magnitude, and it is basically worthless during domination. I can't think of a time when I'd use Mesmerize over Dominate for control, and it's straight-up inferior to pretty much any attack from the secondary. Being psi damage doesn't make up for the fact that it is unaffected by Embrace of Fire, which will be up 2/3 of the time with optimized recharge. It's valid to argue that you don't care about aggro with Mass Confusion, and therefore can slot a damage proc in it, but I think I made a strong case for why the Coercive Persuasion proc is immensely valuable here, and I think you might me underestimating how powerful a non-aggro AoE mez power can be. Especially since you can make Mass Confusion perma with the right build. One of Mind Control's greatest unique attributes is its many non-aggro control options, making it possible to solo extremely difficult content without ever having to put oneself at risk. Also, there will be many situations in which you want to preemptively mez a spawn to avoid taking the alpha strike, and a non-aggro mez like Mass Confusion allows you to do so without having to deal with the return fire from any targets that resisted the confuse, or exceeded the range/target cap. Finally, adding a damage proc to Mass Confusion is mostly pointless, anyway, because the spawn will kill itself without you needing to lift another finger. Just toss a fireball at it so you get the exp and move to the next spawn.

My Dom's build is here: Be careful, it will spoil you for every other build. 😉

Okay, some notes on your build: The Fortunata Hypnosis proc is wasted in Mesmerize, as you'll never use that power once you get perma-dom. Six slot Mass Hypnosis with that set, as then it can act as an aggro-less AoE placate to reset encounters, especially useful in Lambda Sector or TPN, where you can hit trash spawns to enable your allies to ignore them. Not sure why you want to proc-out Dominate so badly, as your most commonly spammed control is going to be Confuse, since it has longer duration and is most reliable against AVs/GMs. I like Lockdown in Dominate, as the proc is handy when you're still building to Domination, and it has good defense values. Most of your damage is going to come from your secondary, so there's no reason to sacrifice the efficiency of your controls. Put Ascendancy of the Dominator into Confuse, as you'll be spamming that against AVs to perma-mez them, and that will stack the extra damage procs really well. Coercive Persuasion is best in Mass Confusion, because the proc can fire individually against every affected MOB, which will then affect every MOB next to them, and can stack up a LOT, allowing you to often one-shot confuse purple elite bosses, like the DE spawns in Underground Trial. It also acts to extend the radius and target cap a bit. Procs are great in Terrify, but you're wasting global recharge bonuses for not much additional damage. I suggest five-slotting it with Positron's Blast, including the proc, and then the Overwheming Force proc. You probably won't need Total Domination very often, so I'd suggest just four-slotting it with Basilisk's Gaze for the global recharge. Definitely DO NOT put an offensive proc in Mass Confusion, as that ruins one of its best features: it's lack of aggro (same with Confuse and Mass Hypnosis). Like I said, put Coercive Persuasion here, instead. I don't recommend six-slotting Tactics, as you will be getting absurd global accuracy from your various set bonuses, so it won't really do much for you. I understand if you want it to help your team, but it's not going to be useful solo.

Here you go: Permadom, perma-hasten, softcapped to ranged, can perma-confuse anything that isn't an incarnate trial boss, lots of damage.

Hmm... We seem to disagree about what we define as "overpowered". Honestly, I think the term gets abused far too often, and usually doesn't lead to particularly productive discussion, and since we're just talking hypotheticals and have no real data, I can't think of anything more I could say on the matter. Your points are fair, and I think it would come down mostly on public opinion as to whether the build is "overpowered" or not, as there's no objective metric for such things.

Be very careful about what you choose to incentivize in the game. If you add a reward for clearing entire maps, assuming the reward is worth the trouble, many players will see that as a requirement for optimal play. I enjoy clearing the final map in ITF, just because I like blowing up tons of easy MOBs, but I most certainly don't want to do that on, say, every council base map. Then you get into situations like the final MOB falling through the floor, or whatever, that normally nobody would notice, but now would cause huge uproar. There is a reason people tend to avoid kill-all missions--they're annoying and generally not fun. Besides, there is already a reward for clearing the map: more exp and loot. I enjoy running clear-all LGTFs because I get a ton of inf, often a purple or two, and upwards of 2-3 vet levels over the course of it (assuming +4/x8). I don't mind the extra time it takes, because I actually enjoy the gameplay, the extra reward is just kind of a bonus. Remember: not everyone enjoys the game for the same reasons. After a long day at work, sometimes I just want to load up my crazy-OP Dominator and go obliterate some spawns without having to think too hard. If I want a challenge, I will play a different character, one who isn't as OP and actually requires some strategy, as that can be really fun, too. I have a blaster that doesn't take any powers from the primary, just because I wanted to play with the /Martial Combat powers, instead. That toon will never be OP, it won't ever be able to solo almost every TF or GM in the game like my Dom can, but both toons are fun in different ways. CoX is unique among MMOs in that it allows you to be as broken as you want, if you're willing to expend the resources. If you pay a ton of inf to get a bunch of purples, min-max your build to the absolute extreme, and practice playing it to the point of mastery, yeah, the game will be pretty easy for you. Time to start a new character that plays differently so you can try to get that one to maximum performance, as well. CoX is not a game with strong vertical progression. CoX is a game about variety and experimentation. The game is pretty easy once you've mastered it, but that isn't really the point. It's like a pen-and-paper roleplaying game: sure, you can build a super-strong character that can perform ridiculous feats if you want to, but you don't have to. You can have just as much fun playing a kooky concept character, because the GM can tailor the difficulty to your character's abilities. If you're bored with your OP character and the game is too easy, play a new character. That's why you have 1,000 slots.

The main problem soloing as an Illusion controller is concentrating damage. Since you can't directly control your phantoms, which comprise the bulk of your DPS, it's hard to focus-down targets efficiently, and as you said, Illusion has weak AoE control options. Dominators have an entire secondary devoted to damage, allowing them to nuke down important targets while their pets tilt at windmills, like the moron AI likes to do. Yes, Mind doms can perma confuse basically anything that isn't an incarnate-level boss. But what you may not realize if you haven't actually tried it, is that many AVs in Task Forces, such as Lord Recluse Strike Force, are scripted to auto-aggro anything in range, regardless of perception, once they have initiated combat. This means that soloing groups of AVs is actually pretty tough, since once they start taking damage from your confused target, they tend to aggro you, and doms don't handle that well. With some nice invulnerable pets to hold aggro, you can charm one AV as your main DPS, while the other beat on your phantoms and you nuke them into smithereens. Then you have situations with gimmicks like Lord Recluse at the end of Miss Liberty Task Force, where you can't preemptively control him and are forced to tank him for a bit. I haven't figured out a way to solo him on my mind Dom, but an Illusion Dom could do it, easily. Just sic your phantoms on Recluse, and confuse the Arachnos Flier to kill the towers while you nuke the healers as they spawn. In short, the only significant weakness of a mind Dominator is lack of ability to deal with aggro. An Illusion perma-dom would be basically unstoppable.

No, don't revisit "the perma-dom thing". I enjoy my Dominator being an unkillable god of destruction, and it's well worth the heavy investment. Keep the devs' eyes off Dominators entirely, they're fine. Controllers need way more help at end game.

Depends on the proc. Some procs are global effects, others are "proc-120's". In the case of, say the Miracle or Numina uniques, those are Proc-120, so if it is in a passive or toggle power it will work as long as the power is active, but in a click power (such as Dark Servant) it will work for 120 seconds after the power is activated. The effect of the proc is always for you, the user, not for the target of the power or any pet created by the power. In the case of the Panacea unique or Performance Shifter proc, it has a chance to activate every time the power is used, or every 6 seconds in a toggle or passive power. The effect of the proc affects the target of the power, not necessarily the power's user. These could be used to grant an infusion of extra end to your pet. I would strongly recommend against trying to use endurance recovery procs on your pet, however, as they will be much more beneficial in a passive power for your own benefit, as it is usually fairly trivial to slot pets for endurance reduction, since they have few powers and are unaffected by recharge bonuses.

In the context of your build as a whole, I believe such choices will generally be obvious. Assuming your build goal is softcapped defense and as much recharge as possible, it's just a simple calculation of which sets will maximize your returns on both. In short, your question won't usually be, "Should I put a defense set or a recharge set in this power" but rather, "Which combination of powers and sets will result in fulfilling my build goals of 45% defense and maximized recharge?" In other words, you will never have a binary choice for what set to use in any given power, because you will have planned your total build around including certain sets, and the proper powers to slot those sets, from the beginning. In the case of say, a heal power, you would know whether you need to slot defense or recharge in that power based on how much defense you are able to get from all the other powers/sets in your build. If you still need more defense to reach the softcap, you slot the defense set. If you don't, you slot recharge. It isn't really a choice.

Just a note, To-Hit and Accuracy are not the same thing. To-Hit is what Defense subtracts from, the result of that calculation is multiplied by your accuracy score. It's important to note that, as enemy levels go up, they get an accuracy bonus against you, not a To-Hit bonus, so even +4 AVs will have a floored, 5% To-Hit, which gets multiplied by their boosted accuracy to around a 10% hit rate. In practical terms, this means that To-Hit buffs are significantly more valuable than accuracy bonuses, as they stack multiplicatively with slotted accuracy and global accuracy bonuses. This makes the Kismet unique very valuable (despite what the description says, it grants a +6 To-Hit bonus, not an accuracy bonus).

Hear, hear! I played CoH off-and-on from launch to sunset, often leaving for another MMO, only to come back later. Nothing else allows the depth of customization or originality of character building combined with enjoyable, non-grindy gameplay. The game isn't so hard that you feel compelled to build your character in a certain optimal way, but you can make it hard enough to challenge yourself as much as you want and actually receive extra rewards for the effort. I also love that I can play my favorite character with anyone I want. Sure, I'm vet level 71 and they're level 23, but the games doesn't care, we can all go blow up some council goons together and feel like we're contributing. CoH never made me feel like playing was a second job, which most other MMOs usually end up doing.

Perhaps it would be easier to illustrate with a different metaphor. Think of it this way: your character is being attacked. Your HP is limited, so there is a finite amount of time that you will be able to survive before you are defeated. Increasing your defense, resistances, regen, and such will extend that amount of time before you are killed (TtK or Time to Kill). In the case of dominators, having softcapped defenses will extend that period of time by up to five times as long as capped resistances, while also potentially saving you from mez effects.

Personally, if my dom joins an ITF and it's not on +4, I will quit. Not worth my time if they're just going to fall over when I glance at them. I didn't spend millions of inf on IOs just to fight pinatas.

Fair points. I've never been a competitive person, so I suppose it's just not a playstyle I can appreciate.

I can't help but notice that you seem to be implying that people who succumb to loot box overspending "can't control themselves" as if they have some specific character flaw that they are responsible for. I would urge you to be a bit more empathetic, and to realize that all of us are victims of our biases and flawed reasoning. It's part of being human, and it happens to all of us. But that's why we have social taboos and similar behavioral sanctions--to make sure that people or companies that are caught attempting to exploit us suffer consequences. Sure, you may not have any problem with loot boxes, you may even enjoy them, but that doesn't mean they are harmless to society as a whole. There are a ton of examples of methods of psychological coercion that have been made illegal for consumer protection--just consider Ponzi schemes, or subprime mortgage securities, or similar shady business practices. You could blame the victims of such manipulation for being weak-willed or ignorant, at least until somebody uses such methods to take advantage of you. None of us are immune to the flaws in our psychology, and I think it is both right and proper to expect negative consequences for those who seek to exploit those flaws. That being said, whether it is the role of the government to mediate such disputes is a whole other discussion, and not one I care to get into here.

Well, that's why the world has so many of us, aye? To each their own, and may the best philosophy win! 😉

I feel I need to clarify that I am in no way condoning government regulation of loot boxes. My point is that game developers should stop using them, because it's inhumane, exploitative design.

Well, yes, obviously Controllers were around before IO sets, and IOs changed the game massively. But there's been years and years of new content developed with IOs in mind, especially incarnate content, so I don't really think that point is all that relevant. The OP was asking about the current meta, not 2005. You are absolutely correct that controllers are meant to use active defenses in the form of controls to lockdown foes to that they don't get attacked in the first place. That's obviously the entire point of the AT. However, it's equally obvious that, in practice, this doesn't always go as planned, and having softcapped defenses is a HUGE advantage when a fight goes south and you're taking fire while desperately trying to stabilize. It's also often the case that teams simply move too fast to lockdown every MOB in every spawn before engaging. Heck, I often have trouble activating a control power before all the minions and lts. are already vaporized. In such situations, it's nice to have some form of passive defense to protect you from stray hits or the final death throes of MOBs the scrapper is about to KO. There is no situation in which resistances are superior to defense for controllers. The resist cap for controllers is 75%, which means you can only reduce damage down to 25% of normal. On the other hand, softcapped defense will reduce incoming damage by between 95% (minions) and 90% (+4 AVs). That means softcapped defense is nearly five times as effective as capped resistances. That's before you consider the fact that it's much easier (read: actually possible) to softcap defense on any Controller build, while IO sets tend to give far less resistance in comparison.