The_Cheeseman

I am not a fan of loot boxes, as I feel it encourages unhealthy consumer behavior by intentionally exploiting operant conditioning to coerce people into spending more money than they should. It's a great way to make money, but I feel like using flaws in human psychology to wring cash out of people is unethical. Now, I have seen randomized rewards used in interesting ways, assuming the game is built around them. Examples would be things like Gacha games, where the characters you get to play with are distributed randomly, thereby forcing each player to try unique strategies based on the team build available to them. You can spend a bunch of cash trying to get a certain unit you love, but assuming the game is properly balanced, you won't necessarily feel compelled to do so. Using randomized rewards as a core mechanic can be interesting, using it as a glorified slot machine leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I've never been a fan of hardcore/permadeath/ironman modes in MMOs. These games are intentionally designed to kill you as a method feedback, it's how you learn what strategies/tactics work well, and which don't. All I see in hardcore modes is people being severely risk averse, never attempting anything really challenging or dangerous, and just grinding trivial challenges to progress. That's not "harder" it's just takes longer and is more stressful. I fail to see the benefit.

It depends on several factors. Does your build need a certain click power on "perma" (meaning, it recharges before its effects expire)? Examples would be Phantom Army for Illusion Controllers, or Hasten for just about anybody. If so, reaching the required level of recharge can be the most important aspect of your build (just look at the difference after achieving perma-dom for a Dominator: night and day). Can you hit a certain recharge benchmark that will allow you to cut out a less optimal power from your attack rotation? If so, you can see a great DPS spike once you achieve that recharge value, but going higher may not provide much additional benefit. How much defense do you already have? Defense gets more valuable the closer you get to the softcap (45%). If you only have 15% defense, adding an extra 5% really isn't going to make a noticeable difference in your survivability, and probably wouldn't be worth sacrificing recharge. However, if you are at 40%, adding the last 5% will literally double your effective HP, and is a HUGE advantage. The opposite is true for recharge, the more of it you have, the less impactful adding more becomes. Therefore, depending on the needs of your build, it may not be worth stacking recharge to the highest possible value, and investing in better defense would be wiser. My advice: your best bet is to try to hit the defense softcap (45%) in either ranged, melee, or smashing/lethal, depending on your individual needs, then pack-in as much recharge as possible to get your best powers up as often as you need them. It should also be noted that, once you actually start browsing what sets are available to you, you may realize that there really aren't that many situations where you have to choose between recharge or defense.

Some characters are just plain broken. My Mind/Fire permadom can basically solo anything in this game, TFs, GMs, whatever. There are plenty of characters who can make similar claims. Sometimes my friends like to get all of our OP characters into the same team and just steamroll a Lady Gray TF or something for funsies, and we'll invite some randos to join us. It's hilarious. The only challenge is finding a MOB that lives long enough to cycle through your entire attack chain. But that's basically taking a bazooka to a slingshot fight. We all also have half-baked concept characters, or toons with zero IOs slotted, or whatever, that hits a brick wall against the exact same content. I was on a Lady Gray TF on my MM the other day that had to give up by mission 2, because we kept getting wiped out. I actually found it pretty fun, to be honest, because it had been ages since I'd actually had to pay attention during that TF, as opposed to just reducing the entire map to its component atoms. Anyway, what I am saying is that once you have maxed-out a character with all the best powers, IOs, incarnate slots, and so forth, it SHOULD be pretty easy. That's what spending millions of inf on your build gets you. I enjoy playing my super OP builds because being powerful can be great fun. But I also enjoy playing my weaker, weird, or just quirky characters, too. I think it's great that CoX gives you the option to be as OP as you like, and doesn't punish sub-optimal builds or force players into specific team compositions if they want to have a chance at clearing top-end content.

Well, if all you care about is maxing out your levels as efficiently as possible, sure, go farm in AE. But you won't be earning any badges, or merits, or getting experience with how your character performs in disparate situations and against various enemy groups, etc. Personally, I can't enjoy a character that has been power-levelled or farmed up to max. I enjoy feeling how the performance of my character evolves and changes as I gradually add more powers, new sets, and try tougher content. I want to be challenged. I often design characters with intentional disadvantages or flaws just because I want to see how I can play around them and still succeed. I enjoy novel experiences, which is why I enjoy the huge variety of builds possible in CoX. If I gain like 30 levels in one sitting, I tend to lose my feeling of connection or investment with that character, and usually end up dropping it. Bottom line, no, all content other than AE farming doesn't "suck". The goal of playing CoX isn't necessarily to get a character maxed-out as quickly and efficiently as possible. Some builds will be most fun in certain level ranges, but not particularly remarkable at 50. You don't need to be 50 to do fun, challenging content or reap valuable rewards. There really isn't much vertical progression in the game, so it's kinda pointless rushing to max, when there's really nothing left to do at that point than go back and experience all the content you skipped by AE farming in the first place. *EDIT* That being said, I have no problem with people who want to farm AE to advance their characters faster. I worry that such a mindset will hinder their overall enjoyment of the game, but we're all adults here and can make our own decisions about how to spend our free time. I have had no issues leveling and IOing my characters having never set foot inside AE, so it's no concern of mine how they choose to progress. This isn't a competitive game, and there will always be some form of first order optimal strategy for efficient progression, so nerfing AE is pointless. Fire farmers aren't bothering anybody, so let them do what they want.

Casting my vote for IO set mules. I have several powers on my Dom that aren't even on my power tray, like Grant Invisibility (which I have literally never activated even once to see its animation) just to put a Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO in them. Once you have perma-dom levels of recharge, you don't actually need that many powers, since your best ones are usable so often.

Well, I guess it's pointless to argue hypotheticals, but my point was that there very well may be more complex issues with directly porting Illusion Control to Dominators than appear at first glance.

I wouldn't slot a damage proc in Mezmerize, mostly because you won't use it for damage. There are much better powers for that, and it wouldn't be worth the slot. Yes, Confuse is amazing. It is one of the three powers in Mind Control that do not cause aggro (the other two being Mass Hypnosis and Mass Confusion) and thus can be used to lockdown MOBs before engaging them. Better yet, using these powers doesn't suppress stealth, so you can remain totally invisible while sleeping/confusing MOBs to ensure that not a single one is uncontrolled before you unleash your attacks. Do not, under any circumstances, slot an offensive proc into these powers. As you've noticed, damage dealt by confused foes is only counted as 20% of the total damage when calculating exp, so as long as you deal 1 point of damage to a MOB, you still get 80% of the exp reward for killing it. Confusion is among the most efficient effects in the game when it comes to exp per minute. I often lead with Mass Confusion, toss a single fireball at the spawn, and then move on, knowing that they'll murder each other without any further effort required from me.

Just keep playing the character. Veteran levels give you boatloads of Empyrean Merits, which can be converted into reward merits, which can be converted into enhancement boosters, which can be sold for inf. Basically, the game starts throwing money at your face post-50. Sure, you'll want to use the first bunch of them for getting incarnate powers, but that shouldn't take you all that long, and you'll be earning reward merits, along the way. In short, it's really easy to make money in this game if you actually enjoy playing your level 50 characters. There's no need for specific farming strategies or builds, as you'll get all the resources you need just by clearing content. Sure, you can earn inf pretty fast by AE farming, but then you don't have the badges, accolades, or incarnate components you would have gotten by spending that time on task forces, trials, or story arcs. If you enjoy farming for the sake of it, then more power to you. But if you just want to improve your build, work on other things and the cash will keep rolling in until you run out of things to spend it on (and then start twinking out your lowbie alts).

Ugh... There are still so many people who are... Confused about confuse. Just ignore the plebs and go back to soloing Giant Monsters. 😉

I’d strongly recommend against trying to build resists or regen on a Dom. The opportunity cost is too high. Survivability parameters, such as defense and resistance, become more effective as you get closer to the cap. Low totals don’t really improve your effective HP all that much. In short, every little bit doesn’t necessarily help. Doms need all the recharge we can get, as it allows you to pop Domination more often, adding end sustain, improving the rate at which you can stack control magnitude, and helps optimize your attack chain. Doms have too little HP to make regen relevant, and not enough resistance in our power sets to get anywhere near the resistance cap, which is only 75% for Doms, I believe. TL;DR: Don’t chase resistance/regen powers or set bonuses on a Dom, it’s not worth the sacrifices to your build.

Yeah, I am thinking that Phantom Army would be a bit too good when paired with an assault secondary. Doms already max recharge by default anyways, so getting perma-PA would be a no-brainer. Invulnerable pets with high aggro generation and a high-DPS secondary with full-time mez protection is... Pretty OP. Plus, Illusion has a non-aggro confuse power, so they could perma-confuse AVs/GMs, alongside their perma-PA and nukes. So yeah, I am not really worried about Illusion being too weak on a Dom, but rather it being the single most effective solo character in the game.

I don't recommend relying on incarnate powers to reach perma-dom, the opportunity cost is too great. First, as the above poster mentioned, Domination can't be slotted, so a recharge Alpha will do nothing for you. Ageless can work, but Destiny is one of your most valuable incarnate slots, and with Domination refilling your End every 90 seconds or so, you won't usually benefit much from the recovery effects. Rebirth is a serious QoL improvement on my Dom, as I have no other form of self-heal, and the secondary effects bonus of Clarion can improve your controls. Also, and this is most important, the fewer active powers you need to worry about to maintain Domination, the better. I have complex keybinds setup to swap my autoexec between Hasten and Domination basically every time I press a key, but I still occasionally let Domination drop because I was chain-queuing powers without paying attention. It's easy to do, and it really, REALLY sucks (especially when soloing AVs/GMs).

Doms can be played as melee/ranged or full ranged, depending on the sets you choose. Mind Control works great at range, but Psi Assault has great melee powers, so you'll probably prefer to be in range to use them. This fact does complicate your defense build, as it's fairly easy to hover with capped ranged defense while still getting a ton of recharge (that's what I do on my mind/fire). If you will be meleeing a lot, you either need to build up your melee defense (which is not as easy with dominator powers as ranged defense) or go for Smashing/Lethal (which also comes with a side of melee defense). Smashing/Lethal covers the majority of attacks in the game, regardless of position, but it will be a very polarized defense--you'll definitely need to pay attention to which enemy groups will be able to ignore your defense and lock them down hard. Of course, as a Mind Controller, you have a ridiculously effective control kit, so you don't really NEED defenses, as you can lock down anything without ever engaging in combat, if you want. This is a much more careful and methodical playstyle, and much less forgiving of mistakes, but can be fun. Not really recommended for team play, however, as it'll be too slow. As for power selections, I don't think you should bother with Rune of Protection, as Domination provides all the mez protection you could ever need, and you will be perma-dom (because otherwise, why are you even playing this AT?) Mass Hypnosis isn't a power you will use often, but it can be really useful in certain circumstances, such as managing groups of AVs or getting past trash spawns without aggro in Lambda Sector/TPN. It can also be handy for resetting an encounter once you slot the Fortunata Hypnosis proc. Your go-to, every spawn control will be Terrify. Terrify is amazing. Slot it as an attack (I use Posi Blast, with proc) and put the Overwhelming Force KD proc in it, and it's ridiculous. Seriously, it's one of the best powers in Mind Control. I do recommend taking Total Domination, but only because you can 4-slot Basilisk's Gaze in it. I don't often need it, but it's handy at times since it's Mind's only form of immobilize (I use it in combination with Rain of Fire). Plus, once you are at high enough levels of recharge, you can alternate Total Domination and Mass Confusion to lock down just about every spawn (on faster steamroll teams you may just need to settle every third spawn with a Terrify->Judgement nuke combo). I recommend slotting Ascendancy of the Dominator in Confuse, as you'll likely be spamming it on bosses to perma-mez them, so the damage buff will stack-up, great for soloing AVs/GMs. Hypnotize is a very useful power at lower levels before you get perma-dom, as it allows you to one-shot sleep Bosses/AVs. Just remember that it has a damage component, so it can't stack magnitude. That makes it a lot less relevant at endgame, when all your controls are double-magnitude all the time, anyway. It can still be handy when exemplaring to really low levels, so I just stuck a Hami-O in it and took it off my tray. Levitate and Telekinesis are auto-skips for Doms. Levitate is obsoleted by our assault secondary, and Telekinesis is just bad. All the other powers in Mind Control are at least worth slotting, though the least important are likely Mass Hypnosis and Total Domination.

Mind control gets Mass Confusion and Terrify, which are amazing powers. Honestly, Terrify is amazing, it's AoE is ridiculously huge, it deals decent damage, AND it helps with control. Half the time, it's all the control I actually need to burn down the spawn, and it recharges so fast you can toss it whenever. Mass Confusion is a one-button spawn killer, and with enough recharge, it can be perma (if somehow everything isn't dead before the first one wears off). Can Fortunatas perma-confuse GMs and AVs through PToD? Because that's my favorite thing to do on my mind dom.

Honestly, I don't think enhancing set IOs makes much of a difference. Most of the relevant values for set IOs are usually well into diminishing returns already, so boosters amount to an extra, like 2% damage or whatever. I much prefer keeping my set bonuses when exemplar'ed. Boosters are for stuff like recharge reduction IOs in Hasten or Recovery IOs in Stamina, stuff you don't use sets for and just want to save on slots by boosting basics.

Mind control is flat-out broken with perma-dom. Maybe it feels weak before that, but that's the price one must pay for ultimate power. Mind is already ridiculously good, but I wouldn't be averse to replacing levitate and telekinesis with pretty much anything else. Honestly, though, I'd rather keep the devs' eyes off of Mind Control, to avoid any possible nerfs. Hmm... So... Yeah, Mind is definitely F-tier. Just forget all about it. That's right, let the thoughts just fade away...

I've soloed Lord Recluse Strike Force on my Mind/Fire/Fire dom. I haven't bothered soloing most others, as I know I could do it, but it would take a while (ITF, for example--Rommy takes forever killing those darn Nictus). LGTF wouldn't be too tough, except for Hammi, I'd just need to bring a stock of Earth insps to keep myself alive while I burn it down. For the final fight, just confuse Hro'Dtohz to murder Honoree, than waste Hrody at your leisure. Only one I haven't been able to find a strat for is Recluse at the end of Miss Liberty. I tried using the Flier to kill the towers without aggroing Recluse, but it can't take out the healers fast enough. Not really sure what to do, there.

As others have stated, at the early levels, the best thing to do is chew purples to hit the defense softcap, then stuff yourself with reds and burst the EB down before they wear off. However, once you manage to get to perma-dom, mind control becomes ridiculous, and you can just perma-confuse basically anything, even with the PToD. I think I managed to achieve perma-dom by level 33 on my dom using attuned set IOs, and IOs are cheaper now then they were at that time. I highly suggest using attuned sets to fill out your build as you level, rather than waiting until 50 to invest.

You will need the version of Mids that has been updated for i25: Pines Builder. I believe there are links in these forums (I just googled it, wasn’t hard to find).

You can track your To-Hit value in realtime by going into Combat Attributes, right-clicking on "Last Hit Chance", and choosing "Monitor". This will show you exactly what the chance to hit was for your last attack. Yes, both -To-Hit and Defense directly decrease the enemy's To-Hit value for applicable attacks. However, -To-Hit isn't as reliable as Defense, as many MOBs have resistance to To-Hit debuffs. AVs, for example, will resist around 95% of it, so you really need several teammates stacking large To-Hit debuffs to make much of a dent in their hit rates. Also, bear in mind that CoH uses a streak-breaker, which causes some attacks to hit automatically, based on the attacker's actual chance to git (the higher your Defense, the less often this occurs).

It’s important to note that many Dominator builds do tend to mature late. The difference between a low level, SO-only dom and a max-level, IO’ed our perma-dom is possibly the biggest power difference within one AT in the game. My mind/fire dom took forever to kill stuff in the 25-34 range, but once I got Fireball at 35 and Blaze at 38, it started to really burninate those peasants. Throw in Reactive Interface and Pyronic Judgement and I level spawns with the best of them. Dominator is definitely an AT that rewards patience and investment.

I edited the OP with the newest version of the build. If anybody has questions about my choices or playstyle, please feel free to ask. Also, any constructive feedback is very welcome!

Glad you’re enjoying it! I’ve since decided to slot Terrify as an attack, so I put 5 Positron’s Blast (excluding the damage/endurance reduction IO) and the Overwhelming Force proc. The extra damage is nice, and the knockdown prevents many of the affected MOBs from getting a free attack before cowering, making it an effective alpha-breaker. I also dropped the Preventive Healing proc into Rise of the Phoenix. I am away from home at the moment, but I’ll post my current iteration of the build when I can.

I’m going to have to disagree with number 8, there. I do trials all the time on my mind/fire dom and I assure you, I am a star. I lead the pack, moving on to new spawns to destroy while my allies clean up whatever managed to survive my alpha strikes. I confuse adds during boss fights and even pull AVs in BAF. It got to the point where the melees were waiting to engage spawns until I got there. It’s all about the attitude you bring to the table!