QuiJon

So I got bored and decided I needed another Dominator but I wanted to try something I really have never done before. I messed around with ice blasters in the past so kind of knew what I was getting there, but never have tried ice control before and I am a sucker for theme so the prospect of an icex3 dominator feels good. So he is up to 32 now. And I did a respect to move slots around so Jack could instantly get some slotting. As I leveled up I did notice what seems to be an abundance of really what appears the same power. In control set I can take artic air which essentially is a -spd -rech plus a weak confuse and fear, and shiver (I think it was called) that was a cone -spd -rech. Then in the assault set there is cold domination, another toggle like artic air of -spd and -rech but no fear or confuse and a helluva lot cheaper to run. These three powers seem like in and of themselves superfluous to take them all. On the respec I went only with arctic air but as I play more and watch for the confuse bubbles I just don't see them very often and when I do it doesn't even seem long enough to really have mitigated even one attack. I don't recall the fear saying if it had the typical -tohit that most other fears I have seen does, but I don't recall seeing that able to be slotted so again, would a base level debuff with the fear run away really be worth the almost 1 end a second cost to the power? So I am throwing this out to people with more experience in this set at high level to answer. Is arctic air the way to go, and if so do you skip the other similar powers or do you stack them all up and run both toggles and still hit them with the cone? Or what is the general thinking on how to do power choices and slotting.

Well I don't know about your math, what I do know is that I have a dominator that runs at about 120 percent recharge from just bonuses. Not figuring in hasten. He has an overlap of about 10-13 seconds to notice and push the button for domination. This seems like plenty of time. And with this level of recharge hasten is only down for like 3 seconds. If you had only 50 percent bonus to your recharge hasten will be down longer. If it is down longer then you are losing its 70 percent recharge the entire time it is down meaning that the buffs have to then pick up the slack. You can not figure into the math assuming hasten will be granting you that buff if it is not running cause it still has a cool down period between clicks. You need more then 5 10 percent IO sets to perma domination. and even so you need longer because you are not always watching the button, sometimes the button comes on when you have started a power with long animations or as you click to exit a map or you get slowed by an enemy. Like I said almost every power I have chosen on my dominator is in some way contributing to my global recharge bonus to allow me to maintain perma domination. That needs to be planned out a bit ahead of time cause some sets only have 1-2 choices that buff recharge to begin with and you don't have an option on the amount of buff that power will give you.

I will admit I didn't not consider that fearsome stare needs an accuracy roll. However even so I can maintain that you really do want to get basic powers laid out and chosen, then figure how to get the most bang for your buck off of set bonuses if you are going for perma dom. You can not simply say everything is going to go purple. You have a limit to 5 of any one type of buff amount. So perhaps 8.5 un-attuned is better then attuning them and going to 10 percent if you are going to have 5 10 percents all ready. But even so I can still say that I had no choice but to purposely pick some lower buff amounts, like the 5 percent from DW set on my earth dom (earthquake doent require acc) and as such perhaps even 5 slotting fearsome stare and then using 4 dw and 1 basic acc IO might still be what is needed to do. The most common buffs for recovery tend to be 10, 7.5, 6.25 and then 5 percent. Off the top of my head the unattuned buff of 8 percent is the only 8 percent I can think of. Even taking 5 of each of the top end only puts you at 112 percent recharge bonus. And even if that barely squeaks you into perma dom (I don't know the base anymore I over slotted) it isn't gonna give you much breathing room to hit that click again when it comes up, and if anything slows you you are gonna lose it. Ultimately it doesn't matter where you put that set, it can enhance anywhere. It has to do with where it makes the most sense for your build and the cost of slotting powers vs using the ato set. I personally notice a lot of difference when I slot available powers with -to hit debuffs. Which is why that is how I slot fearsome stare (though not with set IOs yet so have not figure that out) being that my sets are fire it doesn't do a lot of good to fear them and then it them with an AOE that has DOT attached to it that just allows them to keep attacking through the fear. I might as well make sure as few of those attacks land as I can.

Ok where to start. Just an FYI my 50 earth/dom from live days is now back living on homecoming with, as of last week, perma dom. You might say it is not as beneficial but I am sorry it is. Perma dom grants also mez protection and knockback/down protection that alone makes it worth while on a squishie to go for it. but your single target hold one shots a boss. You AOE stun one shots bosses. And with the recharge bonuses that stun aoe is up really often. So now you know where I amcoming from …. Stone cages....might not need it now, and if I recall I didn't take it until late power choices in the 20s left me not a lot of options. However that being said, it is 5 slotted on my build now. Because frankly you can get purple IO sets for immbl pretty cheap in the grand scheme of IO sets. And it is more welcome then you think to have that to go along with that aoe stun of stalagmites that you can pop off all the time. especially for when you have combustion and consume...but we will get to that later. Salt crystals....might have cheap IO sets don't know cause I didn't take them I hate sleeps I hate them on every character I have they are a waste of time cause some spines aoe wanna be melee toon is always gonna run in and ruin it. Incinerate....I kind of feel you on the anti melee thing but as you get mobs totally locked down you get braver. However incinerate is also a power that benefits working to that perma dom and can slot with something cheap like crushing blow (I think I used) which had a 5 percent recharge buff at 5 slots but is like a level 30 IO set so they are pretty cheap to get. Combustion....same thing, I use it now more then I used to because I can so easily lock down an entire spawn and if you have them locked up and drop a rain of fire and a combustion with firey embrace popped it is actually really nice damage. All of fire is damage over time just have to learn to deal with it. Consume... I think I have 2 slots on it for acc and recharge. I don't use it often but from time to tiem a sapper or something gets in a good shot it is nice to have. But it doesn't figure into my standard build as I alpha slotted end reduction because I was having issues prior to IOing everything out. Melt armor good instinct I took it originally I got rid of it. Really didn't notice the difference when I used it. Hasten, get it, 3 slot it recharge. If you do perma dom at top buff level it is only down 4 seconds at a time. Why give up 70 percent recharge for 1 power choice and 2 slots that you seem lost on what to do with anyway. Move the sniper shot down to one of the spaces you have room at earlier since you have nothing to take anyway. Fireball...I had it, it was nice to have, but I got rid of it to achieve easier perma dom. Domintors do not have a lot of access to defense powers. Making it hard to find spots to use one of the best tools out there the Luck of the Gambler unique that gives 7.5 recharge buff for one slot investment. As such I didn't something that on the surface seems dumb, but I took stealth, combat jumping, and hover. All three have a LOTG slotted in them which alone gives me 22 percent recharge bonus. In short I would say add hasten to what you have now. Move up sniper selection. Keep in mind it will be more useful after the next patch when the animation gets shorter plus again spot for IO set bonuses. For epic pools I like fire that is what I took. I have raid of fire, shield and ROTP which like you I took as my last power and it only has the one slot in it. Pretty much everything I have from the primary is 5 slotted but quicksand (only 1) and Earth Quake(4) I might have six slotted VG just to put another duration or recharge into it don't recall. Secondary is 5 slotted but fireyembrace (3) Consume (1 or 2 I forget) because every other power is working on giving me my perma dom and most recharge bonus comes at 5 slots but Dark Watcher despair is 4 which is why I slotted earth quake short. I am running pretty easily in late game with perma dom at +2 4-5 team size solo. Depending on the enemy group I can sometimes handle higher but I have to want ot challenge myself. If you have any questions feel free to message me directly here or in game @QuiJon. More then happy to put in my 2 cents worth take it or not.

It might not be as good of a bonus, but considering that most recharge bonuses require 5 slots to make use of, and like I said I don't personally feel that Fearsome stare is worth 5 or six slotting, With 4 slots you can put in dark watchers despair sets. Get 5 percent recharge bonus from the set, which I know is not 8 or 10 but you are going to have to maximize every single power choice to get perma dom some of the choices with the 5 buff limit are going to have to be odd amounts. But this saves an extra slot or two to use on other power choices. And depending on the 4 items of the set you use you can buff the -to hit, recharge and end red of the power pretty significantly. Depending on the 4 you use I came up with 70.1-th, 54.2recharge, and 21.2 end red or 54.2 -th, 74.2 recharge, and 42.8 end reductions. And frankly I like the idea of buffing that - to hit more so then the duration personally. But that is a personal choice but you have to remember that every time you tick damage on a feared enemy it is going to attack you before the fear kicks in again. I like having less of those attacks land. And you still get plenty of time to lock down the tougher foes since you have a single target hold and a confuse power both to take them out of the game with. Just a thought but honestly to get a comfy buffer to click dom again and again every single power I have on my dominators is buffing recharge rate. I even took stealth and combat jumping and hover just to put 7.5 recharges into them. You do have to get creative sometimes you can not just grab the highest buff you can find every time because you can not have more then 5 of the same buff so 5 7.5 recharge reductions, 5 6.25 etc.

First off unless you already have 5 purple sets you attune those bad boys because if 8.5 percent recharge is no joke, the only thing less funny is 10 percent recharge bonus. First off IMO fearsome stare already does not have a bad recharge rate. Look at it's duration and it is up pretty much before it can wear off even with minimal slotting. My suggestion is to look at what you are going to need long term to do what you want to do with the character. Assuming perma dom because of your need to recharge it up. Then I would look at the cost of other IO sets that offer bonuses to recharge. If it is going to cost you 100 credits a piece to get an ATO set or 20m a piece that is 5oo merits minimum or 100m influence. But if you slot that set into fearsome stare when an IO set that fits that power for a purple set might cost 5-10 million a piece because fear is a less common set to have need for, and you leave your self having to buy an expensive purple set for a hold power that makes no sense to get the same level of bonus. The nice thing on that set is it can go on any control power. Don't waste the chance to have that make your life a bit easier to getting to the finish line.

2 you need 2 set bonuses to get 20 percent recharge. That is if they are the good sets purples or atuned ATOs. If not but they are the orange sets then 3 most of those sets have 6.25 per 5 pieces so 3 gives you almost 20 percent. 20 percent is really nothing to get in recharge. Hell Gaze of the Basilisk or whatever it is called can be slotted in a hold power and maxed at level 30. Same with Luck of the Gambler recharge bonus IOs. The real question is to me is why would anyone try to make a perma dom without Hasten to begin with. Its a 70 percent recharge bonus and by the time you pick up enough recharge to make up the difference to reach perma dom Hasten is only down like 4 seconds. So it is essentially a always on buff at that point.

No theme really. Just that I enjoyed the animations and like the concept of martial assault. I honestly don’t have experience with dominators. My overall impression is that they lock mobs down with control and then kill them. I figured any primary is good at the lockdown part to some degree. So was just looking into what others were pairing with MA and their thoughts. Okay, sometimes the character theme comes before the powers, and sometimes the powers make the theme. Most of mine are the latter. Damage would probably be Gravity, since it is only one with a direct attack (Propel), but I can't address its aoe effectiveness. Illusion Control is also pretty good, but Doms don't have that (yet). Darkness gives the standard -ToHit that the Blast and Melee Sets do. Earth does -Def. Electrical drains End. Ice does -Spd. Mind has few defenses unless the target is classified as a robot or machine. Plant probably has some of the best overall collection of Control, and Fire is it's usually burninating thing. Earth and Plant tend to prefer the target be on the ground for many powers (dropping down a stair counts as "not on the ground, btw"), so that is something to consider. Darkness has a cone that most Control powers lack. If you want to go with a more "ninja"/"Secret Ops" Natural Type, I'd probably go Mind, though Darkness and Plant would also fit a Ninja style. From there, it is your choice, really. The only thing I might add to this though is that Darkness the IMMBL AOE is IMO kind of useless. Where most sets do a targeted AOE for this power dark control uses a cone. Which means if you are not out in front of your mob you wont hit a lot of them and even if you are depending on how wide they are spread out and how far away you are you still might miss a lot of them. Now normally I am not a big whoopie doo on immbl anyway, but they do come in handy to turn a aoe stun into an aoe hold by way of also locking down the staggering movement a stunned enemy will still do and keeps them in range of AOE damage powers like a combustion or rain of fire, etc. Which I am not sure what martial has of this type not having looked into it. But I do know that being Dark Controls stun is a PBAoE attack means you have to essentially be in the middle of your targets and the immb is a cone meaning you need to move back out of them, it was more of a pain then it was worth and I simply just got rid of the immb on respect and normally lead into the mob with the cone fear which essentially holds them like a sleep if they are not attacks and debuffs their accuracy, and then move in to stun them and skip the immb. The thing really is if concept is a big don't care, then really each control set has its own little picadilees. Like earth the AOE hold is a cloud that you drop that continues to spam holds. Meaning it can sometimes even hold a boss if the mag of the waves stack, and you can drop it around corners and such versus something like cinders that needs line of sight. Look at the sets and see what sounds like it fits as a complimenting set the best for what or how you want to play martial assault is the best answer anyone can get for you.

Ok so like about 99 percent of the rest of the server I am made a spines/fire combo. In my case as a brute. So over the last few hours I have soloed him from 25 to 41 in the AE just doing fire maps and gradually boosting the difficulty as he can handle it. This is really why I made the character just to farm drops and influence for the mots part I am not normally all that interested in playing melee in game on teams. I am level 41 I have taken the slower first single target attack, impale and then the 2 cone attacks and spine burst and quills. Obviously I have the lion share of the fire set other then I have for now at least skipped firey embrace ( ihave build up but considering I only have burn and the aura that do fire damage I decided to skip it for now) and I skipped the self rez simply because it feels self defeating to take it. Being that I skipped the last two powers I was kind of just at a loss as to the route to go. So I took that epic power for energy and took the boost to end. Then at 38 I took Boxing (figuring I was going to take tough and weave) and at 41 have taken the recovery boost preparing for yet another toggle or two to run. Figuring 44 will be tough and 47 perhaps weave. But that is where I come into question. Looking at the fire set there really is no inherent defense at all in it. And weave iMO is not that great of a boost in and of itself. So I am wondering do I really need it? I am not that familiar with the melee sets and don't know when I get into IOs, if I choose to at some point take this character off the farm, would the sets I get for this build be giving me set bonuses to Defense that would stack nicely if you had weave or are most the sets going to boost resistances? I know most the other resistances in fire don't seem all that great for doing other types of damage enemies. But being that you already have some resistances do most people try and boost those or is it more bang for the buck to boost defense and have things like weave or combat jumping slotting for defense as well?

I am kind of failing to see why the base damage scale of a dominator's fast snipe should be lower then that of a blaster/defender/corruptors? I mean I get why it should not be higher as it was I guess before, but it seems like it should be set equal to the others. Dominators have no less options in control sets as do controllers do. Or with pets, or attack options compared to blasters they have fewer really. Compared to defenders and corruptors both of who can boost their effectiveness with their buff/debuff sets it seems dominators should at minimum be equal to them not lower. edited I kept typing controller not corruptor for some reason.

This is not an epidemic. I see people advertising task force groups all the time. I also see radio and other mission groups forming constantly. I have easily filled radio mission groups that I post. I also have an easy time joining one that is advertised. I also have an easy time finding or filling a DFB group when I want to. DFB is a great way to get leveled up quickly for those that don’t want to do the low level content and prefer mid level content. There is nothing wrong with this. Even when I first started the game back in the day before DFB I wished for something like it. For those that don’t want to do DFB they don’t have to. For those that do want it they should have the choice. People should not have to play how you want them to. Many of the people doing DFB will probably enjoy task forces and other content in the mid to high levels. And here is the thing, as much as we want to say "different strokes for different folks" the truth is that some people in this game will always seek to define the right and wrong way to play it and will seek to make sure that others can not take part in what they consider the wrong way. Hence why we have a AE nerf. If they could find a way to give proper xp for developer approved arcs already they could have spent that time putting limitations on the mechanics they claim were over taxing the servers so that AE XP could be normalized without it diversely effecting server performance. They fact that they took that time to find a way to make what they consider to be properly playing the game exist without a punishment and keep punishing farms (even though some of that approved arcs use the same type of ambush mechanics and such) shows that the AE nerf is more about discouraging a style of play then server performance. The thing is a gimmick will always exist. Hell I am old enough to remember when I could get an easy invite to a level 50 +3 farm team in PI because I was a level 46 and that meant I could side kick one of their buddies or second account's characters to the exact perfect XP earning level. Or when I was brought on a farm to drop into a dumpster of werewolfs because my fully slotted Nova didn't have a maximum target limit and would kill anything but bosses in one burst. Something will always be abused maybe it is time we stop looking to limit peoples options and just make sure that all the options are about equally as fair and let people decide from there how they choose to play for themselves.

The only part I really have an issue with is the explanation for the nerfing of XP for the AE going forward. I get exactly what you have said about the original reason being the drag on the server resources. But I think the nerfed xp should have been a short term fix and then take the mechanics out of the AE that allow for it to be exploited for farming OR if you use them the xp is then nerfed. Allowing those that want to RP and use the AE for stories to do whatever they want knowing that the xp will be lower but those that want to level in the AE that are playing missions even farming them that don't exploit the mechanics to get full or even double xp doing so. As far as the exploitive nature of the farming goes all that nerfing the xp did was to change the flood of LFT spam to DFB instead of AE. The farming is still happening so really continuing to nerf the xp from the AE is a direct response to how SOME people feel the game should or should not be played. Put the xp back to normal nerf the mechanics themselves and let people decide how they choose to play for themselves. I personally mostly farm up to mid 20s. Then I start to play. I can do that in the AE or doing DFBs I would rather do AEs cause I can solo those just as quickly as I have to team to do a dfb. And I find it hard to believe that my preffered farm map of 24 bosses on a small tunnel map with 1 bot helping me is to much of a drag on server resources.

I am sorry I have to agree with the other poster. I get the idea that these things CAN have an effect on the server. But if you figure that every team that would be farming in a AE mission is now just farming a normal mission really the question is why can the other servers handle the load and the AE one can not. And I would have to imagine the answer to that is how much power they devote to running the AE server vs the normal mission servers. If it was truly an issue of the abilities in the AE to create game breaking missions then frankly disable or limit that ability. Limit to only 1-2 ambushes is that is the case. limit to how many patrols you can put into a mission. Limit how many helper bots you can put in a mission. Etc. But frankly in most of the AE farms I have been in there is absolutely no difference between the amount of mobs that have spawned or how many have spawned in the group between the AE farm which is considered bad, and a farmable AV mission at portal corp. A freak farm or BM farm is just as densely populated with enemies as the Bad farms were. Fact is this has always been about farming in the AE. always. Even back when the game was live it was about that. The problem is that they have given us nothing to make up for the xp. I mean fine cut the xp everyone just went and farms dfb now I don't see how that is any different. But how about then upping the ticket rewards. Cause there are people that actually do like running the missions players create in the Ae. At least if my xp is going to be limited for wanting to take a break and play something new to me rather then a story I have played 100 times or a radio mission I have done a thousand times, maybe I should get like x3 tickets for it. Or x2 tickets and influence for it to compensate for the lower xp. But the fact they give us nothing only punishment shows that they consider AE farming to be an issue that they don't want to have any reward for in any way. Yet I can go from 1 to 30 doing a sewer trial and for some reason that is considered playing the game properly using only 4 powers for 30 levels.

Though you might think this is a PSA of some kind the OP needs to also take into account that the KS could not be happening strictly because of poor conduct. When the servers are at high loads I commonly get a lot of lag in open city zones and have more then once engaged an enemy that was standing there alone (or a mob that was alone) only to have my screen blink and suddenly a player character is there next to me fighting the mob also. I think until things get smoother we just need to chill on the idea that anyone is conducting themselves poorly and give the benefit of the doubt sometimes.

I sort of see your point but these XP buffs are currently in game now they cost inf I tested the 10mil boost for an hour and running that and AE with the current rates is about the same XP rate as pre-nerf but you get ZERO inf as a penalty I see this is a fair trade as this prevents the market from getting completely ruined due to inf farms as the server wide rate changes effect the inf gains. My point is it seems to be playing favorites with one type of game play. Oh well if you want to play in the real world you can have all these bonuses, but if you want to use the AE then no you get nothing. In fact we will make it even harder then normal to level. And yes I get the idea of what they were saying about a draw on the servers, but other things put a draw on servers and I have not seen them stop Raids or pvp etc. All I am saying is that if you spent 8 hours earning no influence and leveling up a character to even just into SO level, then you are going to need a set of hancers fast. Fastest way is to go to the AE and farm tickets. Which IMO then really means that this xp change/boost is going to put people back into wanting to farm the AE therefore working against the entire point of nerfing the xp there to begin with. So either put the rewards back to normal so you are given incentives to get the bonuses in the real world but not punished if you don't choose to, just leave a flat bonus in the real world without killing influence earning, or leave the AE nerfed but give it like 3x ticket rewards so that people wont have to farm for as long to get their SOs. Frankly we started out with AE farms and everyone complained about the farmers and how it bred ignorant level 50s. Then they killed the farms, and I now spend an hour a night at least trying to find a team. Because frankly it seems that all those that don't want people to farm also don't want to invite anyone to their teams to play. And now the chat is filled with DFB team spams. People just changed the farm. And in the new system they can do that farm, earn double xp and then hit level 50 and go and team with people with no enhancements in their slots. Which I am sure will be the next round of complaints about PLers and how they don't even know how to or afford to slot their toons and suddenly we can make another change. If all these changes were brought about because of the lag on the servers these farms in the AE created, seems to me the simple answer was change the rules of the AE so that you could not exploit it putting like 40 helper bots into the same map or whatever the case was. But it seems like rather then fixing the AE, they are just creating more work for themselves by taking from here and giving there and that will cause another issue and another etc. Fix what was broken and put an end to it and everyone is happy.

I really feel like the AE xp issue should be resolved. If you are giving people the ability to earn x2 xp at will, I fail to see how running x1 xp in the AE (essentially have it back to its normal rates) is not warranted. I can even understand saying that the xp tokens to earn a bonus will not apply in the AE, but if someone is going to choose to give up the influence they need to get enhancements then in order to stay effective in real game play they are going to need a resource for earning enhancements. So IMO either the xp should be normalized in the AE in order to make it a viable way to level and earn at a game intended rate with no way to boost xp with the tokens, or then the ticket reward should be dramatically increased so that for the lower xp it becomes a viable means to earn what you lose using the tokens. All the nerf to the xp has done is essentially change the farm. Before nerfing the xp no one was doing the death from below stuff. Now that is all that is spammed in looking for a team all day long. It it is truly a resource issue then put limits on what you can create in the AE, only so many helper toons etc. But as of right now you are willing to boost the xp in normal game and have it cost influence, however you have nerfed the rewards in the AE without offering any bonus for the lower xp. If you don't want the AE to be viable for people to use, then just get rid of it.