Mezmera

On behalf of the devs I'll just say this does not show the PvP community to be very reasonable. We're talking about a temp power accolade being pivotal in attacking, not a power pick which there's oh so many of them that underperform, but a temp power. Maybe the devs want your actual power picks to matter? I'd say toss out all of those temp accos but the furor over losing the defensive ones would be deafening, and since they are defensive and less noticeable on some ATs it wouldn't be worth the headache of all that whining. But you'll forgive me for not siding with the "pros" about their offensive non power pick getting a nerfing. Maybe they should look at all of the other regular power picks that are inconsequential and be thankful their main powers aren't as trash. Or blaster TA getting a tuning down, like TA blasters aren't still able to do awful well for themselves (the blaster I'd PvP with would be my Dark/TA for reference). Blasters and Defenders are still unreal damage platforms pumping out way more damage than they should be allowed to do compared to how much risk they can mitigate. I won't even get into Stalker snipes hitting for the base hp of some ATs when their procs fire. If the devs catch heat for tuning a few minor things down that affect the meta I can't imagine they'll ever really be able to get any impactful changes through with such an unreasonable crowd. Lots of cleanup to be done in Isle 6 but don't dare mess with that Crey Pistol! Poor devs...

They are a fun AT to play and yes you can easily build yourself a budget permadom by level 30. The only real barrier is knowing the sets to target that offer the 7.5 and 6.25 recharge bonuses and making sure to take ample defense powers to slot those LotG +recharge. The LotG's really will likely be the priciest thing you'll need, you can totally get a real good dom for 50-100 mil. The higher priced builds really turn the dom into an animal but that's true for any AT.

It's not exactly "Unstoppable". The crash is hardly noticeable in OWtS. Much more user friendly even if you get caught not paying attention mid crash.

Shield Charge, the best AoE attack in your secondary and 2-3 more attacks will suit an attack chain very well. I take One With the Shield even though I hardly use it. It is good for sets like @Onlyasandwich says and it also gives you more oomph in your ability to tank in emergencies, it's much better to have on the back burner than another moderate damage attack you might use. That should free something up for your taunt.

Plus it's like 15% defense bonus for everyone else but you. As the tank its your job to protect others, this power goes a good way in helping you do that.

I love my Shield tank! She has the defenses of SR along with tons of extra resists, lots of extra hp and then yeah Shield Charge is a blast and a boon to your aoe potential. What SR really has on Shield is the ease of building that defense and the DDR but Shield's DDR isn't too shabby once you can double stack the mez click and the opportunity offered for builds in IOs makes Shield shine. I do like Street Justice quite a bit. I see it as a more hip mix of Super Strength and MA. I don't care much for the gimmick of Rage and MA's gimmick of +def is kind of wasted on well built defense based characters. StJ to me seems much more fluid and has better damage with the combo mechanic. Plus CU is quite neat in that you can slot all kinds of Hold and Stun procs into it.

Ditto

And for two years the PvP community has just withered away.

You said it was useless after the i13 change which I've proven unequivocally it wasn't. Which now you're implying its usefulness is now dependent on what some arbitrarily have decided should be not allowed to be used as a basis for its usefulness as opposed to being actually a very effective power to have especially on a well disciplined control player. This takes us right back to what you find to be broken is subjective. I find the current meta to be wildly broken, no harder to play than someone using TK, so where's the ban on all of these blasters/defenders?

But if it was useless after the i13 change why the ban?

I've fought some mighty fine Mind/Fire's that would beg to differ on your critique of TK being useless. If you're cognizant of how to use your controls effectively and not just some Neanderthal you could time it out to get yourself a nice breather/hard snipe (irrelevant now with the snipe change and interacting with the target). In lesser matches like 2v2 up to like 6's you can drop the TK onto the off target and chase around the main target with one of the support incapacitated. It gets harder to maintain the TK with the heat you catch in 8v8 and having far less hp or tricks available like other ATs can bare. Pretty unimaginative if you found TK to be "useless".

And again. How monumentally broken you find this Dark control hold to be is contingent on a coordinated 8v8 match whereas I find Nature/Cold/Poison and the new OP elec sappers to be broken in lesser matches so where's the fix on those? Not to mention how good Blasters and some other power sets are just great all around and have been so since sunset. We also can't come up with a good solution for TK so we're just going to nullify that power altogether? If you don't think defenders should be able to do what they did with TK sure I'm with you there but the total disregard of the control AT to appease the 8v8 meta has kind of screwed the pooch a tad for attracting anything new to the community.

Why would ANY team be running more than 1-2 Domi's? That right there seems like a very dumb thing to be doing on its face what with crossing over each others Mez timers and all. Seems like a real inefficient lineup to start when you can replace 1-2 of those Dom's for better burst damage on target with more blasters that also have such better survivability. If teams were running 3 Doms it'd seem more for luls and sentimentality than making an actual efficient game of it. Messing up mez timers was a big no-no on jump teams back on live which is why psi blasters were directed to not lead with that sleep attack. I also find it real hard to see how it took ever so long for people to realize how good Nature is when it took me a whole 5 minutes in a zone seeing my target just be able to stop mid-zone and absorb/heal through the damage I could put on them. Coming from last what I knew on live to playing HC's version of PvP I knew going in that Dom/Controllers were already a handicap for the team. Then we've buffed the meta even further for some ridiculous reason and took away anything competitive for underperforming ATs to leverage and that seems reasonable to you eh? And you hope to attract more people with this strategy? Fact of the matter is the already PvP meta has been exacerbated since the sunset of live and some of the current community can't come to terms with the fact that they may be playing some small part in its demise.

Nope it works just like the Malaise proc if you'd slot it into Mass Confusion. Without that proc you get no aggro but if you have the proc slotted and they get out of their confused stupor they come at you. @Carnifax is right I slot Flash Arrow to 4 without any proc since it's a handy power in and out of stealth best of all situations.

To be fair there were a lot more viable characters to play in PvP at sunset compared to how it currently is, so it has regressed under all this expert tutelage. A lot of people that have a gripe with the current state of PvP has a lot to do with how it was left last on live to how it is now. The "professionals" keep getting things fixed to suit their 8v8 format because a hold dares last long enough to get someone a kill. Yet quite a few of these people that have a problem with a hold are content with all of the other broken things about their 8v8 format. Maybe the people getting things "fixed" should play these highly squishy characters more often and try to survive in the 8v8 format when the other team should be ruthlessly spiking and harassing the shit out of that easily killable scary character. Thanks to all of these "fixes" we've marginalized a whole subset of ATs to where they are absolute trash outside of that 8v8 format. I like to think myself pretty objective. I know how harsh control was pre-i13 and can only imagine how rough it could be with Dom's now being able to instantly start off in domination if we reverted the mez system so if we're going to go brow beating people that want to have more options to play outside of the blaster/defender/melee character when these people keep seeing their already limited options consistently being "fixed" then that just makes me want to toss out objectivity and say screw it lets just turn mez back to how it was and let things like TK work again. You could create more "viable" options if say you lowered the ranged damage a blaster can do or the buff/debuffing values a defender can bring instead of nerfing a hold that lasts a few seconds too long for your taste. Before you go mentioning the AS stalkers can set up better with a better hold well them's the breaks. I just find it peculiar the "experts" keep getting subpar things nerfed to keep broadening the gap for these characters to compete against the meta all to suit a coordinated 8v8 match. Maybe the rule makers should just put other rules in place rather than further breaking things that don't suit their taste anyways...

Way back when they did the revamps to the Dom assaults I started off with Energy on Gravity since I had oodles of Mind doms here but hadn't made a Grav/Nrg here. By the time I reached 50 I knew I loved the new Energy Assault and how well it would play on a fluid Mind dom so I made my Mind/Nrg main and have barely touched the Grav dom since.

Gravity control is a clunky set to use. Wormhole in particular, neat power but oh if it only behaved a bit more like Fold Space... Gravity works well with a powerboosting ability for that stun in Wormhole along with the other controls. To me though Gravity control is more wasted on doms since those long animating damage attacks are subpar compared to the assault powers offered to you, although it is fun to toss a pool table at someone. As far as Radiation Assault I find it to be a meh power set. The animations are so long and the damage is not nearly as good as you'd find on other power sets like Fire or Energy and the heal is unreliable whereas on Dark it's so good. It is neat that you can slot those achilles heels all over the place but my Rad Assault dom that I tried to turn into a unique ST monster has been sitting there getting jealous of my Energy dom.

Yeah mez changes were called for in PvP. Maybe not exactly how it is in its current form but it was game over if a domi got rolling in domination. I just hate that currently holds are more efficient on non-control characters because they detonate damage much better. I wouldn't advise a return of that old mez system but I also detest the current damage spam style of pvp. Any quirks that underperforming power sets had to give them something to stand on has been "fixed" and conversely already strong PvP characters have been given more hp, better buffing/debuffing and have better damage opportunity altogether. PvP is going to be real hard to "fix" to get it to where most every character feels viable beyond the blaster/defender/fiteklubbers. This is not an enviable endeavor I'd wish on the devs.

This is what came to mind when I first read the title so I'm going with it.

Finally someone said it! If not an actual nerf evidence shows that it clearly needs to be made more knockbacky...

On my Shield tank after beta of the Relentless Aeon and how hard it is I tinkered with taking Unrelenting from the presence pool. I was already taking taunt so that left just one power I needed to sacrifice to get that amazing power. Rebirth alone wasn't cutting it and my tank already was capping defenses and resists so Unrelenting was a great addition. Unrelenting on my tank heals for 3600+ hp over the 30s to go with the damage, recharge and endurance boost, not to mention its also a rez. The heal does great work with Shield since your defense will limit the damage that gets through and the resists lessen the damage all while the heal is ticking away. Now any Shield character I make I consider the Presence pool. Rebirth will mostly suit you just fine but Unrelenting is a fantastic power in so many ways.

I recently made a BS/Shield. Pretty decent but felt I could do more. I made a Warmace/Shield and boy this one feels right. Crowd Control is a fantastic attack and the ST crunch that's in Broadsword is still there in Mace. I'd go with WM over BS.

Yeah just gone. Its cool if you have a belt with the pistol holster so you can pretend you just put the gun back. The bow though it'd be nice if they ever add weapon back options so you can visualize where the bow went to.

I did a relentless Aeon with the special Vanguard fight with a TA/DP on the squad. Usually I know how to build a good team for this so it typically goes smooth but that fight went a little too well and the only thing that stood out was that was the first I've had the pleasure of having a TA in that fight. I went and made one the next day and damned if it isn't in my top 5 characters to play. All that damage debuffing from Chemical ammo and TA it's like you're giving the team some beefy resist shields. You can turn redraw off, TA/DP plays real well together but TA did make me learn how to bind so I could get the best I can out of it. Plus its a real cool style pairing. Aside from a TA Defender I'd likely pair TA on a MM. With those debuffs your pets will be eating peoples lunch.

I don't find it so visually repellant that it would stop me from playing Dom's like Rad armor prevents me from playing those characters. I'm kind of fond of the visual effects of Domination even though I'm not a very big Aura type of person. The explosive flash should stay to indicate you're in Domination and it's only really a second. The rainbow sparkles that persist after I can understand the want to turn it off. I like it though as it gives some signifying that you're a Dominator and I'm never bothered by the look while fighting and if I'm standing around and don't want to be coated in rainbow I can just let Domination stop and start it when I'm ready to fight again. If it's no trouble to do it sure, if it's too hard coded into the inherent though I'd rather they tinker with Rad armor, Ice Shields and other more visually intrusive stuff first.