Mezmera

So you're statement here is saying not to take the aoe hard control and then you're contradicting yourself in the very next paragraph? Most control characters have a few soft aoe controls like immobs and terrify and typically one or two hard controls. I like taking the hard controls for certain and cycling the softer controls as necessary as well. It's about jumping the next mob before they jump you and if things go haywire it's good to have a few hard aoe controls at your disposal. Slotting for the longer recharging controls isn't all that complex. I like to slot 5 of the purple hold set with the proc and another proc. It's certain to proc well due to the base recharge so you're at the very least contributing good aoe damage while at the same time controlling the mob for the team to kill before your hold should wear off.

Yeah Doms excel with IO sets arguably the most so I'd for sure invest a decent chunk into it if at least for permadom. Typically with Hasten you'll want to shoot for somewhere between 85-95% more recharge bonuses for comfortable permadom. You can get a great deal of bonuses from the cheaper rare sets. I have a lot of experience with Mind so I can help out a tad with that. I pretty much take the controls you've taken but I substitute out Levitate for Mesmerize since a sleep will still do well for you plus it's psi damage. I'd also try to take the ST hold since that's typically the go to in my chain but you could do alright using confuse more often than I typically do. You can slot the rare sets for the sleep, fear, confuse and get 6.25% recharge bonuses. Then your melee attacks you could use crushing impacts, obliterations in your pbaoe powers and ranged attacks decimations. Yes the LotG will be the most bang for your buck so at the least I'd get those. All in all you could make a real strong 50-100 mil permadom.

Energy Assault is very strong nowadays. Gravity is usually the go to thematically for Energy but it's a little redundant on doms since Grav control offer more ranged damage picks but everything in Energy is better. When they revamped Energy I made a Grav/Energy. It's a very strong dom but after I hit 50 I instantly went and remade my Mind/Nrg dom from live. Dark/Energy might be pretty fun. If you're in love with Gravity though Energy will definitely pair nicely.

I thought it was understood regen was to always be nerfed. What happened?! We start making Energy Melee great again and all of a sudden people are compelled to actually give some thought to regen? What kind of times are we living in?! Up is down, dark is light, and we are going to BUFF regen?!?!

A controller/dom without strong aoe control to bring to the table. How deceived your teammates must feel. "What you thought you were inviting heals with my empath? Oh no no I exclusively blast, do you not have greenies in your tray?"

Hence tone down the crashless nuke if we're going to be nerfing PPM and other avenues of damage. That by default would buff the "lower" damage AT's.

I did say most. Why be a sentinel when dps is life and they get blaster hand-me-downs. So yes you're likely not going to see Sentinels, Stalkers (they're ST focused), Defenders, MM's, Controllers and maybe Corruptors. There would be a few exceptions in those, same with most doms and blasters. Doms ARE in a decent spot I agree for the most part. Yes tweaks here and there maybe. But based on the whole point of this topic if we're going to go around nerfing things like TW and PPM (Which will affect doms quite a bit, more so than most blasters) then shouldn't we be having a looksie at one of the main culprits for those steamroll teams, the almighty crashless nuke? The potential is there to play doms however you like. For instance why wait for a tank when you could be the tank. I'm usually always the first one into the mob locking them right all in place or herding them into a nice little pack for my follow up control and pbaoe damage. If you're playing it to their potential a dom plays very much similar to a blaster. Controllers are the type to sit back and spam heals/buffs/debuffs along with some control and damage. Doms are very much try to control instantly as much as you can and then get in their face with that damage. I'm not against animation times and scaling damage being adjusted for controls nor having a look at pets. Like you said though CC isn't as needed because dps is king so those tweaks alone likely won't make them all the more attractive to get familiar with.

Dom's aren't synonymous with farming especially since the nerf to psi, right now the most effective would be plant/good aoe dot. Same with blasters but you'll still see Ice/Fire blasters farming well. Farming on a dom is fun just like it would be on a blaster but it still can be a precarious thing to do. Altogether the better power sets in most any AT I'd venture to say could farm effectively especially a well built one with that focus. You'll see other specialized AT's farming likely because they want more of a challenge than a /Fire brute just to say they can.

Well I DO think the crashless nuke needs toned down. Just like I see the same correlation for those asking for the aoe holds to be lowered from 240s to pretty much available for every mob just like that OP nuke. Leave the aoe hold as is, perma holding the map wouldn't be fun, create more parity with that nuke and there you have it. If we're not gonna look at the nukes I'd still say fast charging aoe holds would be broken (as if the nukes aren't) so I'm more advocating for a slight uptick to a few damage types for doms. All in all blasters would still far outdamage them still.

Well Controller's spend a lot more of their time healing/buffing/debuffing and trying to contribute some damage than using their controls especially since they don't instantly lock down just about everything like a Dom does. So on both AT's you're using your controls as some form of aggro mitigation and the better majority of your time is spent with damaging and healing/debuffing. I'd say 3/4 of the time you're not using control abilities so what would you like to have dom's do in the meanwhile, not use all the damage attacks available to them? They aren't blasters and I wouldn't advocate for some wholesale sweeping damage upgrade for doms but I do see they have a blaster-esque playstyle and are like second cousins. Where a blaster uses those fast charging damage as a form of aggro control dom's use their hard lockdown controls then go to town with their damage. Dom's though do have a buffet of most of blasters best attacks. I'd have no problem with a slight upgrade in regards to a more specific focus on melee and ST being by default a little stronger since that seems to be the more intentional skew anyways. The dom revamp helped a lot more than anything else being advocated for in terms of sweeping upgrades to doms. More of that to some of the other now lesser powersets I'd say would be a better avenue. I for sure don't want to see aoe hold recharges lowered to being available for every mob, that'd be so OP and I can't see how it'd be fun fighting a whole map that can't fight back. The blaster nukes in their current form I'd argue have the same feel but at least whatever is left alive can still attack back.

What am I misunderstanding here? You're labeling an AT something completely out of it's scope (Blasters with mad defense/resists as if) to something that not even the Live devs associated them to. So if two AT's share the same powers and stats (aside from a bit smaller hp rectified) and perform pretty much in the same manner they aren't alike? What am I missing here? The powersets pretty much perform similar across the board between SR stalkers and scrappers. You can take that to Invulnerability, Ice, Ninjitsu, Elec and whatever else you want to compare. I see no reason Invuln and Ice can't do it, they're sneaky good sets, Ninjitsu not so much and that'll be the case for both Stalkers and Scrappers. So I don't really see where you're going with this whole Blasters are Stalkers minus high resists and defenses oh and far less aoe damage (stalkers), AND one has to live in melee and the other doesn't. Yeah okay I'm convinced I'll call it a night thanks. Edit: To be fair to Ninjitsu it may have been slightly modified since Live I had a stalker version on Live and was less than impressed so I was more in the onward and upward mode for my next stalkers on HC.

And this is any different than how it operates for SR scrappers? Yes they brought the hp up a tad on Stalkers to match that of Scrappers because all of what you just said for resistances and defenses is true. I wasn't blurting out something unproven. I was using it as a basis for on the MisLib TF I've tanked Recluse on my SR stalker, which the tank on our team wasn't as well built and could not do it. I'm sure a Scrapper can build their character in the same manner and tank Recluse just the same, just like most Brutes and Tanks can do it. Let's see a Blaster do it since you feel they compare so much to Stalkers, I mean they lack a whole defense power set but hey they should be fine. There was no insinuation that you yourself are a muppet it was termed in a general sense that build your character well and there's lots you can do or don't and yeah. If you feel it was directed towards you it was not and that's your feeling.

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I've tanked Lord Recluse on my SR stalker. A blaster could not tank Recluse. And Stalker defenses have always been as good as Scrappers, quite good in fact. Just don't be a muppet when building one is all.

But the whole defense/resist secondary with just about the same makeup and percentages. Yeah let's just ignore all that they're blasters but the inverse since they are single target focused. So yeah totally the same thing. 😕 I mean it's obvious to me. But why not the Live devs who gave Stalkers and Scrappers the same exact APP/Patron power choices.

And no one is saying they aren't a blend of a few particular AT's. What we are saying is when the bread comes out of the oven certain Villain playstyles coordinate more with one than another. Not that there isn't some blending of their power sets. Like yes a Brute is more like a Tank but with Fury running high it has some Scrapper like qualities. Stalkers are harder to correlate to anything other than a Scrapper since they are so similar and always have been. Corruptors are a blend of both blaster and defender leaning more toward Defender until Scourge kicks in. So yeah Dom's are a mix of Controller and Blaster and MM's are a mix of Controller and I guess a Tank that doesn't go out of it's way to hold aggro. It's the villainous blend that sets them apart when the Villains came to be. Not in every case do they mirror exactly a control set for a control set to how they play in game. Some Villain AT's lean heavily toward one Hero AT. Some Villain AT's lean more vaguely toward one way.

I wouldn't turn down psi secondary with their -regen and that aoe psi damage. BUT. I can cap my defenses with Nrg at all times with powerboosted Unleash Potential, Barrier and Demonic. Well until they decide to break powerboost for the worse. Energy Release is a fantastic mechanic and with all of the hard aoe control you can get from Mind you can coordinate the overlapping holds onto those EB's that are really the only issue where psi would do so much better. The damage in terms of ST and AoE is tops on Nrg doms honestly. Psi is good and a nice balance so sure 3 Mind/Nrg and 1 Fire/Psi. Most of those hard engagements are ST in nature where sliding in 4 Weaken Resolves with -17% resist each would really be noticeable. Then pair it with arguably the top ST damage dom and you've got a recipe for a fast run.

Well I play my doms like Tankmages but I get that playstyles are subjective. You can sit back and pew pew on any AT. MM's with their support set and slight aggro control play much more similar to a Controller with their support set and slight aggro control than a Dom with their all or nothing hard control and damage and a Blaster and their all or nothing hard damage.

No I get that they have the divergent differences with the intent that they are Villainous to what the Heroes are. Just taking a step back from any predisposed bias and you can see how there's an obvious 3 pairings that mirror each other. The other 2 pairings you'll have to base on whether you think a Blaster plays like a Mastermind or a Dom. And whether you think a Controller plays more like a MM or a Dom. Controllers with their heals/buffs/debuffs DO end up playing more similarly with MM's with a sprinkle of Dom control but it's much lighter and more in line with the softer aggro control you get from MM's. So yes it's that Villainous sprinkle.

Well you ARE comparing all 4 TW/Bio Scrapper's. Gimme 4 Mind/Nrg dom's that play like me and well, yeah we're not touching that TW time but we could get up there with the blasters and brutes.

Well it's quite obvious just based on the design of each AT and how they "mirror" each other that: Brutes are the opposite to Tanks, Stalkers to Scrappers, and Corruptors to Defenders. That leaves Controllers and Blasters to choose their dance partners from Masterminds and Dominators. They can say whatever wishy washy altruistic intent of the AT's left how they should "mirror" each other. But Blasters sure don't play like Masterminds that's for sure and Dominator's sure seem to so....

Ah I getcha so what you're really saying is nerf Brutes! Especially /Fiyah. After TW/Bio that is... That'll never happen since the farming community would go on strike.

Um you must have been making some junk Stalkers then. They've always been the way they are defensively. What makes them feel more Scrapper-esque is the nice ATO proc that lets you fight seamlessly like a Scrapper does without having to placate and AS. Unless I'm mistaken Stalkers had no change to their armor sets while the game was away. They were made more team friendly by the nature of their ATO's, insta fire AS and the improved critical ability on larger teams. I do believe they buffed the Stalker hp up a bit to match Scrappers which is reasonable. There's other advantageous things that have come along since Live. Like say Rune of Protection which round out Defense based Stalkers/Scrappers nicely and vice versa for Resist based and Unleash Potential. Other than that they are in no less of a defensive disadvantage than they ever were in compared to Scrappers. Take for instance my SR stalker compared to SR scrapper they are both in the same precarious position when they start getting hit as they ever were. I just have Rune of Protection to help out in that regard.

And controllers have a heal/buff/debuff secondary with some light aggro control kind of like a mastermind. End transmission.

This game is all about math and mechanics. It doesn't take Sherlock levels of deduction to discern closely resembling AT's. But you can role play however you like.