Mezmera

Well it is what it is. Control AT's get control ATO's. Leave Ascendancy as it is, if you want to make a case for Dominating Grasp, the other ATO set, to be switched over so it can fit into attack powers that's fine. But you'll also need to help the devs balance a second set for all AT's so now everyone gets a set that fits into defense powers, resistances, heals and other support powers. Then what if blasters and stalkers don't want to have their second ATO sets changed so that it looks all nice and balanced for everybody? I'm fine with the weaker ATO set being reworked into a damage set for doms but know that's a huge can of worms that'll get opened.

Um the bonuses are 4% damage, 8% mez, 15% accuracy, 10% recharge and 5% ranged defense. Those are some mighty fine bonuses. On top of that there's the stacking damage boost from the proc. Only thing extra you could ask for is the 3% hp bonus. The mez bonus is there to be identifiable to your control AT which is fine with me for all that other win in the set.

Ascendancy of the Dominator is a very nice set, all of the bonuses are fabulous. The proc boosts your all around damage by 21% for every stack up to 5x. Typically I'm running around with 1-2 stacks always so lets say a 32% damage boost on all of my attacks, yes I'll take that thank you. This set needs nothing changed. The set with Fiery Orb is junk I'll give you that. If there were an overhaul the Orb would need to be made a bit better and some set bonuses would need reworked. The Stalker ATO's are the bar. If they aim for that type of transcendence for the Orb set but come up short that'll be fine with me.

Not everyone's experience is the same. I live in melee with my dom and thirst to alpha every attack. I love tanking AVs right in their faces and alpha zerg the 8 Heroes at the end of LRSF all the time. Coyote is a bit right in that it's sometimes combination of powersets with the ATs that usually define your experience in general. A fire/atomic blaster is going to play a whole hell of a lot better than say a AR/devices blaster. I'm all for subtle tinkering with powersets like they did with the revamped assaults. What I'm not okay with is blanket statements about an AT that I'm able to perform exceedingly well contrary to what is being stated. I think it's more a lack of creativity and the ability to adapt to some of the nice new toys out there. For instance I never took Rune of Protection for the longest time since I had no experience with it and I didn't like the idea of wasted mez protection plus I tend to chase defenses anyways but when Unleash Potential came along I gave it a shot and sure as hell I'd been gimping my potential for like 4 months that this game was back by not giving the Origin pools a chance.

I wasn't too sure about Controllers but I knew Defenders had probably the best statistical values for things since they're not intended to be offensive dps, which is kind of true for Controllers too hence why their values are higher also. It's kind of tough comparing doms to controllers, I see them more in terms of cousins of blasters because as you say neither have a support set and rely on their dps to win the day, where a blaster has the nuke to neutralize the enemies the dom has their aoe controls. I'd like to see what values Controllers and Defenders can pull out of the new Origin Pool shields. I think the values you can pull out of Rune of Protection and Unleash Potential were intentionally left higher for doms to compensate for some of the grievances doms have. I know for a fact that Unleash Potential has better values with the same slotting on my dom compared to my blaster and corruptor. As far as diversity in APP powers there's just so much better options in Dominator Epic pools compared to that of Blasters and Corruptors. The dom patron pools have the best of the pets which heck even one of them is a pocket healer where you can also in that same pool get a good resist shield AND a godmode resistance power and even an endurance optimization power I believe. When I level up a dom I look forward to getting to choose from the Epic pools, when I'm making a blaster or corruptor there's not much excitement since it feels like there's a limited amount of good powers in those pools. I'm on the fence about evening out the values to a Controller. It'd depend on the amount of damage a Controller can pump out compared to the dom, which I don't think they can match so it feels like comparing apples to oranges.

Dominators have arguably THE best APP armors among all the ATs. The base values for defenses and resists on doms skews higher as opposed to all the other squishies but maybe for defenders. You dabble here and there in what Primaries and Secondaries you like and then let the pools build you up sturdy. There's Tough/Weave, Maneuvers/Vengeance, Stealth, Combat Jumping, Hover, Rune of Protection and Unleash Potential then take one of the Epic armors, oh and get your accolades, especially the hp ones and Demonic. Then there's the incarnate powers like Barrier and the melee hybrid. Then after you achieved sufficient recharge bonuses on top of all that you aim to build in those bonuses like defense, resists and hp. Be aggressive with your controls basically projecting your defenses outwards and then aim to build your defenses strong through the pools so you have them to lean on should your controls fail you particularly when you're fighting something like an AV.

Again, you identified a major drawback to the archetype in that it doesn't behoove you to die. So apply what you've learned in the real world about not wanting to die and then take the fantasy elements of this game into account in that you have much more powers in this format to allow you to avoid your demise.

I do believe that the -res/-def scales lower the higher the enemy. So yeah a level 50 target will get that 30% but when fighting a level 54 it is quite drastically lower -res/-def values. The dom Epic pools are rather quite diverse. They all seem to have something for everyone. For me it doesn't get much better than Soul Mastery. You get Soul Drain which buffs your damage 102% and tohitt 35% on top of giving you some good aoe damage on activation. It's longer recharge isn't all that of a deterrence since you're baking in recharge to your builds anyways so it's back awfully quick plus the purple proc will fire more frequently. Then you have a pbaoe end drain that'll shore up any end issues you might have that also by the way contributes to aoe damage. The resist shield is great and so is the boss pet should you want to take it. I wouldn't have left Soul off of this list of Epic powers with aoe potential. I've got Soul Drain down to a favorable recharge and could do so with Dark Consumption, the proc'ing capability of the two are far and away better than any of the other aoe powers from the other Epic pools. Soul has a much higher burst aoe potential than the other pool powers.

Yes! No repercussions for death! Cancel death. Or learn not to die.....?

I've not played a fire control dom but everything else I can give a go at to help, I'll toss in the bare bones of what I'd take for fire control at least though. For fire control I'd take: Char, Fire Cages (I'd 3 slot with the Firey Orb ATO set, save on some slots), Cinders, Bonfire (needs the knockback to knockdown enhancement) and the imps (3 slotted with pet purple set). Maybe another aoe control I'd likely look to take. Electric Assault I'd take: Bolts, Havoc Punch, Build Up, Zapp, Static Discharge, Thunderstrike. Maybe the sentinel but only a slight maybe or Lightning Bolt. The pools I'd go with 3 out of 4 what you have although I'd drop Super Speed, Burnout and take Tactics for certain and also maybe Vengeance for the LotG mule. I'd drop the Leaping pool and take either Sorcery or Force of Will, whichever fits your fancy. They both have a fine travel along with a semi t9 defense or resist power which with the high recharge you'll have will be up likely most of the time you'll need these nice shields. So that's 3 powers in either of those two pools. For Scorpion I'd go with the 2 shields you have plus maybe add the Boss pet or the bane mace, it's a pretty nice debuff paired with an achilles heel -res proc. So that's 22 powers I gave you to take for certain leaving you 2 powers to take from the "maybe's" or for your fun. As for perma dom I'd aim for 90% additional recharge to pair with Hasten leaving you wiggle room to build in those defenses from bonuses too.

Agree pretty much with all of this. Loved this game way back when it was still active and hated the slide towards pay to win model and when you did pay for an update (Going Rogue) it was a trickle in addition to endgame content and there was always the potential of the game closing before we got to enjoy the planned features. But hey we got a beautifully crafted new 1-20 zone that almost no one ports into today because you're locked out from joining anyone until your able to buy alcohol, kinda like going to Vegas with your parents. There's just so much you can do in this game, no one is locked into any one playstyle, however you feel like playing is available to you pretty much. I do wish the PVP here was a bit easier to understand from a new persons perspective. Powers don't act like they are supposed to between pvp as opposed to how you're used to them working in pve, which isn't all bad, but the old devs never really understood pvp and were fumbling with it the whole time. PvP and AE have the possibility for limitless endgame content they just never could get ironed out.

Yeah pretty much all of the games and entertainment industry seem to have this cycle, aside from a popular game having an early release over the weekend which I'm sure the company undoubtedly have to pay extra for people to come in over the weekend and code things if something goes haywire. Seems like a reasonable cycle, try to iron things out and have all your ducks in a row. Having things happen on a Tuesday lets the devs have some breathing room throughout the week which they hopefully get to play this game over the weekend too rather than being bothered to code something.

Ah well my original dominator on Excelsior is Mind/Dark, my newer one is Mind/Nrg. I'm really big on powerboost effects that benefit your controls and defenses along with the damage boost they give. Gather Shadows and the revamped Power Buildup are fabulous for the dom AT. That's true about nuances within powersets in the various ATs. Typically you know what you're getting into when you make a scrapper, blaster, etc and there's nuances within the powers you select. With the dom AT I think it's more nuanced two times over. First adjusting your playstyle to fit what a dominator can do in general and then within that there's the various powers that push you to want to fight it out in melee or range and to also benefit what the control side can do to fit the theme of the powersets. You could almost say they are nuance squared. They're a very busy AT for sure. Back on live way back when it was just heroes I'd play tanks and the like and I was teamed with a Mind controller. The things I saw them do on my team just impressed me so much that when Villains came about the first thing I made was a Mind dominator. Mind control being paired with something like psi can be ho-hum for some people, just like what could have been said about energy assault before the revamp for it. Like you said it'd be just the same as if you had a Dual Swords and SR scrapper. I think you've just made a few bad apples that turned you off in general to start. Whoever encouraged you to switch it up a bit is putting you on the right track, once you get the power pairing you enjoy you'll be that much more interested to delve into what you can get out of the AT in general.

I never understand why there's so many Mind/Psi doms comparably. It's like everyone sees what's the top made powersets for the AT and jumps along like lemmings. Mind has the most control thus giving you the best tactics for survival out of all of the power sets and psi with Drain Psyche has the best survivabilty among the assaults and some pretty good aoe damage. The pairing is overkill, you're much better pairing one of those sets with a more damaging set like Mind/Fire or /Nrg or Fire/Psi or something of that nature. I would like to see the hp buff that blasters have and the extra one they got after live. The caveat though is that doms seem to get the better percentages for things like defensive and resistance powers compared to blasters so how much skewing downward would that be to even out the hp difference as this is probably one of the reasons why they get the better defensive values. There's already a scaling ability to fill the dom bar. It's based on team size, the more teammates around you when you activate an attack the more domination you'll get so in a team of 8 your dom bar fills completely after like 5-6 attacks. Solo I'd say just bring a few breakfrees with you like you'd do with any squishy and activate domination when you need to. There's also ways to build domination without engaging enemies like spamming your aoe powers and interrupting snipe. If they can institute the same kind of mechanic for the lower level doms sure it'd make the inherent feel more useful solo. Yeah endurance is an issue with doms. The first thing I'd set is a miracle and panacea into health and perf shifters into stamina. That helps quite a lot and by 35 you get access to a lot of Epic pools that give you endurance optimization powers. Learning how to thrive on Dominators despite these shortcomings even without permadom it really bears fruit when you build yourself through thought out power choices and IOs to make the most out of the potential of this AT.

Crater's power picks are closely similar to my Stj/SR stalker's. I do go for Sorcery too with those first two powers but I'll also add in the Rune of protection for some nice Resists to balance out with the defense side of things. Aside from the differences in our IO's the powers I find substituted are that I don't have Spinning Strike and Superior Conditioning and in their place I have Rune and Focused Accuracy. All in all Stj/SR is a pretty tough cookie.

It's a nice little proc for an aoe power that recharges under less than a minute and has a bunch of targets it can affect like an aoe immobilize or terrify. Since it'll only spawn one orb at a time the more targets u have the better odds it'll spawn so there's no real bother to having it in a longer recharging power. I do find it kind of taunts some of the targets off of me a bit so the little guy is a welcome addition. The orb and the set are 3 slotted into my Terrify for the hp buff. If you're low on slots and need a decent little ability for like an aoe immob it's an okay pet, he could be better mind you but it's not too bad.

I swear I did one with my dom tanking and 3 other blasters and we did sub 30. EV must have it listed on some other toon and forgot but whatever. Yeah I'll typically be on to run one of those some time.

My Mind/Nrg/Soul would like to differ with your statement about what's the "best" melee dom there is. I've run those hard mode ITF's of EV's on my dom. Our all squishy 4 man was sub-30 mins, check EV's bio for Letifera she'll be listed all over that.

On my Stj/SR stalker I have the Banished Pantheons as a second pet to summon. The one I typically roll with so I have a pocket buffer though is the Carnies with the phasing Seneschal. You won't need a buffing pet that gives you +def with fortitude and such thanks to being SR but Forge works quite nicely along with her heals. On top of that the Dark Mistress hits like a truck with her psi damage.

Don't even think it's the "meta" folks we're talking about here. If they were meta they'd see the pools as a better way to build around your character with much harder things to attain through the Epic pools and just let the easy to get IO bonuses build your defenses.

Don't think I have one character with the Scorpion epic, almost all of my squishies I go with Soul Mastery. On my Corrupter she gets Powerboost, Soul Drain, a well rounded resist shield and a pretty neat looking hold if you want it. Box of win right there. You can already get so much more defense from other things you'll be able to softcap most defenses so in most cases the shield is a waste and solely a lotg mule. I do find the Epic pools to vary on it's effectiveness dependent on the AT. All in all the more variety to choose from the better I say.

Aaaaannnnddd that'd be a nerf. 😝

My sniper attack obviously has the Manticore set in it. There's no way in hell I have my snipe in my dps rotation at a 20 second recharge don't be daft. I do cut my powers internal recharges down with set characteristics to a nominal level for these procs and still maintain a coherent damage chain. My global recharge then carries me much further since procs aren't affected by a power being affected by +global recharge.

Maybe you should play more on the villain side. Was chatting with a group of kids over in a villain zone who just started playing and it was their first toons, gave them 50 mil each so long as they kept their promise to propagate their villainy. I can understand new new players not having that money as I didn't have the ability to fund my dom as well as I'd have liked to start but after a few tfs and reaching 50 the money just starts flowing and off some of it goes to the next characters I make. If someones a vet and just new to doms there's not really an excuse here.

I won't speak to Fire control as those oogly imps turn me off to playing it. I think overall Earth and Electric control are in a relatively better place than more of the control sets. These two yeah Ice and Gravity control I have dominators of and I'll say that Ice could use some care in a lot of places. Gravity I agree that the two attacks are redundant on doms and typically you're going to want to make use of your secondary attacks first anyways since you'll likely have a mechanic that benefits those attacks more. It's a better control set for controllers than doms yeah. Another would be that Wormhole doesn't port bosses even when in domination, typically I wormhole groups where they stand so they are all clumped together in stuns, but still it's not exactly a fire and forget control so it shouldn't be penalized by not porting bosses.