Mezmera

Do you even see yourself? You're complaining about the dominator mechanic, then you want instant max fury from the brute mechanic. I'm the one struggling with numbers and yet I'm not the one throwing out vague generalizations that doms rank 9th and 8th in damage potential. Revamping the underperforming assaults were a great idea and sure some minor tweaks that the majority feel necessary but I'll not get on board with outright changing Fury, Defiance, Domination and any other inherent that's there to differentiate the feel between another AT. Tanks were always fine, I never logged onto my tank to bring extra damage and still don't. It's an unkillable bag of hp that some were jealous of brutes that caused the change.

That's the cheaper set in the blast set with the defense bonus yes or you could do a full set of Superior Winter Blast for a good ranged defense bonus plus other better stats, just not the +recharge. Every power selection a dom can take has a corresponding set that can get a good bonus chunk of +recharge. Mixing and matching for balance is the ideal. You can also 5 set Decimations all across your ranged attacks as well for 5x 6.25% recharge too. That'll save you 5 extra slots where dominators are slot hungry.

I don't log on with the full bar, I'm a rogue so I have to fill my bar just like anyone else, if I die I have to fill it again, filling the dom bar is such a mundane thing to complain about. Who says I use mids? I'm good with numbers, I've got an accounting and stats background, I have a photographic memory and then there's trial and error because mids can never tell you what powers you will like in your play style. Not once have I used mids. But it's a good thing to point out resources like these for those that need the guidance. Player skill has everything to do with playing games and especially the Dominator AT. If there's no value to building a skill to play something why even get good and play it at all? Lets all just run around with unlimited judgement I win buttons.

But defense bonuses are much harder to come by. +Recharge bonuses fall into your lap mostly with any curiosity to build yourself with IOs. Almost every power selection has a set associated with it that you can get a 5th bonus that has a +recharge bonus. Or you can cap your defenses and carry reds, oranges, more greens. Yes there's not a +recharge inspiration but there are base boosts you can do or not waste your time going to and from and slot some easy to get global bonuses.

And defense builds are so much easier at the magic 44% and for incarnate content 56% numbers than when you're less than that cap, and no Kira it doesn't scale 1 to 1. What other value would you like me to use as an example, faster recharging crashless blaster nukes? You can take issue with any optimization of a "magic" number. Before IO's I would bring along 2 kins on a LRSF and have perma. The mechanic has been what has been for a looooong time and that dev team never found reason to change anything but normalizing the damage across the mechanic, deservedly so. For starters one reason the bar needs to be filled is the full bar of endurance recovery you get when you click that power every single time. There's the tohitt boost you get for 15s every time you activate domination. The mez shield you get. I mean where do you begin? Bake these things into the base of the AT, that'd be called Defiance I believe so then why not just play a blaster? You're asking for specifics compared to general statements from the other side so if you want to take that as explaining it to a 5 yr old that's your issue. Like I've said come play with me some time so you can see for yourself what I get to see every time I log on, there's no underperformance issues with my doms.

Sure what do I care if they'd like to just copy paste this to the Hero side. Or change it to Rogue and Vigilante whatever. Never said I was against tweaks to other things within the dominator AT, just that Domination is fine as it is and has been.

Okay then if it's not hard what's the complaint to change it? There's set value goals to optimize just about anything. The universe is made up by math.

You can use your pbaoe's which require no target. You can go find a far off target and interrupt snipe, unless you're somewhere like Khalisti or Ouro. And my favorite, the p2w vendor sells thee snowball attack which you can use on targets, enemies and allies alike. Solo it takes a few more seconds to fill and the larger the team the bar fills back up stupid fast. Then yeah you can be a villain for the auto bar fill.

We do understand everything you're saying. It's polarizing to you because you find it polarizing, others don't. One persons trash is another's treasure. Again everything you're saying boils down to:

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I do understand. You're tossing up your hands saying doms are an impossibility. You want Domination to be made easier which'll likely lead to a nerf to something within the mechanic compared to how it is currently because with every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. There's consequences with anything you do in this game, good and bad. I feel like I'm Schroeder from Charlie Brown trying to play you this symphony and you're Lucy complaining it's not right until I play some dull base 3-noted jingle. 😟

Take Hasten slot it with 2 50+5 IO's. Or 3 level 25 recharge IOs/SOs. Build in bonus +recharge of +70%. There's SOOOOOOO many sets and IO's that can get you to 70% +recharge. Theoretically a dominator can have perma by level 22. Easy to do by level 30. There's nothing polarizing about it.

But why wouldn't you slot it? I mean are goals to have not a thing anymore?

Slot a LotG, you're fixed. 😀

I think you are confused. 😛 I know Perma doesn't cascade or compound, the fact that it's an easily stated and attainable value makes it so much easier to build your character to than one where you're building in defenses. Having 1% less recharge than the goal or 1% less defense than the goal both have their "consequences", much more so in the case for defense, like I've been saying.

You said that I was factually wrong that a 1% decrease to bring you below the defense cap had it's compounding consequences the same as having 1% less recharge slotted for permadom, which is easier to account for honestly because it is a more absolute value. You're the one who said defense and an enemy's chance to hit you are on a 1 to 1 scale. Which you are horrendously wrong about. If you're saying that because this link says that having +40% defense but not enough to the full cap is still a good thing, well then yes it is. But the odds of being hit by an attack are quite big between having 40% and 44% defense. And yes there's tons of variables in defense and the type and level of your enemy which was exactly my point. There's a finite number when you do reach that defense cap, but at 1% less defense than the cap it's definitely not what you were thinking it were to be. My point was to show that with numbers and stats there's these achievable goals set in place and that's a good thing to have to work to and not reaching those set values has their consequences no matter the power we are talking about be it defense, domination and any other benefit people try to achieve when building their character.

Power Burst does include Energy Focus mode which I have on the ready to fire so much more than not. But for the Fire blasts I left in the 80% chance for extra fire dot. So tit for tat I'd say. And yes I do set it up exclusively with that beastly TF which I've also slotted a moderate and minor damage proc that fires highly but doesn't show in these base stats I listed, dominator TF is light years better than the blaster version. Yes in a long drawn out fight the proc chances of firing will balance out to where it's about even between a faster recharging attack that has more chances to fire and that of an attack that charges a little slower and has a better chance to proc. BUT in a much shorter time like say skipping from mob to mob and AVs that get caught with their pants down the advantage is fully with the higher chance to proc extra damage. I should have prefaced when I originally said I have better ST damage than even the strongest blaster that I could argue that I do have the better damage potential. I think I've shown that I have that argument.

Nothing straight up wrong about anything I've said, there's always that 5% chance enemies have to hit so you're telling me 1% less defense equates to 1% less of a roll for a chance to hit when the percentages range from 0-44% for the regular cap and 56% for incarnates? Chance of an enemies hit landing can range from 0-100% while defense cap percentages range from 0-44%. It doesn't work 1 to 1 between the two. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Defense_Effectiveness

Sure doms could take a tweak here and there if you'd like to desire that like this topic started because of, but nothing major like changing Domination though. If you're one second off on recharge bonuses where does that fault lie? I mean the same logic can apply to defense caps relevant to all ATs, if you are 1% less than the cap you're how much easier to hit? I was just making a point that being efficient and eliminating redundancy in attack chains when I need do nothing but spam ST damage I can do that with my best chain and do it arguably better than a Fire blaster. Stalkers outright ST dps better than my dom as they should other than that it really matters what powers you are. Sure on a /psi dom you're just not going to be out dpsing a lot in ST but that powerset is more attuned for other things, just the same an /nrg dom can give about anything a run for their money in dps. Don't see anywhere in my conversation that I was accusing you of not being nice. I was just pointing out the obvious that those complaining about Domination not being an easy mechanic are asking for it to be made easier in essence dumbing it down. You can make general statements about damage rankings and think they're correct but it doesn't mean it is so. I'm on Excelsior come play with me some time if you like.

This x1000, I'm totally for this. I see no reason why while the game was away that blasters got everything they got and as a topper got an hp boost where they were already advantaged in this and then doms got what?

M'kay. Based on purely visible values stated with slotting. Not including real time application which I'd like to demonstrate some time. Energy Assault Total Focus 438.69 dmg 2.53s animation Power Burst 559.16 dmg 1.67s animation Snipe 470.45 dmg 1.33s animation (assuming auto snipe) Fire Blast Snipe 557.11 dmg 1.33s animation (assuming auto snipe) Blaze 336.52 dmg 1.0s animation T2 Fire Blast 170.51 dmg 1.67s animation (next best filler attack) or w/e secondary attack you'd like to pose, nothing will beat those top two though Thanks to the longer recharge values associated to dominator assault attacks their chance to proc extra damage from any that you may have slotted in the attacks are a significantly higher chance to fire than what would conversely be slotted into blaster attacks. You'd also like to use Snipe as a bridge in Fire blast, okay my best recharging attack is also my strongest one in Power Burst that I'll use as a bridge.

Well I'm not in favor of dumbing down this AT to suit someone that won't keep up. There's br00ts, blasters, VEATs, HEATs, scrappers, MMs and a bunch of other plug and play ATs available. The creation of IO's allowed for so much creativity and the Dominator archetype is a more thoughtful breed to play, there's just so much you can do with it, I was on board with them revamping the dominator assault sets to make them more attractive to play, which they accomplished. There's already so many AT's that you can attain parity on, we can't have one that has the potential to get the best out of someone's creativity?

And yes when they were tinkering with the snipes last summer I saw through their misdirection and saw the nerf they were trying to give to doms lowering the scale from 3.56 to 2.78. The slight decrease in recharge for dom snipes coinciding the lower damage scale was going to be a double whammy as well since any proc % chance to fire would lower drastically. Being that doms slot for global recharge above all else their snipes were quite well with the recharge and the big damage number. I complained as such and was glad they left it as it was seeing how blasters are already kings of all the other damage and have gotten so much love since the game had been away. You can put that snipe on auto and you still won't get a chain that can match my 3 best ST attacks that I can chain.

Okay it is 102%, tested this earlier in the thread and said this was the case but since I was always getting over 120% damage boost when I used it I hadn't noticed that when I'm boosted over 120% I'm also getting a boost from the ATO proc I likely hadn't noticed. So point to you on that one. As for blasters and their Soul Drain, that'll eliminate any 3rd strong ST attack you can get since /dark doesn't have anything like TF (which is the slower animating version and no new proc dmg mechanic btw). So that leaves them with Snipe and Blaze as their best ST attacks they can try to spam which you''ll need a filler attack in between. My dom's TF, Power Burst and Snipe are an easy sequence I can maintain. The base stats with slotting at level 50 I can pull +1500k points from that combo, not counting any of the +dmg boosts. Yes there's about 25 seconds in between my Soul Drain boosts but that's quite fine enough to deal with each mob. If you'd like to advocate for doms to get a faster recharging Soul Drain I won't stand in your way. I know blasters get Aim+BU, but I'm saying my dom can get comparable numbers from boosts available too. So in terms of available boosts I think it's more of a draw. Looking at my fire blaster just as well slotted I just don't see in the same time ST damage stats that can match each of those 3 attacks that I can easily maintain in a chain on my dom.

Oh yeah I'm in no way insinuating doms can compete with blaster nukes as they shouldn't, blasters are the king of aoe, my dom has some decent aoe where I don't feel underutilized on teams with blasters. As for ST damage by the very nature of the power design structure doms are more adept at keeping up in ST damage and with the revamp some of those secondaries got very strong, some for sure can give just about anything a run for their money except maybe for stalkers. Yeah I'll agree doms are late bloomers, early on you should be learning your craft on the control side of things and then 30s and 40s your build takes bloom where you can get your hands dirty in that fun stuff. Controls as an Armor is one layer of defenses you start with, then there's things like Unleash Potential which'll cap your defenses so if you do whiff on your controls the enemies will whiff right back. Or you can take Rune of Protection that'll get you 30% resistance across the board, without that and just my epic shield I pull in 70% resist to s/l almost the cap, 40% neg, 35%ish tox, and then 15-20% base resists to everything else so add in 30% more resists to all those, that's a pretty beefy build. Then endgame you get things like Barrier which for a minute tends to cap all my defenses as well as giving strong resists too. Then getting that hp up is another good thing so you got a bit of a buffer to avoid being two shot, it'll probably still happen if you're not careful with Kitty cats when you kill their boyfriends. Yes the dom needs to play with an aggressive attentive approach with their controls as their first line of defense but there's a lot more you can bake into the backend that'll keep you upright if things go wrong. I don't think my dom has any more expensive of a build than say my stalker or blasters, they're all purpled and decked out, I just think you get more noticeable bang for your buck with dominators.