Mezmera

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.

Maybe you haven't seen the damage numbers with the Energy Assault revamp. They are quite juicy. The damage on TF and Power Burst is staggering. Dom snipes have a 3.56 damage scale compared to 2.78 for blasters at the max tohitt scale required. Great recharge is already accounted for as a well built dom anyhow so waiting on attacks to recharge is not an issue. Mix in a +120% damage boost along with +35% tohitt from the Soul Drain Epic power doms can get, yes that's assuming larger crowds so lets say a more normalized 85% dmg boost and 20% tohitt boosts almost always active thanks to well baked in recharge. We also get the dom ATO proc that boosts dmg 21.25% with every stack of up to 5, granted I'll typically have 1-2 stacks running so lets just say 1.5, that'll make up for your defiance right there. We also get power build up for another 34% dmg. I also have a 45% dmg boost in bonuses along with tons of accuracy bonuses, I'd assume a well built blaster would have nearly the same though. When I get to grind into the AV my chain is TF into a Power Burst with an Energy Release and then Snipe, and I'll mix in a hold to maintain the dom proc, power buildup and soul drain all to keep my damage boosts flowing. The rare occasion where the blaster is at the very top of their damage cap that doms cannot match is about where I'll concede the blaster can out dps me in ST damage with its scale, but getting that high is a hard thing to do without a couple of kins powering that blaster.

But the mechanic that's been around since Villains started is pretty unique, yes back on live I side with the argument of normalizing the damage buff you got across being in domination and not but aside from that the villain AT's all have a pretty unique inherent. Typically I'll like to a get a ride to 30, only because the lower content bores me and all AT's get more powers to play with by then. At 30 I'll go and set my toons up with IO sets and play them to 50, if I make a dom it'll be perma at 30 not really at a big cost, it's more of the know-how to get it with there being that extra half hour you'll spend crafting, and in the long run not having to replace SOs every 5 levels tends to cost out around what it'd take you to kit yourself up to start. I said before why is there a need to make a completely different AT feel the same as another? There's plenty of ATs to play in this game.

How so? My doms are built to fill whatever role is necessary on the team along with taking advantage of my play style. I don't feel inadequate with AoE damage when teamed with blasters, I have better ST damage comparably, I have a pretty strong ST debuff to contribute in that way particularly for AV fights and hold their aggro if necessary, my dom can stop 48 targets dead in their tracks all within seconds to pair with brute like defenses which then lets me tank mobs if needed. Point being there's nothing I don't see that can't be achieved on a dominator. I think they did much for the dominator AT with that revamp last August on top of snipe being what it is now and origin pool shields. Rather they invested time into making more fun and harder content tbh.

Maybe your doms aren't being played to their fullest potential? Before we go nerfing and buffing things it's always a good starter question to ask if maybe it isn't you that hasn't broadened your scope. I'm on Excelsior if any of you'd like a PL from my dom I'd be more than happy to share some pointers as we play.

Well for kicks I go outside the norms for harder content on my doms to see how far I can push my main. I've done a few all squishies UG itrials and tanked the warwalkers with my dom. I regularly run 4 man MoITF's at 54x8 with inspirations disabled and tank it quite fine for the rest in my team. I've solo'd a few of those really hard AE missions. This is stuff melee armored characters will have trouble with. My dom has better defenses than my SR stalker along with fabulous resists. Paired with the strong control afforded in permadom I can tank better than my tank. Dominators at 50 are still a pretty tough breed even if you don't have perma. Running missions even solo you can just hold off on activating domination until you absolutely need it, and in teams the domination bar builds super fast. Yes some ATs like blasters have come along way since live but doms were in a pretty good place back then and made OP with IOs. The snipe change has been a boon to attack chains and builds and the Origin pools have been a great addition giving a scrapper-esque shield to squishies to pair with the epic shields.

OH NO YOU DIDN! Show me an AT that doesn't have +recharge bonuses as a top 3 bonus even by accident. I think it's just the territory with IO bonuses. I mean I've only died once on my tank and that's because on the Underground trial I may have taunted the Warwalker bot maybe a bit too well, maybe mentioned something about his mom's chassis looked a bit scratchy and needed a buffing or something but that's beside the point. A lot of other AT's get OP with bonuses as well it's just that doms by their intent of the build tend to operate like a high performance racecar where that top gear is like nothing anyone else can match. I wouldn't want to lose that just to be like all the other dull ATs.

I'm unsure how I feel about this. The tailor has become the rocket scientist. Isn't that how Elon Musk started out? On one hand it's a scary thought to think we could shoot off some powers and it just ends up you're tossing your trousers at the enemy. On the other hand it is such an inspiration, worthy of any late night infomercial. 😀

1. Don't know if some of these are necessary, I mean Ice Slick and Earthquake work how they work, do you want banana peels to show up under their feet to show they are being dominated? I think this is just how it's gonna be for some of these powers, not to say I wouldn't then recommend looking into Ice Control as a whole to see what can be revamped without breaking anything. 2. Sure makes sense, I never take ST DoT attacks anyways unless it's a fire blast since added damage is its side-effect. 3. Yeah it's a touchy subject but I'm going to have to say I'm not for this, Domination doesn't need tinkered with. Yes the barrier to entry for Perma-dom CAN be off putting but there's ways to build one on the cheap, then once you see how good it is your motivation will be that much more to make a better one. Endurance refill is a big one for me, I just see too many subtle things that would need to be accounted for and too much thought necessary to redo the thing as it's been pretty much the same from the start of Villains. What they did on live making the damage boost universal between domination and not was a good idea, after that there may be unintended consequences with overhauling this inherent. 4. Hate is a strong word Hero. You can interrupt snipe, use your pbaoes and my favorite, toss snowballs at people, a bit villainous probably though for you goody two shoes. 5. Sure I almost never use this power in my rotation anyways. Would actually like to get the ability to choose the 2nd attack too but yeah any revamp to this starter power to entice me to do anything with it is a plus.

You can buy the regular versions for 7-10 mil typically and all it takes then is a catalyst and those tend to fall off the back of a truck in Brickstown I believe.

Well when we got back into the game a year ago my first character when we got back was my Mind dom. I didn't have much money then so it was a slow build for perma-dom, it's a bit harder to do but totally possible. Almost all control sets get access to 6.25% recharge bonuses and there's the ranged decimation set for another 6.25%. Melee has crushing impacts for 5%, there's the obliteration set, there's the one defense set with 5% recharge and the gamblers. You can also get the dom ATO set cheapish. Run a bunch of TFs for fun and eventually you start to build up a sizeable amount of merits. Plus every 3 vet levels you get 30 emp merits which is 300 merits or 3 purple recipes. Dominators among them all probably benefit the most from the most invested into it. Anyways good luck!

Yeah 70% from bonuses is basically the minimum you'll need to get it and it gets dicey, you have to be quick on the draw to click domination again or lose it which is the saddest sound in the game when you do. I don't aim for 110% because I like to build in for defenses, hp and such but I'll generally like to get somewhere between 85% to 95% additional from bonuses along with having Hasten, this way it gives me enough of a buffer in case I'm preoccupied in that very moment to click it again.

Hasten gives you 70% recharge for a time until it wears off and you use it again. The IO's you put into specific powers typically only work for that particular power. So I'll put two 50+5 IOs into Hasten and that'll be good for that. After that I'll still want to aim for an additional 90% recharge from bonuses and LotG's. Typically that's 4 purple sets in your controls and attacks then I like to slot a full set of Ascendancy of the Dominator, that'll get you 50% recharge from bonuses right there. Then take your snipe power and slot Sting of the Manticore at least to 5 slots for 7.5% recharge and I'll typically have like 3 defense power to put in 3 LotG's so this'll get you 30% more recharge added. Then I'd add in something another rare control set for 6.25% recharge and a set like Obliteration for another 5%. Dominators are an expensive breed but that'll get you to 91.25% recharge and add in hasten that'll get you to 161.25%.

Yes and if Crushing Uppercut hasn't recharged yet you are left waiting on that to strike for that nice damage out of Hide. You've pigeonholed yourself into only being able to take advantage of the Hide proc by having CU recharged and ready. Whereas you'll have the ability to take advantage of both a combo built CU out of Hide and AS in or out of Hide with stacks of Assassin's Focus or not. Obviously the proc firing will be less in Shin Breaker so there is that and like I said I see the point of having that proc in AS in mostly all stalkers but on StJ I tend to like the variety afforded me. Since my rotation is so small I guess that's where I see more logic in having it elsewhere here. Plus if I so wanted to start the attack quick and dirty out of Hide I could just mix up my flow and use Shin Breaker to start. I quite like the option of being able to quickly chase both Combo stacks and Assassin's stacks whichever way I need to get there and be able to take advantage of either of those bursts in or out of Hide. I'm not saying your wrong or I'm right here on this one. To me it seems there's more variety to be had.

K then. Maybe check your fire when tossing out your generalities. 😜

Okay then you can come watch me and have something to aspire to...

I listed all of the accomplishments of Soul Drain and the Soul Mastery pool in general vs Ice Mastery. It''s a lot to read I know but if you're going to try to insinuate I'm giving generalities then I surmise you're not looking at what I'm saying. So I'll leave you with this as well:

We need not argue this here you're more than welcome to come try to solo the topic of the OP to see who's got what it takes. ^

Bah yeah I was thinking of pvp for that unresisted part as opposed to the 3x damage. But as you can clearly see in the quoted text below you're getting triple the normal extreme damage instead of double superior damage should you use AS out of hide but in Assassin's focus. You do realize with Bio's offensive toggle you're going to have the superior damage potential yes? There's nothing exciting about testing damage on something that won't hit back because you're not factoring in other things you have to adjust for. Survivability is also an indicator of damage as well. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Stalker If the Stalker is Hidden, this attack becomes extremely potent. First of all, if it misses, the Stalker stays Hidden. If it hits, it crits automatically, for almost triple normal damage instead of double. If the target is another player, this bonus damage ignores his resistances. Whether the target survives or is defeated, all nearby non-player enemies (which may include the target itself!) are Demoralized and suffer a small but irresistable ToHit penalty, for eight seconds. If the Stalker isn't Hidden, Assassin's Strike removes the wind-up animation allowing it to attack faster, deals Superior damage, and will not deal critical damage in PvE or PvP, unless Assassin's Focus is in effect.

Like I said your numbers you are trying to justify with whatever manipulation you're thinking of in your head. +120% damage bonus + 30% tohitt + 170 points of damage (and purple procs AND Hybrid double hit) > -30% resist. For my defenses I go with the Force of Will Pool, I powerboost Unleash Potential which'll put all of my positionals well over 56% defense and my lowest elemental defense would be psi defense at 49%. Before you get ahead of yourself on this, I have this defense up for a minute and down for about a 1:15 before I have it available again. My ranged defenses are always capped at all times and in the minute of downtime for Unleash Potential I'll just use Barrier which'll cap my defenses for another minute along with having major resistances. Then if I'm ever in dire need I have as an emergency Demonic like in these AE proving grounds. I'm good on defense so yeah that Ice shield would only be a Lotg mule. So in short layers upon layers of defenses and resists are where it's at. Speaking of debuffing resistance in a solo AV fight, I make use of Weaken Resolve. I don't slot it but for the Achille's proc so with the recharge of the power I'm slated to have a 90% chance of that firing on target. So if I don't miss my target I routinely debuff AVs of -27.5% resistance. So um yeah.... Hibernate is terrible (aside from essential in pvp), with 2 slots on Dark Consumption I can go from 10% to full endurance with just two targets plus again as a bonus it adds to aoe potential. The only benefit of Hoarfrost would yes be the hp buff but I'm at 1500 hp already so it's meh to me. The recharge of the heal is a big turnoff since you're the one most concerned with long recharging powers. Pop a green problem solved. The dominator epic pets are the best pets you can get aside from the Lores. Your point was to point out when grinding out damage against a solo AV and I put to you that the epic pets are more suited to max out your dps than anything in the Ice Mastery. You're right that they get minimal use with me but that's because I'm blowing through mobs like they are made of paper, I'd only really use them for the boss fights. If you want to keep them alive in said fight protip you can spawn them to the back of the AV. We need not argue this here you're more than welcome to come try to solo the topic of the OP to see who's got what it takes.

I'll typically slot that proc into AS and call it a day but on StJ I just seem to have a better variety of great damage being able to alternate combo builds and assassin focus'. My recharge is pretty nice so my attack chain is pretty rigid in that I need not venture out from AS, Shin Breaker and CU, especially if I'm looking to grind that good damage onto an AV. Leading in with an AS from Hide gets you that juicy high unresisted damage then follow that up with the Shin Breaker then you have your 3 stack combo all set to launch and if your hide proc's Uppercut will smash them up fierce. Uppercut takes a decent amount longer to recharge than those other two attacks so sometimes rather than waiting I'll be able to get off an AS from Hidden for that unresisted damage along with it having assassin's focus. So yes my attack chain is pretty rigid but by not having that proc in either of my kill shots I can get full use out of either one at my leisure so in the end I tend to see it as more variety along with most likely better damage due to being able to throw out unresisted AS attacks with assassin's focus stacks from time to time.

What of the tech knight belt then with the small cape hanging down from that. What'd be so hard about positioning something on the front of a belt instead like that? Where there's a will there's a way.

Um there seems to be a real problem with your numbers here. I just logged in and checked some stats of my own real quick. I have a base of 45% additional damage from bonuses already and 89% tohitt. Running into a standard 54x8 mob I dropped my Soul Drain on the group and with that I would do to 10 targets 170pts of damage not counting my purple set proc'ing. So right there in of itself pretty decent AoE damage to be had which pairs nicely with AoE your primary or secondary can provide. Having my combat log showing my base damage went from that 45% to 147%. So that's 102% increase, and I must have missed some targets because I've seen my Soul Drain boost me over 120% almost all the time that I have a bunch of targets. Not to be discounted also is that my tohitt gets boosted as well so I went from 89% to 120%. The boosts are more front loaded as well in consideration of such the event where you're fighting a solo AV so even when you do use Soul Drain in that instance you're still doing the damage and getting a decently good boost to damage and tohitt. AoE in general is under performing in instances where it's a solo target hence why Street Justice stalkers are better at those than say a TW scrapper, it doesn't mean either one is bad it just means the one has a slight edge but overall TW is the animal wrecking things on that team. So the same could be applied to Sleet, yes it's better in the instance where it's a prolonged solo fight but not that much better. Then lets look at the rest of the powers available in those epics. You have a defense shield for S/L and some cold resist, I already have capped defenses before any epic powers so defense does nothing for me here and even if it did I would want it to be Range, Melee and or AoE. So the resist shield you get from Soul is by default the better one for most and it gives resist to S/L/Neg/Tox. Then the only good other power in Ice Mastery is the heal which has at least double the recharge of Soul Drain, I can just use a medium green from my tray and get the same effect, talk about a power with minimal use. Another useful power in Soul is Dark Consumption, even with Perma-dom well built doms tend to run out of endurance faster than they would health and this power is a nice emergency to have with minimal slotting for maximum effect and as a bonus it still adds to your AoE damage. You want to talk about dps how about the boss pet you can also get from this pool. Then there's the bit about the recharge, almost every dom wants to build for perma-dom which means by default you're going to have great internal recharge slotted. My Soul Drain boost lasts for 30 seconds then goes away for 30 seconds and then I can have it right back again. I can keep going on but I think you get my point. Yes in an isolated prolonged instance sleet would be better to have but Soul Drain far outshines it in just about everything and then there's just so much more win in the Soul Mastery pool as a whole.

Oh I didn't mention I had done these solo, I can cap my Ranged, Melee and AoE defenses internally on my dom. But yeah you'll want to ease your way into these mobs and maybe rely a bit more on range than you may be used to.

Yeah I ran one of these solo a couple of times. Did pretty good the first time round after my first death and realized I'd have to switch things up a tad. I've got a zerging melee-centric playstyle but the EB's were nasty so I would have to slow up and be sure to confuse them first to make them my pets before I went ham on the group. Once the EBs were mine I'd then jump in with an AoE control and go to town with my damage. I run with capped defenses and high resists and even with my controls I'd still find myself having to retreat a bit to herd whomever I hadn't put under control from the start so I could see for certain who else I needed to engage in the moment. Typically I'd get 2/3 to 3/4 of the group under my thumb and the rest I'd hope the hammer dealt with them. Mesmerize is a fine power but I'd never use it since that activation time could be better used confusing someone. My best character is my Mind/Energy/Soul and yeah she got a good workout compared to most of the other mundane regular content. I have Mass Confusion, Total Domination and Terrify, typically anytime I play it I alternate Mass Confusion and Total Domination per mob and let Terrify fill in where I may have missed some control. The fights were a tad bit harder so I'd find myself using all my controls each mob as necessary and even popping Demonic from time to time. The one certain thing though was that the EBs must be yours or it'd get dicey. Soul Drain is a real big power if you can handle being in the heart of the storm. The hardest time I had doing one of these was more about the roaming mobs that'd show up from right around the corner when you're already engaged with another group or the roamers would roam their way to the mission entrance.