Mezmera

Purples and all IO's aren't really all that hard to attain compared to how much of a grind it was on live. If there's any AT that screams build it right it's putting the best you can into a dominator. I gun for good enough recharge around +85% from bonuses and as much ranged defense I can pull out on top of that. For /dark I go with 5 slotting Dark Blast with decimations (don't have this power in my attack chain). 2 slots on Gather Shadows, 5 on the pbaoe with the purple set. 6 on Life Drain, 3 touch of nictus with healing and accuracy and 3 from the ranged purple set to max out damage and accuracy. And finally 6 slots on Moonbeam with 5 being the maticores and the last being the purple ranged proc. As for the regular pools you'll be able to get lots of gambler mules from some defense heavy sets. You have to take hasten and you can take Super Speed as your mode of travel then. I love leadership always have, you get maneuvers and vengeance, you can throw a gambler in and call it a day and take tactics to boost your to-hit. Vengeance is just so good in teams. Usually I go with fighting for tough and weave to hold any more uniques I'd like to have like kismet, gamblers and the resist uniques. I have tough and weave 3 slotted at the moment. You could do stealth pool or leaping with Combat Jump. Last pool is up to you I don't even need to go for anything specific so I play around with the sorcery and the presence pools for fun. For the Epic I have ET 5 slotted with the purple set with the proc and I have 6 slots on the armor with full set of gladiator armor. Nor sure your primary but control sets get lots of love from what they're able to put purples into. I try to 6 slot anything that'll get me both recharge and ranged defense. The one ATO set into your ST hold is good and any confuse sets if you can.

Sorry Tater I'm not looking forward to this change, unless they're giving us all a thumper blast with the damage snipe is now which ain't happening. Only /fire's snipe you can't get insta with any real regularity on your own, all other secondaries that have the snipe can adjust and maintain their tohit to frequently be above the threshold, so to me we're just catering to dinosaurs who can't make minor adaptations to have the best of what they can be as it is currently. Feel like they're opening a huge can of worms here. What of all the other deserving underperforming powersets across all the ATs? Or are we going to spend some more time nerfing far more unbalanced power sets? I'd much rather see new Control and Secondaries, new strike forces in the vein of Apex and Tin but harder and maybe fully level shifting you, more incarnate powers and trials to use those powers on. That's what I would be looking forward to had they mentioned getting the ball rolling on some of those things, but we gotta get those snipes nerfed. I do agree though I'm anticipating what the revamp is going to look like on all the secondaries. Just hope they don't break anything.

Didn't mean to come off as slighting or overly embellishing the power set. I'd say it's working as it is intended. The set offers good single target damage which the best you can get would be in /fire but it's up there. The snipe is the standard hard hitter you can get nowadays in most doms secondaries. The AoE power is yes probably by a margin the strongest hitting one of the bunch and like you say it is a smallish area though so if your aim is AoE it's probably found to be better in other sets but the strength of this one lets you compete. Basically in that long winded run down of powers it boils down to Gather Shadows and Life Drain which differentiate the secondary from the others as you can tell. It has above average ST damage and AoE damage but really shines because you can heal while attacking and your primary along with some damage is boosted from Gather Shadows. I'd recommend looking at the Primal Forces Epic, Energy Transfer's damage on a dominator is just incomparable to any other attack you can get and /dark is best suited to make full use of it.

Hi my main and favorite character to play is my Mind/Dark dominator. I play it A LOT and do some extraordinary things with it. Aside from Life Drain and Gather Shadows there's no real reason to play /dark. You'll get better AoE and ST damage elsewhere in the secondaries. BUT it does have some comparably strong powers. Moonbeam for instance is a really strong attack as it is you'll just want to go leadership for tactics and put a kismet into something like weave, cj or hover, this way when you click Gather Shadows it's secondary boost will get you above that +22% to-hit for the instant snipe. The PBAoE is standard, nothing too special about it, it's nice to have when you're surrounded, so take it and at least 5 slot it with the purple set for the recharge bonus. You have to take Dark Blast, it's an okay attack. The negative to-hit is a decent side bonus to your attacks which help with builds including good defenses from IO bonuses. Now on to the bread and butter of why to go /dark. Life Drain is fantastically reliable, 6 slot that with 3 being Touch of Nictus for max healing and 3 being the purple ranged damage set for maxing out it's damage as well. It's an I'm in trouble power lets attack and heal all in one. Then there's Gather Shadows and all its uberness. This power makes your primary so much more effective along with your heal, defenses, tohit, etc. It also give your attacks 30% more damage. These two powers are the backbone of why to go /dark dominator. As for what to take and not I'll give you the bare bones of what to take and leave the rest for you to decide. You need to take Dark Blast, then there's Gather Shadows and the PBAoE attack. You'll also want Moonbeam and Life Drain for your good ST damage and healing. Everything else is pretty much skippable. I don't take the t9 melee attack since it's not great damage and it's tics. When I go into melee I like to have a thumper and no Dominator secondary has a single target attack like Energy Transfer which you can get from the Epic Pools. The drawback of ET is that on a squishy you don't quite have the HP to just keep throwing out ET's with the constant loss of HP but it synergies so well with Life Drain. ET is my main source of damage followed up with Life Drain to heal me back up. In short /dark lets you make some unique choices later on in your epic pools. Gather Shadows and Life Drain are great, Moonbeam is standard, and -tohit is not OP but does have an effect.

I don't have a scrapper but for my stalker I believe they have comparable epic pools. The description for Zapp says it does Superior damage, the description for Moonbeam says Extreme. So I think that's why the difference in damage output. Not sure why they were differentiated in the first place, maybe Mu has some better attacks within that epic pool.

That's a pretty cool synergy idea, (my Ice/Martial uses ET for Single Target damage and Life Drain would definitely help offset its unique cost) though I'm trying to keep things pretty strictly ranged in this case. Also, how do you keep the Snipe in-rotation. Overslotting Tactics? I didn't think it should be possible with /Dark Assault. I have six slotted gaussian in tactics and have kismet +6% tohit in weave. The secondary boost from Gather Shadows boosts tactics to get me above the 97% for insta snipe without gimping your build. With the recharge for perma dom I get off 2 insta snipes within the time Gather wears off, plus re-upping domination gives you tohit boost. That's just on my own, in a team all it takes is one more tactics or watching someone die for veng. I never go wanting for insta snipe when I need it. My dps string goes Dominate with ATO dmg boosting proc, Snipe, ET and Life Drain. Mixing in Gather Shadows that chain is easy to maintain.

My main and favorite character is a Mind/Dark dominator. There's much more utility in /dark yes, outside of Gather Shadows and Life Drain there's not much reason to play it. That being said Life Drain allows you to dip into epics for the damage you seek, albeit single target damage, but you will be hitting near as hard as a stalker. If you want to do damage at 35 you can take Energy Transfer from the Epic pools. With the snipe being as good as it is right now and having Energy Transfer you have a two punch combo worthy of any damage dealer, just follow up that ET with Life Drain and you're all good. I've playtested my dom as much as I could to come up with an optimal build. Here's a list of my powers build: Mind: Mezmerize, Dominate, Confuse, Mass Hypnosis, Terrify, Mass Confusion Dark: Dark Blast, Gather Shadows, Life Drain, Engulfing Darkness, Moonbeam Primal: Energy Transfer, Temp Invulnerability Pools: Speed: Hasten Leadership: Manuevers, Tactics, Vengeance Fighting: Kick, Tough, Weave This will leave you 4 powers left to choose a Travel of your liking and maybe another power pool should you just go Super Speed. I have Super Speed as my travel along with vet power jumpacks and rocket packs should I need to go vertical. That left me a whole power pool I could experiment with for fun so I went for Unrelenting, I've enjoyed it. Along with going for recharge build up that ranged defense. The confuses and the one ATO set allow for some beasty IO defense bonuses. I will lead into packs with an AOE control and my ranged defenses should keep the hits from coming and you have the ranged heal should you need it. Once you feel you have a good lock on the group go in and kill some bosses.

Haha, this is epic. Thank you for your response/input. I will say that I'm very tied to "theme" when it comes to my characters and as a result I've rolled an Elec/Elec/Mu and a Dark/Dark/Soul so far. Still very early in levels for both. I'm just not sure how I can RP a Dark/Rad/Primal. I'm sure there's a way. It sounds fairly awesome. Well you can stay Dark/Dark and go primal. For thematics to match my /dark look I just color the pom poms to match the soul noir coloring, looks pretty cool and thematic especially if you throw on some auras onto your fists. I'm not advising Radiation btw, your /dark is much better suited already.

It's by far the most Single Target damage you will get on a dominator. When it's slotted at lvl 50 it's stated to give me 850 points of damage on the target. Most other tier 9 extreme damage melee attacks dom's get access to do about 500 points of damage all slotted out at lvl 50. I've tried to compare that to the other tier 9 extreme damage melee attack I have in radiation and there's just nothing I can do to make up any sort of ground on Energy Transfer's 350 points which scale with buffs and debuffs on target. I've tried to increase damage on my tier 9 radiation melee attack through Soul Drain and everything I just can't match the Energy Transfer damage, PvE that is. So I've given up I've submitted myself to the almighty Energy Transfer. When I make a dom I target whether or not I'll be taking Energy Transfer, if so you will need a self healing power. With that in mind that leaves /radiation and /dark, unless you're going power pool healing. I prefer dark because the heal is ranged and super reliable and you get Gather Shadows which enhances a lot of things like your heal and controls, plus gives you a good damage boost for your ET. In radiation you get the melee heal which heals for more but your target needs to be contaminated before you get healed which I find not to be as reliable as my /dark. Plus there's some redundant attacks in radiation you won't want to take after you see how good Energy Transfer is in comparison. It's all about boosting your Energy Transfer's efficiency if you're going that route. Also, Energy Transfer recharges well enough if you're slotting yourself for perma dom which will make all other decent melee attacks you have redundant. You don't want to get caught in the air on that weak TF when you have ET looking at you like dude come on. You might prefer something with good hard hitting range to balance with the ET. The powers devs are also looking at dominator assault sets to give most a boost in effectiveness so things may change.

Right? I don't want to see ANYONE get nerfed! But this is where they feel it necessary to start? Dom's snipes. Really..? I wouldn't call undue attention to your kind, who do you think they're coming for after this?

I'll ask again. If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys. Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume. Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention.

Kinda sounds like you are actually. Blasters were behind everyone and everything significantly. That's what the i24 buffs were all about - and even those were seen as a low-ball at the time as it was only going to - assuming no buffs to anyone else which there inevitably were going to be - bring high performing Blasters to the low end of the all-other-ATs median. Dominators are a LOT safer than a Blaster thanks to their Primaries. For one thing they eventually have one or two summons apiece such as Fire Imps or Haunt + Umbra Beast. Their damage isn't that far behind and they've got far better controls than the Blaster manipulation sets. Yes, Dominators were far ahead as well - especially with the damage bonus baked in and no longer part of just the inherent. I'm all for not nerfing the Dominator snipes, but "this isn't fair they should also get the higher base HP"? The performance issues were WITH that extra HP remember. That had been added in long ago, not with i24. Plus it feels like there's a very strong whiff of "yet" on your comment about not asking for their nukes. Most likely, what needs looking at in the assault sets is which powers are being completely skipped and ignored and why, not a blanket "we need to recover the giant gap we used to have over this other guy". I'd imagine Total Focus is on that list for example, and making the snipes worth taking for everyone that can seems a worthy goal as well. What game were you playing before? Blasters have always been great especially with at least a teammate. Those buffs were to make survivability better, especially on their own. Yes I agree doms were the safer slower choice especially on their own, even before permadoms. The survivability toolkit deservedly so got an upgrade especially for when blasters decided to go it alone. I want nothing to do with their nukes I know doms were geared more towards aggro control and supposed good single target attacks and blasters just dps well at everything, but I will use their nukes in examples to highlight what I'm talking about. Just today I was on an 8 man team aggressively running my dark blaster into +3 mobs with an aim+built up blackstar nuke that doesn't cause me to lose much end anymore so I'm able to quick snipe the few remainers. By the time we get to the next mob all that is about recharged again. What's the dom have left to control or help dps with? And in the big AV fights where controls have no affect? You'd rather have the blaster. Yeah blasters are doing well for themselves, why must one be beholden to another in every aspect? Dominators don't really need a broad stroke revamp on their secondaries they just needed a light brush on a few things as you say. The addition of this really good snipe felt like just that. There's much apprehension because the time nerfing snipes and then revamping these same powersets could have been better used to help /ice and /thorn and any other snipeless underperforming secondaries. My point was not to shoehorn one to another which should go both ways but this went over your head.

So you skip any and all controls? You don't sneak in a hold here and there even when you have domination running? Weird playstyle I'd think you'd get to do a better job of damaging on a fire blaster. Not throwing shade you just don't acknowledge you have primaries to use. Makes sense to ask where are your other powers right? I've been very substantive what about you?

Like I said. You should look into a fire blaster nowhere have you acknowledged that you actually have to participate in doing your primary job first. All you've shown cause of was how this leads into better integration into /fire's attack chain. It's a net loss and even more so when you actually get caught doing something other than fiery embrace, blazing bolt, blaze, fire blast, flares, blazing bolt, blaze, fire blast, flares, etc.....

Here cut out the parts to help you understand: "This shorter recharge also really reduces proc chances of firing so your consistency is out the window. Yes if I put my snipe on ctrl + click maybe it'll be around the same dps, maybe. Most times I'm controlling things so I don't need snipe to recharge super duper fast and it's always there. When I need to grind into an AV I still wouldn't find the bonus recharge helpful, actually it would encourage bad behavior by making me focus on dps trying to keep my snipe as useful as it was ignoring that there may be some controls necessary to lay out." All good got it? Need a picture book? You seem to have the dps sequencing of a blaster. Maybe you're on the wrong AT? Most people that want to play Doms play most secondaries. Blasters that want to have a mez shield play /fire. You should make a fire/trick arrow blaster, the better dps you keep saying you think you'll get from this change is already there for you along with a mez shield.

We may disagree, but I get Mezmera's dislike. For Mezmera, the new insta-snipe conditions actually cost a good bit of DPS. For me, who doesn't take the power at all, it's only an increase. Both are valid positions I think for very different build styles. it isn't really that much dps, though; even if we ignore damage gained from extra available slots and/or assume that you will stick to your +tohit slotting, the buffed recharge time is a big deal. It's going to let you spend a much larger portion of your attack chain using a higher-dpa power (snipe) than you did previously. Individual snipes will obviously do less damage, but your attack chain will include many more of them. This only winds up being a big loss if you already had a chain that specifically needed a snipe every 8-10s to fill a gap and was already fully occupied by higher-dpa powers (fire with incinerate/blaze, maybe?) I haven't done a deep dive into what my dom's new attack chain will look like but I'm pretty confident I won't take that big a dps hit, especially if I'm not in melee. Being able to replace your weakest attack with snipe more often is a big gain Subb at least gets my point as well as some others who seem to play doms more and understand it's not all dps sequencing. Sure if I have a snipe back up quicker great! But at a cost of 1/3 of the damage? That's not a haircut that's going bald. So Subb can now take snipe but it's now the bald version. This shorter recharge also really reduces proc chances of firing so your consistency is out the window. Yes if I put my snipe on ctrl + click maybe it'll be around the same dps, maybe. But most doms build for perma dom so snipe recharging wasn't an issue I can snipe twice within 10 seconds. So I am not looking to snipe more often I want to hit like a truck when I so choose. If you're not building your tohit back up all the snipe turns out to be is basically a longer reaching blaze, so why even have it? Don't you have some team friendly controls you could be laying out between snipes in those 10 seconds? Other attacks? You do have blaze. Most times I'm controlling things so I don't need snipe to recharge super duper fast and it's always there. When I need to grind into an AV I still wouldn't find the bonus recharge helpful, actually it would encourage bad behavior by making me focus on dps trying to keep my snipe as useful as it was ignoring that there may be some controls necessary to lay out. My dps chain if I so need to grind it goes: Dominate (hold with ATO +dmg proc), Energy Transfer (Nothing else can compare to this damage), Siphon Life (High dmg + heal back the damage ET just caused me), Snipe. I'll mix in Gather Shadows to boost damage, the heal and a little more tohit if I really need it to max out. But this chain is easy to sustain and even as l33t as /fire is I can't see why you'd want snipe to recharge faster when you have two other fire attacks and a control you can spam in the middle. It's a big dps loss plain and simple for all doms. Except for those already without a snipe may they not be forgotten.

Hmm. It may have to be more immediate, as some fights are over quickly. Many of them, actually, so the effect may not do much. So perhaps it's best to think of a tank, in real world terms. What is the unique facet? He's intimidating. He's impossible to ignore. It's evident that if you turn your back on him, your survival is in jeapordy. His presence is so imposing that he makes you pause, you become afraid and mind locked. Now, I bet there's little things that can be added to taunt and aggro auras that can illicit effects around these that are hugely beneficial. A fear effect in taunt aura? Leaves them trembling in place. A "pull gravity type effect" in ranged taunt to pull foes off Squishies? Like a pseudo gravity power. A delay to initiate attack type effect? When confronted but something so imposing, foes stand and stare in awe. Foes that turn away from the tank, like when aggro is lost, take double damage from the tank, forcing them back. The mechanics exist. Perhaps utility adds to auras and taunt can focus not on aggro increase, mag increase, damage or any other such existing component, that brutes also have, but on unique utility provisions that would materially make a real noticable impact. That said, Dev time is limited, and the priority on the work required is questionable. Yeah I think utility is the way to go with the tanker rather than buffing aggro caps or damage and such. With a debuff in the pbaoe defensive taunt power and in their taunt power it would equate to a substantial damage increase anyways but also for your team. I agree maybe front load the debuff with a gradual build up to a max of a minute since that's where you'd be fighting an AV most likely. The pbaoe defensive taunt could have an initial debuff to all caught in its range of say -10% resist and -5% defense and after another 20 seconds it grows to where at the minute mark its up to -20% resist and -10% defense for anything that have maintained the aggro connection. As for the taunt yes that could be a debuff specific to tankers as well. Not sure about a fear aspect or anything but another res/def debuff would work. But this one can work a bit different than your defensive one. Basically your taunting a group of enemies to attack you ferociously so in theory they should be attacking you harder with more vigor so you'd want to represent that in their attacks on you as the tank. You wouldn't want to buff the enemies dmg and tohitt because your teammates could get the brunt of that. So what you could do is have it so if you have taunted within the last 10 seconds you debuff yourself say -8% resist and -4% defense, on a tank this is a bit marginal and can be built back up. But on that same token you debuff everyone taunted by double the debuff you do to yourself so you debuff a whole group -16% resist and -8% defense for the duration they are taunted by your taunt power. None of this is stackable nor enhanceable mind you in either the defensive one or taunt. They can stack onto the other powers but you can't debuff a group you've already taunted more and you can't debuff yourself more its the flat rate for the duration for both sides. I do realize powersets like radiation get a debuff to -defense which is enhanceable whereas this addition would add to that but not be enhanceable. This would put a tank in good value again as opposed to rather having a decked out brute with all of these team friend debuffs. The values can be adjusted to whatever feels significant but not stupid OP.

Since we're trying to balance everyone around Blasters can Dominators get a base HP buff to match that of blasters? I mean they are both the squishiest and yet Doms have a significantly lower amount of HP. Blasters got a significant QoL buff to their secondaries since the game had been away which I won't begrudge them so since we're begrudging Doms of the only QoL buff that I can see they seem to have received and we're being brought into line to not make Blasters jealous wouldn't it be fair to have relatively the same base HP available to them as well? I'm not persistently pursuing this I'm just pointing out that there's always been a tangible or perceived difference between everything so trying to shoehorn one AT to another I'm not for. Who says between two intended DPSers one has to have every edge in every comparable power? We're not talking about giving Doms nukes here, as pointed out by one of my cohorts blaster dps in this dps spam of a game is still quite superior, we're just fighting so nerfs don't just keep coming out of left field. The toolkit has been vastly improved for Blasters while in this dev teams hands, great for them! Doms got one nice new trick added over the last few years and its gotta be nerfed now so it's not better than blasters?! Anyways can't wait to see the new enhancements coming to doms secondaries.

I was thinking how a tank could get a little bit of a buff making it useful again in comparison to decked out brutes without changing the whole feel for it around. What I was thinking could be done is to add a unique passive debuff to the tankers version of their defensive aoe taunt power that each powerset has like unyielding. As time goes on the targets that maintain contact within that toggle defenses range gradually get a debuff kind of like a morale debuff because the tank is fending them all off and they get annoyed by it. It could be a low start of -5% resist/defense to the enemies in range within the first 30 seconds of the fight increasing to a max of -15% over two minutes, kind of like the opposite of how the incarnate buffs degrade. Wonder if this is something others would think would be viable and keep it within reason not to be OP enough that brutes start complaining now.

I would like to see a few additional options added that are currently in the game already so should be easier to add than most. First off it always bothered me we couldn't add the stripes down the front of the basic boot styles like stilettos and flats and such like the Paragon Protectors already show off in their fancy costumes to make us jealous. That stripe like the Protectors have is a pretty iconic look on super costumes. If you could please add it that would be awesome! Another item I've not understood why we don't have in the game for the rest of us is the robes the Oracles wear, especially the loin cloth on the front and back. Pretty sure we got their belt so if we do actually have access to the robe and I'm not seeing it let me know. Not sure if any of this stuff ever gets put in but for these ones already in game I'd think it would be easier so if there's some notification that these things are added I'd like to see what costume pieces they are able to add to.

My very first dominator when villains came out was /nrg loved it to death. The enhancements to Total Focus and Power Burst sounds like it may be nice, maybe they'll be able to get a Total Focus off now while everything else around them gets disintegrated. I play /dark now only for the ranged heal and Gather Shadows. I don't know how I feel about sharing the unique power for a particular secondary across other dom secondaries. That's like sharing Boost Range or Eagle Eye across other blaster secondaries. Sure I'll share Gather Shadows if you trade me for Eagle Eye as my t9.

We can explain the play style as a means for justification not to nerf the damage so harshly until we're blue in the face. Fact is this is a change they've been wanting to push through ever since fast snipe came about there was just more influential push back if they had tried to change it before I take it. Fine, there needs to be a performance enhancement on every dom secondary aside from /fire kind of like how devices is getting a buff as their relevance is being taken away. I really don't understand why we can't just leave this nice new trick for doms well enough alone or even a halfway compromise? Titan Weapons overperforms, spines/fire brutes overperform, nukes on every mob overperforms. The list goes on with the things that could be brought into line, so we're starting here with Doms? What's next? City of Blandness here we come.

Not really. Any character I consider built properly usually doesn't include snipe. This change allows me to actually work it into builds. This is me as well. I can't remember the last time I did include a snipe, because I don't really use them. Now though? My /MA dom is very very happy with this change. I think you're under several mistaken impressions here. But that's okay, because I can address those pretty easily. And I'm going to try, and probably fail, to be a fair bit less antagonistic than I've found this reply to be. Taking the leadership pool in order to get two strong insta-snipe does, by definition, limit power pool choices. It requires you to miss something else on a very tight build (at least for my dom) in order to get said toggles. So it's not an answer that exists without baggage, I don't know why you would think otherwise here. Again I am not dissing the choice, it's a valid one, but it is not for me and it should not be a suggestion for people to short-change their build because you don't like the new sniper changes. I understand the lacklustre damage of insta-snipes now compared to previously, but it's not something that bothers me overmuch. I still like the change. Why the assumption that I neither have it in my build currently (I do) or that I haven't tested the changes (I have)? I didn't imply either one of those. Regardless, if I had neither it would not invalidate my opinion on the whether the changes are good enough. It might abstract them a level from being personal experience with the powers, but it wouldn't make them worthless. I've tried the changes, and I currently have been running with the snipe since the beta, and tested out the both version of the snipe a pretty good amount. I'd appreciate you taking the time to ask in the future, rather than summoning baseless opinions from the aether. I don't build for to-hit very much, and it's not really a totally necessary component even with the changes to snipes. Why would it be? It's your preference, not a codified requisite. Regardless of our disagreement on this, I think we can talk about this minus some pretension and snark in the future. No worries mate. You and a few others are opining that this change is a great one for doms when in actuality its NOT. Was just pointing out the many ways you could at this very moment before any changes have insta-snipe on your dom without limiting your builds. Yes you'll need to go for tactics which also by the way makes your controls so much more reliable. But you could still go for speed, fighting and leaping. Super Speed and stealth IO is the same as invisibility anyways so that can save you on one power pool and the defense you get out of leadership is superior to any you get from stealth. Here's the thing. I don't want you copying my build I like being a unique little flower. But if you'd ever like to play around I'm always doing high level content on my dom in Excelsior. Seeing is believing. Cheers.

Sounds like you are in the know from the secret servers. What this comes off as is a very democratic approach to see that everyone got a piece of the QoL improvement pie. To me it sounds like a bunch of thought was put into it over the 5 years and a reasonable compromise was made so that everyone was happy. Maybe that's just me. So we're going backwards? Cool.

Not really. Any character I consider built properly usually doesn't include snipe. This change allows me to actually work it into builds. This is me as well. I can't remember the last time I did include a snipe, because I don't really use them. Now though? My /MA dom is very very happy with this change. Not sure how you like to build your doms but for PvE mine always go leadership pool for the easy LoTG mules in manuevers and vengeance and take tactics for the to-hit. If you had taken your snipe and I do believe /MA gets a +tohit buff in envenom blades then you can toggle up two nasty strong insta-snipes usually by the time that buff wears off. With tactics and the kismet +6% to-hit any very small addition to to-hit would get you to the insta-snipe, meaning whenever you popped your domination, envenom blades or even vengeance for a longer buff. I suggest you don't play it on live quite yet because if the proposed changes go through it's quite a loss on that QoL buff doms got. Or please do play it on live as it currently is and realize it's damage is proposed to be cut by 1/3 so we can add your voice to the small amount of us dominators asking for a compromise. Rarely do I take leadership toggles as a dom personally, I usually find enough spacing in epic shield power, weave, cj, and stealth or maneuvers (usually stealth). Just preference, nothing actually wrong with leadership at all, I just don't use it on a dominator usually. So for me, this change is a much bigger thing than I suppose it is for you, or at least a much more likable one. But beyond that, I don't want *two* strong insta-snipes, I would prefer them to all be insta-snipes. As you say, I could plan for that using leadership and +to-hit from kismet, but I don't build in that manner and don't want to be pigeonholed into it. I build usually for perma-dom and closer to soft-cap defenses, and I don't have the fluidity needed to do it the way you've suggested. So I believe the changes actually offer more choices and viability in the long run. Thanks for the suggestion though, it may be that I try your route with a future build! Never said I wasn't for dumbing down an easy to attain mechanic for more people to enjoy. A few weeks into recreating my dom I didn't have snipe either. But I realized how easy I could get insta-snipe and just how good snipe currently is for a dominator with the high damage scale to make up for lack of damage in all their other powers. Look at all of the QoL changes that have been implemented for blasters and the like. I presume that dominators didn't really get much of an overhaul thanfully is because there must have been some agreement that their new uber insta-snipe made up for a lot of things other ATs were getting. My assertion to go leadership pool was to show just how easy it is to have an insta-snipe without limiting your choices. I have presence pool in my build for gods sake. Sure if you'll never ever team with anyone sure queing up two uber snipes may seem a mundane albeit easy to do task, but if you do team with at least one other person and they have tactics as well, or happen to die, now you have a great snipe at very little cost to your build. If you don't have snipe currently on your dominator and won't give it a shot with how it is currently why even speak on it? It's damage scale being reduced so severely in relation to what it currently is in comparison to all other ATs snipes changes without performance enhancements to most dom secondaries coming first is what I have issue with. Not that it's free to use for all. P.S. Also note you'll still want to build up that to-hit anyways to get the full use out of maximizing the damage, meaning leadership, or you're back to "two strong snipes" and a bunch of meh snipes.