Controller vs Dom Primaries?

[Galaxy Brain]

Been curious on this topic for a bit, but besides Illusion which is Controller-only, and Mind Control which seems to be much better on Dominators... are there other primaries that are much better or worse on a Controller than a Dom?

[Mercurias]

It sort of depends on what you want.

 

i personally find that Gravity is a stronger choice for Controllers. It gives access to some solid ST attacks before level 10 to allow for an easier time soloing (often Controllers don’t get decent single attacks until their epic pools). Also, its Intangible is a strong control which work should on bosses even without Domination. Gravity Control is still very GOOD for Dominators, please don’t get me wrong, but I feel like Controllers get more out if the set.

 

Dark Control is already extremely powerful for Controllers, but in my opinion it’s probably broken for Permadom Dominators. The Super-high recharge needed for Perma benefits Haunt greatly, enough to make it permanent as well. Likewise, it lets you make incredibly good use of Fearsome Stare to lock things down en masse extremely quickly with a recharge of probably around twelve seconds (compared to the roughly 40-45 seconds needed for an AoE permadom Hold). Also, being able to confuse bosses with a single application of Possess can save you loads of headaches in combat.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Mercurias

[oldskool]

In the most basic lowest common denominator sense, I would agree that more control heavy primaries (Mind, Earth, etc.) are widely beneficial to Dominators and more offensive oriented primaries (Gravity, Fire, Plant, etc.) are more widely beneficial to Controllers. 

 

Due to the differences in power prioritization, Dominator builds tend to feel more straight forward and Controller builds feel more nuanced.  So it is very difficult for me to say one set is better or worse for either because it completely ignores Controller secondaries. 

 

Edit: Not saying the question isn't an interesting one.  It is.  I sat here struggling to really finger point at a say "Yeah, I'd rather play that on a Dominator" as some form of universal axiom.  I say this because Mind Control is strong on Dominators for its control but so is Earth.  Then I thought "is there a secondary that I feel really matters with Mind Control on a Dom" and I just couldn't think of one.  There are multiple sets that work with Mind Control or Earth Control or Ice Control, or well you get the point.  Though when I start to weigh the pros and cons of Mind Control on a Controller the secondaries matter to me quite a bit more.   

 

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by oldskool

[Mercurias]

3 hours ago, oldskool said:

Due to the differences in power prioritization, Dominator builds tend to feel more straight forward and Controller builds feel more nuanced.  So it is very difficult for me to say one set is better or worse for either because it completely ignores Controller secondaries. 

That’s an excellent point. There aren’t many Dominator Secondaries which directly affect their primaries in the way that, say, Kinetics affects a Controller Primary (With a few exceptions, like /Psy, /Atomic, and perhaps /Dark). With Dominators it’s a bit more like saying, “Okay, so which would you like to see twice as effective with a side-helping of blasts?”

[Coyote]

I generally split them this way:

High damage primaries do better on Controllers as they need the damage more than Dominators.

Primaries that are stronger defensively do better on Dominators since their secondary is more offense-oriented than Controllers.

 

So, Gravity, Plant, Fire, and probably Electric on the Controller side.

Earth, Dark, and Mind on the Dominator side.

 

Ice wants to go with Dominator to help its low damage, but with Controller to help stack debuffs onto its knockdowns, -Recharge, and intermittent Confuse.

[Galaxy Brain]

Thanks for the input everyone! Been juggling some ideas for another controller or dom and the breakdown is very helpful  🙂

[Riverdusk]

Personally I think gravity is the only one that seems to strongly suggest controller is better.  Otherwise it's whichever fits your fancy.

 

Plant for instance to me I actually prefer on a dom.  Plant is great for AoE damage but painfully bad for single target in my experience.  You can take the sorcery bolt power now a days, but it isn't the greatest.  Dom's assault gives you very strong single target. 

 

Also, once you get perma dom,  a 6 magnitude aoe confuse power (seeds) that is up probably around every 20 seconds or less that lets you reliably perma confuse a whole group including bosses?  You instantly shut down the entire group.  You can do that on a dom, not so easy to pull that off on a controller.

 

 

[Frosticus]

alternatively, you could look at a different focus and strive to max out dom damage. And just go with "enough" mitigation. 

ie. fire/earth, plant/fire or similar.

 

Conversely, defensive focused trollers can make a weaker team capable of tackling content that is out of their league.

ie earth/cold, or ice/rad

 

I personally lean towards high damage combos for both as mitigation is easier to make up for either Insp and io's

[Frosticus]

4 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Also, once you get perma dom,  a 6 magnitude aoe confuse power (seeds) that is up probably around every 20 seconds or less that lets you reliably perma confuse a whole group including bosses?  You instantly shut down the entire group.  You can do that on a dom, not so easy to pull that off on a controller.

 

 

Perhaps, but if you put the contagious confusion proc in seeds then controllers as well are typically 1 shot confusing boss spawns. Granted the proc doesnt last nearly as long as domination seeds, but you rarely need it to ime. 

 

I think what it boils down to is plant is great for either. 

[VV]

Great analyses, everyone! Good knowledge for character building. 

23 hours ago, Frosticus said:

I personally lean towards high damage combos for both as mitigation is easier to make up for either Insp and io's

Yeah, I'm a high-damage kind of controller, too. Just enough mitigation to keep from dying while slaughtering everything.

23 hours ago, Frosticus said:

ie. fire/earth, plant/fire or similar.

 

LOL, now I kind of want to try one of those as a "fallen Smokey the bear" concept!

[oedipus_tex]

Electric, Earth, and Ice Control are all very low damage sets and there is an argument that could be made that they are better on Dominators, because the Assault set fills that hole. A secondary like /Storm might also fill it.

 

Electric and Ice also rely on a PBAOE toggle that Domination mode keeps from detoggling. Controllers have an option in their epics to obtain mezz protection, but Dominator is a good choice for players who don't want to go .. / .. / Psi.

Edited October 19, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[DougGraves]

Ice is disappointing on Dominator because Dominate does not help it much.   As a solo character you would want to be a dominator for damage.  But for control it will get very little out of being used by a dominator.

[oedipus_tex]

On 10/21/2019 at 9:22 AM, DougGraves said:

Ice is disappointing on Dominator because Dominate does not help it much.   As a solo character you would want to be a dominator for damage.  But for control it will get very little out of being used by a dominator.

 

While Domination does not directly benefit Arctic Air, it does provide mezz protection which is critical to keeping Arctic Air from detoggling. Overall I find Ice much more better suited for Dominators. its still a low performing set, unfortunately.