Most Blaster-Like Dominator?

[dcm510]

I've come to find that my absolutely favorite AT to play is a Blaster - my main is a Fire/Ice, and I've also recently leveled up a DP/Martial. In particular, the AoE damage is a blast - Fire Ball and Hail of Bullets are my favorite powers. I've been thinking about how this could translate to other ATs, and while Corruptors and Sentinels are obvious, I'm wondering if there's a Dominator build that could give me that same heavy AoE damage feeling. I'm thinking maybe Fire/Fire? Anyone have thoughts?

[Coyote]

I'm not sure if /Fire is actually a high-AoE damage set. I think that the high AoE damage sets are:

 

Martial and Earth, but both in PBAoE range only.

Thorns.

Savage.

 

I'd lean towards Thorns as the highest, but it might be Savage instead. Close call, though.

 

For primary, the best is Plant Control... it does good AoE damage, but more importantly, it doesn't take much time controlling... you throw out Seeds of Confusion and then you're ready to rip, tear, and smash. Note that this means rip, tear, and smash in melee range even if you do start with a cone. Dominator AoE that doesn't include the PBAoE attacks really is just okay.

[Menelruin]

Doesn't Savage, much like SM, have a ton of range?  Also, there's a thread somewhere in this sub forum where someone breaks down every secondary.

[Coyote]

Savage does good single-target damage at range, mostly because Call Hawk is so good, and having its strength focused in one power allows you to slot up the single-target Hold for damage and include it in the attack rotation. But it's single-target, and it requires using the Hold as an attack because Savage has just two ranged attacks (plus Feral Charge, which is a ranged Charge but ends up putting you in melee range). However, it has 3 AoE powers, and only one of them (Unkindness, a pretty good cone) is ranged. Feral Charge is a ranged AoE but puts you in melee range, and Rending Flurry is PBAoE. So if you're going for AoE damage out of Savage, you can't really avoid using PBAoE attacks. You can use just Unkindness/Feral Charge, but it does end up putting you in melee range.

[oedipus_tex]

Dominators were fairly competitive with Blasters back before crashless nukes and sustain abilities. Now they don't come close in my experience.

 

The main reasons to go Dominator are:

• In Dom mode, you have mezz protection, which no other squishy does outside of Clarion(forces this Destiny pick), Indom Will (must be Controller and go Psi Mastery), or Mystic pool (which is non-perma and requires the Mystic pool).
• In Dom mode you can often mezz entire groups instantly, including Bosses. No other class touches Dominators for total lockdown--altho with revised proc rules, its now much easier for Blasters, Controllers, etc to mimic Domination.
• With enough Recharge you can have both these things permanently.
• You deal more damage (generally) than (most) Controllers.

 

To answer your question, the most Blastery Dominator wouldn't be a Dominator, to me it would be a Gravity/Storm Controller.

 

Dominator is still a good class, but definitely on lower end of the damage scale, maybe a about as strong offensively as a Defender or Tanker.

Edited February 29, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Frosticus]

Dom's don't tend to be aoe powerhouses.

They don't tend to be st powerhouses either.

 

Though a fire/fire or dark/fire dom can probably exceed most blasters in st damage.

A plant/fire/fire can do pretty respectable aoe damage, with very good clear speeds, but  it will never have the burst of a nuke

 

oedipus_tex is correct, a lot of tanks can pretty easily out damage and definitely out aoe most doms. They both control entire spawns, just in different ways.

[oedipus_tex]

So after reading those last two replies, you may be wondering why anyone would mess with this archetype at all. So I will try to explain why I and other players like them.

 

First, like I said, before Blasters were buffed and procs were changed to trigger reliably in long recharge powers, Dominators were widely seen as one of, if not the leading squishy class for solo play. Nothing has changed to make them any worse, it's just that many other classes have been buffed to be better, in some cases, like Blasters, extensively. Dominators themselves have also been the beneficiaries of some of these tweaks: they benefited a lot from the snipe changes. What really made Blasters pull ahead was that nukes used to be considered throwaway powers so it was no big deal that Dominators lack them. Now they're great and the Dom, already behind in AoE, is now way behind. 

 

So why mess with the archetype? Well, part of the reason is the Control sets overall are well designed, very divergent from each other in playstyle (much more than any Blast set), and so each character you create opens up gameplay possibilities unlike anything else you're going to play... including in other MMOs. The differences between Ice Control, Electric Control, and Gravity Control are so vast that they are almost like three different character class.

 

The second reason to play Dominators is the 5th slot in every Assault set, which is dedicated to a "unique" power. Blast sets and Manipulation sets get Build Up or Aim more or less reliably or else some minor variation. For Dominators though, you get:

• Four sets that provide a Power Boost like power that reverses the normal Controller/Dominator relationship. The normal relationship is Controller has better debuffs (for most debuffs) as well as longer mezz durations when the Dom is out of Domination mode. For these four sets, Dominators rule the game on mezz. Nothing can touch them.
• Two sets that mimic Blasters and provide Build Up. A few sets with Build Up like powers.
• One set with Drain Psyche, a power that transforms you into a regenerating wall of control. While Blasters also get this power, its on the Dominator, already quite a survivable archetype, where its true potential for turning you into an immoveable object is realized. 
• Altho it's not a 5th slot power, there is a power in one of the Dominator Assault sets that teleports you into an enemy's face and makes you punch them.

 

The third reason to play this archetype is the APPs. The APPs are transformative for Dominators in ways they aren't for most other classes. What this means is if you roll a Dark/Dark Dominator (for example) and get to level 50 and take the Ice pool, but decide to respec later into the Psi pool, you've likely made a huge adjustment to the character. Mainly, this was the result of the developers retroactively allowing the archetype access to the legacy Controller Hero sets, which resulted in them having to replace the single target blasts, and what they replaced with them with is toe curling:

• The Ice APP got a version of Sleet, which even with a shorter duration is amazing for this archetype, borrowing one of a Controller's main bragging rights
• The Fire APP got both Fireball and Rain of Fire
• The Psi APP got Link Minds and Indomitable Will which provides very 2 sources of LotG slotting while still giving you Resistance armor, plus respectable base Defense
• The Energy APP was also blessed with two AoEs (altho the endurance cost on one of them is prohibitive; at least you get Conserve Power with this set)
• The Villain Mu APP which had existed for a while more or less in obscurity suddenly found new life when Electric Control came around, and this is probably the premiere use of Power Sink in the game 

 

[Darkir]

I tried several dominators and every time I came away with a general sense of a lack of power compared to my corruptors and defenders. The lockdown and permadom is nice, but getting them to deal damage and live was quite difficult and in the end none of them felt comparable to most of my other toons. 

 

I think this stems from a lack of buffing/debuffing powers. Sure you get a lot of lockdown and in a pre-io world I'd probably have really liked them in a team with support but we are no longer in that world. I really think that dominators need some love because I don't think they are in a good place compared to controllers, defenders, blasters, and the melee ATs.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Darkir

[Coyote]

10 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Altho it's not a 5th slot power, there is a power in one of the Dominator Assault sets that teleports you into an enemy's face and makes you punch them.

 

OMG, Feral Charge, how I 😍 you.

And combined with the animation of Vicious Slash, you're not merely teleporting into the enemy's face, you're also RIPPING IT OFF for them. Can you say... Face Off? *chorus of groans* ... I knew you could!.... and there you see, how Savage Melee does AoE damage even in forum posts 😄😝

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

 

OMG, Feral Charge, how I 😍 you.

And combined with the animation of Vicious Slash, you're not merely teleporting into the enemy's face, you're also RIPPING IT OFF for them. Can you say... Face Off? *chorus of groans* ... I knew you could!.... and there you see, how Savage Melee does AoE damage even in forum posts 😄😝

I love feral charge so much.
i'd pay real money for it to be in savage melee too.

 

I can't find the "right" primary for /sav though. I've tried dark, fire, and grav now all into the 40's. I just want to fight all the time with /sav

So I'm thinking of trying plant/sav because seeds is that good and it is fast. Rending flurry is also pretty small outside of 5 stacks, so bunched up mobs would help. 

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, Darkir said:

I tried several dominators and every time I came away with a general sense of a lack of power compared to my corruptors and defenders. The lockdown and permadom is nice, but getting them to deal damage and live was quite difficult and in the end none of them felt comparable to most of my other toons. 

 

I think this stems from a lack of buffing/debuffing powers. Sure you get a lot of lockdown and in a pre-io world I'd probably have really liked them in a team with support but we are no longer in that world. I really think that dominators need some love because I don't think they are in a good place compared to controllers, defenders, blasters, and the melee ATs.

It's not all that different than the issues that sentinels have right now. You either bring meaningful buff/debuff or you bring heaps of damage. With scraps, brutes and now tanks* being so drastically over tuned relative to squishies it leaves control in a tough spot. 

 

*I left stalkers off this list. Imo they are the only melee AT that is balanced properly at this point with regard to damage/survival/utility.

 

Doms are super fun and dynamic though. I love solo'ing with them and if you can get on a team of 3-5 set for x8 you make a very tangible contribution as control is still valued.  Provided you have someone to keep you standing because huge aoe controls pull heaps of aggro. 

[Coyote]

11 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

So I'm thinking of trying plant/sav because seeds is that good and it is fast.

 

I think Dark/Savage MIGHT be stronger because of the ability to start with cones and teleport in for Heart of Darkness/Rending Flurry, but... when I made my Plant/Savage, I couldn't stop playing him. I usually level up multiple characters at a time, and that was the only time that I just stuck about 80% of the time on one character to 50. Having to use only one power (Seeds) at the start of the fight and then go in and RIP FACE OFF until the spawn is cleared just turns the character from a Dominator to a mez-oriented Scrapper. Or a mezzing blender 😄

[Frosticus]

46 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I think Dark/Savage MIGHT be stronger because of the ability to start with cones and teleport in for Heart of Darkness/Rending Flurry, but... when I made my Plant/Savage, I couldn't stop playing him. I usually level up multiple characters at a time, and that was the only time that I just stuck about 80% of the time on one character to 50. Having to use only one power (Seeds) at the start of the fight and then go in and RIP FACE OFF until the spawn is cleared just turns the character from a Dominator to a mez-oriented Scrapper. Or a mezzing blender 😄

Exactly. I like my dark/sav, but fearsome stare is pretty slow and tends to keep mobs spread further apart. It is very strong though with haunts, doggo and lots of tohit debuffs. Heart of darkness doesn't seem to be as fast as indicated though. 

I like my grav/sav because wormhole w/ kd packs mobs nice and tight. Lift is a good attack and singy is great. Wormhole recharges a bit too slow though and is a super long animation.

I want to like my fire/sav because I think it would ultimately be the best blender. Char is fine as an attack and means you get the dom ATO +dam working for you. Hot feet, imps and bonefire could all be good. At lvl 41 the dam thing can barely take on 0x3 settings though heh, so I can't really leverage all the aoe action.

 

A mez-oriented scrapper sounds like a good fit for /sav.  Plant of course can't do much vs AV's, but such is life. 

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Plant of course can't do much vs AV's, but such is life. 

 

I just beat Dreck as a +3, and some other AVs, using Lore pets... if he didn't have -Def, with my capped Ranged Defense, I could tank most +3 AVs at range and slowly beat them down. The regeneration from the Tree, Melee Hybrid, and Surge of Power (alternating the last two as much as possible) makes it usable against AVs. Not one of the better soloers, but not actually gimped. Well, granted, much of it is held up by capped ranged defenses... but I was also worried about handling AVs, and it turns out that it can't handle some of the tougher ones (Lanarru spanked me viciously), but easy to moderate AVs aren't that much of an issue. And few are really going to be an issue if you are willing to drop to +1s.

[oedipus_tex]

I think Electric/Savage has massive synergy if you can find a way to deal with handling in coming damage. There lies the rub.

 

The problem in a nutshell is that melee archetypes are overtuned, as Frosticus said. So the developers have loaded enemies with tons of huge damage attacks, sometimes undodgeable (as in exploding enemies and collapsing robots) meant to punish armored characters, but that end up making unarmored blapper archetypes like Dominators have short life spans. My experience with the archetype is that I am alive until I am suddenly not. I usually don't even see what killed me. Usually it turns out to be some boss who escaped his mezz for a fraction of a second. 

 

Since further buffing damage is probably not in the cards, IMO Dominators should probably have significantly more Hit Points. 

 

All of this is why one Assault set, Psy, stands out to me as significantly better than the others, even if damage isn't top of the chain. With enough Recharge to make Drain Psyche perma, the Dominator can (mostly) stand toe to toe with melee, or at least not fold instantly. They're still very vulnerable against AVs of course.

 

The other secondaries are fun and do good damage but no amount of control makes up for lacking armor or hit points, and most of the secondaries have not even a basic heal. Since damage isn't high enough for significant Inspiration churn, they can fall behind. But again, the current threshold of performance is way higher than it used to be; back in i24 before crashless nukes and reliable procs, Dominators were top of the chain, and still aren't technically bad. 

Edited February 29, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[mbre2006]

PVE wise Mind/Psi is going to be the only thing you're gonna get to true aoe wreckage with a dom (IMO). You can proc the hell out of Mind/PSI and frakenslot it with mezz and damage. You might end up sacrificing a few things here and there but it's definitely doable. And as long as you achieve permadom, you greatly increase your survivability.

Edited March 1, 2020 by mbre2006

[Frosticus]

10 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I think Electric/Savage has massive synergy if you can find a way to deal with handling in coming damage. There lies the rub.

 

The problem in a nutshell is that melee archetypes are overtuned, as Frosticus said. So the developers have loaded enemies with tons of huge damage attacks, sometimes undodgeable (as in exploding enemies and collapsing robots) meant to punish armored characters, but that end up making unarmored blapper archetypes like Dominators have short life spans. My experience with the archetype is that I am alive until I am suddenly not. I usually don't even see what killed me. Usually it turns out to be some boss who escaped his mezz for a fraction of a second. 

 

Since further buffing damage is probably not in the cards, IMO Dominators should probably have significantly more Hit Points. 

 

All of this is why one Assault set, Psy, stands out to me as significantly better than the others, even if damage isn't top of the chain. With enough Recharge to make Drain Psyche perma, the Dominator can (mostly) stand toe to toe with melee, or at least not fold instantly. They're still very vulnerable against AVs of course.

 

The other secondaries are fun and do good damage but no amount of control makes up for lacking armor or hit points, and most of the secondaries have not even a basic heal. Since damage isn't high enough for significant Inspiration churn, they can fall behind. But again, the current threshold of performance is way higher than it used to be; back in i24 before crashless nukes and reliable procs, Dominators were top of the chain, and still aren't technically bad. 

/psi tends to be very low damage compared to just about every other secondary though. At least you can put the +dam ATO into subdue and use it as part of your attack chain, which helps a bit. You need a proc build for /psi to do decent damage and then it becomes really hard to get the 300% rech for perma drain psyche. Great power though. 

 

I agree entirely about boosting doms hp, that makes a lot of sense.

I'd also normalize their control strength to match controllers outside of domination and adjust domination accordingly to match current duration. 

I'd also like to see more healing options for them. /psi is great, /dark is good, /sav has a 3 min timer on its heal? junk. /rad is iffy. Everyone else is up ****creek. Damage will get through, sometimes lots of it. And every dom assault set has powers that encourage melee combat.

[serxiom]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:42 PM, mbre2006 said:

PVE wise Mind/Psi is going to be the only thing you're gonna get to true aoe wreckage with a dom (IMO). You can proc the hell out of Mind/PSI and frakenslot it with mezz and damage. You might end up sacrificing a few things here and there but it's definitely doable. And as long as you achieve permadom, you greatly increase your survivability.

I must disagree with this. Best AoE primary in my opinion is Plant. Besides good control it brings great dps from carrion creepers + roots. Sorry but Mind primary lacks of dps compares to Plant or Fire. 

So if you pair Plant or  Fire with Psy it will out dps Mind for far. 

I do have 4 doms (my main Mind/Dark) and my Plant/Ma is a Dps monster comparing with the rest.

There was a reason why people choosen Plant or Fire for farming in the past.

[nihilii]

On 2/29/2020 at 10:54 PM, oedipus_tex said:

My experience with the archetype is that I am alive until I am suddenly not. I usually don't even see what killed me. Usually it turns out to be some boss who escaped his mezz for a fraction of a second. 

To be fair, if you're willing to get Tough, Charged Armor, slot Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses, you've got pretty good resistances to the most common damage types. Heck, even Surge of Power can be useful in a pinch.

But there's the issue unique to Dominators... Having SLEET on a high damage AT is such a fantastic proposition, it becomes very very hard to justify passing up Ice Mastery. Which, in turn, locks you into a defense shield rather than a resistance shield.

I die a lot on my Doms, but I can only blame my own greed.

[mbre2006]

13 hours ago, serxiom said:

I must disagree with this. Best AoE primary in my opinion is Plant. Besides good control it brings great dps from carrion creepers + roots. Sorry but Mind primary lacks of dps compares to Plant or Fire. 

So if you pair Plant or  Fire with Psy it will out dps Mind for far. 

I do have 4 doms (my main Mind/Dark) and my Plant/Ma is a Dps monster comparing with the rest.

There was a reason why people choosen Plant or Fire for farming in the past.

I would love to see this in action. Do you have any I can witness in action?

[VV]

I play a lot of Dominators, and I have noticed the aliveBOOMdead phenomena, as well. As far as blastery sets go, of the combos I have, I think the Elect/Nrg feels the most blastery. I skipped most of the melee attacks (I know, many moans) and I can just float back out of the aoe mayhem and blast away. Does decent damage.

 

Seems like every discussion of what Dom sets to play always comes down to people raving about /Sav and /Psy. I have a Dark/Sav and yeah, I get it. SOOO much scrapperlock. And don't even talk to me about damage issues, the damage output is ridonkulous. The thing is Feral Charge saves a lot of time getting around the battlefield and that has a surprisingly positive effect on kill-rate. It's just, bamf-facerip, bamf-facerip, bamf-facerip,  until everything is dead.

 

I also have a Mind/Psy that I am still trying to work out. I haven't been too happy with her so far. I might see about making her a proc-monster and see how that goes. 

 

But now I keep thinking, what if I ran /Sav with one of the primaries with a toggle PBOAE. That could be crazy.  Or wait, I could take the Psi Epic and run World of Confusion Or WAIT, do Mind/Sav, toggle on Telekinesis and just bop from one to the other as they helplessly float away!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHH so many options! 

[Coyote]

41 minutes ago, VV said:

Or WAIT, do Mind/Sav, toggle on Telekinesis

 

That... could be quite fun. Use Levitate to start them going up, then keep Feral Charging UPWARDS!!! Up, up, and away!!! To the Moon, and Beyond!!! Hey, maybe you can use a Hellion and Feral Charge your way to the moon!   No, wait, they won't last long enough. How about a Fake Nemesis? It can be your Fake Rocket Pod! 😁

[serxiom]

20 hours ago, mbre2006 said:

I would love to see this in action. Do you have any I can witness in action?

Just a small video sample.... sorry about quality. 53 x 6 Councils.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by serxiom

[Camel]

On 2/28/2020 at 9:52 PM, oedipus_tex said:

Dominators were fairly competitive with Blasters back before crashless nukes and sustain abilities. Now they don't come close in my experience.

 

The main reasons to go Dominator are:

• In Dom mode, you have mezz protection, which no other squishy does outside of Clarion(forces this Destiny pick), Indom Will (must be Controller and go Psi Mastery), or Mystic pool (which is non-perma and requires the Mystic pool).
• In Dom mode you can often mezz entire groups instantly, including Bosses. No other class touches Dominators for total lockdown--altho with revised proc rules, its now much easier for Blasters, Controllers, etc to mimic Domination.
• With enough Recharge you can have both these things permanently.
• You deal more damage (generally) than (most) Controllers.

 

To answer your question, the most Blastery Dominator wouldn't be a Dominator, to me it would be a Gravity/Storm Controller.

 

Dominator is still a good class, but definitely on lower end of the damage scale, maybe a about as strong offensively as a Defender or Tanker.

I can’t say that’s my same experience. On my Plant/Psi, even on teams with minimal damage buffs and debuffs, I would see Mind Probe and Psionic Lance hit for very respectable damage. Sometimes over 1k. Although my AoE damage was pretty lacking. Or rather, my AoE damage wasn’t lacking, it was great. But the ceiling didn’t seem as high while under buffs or the enemies severely debuffed.

Edited March 4, 2020 by cazden121

[biostem]

I play my gravity controllers basically like blasters or defenders.  I've had pretty good results with a grav/earth Dom...