Most Blaster-Like Dominator?

[mbre2006]

4 hours ago, serxiom said:

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

 

Enjoy!

 

 

I'm impressed. . What server do you play on?

Edited March 4, 2020 by mbre2006

[serxiom]

5 hours ago, mbre2006 said:

I'm impressed. . What server do you play on?

Torch! Got all my toons there... 

@tijero just send me a tell we can team up anytime

Cheers!

[mbre2006]

5 hours ago, serxiom said:

Torch! Got all my toons there... 

@tijero just send me a tell we can team up anytime

Cheers!

I play on torch too. I'll hit you up we can run some dom teams together.

[r0y]

I am *really* trying to get into Dominators.  I've made three (3) and got them to 50; IO'd them out (no purples or ATO's mind you, but LotG's, Oblits, etc).  I ended up deleting one (Elec/Savage).  I *really* wanted to like the elec/savage, but it was just such an under-performer.  I'm not even comparing to other ATs (where Dom's seriously underperform), but rather to my other two doms:  Fire/Thorns and Earth/Earth.

 

Earth/Earth is stupidly OP for a Dom, so much so that it seems the only combo I've found that can not just keep up, but lead on damage and mez.  It's a great, fun combo (even with the limitation of being on the ground for several powers, makes sense).  Fire/Thorn is decent at range and has some nice tricks with it.

 

That all said, I believe what makes dominators LACK is the fact that even if you can keep up or slightly pull ahead of another AT, it is taking the player 10-12 click powers to do it.  That's a TERRIBLE rotation.  Ideally, one should have 3 or 4 decent single-target attacks, and 2+ AoE, and 1 nuke or so.  All added up, that's 7+ powers, far fewer than 10-12...  Now, adding in AIM/Buildup/Dominate is more clicking (I perma-click dom, since I rarely am having hasten) but still.

 

DOMINATORS = dominate clicking or pressing buttons to achieve the same (or just less) than other ATs.  Let's be honest, dom's only look good when compared to Controllers.   Oooo, I can mez and out-damage a controller.  Well, you know what?  I don't play controllers to damage.  I play a damage class to damage.  Therefore, how do Dom's do against Corrupters and Blasters?  Or Scrappers and Brutes and Stalkers?  Yeah.

 

I really want to play them, as they have unique set mashups and can have some interesting thematic stuff, but it really feels like I am doing 3x the work to achieve the same goal as I do on even a corrupter, let alone a blaster.  The best mez in the game is death.  My blasters are pretty mezzy in that.

 

[Mezmera]

Well trying to be a blaster on a dominator is where the thinking is wrong.  With their nukes blasters are kings of aoe damage and probably as an AT the best dps there is and rightly so.  Dominator's snipes are the best and on a lot of the revamped assaults I'd argue their ST dps is better than blasters and corruptors, but yes it won't compare to stalkers and scrappers due to their crits.  If you're trying to be like another AT you're missing out on what this one can be.  You're meant to be an all around dps machine along with control over the battlefield like no other which in turn offers you and the group the best survivability.  

 

If you're worried about too many powers to click then yes I'd agree to pare those down to the essential good ones and get some passive defenses.  Still you'll want a couple AoE controls for when things hit the fan, remember the best defense is sometimes a great offense, build the dom well and play them aggressively.  

 

For the topic at hand I offer Mind/Energy/Soul, it's simply the nastiest character I've got.  

Edited March 5, 2020 by Mezmera

[Coyote]

Damage numbers on Dominators look pretty good to me. They compare to comparabe damage numbers on Blasters.

They lose out on: Aim/BU and Defiance, nukes.

They gain on: safety, +Damage from the ATO.

 

So if you want to look for damage, I think that I like sets that can slot the ATO in an attack power like Fissure, use that to leverage higher damage, then leverage the FF proc to fire a repetitive AoE chain for sustained AoE DPS. They won't do up-front burst damage like true damage ATs, but their sustained AoE DPS can be solid. When soloing, they do fine. On teams, you don't get to care if you built up a +Damage bonus for your second set of attacks, and that second set recharges fast, because with all of the AoE in the game, it's just your first salvo that really counts.

 

This is really just another part of the City of High AoE Damage that we're in at high levels: sustained DPS only matters when soloing or duoing, otherwise the burst damage clears the spawn except for bosses.

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

 

They gain on: safety, +Damage from the ATO.

I'm really hoping that they change the ATO so it can be slotted in any dom power rather than only in a "control" power

 

if /thorny didn't have redraw I'd be all over it. Impale takes the +dam ATO, you have build up and very good DPA attacks and some really good proc options. 

 

 

[Zeraphia]

I know this might sound a little "basic" but I recently made a Fire^3 Dominator... and I ADORE her. She is EXTREMELY damaging. Not quite as damaging immediately as a Fire/Fire blaster obviously, but she more than well does the job in AoE and ST. Quite effective in all aspects of the game minus soloing super hard TF's. Flashfire -> Cages -> Bonfire -> Hotfeet/RoF -> fireball/combustion with fire imps really does neuter mobs extremely quickly and she doesn't die too often due to her lockdown ability and the knockdown spams of Bonfire. She does tremendous damage, and even if she does die, she RoP's for a nuke damage, I actually highly recommend this combination, it keeps up with teams fairly well.

[VV]

13 hours ago, Mezmera said:

Well trying to be a blaster on a dominator is where the thinking is wrong. 

I agree. Two significant problems with that. First is, when calculating overall effectiveness, we need to include down time. That is, time face down in the muck. All other things being equal, blasters spend more time there than dominators, and that reduces their total damage output. I mean, nowadays nobody seems to care about facetime, and everyone can just carry a ton of wakies, but still, downtime is downtime.

 

Secondly, in a team setting, we look at the team benefit and dominators bring more safety to a team than a blaster does. Though blasters do have some controllish kinds of powers, it generally isn't much and isn't as strong. Keeping teammates up also adds to overall kill-rate.

 

This is why, when working on characters, I prefer to look at overall kill-rate, rather than just individual damage numbers, particularly when teamed.  

[Generator]

On 3/5/2020 at 1:29 AM, 33053222 said:

I know this might sound a little "basic" but I recently made a Fire^3 Dominator... and I ADORE her.

I am on the cusp of rerolling my Fire^3 from back in the day.  He was a hoot, and getting KB > KD in Bonfire feels like it might be even more fun.

[oedipus_tex]

Because of the Sustain mechanic added in i25 most Blasters should rarely faceplant unless they attempt content far beyond their capabilities. 

 

Blasters also have one big leg up on Dominators, inspiration churn. Basically when you spend time beating on enemies but not actually killing them, you don't get inspiration drops. Inspiration churn is the reason Brutes, Scrappers, and Blasters can often out survive archetypes that are actually built for survival. Inspiration drops are tied directly to kill rate.

 

Inspiration churn is less a factor in team content though.

[r0y]

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Because of the Sustain mechanic added in i25 most Blasters should rarely faceplant unless they attempt content far beyond their capabilities. 

 

Blasters also have one big leg up on Dominators, inspiration churn. Basically when you spend time beating on enemies but not actually killing them, you don't get inspiration drops. Inspiration churn is the reason Brutes, Scrappers, and Blasters can often out survive archetypes that are actually built for survival. Inspiration drops are tied directly to kill rate.

 

Inspiration churn is less a factor in team content though.

That's an excellent point.  I totally agree, totally know this, but had not thought of it.  Yeah, some toons just never seem to have a lot of insps, whereas others I'm constantly converting and popping.  Good point.

[Frosticus]

 

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Because of the Sustain mechanic added in i25 most Blasters should rarely faceplant unless they attempt content far beyond their capabilities. 

 

Blasters also have one big leg up on Dominators, inspiration churn. Basically when you spend time beating on enemies but not actually killing them, you don't get inspiration drops. Inspiration churn is the reason Brutes, Scrappers, and Blasters can often out survive archetypes that are actually built for survival. Inspiration drops are tied directly to kill rate.

 

Inspiration churn is less a factor in team content though.

100%

 

Having enough aoe to vaporize minions quickly while solo can mean that x5 actually goes smoother and faster than x1-3

Edited March 8, 2020 by Frosticus

[XaoGarrent]

On 3/8/2020 at 10:02 AM, oedipus_tex said:

Because of the Sustain mechanic added in i25 most Blasters should rarely faceplant unless they attempt content far beyond their capabilities. 

 

Blasters also have one big leg up on Dominators, inspiration churn. Basically when you spend time beating on enemies but not actually killing them, you don't get inspiration drops. Inspiration churn is the reason Brutes, Scrappers, and Blasters can often out survive archetypes that are actually built for survival. Inspiration drops are tied directly to kill rate.

 

Inspiration churn is less a factor in team content though.

This is the kind of lateral thinking I like to see.

[Styrbolg]

On 3/4/2020 at 5:09 AM, serxiom said:

Torch! Got all my toons there... 

@tijero just send me a tell we can team up anytime

Cheers!

I've been tryin to plan out a Plant/Martial and I dropped Caltrops for SS, totally don't know if its worth it.

Would you mind taking a look at my build?

 

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1479&c=678&a=1356&f=HEX&dc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

 

Any/All critique is welcome. I do realize that Spiritual Core is a bit of a crutch and possibly forces me to run ageless, I was trying to minimize Hoarfrost downtime.

 

[serxiom]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:56 PM, NeoLeeroy said:

I've been tryin to plan out a Plant/Martial and I dropped Caltrops for SS, totally don't know if its worth it.

Would you mind taking a look at my build?

I just checked your build here a few things. It´s expensive no questions, if you have the inf thats ok. You will not regret to invest that much inf in this dominator. 

 

Permahasten great! Stamina 1 slot... umm thats risky but cuold be "fixed" between your massive +rech and incarnate power selection later.

About power selection checking what you choosen you are planning going ranged mostly. Plant powers selection is accurate (entangle, sporburst and spirit tree are skippable for me as well). Regarding MA you skipped almost all melee attacks. Well thats up to your personal playstyle... i do like going melee so i chosen almost all melee attack being the less used Dragons Tail (poor damage imho). Talking about caltrops and this is controversial sometimes i just chose it cause is a good damage mitigation making NPCS running away as soon you drop it. I use caltrops 1 slot with  a -res proc. Still skippable for some people and thats fine.

 

Going to your total numbers (and here some disagreement with your build): Defense S/L 38.4% - Melee /AoE 18.7% - Ranged 21.2% . If you ask me those numbers are way down to softcap. Target for softcap is 40%+. I tend to build my doms reaching S/L and Ranged over 40%. So with this in mind here are my questions and were i find a contradiction: As i said you are planning to go ranged attack (by your power selection) so... why are you not softcapping at least Ranged Def? 

 

With all the inf you are willing to put down i would at least take care of softcap ranged. Some friends in this forum will tell you to not worry about DEF but standing toe by toe in AV fights besides Tanks and Brutes... thats the spot were you want to be as a Dominator and thats why we have melee attacks in our powersets. 

 

For finishing i dont like to just critique. So here im sharing the build im running in my Plant/MA. Maybe you could improve it and adapt it to your own playstyle.

 

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1475&c=689&a=1378&f=HEX&dc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

 

I would like to see your Dominator in game sometime... so post a video or something whenever you can.

 

GL 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by serxiom

[Phalanx480bc]

Am I the only dominator that loves Spore Burst.  I know it's only a sleep, but it's tied with Mass Hypnosis as the longest-lasting AOE control with the shortest recharge..  MH has 10' more range but takes longer to activate, which is not a good tradeoff for what it's used for. Spore Burst is a good opener but shines as an emergency AOE control.  That's the reason the range is less important than the activation time and makes it better than MH in the scenario where it will get the most use.   It gives plenty of time for Seeds to recharge to be activated again before they wake.  I know plant is a great set, but after Seeds, the rest of it's control is meh and Spore Burst fills the gap a bit.

[serxiom]

13 minutes ago, Phalanx480bc said:

Am I the only dominator that loves Spore Burst.  I know it's only a sleep, but it's tied with Mass Hypnosis as the longest-lasting AOE control with the shortest recharge..  MH has 10' more range but takes longer to activate,

Is about playstyle. If you play in teams is kind of useless, but soloing yes it's ok if you use it as you described. The only reason for me to taking it would be for running LRSF. But on these days teams are all about rushing in and smash. 

I don't have room for Spore Burst in my build and with seeds and AoE hold coming fast + Inmob honestly i don't need it. 

Different thing is with my Mind dominator... Sleep is a must and fill a little hole between holds and confuse. 

[The_Cheeseman]

Dominators have very nice damage, their ranged damage mod is 0.95, which is only behind Blasters and Kheldian Nova Forms.

But the biggest aspect of Dominators that sets them above Blasters, in my opinion, is that we are among the ATs most capable of straight-up carrying a team through content. If you're just running in teams that nuke everything dead in 5sec, then it doesn't really matter what AT you're playing. But if your team is actually being challenged, there's nothing better than a Dominator. We can trivialize the vast majority of content in the game just by perma-mezzing AVs or GMs, and there is no trash spawn we can't obliterate by ourselves if necessary. I never have to worry about being unable to finish a TF when I am playing my Dom. I've never felt more powerful in an MMO than I do playing my Dom. It's addictive, and it's spoiled me for every other AT.

[Snarky]

11 hours ago, The_Cheeseman said:

Dominators have very nice damage, their ranged damage mod is 0.95, which is only behind Blasters and Kheldian Nova Forms.

But the biggest aspect of Dominators that sets them above Blasters, in my opinion, is that we are among the ATs most capable of straight-up carrying a team through content. If you're just running in teams that nuke everything dead in 5sec, then it doesn't really matter what AT you're playing. But if your team is actually being challenged, there's nothing better than a Dominator. We can trivialize the vast majority of content in the game just by perma-mezzing AVs or GMs, and there is no trash spawn we can't obliterate by ourselves if necessary. I never have to worry about being unable to finish a TF when I am playing my Dom. I've never felt more powerful in an MMO than I do playing my Dom. It's addictive, and it's spoiled me for every other AT.

I have flirted with low level Doms on Homecoming.  I still remember the mid teens Dom I took on a Posi 1.  I carefully hoarded my Domination button for the last 5 minutes of the mission,  We hit the Shadow fight.  I hit Dom and mass held.  

 

And it was over.  Cleanup on aisle two.

 

The team was like.  Wait?  That...that was it?

 

Yep.  That's all it needed.

[Seed22]

On 3/2/2020 at 8:44 AM, 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.

Gonna disagree a little further. Fire/Earth/Ice or Fire. Pretty much AoE death on wheels. Oh and ST too(Seismic Smash says hi)

[VV]

On 3/29/2020 at 3:25 AM, The_Cheeseman said:

Dominators have very nice damage, their ranged damage mod is 0.95, which is only behind Blasters and Kheldian Nova Forms.

But the biggest aspect of Dominators that sets them above Blasters, in my opinion, is that we are among the ATs most capable of straight-up carrying a team through content. If you're just running in teams that nuke everything dead in 5sec, then it doesn't really matter what AT you're playing. But if your team is actually being challenged, there's nothing better than a Dominator. We can trivialize the vast majority of content in the game just by perma-mezzing AVs or GMs, and there is no trash spawn we can't obliterate by ourselves if necessary. I never have to worry about being unable to finish a TF when I am playing my Dom. I've never felt more powerful in an MMO than I do playing my Dom. It's addictive, and it's spoiled me for every other AT.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. I've put together some pretty weird Dom combos and they all perform astonishingly. I like it because generally you can build however you want, and as long as you slot intelligently, you are going to do well. 

[Without_Pause]

On 3/4/2020 at 7:22 PM, r0y said:

Earth/Earth is stupidly OP for a Dom, so much so that it seems the only combo I've found that can not just keep up, but lead on damage and mez.  It's a great, fun combo (even with the limitation of being on the ground for several powers, makes sense).  Fire/Thorn is decent at range and has some nice tricks with it.

 

On topic, I went Mind/dark and outside of the PBAoE, it is fairly smooth as a ranged Dom, and the mixture of damage types will help out in the endgame.

 

But yeah, still just 22 but my Earth Dom is holy shirt balls amount of fun and I know it is only going to get better.

[eiynp]

if you use /fire/fire as your secondary/ancillary you can be basically a fire blaster with a control primary; you can get every relevant fire blast power (less the nuke) and even a quasi-buildup to use.

 

pick whatever primary you like, although earth/, mind/ and /plant lend themselves best to ranged play

[Styrbolg]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:42 AM, serxiom said:

I would like to see your Dominator in game sometime... so post a video or something whenever you can.

 

GL 

If I can ever settle on a final build!

 

Here's another iteration, S/L softcap this time.  After speaking to another player, I realized that you can have permanent insta-snipe, so I have built towards that as well.

 

Cooldowns are low enough for a purely ranged attack chain, trying to keep it as Blaster-y as possible. The next contemplation is weather I should slot damage procs into Seeds of Confusion and  Roots, or leave the Achilles' Heel and Soulbound in the Fly Trap. That might be a question I answer after level 50.

 

The blank slot in Carrion is the new fire damage proc.

Tonituah.mxd