Where to put ATO set for Dark Control?

[blayzemaster]

Hi, I'm really stuck with this! I definitely want it because 8.5% recharge is no joke, but I really don't know where to put it. I'm tempted by Fearsome Stare to give it good recharge when I exemplar down, but I don't know whether to use the proc or not in there or to put the proc in something else.

[QuiJon]

First off unless you already have 5 purple sets you attune those bad boys because if 8.5 percent recharge is no joke, the only thing less funny is 10 percent recharge bonus.

 

First off IMO fearsome stare already does not have a bad recharge rate. Look at it's duration and it is up pretty much before it can wear off even with minimal slotting.

 

My suggestion is to look at what you are going to need long term to do what you want to do with the character. Assuming perma dom because of your need to recharge it up. Then I would look at the cost of other IO sets that offer bonuses to recharge. If it is going to cost you 100 credits a piece to get an ATO set or 20m a piece that is 5oo merits minimum or 100m influence. But if you slot that set into fearsome stare when an IO set that fits that power for a purple set might cost 5-10 million a piece because fear is a less common set to have need for, and you leave your self having to buy an expensive purple set for a hold power that makes no sense to get the same level of bonus. The nice thing on that set is it can go on any control power. Don't waste the chance to have that make your life a bit easier to getting to the finish line.

[blayzemaster]

I did put it there in the end, there is no purple set for Fear. My holds are 4 slotted with Basilisk's Gaze so I have recharge from them already, and that way I save slots. Heart of Darkness can take a Purple set so not that. Living Shadows wouldn't get the best use of it. Possess doesn't need 5 slots...

 

...and that's all of Darkness Control! Although the relative cost advice is good; thankfully I already have Permadom so now it's just a matter of build tweaking for more defence.

[QuiJon]

It might not be as good of a bonus, but considering that most recharge bonuses require 5 slots to make use of, and like I said I don't personally feel that Fearsome stare is worth 5 or six slotting, With 4 slots you can put in dark watchers despair sets. Get 5 percent recharge bonus from the set, which I know is not 8 or 10 but you are going to have to maximize every single power choice to get perma dom some of the choices with the 5 buff limit are going to have to be odd amounts. But this saves an extra slot or two to use on other power choices. And depending on the 4 items of the set you use you can buff the -to hit, recharge and end red of the power pretty significantly. Depending on the 4 you use I came up with 70.1-th, 54.2recharge, and 21.2 end red or 54.2 -th, 74.2 recharge, and 42.8 end reductions. And frankly I like the idea of buffing that - to hit more so then the duration personally. But that is a personal choice but you have to remember that every time you tick damage on a feared enemy it is going to attack you before the fear kicks in again. I like having less of those attacks land. And you still get plenty of time to lock down the tougher foes since you have a single target hold and a confuse power both to take them out of the game with.

 

Just a thought but honestly to get a comfy buffer to click dom again and again every single power I have on my dominators is buffing recharge rate. I even took stealth and combat jumping and hover just to put 7.5 recharges into them. You do have to get creative sometimes you can not just grab the highest buff you can find every time because you can not have more then 5 of the same buff so 5 7.5 recharge reductions, 5 6.25 etc.

[blayzemaster]

Dark Watchet doesn't improve accuracy at all though, which is okay when you have a lot of +acc set bonuses, but makes me nervous lol. Equally, my observations seem to be they have a chance to attack when you attack them rather than a guaranteed counter.

 

Where would you put it though if not in Fearsome Stare?

 

 

[Machariel]

This is actually a problem I run into with a lot of Dominator builds.  The ATO sets have great bonuses, and the +damage proc is probably great, but I never find anywhere I want to put them!

I don't have any control powers that I spam as often as possible.  And as you note, Basilisk's Gaze goes into the hold powers because its 7.5 recharge on 4 slots. 

I think a good place place to put the ATO sets is probably your single target hold since that's what you use the most, and we just have to deal with the fact that it's an incremental improvement over Basilisk's Gaze.  But, Fearsome Stare is where I'd put it if I were in your position. 

 

I hard disagree with Quijon - do not put Dark Watcher's despair in there.  Buffing the -tohit is nice, but I think using 6 slots to get 8.5% (or 10%) recharge is a lot better than using 4 slots for 5%, and Fearsome Stare is definitely not a bad power to be throwing around a lot and buffing yourself every time you do.

 

I even took stealth and combat jumping and hover just to put 7.5 recharges into them. You do have to get creative...

This is pretty standard and a great reason to take Leadership on your Dominators.  Maneuvers + Tactics + Vengeance is 2 LoTG mules attached to 3 fantastic powers.

[QuiJon]

I will admit I didn't not consider that fearsome stare needs an accuracy roll. However even so I can maintain that you really do want to get basic powers laid out and chosen, then figure how to get the most bang for your buck off of set bonuses if you are going for perma dom. You can not simply say everything is going to go purple. You have a limit to 5 of any one type of buff amount. So perhaps 8.5 un-attuned is better then attuning them and going to 10 percent if you are going to have 5 10 percents all ready. But even so I can still say that I had no choice but to purposely pick some lower buff amounts, like the 5 percent from DW set on my earth dom (earthquake doent require acc) and as such perhaps even 5 slotting fearsome stare and then using 4 dw and 1 basic acc IO might still be what is needed to do. The most common buffs for recovery tend to be 10, 7.5, 6.25 and then 5 percent. Off the top of my head the unattuned buff of 8 percent is the only 8 percent I can think of. Even taking 5 of each of the top end only puts you at 112 percent recharge bonus. And even if that barely squeaks you into perma dom (I don't know the base anymore I over slotted) it isn't gonna give you much breathing room to hit that click again when it comes up, and if anything slows you you are gonna lose it.

 

Ultimately it doesn't matter where you put that set, it can enhance anywhere. It has to do with where it makes the most sense for your build and the cost of slotting powers vs using the ato set. I personally notice a lot of difference when I slot available powers with -to hit debuffs. Which is why that is how I slot fearsome stare (though not with set IOs yet so have not figure that out) being that my sets are fire it doesn't do a lot of good to fear them and then it them with an AOE that has DOT attached to it that just allows them to keep attacking through the fear. I might as well make sure as few of those attacks land as I can.

[blayzemaster]

FYI, with Hasten you need about 70% recharge for Permadom. Without Hasten you need about 125% I think, which would as you say probably benefit from using the non purple ATO set as you would need your 5 10% recharge purples. I also don't have any DOTs, so that also may explain the difference in the fear behaviour.

[QuiJon]

Well I don't know about your math, what I do know is that I have a dominator that runs at about 120 percent recharge from just bonuses. Not figuring in hasten. He has an overlap of about 10-13 seconds to notice and push the button for domination. This seems like plenty of time. And with this level of recharge hasten is only down for like 3 seconds. If you had only 50 percent bonus to your recharge hasten will be down longer. If it is down longer then you are losing its 70 percent recharge the entire time it is down meaning that the buffs have to then pick up the slack. You can not figure into the math assuming hasten will be granting you that buff if it is not running cause it still has a cool down period between clicks. You need more then 5 10 percent IO sets to perma domination. and even so you need longer because you are not always watching the button, sometimes the button comes on when you have started a power with long animations or as you click to exit a map or you get slowed by an enemy. Like I said almost every power I have chosen on my dominator is in some way contributing to my global recharge bonus to allow me to maintain perma domination. That needs to be planned out a bit ahead of time cause some sets only have 1-2 choices that buff recharge to begin with and you don't have an option on the amount of buff that power will give you.

[Koda651]

And with this level of recharge hasten is only down for like 3 seconds.

At 120% global recharge, Hasten should have no downtime at all.  Do you have two recharge IO's in it?

[Straenge]

From my old build and old Dom board info on live, I think the consensus agreed the ATO set worked best in Living Shadows since you could spam the hell out of it.