What Would You Change About Dominators?

[oedipus_tex]

Dominator is probably my favorite class, but I have to admit there's stuff about the archetype I would change. I'm wondering what other people would change.

 

• 1. Make all powers Dominate. Meaning the obvious stuff like Synaptic Overload and Static Field, but also Ice Slick, Earthquake, Arctic Air etc should have extra ticks. The arbitrary distribution of powers that can Dominate or not has always irked me. 

 

• 2. Front-load most DoTs so that they do single-hit damage. This is an archetype that is supposed to specialize in damage dealing combined with controls. Yet the Assault sets are loaded with DoT powers that interfere with Sleep and Terrorize. 

 

• 3. Give the AT a mezz protect toggle similar to an armored character. This is likely to be controversial. But the reason I've come to believe this is necessary is perma-Dominators basically have this. The gap between perma and non-perma Dominator feels too wide. I wish this class just had a straight up anti-mezz toggle or clickable and the main benefit of Domination was, well, Domination. This would greatly reduce the pressure for the player to achieve huge amounts of Recharge just to make the class good,

 

• 4. Don't force us to play villains to get auto-refill Domination. I hate red side. I hate the way it looks, the red screens you get, really all of it. I really dislike that such a powerful ability forces me to be a red sider. I know the developers created it to entice people to red side, but the fact that it's so powerful and still players stick to blue side should say something.  

 

• 5. Fix the tier 1 Assault power. The Tier 1 attack powers are almost universally terrible. Most of the time I remove them from my bar as soon as possible. These powers feel like they should have some special utility. A minor vampiric heal, endurance recovery, something. An option would be for them to strip mezz resistance from a target so that mezzes last longer.  

 

 

How about you? What would you change?

Edited July 28, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[nihilii]

All ST holds and immobilizes should be 1.33s duration, tops.

[Mezmera]

1.  Don't know if some of these are necessary, I mean Ice Slick and Earthquake work how they work, do you want banana peels to show up under their feet to show they are being dominated?  I think this is just how it's gonna be for some of these powers, not to say I wouldn't then recommend looking into Ice Control as a whole to see what can be revamped without breaking anything. 

 

2. Sure makes sense, I never take ST DoT attacks anyways unless it's a fire blast since added damage is its side-effect.  

 

3. Yeah it's a touchy subject but I'm going to have to say I'm not for this, Domination doesn't need tinkered with.  Yes the barrier to entry for Perma-dom CAN be off putting but there's ways to build one on the cheap, then once you see how good it is your motivation will be that much more to make a better one.  Endurance refill is a big one for me, I just see too many subtle things that would need to be accounted for and too much thought necessary to redo the thing as it's been pretty much the same from the start of Villains.  What they did on live making the damage boost universal between domination and not was a good idea, after that there may be unintended consequences with overhauling this inherent.  

 

4.  Hate is a strong word Hero.  You can interrupt snipe, use your pbaoes and my favorite, toss snowballs at people, a bit villainous probably though for you goody two shoes. 

 

5.  Sure I almost never use this power in my rotation anyways.  Would actually like to get the ability to choose the 2nd attack too but yeah any revamp to this starter power to entice me to do anything with it is a plus.  

Edited July 28, 2020 by Mezmera

[Riverdusk]

I think my main idea was to get rid of the domination bar entirely, just have dom be on a timer and that is it.  Having to "build dom" seems a superfluous extra step.  That would also be a way of cutting down the gap between perma dom and non perma dom as then you wouldn't have to worry any more about being just a couple of seconds short. When it dropped you could just click it a couple of seconds later when it did recharge without having  to "build the dom bar" back up.

 

I think the dom bar itself is what creates this perma dom or go home kind of playstyle.  Without it I wouldn't care if I was even 10 seconds short or whatever.

[oedipus_tex]

For Ice Slick and Earthquake I'd just have the power summon a second, identical pet when in Domination mode. 

 

Re: #5 something I just found out is resistable effects rescale strength or duration if the creatures resistance changes. So with that change you could mezz something and hitting it with your ST assault blast would extend the mezz duration. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

I think my main idea was to get rid of the domination bar entirely, just have dom be on a timer and that is it.  Having to "build dom" seems a superfluous extra step.  That would also be a way of cutting down the gap between perma dom and non perma dom as then you wouldn't have to worry any more about being just a couple of seconds short. When it dropped you could just click it a couple of seconds later when it did recharge without having  to "build the dom bar" back up.

 

I think the dom bar itself is what creates this perma dom or go home kind of playstyle.  Without it I wouldn't care if I was even 10 seconds short or whatever.

I'm inclined to agree. It doesn't need both an internal recharge and a prerequisite of building. I agree recharge would make the most sense and remove much of the binary nature of either being perma dom, or crying in the corner because you are 1 second shy. 

 

I mean sure, I log in and my domination would be up, but I don't see the merit of gate-keeping that ability these days what with crashless nukes, incarnate powers and the like; that are all recharged and ready to go when I log in too.

 

 

[Frosticus]

12 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Dominator is probably my favorite class, but I have to admit there's stuff about the archetype I would change. I'm wondering what other people would change.

 

• 1. Make all powers Dominate. Meaning the obvious stuff like Synaptic Overload and Static Field, but also Ice Slick, Earthquake, Arctic Air etc should have extra ticks. The arbitrary distribution of powers that can Dominate or not has always irked me. 

 

• 2. Front-load most DoTs so that they do single-hit damage. This is an archetype that is supposed to specialize in damage dealing combined with controls. Yet the Assault sets are loaded with DoT powers that interfere with Sleep and Terrorize. 

 

• 3. Give the AT a mezz protect toggle similar to an armored character. This is likely to be controversial. But the reason I've come to believe this is necessary is perma-Dominators basically have this. The gap between perma and non-perma Dominator feels too wide. I wish this class just had a straight up anti-mezz toggle or clickable and the main benefit of Domination was, well, Domination. This would greatly reduce the pressure for the player to achieve huge amounts of Recharge just to make the class good,

 

• 4. Don't force us to play villains to get auto-refill Domination. I hate red side. I hate the way it looks, the red screens you get, really all of it. I really dislike that such a powerful ability forces me to be a red sider. I know the developers created it to entice people to red side, but the fact that it's so powerful and still players stick to blue side should say something.  

 

• 5. Fix the tier 1 Assault power. The Tier 1 attack powers are almost universally terrible. Most of the time I remove them from my bar as soon as possible. These powers feel like they should have some special utility. A minor vampiric heal, endurance recovery, something. An option would be for them to strip mezz resistance from a target so that mezzes last longer.  

 

 

How about you? What would you change?

1. Yes. This is a contributing factor in why some people love mind control so much. Every power tells you that you are dominating. My ice dom basically dominates nothing haha.

2. Yes, and I would extend this to the control based dots as well. Things like st immobs delivering damage over 8+seconds. At least speed it up.

3. Maybe. I don't mind domination granting mez protection. I'd either make some dom powers immune to mez (like blasters), or give them a small amount of protection that can then be layered with domination to be more robust.

4. I've never used the frenzy power

5. yes, I hate being forced to take throwaway powers. I don't mind some subpar powers in a set as you might want to mule them, but being forced into really weak powers is irksome. That said, I would have made doms have assault primaries and then reordered the control sets so every first pick is their st hold.

[oedipus_tex]

6 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

2. Yes, and I would extend this to the control based dots as well. Things like st immobs delivering damage over 8+seconds. At least speed it up.

 

Definitely. I can see leaving it as DoT on Controllers, which are not an AT intended to excel at damage. Dominators though are a strange hybrid of Blaster/Scrapper that has controls in place of armor, to varying degrees of success. 

 

Electric Control actually was originally designed to have DoT in its immobilize powers and it was changed to one-hit damage to avoid conflict with Static Field. I think as part of their special abilities, Dominators should always automatically convert DoT to single-hit, even in sets like Fire. 

 

There are a few cases where DoT might still be appropriate. Single-hit Ice Storm and Sleet would be weird. But there are a lot of powers that conceptually work as DoTs or single hit, particularly in Fire, Thorns, Dark, and Savage.

Edited July 28, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[TygerDarkstorm]

58 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

5. yes, I hate being forced to take throwaway powers. I don't mind some subpar powers in a set as you might want to mule them, but being forced into really weak powers is irksome. That said, I would have made doms have assault primaries and then reordered the control sets so every first pick is their st hold.

Yes! I totally agree with this! I love dominators after reading threads online and learning how to play them better (hated them before because I was trying to play them too much like a controller). I feel that dominators should have assault as a primary and control as a secondary as that's how you end up actually playing them in game.

 

I also like the idea of frontloading the damage on dominators' control powers, and/or shortening the DoT effect.

[kiramon]

The bar is honestly a big reason "perma dom" is so important. Having your dom low but not needed to be 100% on top of it would be a much better way.

 

Honestly, I'd rather they make Domination unenhanceable (YAH, I SAID IT) but reduce the cooldown drastically so they can actually balance around its uptime. I realize nobody actually wants that because it is such a sweeping change to doms, but it's too much power loaded into a single ability in that it defines the choices for a large portion of dom players... way more than other ATs would ever like to have, but we accept it because it bandaid'd the AT. 

 

 

 

[Mezmera]

29 minutes ago, kiramon said:

The bar is honestly a big reason "perma dom" is so important. Having your dom low but not needed to be 100% on top of it would be a much better way.

 

Honestly, I'd rather they make Domination unenhanceable (YAH, I SAID IT) but reduce the cooldown drastically so they can actually balance around its uptime. I realize nobody actually wants that because it is such a sweeping change to doms, but it's too much power loaded into a single ability in that it defines the choices for a large portion of dom players... way more than other ATs would ever like to have, but we accept it because it bandaid'd the AT. 

 

 

 

OH NO YOU DIDN!

 

Show me an AT that doesn't have +recharge bonuses as a top 3 bonus even by accident.  I think it's just the territory with IO bonuses.  I mean I've only died once on my tank and that's because on the Underground trial I may have taunted the Warwalker bot maybe a bit too well, maybe mentioned something about his mom's chassis looked a bit scratchy and needed a buffing or something but that's beside the point. 

 

A lot of other AT's get OP with bonuses as well it's just that doms by their intent of the build tend to operate like a high performance racecar where that top gear is like nothing anyone else can match.  I wouldn't want to lose that just to be like all the other dull ATs.  

Edited July 28, 2020 by Mezmera

[Hjarki]

I think for every AT, the first three powers of primary and first two powers of secondary should be available at level 1. There are simply too many 'dead powers' that result from the peculiarities of how the sets are laid out.

 

Beyond that:

• Domination shouldn't be affected by global recharge. While I understand why people like perma-Dom, I think the current implementation simply warps the AT too much. Having Domination as a temporary boost rather than a permanent condition gives builds a lot more flexibility and seems more in line with the original intent.
• No pets. The pet powers in Control sets should be replaced by something else - probably some sort of mitigation ability taken from similar armor sets. Pets are necessary for Controllers but superfluous for Dominators.
• Clearer delineation between 'melee' and 'ranged' Dominators. Assault sets were tacitly acknowledged as a mistake with the later Blaster sets. Having an entire AT dependent on sets that don't really 'work' in this fashion is simply a bad idea. Maybe 1 - 2 of the sets should retain the ranged/melee hybrid flavor while the rest should be focused on either ranged or melee but not both.

Ultimately, I see Dominator as an object lesson in how not to design an AT. Control sets are notoriously late-developing. When you combine them with Assault sets that are also late-developing due to their unnecessary hybrid ranged/melee nature and zero defenses until Epic/Patron pools, you end up with an AT that just isn't very playable except at max level. The must-have-Hasten nature of the innate just compounds these problems.

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, Mezmera said:

A lot of other AT's get OP with bonuses as well it's just that doms by their intent of the build tend to operate like a high performance racecar where that top gear is like nothing anyone else can match.  I wouldn't want to lose that just to be like all the other dull ATs.  

 

Hmm. I wouldn't say that. I would say Dominator is a mid-level performing archetype that is pushed into a particular build style in order to remain competitive at 50. Other classes in the late game tend to get better linearly as you invest in them. For Dominators, you only really feel the power once you cross into perma-Dom territory, and at that stage you aren't overwhelmingly more powerful than other archetypes, you're just a baseline late game Dominator. 

 

Back around issue 20, Dominators held a niche that was unique: squishies with mezz protection. Outside of Force Field and Sonic Resonance Defender/Corruptor/Controller you didn't really see that. This was also before crashless nukes and Blaster sustain abilities greatly increased overall damage and team's abilities to frag a spawn instantly, so the Dominator's relative lack of AoE was less apparent.

 

One thing I definitely feel is like this archetype doesn't keep up at its job at very high levels like other melee-ish archetypes do. The lack of armor and scaricity of healing in most sets makes approaching melee range hazardous in ways it is not for comparable Stalker/Scrapper. Granted, Domination has some team safety utility, so we shouldn't expect total ease. 


RE: The control sets themselves ,I'm hopeful the team does a full review. IMO no set should be waiting til level 26 for key control powers (Mind , Gravity) and again I think more powers should Dominate. I cases where it's not possible to directly create a Domination effect because of a psuedopet, I think the power should summon 2 psuedo pets, possibly the second one with no graphics so as not to make graphic cards explode.

Edited July 29, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

Hmm. I wouldn't say that. I would say Dominator is a mid-level performing archetype that is pushed into a particular build style in order to remain competitive at 50. Other classes in the late game tend to get better linearly as you invest in them. For Dominators, you only really feel the power once you cross into perma-Dom territory, and at that stage you aren't overwhelmingly more powerful than other archetypes, you're just a baseline late game Dominator. 

 

Back around issue 20, Dominators held a niche that was unique: squishies with mezz protection. Outside of Force Field and Sonic Resonance Defender/Corruptor/Controller you didn't really see that. This was also before crashless nukes and Blaster sustain abilities greatly increased overall damage and team's abilities to frag a spawn instantly, so the Dominator's relative lack of AoE was less apparent.

 

One thing I definitely feel is like this archetype doesn't keep up at its job at very high levels like other melee-ish archetypes do. The lack of armor and scaricity of healing in most sets makes approaching melee range hazardous in ways it is not for comparable Stalker/Scrapper. Granted, Domination has some team safety utility, so we shouldn't expect total ease. 


RE: The control sets themselves ,I'm hopeful the team does a full review. IMO no set should be waiting til level 26 for key control powers (Mind , Gravity) and again I think more powers should Dominate. I cases where it's not possible to directly create a Domination effect because of a psuedopet, I think the power should summon 2 psuedo pets, possibly the second one with no graphics so as not to make graphic cards explode.

Well for kicks I go outside the norms for harder content on my doms to see how far I can push my main.  I've done a few all squishies UG itrials and tanked the warwalkers with my dom.  I regularly run 4 man MoITF's at 54x8 with inspirations disabled and tank it quite fine for the rest in my team.  I've solo'd a few of those really hard AE missions.  This is stuff melee armored characters will have trouble with.  My dom has better defenses than my SR stalker along with fabulous resists.  Paired with the strong control afforded in permadom I can tank better than my tank.  

 

Dominators at 50 are still a pretty tough breed even if you don't have perma.  Running missions even solo you can just hold off on activating domination until you absolutely need it, and in teams the domination bar builds super fast.  Yes some ATs like blasters have come along way since live but doms were in a pretty good place back then and made OP with IOs.  The snipe change has been a boon to attack chains and builds and the Origin pools have been a great addition giving a scrapper-esque shield to squishies to pair with the epic shields.  

Edited July 29, 2020 by Mezmera

[mbre2006]

The game has changed so much im not sure what could be changed with doms other than increased damage and maybe some inherent def/res when popping domination. This game is purely dps. Hence why i tend to build my doms focusing on recharge, end management, and damage. In a team environment I'm not too much worried by capped def because most likely your team is going to crush through those mobs 30 secs max. I basically spam my aoe immob and switch to dps afterwards.

[kiramon]

29 minutes ago, mbre2006 said:

The game has changed so much im not sure what could be changed with doms other than increased damage and maybe some inherent def/res when popping domination. This game is purely dps. Hence why i tend to build my doms focusing on recharge, end management, and damage. In a team environment I'm not too much worried by capped def because most likely your team is going to crush through those mobs 30 secs max. I basically spam my aoe immob and switch to dps afterwards.

I wanna join your teams cuz I’m the tank regardless of what at I’m on ... or end up that way 

[Golden Azrael]

On 7/28/2020 at 9:10 AM, oedipus_tex said:

Dominator is probably my favorite class, but I have to admit there's stuff about the archetype I would change. I'm wondering what other people would change.

 

• 1. Make all powers Dominate. Meaning the obvious stuff like Synaptic Overload and Static Field, but also Ice Slick, Earthquake, Arctic Air etc should have extra ticks. The arbitrary distribution of powers that can Dominate or not has always irked me. 

 

• 2. Front-load most DoTs so that they do single-hit damage. This is an archetype that is supposed to specialize in damage dealing combined with controls. Yet the Assault sets are loaded with DoT powers that interfere with Sleep and Terrorize. 

 

• 3. Give the AT a mezz protect toggle similar to an armored character. This is likely to be controversial. But the reason I've come to believe this is necessary is perma-Dominators basically have this. The gap between perma and non-perma Dominator feels too wide. I wish this class just had a straight up anti-mezz toggle or clickable and the main benefit of Domination was, well, Domination. This would greatly reduce the pressure for the player to achieve huge amounts of Recharge just to make the class good,

 

• 4. Don't force us to play villains to get auto-refill Domination. I hate red side. I hate the way it looks, the red screens you get, really all of it. I really dislike that such a powerful ability forces me to be a red sider. I know the developers created it to entice people to red side, but the fact that it's so powerful and still players stick to blue side should say something.  

 

• 5. Fix the tier 1 Assault power. The Tier 1 attack powers are almost universally terrible. Most of the time I remove them from my bar as soon as possible. These powers feel like they should have some special utility. A minor vampiric heal, endurance recovery, something. An option would be for them to strip mezz resistance from a target so that mezzes last longer.  

 

 

How about you? What would you change?

I was going to say 'nothing.'

 

But you've got some interesting ideas there.

Front loaded the DoT or have it count down much faster eg. with Domination ticking...

 

I'm not sure that the gap between Domi and Perma Domi is too wide.  It's just earning your stripes over 50 years and learning how to use the IO system.  Though, we can point to the democratisation of the Insta-snipe as food for thought.  Eg.  How about as you level...it takes less and less hits to activate Domination.  So?  By the time you're L50...you are perma domination?  Not having perma domination behind an IO pay wall....something to discuss.  Why should it take the same time to activate domination in amount of hits as a L1-2 vs L50?  Surely, by then you'd have mastered this inherent power?  To something like Perma?  Or having the frenzy button...

 

I'm right with you on CoV to get Frenzy.  I don't like CoV.  I don't like the maps.  The red.  Give me Frenzy.  But I do 'hate' red side.  Dull.  It was a wasted opportunity to expand actual CoHs...  The ATs are cool though.  !!!

 

The nature of arbitrary nature of Domination on powers.  Interesting.  But some may argue (like on Perma Domination) that you're taking away some of the 'holes' or flaws in things which all ATs have to play around.  Ofc.  I'd like to have Perma domination without a pay wall.  And my Frenzy.  And sure, if I could cripple those Carnies with domi everything...  *(God like gleam in eye...)

 

Azrael.

 

Tier 1 assault.  Charged Bolt?  Elec?

 

 

[Golden Azrael]

As for the mezz toggle.  Isn't there Clarion?

 

A mezz toggle...hmm...

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

I'd like a 10% 'assault' like buff with Domination on.

 

I'm keeping my pets.

 

Azrael.

[Riverdusk]

17 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

Hmm. I wouldn't say that. I would say Dominator is a mid-level performing archetype that is pushed into a particular build style in order to remain competitive at 50. Other classes in the late game tend to get better linearly as you invest in them. For Dominators, you only really feel the power once you cross into perma-Dom territory, and at that stage you aren't overwhelmingly more powerful than other archetypes, you're just a baseline late game Dominator. 

 

 

Yep, doms are already one of the least played AT's and I don't see people exactly screaming for doms to be on their team.  My doms are also typically among my most "expensive" characters to build to reach even that mid level of performance end game.  Put that same level of inf and build effort into a lot of other AT's often pays off a lot better honestly.   I don't think doms need any huge buffs, but I think some minor improvements are warranted.

[kiramon]

6 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Yep, doms are already one of the least played AT's and I don't see people exactly screaming for doms to be on their team.  My doms are also typically among my most "expensive" characters to build to reach even that mid level of performance end game.  Put that same level of inf and build effort into a lot of other AT's often pays off a lot better honestly.   I don't think doms need any huge buffs, but I think some minor improvements are warranted.

 

That's great and probably true. But the problem is if you don't build that way, your mediocre dom is even worse off. But they have to be careful with how they change things for doms because they have to accommodate the top end -- that's the problem. And yes, my Dom builds all border 1B -- vs some other builds I have that arguably perform better at 400m.

 

It's too high of a swing between the two -- and nerfing domination but bringing up other aspects (Survivability, Damage) would go a long way.  Inherently they have to choose between Defenses (which can be a tight rope) and enough Recharge. Nobody is saying "NERF DOMS" -- we're saying balance them -- not against other classes, but against themselves. 😛 

Edited July 29, 2020 by kiramon

[Riverdusk]

2 minutes ago, kiramon said:

 

That's great and probably true. But the problem is if you don't build that way, your mediocre dom is even worse off. But they have to be careful with how they change things for doms because they have to accommodate the top end -- that's the problem. And yes, my Dom builds all border 1B -- vs some other builds I have that arguably perform better at 400m.

 

It's too high of a swing between the two -- and nerfing dom but bringing up other aspects (Survivability, Damage) would go a long way.  Inherently they have to choose between Defenses (which can be a tight rope) and enough Recharge. Nobody is saying "NERF DOMS" -- we're saying balance them -- not against other classes, but against themselves. 😛 

Which is why my idea was to get rid of the dom bar.  Without the building dom part and it dropping to zero, being a few seconds short of perma isn't a PITA anymore.  It would be a lot easier way to go then to try and balance whole new mechanics into the AT.  How much more damage?, how much more defense?, what kind of new status protection added?, etc.

 

Have to also say it would benefit a certain playstyle as well, as in those that sometimes have to go afk due to family or other responsibilities, which is sometimes me.  When I do, I can't keep both dom and hasten up and then I have to start all over again.  Getting rid of the "building dom" would help players like me in that regard hugely as well.  So that is another big reason I'd like to see that dumb dom bar go away.

[kiramon]

5 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Which is why my idea was to get rid of the dom bar.  Without the building dom part and it dropping to zero, being a few seconds short of perma isn't a PITA anymore.  It would be a lot easier way to go then to try and balance whole new mechanics into the AT.  How much more damage?, how much more defense?, what kind of new status protection added?, etc.

 

Have to also say it would benefit a certain playstyle as well, as in those that sometimes have to go afk due to family or other responsibilities, which is sometimes me.  When I do, I can't keep both dom and hasten up and then I have to start all over again.  Getting rid of the "building dom" would help players like me in that regard hugely as well.  So that is another big reason I'd like to see that dumb dom bar go away.

You'll see here (and in the General Weekly topic) that I am in agreement with getting rid of the dom bar and just making it a clickey. 

[Mezmera]

Maybe your doms aren't being played to their fullest potential?  Before we go nerfing and buffing things it's always a good starter question to ask if maybe it isn't you that hasn't broadened your scope.  

 

I'm on Excelsior if any of you'd like a PL from my dom I'd be more than happy to share some pointers as we play.

[oedipus_tex]

Plenty of interesting thoughts above. It's always interesting to hear other player's perspectives. Obviously there is a lot of passion about Dominators, which is great.

For me personally, I think three things are true simultaneously for the Dom class:

• Dominators were always somewhat dependent on perma-dom to be relevant. When Domination was updated around issue 12(? if forget exact issue) very specific steps were taken to not upset how they played, while buffing the nonpermas.
• Nuke damage has gone up, lowering the value of long recharge controls.
• Late game enemy Melee and PBAoE damage (in iTrials etc) has gone up, to challenge Scrappers, Brutes and Tankers.

 

The reasons above are why I support moving Dominator mezz protection into a simple click or toggle, like a real melee character.  Getting better heals or armor are unlikely to happen because you start stepping on other ATs toes. Mezz protection is well within the definition of Dominators though, and I think we'd make the class better if it was available without an expensive build.

 

What I think what's most important to recognize is this archetype is not a Blaster with mezzes, but is often being played like one. Much of the damage is coming from the APPs because the Assault sets don't deliver like they should. Assault sets tend to be a bunch of cone powers and 15ft PBAoEs. The only other AT that leans so heavily on their APPs is Controllers, who are not a "damage" archetype.   

 

A tradeoff I could live with would be Mag 3 protection "all the time" (ie Sentinel level) with additional protection in Domination.

Edited July 29, 2020 by oedipus_tex