What Would You Change About Dominators?

[oedipus_tex]

Sorry for multiple posts on same-ish topic, I wanted to say more about DPA.

 

DPA is slightly misleading because it averages damage. What it doesn't tell you is reaction time, which is why you need to know the animation time as well. Assuming Recharge is the same, a power that deals 100 DPA with a 1 second animation time is superior to a power that deals 100 DPA with a 3 second animation time. Location matters too. Long animations on ranged powers are generally more tolerable than short distance powers. 

 

The reason Combustion sucks is not just that it does mediocre damage. It leaves you standing there unable to react for 3 seconds where a power with the same DPA could fire and immediately eat an inspiration, fire a power, or move out of the way.

 

All but 1 one of the Dominator PBAoEs has a 2 second animation time rounded to Arcana values. That's a recipe for a power that is very high risk and questionably useful. While I do think you can probably get away with it in easy mission content, I can also solo with my Ice/Rad troller even tho he's one of the last examples of a soloist I'd recommend.

[Frosticus]

10 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

DPA is slightly misleading because it averages damage. What it doesn't tell you is reaction time, which is why you need to know the animation time as well. Assuming Recharge is the same, a power that deals 100 DPA with a 1 second animation time is superior to a power that deals 100 DPA with a 3 second animation time. Location matters too. Long animations on ranged powers are generally more tolerable than short distance powers. 

In addition to being more dangerous, the slow attack also carries additional opportunity cost.

Dominators are a very busy AT. Clicks upon clicks. That extra 2 seconds is probably time you spend staring at recharged powers of various utility. 

 

It would be hard to convince me that combustion should have the same cast time as inferno.

[Chrome]

yea it sounds like that specific power could use some love, is that an outlier or are there any other abilities that are that bad.  mind you i do not think primary powers should be discussed in the same way as assault powers, while damage maybe a consideration on control sets, i do not think they should be measured by how much damage they do.

[oedipus_tex]

I totally forgot to mention the worst part about long animation powers on Dominators.

 

You are playing an archetype with a power that crashes if you don't click it fast enough.

 

Sometimes you just know something instinctually and forget how it impacts your thinking. Perma-Domination gives you a small window to click it, usually about 5-8 seconds. When it recharges, you want to click it ASAP. Getting stuck in a long animation power at close range when it drops is a worst case scenario you should avoid. I knew this, and failed to communicate it. 🙂 

Edited August 1, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

Dominators are a very busy archetype, as has been said. Both their primary and their secondary are mostly or completely dependent upon click attacks. The argument that such a busy AT that cannot afford to be stuck in the wrong action at short range should be full of fast animations is a good argument.

 

I'm not sure how fair it would be to shorten the animation times of Dominator controls and not those for Controllers, but I don't really think it would feel unfair if some Controller sets had a few of their control animations shortened a bit. And the issue is really more with slow melee and PBAoE attacks anyhow rather than ranged attacks/controls. So it seems, without doing my homework to check animation times on everything, that it should be possible to speed up Assault set and a few Control set animations without causing any OP effect on Controller sets.

 

I also agree that if -Recharge and -Slow are considered Control effects, Dominators should get them boosted under Domination.

 

These seem like some relatively clear issues that could be worked on without having to worry about designing, implementing, and testing some major changes to Domination that would fix issues while not making the kind of great changes to Dominators that would annoy current players who like their current versions of Dominators.

[Dauntless]

On 7/31/2020 at 4:59 PM, Coyote said:

Perma-Dom? Fighting these mezzing Bosses is a joke.
Not a perma-Dom? Fighting these mezzing Bosses is a nightmare.

See, this is where I'd argue that the primaries need to diverge from what controllers get.  

 

On my mind dom if I don't have domination ready, then I lean on mesmerize or levitate.  Both will one-shot an ordinary boss and there are very few things indeed that are immune to them both.  Obviously there are limitations and "gaming things" to use them both well but it puts tools in the toolkit for dealing with tougher enemies.  A lot of other sets are not nearly as well prepared: earth, fire, and ice all only have an AOE KD, electric has jolting chain, plant has nothing.  Heaven help those sets if the boss is resistant to knockback.  Darkness and grav (of all things) have multiple powers that one-shot or aren't difficult to stack to deal with bosses.  

 

Fix this part!  Remove some of the redundant attacks and give us more powers to deal do our jobs.  Let domination be the mixture of trouble/utility that it is now and not a crutch required to get around some of the average parts of the game. 

 

Obviously some secondaries have powers that can help, but I shouldn't have to know to pick a particular secondary to make a primary playable.  Pick the right sets to be awesome?  Sure.  But to be average?  Nah, that isn't a decision I should be allowed to fail.

 

 

 

Note:  Nearly everyone save mind has the single target immobilize which helps in the lower levels much more than people give it credit - keeping the boss out of melee range really cuts down on damage inflicted.  But most people disregard the STI and in high-end top tier play even a melee boss' "puny" ranged attacks are quite devastating so I don't think it counts for this discussion.

[oedipus_tex]

I'm going to keep pushing for all-the-time mezz protection. That's the key ingredient that hurts this AT. A lot of the other stuff I mentioned are also issues, but the mezz protection is a big "whoah" thing.

 

When you get mezzed you can't teleport away, eat an inspiration, use a power, nothing. Your dom bar stops building because you can't attack.

 

I happen to be leveling a Earth/Dark Dom right now. He's not a permadom. Here's me browsing radio missions:

• Carnival of Shado...nope
• Archn... nope
• Council. Fine, council.

 

Part time mezz protection is not very useful. So I can run in, start the fight, lose protection midway though and drop dead? 

 

Can you imagine Scrappers or Sentinels with part time mezz protection, having to dive into pool powers or Clarion Destiny to close range? Putting the mezz protection in Domination was as big a mistake as back when Dominators used to have low damage and it only got boosted by Domination. The developers envisioned this meek little archetype that turned into a powerhouse part of the time. Dominators were widely considered one of the worst archetypes outside of permadom until that got fixed. I wish they'd have fixed the mezz issue at that time as well.

 

I'd be somewhat more likely to use a PBAoE if I didn't feel like it would wipe out my dom bar.

 

This Earth/Dark has a heal in Drain Life, his various controls, I play him mostly ranged, and I still died 4 times at level 43 on a team running Dark Astoria missions. Almost every death happened so fast I didn't see what hit me. That's what happens when you literally have no armor (I do have Tough/Weave and Combat Jumping at present). 

Edited August 2, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Golden Azrael]

18 hours ago, Nyghtmaire said:

The damage buff was removed in Issue 15.

Yes.  I seem to recall that.

 

Pity.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

19 hours ago, Chrome said:

i feel like you are looking to remove the fun from dominators, imho building for super high recharge is why i love dominators.  this "polarizing " is what makes this class extremely fun for me and as i said I would love for EVERY AT to have something along these lines. when insta snipe was affected by Accuracy that was a really awesome aspect.  I would love to see Critical chance on stalkers and scrappers be reliant on some sort of enhanceable effect so i can control it, and yes i want to fill up a bar for everything and if i can make it permanent to drastically improve its performance and eliminate the need to refill it, id love to see that as well.  adding this level of player control on how my character performs is exactly why i love doms.

perma doms do have to fill there bar, and it is a penalty when you die to have to refill it, this is an ACTUAL penalty that other ATs lack, and i believe should be incorporated into other ATs.  

 

what you are talking about is dumbing down an AT when i would call for adding more nuance to the rest, people should be looking at Dominators as how a class should play and not trying to remove the aspects of what sets them apart.  i would love to see tankers building up a bar  that would affect all abilities that take +taunt to increase the mag/duration/(just spitballing maybe a minor group healing component) would work similarly to domination, maybe based off a stat tankers find useful.

 

either way changing Domination to a click mez protection and removing the ability to perma dom sounds boring and un-fun.  i don't understand why IOs are not something people are working for in every character.

I think you are on point here.

 

I like the 'earn it' nature of Dominators.

 

And bringing a reward (I view it so...) mechanism to other ATs would be a way of adding more nuance.

 

Just having a click is boring to me.  If Domi drops.  It's because I wasn't paying attention.

 

Having to fight mobs to get your domination up outside of a 'IO pay wall' is just earning your stripes as  a hero.  Using IOs to make it perma is a hero using experience or their expertise to improve themselves/powers.  Again.  Something you have to earn by spending time, experience and influence to do so.

 

As for IOs vs the games original pick up and play style is a broader debate.  I would happily keep teh domi mechnism as is...but one way to perma-dom outside of IOs would be to gradually decrease the amount of hits it takes to activate it as you level.  To the point where in your L40s it may just take a couple.  And by L50...you're so self attuned with your inner frenzy, you can just press frenzy to get the Domination ball rolling.

 

In much the way that insta-snipe activates the potential for snipe...by your L40s-50s, being near a mob fills the bar...ready for the Domination click.  (Having it still able to drop is important.  Without penalties, ATs are boring.  There has to be a price for failure for absent minded combat.)

 

There is a danger with IO builds and Incarnates that every AT becomes the holy trinity unto itself.  Rather than specialise in what it's good at and having a penalty for not excercising that expertise.

 

Dominator's are mezz specialists.  But that shouldn't mean that they don't earn it.  Other ATs like Controllers and Defenders have to think about builds and ways around this mezz vulnerability.  And that is part of their challenge to play that AT.

 

I think the areas of improvement?  Frenzy (with Damage bonus...) hero side.  Is the chief culprit.

 

And...when Domination drops...(PANIC!!!!  Before 1 punch and hospital...) the length of time to get 'back' in the game is somethign that could be looked at.  Keep the penalty...but as you level 1-50 the slidescale of penalty should vary so that it takes less hits to activate as you grown in proficiency of mental domination.

 

You start off as Marvel Girl...and then end like the Phoenix.  (Maybe not that powerful...but you get the idea.)

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

5 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I'm going to keep pushing for all-the-time mezz protection. That's the key ingredient that hurts this AT. A lot of the other stuff I mentioned are also issues, but the mezz protection is a big "whoah" thing.

 

When you get mezzed you can't teleport away, eat an inspiration, use a power, nothing. Your dom bar stops building because you can't attack.

 

I happen to be leveling a Earth/Dark Dom right now. He's not a permadom. Here's me browsing radio missions:

• Carnival of Shado...nope
• Archn... nope
• Council. Fine, council.

 

Part time mezz protection is not very useful. So I can run in, start the fight, lose protection midway though and drop dead? 

 

Can you imagine Scrappers or Sentinels with part time mezz protection, having to dive into pool powers or Clarion Destiny to close range? Putting the mezz protection in Domination was as big a mistake as back when Dominators used to have low damage and it only got boosted by Domination. The developers envisioned this meek little archetype that turned into a powerhouse part of the time. Dominators were widely considered one of the worst archetypes outside of permadom until that got fixed. I wish they'd have fixed the mezz issue at that time as well.

 

I'd be somewhat more likely to use a PBAoE if I didn't feel like it would wipe out my dom bar.

 

This Earth/Dark has a heal in Drain Life, his various controls, I play him mostly ranged, and I still died 4 times at level 43 on a team running Dark Astoria missions. Almost every death happened so fast I didn't see what hit me. That's what happens when you literally have no armor (I do have Tough/Weave and Combat Jumping at present). 

Teams will get you killed. 🙂

 

Try solo-ing.  Or better yet, a like minded 'duo-partner.'

 

Earth has excellent controls.  What difficult setting are you playing on at L43?

 

Tough, Weave and Cj?  They're not essential.  Again.  Relative to what level and challenge and mob type you're up against.

 

Part time mez is ok if you set the challenge correspondingly.  (It's nothing Defenders, Controllers and Blasters don't have to put up with and they don't have part time mez protection...)

 

There's plenty of Stone controls to wrap up mobs.  It's right up there with elec in terms of its control.

 

You can choke them, fall them over and have your pet give them grief.  That's alot of 'soft armour.'

 

As for Dark.  I'd rather have gone for the more emphatic stone melee.  With it's power boost to boost your controls for longer.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

The end game is mez heavy.  In that area melee ATs like Tanks, Scrappers and Brutes lead a charmed life.  But that's how the game is set up.

 

I don't like carnies.  My blasters get mezzed and die.  Even L50 ones with a decent build...and incarnate powers.  And it's fire based.  But if you want to take them down, it's change the diff' settings from uber team challenges...or build a perma win / I win all the time def capped, perma hasten and perma domi build.  Not cheap at a cool £1 billion influence.

 

But Controllers, Defs and Dominators can still shine on teams and control their own destiny on solo.

 

Play to your strengths on a team, at range.  With gas and falling over powers very little should get through to you.

 

But if the settings are high and wide...one stray straggler will drop you like a sack of bricks.

 

Azrael.

[oedipus_tex]

I think what frustrates me about mezz protection being tied to Domination is that when Domination drops it shuts down all avenues at once. Like, if I can't mezz enemies consistently, I'll need to tank through their attacks. But I also don't want to tank through their attacks at a time when I don't have mezz protection. Domination is binary and a constraint on moving forward with the mission. The existence of broken tricks like starting and interrupting your Snipe makes me think this isn't a balance concern but rather a holdover from the original Dominator design.

 

Overall this archetype leans very, very, very, very heavily on Recharge to make it work. With the Buff/Debuff classes I'm more okay with that. But this class is not a force multiplier. Your damage isn't very good (barring Plant), the coverage of your attacks is limited, and your only real contribution to a team is the ability to mezz bosses. Certainly your damage output leaves much to be desired, and you require a lot of support.

 

I understand that archetypes need holes. This archetype has plenty of other holes and deserves a break somewhere. 

 

The test I sometimes give to people when talking about this archetype is "Are you saying your Scrapper teammate can turn off his or her armor and mezz protection and survive on the strength of your controls?" Because if he or she can't do that, then that tells you how strong these controls are as a substitute for armor. This class does have some ranged capability, so the comparison isn't perfect. However I don't feel this class fulfills the developer's intentions of being a melee-blast hybrid. There are ways to make that work but it's not there.

Edited August 2, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Lazarillo]

So random thought I had last night regarding Domination, the use thereof, and the tendency of Dominators to have to over-rely on Recharge and perma-Hasten and other such bits.  What if the power was changed to work like this:

 

1. The Domination bar builds and empties just the same as it does currently.

2. Rather than a click activation, the benefits of Domination automatically apply whenever the bar is at 90% or higher.

3. The click-Domination instead now auto-fills the bar to 100%, and can be used any time.

 

The thought here is that rather than having to constantly babysit the click powers, Dominators could maintain their empowered state simply by continuing to fight.  With the Domination bar emptying more slowly than, say, Fury, this even gives a little time to move between mobs without the ability falling off.  The click-on ability from Domination itself would mean Dominators didn't have to work up to the power, but this would likely have to be compensated for in some way, perhaps by making it so that the click power no longer benefited from Recharge buffs?

 

Too strong?  Not strong enough?  Finicky in ways that would make it unfeasabile?

[ZeeHero]

On 7/28/2020 at 8:55 AM, nihilii said:

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

So you hate dominators and want them to be awful, got it.

[nihilii]

4 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

So you hate dominators and want them to be awful, got it.

In retrospect I may have meant animation rather than duration!

[oedipus_tex]

Nihili is a long time player who's been around for ages and whose opinion I think highly of. I'm sure animation time is what was meant. 🙂

[oedipus_tex]

I keep bringing up Scrappers so I wanted to show a comparison about that.

 

It's well known that a Dominator's best access to AoE damage comes from its apps. A lot of Dom players feel like that's where the at really becomes unleashed. Here's the stats for Fireball:

 

Meanwhile here's Fireball on Scrappers:

 

 

 

 

Basically, Dominator AoEs run neck and neck with Scrappers for ranged AoE damage. Both archetypes have most of their APP AoEs on a 32 second recharge. The radius, cast time, endurance cost tend to be the same. It's just that on the Scrapper the blast tends to be an "extra" while on Dominators its "bread and butter" because the Assault sets don't provide good area coverage. 

 

Some of the APPs have additional AoE blasts or faster recharging blasts that even this out a bit better, but the overall picture is the same. The archetype is getting its AoE damaged from APPs, where it is penalized as heavily as a melee AT.

Meanwhile its much harder for a Dominator to carpet an area with their PBAoEs and cones, even given slightly better radii.

All of this supports Frosticus' assertion that Dominators are on the low end of the AoE damage list.

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

Some of the APPs have additional AoE blasts or faster recharging blasts that even this out a bit better, but the overall picture is the same. The archetype is getting its AoE damaged from APPs, where it is penalized as heavily as a melee AT.

Meanwhile its much harder for a Dominator to carpet an area with their PBAoEs and cones, even given slightly better radii.

Yep pretty much. Plus scappers (well everyone really other than MM's and trollers) have consistently better access to +dam powers.

A scrapper using buildup has +100% enhancement, a dom has +34% (powerup) to +68% (build up).

Plus we know how well guassian proc goes into buildup powers allowing for much more burst aoe output. But most doms can't slot it as most of their +damage powers provide no tohit buff. 

 

I think at the very least doms should have their modifier for self buffing increased to match tanks. So their build up would do +80% enhancement. The fact that no "villain" AT has self modifiers as strong as scappers and blasters has always bothered me. Stalkers build up should be just as strong as scrapper. And doms' build up "should" be right up there too imo. Instead, doms +dam powers are woefully pitiful. 

 

[oedipus_tex]

I feel like I'm harping a little and don't mean to. It's not my intent to pile on, there's just a lot to say. 🙂

 

When we say "Doms don't get armor" we mean two things. One, the obvious part, Doms don't get Defense or Resistance really at all except for in pools and APPs. And two, Doms mostly don't get the little extras that go with armor like resistance to -ToHit, Endurance drain, Defense debuff, -Recharge, etc. There are a handful of exceptions. Mainly, Fire Assault resist Endurance drain. There may be others but I can't think of them. This is atypical for an archetype. You can build almost any other class, including Controller, Mastermind, or Defender to have these things, but not really a Dom. 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Golden Azrael]

16 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I keep bringing up Scrappers so I wanted to show a comparison about that.

 

It's well known that a Dominator's best access to AoE damage comes from its apps. A lot of Dom players feel like that's where the at really becomes unleashed. Here's the stats for Fireball:

 

Meanwhile here's Fireball on Scrappers:

 

 

 

 

Basically, Dominator AoEs run neck and neck with Scrappers for ranged AoE damage. Both archetypes have most of their APP AoEs on a 32 second recharge. The radius, cast time, endurance cost tend to be the same. It's just that on the Scrapper the blast tends to be an "extra" while on Dominators its "bread and butter" because the Assault sets don't provide good area coverage. 

 

Some of the APPs have additional AoE blasts or faster recharging blasts that even this out a bit better, but the overall picture is the same. The archetype is getting its AoE damaged from APPs, where it is penalized as heavily as a melee AT.

Meanwhile its much harder for a Dominator to carpet an area with their PBAoEs and cones, even given slightly better radii.

All of this supports Frosticus' assertion that Dominators are on the low end of the AoE damage list.

Yeah.  But scrappers were the 'chosen ones' on live.  Frustrating though that was.

 

Then Brutes happened.

 

But out of all squishies. Dom's have part time mez.  And if one builds perma you get perma mez.

 

Dom's do have mediocre damage (certainly feels that way...) outside 'teh fire build'. 

 

That's where you have to use your mind rather than brute force to win the fight.  It's far more elegant that a scrapper.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

13 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I feel like I'm harping a little and don't mean to. It's not my intent to pile on, there's just a lot to say. 🙂

 

When we say "Doms don't get armor" we mean two things. One, the obvious part, Doms don't get Defense or Resistance really at all except for in pools and APPs. And two, Doms mostly don't get the little extras that go with armor like resistance to -ToHit, Endurance drain, Defense debuff, -Recharge, etc. There are a handful of exceptions. Mainly, Fire Assault resist Endurance drain. There may be others but I can't think of them. This is atypical for an archetype. You can build almost any other class, including Controller, Mastermind, or Defender to have these things, but not really a Dom. 

 

 

There are epic armours. 

 

And pets.  (If you get enough of them...they are 'soft armour' to stop you absorbing as many hits.)

 

With the Domination bar refill there is a part time solution to end problems.  There is also Victory Rush (which I recommend for Defenders...)

 

Then there is the Fighting Pool (Which many builds add...)

 

And there are IOs to build up your defence.

 

There are standard pick up and play choices and 'behind the IO pay wall choices.'

 

And how one plays....choices.  And the difficulty setting.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

14 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Yep pretty much. Plus scappers (well everyone really other than MM's and trollers) have consistently better access to +dam powers.

A scrapper using buildup has +100% enhancement, a dom has +34% (powerup) to +68% (build up).

Plus we know how well guassian proc goes into buildup powers allowing for much more burst aoe output. But most doms can't slot it as most of their +damage powers provide no tohit buff. 

 

I think at the very least doms should have their modifier for self buffing increased to match tanks. So their build up would do +80% enhancement. The fact that no "villain" AT has self modifiers as strong as scappers and blasters has always bothered me. Stalkers build up should be just as strong as scrapper. And doms' build up "should" be right up there too imo. Instead, doms +dam powers are woefully pitiful. 

 

I wouldn't say pitiful.  But the damage can seem somewhat blunted on assault and 'tippy tappy' on the controls.

 

The damage is def' wholesale.  You're not squashing the mobs with absolute brute force...but cruelly torturing them mainly with power of your mind and then delivering the 'grace' in melee.

 

To add a bit more 'bite' to Domi's we just need to build upon what makes them unique.

 

1.  Frenzy.  Bring it to the hero version.  And bring back the damage buff at 10-20%?  (10% more assault dam?  10% more control damage?  Adding this to 'Assault' from teh Leadership pool would be add up...)  So that whilst in Domi' mode, you're mentally enraged enough to deliver the 'gift.'

 

Allows a recharge of Domi when it drops.  (Every 5 mins?)  And gives all controls and assault more bite.

 

Two birds.  One stone.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

18 hours ago, nihilii said:

In retrospect I may have meant animation rather than duration!

The animation in CoH is one of its best features.

 

Some are more theatrical than others.

 

With hasten things seem to happen faster.

 

But some do have the opinion that some powers 'take too long' to do their thing.

 

When I see 8 man this is how we roll teams...it doesn't seem to be a problem in general.  Things are usually dead before they hit the floor.  Ask any tanker who tries total focus on a single mob, by the time it does it's thing...somebody has already killed his 'mob.'

 

Dominators aren't going to shine in an all you can eat buffet...in much the way Trick Arrows work goes unseen but the effect is there that helps the team move so quick.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

20 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I think what frustrates me about mezz protection being tied to Domination is that when Domination drops it shuts down all avenues at once. Like, if I can't mezz enemies consistently, I'll need to tank through their attacks. But I also don't want to tank through their attacks at a time when I don't have mezz protection. Domination is binary and a constraint on moving forward with the mission. The existence of broken tricks like starting and interrupting your Snipe makes me think this isn't a balance concern but rather a holdover from the original Dominator design.

 

Overall this archetype leans very, very, very, very heavily on Recharge to make it work. With the Buff/Debuff classes I'm more okay with that. But this class is not a force multiplier. Your damage isn't very good (barring Plant), the coverage of your attacks is limited, and your only real contribution to a team is the ability to mezz bosses. Certainly your damage output leaves much to be desired, and you require a lot of support.

 

I understand that archetypes need holes. This archetype has plenty of other holes and deserves a break somewhere. 

 

The test I sometimes give to people when talking about this archetype is "Are you saying your Scrapper teammate can turn off his or her armor and mezz protection and survive on the strength of your controls?" Because if he or she can't do that, then that tells you how strong these controls are as a substitute for armor. This class does have some ranged capability, so the comparison isn't perfect. However I don't feel this class fulfills the developer's intentions of being a melee-blast hybrid. There are ways to make that work but it's not there.

'Are you  saying.'  Definitely not.

 

What I'm saying is that Scrappers are teh chosen ones and best not to use them in any discussion about anything.

 

As for Dominators.

 

When you're domi bar drops.  You have to use your controls, assault and skill to get it back up.

 

The one caveat of that would be?

 

By the time you're level 50...you'd think that the Dominator would have gotten better at channeling their mental mez mode where by it is either instaneous or nearly so.  ie.  A slide scale of proficiency that grows from 1-50.  So, perma domi is 'at the end' taken from its IO pay wall.

 

or quite simply?

 

Give the Hero Domi frenzy.  (recharge 5 mins...) so this mitigates the down time when in a tight spot.  Bring back the damage buff into it.  10% for assault.  Another 10% for the controls.  Add that to eg. Leadership's Assault...and it's better than a kick up the backside.

 

All ATs lean on recharge.  The more we get, the more we want.

 

Playing a L1, L22, L32, L41, L50 domins are very different in frustration and proficiency.

 

We don't have to rip the domi bar out in frustration and replace with a 'click' (meh) but build on what makes it great. 

 

Frenzy.  (...and bring back the Damage buff.)  Simple.

 

Azrael.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[nihilii]

39 minutes ago, Golden Azrael said:

Dominators aren't going to shine in an all you can eat buffet...in much the way Trick Arrows work goes unseen but the effect is there that helps the team move so quick.

If all Dominators had ST holds/immobilizes in the ~2s range, perhaps that wouldn't be an issue.

But the thing is, some Dominators actually do shine in an all you can eat buffet. Fire is awesome, all the time. You can incorporate Char in an attack chain, get incredible value out of the +dam ATO, and lose no DPS in the process. Mind is also decent.

 

So if you're concerned about performance, which you don't have to be, but I am... Every time I roll a new Dominator, I want to do something different than Fire. But then I look at my options, and knowing the magnitude of the boost just having a fast activating ST hold represents, I cannot *not* pick Fire again.

 

I use "performance" in a large sense, too, because it's more than just pushing high DPS numbers or what have you. Fast animations with as little rooting time as possible just make for more enjoyable gameplay in general, for that instinctive feedback loop between your keyboard/mouse and the action on the screen to happen more conclusively.

You mention Total Focus. Incidentally, the /energy revamp has conclusively proved, at least to me, keeping animation times lengthy isn't required to convey that awesome feeling. The fast Total Focus dominators now enjoy feels just as grandiose, and is also powerful in terms of DPA.

 

With ST holds/immobilizes, I think several of the offenders happen to have animations begging to be shortened, too. Think of Earth Control: there's a lot of pointing the hand and dead lag once the motion is done. I'd be surprised if a skilled animator couldn't squeeze the animation down to 1.33s without any change in feel.

Edited August 3, 2020 by nihilii