What Would You Change About Dominators?

[Frosticus]

8 hours ago, nihilii said:

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.

Exactly. Or seismic smash. No one in their right mind would say that power doesn't convey a sense of smash. It is very fast too.

[oedipus_tex]

I just leveled up my first Dark Assault character and hit 50. I leveled at Earth Control/Dark Assault. This leaves only Radiatioactive, Martial, and the revised Energy (I played the old one on live) that I haven't played at high levels. I just slotted up to permadom and ran my first two ITFs.

 

One thing that stands out immediately is the difference between Dominators with a heal and Dominators without. Dark Assault's damage is on the low end, and its access to AoEs laughable... the 20ft wide cone rarely seems to hit more than 2 or 3 enemies. What's propping the set up is the ability to heal from range. I plan to spec out of the cone power at the next opportunity, at which point all of my AoE will come from APPs. (Dark has a PBAoE attack but its got a 15ft radius, 2 second cast time).

 

One irony that's not lost on me is having the ability to mezz a boss but then having to turn bosses off because it takes too long to kill them.

 

Earthquake has a frightening long cast time. Mids says it 2.03 seconds but it feels like ages. I'm not asking that it be changed, just noting how long cast times put you into panic mode. More than once I was holding down the directional keys and slamming buttons as Earthquake left me rooted during a scenario change I needed to react to. Until you have played this class in a real mission or task force I think its easy to underestimate how quickly situations change and how fast you have to be to react.

 

On that note, Life Drain isn't a reactive heal, not really, altho it does recharge fast enough with a good recharge build that you can heal from empty to full in about 10-15 seconds, faster or slower depending on the availability of your Power Boost like effect. The main point of it really is to cap off your HP when you take ding damage to insulate you from instant death that can come from quick hits. This is a critical feature lacking in many of the other Dominator sets. Even small amounts of damage can cascade into an instant death when you have no efficient way to repair it.

 

Even with the heal this character cannot stay in melee range with enemies, it is far too risky. My fingers got tired from the number of times I hit the S key to backtrack. Even if you manage to kill things there are so many "do terrible things to players on death" effects to be found that immediate escape is top priority. Even with this strategy, I still died regularly, almost always in a quick succession of hits almost too fast to see.

 

As I was leveling this character, I found myself also wanting to try Martial Assault, and then backing away from the idea because IMO the lack of both a heal and endurance recovery is too much to overcome. One or the other tends to be a sign of a good set; note the top performers Fire and Psi both fill at least one of these holes. I still plan to try it though, in the interest of completionism.

 

I'd rate Dark Assault solidly in the middle of sets. The heal is what carries it. Damage is low though and you can get caught in this endless cycle of mezzing mobs and just standing around them waiting for your team to come deal with them. 

 

Versus a similar Controller, my damage as an Earth/Dark Dominator is shockingly bad on a power by power basis, but that isn't quite the full story. The best in show is the snipe; I can consistently take a same level minion out in one snipe shot, which a Controller could not do. Also when I take the Fire APP I get both Fireball and Rain of Fire, so at least there's two AoEs operating there.

Edited August 4, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Dauntless]

On 8/2/2020 at 1:16 PM, oedipus_tex said:

Overall this archetype leans very, very, very, very heavily on Recharge to make it work.

With all of our most important powers having a very lengthy recharge, even if domination was a toggle I would still be slotting for recharge.  At least this way we have consistency.  🙂 It is certainly less painful than my attempts to slot a squid.  Honestly at the end of the day most people seem to aim for defense, recharge, or procs because the gains you get from stacking those three vastly outweigh the gains you get from stacking almost anything else.

 

 

On 8/2/2020 at 1:16 PM, oedipus_tex said:

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?" 

 

The best compliment I ever received on live on a dom was when a VG-mate of mine told me "I love it when you are on the team with us, I don't have to stop and heal."  He was playing a thermal corruptor and this was pre-IO days. 

 

Otherwise as to your scrapper challenge?  Depends on the difficulty level, I guess.  I've tanked for teams often enough on leveling up content to not doubt it is possible.  I don't aim at the seriously hard content or challenges enough these days to have a good idea of just how far up you can reliably reach with it.  I imagine it becomes pretty build specific once you reach high enough of a challenge with a small enough of a team.

[kiramon]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

I just leveled up my first Dark Assault character and hit 50. I leveled at Earth Control/Dark Assault. This leaves only Radiatioactive, Martial, and the revised Energy (I played the old one on live) that I haven't played at high levels. I just slotted up to permadom and ran my first two ITFs.

 

One thing that stands out immediately is the difference between Dominators with a heal and Dominators without. Dark Assault's damage is on the low end, and its access to AoEs laughable... the 20ft wide cone rarely seems to hit more than 2 or 3 enemies. What's propping the set up is the ability to heal from range. I plan to spec out of the cone power at the next opportunity, at which point all of my AoE will come from APPs. (Dark has a PBAoE attack but its got a 15ft radius, 2 second cast time).

 

One irony that's not lost on me is having the ability to mezz a boss but then having to turn bosses off because it takes too long to kill them.

 

Earthquake has a frightening long cast time. Mids says it 2.03 seconds but it feels like ages. I'm not asking that it be changed, just noting how long cast times put you into panic mode. More than once I was holding down the directional keys and slamming buttons as Earthquake left me rooted during a scenario change I needed to react to. Until you have played this class in a real mission or task force I think its easy to underestimate how quickly situations change and how fast you have to be to react.

 

On that note, Life Drain isn't a reactive heal, not really, altho it does recharge fast enough with a good recharge build that you can heal from empty to full in about 10-15 seconds, faster or slower depending on the availability of your Power Boost like effect. The main point of it really is to cap off your HP when you take ding damage to insulate you from instant death that can come from quick hits. This is a critical feature lacking in many of the other Dominator sets. Even small amounts of damage can cascade into an instant death when you have no efficient way to repair it.

 

Even with the heal this character cannot stay in melee range with enemies, it is far too risky. My fingers got tired from the number of times I hit the S key to backtrack. Even if you manage to kill things there are so many "do terrible things to players on death" effects to be found that immediate escape is top priority. Even with this strategy, I still died regularly, almost always in a quick succession of hits almost too fast to see.

 

As I was leveling this character, I found myself also wanting to try Martial Assault, and then backing away from the idea because IMO the lack of both a heal and endurance recovery is too much to overcome. One or the other tends to be a sign of a good set; note the top performers Fire and Psi both fill at least one of these holes. I still plan to try it though, in the interest of completionism.

 

I'd rate Dark Assault solidly in the middle of sets. The heal is what carries it. Damage is low though and you can get caught in this endless cycle of mezzing mobs and just standing around them waiting for your team to come deal with them. 

 

Versus a similar Controller, my damage as an Earth/Dark Dominator is shockingly bad on a power by power basis, but that isn't quite the full story. The best in show is the snipe; I can consistently take a same level minion out in one snipe shot, which a Controller could not do. Also when I take the Fire APP I get both Fireball and Rain of Fire, so at least there's two AoEs operating there.

Interesting you find dark so bad, as I find jts damage quite for a dominator assault set... mostly from the lack of negative resist

[oedipus_tex]

4 minutes ago, kiramon said:

Interesting you find dark so bad, as I find jts damage quite for a dominator assault set... mostly from the lack of negative resist

 

I wouldn't call it bad, just midling. For sure it struggles to kill bosses due to relying so heavily on a snipe for ST. I did take the early melee attack to speed up killing bosses once the rest of the spawn is clear.

 

I've not done any comparisons for damage type resistance. It might do okay damage with that considered. 

 

Dark Assault lacks area coverage. I guess that's a theme borrowed from Dark Melee. The cone power is 20ft wide, hard to tell from a single target blast except from far away.

The PBAoE is the standard Dominator PBAoE. It's 76 damage 15ft radius, 2 second cast time. Not strictly bad but not great when the opportunity cost is so high. I ended up skipping it. Staying away from mobs is a better strategy for this character. He had his blood spilled many many times even after reaching permadom. I have Rise of the Phoenix but it still knocks me out of Domination and needs to be avoided.

[Frosticus]

Ultimately whatever kills you and knocks you out of dom is going to be  a lot harder to overcome as a 75% strength controller with no debuffs, mez protection, or kb protection. 

 

Maybe people dont encounter it often, but i was doing an alignment earlier on my new plant/sav (heavy IOd at lvl 23). The mission had 2 longbow wardens together (set at +0). Domination was up, but they might be confuse protected? At any rate they dropped me fast thru rune of protection, as admittedly I was a bit slow reacting as dom was active and rune was active.

 

At any rate I couldnt progress the mission. Even with ample insp use from each hospital trip. I eventually had to street sweep to rebuild domination and head back in. That plus heavy insp use was enough to get thru. 

 

Death penalty can be tough on doms. 

[oedipus_tex]

 

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

Ultimately whatever kills you and knocks you out of dom is going to be  a lot harder to overcome as a 75% strength controller with no debuffs, mez protection, or kb protection. 

 

Maybe people dont encounter it often, but i was doing an alignment earlier on my new plant/sav (heavy IOd at lvl 23). The mission had 2 longbow wardens together (set at +0). Domination was up, but they might be confuse protected? At any rate they dropped me fast thru rune of protection, as admittedly I was a bit slow reacting as dom was active and rune was active.

 

At any rate I couldnt progress the mission. Even with ample insp use from each hospital trip. I eventually had to street sweep to rebuild domination and head back in. That plus heavy insp use was enough to get thru. 

 

Death penalty can be tough on doms. 

I usually include kb protection in my build in preparation for moments spent outside of Dom because of moments like this.

I call having to kill easy enemies outside the mission to pick momentum back up "Domination tourism." 

 

You can game the system with a snipe by starting to cast and hitting the jump key or moving, but it will drain you of endurance fast.

Basically if the enemy group has mezz of any kind building the Dom bar back up in a legit way is often a dangerous chore. There's an Energy farm map I can run at x8+4 mostly without dying. If I go down even once tho, a lot of times I'll drop 3 or 4 times in quick succession, because of being stunned/held.

I think people tend to think of getting mezzed as just stopping you from attacking, but its the fact that it stops you eating inspirations that kills you. Plus, two of the Control sets, ice and Electric are built around PBAoE auras that drop on mezz. Because the gods hate Ice Control, Arctic Air also has a 15 second recharge after dropping, just to penalize you for trying to use that power without sufficient sacrifice.

Edited August 4, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Golden Azrael]

21 hours ago, nihilii said:

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.

Well, 'fire anything.'

 

Fire/Stone Domi I saw took care of 'business' mighty fine.

 

Energy has been revamped?  It has for the Dominator re: the energy mechanism.

 

But do you mean for the energy melee tank as well?  (If it has, it got by me...)

 

My rig is down and I haven't played  since March.  So, has Total Focus's animation been shortened?  (or Energy Transfer for that matter...)

 

Yes.  Great care must be taken with the CoH animations.  As that's the one of the key things about the 'feel' of combat.  And even slight changes can offset and upset that.

 

I don't mind the rooting and grandiose animations.  However, I do feel the devs did a decent job with the 'insta-snipe' animation and combat.  (But I did prefer the 'half arm' insta-shoot animation with 'dead wait' after...pre: their final release.  It's now just a 'fast arm wobble.'  But it plays 'ok.')

 

Most dominators play 'just fine.'  The single biggest risk is having to built up domination and losing it after you've built it up.

 

Frenzy could combat that just fine.

 

And the mediocre damage could be compensated by by bringing back the dam' buff into Frenzy.

 

One thing I like about the HC developers.  They take their time, they fine tune and tweak based upon feedback, they don't just tear things up...they largely honour the spirit of the game.

 

And that's certainly the case with Dominators and the game in general.

 

They did a decent job with the Tank AT pass.

 

For the Dominator, bringing frenzy to the hero Domi AT and a damage buff would go a long way.

 

Azrael.

 

[Golden Azrael]

10 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I just leveled up my first Dark Assault character and hit 50. I leveled at Earth Control/Dark Assault. This leaves only Radiatioactive, Martial, and the revised Energy (I played the old one on live) that I haven't played at high levels. I just slotted up to permadom and ran my first two ITFs.

 

One thing that stands out immediately is the difference between Dominators with a heal and Dominators without. Dark Assault's damage is on the low end, and its access to AoEs laughable... the 20ft wide cone rarely seems to hit more than 2 or 3 enemies. What's propping the set up is the ability to heal from range. I plan to spec out of the cone power at the next opportunity, at which point all of my AoE will come from APPs. (Dark has a PBAoE attack but its got a 15ft radius, 2 second cast time).

 

One irony that's not lost on me is having the ability to mezz a boss but then having to turn bosses off because it takes too long to kill them.

 

Earthquake has a frightening long cast time. Mids says it 2.03 seconds but it feels like ages. I'm not asking that it be changed, just noting how long cast times put you into panic mode. More than once I was holding down the directional keys and slamming buttons as Earthquake left me rooted during a scenario change I needed to react to. Until you have played this class in a real mission or task force I think its easy to underestimate how quickly situations change and how fast you have to be to react.

 

On that note, Life Drain isn't a reactive heal, not really, altho it does recharge fast enough with a good recharge build that you can heal from empty to full in about 10-15 seconds, faster or slower depending on the availability of your Power Boost like effect. The main point of it really is to cap off your HP when you take ding damage to insulate you from instant death that can come from quick hits. This is a critical feature lacking in many of the other Dominator sets. Even small amounts of damage can cascade into an instant death when you have no efficient way to repair it.

 

Even with the heal this character cannot stay in melee range with enemies, it is far too risky. My fingers got tired from the number of times I hit the S key to backtrack. Even if you manage to kill things there are so many "do terrible things to players on death" effects to be found that immediate escape is top priority. Even with this strategy, I still died regularly, almost always in a quick succession of hits almost too fast to see.

 

As I was leveling this character, I found myself also wanting to try Martial Assault, and then backing away from the idea because IMO the lack of both a heal and endurance recovery is too much to overcome. One or the other tends to be a sign of a good set; note the top performers Fire and Psi both fill at least one of these holes. I still plan to try it though, in the interest of completionism.

 

I'd rate Dark Assault solidly in the middle of sets. The heal is what carries it. Damage is low though and you can get caught in this endless cycle of mezzing mobs and just standing around them waiting for your team to come deal with them. 

 

Versus a similar Controller, my damage as an Earth/Dark Dominator is shockingly bad on a power by power basis, but that isn't quite the full story. The best in show is the snipe; I can consistently take a same level minion out in one snipe shot, which a Controller could not do. Also when I take the Fire APP I get both Fireball and Rain of Fire, so at least there's two AoEs operating there.

 

I can't speak for the Dominator or Control assault damage.

 

But my duo partner had a Defender with Bubbles and Dark Assault.

 

They were doing decent damage and didn't get hit as much as I did with bubbles and energy.

 

I have a Storm/Dark controller.  I like it.  Damage isn't all you can eat scrapper buffet.  But it's imperious.  (I think I read one of your guides on this. 😉  Which convinced me to roll one.

 

Azrael.

[nihilii]

2 minutes ago, Golden Azrael said:

Energy has been revamped?  It has for the Dominator re: the energy mechanism.

 

But do you mean for the energy melee tank as well?  (If it has, it got by me...)

It is just for the Dominator, although an EM revamp is apparently planned for melee classes at some point.
 

The gist of my thought was, Total Focus on Dominators (2.5s animation) feels as good as Total Focus on Tankers (3.3s animation). Perhaps better, even. Like you say it's important to retain feel. I think the devs have done a good job on that with Dom TF, and I believe the same could work for ST holds/immobilizes.

[Golden Azrael]

6 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Ultimately whatever kills you and knocks you out of dom is going to be  a lot harder to overcome as a 75% strength controller with no debuffs, mez protection, or kb protection. 

 

Maybe people dont encounter it often, but i was doing an alignment earlier on my new plant/sav (heavy IOd at lvl 23). The mission had 2 longbow wardens together (set at +0). Domination was up, but they might be confuse protected? At any rate they dropped me fast thru rune of protection, as admittedly I was a bit slow reacting as dom was active and rune was active.

 

At any rate I couldnt progress the mission. Even with ample insp use from each hospital trip. I eventually had to street sweep to rebuild domination and head back in. That plus heavy insp use was enough to get thru. 

 

Death penalty can be tough on doms. 

 

What difficult setting was that on?

 

I've come to (on a personal level...) stop expecting squishies of any type to roll in like scrappers or any melee type and steam roll the Long bow.  (I have melee types for that...)

 

So I now game on +0 x1.  I do that from L1-50.  I enjoy taking on the different mobs with a fair chance of winning the fight.  As soon as I x2 or more that?  I'm dead.  or my skill level to deal with that flat lines.

 

And I just enjoy the dance and the flaws of each AT as they are.  If I want to circumvent those flaws...eg. Defender?  I duo-team.  And all of  a sudden I'm an order of magnitude stronger to deal with eg. Longbow mobs as we can buff one another.

 

So there are gameplay and team options to deal with the flaws of squishies. 😉

 

Difficulty.  Teaming.  Build.  etc.  Plenty of options right down to choice of power sets which may suit you more.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

2 minutes ago, nihilii said:

It is just for the Dominator, although an EM revamp is apparently planned for melee classes at some point.
 

The gist of my thought was, Total Focus on Dominators (2.5s animation) feels as good as Total Focus on Tankers (3.3s animation). Perhaps better, even. Like you say it's important to retain feel. I think the devs have done a good job on that with Dom TF, and I believe the same could work for ST holds/immobilizes.

Cheers, nihilii. 🙂

 

Energy (tank!) melee is close to a lot of tank's hearts that felt burned by the Melee Energy revamp/changes.  So if it even reverts some of those changes back...and buffs up the damage and speed of certain attacks...

 

2.5s on a Gravity / Energy Domi vs 3.3s on the Tanker should be enough of a difference.

 

Actually, re: the tanks.  I always felt that tankers should be slower to execute..with the caveat...that they hit harder. 🙂  So if the Tanker's TF does more damage.  I'm fine with it being 3.3 sec.

 

I always felt that the temporal aspect of time should be exercised with some hero ATs being quicker and others more plodding.  The caveat being a lighter fighter wouldn't hit as hard as the hulk...whilst the hulk may be slower but he'll hurt you badly.

 

If they can trim .5 sec here and there (there is room here and there...call it...'tuning'...to tune the controls...or attacks...) and retain the feel then I wouldn't be opposed as long as they (and they have so far...) exercise great care on it. 

 

Their intentions seem patience and noble based upon what they have done so far.  CoH's killer app?  Is down to 'feel.'

 

There is room for this 'standing there pause' pass.  There are outlier powers where you think..., 'Did the devs actually play that bit?  I'm rooted for another .7 sec and I can't execute my next power and now I'm dead...'

Azrael.

[Coyote]

4 hours ago, Golden Azrael said:

There are outlier powers where you think..., 'Did the devs actually play that bit?  I'm rooted for another .7 sec and I can't execute my next power and now I'm dead...'

 

That's some fast thinking. I usually just manage "Aww, crapdammi---- " followed by ".... is the P2W self-rez recharged yet?"

[Frosticus]

4 hours ago, Golden Azrael said:

 

What difficult setting was that on?

 

I've come to (on a personal level...) stop expecting squishies of any type to roll in like scrappers or any melee type and steam roll the Long bow.  (I have melee types for that...)

 

So I now game on +0 x1.  I do that from L1-50.  I enjoy taking on the different mobs with a fair chance of winning the fight.  As soon as I x2 or more that?  I'm dead.  or my skill level to deal with that flat lines.

 

And I just enjoy the dance and the flaws of each AT as they are.  If I want to circumvent those flaws...eg. Defender?  I duo-team.  And all of  a sudden I'm an order of magnitude stronger to deal with eg. Longbow mobs as we can buff one another.

 

So there are gameplay and team options to deal with the flaws of squishies. 😉

 

Difficulty.  Teaming.  Build.  etc.  Plenty of options right down to choice of power sets which may suit you more.

 

Azrael.

Like I said, +0, but also x1. 

This is my 5th dom on the way 50 and I have 2 /sav assault doms at lvl 45+. I've also have 2 lvl 50 plant trollers, so I'm familiar with the sets in question and the AT itself. I don't PL much, so I've logged the hrs on those builds. 

 

Basically, my story highlights that I slipped up a bit, but in doing so I made things incredibly more difficult for myself as I had no way of rebuilding dom. Without domination, the 2 boss spawn was nearly insurmountable even with insp chugging. Basically being a de-tuned controller with low damage is a poor match for 2 superstrength wardens. The death penalty that ONLY doms have forced me to go street sweet until I could reenter the mission and attempt the bosses again with a different tactic.

 

Would temporary powers help? absolutely. I was literally working on frenzy in this case. But shivian's would work well too. Better even.

 

Prior to permadom I find I need to run (solo) settings at what I can handle as my weak form and only use domination for panic moments, or the end boss. If I turn the setting up so that domination is better suited, then I get crushed when domination drops. For me this takes away a lot of the satisfaction in mission structures where you are supposed to have a bit of a battle with the end encounter.

 

Additionally, I can't really turn the team size up very much even though fodder is easy for plant to handle from lvl 6. If I miss more than 2 in the group, I'm leaving the fight quite damaged. 

 

All of this of course improves over the levels and eventually becomes a non-issue with an end game build (permadom). But it is much more pronounced on doms than any other AT ( I primarily play debuff squishies).

[oedipus_tex]

I probably wouldn't worry about too much about it if this class was mostly ranged. But it's an unusual hybrid melee-ranged class where some of the sets are ranged attacks and some are similar to actual melee sets.

 

This is different from Blaster secondaries. A Blaster secondary that is heavy on melee attacks will still have a primary that functions at the Blast role.

Almost all the sets have that 15 foot radius PBAoE attack with 2-3 second cast time, it's as much a staple for this class as ranged AoEs for Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor, so I have to assume the intent is it get used. The DPA on these attacks in most cases leave much to be desired, on top of very long animation times while you are in a vulnerable position.  

 

[capricorpse]

On 8/2/2020 at 3:26 PM, Lazarillo said:

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?

i like this idea.  

 

I would even propose a scaling Domination as the bar fills, above 40% you have +1 mag controls, and protection. then as it gets higher, so does the boost.  

 

 

The idea I have is for replacing pets.  On my main, a gravity/psi, I usually only use singularity in really tough fights as a repulsion shield, and while the extra controls are nice i'm usually doing all the work.  but then i dismiss afterwards, because otherwise she will mess up my wormhole control of enemy groups by hiding someplace inconvenient.  But what if the pets were that kind of utility on purpose?  singularity could be a location-click AoE temporary slowing field of periodic knockup and high damage, with a long recharge.  Some kind of ultimate-storm attack for each control set.  Dominators as an AT seem like that sort of thing would be their end goal of mastering their powers, not creating golems the way a controller would.  Ice whirlwind with nice damage, slows, knockdown and chance of sleep crystals.  maybe fire imps is more like Gang War of a dozen fire imps that only lasts a short while? maybe give mass confusion a high DoT, etc.  Some sort of almost-nuke damage AoE that could serve as an offensive protection field in a pinch, with a control element added that could be affected by Domination.  

[Nyghtmaire]

1 hour ago, capricorpse said:

Dominators as an AT seem like that sort of thing would be their end goal of mastering their powers, not creating golems the way a controller would.

Good point. While I like the “free” damage, it certainly shows the age of the design. Very creative proposal.

[Golden Azrael]

17 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Like I said, +0, but also x1. 

This is my 5th dom on the way 50 and I have 2 /sav assault doms at lvl 45+. I've also have 2 lvl 50 plant trollers, so I'm familiar with the sets in question and the AT itself. I don't PL much, so I've logged the hrs on those builds. 

 

Basically, my story highlights that I slipped up a bit, but in doing so I made things incredibly more difficult for myself as I had no way of rebuilding dom. Without domination, the 2 boss spawn was nearly insurmountable even with insp chugging. Basically being a de-tuned controller with low damage is a poor match for 2 superstrength wardens. The death penalty that ONLY doms have forced me to go street sweet until I could reenter the mission and attempt the bosses again with a different tactic.

 

Would temporary powers help? absolutely. I was literally working on frenzy in this case. But shivian's would work well too. Better even.

 

Prior to permadom I find I need to run (solo) settings at what I can handle as my weak form and only use domination for panic moments, or the end boss. If I turn the setting up so that domination is better suited, then I get crushed when domination drops. For me this takes away a lot of the satisfaction in mission structures where you are supposed to have a bit of a battle with the end encounter.

 

Additionally, I can't really turn the team size up very much even though fodder is easy for plant to handle from lvl 6. If I miss more than 2 in the group, I'm leaving the fight quite damaged. 

 

All of this of course improves over the levels and eventually becomes a non-issue with an end game build (permadom). But it is much more pronounced on doms than any other AT ( I primarily play debuff squishies).

I think like you say...it comes down to matching AT to task.  I've had it 'tough' playing blasters, defs and doms.  They're squishy.  It took me along time to stop expecting them to be like scrappers and go mano-mano' with the mobs.  And just leave teh diff' button alone until I got the build and the permas sorted.

 

What I find does help is to get a like minded duo-partner to compliment or stack your talents with you.  And this is my no.1 suggestion to anyone having frustrations with their AT of choice.

 

I like even con.  I just like the journey.  From having me pulled around by my cape in the Hollows...to being shot through by Warriors or being beaten up in Bricks.  But as the L32 (with PET!  YES!), L41 and L50 milestones pass?  I grow in power.  And my mindset and ability changes.

 

And i get the uber perma domi in the end.  Then I can re-explore the content with a build that allows me to perform well and go into Oro and do arcs etc with attuned IOs.  So I get to enjoy the game on the up and down swing.

 

'Remember me, Council?  The hero you pancaked back on Striga?  Let's try that again...'

 

The rise to power on the domi is somewhat frustration.  But once you reach the God Head?  It feels well rewarded...

 

Azrael.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[carroto]

I'm glad I read this thread.  I recently rolled an Elec/ Dom for the first time and I wasn't aware that the confuse didn't benefit from Domination.  That one's getting shelved.  Thanks for saving me the time.  I guess it's back to the same old workhorses.  I'd like to branch out but some of the sets just really don't work well for Doms (and are arguably not great for Controllers either).

 

Same for Dark Assault.  I like dark sets generally, and having a heal on a Dom would be a game-changer.  It's so disappointing that the set got Night Fall.  The cone is just too narrow to be very useful.  I understand that it couldn't get TT, and I guess the only alternative would have been a new power.  It just seems like Doms have so much potential but in so many areas it's almost within reach but not quite.

[oedipus_tex]

I agree that Electric Control gets shortchanged. Synaptic Overload should Dominate based on it having an identical recharge to Seeds of Confusion, but doesn't on the technical reason that it summons psuedopets. Thus the first target is Dominated and others are not. IMO fixing this and Arctic Air in Ice should be top priorities, because it holds both sets back.  

Edited August 11, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[MoonSheep]

I’d say no to almost all of these changes, dominators are already very powerful

 

As a mind/fire dom though, I do think sets such as Ice should have their debuff effects doubled during domination, e.g. -rech, -speed. For Earth it would be doubling the -def element

 

Some assault sets need to have their animation times adjusted as they don’t flow very well, leaving people choosing just a handle of ‘viable’ sets

Edited August 11, 2020 by MoonSheep

[Ukase]

For fun, I'll chime in, as my experience with doms is limited. 

I've played an elec/elec to 27 before shut down...it was interesting and at least cool to watch with the electricity visuals. 
I've got a mind/psionic at 49 now, but it's just not fun to play, so I've decided to let it sit. 
I swore off of them because of the pure misery it was to play that dom. 

After further review, I was encouraged to try a different powerset, so I went with Earth/earth. Certainly better, but what I'd like to change is this: 
 

• More HP. The blaster, which is supposed to be the "glass cannon" does the highest dps, although that will always depend on build, powersets & choices and player expertise. Yet it has 200 more hp? That seems out of balance to me. 
• A scaling ability to fill the dom bar.  At lower levels, anecdotally, at least, it took me forever to get domination. And when I did, it never seemed to last long enough. I think it should fill slightly faster at lower levels, tapering back to normal as you approach 50.
• Ease up on the end cost. True, with "perma-dom", endurance isn't an issue as much, but without, it's pretty bad, and I slot with the usual procs, and end reducers before I get IO sets. But if you can't get to domination until the mission's almost over, the entire mission isn't really fun, at least, not for me. 

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

For fun, I'll chime in, as my experience with doms is limited. 

I've played an elec/elec to 27 before shut down...it was interesting and at least cool to watch with the electricity visuals. 
I've got a mind/psionic at 49 now, but it's just not fun to play, so I've decided to let it sit. 
I swore off of them because of the pure misery it was to play that dom. 

After further review, I was encouraged to try a different powerset, so I went with Earth/earth. Certainly better, but what I'd like to change is this: 
 

• More HP. The blaster, which is supposed to be the "glass cannon" does the highest dps, although that will always depend on build, powersets & choices and player expertise. Yet it has 200 more hp? That seems out of balance to me. 
• A scaling ability to fill the dom bar.  At lower levels, anecdotally, at least, it took me forever to get domination. And when I did, it never seemed to last long enough. I think it should fill slightly faster at lower levels, tapering back to normal as you approach 50.
• Ease up on the end cost. True, with "perma-dom", endurance isn't an issue as much, but without, it's pretty bad, and I slot with the usual procs, and end reducers before I get IO sets. But if you can't get to domination until the mission's almost over, the entire mission isn't really fun, at least, not for me. 

I never understand why there's so many Mind/Psi doms comparably.  It's like everyone sees what's the top made powersets for the AT and jumps along like lemmings. 

 

Mind has the most control thus giving you the best tactics for survival out of all of the power sets and psi with Drain Psyche has the best survivabilty among the assaults and some pretty good aoe damage.  The pairing is overkill, you're much better pairing one of those sets with a more damaging set like Mind/Fire or /Nrg or Fire/Psi or something of that nature.  

 

I would like to see the hp buff that blasters have and the extra one they got after live.  The caveat though is that doms seem to get the better percentages for things like defensive and resistance powers compared to blasters so how much skewing downward would that be to even out the hp difference as this is probably one of the reasons why they get the better defensive values.  

 

There's already a scaling ability to fill the dom bar.  It's based on team size, the more teammates around you when you activate an attack the more domination you'll get so in a team of 8 your dom bar fills completely after like 5-6 attacks.    Solo I'd say just bring a few breakfrees with you like you'd do with any squishy and activate domination when you need to.  There's also ways to build domination without engaging enemies like spamming your aoe powers and interrupting snipe.  If they can institute the same kind of mechanic for the lower level doms sure it'd make the inherent feel more useful solo.  

 

Yeah endurance is an issue with doms.  The first thing I'd set is a miracle and panacea into health and perf shifters into stamina.  That helps quite a lot and by 35 you get access to a lot of Epic pools that give you endurance optimization powers.  

 

Learning how to thrive on Dominators despite these shortcomings even without permadom it really bears fruit when you build yourself through thought out power choices and IOs to make the most out of the potential of this AT.  

[Ukase]

34 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

I never understand why there's so many Mind/Psi doms comparably.  It's like everyone sees what's the top made powersets for the AT and jumps along like lemmings. 

Truth be told, I made my mind/psi after seeing you literally dominate in MoTPN. In fairness to the AT and the powersets, there are a number of non-dom AT's and powersets I've tried that had certain nuances that discourage my forward progress. 

Like in Super Reflexes, the status protection for my stalker was a click, not a toggle. Fine if you struggle with endurance, but with a perf shifter +end, Panacea +hp/recovery, Numina +hp/recovery, Miracle +end ...not to mention ageless and agility...was never a problem and would never be a problem. 
In Shield Defense, same thing with Active Defense.  Certainly a minor issue, but they tend to point me towards paths where I'm not so click happy. 

Dual Swords with that silly set of combo attacks - which would make sense if they did more damage and the next attack was always recharged and ready to go..

And Bio armor with having (or getting) to choose which armor to go with...some think that's fantastic..I don't want to think about that. I just want to mash a toggle and forget about it. Probably why I like invuln a bit more than rad armor and Will power. 

But these comments are a bit off-topic, just wanted to illustrate that it's not only the Dom AT and mind/psi that I found less than ideal for my style of play. 

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

Truth be told, I made my mind/psi after seeing you literally dominate in MoTPN. In fairness to the AT and the powersets, there are a number of non-dom AT's and powersets I've tried that had certain nuances that discourage my forward progress. 

Like in Super Reflexes, the status protection for my stalker was a click, not a toggle. Fine if you struggle with endurance, but with a perf shifter +end, Panacea +hp/recovery, Numina +hp/recovery, Miracle +end ...not to mention ageless and agility...was never a problem and would never be a problem. 
In Shield Defense, same thing with Active Defense.  Certainly a minor issue, but they tend to point me towards paths where I'm not so click happy. 

Dual Swords with that silly set of combo attacks - which would make sense if they did more damage and the next attack was always recharged and ready to go..

And Bio armor with having (or getting) to choose which armor to go with...some think that's fantastic..I don't want to think about that. I just want to mash a toggle and forget about it. Probably why I like invuln a bit more than rad armor and Will power. 

But these comments are a bit off-topic, just wanted to illustrate that it's not only the Dom AT and mind/psi that I found less than ideal for my style of play. 

Ah well my original dominator on Excelsior is Mind/Dark, my newer one is Mind/Nrg.  I'm really big on powerboost effects that benefit your controls and defenses along with the damage boost they give.  Gather Shadows and the revamped Power Buildup are fabulous for the dom AT.  

 

That's true about nuances within powersets in the various ATs.  Typically you know what you're getting into when you make a scrapper, blaster, etc and there's nuances within the powers you select.  With the dom AT I think it's more nuanced two times over.  First adjusting your playstyle to fit what a dominator can do in general and then within that there's the various powers that push you to want to fight it out in melee or range and to also benefit what the control side can do to fit the theme of the powersets.  You could almost say they are nuance squared.  They're a very busy AT for sure.  

 

Back on live way back when it was just heroes I'd play tanks and the like and I was teamed with a Mind controller.  The things I saw them do on my team just impressed me so much that when Villains came about the first thing I made was a Mind dominator.  Mind control being paired with something like psi can be ho-hum for some people, just like what could have been said about energy assault before the revamp for it.  Like you said it'd be just the same as if you had a Dual Swords and SR scrapper.  

 

I think you've just made a few bad apples that turned you off in general to start.  Whoever encouraged you to switch it up a bit is putting you on the right track, once you get the power pairing you enjoy you'll be that much more interested to delve into what you can get out of the AT in general.