Pro/Con of Dom vs Controller

[Mashugana]

How does a dome play differently from a controller while leveling, on teams, solo, and end game content?

 

I love controllers - and when they added the damage boost for held targets I loved that controllers could solo...slowly.

 

But now that Doms are available to me I wonder if I would like Doms better.  I am not asking if Doms or Controllers are BETTER.  I am sure both are fun and I'll play both.  But I wonder - what do you like about Doms vs Controllers? What do Doms not do as well?

 

Thanks for any guidance as I try Doms for the first time 🙂

 

PS: I have the same question about Defenders vs Corruptors if anyone has an opinion on the pro/con difference between them I'd love to know that too 🙂

[TygerDarkstorm]

I am not a dom expert by any means, but after reading these forums and reddit about them, they have become one of my favorite AT's to play. A dom is not really like a controller at all (other than the fact that both AT's have control primary sets). While controller secondaries focus on buffing/debuffing/etc., doms have assault secondaries, making them play more like a blaster or blapper. They're also one of the few AT's where you actually want to focus more on your secondary than your primary. Meaning, you don't want to spam your control powers like a troller because all your real damage comes from your secondary anyway. You want to do just enough to lock mobs down and then start blasting away at them with your secondary.

 

I'm sure the better dom experts will come to better expand upon what I said, but hopefully that gives you a rough idea of the differences.

 

As to defenders and corruptors, that has more to do with whether you want the defender based modifiers or whether you want to do more damage. However, there's more intricate caveats to this and I believe a thread regarding their differences already exists somewhere. Certain blasts sets are more "corruptory" than others due to their ability to maximize scourge (fire, water, and 1 or 2 others I'm forgetting). Then other blasts sets are great on defenders either because of the way defender stats can multiply their secondary effects or due to their ability to be proc'd out with IOs (sonic blast for stacking -res and DP for procs, for example). There is some debate on whether it's better to just roll defender due to their superior buff/debuff numbers and ability to proc out their damage to be on par (or better) than a corruptor. But, again, I'm lacking details and I'm fairly sure there's a thread about these questions lurking around the forums or reddit.

[Greentea]

I used to love trollers back in retail, but nowadays, not anymore. A lot of enemies resists different type of controls, especially in endgame. I believe there's only two controls are rarely resisted; confusion and sleep.

 

Doms are quite strong thanks to their secondary powers and Domination. Though, it'll be a long, and painful journey from lv1 to 50.

 

I suppose, trollers can be useful in PvP due to crowd controls, but I left PvP in issue 13, and never looked back. 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Heliodorus

[DZKFire]

Low to mid level, team wise, little to no IOs: Both are similar, although it might depend on the controller's secondary. At this level, most people see both ATs as CC functioning classes.

 

High level, no permadom but decent IOs: This is really team dependent. If you team with a bunch of IO'd people, then the CC from either archetype makes little difference. If you choose to team with not-so-max'd out people, then both ATs still function pretty similarly in terms of CC, dominators focusing more on damage and controllers focusing more on support (obviously)

 

High level, max'd out, dominators with permadom: Dominators become the ultimate CC archetype. Once again, team dependent because the amount of CC actually needed will vary on whether enemy groups burst like a bubble (control powers take a backseat). A single permadom can usually cover an entire team's need for crowd control, possibly making controllers' and other dominators' primary powers redundant. Controllers either become team carriers or (unfortunately) situationally useful.

 

Note that illusion is kind of an exception. Although perma-PA is a bit slow to keep up for an every-mob control skill, it is the only reliable way to solo "control" most AVs permanently if we don't count Mind or Dark permadoms spamming their single target confuse skill. This becomes really useful when you're in a TF and no one is able to tank an AV, which has happened to me on my illusion controller in Ms. Liberty TF (tanking Lord Recluse) and Imperious TF (tanking Romulus)

Edited August 21, 2020 by DZKFire

[laudwic]

Perma-Dom is game changing when you are dealing with bosses or things that can Mez/Hold/Sleep you.  (Domination doubles the magnatude of your control powers and gives you really good status protection, plus it recharges your stamina)

 

One shot holding multiple bosses with your AoE hold is a beautiful thing. 

 

It takes some work in your build as you really need to concentrate on sets that give bonuses to recharge but it is not difficult to achieve in you early/mid 40s.  Yes, you are going to need IO sets to hit PermaDom but they generally are not the massively expensive sets and some of them I would not choose but for the bonus to recharge rate.  Looking at you Basilisk's Gaze (tops out at 30) and Decimation (Tops out at 40).   If you plan ahead for what you need, you can put significantly lower bids for things in the AH and get them over the next couple of days to save a lot of influence.  My Lvl 44 Dom has all of his IOs already purchased for until he is 50.  (I don't chase purple sets and I still need to put bids in on enhancement catalysts.)  If you plan ahead and have patience it isn't bad.  Admittedly, I use my prior 50s to pay for my next character, but my current 44 who has all his IOs purchased currently has over 80 mil in the bank that he generated himself, has been buying his own stuff for awhile now, for my next character and over 900 Reward Merits.  (I sell all white recipies  to vendors, I generally make and sell all others in the AH for a decent return.  White ones sell for less than it costs to make them so they are only worth making them if you want to become poor and get a badge.  I don't bother with any of the other AH ways of getting funds.)  

 

I've soloed a Grav/Savage dom to fifty and I didn't perceive it as slow as compared to taking my Sentinel to 50 solo.  Admittedly, I was doing content that was all new to me at the time so that helped.  I've just taken a second dome to 44 again, does not seem slow and has seemed a little faster than getting my corruptor to the same level.  Admittedly, the vast majority of my play is solo so if you are grouping your experiences may be different.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MTeague]

Controllers:  The harder the content, the more use you are. 

• Peregrine Isle Radio missions focusing on Council?  Snoozefest. You'll barely feel needed on a Controller. Toss some buffs around, that's about it.  Try not to be too obvious about tabbing out and reading Google News.
• Malta or Carnies or Rularuu?  Now we're talking. People will be glad for lockdown / CC's. 
• Awakened or Vanguard or IDF?   Even more so. 

I was in a Night Ward group on my Sentinel, on a melee and blasty team with one Empath Defender, six level 50's.  We were getting our heads HANDED to us on several door missions. Repeated wipes it wasn't even close they were tearing us new ones. 

 

I said "I'll be right back.  You don't need my Sentinel for this.  Let me load up my Mind/Kin"

We Roflstomped those same missions the rest of the night.

 

Just stopping X many mobs from doing incoming damage via Holds/Confuses, stopping 2nd waves from adding with Mass Hypnosis, and making sure the Empath had status protection of her own (Gogo Increase Density) completely changed the entire equation. 

[oedipus_tex]

Controller is a difficult class to pigeonhole, probably moreso than any other class. The most accurate thing I can say it is a "true" support class. Some of them can do very good damage. Most do low damage. A few do abysmal damage. Even the lowest damage Controller is probably still welcome on a team these days tho because their secondaries are good, and, on a league, its the Buff/Debuff set that is most important. You won't be doing much actual "controling" on iTrials though.

 

Dominator is (allegedly) a damage class. They aren't bad but some have the glaring hole of being melee-centric on a class with low HP, no support set, APP armor worse than a Controller, and little healing. In theory they use their controls instead of armors, but AVs can't be controlled, so you can easily find yourself locked out of the most critical fights. A few Dominator sets rise above the fray and are great; most are midling to low performers that are fine for sandbox content. Unlike Controllers tho, there's no Dominator combo that's so low damage it's likely to find itself shutoff from soloing, so that's something. 

[TJBC]

So, I have a character concept for an Earth Control toon with Ice/Cold secondary and am having a really hard time deciding between Earth/Ice Dom or Earth/Cold Controller.

My focus will be on the Earth control powers.
As a Dom I would probably just take the ranged ice blasts (and Power Boost!) and with the controller would skip the buffs and take the debuffs. Would an Earth perma-Dom actually be a better controller than the Earth Controller?

Edited August 23, 2020 by TJBC

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, TJBC said:

So, I have a character concept for an Earth Control toon with Ice/Cold secondary and am having a really hard time deciding between Earth/Ice Dom or Earth/Cold Controller.

My focus will be on the Earth control powers.
As a Dom I would probably just take the ranged ice blasts (and Power Boost!) and with the controller would skip the buffs and take the debuffs. Would an Earth perma-Dom actually be a better controller than the Earth Controller?

 

 

These two character concepts will each play completely differently.

 

Earth/Cold is a very low damage support character. The support is very good, but when I say low damage, I mean among the lowest damage in the game. Only combos like Earth/Empathy or /Force Field would have less damage than you.

 

Earth/Ice Dom would be a decent control/damage option. It offers less support but okay-ish damage. The nice thing here is you can do Earth/Ice/Ice, and still get a very good version of Sleet, one of the best powers in Cold. So this is probably the way I would go. The only downside is you are forced into a S/L Defense armor instead of a Resist armor. If you do decide you want a Resist armor, you can go with Earth/Ice/Leviathan and get Water Spout. Water Spout is a power I didn't properly respect until recently. It's very powerful and cool looking and will complete the "chaos" feeling that Earth Control brings to the table very nicely, should you decide to go that route.

[TJBC]

Thanks for the input, I have little experience with Controllers and zero experience with Dominators.

My purpose for this toon would be 100% team-oriented control/support. I’m thinking  If I went Dom I would basically only use the attacks to build Domination bar

 

So I guess what I mean is, would it be more beneficial to a team to have a perma-Dom  or a Controller with a handful of debuffs.

 

Probably depends on the team. Maybe I will make one of each!

Edited August 23, 2020 by TJBC

[TygerDarkstorm]

Well, dominators are not a support AT, so if you're referring to support in this game's traditional sense (i.e. buff/debuff, heal), then dominator is not the AT you're looking for. Dom's are a damage dealing AT.

 

Also, controls aren't super necessary for much of any team content. Not that they can't be used or aren't, but once teams get steamrolling stuff you won't find your controls doing a whole lot to help keep the team safe like back in the old days. Keep in mind that when teaming with a control AT, you don't want to launch your controls the second you get to a spawn (with maybe the exception of the sets with mass confuses); you generally want to wait until the tanker/brute/whoever takes the alpha and groups the mobs up then launch your controls on the spawn. Granted, this isn't always true for everything, so YMMV.

 

I would try one of each, but your description of what you want to do makes me think you'll be happier with the controller than the dom.

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, TJBC said:

So I guess what I mean is, would it be more beneficial to a team to have a perma-Dom  or a Controller with a handful of debuffs.

 

Controller. The /Cold debuffs are very nice, and a Controller can Immobilize mobs so that they don't run out of Sleet. Add in Earthquake and the Cold shields, and team defense is covered well at low levels. At high levels it's more about debuffing, and /Cold is good at that... enough to make up for some loss of damage from an Assault set. Getting Domination to Hold the Bosses... is nice, but not greatly relevant. An Earth Control Dominator doesn't get Domination on Volcanic Gasses anyhow.

 

Also, Earth/Cold at high levels can put out surprising damage, though not in a great burst. The build I'm running can help with AoE damage surprisingly well, with Stalagmites - Stone Cages - Frost Breath - Ice Storm adding up to 1k AoE damage with excellent area coverage.
 

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[Pzn]

5 minutes ago, Coyote said:

At high levels it's more about debuffing, and /Cold is good at that... enough to make up for some loss of damage from an Assault set

a nice compromise is running a dom build with the cold epic for sleet.  You're not going to have the full debuff arsenal of cold domination available but it's nice to have access to one of it's best powers on a dom.

[oedipus_tex]

Earth/Ice/Ice Dom would strictly speaking be a better "controller" in the sense of mezzing enemies, assuming you build the character for permadomination. Stalagmites is a Mag 6 stun in Domination mode, which will stun bosses and pierce through Dispersion Bubbles. Your Hold and Immobilize are also Mag 6.

 

Sadly your AOE hold is unaffected by Domination.

 

Having played Earth Control on both Controller and Dominator personally I prefer Dominator, but your mileage may vary. What Earth lacks in Controllers is a way to get Boss enemies under control quickly. Mag 6 Stalagmites as this way of announcing WE'RE HERE in dramatic form. I have my reservations about some Dominator builds being too fragile, but Earth Control generally holds it's own. On a top end build you can Stalagmite every 30 seconds. The power goes off with a huge BOOM that catches a lot of attention. The Power Boost like power in Icy Assault extends the duration and you can keep packs permanently stunned. Earth Control on a Dominator just *feels* powerful.

 

Keep in mind you could always split the difference and roll Earth/Storm Controller. Storm is similar to Cold but has much better damage, no shields, but otherwise similarish powers. Cold is still a good set mind you. It's just not generally a set I recommend to inexperienced players. It can work but its IO hungry and the specifics of some of the powers are pretty intricate. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[VV]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:13 PM, TygerDarkstorm said:

While controller secondaries focus on buffing/debuffing/etc., doms have assault secondaries, making them play more like a blaster or blapper. They're also one of the few AT's where you actually want to focus more on your secondary than your primary. Meaning, you don't want to spam your control powers like a troller because all your real damage comes from your secondary anyway. You want to do just enough to lock mobs down and then start blasting away at them with your secondary.

I play both sets regularly and this is definitely the best way to to put it. If you really like Controllers, you will probably miss throwing out those buffs and debuffs. Sure, a Dominator does more straight damage, but many Controllers can also plow through stuff thanks to their buffs and debuffs. The other thing is, the Controller secondaries tend to add to the controllery-ness of them, through soft controls and other mitigation. Dominators less so. However, if you are in the mood to hold somebody down and beat their face in while they are helpless, Dominator is the way to go all day. And you can get some small debuffs in Dom secondaries, like Rad or Dark. Like I said, I like both. If I feel like being master of the battlefield that day, I'll play a Controller, if I feel like being master of destruction, I'll play my Dominator.

[VV]

Also, it would be interesting to ask this in the Controller sub to see if the answers differ.

[FUBARczar]

On 8/22/2020 at 10:09 AM, oedipus_tex said:

Dominator is (allegedly) a damage class. They aren't bad but some have the glaring hole of being melee-centric on a class with low HP, no support set, APP armor worse than a Controller, and little healing. In theory they use their controls instead of armors, but AVs can't be controlled, so you can easily find yourself locked out of the most critical fights. A few Dominator sets rise above the fray and are great; most are midling to low performers that are fine for sandbox content. Unlike Controllers tho, there's no Dominator combo that's so low damage it's likely to find itself shutoff from soloing, so that's something. 

ROFL - I have "tanked" with my Fire/Psi Dom on a 4-man (squishies only) Master (no deaths/temp powers) ITF with no inspirations and the Enemies were Buffed.  We finished in about 36mins with 1 Dom, 1 Blaster, 1Controller, 1 Defender

 

I did it on this build:

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[oedipus_tex]

7 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

ROFL - I have "tanked" with my Fire/Psi Dom on a 4-man (squishies only) Master (no deaths/temp powers) ITF with no inspirations and the Enemies were Buffed.  We finished in about 36mins with 1 Dom, 1 Blaster, 1Controller, 1 Defender

 

I did it on this build:

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I don't doubt that. Like I said, "A few Dominator sets rise above the fray." Psi is an excellent secondary set. 

[Pzn]

14 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

ROFL - I have "tanked" with my Fire/Psi Dom on a 4-man (squishies only) Master (no deaths/temp powers) ITF with no inspirations and the Enemies were Buffed.  We finished in about 36mins with 1 Dom, 1 Blaster, 1Controller, 1 Defender

 

I did it on this build:

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Drain psyche is amazing.  I wish other assault sets had a similar power.  Do you think you could pull it off with any of the other secondaries?

[Mezmera]

28 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

Drain psyche is amazing.  I wish other assault sets had a similar power.  Do you think you could pull it off with any of the other secondaries?

I've tanked those same things with my doms too.  Mine are energy assault and dark assault but I'd assume just about any dom secondary could do it if the person knows to play to the dominator's build strengths.  For instance any dom with a powerboost capability in their secondary can cap all of their positional defenses and a lot of secondaries have a powerboost power.  Also doms with a healing mechanic could manage it.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Mezmera

[FUBARczar]

3 hours ago, josh1622 said:

Drain psyche is amazing.  I wish other assault sets had a similar power.  Do you think you could pull it off with any of the other secondaries?

similar to what Mezmera said, I'd do it on my other doms as well.  But Fire/Psi and Mind/Fire are my two favs though.  

[oedipus_tex]

6 hours ago, josh1622 said:

Drain psyche is amazing.  I wish other assault sets had a similar power.  Do you think you could pull it off with any of the other secondaries?

 

 

Like /Psi can? Yes/No/Depends.

 

Psi has amazing Regen. It's built on a somewhat frantic premise, retriggering the power every 30 seconds or so, but it delivers if you can keep the race up.

 

With the other secondaries it's a mixed bag, and depends a lot on how we define 'tanking.' Fire Assault for example has high survivability in part because you can play keep away and still do good damage, and the blue bar refill from Consume lets you focus on closing other holes. But as far as actual Regen/healing, /Psi rises to the top. 

 

A long time ago Arcanaville (at least I believe it was her) posited that max survivability was a result of a triad: Defense, Resist and Heal. Total survivability rises as each element of the triad is added. Psi provides that third element in spades. Yes you can get good Defense and so-so Resists on any set, but that third leg of the triangle multiplies the overall effect. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

Dark Assault is also pretty strong defensively. You can get a strong regen-like effect with Lifedrain, and it can also help with Endurance management, and the -ToHit helps add to effective Defense. It's just kinda poor offensively 😞

[FUBARczar]

On 9/3/2020 at 6:14 AM, Coyote said:

Dark Assault is also pretty strong defensively. You can get a strong regen-like effect with Lifedrain, and it can also help with Endurance management, and the -ToHit helps add to effective Defense. It's just kinda poor offensively 😞

what u don't like melee range?

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

what u don't like melee range?

 

No.

I mean, I'm willing to go into it for a big benefit. Energy Assault gets its only AoE there, and uses Total Focus to almost double that. Earth Assault has three melee- range (one slightly more) AoE plus some great melee attacks. Savage Assault just doesn't have enough ranged attacks to stay at range. So there are reasons to go into melee with some characters.

But it's a lot easier to build for capped Ranged Defense, solid AoE Def, and back it up with a resist shield, than to try to also get Melee Defense high (or depend on Melee Defense and let Ranged/AoE slip, when many mobs will happily stay away and shoot).

So there are a good amount of drawbacks to making a character who depends on melee range for a lot of its damage, and I want to see some serious damage, like Seismic Smash, if I'm going in there. Dark Assault has solid ranged attacks, and while its melee attacks are a bit better, I don't think they're good enough to build the character to survive in melee plus spending the time to move from target to target.