Rolling new Dom, dont know what to pick!

[Neuro-son]

So i have been on and off playing on my mind/nrg dominator and love it but mostly i play on teams and it just seems that people are dying much faster than i can use my full utility. I often see some dominators that really focus on some ST for AV mishs (mostly what i do). I also like the idea of a somewhat melee style "head first" type dom. I understand fire/psi was a  top tier farmer so i was thinking of rolling either a fire/ or ice/ type dom. any recommendations for secondaries? Thanks all!

 

[Mezmera]

You're playing the best dommie you can play.  Lots of tools in the kit and superb melee, pbaoe, ranged and ST damage all in one.  If you're not in the 30-40's with this dom you don't know yet it's full potential.  My Mind/Nrg is my favorite dom and I'm kind of a vet on them.  Get yourself perma and get those defenses up, you can tank and blast something fierce once you're built well.  I fire farm on my Mind/Nrg.  

 

Plant, Dark and Mind are the better control sets.  Fire, Energy and Psi are the better assaults.  Some pair well and some not so much.  

[Neuro-son]

okay cool! Yeah its a ton of fun to play but i just seems slow when it comes to keeping up with teams on TFs and what not. Maybe i prioritize my mind control powers too much rather than hitting them once or twice then going in for the finish!

[Six-Six]

I can attest to /energy's awesomeness... enough to make my dom a melee one. And yes, it is a rather late bloomer. below 40, you just don't have enough slots to round off the character nicely. The change is startling once you hit the 40 threshold.

I paired mine with Gravity, which is also quite fun. The problem I see with doms is the temptation to pick too many powers, because almost all of them are worth picking. I had to limit my control powers to make way for damage and def/res. I solo a lot, so it works for me to be able to hold my own. In times when I do team, the 3 or 4 primaries for control that I have are usually enough to contribute to the team effort and leave me some spare time to get some hits in.

I've also played Fire/ and Ice/ to 50. I love Fire in general, but I was surprised to have more fun teaming with Ice. I'd have to take another look at the Fire build since that was toon I learned doms with. I'm currently learning Dark/ and Earth/ primaries, but they're too low level for me to give any feedback (though Earth visual and sound effects "feel" really strong).

[Carnifax]

I've also fallen for Energy's charms and Six Six is exactly right about it blooming late 30s / level 40. My Fire/NRG hit 40 and has just clicked over the last few levels

[Neuro-son]

These are all great things to hear! So i am a very visual type player too! So I am really leaning towards either fire/nrg or ice/nrg, I have a lvl 40 ice/nrg dom in the ae that I can Pl up but i wanted some opinions for either fire or ice as a primary

[Coyote]

You need to realize one thing: at the high levels, a lot of teams have strong enough defenses that controlling mobs is not important. At all. In fact, while sometimes it's useful (keeping mobs from running out of fields), more often it's worse than not controlling them, if there is a Tank on the team who is using Taunt to group the mobs around him to set up AoEs.

 

So, at high levels, ALL that you will do is use your secondary for attacks, period. And maybe the /Ice APP for Sleet (in which case, an Immobilize may be useful).

 

So, for this reason, you have two selections to make: First, you pick your primary for leveling up purposes, not for playing in the end game... and for soloing at high levels, if you do that. So your primary is almost meaningless for well-equipped high-level teams, so pick a primary that you want to play and level up, not one that you want to use at high levels.

 

Second, you have to pick a secondary that helps on teams. This means damage oriented, and hopefully front-loaded AoE damage. For this reason, while I like Energy... its AoE damage happens with Total Focus -> Whirling Hands, which is a bit slow and all melee, so it takes a while to set it up. I prefer a secondary that can put out the damage earlier. My choices would be:

Earth Assault: while you do have to get into melee, Fissure/Tremor are a good combination. It solos well.

Martial Assault: again, a melee set, but you get two melee AoEs and a 5-target bounce attack. It solos well at the early levels, though its final attack is disappointing.

My suggestion would be Savage Assault: It starts off with Unkindness which is a cone (you back up as you fire this). Unkindness can take two -Res IOs, helping the team do more damage. After this you're at max range and fire Feral Charge, which does very good damage though I think it's limited to 5 targets, but teleports you into melee range and sets you up with 5 Blood Frenzy so that you can use Rending Flurry at max damage and radius. So you end up firing 3 AoEs starting at range, this is the fastest opening AoE salvo for Dominators, which is what fast teams like. It also solos well due to damage, though it doesn't provide much mitigation so it should be paired with a strong defensive primary for leveling purposes (I like Plant and Dark with it).

[RabbitUp]

Mind/Nrg was my dom combo on live, and what go me into the class. Very solid for levelling (Mind being an early blooming sets makes up for Nrg being on the slow side) and solo play, but Kb is annoying when playing with teams unless you adjust your attack chain or put a couple Sudden Accel IOs in your powers (non-Mind sets can technically also use their immob powers, but this combo can't)

 

My personal favourite on HC is Dark/Psi. Dark has great ST damage, valuable -tohit both for debuffing and proc opportunities, and neg energy being the least resisted damage type makes up for psi's psionic damage issues. Psi on the other hand has nice fast animations, the best PBAoE (mainly due to the increased target cap) and Drain Psyche is a monster of a power; it can put you at the regen cap on its own, fix any and all end issues and the -500% regen is invaluable when fighting AVs.

[oedipus_tex]

For various reasons I personally consider Plant, Earth, and Dark to be the "top 3" Dom primaries and Energy, Fire, Psi and Savage as the top 4 Assault sets. Which is not to say others are bad, just that if you pick any one of those sets, even if not together, you'll likely get something that performs well.

 

Here's the text of a private message I sent to a player recently who had asked for advice on what to pick that explains my rationale (he had asked specifically for a Ranged dom, hence the focus on that).

 

 

Plant Control is probably the most straight forward. You get Seeds of Confusion around level 6 or 8. Its a fast recharging cone Confuse that pretty much carries the set. At 26 you get Carrion Creepers which is an invincible pet that can do huge damage. The only real downside to Plant is its pretty one dimensional. The way it plays at level 8 is about how it will play forever.

 

Earth comes together a bit slower. It's basically built on a combo of Stalagmites, Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses. All of these can be used at range, but again with Stalagmites you can't be flying. Of course you can hop down, Stalagmites, hop up. But once you get good global Recharge going, you'll be casting Stalagmites every 30 seconds or so so it can be a lot to deal with.

 

Dark Control is a very solid set that mixes some range and some PBAoE. It has a Stun that is very similar to Earth's, except it's PBAoE. All the powers in Dark have -ToHit so you have some extra survivability.

 

 

Fiery Assault is a good ranged set with absurdly good damage. Mainly notable because its the only Assault set IMO playable almost entirely without taking any of the melee powers. Meanwhile Consume helps with endurance management. Fiery has no self healing altho its also probably the only set that can be played as a full time hover Dom.

 

Savage is a late blooming set that really only comes together around level 40 when the final 2 attacks are slotted. That said its very fun. One attack is the killer bird, the other is a badass teleport-slash that ports you instantly into melee range. Powers in this set lower your endurance costs. Has a mediocre self heal but its better than nothing. Encourages an interesting playstyle because you totally can Hover for most of the fight and then teleport in for the kill because the teleport works even when Hovering/Flying.

 

Psi is completely different than any of these. It doesn't have very good damage. Instead it has Drain Psyche, an insanely strong +Regen +Recovery power. You really need a high recharge build to get it going full time, but once you do you can take hits better than any other Dom. It requires a few enemies nearby and only lasts 30 seconds per cast, so it encourages a kind of manic vampire playstyle where you run from mob to mob replenishing your Regen. The blasts though are mediocre and a lot of enemies resist Psi damage.

 

Energy is the only one of the ones I mentioned with no recovery or endurance discount or healing. It's a bit hard to describe. Basically it's a melee set that actually hits hard enough to justify being in melee. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Hopestar]

I agree with the above except, I wouldn't say Savage is late blooming at all really, sure there's good attacks in the later levels, but Maiming, Vicious, and Unkindness do good damage from level 10. The set just keeps improving from there.

Dark Assault is also very good with hard hitting attacks like Smite, Gloom, Moonbeam, and Midnight Grasp and to quote some of the people of discord "the best PBAoE in the game". Honestly I'd take this over energy every time just because of enemy resistances.