How The Heck Do I Make Myself Make a Dominator?

[Clave Dark 5]

I had one back like I6, but it's been ages since then I think he was the only one ever for me,  The thread down the ways about "what would you change for Doms?" sort of discouraged me.  Plus I wanted to try a ???/Martial because I like the shurikans, but I hear the set's sort of, uh marginal.  Then again I don't normally min/max like a mofo, so that might not be such a big deal for me.  But I "need" to work towards permadom, or at least some real edging towards it.

 

If it helps, I currently have Psi/Martial I made ages ago but never got past like 10th level, and I'm thinking of another, maybe Grav/Energy, or Dark/Energy.

 

Sell me on the madness!

[Six-Six]

Lemme see if my vastly inferior wisdom can help at all.

Doms are damage class. You don't get armour powers; instead, your primaries are controls and holds, which is another way to mitigate damage. They can't hit you if they're held or sleeping or confused or otherwise preoccupied. I have doms with just Kick and Weave as a place to slot res and def IOs that have useful set bonuses.

 

In my opinion, doms have too many good powers, and you simply can't pick them all if you want to stick in something from the tertiary pool, like travel and Rune of Protection, etc. So I have learned to specialise and focus on a specific aspect of the primaries (i.e. choosing holds over immobs or aoes over st controls).

Respec. as you level up, some powers you NEED from 1-20, you get better versions 20-40, and maybe something similar in the epic pools. I also tend to postpone primary powers that are toggles until my recovery can handle them. Ya, you're giving your enemy a -to hit aura, but at the cost of you crashing, your def/res toggles turning off, and being unable to attack is not a good trade. Toggles can wait.

I have a Dark/Martial that was parked for the longest time. Finally got her to 50 before the holidays. I, too, enjoyed the shurikens and the kicks. so much so that I took all of them, which left me barely a handful of picks for the primary. I didn't mind since it all fit thematically in the end. (and because of this, I didn't need to worry about being permadom). I like playing my doms with a mix of melee as well, and I suppose that's where I had trouble. At first I only took the shurikens and most of the primaries. It didn't feel right, and I couldn't get the groove of her attack/play style. but once I factored in the kicks, things fell into place. (same case for my Grav/Energy, though Dark/Martial was more fun and seemed stronger).

 

I wouldn't say /Martial is a late bloomer (it's probably how sucky I am at builds and playing) but mine didn't feel strong until 40. After 40, she was just a joy to play. she can handle +2x4 easily solo, which is my benchmark for a decent toon. Good luck on your endeavour. 

[Coyote]

The first thing I would suggest is to make a Dom who doesn't play like a Dom. In other words, less focus on controls.

This means looking at a Dom who can fire controls a bit, and then is free to rip face off. It could be Ice because much of its control is from a toggle so that frees you up for attacking, or it could be Plant with its use of a single fast-animating mez. Other sets like Dark and Earth can work if you slot up the AoE Stun for damage, and treat it as a AoE or PBAoE attack opener rather than as a long-term mez.

 

Then, you concentrate on attacks. So get a secondary with fun attacks. Energy, Savage, Martial, and Earth all are interesting to me, though other players may have other preferences.

 

My favorite, and first suggestion, would be Plant/Savage. Seed the lot of them, then jump in and start ripping faces off. Repeat until you meet Rularuu and cry.

[oedipus_tex]

I will back Coyote up on Plant/Savage being... savage. I was going to suggest a similar combo. Oedipus Tex the character himself is a Earth/Savage and its a very powerful combo.

 

In general I've found the strongest Dominator primaries to be Dark, Plant, and Earth, and the strongest secondaries to be Psi, Energy, Savage, and Fire. Pair any of those control sets with any of those assault secondaries and you likely have a fairly powerful character. Pair most of them with one of the other sets for a still-pretty-strong character.

 

No set is truly terrible. All are at least playable. The only kinda disappointing thing to me is several of the Assault sets just don't really stand out. I've never gotten either Thorns or Electric Assault past the 20s because there's nothing interesting really going on with them.

[DZKFire]

Depends on the powers chosen to be honest. On my mind/fire at higher levels, I play like blaster lite, which isn't 100% true because im pretty sure I out DPS a few blasters. For lower levels, I play more CC because mobs aren't exploding at those levels yet.

 

For my grav/psi, I play more CC on all levels. This involves wormholing the heck out of everything 🙂

[Greycat]

You can always just do it the altaholic's way. Make a bunch that sound even mildly interesting and play them. Use synergistic sets. Use sets that sound like they shouldn't be. Make 20-30. Use dice to determine which sets to pick. This gets around the whole "these sets suck/are powerful" that might not work for you *anyway* and gets you a feel for what's "set" versus what's "dominator."

 

There are, after all, a thousand slots. Might as well put them to good use. 🙂

[TygerDarkstorm]

45 minutes ago, Greycat said:

You can always just do it the altaholic's way. Make a bunch that sound even mildly interesting and play them. Use synergistic sets. Use sets that sound like they shouldn't be. Make 20-30. Use dice to determine which sets to pick. This gets around the whole "these sets suck/are powerful" that might not work for you *anyway* and gets you a feel for what's "set" versus what's "dominator."

 

There are, after all, a thousand slots. Might as well put them to good use. 🙂

I agree with this, though I saw in the OP you mentioned grav/energy. It's a super fun combo, but if you're still kinda new to dominators, I have a hard time recommending it. It is a super busy combo that is a little bit at odds with itself because of the special mechanics tied to each. You're probably not gonna get that real dominator *feel* from it.

 

Plant is definitely a good place to start, and with the many doms I've rolled, this is the one I've gotten the highest level. Her secondary is Martial which is... ok. I'm sticking with her for now, but plan to try either plant/psi or plant/fire next. But my plant/martial is the first dom attempt I've had where I'm like "omg I feel like a dom this is what people are talking about when they say doms are awesome omg omg omg"

[Tacheyon]

I also have started on this new path.  My classes of choice where Controllers and MMs.

 

So far I have had success and fun with a few combos.  Earth/Earth, Fire/Earth, Plant/Savage are all fun to play and have a good mix of damage and control.

 

Earth/Earth is very SMASH.  All the powers hit like (pun intended) a Rock. Earth Control has a sickening amount of controls to exploit.  I would suggest skipping Salt Crystals (no one uses even on Controllers) the T1 Immob,  and also Quicksand as it takes a long time to cast and your build is tight on space for it.  Rather sue Stalagmites as your opener to stun and disrupt the Alpha of groups then place a Earthquake to keep them flopping.  Earth Assault is all about Knock-ups and downs.  You can usually juggle a single mob quite well.  Overall pretty safe but quite End hungry.

 

Fire/Earth is a very nice damage with a slight dip in control.  This is a more AOE centric build as you have two aura powers (Mud Pots and Hot Feet), along with Tremor and Fissure.  You don't have to take Smoke and the T1. When you get Bonfire slot a KB to KD enhancement in it right away.  That way your team doesn't kick you when you fling Mobs all over the place.

 

I do suggest using Earth Control to start.  It's a very safe control set if low damage.  Next would be Dark.  Plant and Fire lean more toward damage (although Seeds of Confusion is really nice).  

 

At the end of the day some combos are easier to master then others, but all are fun.  For me it's all about the creation of the character itself.  Not the powers or the damage.

[oedipus_tex]

For a first Dominator I tend to recommend Dark or Plant. 

 

Dark is just an all around good set. It has -ToHit as a secondary effect, which allows you to have less than ideal Defenses and still act like you do, at least in normal content. Other archetypes have the luxury of chasing Defense. On a Dominator you're usually pulled in too many directions. You need Recharge, damage procs, and whatever defense you can scrounge up. Dark covers that hole nicely, especially because the pet also tosses its own -ToHit and is fairly tanky. 

 

Plant is mainly good for the newbies on the strength of its simplicity. It banks on two powers: Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers. There's no secondary effect to think about, it's just a rush-down set. Seeds recharges 4 times faster than Mind Control's Mass Confusion (to some controversy). With that kind of recharge you don't need a whole bunch of other control powers.

 

 

I had mentioned Earth before. Earth isn't quite as strong as the two above initially, but with Recharge IOs it becomes magnificent. Mainly this is because Volcanic Gasses, a power that doesn't actually Dominate, can be reduced in duration to around 60 seconds, and it lasts 60 seconds. At that point, a well built Earth Dominator is truly terrifying. Stalagmites + Earthquake + Volcanic Gasses just makes you feel powerful. I like to throw in Water Spout for even more chaos.

 

Most people find the -Defense secondary effect not that useful, but IMO this misses that on many teams with lowbie members, most teammates are severely under slotted for Accuracy. 

[Clave Dark 5]

Thanks everyone for your input.  I ended up creating a Grav/Energy, because I wanted to throw forklifts at people, amongst other things.  At 20th so far, she plays indeed a lot like a blaster (based on what powers I've chosen so far), which is easy peasy-playing (so much so, I haven't leveled a blaster past 20, too dull overall).  Now that I'm starting to get near the exciting Grav powers, this "feel" should change.

 

Dark was a very close second, so maybe I'll go for that one one next.  Or Plant; never played a Plant.

[Rathulfr]

4 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Thanks everyone for your input.  I ended up creating a Grav/Energy, because I wanted to throw forklifts at people, amongst other things.  At 20th so far, she plays indeed a lot like a blaster (based on what powers I've chosen so far), which is easy peasy-playing (so much so, I haven't leveled a blaster past 20, too dull overall).  Now that I'm starting to get near the exciting Grav powers, this "feel" should change.

 

Dark was a very close second, so maybe I'll go for that one one next.  Or Plant; never played a Plant.

 

I'm primarily a Blaster, and Grav/Energy is my favorite Dominator build, precisely because it plays like my Blasters.  It's basically "a Blaster that throws forklifts".  😁

 

[Clave Dark 5]

I respecced to follow a build I found on the forums and it's a bit less blaster-y now, but I slipped right into the groove and sort of focused a bit more.  Now I'm doing a fairly well balanced mix of blast and hold: picking which to do next, which targets needs a hold or soft-control knocking back, which to just blast, etc.  It feels like a pretty good mix of capabilities - on a team, I haven't done any soloing yet, not that I usually do much anyway.

[mbre2006]

On 1/8/2021 at 6:11 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

Thanks everyone for your input.  I ended up creating a Grav/Energy, because I wanted to throw forklifts at people, amongst other things.  At 20th so far, she plays indeed a lot like a blaster (based on what powers I've chosen so far), which is easy peasy-playing (so much so, I haven't leveled a blaster past 20, too dull overall).  Now that I'm starting to get near the exciting Grav powers, this "feel" should change.

 

Dark was a very close second, so maybe I'll go for that one one next.  Or Plant; never played a Plant.

Grav/Nrgy is a very fun build. Until you realize you are actually the pet summon for signy as singy will outclass your mez at every turn. And really doesn't need you outside of being it's damage absorption shield. Seriously one of the best pets in the game outside of PA and pals.

[Clave Dark 5]

Indeed, I've hit that terrible, no good, unfortunate wall when you realize that your pet is nigh unkillable and probably better at fighting than you are.  Oh how awful!