Do Dominators Need a Buff?

[oedipus_tex]

42 minutes ago, Voltak said:

Let Dominators Reign at Dominating , via controls , Domination has no equal in the game , none , it's just so good and so unique in the gaming industry 

 

 

I agree that Dominators should be difficult to equal at this, but I'm not sure that most really are. Dominators pay a big price for having access to Domination. I think people tend to overestimate how much control Dominators actually have. Part of what makes some control sets unattractive on a Dom versus Controller is when the Control set is low in control capability, the Assault and APP sets do little to make up for it. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If anything, what if Dominators had much STRONGER click for click control powers than Controllers out of the gate, even before Domination, but in exchange had much longer recharges? 

 

 

Interesting thoughts. I actually lean the other way. I think it would be more effective if most Dominator AoE controls lasted less time but recharged faster. But there are a few powers I think just an overall adjustment to uptime is needed. Ice Slick and Earthquake for example should have a better uptime-to-recharge ratio than Blaster Bonfire obtained from an APP.

Edited March 12, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

If anything is done to dominator at all, all that really would help anything is a damage buff.

 

I've always said that Dominators need to have their SECONDARY powers on longer recharges, not their CONTROLS. The controls are defense, but also take up animation time. So unlike Blasters, they don't need to have such a full damage-oriented attack cycle, because they are intended to fill in part of their animation time with their controls. But when they do attack, it should hit harder because you might be delaying a defensive click in order to do damage, so throwing a weak attack with a 4 second recharge is really slow. Especially when many primaries already have a 4-second-recharge single-target attack that Immobilizes.

 

In many cases, by the time you're level 10, you have access to 3 different attacks with a Recharge of about 8 seconds, as well as 2 more with a Recharge of 4 seconds. That's kind of too many light fast attacks, already... and you don't even have Hasten, Recharge bonuses, or the later attacks. Dominators suffer from having so many early attacks be completely superfluous... not only their T1 attack from the secondary, but ALSO their T1 attack from the primary, are almost always superseded.

 

Push up the Recharge for all Dominator attacks by 2 seconds, and without changing their base AT modifiers, I think they will play a lot better. And especially so at lower levels, since this will have a greater effect upon the lighter attacks that are more usually used at the lower levels, and that's exactly when they can use the boost.

[Luminara]

On 1/31/2021 at 12:32 AM, blue4333 said:

How do you guys feel about Dominators and their role?

 

Unimpressed.  Their primaries aren't well suited to their secondaries.  There's no consistency within the archetype.  Some primaries pair better with some secondaries, but in general, none of them actually work well together in the way that every other archetype's primaries and secondaries do.  The primaries, being ports of controller primaries, typically promote ranged play... but the assault sets are a mish-mash of ranged, melee, single-target, AoE and PBAoE with no real focus on anything.

 

Single-target controls aren't complementary to melee play (in the sense that mezzing a single foe still leaves two or more other foes free to curb stomp the character), AoE controls are too limited in availability (due to long recharge times) to complement melee play well, but the archetype has low HP and has to use controls to provide mitigation, so playing a melee dominator is frustrating (either a lot of waiting for AoE controls to recharge, or a lot of frantic Tabbing to mez individual targets).

 

And playing a dominator as an exclusively ranged character... it's really, in all honesty, worse than playing a sentinel.

 

Dominators don't need a buff, they need direction.  They need designed and implemented synergy between their primaries and secondaries.  Not discovered synergies, like stacking +Regeneration from two powers, or layering -ToHit with Weave and Link Minds, real synergy.  I'd swap the primaries and secondaries and redesign the control sets to complement the assault sets more appropriately (some PBAoE control toggles, like Oppressive Gloom, Choking Cloud and World of Confusion, would go a long way toward making dominators more melee-friendly, for instance).  But as long as the archetype continues to give the impression that it's confused about its own identity, I don't think it really has any role.  It's a niche, at best.

[Voltak]

32 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

I agree that Dominators should be difficult to equal at this, but I'm not sure that most really are. Dominators pay a big price for having access to Domination. I think people tend to overestimate how much control Dominators actually have. Part of what makes some control sets unattractive on a Dom versus Controller is when the Control set is low in control capability, the Assault and APP sets do little to make up for it. 

 

 

 

 

Interesting thoughts. I actually lean the other way. I think it would be more effective if most Dominator AoE controls lasted less time but recharged faster. But there are a few powers I think just an overall adjustment to uptime is needed. Ice Slick and Earthquake for example should have a better uptime-to-recharge ratio than Blaster Bonfire obtained from an APP.

Dominators 

I do not overestimate how much control they have , that's after playing the game for 7 years before the servers went down, since playing Dom when they barely came out to the live servers

OF course, I never play Dom unless I can build the Dom to permanently domination 

I don't want to touch a Dominator outside of permanent domination unless I have to be one at very very low levels 

But as soon as I get my hands on IOs then I want permanent domination 

Perma Domination erases and blocks from my mind any doubts about the ability of controlling by dominators 

Dominators will out control any controller when inside Domination 

As of right now, the issue is some control sets, but not the class

Earth

Mind

DARK 

Plant

Really have zero issues controlling and are super good sets at controlling 

 

[Voltak]

32 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I've always said that Dominators need to have their SECONDARY powers on longer recharges, not their CONTROLS. The controls are defense, but also take up animation time. So unlike Blasters, they don't need to have such a full damage-oriented attack cycle, because they are intended to fill in part of their animation time with their controls. But when they do attack, it should hit harder because you might be delaying a defensive click in order to do damage, so throwing a weak attack with a 4 second recharge is really slow. Especially when many primaries already have a 4-second-recharge single-target attack that Immobilizes.

 

In many cases, by the time you're level 10, you have access to 3 different attacks with a Recharge of about 8 seconds, as well as 2 more with a Recharge of 4 seconds. That's kind of too many light fast attacks, already... and you don't even have Hasten, Recharge bonuses, or the later attacks. Dominators suffer from having so many early attacks be completely superfluous... not only their T1 attack from the secondary, but ALSO their T1 attack from the primary, are almost always superseded.

 

Push up the Recharge for all Dominator attacks by 2 seconds, and without changing their base AT modifiers, I think they will play a lot better. And especially so at lower levels, since this will have a greater effect upon the lighter attacks that are more usually used at the lower levels, and that's exactly when they can use the boost.

This is calling for a nerf on Dominators 

NO NO NO NO 

Do not nerf Dominators at all 

The offense of a dominator is also their defense

The best defense is a great offense 

Dominations plus awesome offense is great and more fun 

Putting their secondaries on longer recharge is a nerf to their offense 

Dominators do not need their offense to be nerfed at all 

Where is this coming from ???

WHY. ???

[Voltak]

21 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Unimpressed.  Their primaries aren't well suited to their secondaries.  There's no consistency within the archetype.  Some primaries pair better with some secondaries, but in general, none of them actually work well together in the way that every other archetype's primaries and secondaries do.  The primaries, being ports of controller primaries, typically promote ranged play... but the assault sets are a mish-mash of ranged, melee, single-target, AoE and PBAoE with no real focus on anything.

 

Single-target controls aren't complementary to melee play (in the sense that mezzing a single foe still leaves two or more other foes free to curb stomp the character), AoE controls are too limited in availability (due to long recharge times) to complement melee play well, but the archetype has low HP and has to use controls to provide mitigation, so playing a melee dominator is frustrating (either a lot of waiting for AoE controls to recharge, or a lot of frantic Tabbing to mez individual targets).

 

And playing a dominator as an exclusively ranged character... it's really, in all honesty, worse than playing a sentinel.

 

Dominators don't need a buff, they need direction.  They need designed and implemented synergy between their primaries and secondaries.  Not discovered synergies, like stacking +Regeneration from two powers, or layering -ToHit with Weave and Link Minds, real synergy.  I'd swap the primaries and secondaries and redesign the control sets to complement the assault sets more appropriately (some PBAoE control toggles, like Oppressive Gloom, Choking Cloud and World of Confusion, would go a long way toward making dominators more melee-friendly, for instance).  But as long as the archetype continues to give the impression that it's confused about its own identity, I don't think it really has any role.  It's a niche, at best.

This certainly is NOT the case with Dark/Dark 

I take the evidence for all of this from the performance and feats 

I was soloing AVs 50+ with dark / dark dom before live servers went down after incarnates came out 

Dark/Dark is a great way to play 

Mixing and machine melee and range is great 
+4 x 8 anything was a joke 

As long as the task gets done in a great way, that's it; look no further.  It's not sucking at all 

If it's fun, powerful, and can show that in a performance , then it's the case --> it's all right and not broke to the point that it needs to be critiqued that the whole thing sucks 

Plant/Thorns is another example 

Plant/Fire is another approach 

I can go on with different combos 

The problem is SOME SETS 

I don't like electric , neither primary nor secondary 

I like thorns, fire, earth (it's designed for the melee approach single target mostly),  dark perhaps the most, those secondaries are fun and perform well for me for the specific task I want.   
As with life, same in game, problems stem from what we want. 

What we want to do ?  If you can't do it, then you have a problem. 
But if I can do it, do what I want, then it's fine. 

Sets should not be the same at all tasks, that's where flavors and style come in. 

If I wanted a melee focused secondary , then some secondaries are out of the question 

Do we have secondaries that have decent mix of both , probably.  

I am not familiar with the new sets after the live servers went down 

I won't comment on them 

But when I see a plant/thorn farm a map of +4 x 8 on battle maiden and wipe the floor with a fire/kin controller trying to compete to see who clears the map fastest , it is very hard to talk about the whole thing sucking and needing to be totally redone 

It's hard to see that with a Mind/ Dominator soloing the STF ... hard to talk about the whole AT needing a rework 

Then, if we talk PVP, just for kicks, I personally witness the two top PVP teams back then when live servers where UP 

Guess what team beat the number two like it looked like they were out of their league ?

The Dominator team won and it was a slaughter 

The score was easily over 15 - 0.  A complete ownage as never seen before in a team vs team made up of decent players 

We have to look at individual cases , build specific, specific combinations 

I do not agree with the blanket statement 

Performance and results should guide 

Sounds like WE NEED direction , not the Dominator AT class as a whole 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Voltak

[Luminara]

25 minutes ago, Voltak said:

This certainly is NOT the case with Dark/Dark

 

37 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Some primaries pair better with some secondaries

 

[Voltak]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

 

You said 

"... but in general, none of them actually work well together " 


That's a blanket statement

It's not right either 

That's what I am referring to as well 

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Unimpressed.  Their primaries aren't well suited to their secondaries.  There's no consistency within the archetype.  Some primaries pair better with some secondaries, but in general, none of them actually work well together in the way that every other archetype's primaries and secondaries do.  The primaries, being ports of controller primaries, typically promote ranged play... but the assault sets are a mish-mash of ranged, melee, single-target, AoE and PBAoE with no real focus on anything.

 

Single-target controls aren't complementary to melee play (in the sense that mezzing a single foe still leaves two or more other foes free to curb stomp the character), AoE controls are too limited in availability (due to long recharge times) to complement melee play well, but the archetype has low HP and has to use controls to provide mitigation, so playing a melee dominator is frustrating (either a lot of waiting for AoE controls to recharge, or a lot of frantic Tabbing to mez individual targets).

 

And playing a dominator as an exclusively ranged character... it's really, in all honesty, worse than playing a sentinel.

 

Dominators don't need a buff, they need direction.  They need designed and implemented synergy between their primaries and secondaries.  Not discovered synergies, like stacking +Regeneration from two powers, or layering -ToHit with Weave and Link Minds, real synergy.  I'd swap the primaries and secondaries and redesign the control sets to complement the assault sets more appropriately (some PBAoE control toggles, like Oppressive Gloom, Choking Cloud and World of Confusion, would go a long way toward making dominators more melee-friendly, for instance).  But as long as the archetype continues to give the impression that it's confused about its own identity, I don't think it really has any role.  It's a niche, at best.

 

Some are just stuck in their boxes of usual expectations and then there's others that can think outside of it and see the potential in doms for what it is.  I find playing a bag of hp unimpressive, I find buff/heal bots unimpressive, I find walking damage spam unimpressive.

 

The problem is maybe you can't grasp the hybrid nature of the thing and haven't seen for yourself how to do it.  Anytime you feel like being impressed you're welcome to come play with what I get to play every day.

[Coyote]

4 hours ago, Voltak said:

Putting their secondaries on longer recharge is a nerf to their offense 

Dominators do not need their offense to be nerfed at all 

Where is this coming from ???

WHY. ???

 

Perhaps you might want to do your math before reacting mistakenly.

 

Longer recharges = more damage per animation time. More damage per animation time = higher DPS and higher burst damage.

 

Increasing recharge on attacks = more damage. In my world, more damage is not exactly a nerf to offense.

 

Where is this objection even coming from?

[Voltak]

27 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Perhaps you might want to do your math before reacting mistakenly.

 

Longer recharges = more damage per animation time. More damage per animation time = higher DPS and higher burst damage.

 

Increasing recharge on attacks = more damage. In my world, more damage is not exactly a nerf to offense.

 

Where is this objection even coming from?

I would not word it Longer recharges

I would say faster recharges

The faster the recharge then the more you attack 

I have no problem if that's the idea 

I don't play Doms without a hefty amount of Global recharge from IOs .   

I love faster recharges 

When you said you want longer recharges it did not give the idea 

Faster recharge is cool. 

After IO's came into the game , I never saw myself ever wanting to play without them 

Gear, as in most games, makes a huge difference 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Voltak

[Coyote]

9 minutes ago, Voltak said:

The faster the recharge then the more you attack 

I have no problem if that's the idea 

I don't play Doms without a hefty amount of Global recharge from IOs .   

I love faster recharges 

When you said you want longer recharges it did not give the idea 

 

A Dominator usually has enough Global Recharge for their attacks to recharge faster.

So, if they have an attack that does 200 damage and recharges in 8 seconds BASE... now you change that attack to recharge in 10 seconds. Because attacks follow a formula that determines how much damage they do, the damage of the attack goes up. Say, to 240 damage. But it's the same attack, so it animates in 2 seconds, like it did before... except that now it does 240 damage in 2 seconds instead of 200 damage in 2 seconds.

Yes, it will now recharge in 5 seconds after global recharge bonuses instead of 4 seconds, but in most cases Dominators have enough attacks that they can easily have a full attack cycle. So they're not hurt by having longer recharges because they still attack constantly, but now they're doing more damage per second spent animating an attack.

 

Look at Ice Bolt (5 sec rech) vs Ice Blast (6 sec rech)... Ice Blast takes a bit longer to recharge, but does a bit more damage. In either case, the Recharge isn't an issue because you have enough attacks, so Ice Blast is better. Now, imagine if Ice Blast had a Recharge of 8 seconds instead... it would do even more damage, and become better.

 

ATs like Controllers can't afford to have their attacks (controls) on longer Recharges because they don't have enough of them. But Dominators do have enough attacks, and not enough animation time to fire them all... so increase the base Recharge, which increases the damage, and now you're making the same attack cycle but doing more damage from it.

 

[Voltak]

37 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

A Dominator usually has enough Global Recharge for their attacks to recharge faster.

So, if they have an attack that does 200 damage and recharges in 8 seconds BASE... now you change that attack to recharge in 10 seconds. Because attacks follow a formula that determines how much damage they do, the damage of the attack goes up. Say, to 240 damage. But it's the same attack, so it animates in 2 seconds, like it did before... except that now it does 240 damage in 2 seconds instead of 200 damage in 2 seconds.

Yes, it will now recharge in 5 seconds after global recharge bonuses instead of 4 seconds, but in most cases Dominators have enough attacks that they can easily have a full attack cycle. So they're not hurt by having longer recharges because they still attack constantly, but now they're doing more damage per second spent animating an attack.

 

Look at Ice Bolt (5 sec rech) vs Ice Blast (6 sec rech)... Ice Blast takes a bit longer to recharge, but does a bit more damage. In either case, the Recharge isn't an issue because you have enough attacks, so Ice Blast is better. Now, imagine if Ice Blast had a Recharge of 8 seconds instead... it would do even more damage, and become better.

 

ATs like Controllers can't afford to have their attacks (controls) on longer Recharges because they don't have enough of them. But Dominators do have enough attacks, and not enough animation time to fire them all... so increase the base Recharge, which increases the damage, and now you're making the same attack cycle but doing more damage from it.

 

Having an attack cycle is one thing 

Having an attack cycle of fast charging and fast animation is another 

There is a good case based actual practice that faster recharges and faster animations are great to kill , if not outright better. 

This is especially the case in PVP 

In PVP where diminished returns are very high, the global recharge is much smaller, then the real bad news is adding more animation time

In PVP this will or can eliminate a viable build and send it to useless

Animation time is key to attack and damg 

So, no, I don't want nerfs to recharge time, nor animation 

I will give only one out of many cases in the 7 year history I was in the game. 

Look what they did to Energy Transfer, the attack for melee 

When they added the long animation , every single energy build in melee, PVE and PVP (worse) was thrown away .  

The chain was all gone

Very very few people played energy melee after that change

Other builds were better for DPS because of recharges and animation time 

I rather have a direct buff to dmg and faster animations 

More often than not, this will buff dmg per seconds in both PVE  and PVP 

Your idea could be used in PVE and that's it 

But even in PVE, it's already been proven that faster recharges and faster animations are reliable 

Sure, I am not saying you have a good and viable point with some positive probabilities  but we are gambling here to find the golden and glorious perfect spot 

During that gamble, what we lose what we win?  In PVP this is costly 100%. 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Voltak

[Galaxy Brain]

@oedipus_tex, @Coyote, either way, I feel that the rech and power of Dominator abilities need a look-see specifically due to the slew of click powers they naturally get on short timers, and from the extra-meta sense that nearly all doms chase recharge which makes their already high rech/big effect powers take center stage already.

 

@Voltak, despite how it sounds, lowering the recharge (increasing?)... making it take longer to recharge would actually be a buff. As Coyote mentioned, in the main game there is a direct correlation for 99% of powers between Recharge and Damage. The longer it takes to recharge, the more output it has and vice versa with faster recharges. This is normally balanced by having fast and slow attacks in a cohesive set where you only have so many clicks to juggle. With Dominators, and Blasters, they have two full sets full of click powers to juggle every encounter. The way Blasters handle this is with their secondary abilities often having a lot more recharge so they are not up as often as primary attacks, with the intention you fill in the gaps with your primary. The more powers you have with similar recharges (usually on the faster end), the more competition they have against each other for their use. The more varied the recharges, the more often they would actually pop up in practice for most players like with Blaster secondary attacks. When those slower cycling moves are on deck, they hit *hard*!

 

So either by increasing their control by making their control powers come up less often but hit much harder / control much longer, or making their attacks cycle slower but need less cycles per hit, it would strike a balance between all their click abilities and actually be a buff as you build for global recharge as you get to cycle powerful moves more often.

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

@Voltak, despite how it sounds, lowering the recharge (increasing?)... making it take longer to recharge would actually be a buff. As Coyote mentioned, in the main game there is a direct correlation for 99% of powers between Recharge and Damage. The longer it takes to recharge, the more output it has and vice versa with faster recharges. This is normally balanced by having fast and slow attacks in a cohesive set where you only have so many clicks to juggle. With Dominators, and Blasters, they have two full sets full of click powers to juggle every encounter. The way Blasters handle this is with their secondary abilities often having a lot more recharge so they are not up as often as primary attacks, with the intention you fill in the gaps with your primary. The more powers you have with similar recharges (usually on the faster end), the more competition they have against each other for their use. The more varied the recharges, the more often they would actually pop up in practice for most players like with Blaster secondary attacks. When those slower cycling moves are on deck, they hit *hard*!

 

 

Back when they were redoing the quick snipe to make it more amateur friendly they were reducing the recharge and reducing the damage scale for the doms snipe.  This was a clear nerf, doms were well served with a slightly longer recharging snipe with a ton more damage.  The damage was going to be cut by 1/3 just to shave a few more seconds off the recharge.  I'm so glad that got taken out of the works, I can manage my recharge, what I couldn't do is manage that scaling damage.  

 

What's funny is that they were quietly buffing blasters snipe by raising the damage scale and making it recharge just a slight bit longer.  A lot of people spoke out against this change that couldn't grasp that it was yet another buff for blasters and they ended up ruining it for themselves.  I play blasters too but they're already easy mode so I could care less what happened with that but I for certain spoke against the Dom's getting their snipe nerfed.  

 

I'm all for longer recharging powers if they get the corresponding damage scale increase.  I can't affect that scale but I can affect the recharge quite effectively so gimme that damage, I'll do the rest.  

 

And that's not to mention how much more effective procs are in longer recharging powers.  

Edited March 13, 2021 by Mezmera

[oedipus_tex]

I think there's a strong case to be made that Dominator single target Holds should be Mag 3.5 outside of Domination. That would crown Dominators kings of one shot holding a Boss in or out of Domination and significantly improve their survivability when not IOed. This isn't the only change I would make, but I think it's a smart start.

 

Next thing I'd look at is making sure Domination applies to most AoE controls, even ones that are toggles or summon pseudo pets. Finally I think the Assault sets need another hard pass--we need to look for cases where the Assault set not only doesn't add enough damage, but also where it doesn't add enough utility/survivability or where the base mechanics (e.g. long DoTs on an archetype that's supposed to leverage Sleeps) conflict with the power. Luckily the Homecoming team already addressed the hilarious conflict between knockdown and knockdown cancelling that existed in the original design.

Edited March 13, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Luminara]

32 minutes ago, Voltak said:

You said 

"... but in general, none of them actually work well together " 


That's a blanket statement

 

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Some primaries pair better with some secondaries, but in general, none of them actually work well together in the way that every other archetype's primaries and secondaries do.

 

 

Take a look at melee archetypes.  They have attack sets paired with defensive sets.  Their defensive sets, generally speaking, are character-oriented.  In other words, clicks or toggles which improve their survivability by increasing the character's Defenses, Resistances, Regeneration and other character attributes, or affect multiple foes simultaneously, such as PBAoE debuff toggles/clicks, to accomplish the same goal via reverse action (debuffing ToHit instead of buffing Defense, or debuffing Damage instead of buffing Resistance).  Effectively, they gain the benefit of mitigation on every foe they encounter, which gives them the survivability they need to do what they were designed to do.  That's synergy between melee attack sets and melee defensive sets.

 

Dominators lack that.  The control sets don't synergize with the assault sets in that way.  Single-target controls provide single-target mitigation, which decreases in effectiveness as the size of the spawn increases.  A dominator isn't going to be able to Hold or Stun 17 critters with his/her T2 single-target control.  That dominator's single-target Immobilization does even less in terms of mitigation, and the same statement can be applied to the AoE Immobilizations.  The very low amount of mitigation offered by the first three powers in every control set fails to synergize with the assault sets in the way defensive power sets synergize with attack sets.

 

This means dominators are reliant on their AoE/PBAoE controls for effective mitigation.  However, most of those AoE/PBAoE controls are on long recharge timers, which restricts their availability.  This is also not synergistic with assault sets in the way defensive power sets synergize with attack sets.  A scrapper with a +Res toggle active doesn't have to wait for the toggle to refresh between spawns.  A brute with a +Def toggle doesn't have to worry about suddenly losing his/her mitigation halfway through a fight because the +Def "wore off".  And even the clicks in defensive sets are designed with short enough recharge times, long enough durations, or balanced recharge:duration times, allowing them to be effectively permanent.

 

AoE/PBAoE Holds have extremely long recharge times and comparatively short durations.  They can't be made permanent, by any means, even under the effects of Domination.  AoE/PBAoE Stuns can be overlapped for a few seconds, but that introduces the problem of blowing your AoE/PBAoE Stun to finish a fight, then having to wait for it to recharge before starting the next fight.  Do scrappers have to wait for their +Res toggles to recharge before jumping into another spawn?  Do brutes have to go make a cup of coffee while they wait for their +Def toggles to recharge?  Of course not, because their defensive powers were designed to synergize with their offensive powers.  But dominators, because their controls don't synergize with their attacks in this way, are forced to either eat the loss of mitigation they experience when their AoE/PBAoE Holds and Stuns expire or aren't available, or park their asses and wait.

 

AoE/PBAoE Sleeps, in terms of mitigation, are very poor.  They're only mitigation until you wake the spawn up, and they don't go back to Sleep in most cases.  Fears are almost as impoverished, because they allow an enemy to make an attack if you attack it.  Both of these do, at the least, prevent entire spawns from dog-piling on the player, briefly and only so long as the player doesn't use any AoEs/PBAoEs... which is also not synergistic with the assault sets in the way defensive sets are synergistic with attack sets.  Tanky Tankerbabe doesn't have avoid using The Lotus Drops because it might make Invincibility ineffective.  Stalker Steve doesn't have to take Rending Flurry off of his tray because it interferes with Proton Armor.  Where they experience synergy between their primaries and secondaries, the dominator does not.

 

Confuses are a source of mitigation which is long enough in duration, short enough in recharge, and effective enough to be considered comparable, up to a point.  Single-target Confuses can be partially converted to AoE with the purple Confuse set, and even if one doesn't use it, the durations of single-target Confuses are long enough, and the recharge times short enough, to make them worthwhile as a mitigation tool.  A good player can even Confuse an entire spawn with a single-target Confuse and have enough time to jump in and issue a beat down.  But even Confuses aren't really synergistic with assault sets in the way defensive sets synergize with attack sets.  Every control also has an animation time.  My brute with Rise to the Challenge toggled on doesn't have an animation time cost to pay for every foe who comes within range of the PBAoE.  My sentinel doesn't have an animation time cost for every attack that her Energy Aura toggles deflect.  But your dominator has to pay the animation cost in almost every case.  Even those Confuses have animation times.  That works against your assault powers, not with them, not synergistically.

 

The set filler powers can provide mitigation, but the animation time cost is still there, the mitigation varies wildly and some of the powers aren't synergistic with the assault sets for the same reasons I explain above.  Earthquake, to make one example, is great mitigation, when it's recharged, and when you pay the animation time cost, and when you're fighting something that isn't resistant to KB, and when the KB triggers.  Contrast that with Conductive Aura, which is an example of proper synergy with assault sets.  CA only has two conditional variables - is it on, and is there at least one foe within the radius?  There's no animation time cost to pay for every foe within the radius of that power, no variable which disables the mitigation if foes within the radius have a certain type of status resistance.  Most of the control set filler powers don't have that synergy with assault sets, though.

 

The pets are broadly synergistic with assault sets.  There's no argument about that.  They provide mitigation in the same way that defensive sets provide mitigation for melee, by allowing the player to flip the switch once, then get down to business and not having to worry about that protective aspect of their character needing constant maintenance and attention.  But you can't control which targets your Fire Imps are attacking.  You can't make Singularity focus on whatever's punching you in the face.  Nor do you have any guarantee that your target(s) will turn their attention to the pet.  That's not the same as the synergy present in the interaction between melee archetype defensive sets and attack sets.  It's not even the same as the synergy present in controller use of control sets in conjunction with their buff/debuff secondaries.  It's functional mitigation, but not synergistically reliable in the same way defensive sets are.

 

Additionally, control sets are much more adversely affected by purple patch mechanics than defensive sets.  The dominator has hit checks with increased chances of missing (on AoE controls which already have reduced hit chances), reduced control durations, lower debuff values, greater likelihood of soft controls like KB failing to have any meaningful impact on survivability... contrast that with, say, a Resistance toggle.  Higher level critters might hit harder, but that toggle is still providing X% mitigation.  It doesn't suddenly have 0% mitigation because it can't miss, it can't have a reduced value, it can't suddenly fail due to critters having resistance to a status effect or debuff.  It's synergistic with the archetype and the melee attack set with which it's been paired, in that it provides a consistent and reliable mechanism for mitigating damage.  That synergy doesn't exist in that way in control sets and their interaction with assault sets.

 

Control sets just don't synergize with assault sets the way defensive sets synergize with attack sets.  They don't synergize with assault sets the way every other archetype's primary/secondary options synergize, because they weren't designed to.  They were designed to be complemented by and synergize with buff/debuff sets, and to restrict their mitigative potential.  That's a key point.  Control sets were specifically designed to limit how much mitigation they could provide.  Redesigned, in fact, to do impose that limitation.  That's what dominators have.  Primaries designed to work with ranged buff/debuff sets and provide limited mitigation which encourages players to lean on their buff/debuff sets and/or teams to compensate, and secondaries which weren't designed with those factors in mind.

 

Synergy is when things work cooperatively, in a complementary fashion.  Not when things are at odds, but can still be made to work.  Anyone can make anything work in this game, given sufficient patience and determination, but that doesn't mean everything is synergistic.  There are plenty of ways to work around the lack of synergy between control sets and assault sets.  IO set bonuses, perma-Domination, pool powers, relying on debuffs, the same tools we can use to make anything else work when synergy isn't present.  But working around the lack of synergy doesn't make that lack disappear.

 

Trick Arrows doesn't synergize with Energy Blast attacks, because TA has multiple AoEs which stay in one location and Energy Blast has multiple KB powers which knock foes out of those AoE locations.  Players can slot their Energy Blast attacks to turn the KB into KD, or use Hover and stay directly overhead, and make it work, but that's working around the problem, not addressing the lack of synergy between the two sets.  That's where dominators are now.  They have primaries which encourage one thing, and secondaries which encourage something else.  They're not synergistic, they're schizophrenic.

[Luminara]

15 hours ago, Mezmera said:

Some are just stuck in their boxes

 

I'm one of the most aggressively unconventional players, bending archetype boundaries and making the game play my way.  You're defending a pre-packaged, shrink-wrapped archetype and rabidly attacking people who suggest changes simply because you're comfortable.  Which of us needs to crawl out of the box?

 

15 hours ago, Mezmera said:

you're welcome to come play

 

I make it part of my life philosophy not to associate with people who advocate and encourage criminal behavior, say, for instance, trying to convince the HC team to commit fraud.  You'll just have to play with yourself.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

I think there's a strong case to be made that Dominator single target Holds should be Mag 3.5 outside of Domination. That would crown Dominators kings of one shot holding a Boss in our out of Domination and significantly improve their survivability when not IOed. This isn't the only change I would make, but I think it's a smart start.

 

Next thing I'd look at is making sure Domination applies to most AoE controls, even ones that are toggles or summon pseudo pets. Finally I think the Assault sets need another hard pass--we need to look for cases where the Assault set not only doesn't add enough damage, but also where it doesn't add enough utility/survivability or where the base mechanics (e.g. long DoTs on an archetype that's supposed to leverage Sleeps) conflict with the power. Luckily the Homecoming team already addressed the hilarious conflict between knockdown and knockdown cancelling that existed in the original design.

The increase of survivability is easily done in IOs.  

You want the game to give you what Domination was intended to do , but you want that outside of Domination 

Yeah, there's a case for Mag 3.5 outside of Domination , extreme power creep.   

All this about wanting more dmg and more mags holds 

You want more powerful Dominators 

Listen, and IO'd Dominator is already GODLY.  

Get your IOs, you can build to buff dmg (IO bonuses too and process). 
You can get permanent domination 


Some people need to ask if they want a blaster or a Dominator 

They want closer and closer and closer to be like Blaster dmg or scrapper/brute dmg 

Get your IOs 

I am all for changes but I have hard time seeing how a Dominator can farm easily and quickly +4 x 8 SOLO is saying that Dominators have a problem with dmg in PVE 

Like I said, the correction should be specific 

We need to look at some sets or some powers 

But I don't agree with a blanket statement about all dmg for Doms 


Can we agree there ?  

[Coyote]

22 minutes ago, Voltak said:

Get your IOs

 

It's not a very strong argument to say, "The AT is fine if you get your IO sets". What about lower levels when you don't have enough slots to rack up enough +Defense bonuses to matter much? What about novice or poor characters? Should they have problems with the AT because it only works fine if you are rich and know how to build using set bonuses? No, not a strong argument at all.

 

I'm not sold by Luminara's argument that the controls aren't strong enough, either, though... should they really be strong enough to defend at +2/x6 without depending on set bonuses? That seems a bit going towards being OP, also. I think that at more reasonable levels of +1/x3 difficulty, single-target controls can generally keep about half the spawn controlled, and that means that the Dominator's defensive clicks are mitigating half the damage (or more, as you'll prioritize the more dangerous mobs). The issue now is that the defensive clicks are eating up animation time, which is why I'm suggesting that when you DO have time to activate a pure attack from the secondary, that attack should hit very hard. And since usually that means a longer base Recharge on that attack, it looks to me like this will do a good job of making the AT work a bit more like I think it's intended:

1) Spend much of your time controlling opponents, which also damages them a bit

2) When you have a bit of free time, throw an attack and HAMMER someone down hard

 

Right now, #2 is using relatively weak attacks with base Recharges of 4-8 seconds, and that's just not enough damage. Unless, granted, another option would be to increase the mitigation from those weak attacks... higher mez/knockdown chances, stronger debuffs, etc. It's an option that could work, but it's not my preferred since it really leans more into the "more control", which helps at the lower levels but doesn't scale as well in effectiveness towards the higher levels. I mean, even if you take that 8 second Recharge attack and increase its Knockdown chance from 50% to 80%... that's nice at the lower end. At the higher end, the target is most likely mezzed, and I'm using it for the damage. Increasing KB chance isn't making the attack more useful, then.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

 

It's not a very strong argument to say, "The AT is fine if you get your IO sets". What about lower levels when you don't have enough slots to rack up enough +Defense bonuses to matter much? What about novice or poor characters? Should they have problems with the AT because it only works fine if you are rich and know how to build using set bonuses? No, not a strong argument at all.

 

I'm not sold by Luminara's argument that the controls aren't strong enough, either, though... should they really be strong enough to defend at +2/x6 without depending on set bonuses? That seems a bit going towards being OP, also. I think that at more reasonable levels of +1/x3 difficulty, single-target controls can generally keep about half the spawn controlled, and that means that the Dominator's defensive clicks are mitigating half the damage (or more, as you'll prioritize the more dangerous mobs). The issue now is that the defensive clicks are eating up animation time, which is why I'm suggesting that when you DO have time to activate a pure attack from the secondary, that attack should hit very hard. And since usually that means a longer base Recharge on that attack, it looks to me like this will do a good job of making the AT work a bit more like I think it's intended:

1) Spend much of your time controlling opponents, which also damages them a bit

2) When you have a bit of free time, throw an attack and HAMMER someone down hard

 

Right now, #2 is using relatively weak attacks with base Recharges of 4-8 seconds, and that's just not enough damage. Unless, granted, another option would be to increase the mitigation from those weak attacks... higher mez/knockdown chances, stronger debuffs, etc. It's an option that could work, but it's not my preferred since it really leans more into the "more control", which helps at the lower levels but doesn't scale as well in effectiveness towards the higher levels. I mean, even if you take that 8 second Recharge attack and increase its Knockdown chance from 50% to 80%... that's nice at the lower end. At the higher end, the target is most likely mezzed, and I'm using it for the damage. Increasing KB chance isn't making the attack more useful, then.

My argument is not 

"At is fine until you get IOs"

My philosophy stems from the fact that IOs are indeed part of the game 

As in the vast majority of these types of games, a character is indivisible from the gear 

As in almost every other game, a character is only as strong as his gear 

But... 

You and I are reaching a common ground and you and I seem to be in an agreement which we did not know until now 


You see for quite some time, even before the live serves went down and CoH closed, I, along with many others, were petitioning the Devs to improve both, drop rates, and influence earned or given in game 
Our goal was to address poverty

Both kinds of poverty, poverty of money and poverty of gear 

There is another game, which I won't mention here because I worry about rules , but we the players managed to persuade the Dev team to increase money and gear drop, even how the Artificial Intelligence was programmed to determine what gear dropped for you 

IT got so good, so well improved that even the Auction House was gone 
No one needed it 
Gear, good gear became more abundantly available for lobbies and end game 

I am not seeking for the AH to be gone

I am seeking to get this issue of poverty fixed 

My proposal will help or "fix" not only Dominators , but every player who faces challenges because they lack access to resources to strengthen their beloved toons 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Voltak

[oedipus_tex]

I've always felt a good test of whether Dominator control is actually effective is to ask Melee characters if they'd feel comfortable disabling their toggles and fighting supported purely by a Dom teammate's controls and the limited mitigation in their Melee attacks. If they can't do this then they've discovered what experienced Dom players are talking about. Dominators actually have fewer hit points than those archetypes. 

Edited March 13, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

I'm one of the most aggressively unconventional players, bending archetype boundaries and making the game play my way.  You're defending a pre-packaged, shrink-wrapped archetype and rabidly attacking people who suggest changes simply because you're comfortable.  Which of us needs to crawl out of the box?

 

 

I make it part of my life philosophy not to associate with people who advocate and encourage criminal behavior, say, for instance, trying to convince the HC team to commit fraud.  You'll just have to play with yourself.

 

If you're soooo good at bending AT's to your will then why haven't you gotten good on this one eh?  I mean aside from face tanking Recluse on the STF or tanking Hami there isn't a single thing in this game that my dom can't do.  There's super hard AE arcs where you can test your mettle on.  I've done those with ease on my dom, I suggest you to give it a whirl on whatever AT you find that bends to your will the best and see how you come out.  

 

And yeah I don't make it a mission in life to play with bitter stodgy hacks that think they're super duper knowledgeable but turns out they're just on that average knowledge.  But I do make it a mission in life not to let others mental problems affect me one way or another so being the open person that I am the invitation is still open, unlike your eyes.  

[Voltak]

53 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I've always felt a good test of whether Dominator control is actually effective is to ask Melee characters if they'd feel comfortable disabling their toggles and fighting supported purely by a Dom teammate's controls and the limited mitigation in their Melee attacks. If they can't do this then they've discovered what experienced Dom players are talking about. Dominators actually have fewer hit points than those archetypes. 

Performance is based on 

1.  Skill 

2. Build ( of course, gear is a huge part of this). 

Wether alone or in a team 

Measure that by the results 

Done

[Galaxy Brain]

@Mezmera, just curious but what is your Dom build? Luminara does have a point that I agree with in that the synergy of many dom builds is out of whack.

 

As for the overall design of them, I have been thinking on this more and I feel like they should really play more like a Magneto style character. When you think of an encounter against that type of character, they generally have that moment where they "capture" another character and then W H A L L O P them with something that they need time to prepare and thus would not normally be able to use in a "fair" fight. Likewise, they often have the ability to end fights outright with their control powers.

 

One thing I am curious on is the performance of their Controls as actual Attacks. There are PLENTY of attacks in the game that double as Mez, and even Mezzes that double as attacks (hell, many Assault sets have these with big hitters that can do anything from Knock Down, Stun, Sleep or even Hold!), so having Dominators treat some of their assault and control powers as "one in the same" could be somethin...

 

Lets compare Darkness Control between a Controller and Dominator real quick.

 

 

 

All base values, they are actually relatively even all things considered. A controller will actually get more DPA with containment than a Dominator even with their higher base damage, but a Dominator with Domination has roughly the same "bonus" to control duration vs Damage with their powers. For a great example, Dark Grasp with Containment is about 15% more DPA than a Dominator's, while the Domination Duration is about 15% more "CPA" than a Controller's. Neat!

 

Where things get complex is when we look at their secondaries. 

 

A set like /Cold Dom on a controller has a mix of different power types, both Buffs and Debuffs. Ice Shield takes 1.17s to animate, and recharges in 2 seconds... but with a 240s duration you really do not need to use it often, and when you do it is wicked fast. Infirgidate is "slow" with a 15s base recharge, tho again a 1s animation and strong lingering debuffs to a single target to buy you extra mitigation and even offense with -Def which lasts for 20s, perma out of the box if you keep hitting. Likewise, Snow Storm is much slower at 2.03s cast time and a 10s rech, but it is an AoE toggle  power you can open with and keep going theoretically forever as long as you have endurance. All of these powers allow the controller to "Fire and Forget" once per fight or even once per mission at times and then focus on using their control abilities which have decently fast recharges so you can cycle them and add up damage + control. In this particular example, the Controller also has all their powers available as Ranged. All t1/2/3 control powers are ranged, and a quick glance at all Secondaries for controllers have their first 3 abilities also either ranged, or at the least effect yourself. Time's Juncture was the only exception as a toggled PBAoE debuff, but even that has a 25ft radius. They all also tend to be powers that you do not spam *that* often.

 

Dominator Secondaries on the other hand differ right away by always offering a fast ST ranged attack, and then the T2 is always a stronger melee attack. The ST blast is almost uniformly a 52.83 DPA attack with a 4s recharge time, the t2 differs a bit but it is always a hard hitting ST melee, and the t3 bounces between another stronger Ranged/Melee ST, or an AoE of some sort. Right away though we see an issue. With a hard hitting Melee attack in the mix, you are encouraged to get into Melee Range where immobilizes lose their value. Defensively, an immob keeps a foe away from you and limits their options. Even if they have 2 ranged attacks and 1 melee attack, you are effectively mitigating 1/3rd their damage output (if not more). Going into melee, the immob just means they do not run from you... so it's better used as a damage tool. Looking at the highlight vs the Immob in the table above... yeah you already have a better option. Since the Dominator will be encouraged to use their Secondary more often than a Controller does by the nature of the powers, you spend more time clicking attacks than you do controls given each control buys about ~20s base of control in which to wail on enemies, moreso during Domination (which isn't available every fight until later in the game). However, the Dom needs to contact switch a lot even right from the start with mixed ranges and power types that they need to use more frequently than the smoother experience of a mostly range and control focused Controller. 

 

This is where I feel looking at either the Control /OR/ the Assault set timings are in order for the Dominator. If we want to keep the control sets as-is for each, I feel that the Assault Attacks should be more like the Magneto example where you capture a foe and that allows you the (20s) window to unleash your BIG attacks on them freely. Where a Controller locks them down, then repeatedly locks down for damage and effect, a Dominator only locks down -ONCE-, and then unleashes hell on them for big *DOMINATING* burts. Certain powers in assault sets are already like this, like Seismic Smash, and it feels awesome. On the flip side, another Magneto-esque trope is his control powers just ending the fights outright through sheer power. Just imagine if the ST Immob and hold on a Dominator had double the rech and also double the damage, but all else being the same.

 

 

Their DPA would suddenly rival Blaster attacks while also Doubling as a Crowd Control option. In some scenarios, you could ST Immob/Hold a minion to simply rid yourself of them, or at the very least start a fight off very strong with a mez vs a particular target to deal a good load of damage, and then the next 20-30ish seconds can be spent by you wailing on them similar to now but with less overall clicks needed.