Do Dominators Need a Buff?

[oedipus_tex]

Yeah Magneto is the kind of villain I think of when I think of what Dominators are meant to represent. Of the original Villain archetypes it's the class that matches up best with him and the class seems partially inspired by that type of character. Funnily, a Magneto build using Gravity Control would probably want to skip Propel because of its poor DPA. 😄 In retrospect, Dominator Gravity Control should probably have traded away Lift and Propel to some kind of Gravity Assault set, and Gravity Control pick up some better control powers.

 

To continue the point, outside of Domination mode I can't stress enough how weak a Dominator's Holds actually are for a class that is supposed to excel at that. In all of the Assault sets and APPs there is just one Hold you can grab to stack with it, Seismic Smash. It's a great power. But it's actually nerfed in Domination mode to only produce a total Mag 4 Hold vs the Mag 6 you'd expect. Because of the possibility of Domination, Dominators actually have restricted access to Holds. Meanwhile other classes have no similar limitation and can even slot Chance for Hold in their long Recharge Holds to semi-reliably Hold bosses. 

Some of this is "corrected" by going permadom. Permadom is truly the saving grace of the class. I wouldn't look at Doms sideways without it there to justify the time investment. It's an expensive road there though, and you don't emerge at the end significantly ahead of other archetypes, perhaps still a bit behind.

[Galaxy Brain]

If I were given the keys to remake Dominators, the first thing I would do is turn Domination into an out of the box 60s rech power that is basically Build-Up / Rage for Magnitude. Remove the need to build up meter to use it, you can use it at your leisure and pop it in order to dominate the competition with the caveat that you do need to juggle it's use and maintain it.

[oedipus_tex]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If I were given the keys to remake Dominators, the first thing I would do is turn Domination into an out of the box 60s rech power that is basically Build-Up / Rage for Magnitude. Remove the need to build up meter to use it, you can use it at your leisure and pop it in order to dominate the competition with the caveat that you do need to juggle it's use and maintain it.

 

 

I wouldn't mind that, but something needs to be done about mezz protection and powers like Arctic Air. Having Arctic Air constantly detoggled by enemies who hit you with a half second Sleep is so frustrating. 😞 I'm not sure what the Chance for Sleep is on enemies in Brickstown around level 30-38 or so, but trying to street sweep there for testing purposes detoggled the power so frequently I modded in a temp power to give mezz protection.

[WindDemon21]

Dominators definitley need a buff. Not really in damage etc but more in the class itself especially regarding perma-dom. Honestly, without it dominators are way too squishy, but another thing that rings very true is just how horrid their endurance is versus literally any other AT using both controls, and having to attack, and that all should have some sort of sustain heal/regen ability to help them out like drain psyche or to a lesser extent the savage heal.

 

Domination should really just start by granting a +1mag/extra control duration and should always be on. Dominators really do need that mez protection to be permanent as well. Without that, and the extra mag to get bosses with their controls they simply can not do what they need to do for their class to survive properly. For even just badge reasons though of course the mez protection can't be automatic, but could even simply be a toggle that you would toggle on to provide the extra mag/duration/recovery/regen etc.