Pick a Dom

[rizlazz]

I have rolled several Dominators trying to get a feel for the AT but so far I am not a fan of the roller coaster ride in between domination and non-domination, does anyone have suggestions on something that will fit my itch for control and slapping critters silly that doesn't require being a punching bag for a few minutes?  I have played every AT more than once and can make them all work for me except this one and frankly its starting to piss me off a bit. I know its me, but maybe there is a training wheels version in someones head I can borrow for a wee while?

[Dark Dove]

I'm not good with Dominators either, but /Psi Assault's Drain Psyche power, which you can get at level 20, is a great equalizer with a few slots (Recharge / Heal / Endurance) and hasten.  It makes me feel viable in between domination cycles more than any other secondary power I've tried, particularly at lower levels like that.  If you pair it with something with good fast recharging group control (Dark and Plant seem to work well for me, but there are other good choices) you can do some good work.  I suggest playing something/Psi and getting some slots in Drain Psyche and seeing if you can work with that.

 

Like I said though, I'm not good at Dominators, so maybe someone will have a better idea for you.

[MTeague]

Plant / Psi is crazy good. 

• Seeds of Confusion is stupidly good.  Most mobs will be busy beating up each other and you just rip them apart while they do.  Very easy to tag them enough to get exp, and if you occasionally miss a minion or two, eh, it really don't matter.
• Mind Probe hits very hard and most things don't have Psi Resist.
• I do recommend TK Thrust though (smashing), for those robots and other things that DO have substantial psi resist
• Drain Psyche provides you with a very large +Regen and +Recovery as well as debuffing targets.  
  • Seeds of Confusion
  • Hope into the pack
  • Drain Psyche for many stacks of +Regen
  • Profit!
• Plant also gives you access to Tree of Life, which if you choose to slot it up, is right up there with Triage Beacon, and with enough recharge you can have TWO up at once. 
• Carrion Creepers is almost more fun than should be legal.
• Fly Trap is a pretty beefy pet. Far more durable than you'd think to look at him.

[ZorkNemesis]

I have trouble with this too sometimes.  Doms really feel like late bloomers.

 

The one Dom that did work for me back on live was Fire/Earth.  /Earth offers some really strong attacks (Seismic Smash is soooo good) and Tremor is super early with its PBAoE knockdown.  Fire gives you Smoke early to give you more breathing room before you engage and soon after Flashfire, followed by Cinders, for large scale crowd control to let you go to town.  Throw in Epic AoEs (I had Fire, so Rain of Fire and Fireball) and you'll be a force to be reckoned with.

 

I've been trying other Doms, Elec/Earth is also solid, trading Fire's damage for strong end drains and Static Field's continuous sleep patch.  Plus all the knockdowns coming from Jolting Chain, the Gremlins and all your Earth powers (every one of them has Knock in some capacity, except Seismic Smash which just Holds things that survive).

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by ZorkNemesis

[Mezmera]

Plant control is the training wheels easy dom to play.  Mind control once you get good with it is probably the most fun one to play, it's a very fluid playstyle.  I enjoy Energy Assault a lot but any of the revamped powersets are likely pretty good, I do like ones with a power boost power, it's a unique ability really great for doms. There's also tons of good epic pools but my favorite is Soul Mastery, Soul Drain is a fabulous power and the whole pool fills up nicely some of the missing aoe damage I may need.  Be sure to chase those bonuses with +recharge and +range defense.

[Clave Dark 5]

The only new Dom I've made since HC arrived is an Energy Assault/Grav and she's been stupid fun.  She wasn't a tank in the early days or anything, more like playing a careful blaster/troller, sort of hang in back and try to not get noticed at first when the fighting starts, it was like a careful mix of seeing who I needed to control/soft control by knocking over, then attacking when I had the chance.  Then she was freezing people in place to then move closer to beat the snot out of them.  Then she got her Singularity and all hell's broken lose.  I can still keep to the back and control if I feel iffy about things, or do a bunch of blasting (or both), or, best, now I can run into melee besides the others and deal some serious crunching.

[Agorazium]

8 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

The only new Dom I've made since HC arrived is an Energy Assault/Grav and she's been stupid fun.  She wasn't a tank in the early days or anything, more like playing a careful blaster/troller, sort of hang in back and try to not get noticed at first when the fighting starts, it was like a careful mix of seeing who I needed to control/soft control by knocking over, then attacking when I had the chance.  Then she was freezing people in place to then move closer to beat the snot out of them.  Then she got her Singularity and all hell's broken lose.  I can still keep to the back and control if I feel iffy about things, or do a bunch of blasting (or both), or, best, now I can run into melee besides the others and deal some serious crunching.

Seconded. Grav/Energy is awesome. Wormhole mobs onto yourself or your Singularity (slot the KB->KD IO in both for this to work), smack them with PBAOEs. Grav/Psy is fun for the same reasons, Psychic Shockwave is no joke. Wormhole is just a fantastic power, means the character is strong and useful while leveling and becomes a monster once you build some tankiness and can really take charge of entire groups.

[Clave Dark 5]

43 minutes ago, Sovereigne said:

Wormhole is just a fantastic power

It's funny, I don't even use it that much.  I've never had a Grav anything this high before and just haven't developed a feel for using WH yet.  I even posted a thread about it not long ago in the Dom forums looking for advice!  I do tend to team, so say seven times out of ten it doesn't matter anyway... but dropping them on Sing is a good idea for solo work no doubt.

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

It's funny, I don't even use it that much.  I've never had a Grav anything this high before and just haven't developed a feel for using WH yet.  I even posted a thread about it not long ago in the Dom forums looking for advice!  I do tend to team, so say seven times out of ten it doesn't matter anyway... but dropping them on Sing is a good idea for solo work no doubt.

Wormhole is fantastic, and as you mentioned (I have a build in the forum I posted  yesterday on this), dropping things on singularity is a fantastic way to solo ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE ENFLAME AND WARD!!!!

 

What is missing from that discussion is Teleport Other. A warded, flaming ball of chaos is a great thing to teleport into a tanks pile of chaos, as it does a significant job of managing aggro that the tank alone cannot do. There are never runners with singy 2.oh. Ever. With grav, you throw down singy, teleport into, or foldspace/wormhole on top of, lay down the aoe immob, and just watch things burn to death.

 

With the sorc and sing updates, there is a use for it, _especially_ if you get used to teleporting _singy_ around, and focus less on just dumping things on singy.

 

It is by far the most fun I have ever had on a dom (grav/thorn/sorc/foldspace/mace). Having leveled it up mostly the hardway with limited farming, I need to revisit my mrb build, because it has function that I had not expected to be so efficient.

[SuperPlyx]

21 hours ago, rizlazz said:

I am not a fan of the roller coaster ride in between domination and non-domination

Frenzy is just a game changer for a Dom. It means playing as and staying a Villain but man is it worth it.

 

Personally I struggled with finding a Dom I could play , this is my 3rd try and I finally found one I like. One thing that made it click for me was doing a Range only Dom....I know they get some good melee attacks but I just couldn't make it work. Playstyle or whatever Range works best for me. So that may be something to look at.

 

Good luck hope you find one you like!

[MTeague]

11 hours ago, Hew said:

With the sorc and sing updates, there is a use for it, _especially_ if you get used to teleporting _singy_ around,

Mind. Blown. 

 

I was still locked into thinking of Teleport Target as "Recall Friend" or "Teleport Foe".

Never occurred to me to use it to forcibly reposition a pet..... or to teleport a friendly somewhere OTHER than "right next to me".

[rizlazz]

so I went with a Grav/Energy (using teleport on Singy was the selling point,) seems fun but is only 19 right now so we will see what happens in another 10 lvls or so. Thank you for your help!

[triplem3]

On 4/28/2021 at 4:19 AM, Hew said:

Wormhole is fantastic, and as you mentioned (I have a build in the forum I posted  yesterday on this), dropping things on singularity is a fantastic way to solo ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE ENFLAME AND WARD!!!!

 

What is missing from that discussion is Teleport Other. A warded, flaming ball of chaos is a great thing to teleport into a tanks pile of chaos, as it does a significant job of managing aggro that the tank alone cannot do. There are never runners with singy 2.oh. Ever. With grav, you throw down singy, teleport into, or foldspace/wormhole on top of, lay down the aoe immob, and just watch things burn to death.

 

With the sorc and sing updates, there is a use for it, _especially_ if you get used to teleporting _singy_ around, and focus less on just dumping things on singy.

 

It is by far the most fun I have ever had on a dom (grav/thorn/sorc/foldspace/mace). Having leveled it up mostly the hardway with limited farming, I need to revisit my mrb build, because it has function that I had not expected to be so efficient.

I gutted my Grav/Energy for a Mind/Energy dom, but after reading this post I did a respec for enflame, and ward... YEEEESSS! With the update to singularity pulling in mobs, and the ease of use of both the fore mentioned skills gravity is actually feeling like a end game play style.

Singularity recharges in about 54 seconds on my build so I hadn't taken teleport target, yet. I will try that asap. Moving singularity into the center of spread out mobs is FANTASTIC at bringing them close together for low AoE radius skills that are of Doms.

 

Thank you for posting this tip. Brought life back to my Grav/NRG.

[oedipus_tex]

I've been meaning to test the new Singularity to see if a Grav/Storm Controller can stand on top of Singularity with Hurricane running and get the -ToHit debuff without repelling everything.

 

UPDATE: Tested it, sadly the Repel in Hurricane wins, atho for balance reasons thats probably ok. 🙂

 

 

IMO the least "roller coaster" of the Dominator types is Dark Control. That's mainly because unlike most other Dominators it has access to -ToHit which a game changer on an archetype without a lot of access to Defense, Resistance, or Healing that is riding on a binary mezz system, and then as a non-alert Confuse if faced with a situation where this fails. If you happen to play Dark Control on a character with a Power Up style power the amount of -ToHit actually outstrips Controllers by a large margin and some of it (like in Shadow Field) is even autohit.

 

Plant is also very good. The main attraction here is that it is very straightforward. You really don't need to know a ton about how the game mechanics work to play Plant. Cast Seeds of Confusion every time it is up. Proc out Carrion Creepers and make sure it is active at all times. Creepers does absurd damage and out competes the other knockpatch powers like Earthquake/Ice Slick/Bonfire in pretty much every way without you having to really think about it. 

 

I'll list Electric Control here too as a "maybe." Electric is a unique playstyle that requires some getting used to. It's a weird donut kind of set that is very easy to start with and pretty strong pushed to its limit but with a weird middle range where it struggles to be as effective as other sets. Certainly if you solo a lot though through easy content its easy to use. Static Field > wait for endurance to drain > beat down works almost too well against small easy groups.

Edited April 30, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[balor]

Why /Energy?

 

I have a Dark/Psi and loving that as easily my favorite so far.  I have a lvl 10 Fire/Earth but no idea if I will be able to level it without going insane on the END issues.  I can see the possible wow factor at the end.  I also have a Planet/Thorn for the theme around 30 that is fun ish.

 

 

Edit:  Ok so energy is knockback like gravity.  Also picked up sorcery on the Grav/Eng Dom.    

Edited May 2, 2021 by balor

[rizlazz]

after reading some of the answers you guys gave (thanks again for responding to this thread)  I rolled up a Dark/Sav who is currently sitting at 37, the Grav/Eng is still at 19 and there is a baby Grav/Elec which seems fun so far. I am pretty pleased with the dark/savage, she is hell on wheels.

[Mezmera]

15 hours ago, balor said:

Why /Energy?

 

It's a different animal.  Has likely the highest ST dps for doms with the energy release mechanic and power burst, snipe and total focus.  Then on top of that is the power boost power which boosts your defense values and makes your controls last much longer, paired with domination it's some real long lockdown.   

[balor]

On 4/28/2021 at 7:19 AM, Hew said:

Wormhole is fantastic, and as you mentioned (I have a build in the forum I posted  yesterday on this), dropping things on singularity is a fantastic way to solo ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE ENFLAME AND WARD!!!!

 

What is missing from that discussion is Teleport Other. A warded, flaming ball of chaos is a great thing to teleport into a tanks pile of chaos, as it does a significant job of managing aggro that the tank alone cannot do. There are never runners with singy 2.oh. Ever. With grav, you throw down singy, teleport into, or foldspace/wormhole on top of, lay down the aoe immob, and just watch things burn to death.

 

 

So this is feedback on enflame and ward post the new update?  I have been trying to understand how and when to use those or if they will be useful for a Dom.  Now from what I understand enflame forces mobs to flee.  So you use one of the field powers on to immobilize everyone and then enflame the singularity?  Does enflame do enough to warrant taking it and how heavy do you need to slot it?

 

8 hours ago, Mezmera said:

 

It's a different animal.  Has likely the highest ST dps for doms with the energy release mechanic and power burst, snipe and total focus.  Then on top of that is the power boost power which boosts your defense values and makes your controls last much longer, paired with domination it's some real long lockdown.   

Ok at level 10 with EXP off to get all the merit contact missions done before moving on.  I only have two of the Energy powers right now and picked up Arcane blast form sorcery.  What are the powers to skip from Gav and energy?  

[Hew]

10 minutes ago, balor said:

Now from what I understand enflame forces mobs to flee.

This is no longer the case. It no longer has a fear effect.

[Mezmera]

4 hours ago, balor said:

 

So this is feedback on enflame and ward post the new update?  I have been trying to understand how and when to use those or if they will be useful for a Dom.  Now from what I understand enflame forces mobs to flee.  So you use one of the field powers on to immobilize everyone and then enflame the singularity?  Does enflame do enough to warrant taking it and how heavy do you need to slot it?

 

Ok at level 10 with EXP off to get all the merit contact missions done before moving on.  I only have two of the Energy powers right now and picked up Arcane blast form sorcery.  What are the powers to skip from Gav and energy?  

 

Well in the early levels it's a different feel.  So that you have something to attack with you'll want to get bone smasher and power blast.  Grav you want the hold and maybe the aoe immobilize.  After level 30 I respec and drop quite a bit of those Energy attacks for the later ones.  After lvl 30 you'll just end up using Power Up, TF, Power Burst, Snipe and likely epic pool attacks.  

[Agorazium]

5 hours ago, balor said:

 

So this is feedback on enflame and ward post the new update?  I have been trying to understand how and when to use those or if they will be useful for a Dom.  Now from what I understand enflame forces mobs to flee.  So you use one of the field powers on to immobilize everyone and then enflame the singularity?  Does enflame do enough to warrant taking it and how heavy do you need to slot it?

 

Ok at level 10 with EXP off to get all the merit contact missions done before moving on.  I only have two of the Energy powers right now and picked up Arcane blast form sorcery.  What are the powers to skip from Gav and energy?  

You can skip most of the ST blasts in /Energy. Due to Gravity's Impact mechanic (double damage to targets you hit with the hold/immob), Propel will do more damage than anything other than Sniper Blast (IIRC).

 

I usually skip Crush and Crushing Field from Grav/ though the latter is useful until you get a KB->KD enhancement in Wormhole. Lots of people skip Dimension Shift but I like having it for emergencies, which Grav/ struggles with otherwise.

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Sovereigne said:

Propel will do more damage than anything other than Sniper Blast (IIRC).

 

There's no way Propel is out damaging Power Burst nor Total Focus seeing how they do equal to more damage than the Snipe.  Gravity attacks on doms are redundant.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Mezmera

[Hew]

Lift does more damage than your level 1 blast from your secondary, by a lot. Considering you can slot a ff +rech (doms love rech, and it pops often enough) and some procs and this and that, its a hell of a lot better than that t1 blast. And it casts pretty fast too.

[Mezmera]

1 minute ago, Hew said:

Lift does more damage than your level 1 blast from your secondary, by a lot. Considering you can slot a ff +rech (doms love rech, and it pops often enough) and some procs and this and that, its a hell of a lot better than that t1 blast. And it casts pretty fast too.

 

All ranged Energy attacks do knockback which means they can all slot that proc if they like as well.  Not saying I see a need for any of that gimmick since you can slot better for permanent recharge.  

 

Okay maybe Lift is better than the dom t1 blasts but that's not saying much.  My doms don't slot that t1 blast nor do they have any use of it in any chain when you get so many better assault attacks blooming later.  

[Agorazium]

7 hours ago, Mezmera said:

 

There's no way Propel is out damaging Power Burst nor Total Focus seeing how they do equal to more damage than the Snipe.  Gravity attacks on doms are redundant.

I guess I could have clarified this better but I meant it only outdamages the other blasts. My Mids has Propel at 129.4 DPA (which is then doubled by Impact) vs. Power Burst's 137.4.