Help with my first Dominator on Domination recharge

[tanglin]

With Hasten, how much more global recharge do I need, and which set bonuses should I look to to get it?  I like to IO out my builds as organically as possible, instead of planning out a build on mids, and for now, I'm focusing on global recharge to get perma Domination. I'll consider as bonus any S/L/R defence as by-products along the way, but recharge is my main concern for now.

 

Also, does the recharge reduction from Alpha's Spiritual apply to Domination recharge?

 

Edit: Oh and I'm Dark/Dark/Ice

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by tanglin

[Arcadio]

Domination has got a recharge of 200 and duration of 90, so you'll need about 125% global recharge to keep it up. Using hasten, you'll want 125% average recharge or maybe more to cover edge cases. In my perma-doms that depend on hasten, I'll usually end up with 80-90% recharge without hasten on and that gives me a little breathing room to not need to press hasten as soon as it's up. Domination itself doesn't benefit from alpha recharge bonuses since it can't accept slots, but they do benefit hasten so you'll effectively need a little less global. I personally get to the 80-90% range without too much hassle so I prefer to go for intuition or musculature usually.

 

As for building for it, there's the usual culprits LotG in defensive powers. Also the Ascendency 5pc bonus, and I usually put 4 slots into the aoe hold for basi's gaze. Otherwise 5pc decimation in ranged attacks is good, 5pc posi blast in an aoe etc. and you should be just about there.

 

Dark control is pretty nice for building defenses since you should be getting a lot of -tohit on your targets so you don't really need to be softcapped. Especially when you have a power boost in your secondary. Also more generally for playing any dom: control is your first line of defense, so you shouldn't focus too hard on softcapping anyway IMO.

[arcane]

I also don’t know how the exact calculation works, but, assuming Hasten with two +5 recharge IO’s, I also seem to do fine with about 80% in bonuses. I’m not sure where the exact line is (and Hasten makes it tough to understand) but I seem to have a few seconds of wiggle room in case I am continuously activating other powers when Domination comes back up. And I don’t do the keybind thing either, so when I say it works out, that’s also with some wiggle room on refreshing Hasten.

[laudwic]

I've gotten two dominators to permadom in their 40s, and it isn't hard.  You do have to make some sacrifices on which IO sets you use to always prioritize recharge bonuses and they can be expensive.

 

If you're not already, take a look at: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Enhancement_Sets

 

For example, for melee damage powers, I always slot them with Crushing Impact to get the 5% recharge time in the power.  (Also why this one is more expensive than Mako's Bite in the AH).  Always prioritize getting a recharge bonus in every set you get.   Unfortunately, that keeps you from taking things with other or better bonuses.  For example, you'll want Decimation in ranged attack powers, but this one only scales to 40.  The only other ranged attack with a recharge bonus is purple Apocalypse.  (Decimation is also more expensive then Thunderstrike or Devistation). 

 

 You can select some powers to put in an extra Luck of the Gambler Def/7.5% recharge time.  

 

Not a bad idea to add in knockback powers Force Feedback: Chance for +Rech.  I wouldn't rely on it but it is great to give you extra time.

 

This can be expensive in Inf.  If you plan out your purchases and put in bids before you need the enhancement, you will generally get them cheaper.  

 

Also suggest you change your settings on your powers to show a count down as to when they recharge.  It helps you prepare to click them as soon as they are up again.  Personally, I put Domination on Auto and click hasten.  It is possible to make macros to activate hasten for you, like when you push forward.  

 

Hope it helps.

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

My advice would be different for an end game build versus a "trust fund" build. You can read some advice about the latter below along with some guidelines around what changes when you move to a more expensive end game build.

 

 

 

 

[tanglin]

Thanks for your replies! I'm lvl 50, but I only go for budget builds still. Should I go for lvl 50 enhancements whenever they are available in the set, or go for lower level for exemplaring?

[Mezmera]

I aim for 85-100% additional recharge on top of hasten and then I'll dedicate usually that last slot to picking up defense bonuses from the sets that can do so.  Recharge first, defense bonuses and then also hp once you're comfortable with your recharge situation.  

[oedipus_tex]

You only need about +70% Global Recharge if you grab the base invention. You'll have to recharge it once every hour or hour and a half (I forget how long) but its workable. You should probably always use that invention even before you reach perma dom status. 

[tanglin]

I tried out the base buffs and decided to bite the bullet and go without them as having to rebuff every hour became a quality of life issue. Anyway, I'm IO'd with recharge reduction of about 91% not counting Hasten, so I think I'm good now. 

 

I'm currently going for Musculature on my Alpha.

 

Thanks for all your help!

[Loquis]

Is it worth chasing Adrenal Booster from Experimentation for additional recharge?

 

[Outrider_01]

123% global with no hasten, 180% with Hasten and 2 50 IO recharge +5 boosted.  Alternating popping Dom and Hasten with the rolling bind files set up.

[DreadShinobi]

5 purple 10% rchg bonuses and 5 lotg = 87.5 global recharge. Getting to high global recharge on a dom is pretty easy (depending on how many damage procs you want to shove into your build) because among all archetypes they have some of the most diversified enhancement set categories. Pet IO sets and basilisks gaze also offer their rchg bonus at 4 slots instead of 5 which can be very helpful and doms typically have easy access to both. 

 

I build my doms to 128.75% global recharge before hasten. This allows you to kéep your domination active even if you step away from the computer and allows hasten to effectively function as recharge debuff resistance so you don't randomly drop after getting hit by several council cold snipes or whatever it may be.

Edited September 29, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[Riverdusk]

Good breakdown here from the old boards:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20090705110540/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Board=faq&Number=8925064

 

And technically it is 123%, but I remember once back on live having a character with exactly that (and no hasten) and it'd sometimes not fire in time and I'd lose it.  I think it was server lags and/or maybe if you are the middle of another animation can mess it up.  125% was better but still not perfect.  I learned 127% is what I actually needed to never have to worry about it.

 

Typically my goal now is to try and hit at least 107% then, so that when I have a SG base buff of +20% going I don't even have to worry about hitting hasten in time (or needing to go AFK), at least for 90 minutes at a time.  Makes dom a lot less of a hassle for me, even if I sometimes forget to hit the SG base.  A lot of my characters I tend to shoot for 110% anyway as that is what you typically need for perma hasten, so it isn't TOO hard of a goal to hit.  

 

If you are rich enough to not sweat the P2W buff, there is another +15% recharge for up to 8 hours at a time, lowering what you need down to a "mere" 92% with no hasten needed.  Not that I don't almost always grab hasten anyway.

[tidge]

On 9/29/2021 at 3:34 AM, DreadShinobi said:

5 purple 10% rchg bonuses and 5 lotg = 87.5 global recharge. Getting to high global recharge on a dom is pretty easy (depending on how many damage procs you want to shove into your build) because among all archetypes they have some of the most diversified enhancement set categories. Pet IO sets and basilisks gaze also offer their rchg bonus at 4 slots instead of 5 which can be very helpful and doms typically have easy access to both.

 

+1

 

Chasing perma-Dom really is worth it. Other players may not feel the same way, but IMO using the 'modern' tools to get the necessary Global recharge via set bonuses is something I see as a sacrifice Dominators have to accept. I personally enjoy flexibility in builds... not just in powers, but also in number of slots and what I put in those slots... so I always feel like I've lost that when I choose to go for permadom. Among those who recommend (non-Dominator) builds there is a general sense of "MOAR Recharge gud, dummi!", I can see from my own playstyle (in teams, and solo) that there isn't much in the game that really needs as much Recharge as gets recommends. For non-Dominators YMMV, especially for key debuffs or buffs.

 

I definitely recommend trying to hit the global recharge numbers without relying on the (effective) Force Feedback: Chance for +Rech %proc. There are a significant number of AoE powers that make this reliable, but personally I don't enjoy having to act like a Brute (i.e. continually chasing targets), or spamming patches, to keep Domination up.

[ninja surprise]

nvm answered my own question.

Edited November 1, 2021 by ninja surprise

[DreadShinobi]

On 10/25/2021 at 5:43 PM, Riverdusk said:

Good breakdown here from the old boards:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20090705110540/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Board=faq&Number=8925064

 

And technically it is 123%, but I remember once back on live having a character with exactly that (and no hasten) and it'd sometimes not fire in time and I'd lose it.  I think it was server lags and/or maybe if you are the middle of another animation can mess it up.  125% was better but still not perfect.  I learned 127% is what I actually needed to never have to worry about it.

 

Typically my goal now is to try and hit at least 107% then, so that when I have a SG base buff of +20% going I don't even have to worry about hitting hasten in time (or needing to go AFK), at least for 90 minutes at a time.  Makes dom a lot less of a hassle for me, even if I sometimes forget to hit the SG base.  A lot of my characters I tend to shoot for 110% anyway as that is what you typically need for perma hasten, so it isn't TOO hard of a goal to hit.  

 

If you are rich enough to not sweat the P2W buff, there is another +15% recharge for up to 8 hours at a time, lowering what you need down to a "mere" 92% with no hasten needed.  Not that I don't almost always grab hasten anyway.

 

 This is my exact same approach. 127% is definitely a better number to follow than 123%. And 107% also works if making liberal use of sg base buff. 2 of my doms built to 127% and my plant/thorny built to 107% because he needed more slots for procs. 107 can work without sg base buff but you need to keep hasten up and forcefeedback can also help of course. The higher your global recharge on a dominator the better effective resistance to recharge debuffs you have (more buffer around keeping domination up wheb recharge debuffs inevitably happen), and more recharge also effectively increases your endurance recovery average because of the refill. Doms just scale extremely well with stacking higher than required levels of global recharge, there is no ceiling here.