cross post from aniversary thread: doms need moar powers

[Hew]

I am fairly confident that doms have the absolute least number of power combos and power sets of all ATs. 

 

I don't know of any "new" there except the martial thing or the cat-attack assault, and that was back on live.

 

Meanwhile rad, bio, elec affin, sonic have either been created or mass-proliferated, plus a bunch of other whatnots.

 

Have pity on the doms!

 

I have zero clues what would be a good set to suggest, but I do think a dom-accelerant set would be nice, where either the primary or the secondary has the ability to ramp up recharge, something like a self-accelerating toolset that enables permadom with LESS DAMN RECH SET IOS. You know, something _baked in_ that would allow the set to get there easier, like beta-decays +rech, but for doms.

[Snarky]

Doms are more pigeon holed than Tanks in Modern CoV.  At least Tanks got a nod to doing damage with more AoE.  Doms were 'fixed' with a revamp of Domination and never really recovered.  Before you could Nitro a Dom with PermaDom.  Now, meh.  You should still do it, but the payoff....just not what it was.  

 

Most crap dies before a Dom finishes locking them down.  The stuff that doesnt tends to ignore Holds.

 

In short to give Dom players more options we just need more Blaster sets.  Because Doms are second class citizens at best.  

 

[Tiger Shadow]

There's a full set of ranged attacks in sonic blast, and 4 melee attacks + 1 melee aura in sonic manipulation. That's more than enough to make a sonic assault set.

[Hew]

I definitely think the lack of ability to help self-charge permadom without immense investment in ios would help. I have seen and played a few doms that are easily self sufficient to great effect solo and on small teams, without being lost in the sawse. But you get to mid size teams and higher  and yeah, other than an alpha hold, you arent doing a whole lot. 

 

Originally, everything redside was meant to be solo capable. Why that decision was made, not entirely sure, but if you look at all the redside ATs, they have a greater disbursement of abilities that allow for stronger solo (on SOs) capability, waaaaaaaaaaay back in the day. Before IOs were even a thing. 

 

This comes to the other thread, whats the new bar for tuning, w/ or without ios, because (in before someone says anything is solo capable nowadays). If the redside ATs were built for easier entry to solo, how do you make them equally capable as bluesiders on large or fast moving teams?

 

Stalkers got a MAJOR overhaul over the years to meet that mark. Brutes, well, brutes. MM have been slightly tinkered with over the years as well (bodyguard). Corrs gonna cor. But Doms? Other than the hackage w/ domination years ago, yeah, nothings really been done else...

[Hew]

5 minutes ago, Tiger Shadow said:

There's a full set of ranged attacks in sonic blast, and 4 melee attacks + 1 melee aura in sonic manipulation. That's more than enough to make a sonic assault set.

PLEASE give me the sonic -res pbaoe.

 

Im probably the biggest fold space fanboi out there, and having that -res pbaoe aura + fire control (selftarget bonfire, pbaoe all the things) would make me giggle. Or even foldspace into earthquake. Or the volcanic gasses thing (which behaves bizarrely)

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, Hew said:

I am fairly confident that doms have the absolute least number of power combos and power sets of all ATs. 

 

Note: I'm excluding HEATs and VEATs. But yea. Spare a moment's thought for the Kheldians. And the Widows/Soldiers are only a teeny bit better.

• Blaster - 13 primary, 14 secondary = 182
• Brute - 22 primary, 13 secondary = 286
• Controller - 10 primary, 16 secondary = 160
• Corruptor - 13 primary, 16 secondary = 208
• Defender - 16 primary, 13 secondary = 208
• Dominator - 9 primary, 11 secondary = 99
• Mastermind - 7 primary, 16 secondary = 112
• Scrapper - 20 primary, 13 secondary = 260
• Sentinel - 13 primary, 12 secondary = 156
• Stalker - 17 primary, 13 secondary = 221
• Tanker - 11 primary, 22 secondary = 242

Gold Medal:  Dominators, still in only double digits for possible combinations.

Silver Medal:  Masterminds, with a footnote for having the LEAST number of Primary trees.

Bronze Medal:  Sentinels

[Spaghetti Betty]

I was hoping for a water secondary for Doms. Mostly so I could make an Earth/Water Dom with the earth colored orange like Doritos and the water green like Mountain Dew.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Hew said:

Stalkers got a MAJOR overhaul over the years to meet that mark. Brutes, well, brutes. MM have been slightly tinkered with over the years as well (bodyguard). Corrs gonna cor. But Doms? Other than the hackage w/ domination years ago, yeah, nothings really been done else...

Dominators got a sizeable secondary set balancing pass in late 2019. They could probably use some more tweaks to eliminate the reliance on permadom, but as far as archetypes go in this game they're not in a bad spot.

[siolfir]

3 hours ago, macskull said:

Dominators got a sizeable secondary set balancing pass in late 2019. They could probably use some more tweaks to eliminate the reliance on permadom, but as far as archetypes go in this game they're not in a bad spot.

I agree that they're really not in a bad spot, but I think part of the issue is that there is far less reliance on control in teams (due to easily available IOs leading to much higher defense and resistance numbers) and they do good damage but not great damage, which is the only other thing they bring to the table. And even that doesn't have anything to do with them having the fewest powerset combinations, which was the point of the thread (and one that I agree with).

[kiramon]

Okay.

 

Pain Domination (Dominator Variant)

 

Somatic Shock

Crippling Pain

Nerve Damage

Pain Lashings

Mass Suffering

Torment

Lasting Agony

Distress Beacon
Excruciating Nightmare

 

somatic shock- ranged, immobilize, -resist, dot

 

crippling pain - ranged, hold, -res, bleed dot

 

nerve damage - ranged, targeted aoe immobilize, -res

pain lashings - pbaoe damage, -res, +special

-lash the area with whips, causing damage and lower long enemy resist. The pain is lasting, and future attacks will cause them to begin to bleed, causing additional damage over time and disorienting them for a short time.

 

mass suffering - targeted aoe, foe hold, -resist

 

torment - pbaoe toggle, -resist, -dmg, chance to cause enemies to bleed

 

lasting agony - ground location aoe, slow, recharge, fear

-open up the depths of hell, slowing enemies movement and recharge speed. The pain is crippling, causing enemies to periodically tremble where they stand. Enemies that are bleeding will take additional lethal damage instantly. 

 

Distress Beacon - Single Target, splash aoe on target. +special, +immob , dot, +disorient

Target enemy radiates their distress, binding all nearby with chains, preventing them from moving and causing them to bleed. If the target dies or the chains are broken, enemies are overtaken by pain and become disoriented.

 

excruciating nightmare - pet, 3 summons

Manifestations of pain swarm the Dominator, beckoning creatures from nightmare dimensions. Their attacks fear enemies, cause targets to bleed and tremble in place. When a nightmare acquires a new target, they haunt the target, causing them to become confused for a short period as they try to fend off the nightmare. 
 

 

 

[Lazarillo]

I feel like, given Dominators are the only AT with access to Assault sets, that's a fairly poor use of developer time.  Doubly so since there are more "Assault"s than Control sets.

So if more Dominator sets were made, it would make more sense to me to make new Control sets, since those could be used on multiple ATs.

 

Though I'll admit I have a very love/hate relationship with the AT, so maybe that's narrow minded.  After all, HC has provided a bunch of new Blaster secondaries, and those are also of somewhat limited use on the AT scale, and admittedly, Assault sets are probably much easier to make than Control sets (which will likely be much heavier in terms of VFX).  But still, I feel like more Assaults aren't really needed right now.

[Draeth Darkstar]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

I feel like, given Dominators are the only AT with access to Assault sets, that's a fairly poor use of developer time.  Doubly so since there are more "Assault"s than Control sets.

So if more Dominator sets were made, it would make more sense to me to make new Control sets, since those could be used on multiple ATs.

 

Though I'll admit I have a very love/hate relationship with the AT, so maybe that's narrow minded.  After all, HC has provided a bunch of new Blaster secondaries, and those are also of somewhat limited use on the AT scale, and admittedly, Assault sets are probably much easier to make than Control sets (which will likely be much heavier in terms of VFX).  But still, I feel like more Assaults aren't really needed right now.

 

The counterpoint to this is that almost all powers in the Assault sets are just straight clones of powers from other sets, so they require a lot less work to build. They really only need to be put together by theme and given a balance pass for the numbers, no VFX/SFX, animation, and minimal design work necessary.

[Hew]

6 hours ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

 

The counterpoint to this is that almost all powers in the Assault sets are just straight clones of powers from other sets, so they require a lot less work to build. They really only need to be put together by theme and given a balance pass for the numbers, no VFX/SFX, animation, and minimal design work necessary.

Yeah, this has been the case since time immemorial. I can't think of a unique assault set except maybe martial, but even that only had 1 or 2 unique or new powers/animations. 

[Draeth Darkstar]

5 hours ago, Hew said:

Yeah, this has been the case since time immemorial. I can't think of a unique assault set except maybe martial, but even that only had 1 or 2 unique or new powers/animations. 

The VFX for Thorny Assault were new when CoV came out, but the animations and effects are straight copies from Spines. I can't think of anything else that was genuinely new except Mind Probe in Psionic.

[Vanden]

23 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

The VFX for Thorny Assault were new when CoV came out, but the animations and effects are straight copies from Spines. I can't think of anything else that was genuinely new except Mind Probe in Psionic.

I believe the red blasts in Energy Assault were also new FX at the time, and Ice Sword Circle and Ice Slash were new powers, but made from existing FX and animations.

[Hew]

I get the feeling that doms are... Recycled.