How do YOU build and run a Dom?

[Snarky]

Back on live i would quit Bruting from time to time and run a Dom for a while.  Almost always a Grav Nrg. Build perma with purps and lotgs. 
 

i have done a lot of Bruting and Tanking on HC. I just slid into a Dark/Dark Blaster main after a couple months experiments.  It is not the easiest Blaster but i feel i am getting good with it

 

now i am experimenting with stuff for an upcoming slow leveling team.  Only thing is i am starting to suspect i have really been playing a Dom sideways to how good players use them

 

my 50 build i made in mids is heavily influenced by my live builds.  Lot of purps, high rech, no defense to speak of.  But then i find myself plinking at targets with ST attacks.  (Now at 40 and so possibly a mid build crisis). But i started  to think i may need to run controllers a bit just to understand Doms better.  I line up my big controls and lay those down pretty good.  But should i be more concerned with slapping ST and soft small controls after that or start DPS?   (In huge fights, i can figure it for small groups)

 

alao on Dark/dark do i build the ST heal/damage for damage. Because i saw a great build that slapped in a heal set.  Leading me to think i may be enhancing....for a different playstyle 

 

thanks for any insight 

 

 

[Mezmera]

Doms play like blasters in a way.  Think of most of the assault powers you take as trying to be on par with blaster ST damage, mix in one or two of the better melee attacks and play them a hybrid blapper style. 

 

Where a blaster has superior aoe damage your dom should be dedicated to aoe control.  If you want aoe damage you need to likely get most of that through the epic pool powers later on and the usual pbaoe's the assaults have.  

 

You'll want to minimize what you take in your primary and secondary as too much is a waste.  So take the 5-6 best powers in each that have the greatest effect and then build yourself through the pool powers, sometimes I end up with 7 control powers but it better be good.  Pools with defenses in them are what you're after so you can slot the Lotg's but it's still good to build in defenses to go along with those from IO bonuses.  

 

It's still a lot of building with purple sets and uniques but control gets access to a good deal more purple sets to choose from.  

 

Usually if I make a new dom I'll catch a ride to 30 and then build it with sets and play it from there.  If you have 50-100 mil you can email yourself you can get a perma at 30 easy.  The larger issue is how slot starved doms are because there's so many things you'll want to alocate them to.  It's a game in itself to see how far you can go with optimal slotting on a dom.

 

Good luck hope you have fun!

 

Edit: 

As far as the dark heal on my dark assault I split that heal with 3 apocalypse chasing dmg and accuracy and 3 touch of nictus with as much heal and accuracy you can.  

Edited June 14, 2021 by Mezmera

[DreadShinobi]

Plant Control, Ice Ancillary, pick an assault set that suits you. I've made Plant/Thorny/Ice, Plant/Fiery/Ice, and Plant/Rad/Ice, on homecoming, and had a plant/psionic on live. Maybe I'll make that Plant/Earth someday. Other than plant control I played Mind/Fiery on live and Grav/Fiery on homecoming. Other than fire blasting, plant control is by far my favorite set to play. It is exceptional on dominators, because of the 100% chance to confuse bosses. Seeds of Confusion on a sub 20s rchg is a very unique play experience and it is fun to experiment with and know which enemy factions utterly destroy themselves when confused (malta zeus titans, yes) and when you can snag some cool buffs from confused enemies. Roots is also an above average AoE immob and Carrion Creepers has some nifty utility, but it is Seeds of Confusion that carries the set and the experience.

 

SoC is your 1 stop shop control option. It has better recharge than all other AoE hard CC. It is a confusion, which has an endless variety of advantages in itself. And it has a 1 second cast time. I frankenslot this bad boy with 2 damage procs, the 2 ATO procs (these both lower recharge), the Malaise confuse/range IO, and generic range IO. Throw Seeds of Confusion, throw roots, apply damage. If your SoC rolls a miss on a problematic boss, throw your ST hold. If SoC is down because you are steamrolling, just throw roots! Hold a boss as needed, maybe pop a purple insp, apply damage. 

 

The Ice ancillary allows you to cross archetypal roles and act as a fully functional debuffer in addition to your standard lockdown and dps roles. Because I always choose the Ice epic for my dominators I always build for S/L defense which is very contrary to my typical defense preference for "squishies" which is a resist shield + positional defense set bonuses. This means my doms are natively more vulnerable to mobs that are not controlled or dead compared to my average character. The payoff in access to Sleet is absolutely worth it, and I'd still take Ice mastery even if it didn't have an armor shield at all. The S/L def is secondary to Sleet access. Sleet also increases the damage confused enemies deal to each other, and the likelihood that they will not miss when fighting amongst themselves.

 

All my doms build for 128.75% global recharge which achieves perma-domination without hasten. This allows me to keep domination active even if I step away and allows me to tank some recharge debuffs using Hasten as effective recharge debuff resistance without needing to slot for it. My plant/thorny is the only dom that has only 108.75% global recharge but still hits the golden number with sg base buff. Ironically the plant/thorny is my current favorite of my domis because of the proc loaded build.

 

I also keep my dominators as villain-only alignment after I get some accolades that are faster to earn hero side, because Frenzy is huge for dominator QoL.

 

Doms in lower level content really benefit from getting to 50 first and exemping backwards because at bare minimum you get a free 50% global recharge from your purple sets, among other set bonuses. LotGs are a base lvl 25 set, Preventive Medicine (6 pc) base lvl 21, Positrons Blast (5 pc) base lvl 20. Expedient Reinforcement (4 pc) base lvl 30. Call to Arms (4 pc) base lvl 10. All very good sets to attune for an exemping dominator. SG base buff adds an extra 20% rchg whenever exemping.

 

As @Mezmera said definitely consider what powers will actually find usage, because a high rchg domi with both a primary and secondary stock full of clicky attacks and a lack of inherent toggles or passives may find itself with more clicks than you can possibly fit in. Pay close attention to the DPA of the single target attacks you have access to. The animation time of your single target hold can have a huge impact on your rotation and how your dominator feels to play. Mind/Fire 1.1s, Dark 1.67, Ice/Grav 1.83-7. Plant/Elec/Earth >2s.

Edited June 14, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[MoonSheep]

@DreadShinobi Is correct on how great Sleet is from the ice mastery. Not taking it should be a bannable offence 😛

 

I build my mind/fire dom for recharge to achieve perma and that’s about it. I don’t bother with any defensive powers as I prefer to lock things down or pop a few insps. 

 

You’re correct that some doms are more ST focused - I often have targeting macros for bosses and ensure I kill them in a mob first, letting the masses of AoE characters quickly finish up the luts/minions

[oedipus_tex]

With your Dark/Dark Dominator you'll probably want to to be aggressive with Shadow Field. Hit Power Up and drop it every time it is available on a new spawn. Get into the habit of this and you'll substantially cut your dying. Shadow Field has auto-hit -ToHit that lasts a long time. 

 

If you ever play Earth Control on a Dom you'll want to be similarly aggressive with Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses for similar reasons. At permadom levels of recharge you should be able to have these powers active more often than not.

 

 

Beyond this what I suspect you're running into is the classic Dominator wall of difficulty most players run into around level 40. Dominators mostly lack healing, debuff, or armor. At lower levels this isn't as big a wall to climb but enemies in this level range start really punching back and can paste you quickly. A ton is riding on your ability to mezz things. As a Dark/Dark you've actually got a slightly easier time than other Dominators, because your -ToHit adds a layer of debuff most Doms don't get, so lean into that as much as possible with Shadow Field and Fearsome Stare.

 

You'll hear people Dominators have "better control" than a Controller but this is true strictly in the sense of "true mezz." Controllers can debuff enemies to hell and back or else buff themselves/their pets. As a Dominator everything is riding on your mezzes. That's why Sleet is so highly prized, it does break the rules of the archetype.

 

But also more broadly it's worth knowing you aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, this archetype will get your character killed. A lot. I have Dominators that are pretty sturdy, but at the end of the day Dominators are exactly what they appear to be, a blapper who dies instantly if an enemy breaks out of mezz, barring there being some additional factor.

As a final piece of advice, as great as Sleet is, IMO Water Spout is just as good. It's hard to explain what is so good about this power, but if you're completely stuck and not feeling like you're able to charge into spawns safely and come out alive, try adding this power to the mix. The specific mix of control/damage it gives does change the game a lot in my experience. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Snarky]

43 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

With your Dark/Dark Dominator you'll probably want to to be aggressive with Shadow Field. Hit Power Up and drop it every time it is available on a new spawn. Get into the habit of this and you'll substantially cut your dying. Shadow Field has auto-hit -ToHit that lasts a long time. 

 

If you ever play Earth Control on a Dom you'll want to be similarly aggressive with Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses for similar reasons. At permadom levels of recharge you should be able to have these powers active more often than not.

 

 

Beyond this what I suspect you're running into is the classic Dominator wall of difficulty most players run into around level 40. Dominators mostly lack healing, debuff, or armor. At lower levels this isn't as big a wall to climb but enemies in this level range start really punching back and can paste you quickly. A ton is riding on your ability to mezz things. As a Dark/Dark you've actually got a slightly easier time than other Dominators, because your -ToHit adds a layer of debuff most Doms don't get, so lean into that as much as possible with Shadow Field and Fearsome Stare.

 

You'll hear people Dominators have "better control" than a Controller but this is true strictly in the sense of "true mezz." Controllers can debuff enemies to hell and back or else buff themselves/their pets. As a Dominator everything is riding on your mezzes. That's why Sleet is so highly prized, it does break the rules of the archetype.

 

But also more broadly it's worth knowing you aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, this archetype will get your character killed. A lot. I have Dominators that are pretty sturdy, but at the end of the day Dominators are exactly what they appear to be, a blapper who dies instantly if an enemy breaks out of mezz, barring there being some additional factor.

As a final piece of advice, as great as Sleet is, IMO Water Spout is just as good. It's hard to explain what is so good about this power, but if you're completely stuck and not feeling like you're able to charge into spawns safely and come out alive, try adding this power to the mix. The specific mix of control/damage it gives does change the game a lot in my experience. 

Yeah when i first looked at Dark Dark i was seriously flummoxed because the AoE hold is not until mid 20s.  I was like....until then i do what? Now i have ran the build through Posis and Synapse i know to lean into the Fear and Stun AoE and the to hit debuffs.  Works very nice.  Of course i keep this up even after i get the AoE hold.  I see my job as team combat control specialist and try to screw with as many enemies as i can as often as i can. Pure mischief maker

[oedipus_tex]

Part of what you're running into is the general challenge of building with Dark Assault. It's not an easy set to summarize. I'm definitely not an expert on DPA tables or pylon times, but I do glance at powers to see what their relative DPA is. In the case of Dark Assault this is what we're working with:

 

 

 

This tables can be misleading because this isn't accounting for proc damage, which Dark Assault can do a whole lot of. On the other hand, Dominators are often difficult to build for proc damage without losing too much Recharge.

 

Anyway, in the case of Dark Assault what you're generally talking about is trading away some damage for the added safety of -ToHit, mainly in the form of Engulfing Darkness at point blank range. Midnight Grasp, despite being a T9 melee attack is actually lower damage than the T2 blast Gloom. 

 

Life Drain is indeed a poor attack, worse even than your T1 blast. It's still useful as a self heal and that's how I'd recommend slotting it. There's some argument for treating it like a combo heal/damage power. 

 

 

On the more critical side, when I look at sets like Dark Assault I can't help but notice it really isn't doing that much more damage than a Controller, but the self heal it's getting as the tradeoff is much more limited. Moon Beam does hit like a truck, so that provides some edge. A Controller will also have one less AoE attack (granted, it's a PBAoE) resulting in somewhat lower DPA. I don't mean to totally neg the set... Gather Shadows doubles -ToHit and does some really good debuffing, so Dark/Dark pans out pretty well. It's when Dark Assault is mixed with other control sets I'm slightly more skeptical, and start thinking "Do I really want to do this or can I get similar benefits from a Controller without trading away the advantages of that class?" A Dark/Storm/Earth Controller for example gives a Dark Assault Dominator a serious run for its money, as would /Kinetics, /TA, /Poison, and a few other builds. 

[Voltak]

If you want an AV killer that does so with more potential safety than other Dominators, go Dark/Dark.  
If later on, as you get better, you want to do more challenging stuff, go dark/dark. 

If you like using pets, go dark/dark. 

If you want to include confuse, fears, stuns, aoe holds, 3 pets, in one control set, only dark has that. 

By the way the Stun in Dark is a mega proc bomb if you want to use it as such 

Don't slot the heal in dark for dmg, only heal. 

You will get better dmg in other assault powers in dark assault. 

Most of all, get experience with the set, play it and play it a lot. 

The best builds, for me, come when you have an end goal, and you work your way backwards of how you going to achieve it, those enabling to finalize a build to give you exactly what you want and none or minimal of what you don't want or don't need. 

Those builds only come via experience and skills at playing your combo.