New Powersets and Changes for Dominators in Page 4

[oedipus_tex]

Hi fellow Dominator enthusiasts. 🙂

 

With the public release of information about Homecoming Page 4, there are some exciting developments for Dominators  that it would likely be very helpful for some of the experienced people who post here to check out and offer feedback on. It's may also helpful to the dev team if we can have some discussions among ourselves here in the Dominator forums as well.

 

The changes/new sets are:

 

 

New Assault set: Sonic Assault:

 

 

 

 

 

New Control powerset: Symphony Control:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revamped: Ice Control

 

 

 

As always, thanks to our developer teams for these changes and new sets. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion and hopefully people are excited to try these new things out. 🙂

[Dark Current]

That Disruption Aura is going to get you a lot of hate. The set has only 3 melee attacks, 2 of which are ST. So going into melee to leverage that toggle will be risky with only a single PBAoE attack available.

 

I think the control set you pair with will be critical if you want to get the most out of the Disruption. The new Symphony Control set doesn't seem to have much synergy with sonic assault. Zero PBAoE controls. So if you pair those two, as would seem natural, and go diving in to a mob to get the -RES aura maxed, you're gonna have a problem with efficiency.

 

Fire, Ice, Elec seem much better pairings as you can stack auras and patches in melee range. Earth and Dark would probably be decent as well. Grav, Plant and Mind... not so much.

[oedipus_tex]

8 minutes ago, Dark Current said:

That Disruption Aura is going to get you a lot of hate. The set has only 3 melee attacks, 2 of which are ST. So going into melee to leverage that toggle will be risky with only a single PBAoE attack available.

 

I think the control set you pair with will be critical if you want to get the most out of the Disruption. The new Symphony Control set doesn't seem to have much synergy with sonic assault. Zero PBAoE controls. So if you pair those two, as would seem natural, and go diving in to a mob to get the -RES aura maxed, you're gonna have a problem with efficiency.

 

Fire, Ice, Elec seem much better pairings as you can stack auras and patches in melee range. Earth and Dark would probably be decent as well. Grav, Plant and Mind... not so much.

 

 

I've tried three pairings of Sonic Assault so far on the test server, the (new) Ice Control, with Electric Control, and with Fire Control. IMO it's a solid set. I agree I wouldn't pair it with Symphony Control, although there aren't a lot of Dominator secondaries I'd pair with Symphony right now other than Fire Assault.

 

Sonic Assault itself hits hard, and gets a Power Up like power. The resist debuff it brings is no joke, Only real downside is no self sustain type powers. Still, I'd rank it among the top tier Dominator sets. Am thinking I may reroll my Electric/Psi and/or Elec/Dark builds to Elec/Sonic.

[arcane]

28 minutes ago, Dark Current said:

That Disruption Aura is going to get you a lot of hate. The set has only 3 melee attacks, 2 of which are ST. So going into melee to leverage that toggle will be risky with only a single PBAoE attack available.

 

I think the control set you pair with will be critical if you want to get the most out of the Disruption. The new Symphony Control set doesn't seem to have much synergy with sonic assault. Zero PBAoE controls. So if you pair those two, as would seem natural, and go diving in to a mob to get the -RES aura maxed, you're gonna have a problem with efficiency.

 

Fire, Ice, Elec seem much better pairings as you can stack auras and patches in melee range. Earth and Dark would probably be decent as well. Grav, Plant and Mind... not so much.

Slight correction though because Plant is OP even if you have no secondary at all.

[Frosticus]

plant/son will wreck stuff. Add in /ice app for sleet and you have a ton of aoe -res for your (proc'd) creepers to shred mobs.

 

[Outrider_01]

I'm disappointed, would of liked to see some love for Ice Assault.  Had a minor rant comparison but power went out, just feels subpar with its mixed attacks no matter how I respec it and with 2 different control sets as well.

[TNT]

The updated Ice Control paired with Sonic Assault seems pretty solid.  I haven't been getting destroyed by the first salvo after jumping in. 

 

As far as Symphony, I agree that an assault set like /Fire is better suited than the /Sonic set. I have no doubt that /Sonic can be made to work but the synergy is lacking. 

[carroto]

On 7/16/2022 at 7:32 PM, Frosticus said:

plant/son will wreck stuff. Add in /ice app for sleet and you have a ton of aoe -res for your (proc'd) creepers to shred mobs.

 

 

Agreed.  I may have to remake my Plant/Ice to Plant/Son at some point.

 

As for Symphony it seems to be clearly made with Controllers in mind.  I'm not sure why I'd want to use it on a Dom, but maybe some day I'll be bored enough.

[oedipus_tex]

4 hours ago, carroto said:

 

Agreed.  I may have to remake my Plant/Ice to Plant/Son at some point.

 

As for Symphony it seems to be clearly made with Controllers in mind.  I'm not sure why I'd want to use it on a Dom, but maybe some day I'll be bored enough.

 

 

Overall I think the set is likely to do well on either AT. IMO the main advantage on a Dominator is the damage from the opening Stun can be applied without worrying about Containment. A Controller will only be doing the full damage against enemies they can Sleep or Immobilize first, which likely means no Containment damage on Boss level enemies. The set having high damage in a few of its powers is useful for lifting the normally-low-damage Controller a bit, but that extra damage is also useful on a Dom, because in this case (unlike Gravity) the powers delivering the damage are controls you'd be casting anyway, not blasts that mimic Assault set powers. A Symphony Dominator thus can open with a high damage AoE Stun and follow that up with meaty attacks, like the Dom's very high damage snipe.  

 

 

 

On a Dominator I would probably take the Sleep, Fear, Stun, and both Hold powers.

 

The Confusion power is somewhat optional on Dominator. It's too bad it's not available until level 6. If I had a choice between it and the Hold power it's hard to say which one I'd take. The Hold is useful for Hamidon, so you'd want it for that, plus is casts faster. But the control itself also doesn't last as long. If I had the option, I can see myself skipping the Hold and taking the Confusion on Dominators, and using the Confusion power as my main mid-fight boss disabler.  

 

 

 

Overall, it's hard for me to say where this set ranks compared to other sets because a lot of that depends on how you plan to use it. Although Symphony has superficial resemblances to Dark and Mind Control, IMO the set closest to it in utility is Fire Control. Like Fire Control, you're trading away some of your control utility for extra damage. The delivery mechanism is a bit different (IMO safer on Symphony than on Fire) and Symphony doesn't have the fast casting ST controls of either Fire or Mind. But its damage potential is high. 

 

If absolutely forced to vote I'd put Symphony somewhere in the A tier on both Controller and Dominator, more or less where I'd put Fire Control. We'll have to wait for videos to see how it performs in practice. 

Edited July 23, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Heatstroke]

Four Words. 

 

Wind Control 

 

Water Assault 

 

 

[Tubalcain]

/sonic fucking wrecks house. New favorite melee secondary.

[Dark Current]

On 7/27/2022 at 2:04 PM, Heatstroke said:

Four Words. 

 

Wind Control 

 

Water Assault 

 

 

Call me when they've been implemented.

[MoonSheep]

On 7/17/2022 at 12:36 PM, Outrider_01 said:

I'm disappointed, would of liked to see some love for Ice Assault.  Had a minor rant comparison but power went out, just feels subpar with its mixed attacks no matter how I respec it and with 2 different control sets as well.

 

i think clunky is the right word to describe ice assault. each power works, but as a chain it never feels right

 

[ChrisMoses]

Now that Symphony Control and Sonic Assault have made it to Live, what combos are people intrigued by? For Doms, I was thinking Symphony/Stone (but that's probably my bias with a character name in mind), or Symph/Psi (though it sounds like Symph pairs better with a stronger range set).

 

For Sonic Assault, I liked the idea of the new Ice control with it, Darkness is intriguing, but I wouldn't be surprised if Fire Control is once again the belle of the ball.

 

Speaking to Controllers, I like Symphony/Kinetics or /Storm. I think /Sonic is probably good also, but I've never been able to get into that set.

 

Thoughts?

[laudwic]

Personally, I'm trying Symp/Energy Assault.  Energy has a high damage output and it has a snipe.  There are a ton of powers with knockback so you can throw the forcefeedback proc in.  Since the knockback powers are all single target, I don't see the need to put in knockback to knowdown procs.  I also like the synergy of Confounding Chant and Energy.

 

I considered Psionic Assault, but I didn't want to be tied to one damage type.  

[High_Beam]

Because I wanted to do Symphony as my first Dominator, wanted to be as range-centric as possible (due to my comfort level at the moment) but also wanting to try something new I went with Fire as the secondary (I experimented on test with this combo) and am enjoying it because of the fluidity I expected.  Granted she's still low level but I am enjoying it so far.

[capricorpse]

I've been running a Gravity/Sonic dominator and so far I love it.  The FX animations go very well together.  I actually love having the generally-unpopular Shockwave while I'm leveling; Dominators often need some breathing room and it's nice to be able to sweep them away from me every once in a while.  At higher levels I expect I'll either convert to knockdown or respec out, but in my teens it's been saving my life!  I also think Wormhole will be a good way to use the disruption aura safely, dropping them within range in a pile and hitting that PBAoE before locking them down some more.

 

 

[Agorazium]

Having a blast with Symphonic/Energy so far. Energy plays pretty well from range and has PU to shore up Symphonic's weaker control capabilities, while Symphonic's AOE options make up for Energy's comparatively low AOE DPS. Just picked up Confounding Chant and can melt groups fairly quickly even at level 20.

[JasperStone]

I did go Symphony/Sonic Dom.

So far happy with it.

 

[Clave Dark 5]

On 7/23/2022 at 3:18 PM, oedipus_tex said:

A Symphony Dominator thus can open with a high damage AoE Stun and follow that up with meaty attacks, like the Dom's very high damage snipe. 

Stupid question, but which power is that?  Not currently in front of the game, and none of the power descriptions on the Focused Feedback page for Symph use the word "stun" specifically.  Thanks!

[Sanguinesun]

13 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Stupid question, but which power is that?  Not currently in front of the game, and none of the power descriptions on the Focused Feedback page for Symph use the word "stun" specifically.  Thanks!

 

Confounding chant I believe is what they're referring to.  

[Gairian1974]

General question, after reading the description of the "Sentenal" I find myself wondering?

As a "Medium Range Combatent" is there a reason "Ranged" power sets were chosen as the primary options instead of the "Assault Power Sets" that are a Domanators Secondary,

 

It seams making "Assault Sets" with there mix of ranged and melee would make more sense for "a medium range combatant". As a primary, and keeping "Scrappers sets" as a secondary would make more sense.

 

Side question as well, what purpose was served in "changing" Stealth in the Energy Aura secondary set to "Power Armor" for Sentenals, Power Armor, is less useful, overall and the "Boosts it Gives" are allready covered under the other abilities within the power set?

 

If some could take a few minits, and give me a response to these two inquiries, it would be appreciated, my thanks for your time.

 

Ian

 

 

[Heatstroke]

On 7/27/2022 at 2:04 PM, Heatstroke said:

Four Words. 

 

Wind Control 

 

Water Assault 

 

 

 

Still waiting.. 

 

Water Assault should be easy combing Water Blast with Kinetic Melee animations.. 

Edited February 21 by Heatstroke