New Dominator ATOs - with a twist!

[Vanden]

Dominators have a unique problem with their ATOs. Unlike every other AT with a damage primary or secondary (i.e., all of them but Controllers), they don't get ATOs that enhance damage. Instead, their ATOs enhance control duration. For Controllers this was necessary in order for it to be possible for every possible Controller to be able to slot the same sets, but for Dominators it ends up massively restricting where they can slot their ATOs. Making entirely new ATOs for them isn't super practical IMO, because of power creep reasons. But what if...

 

 

...there were just mutually exclusive Dominator ATOs that enhanced Damage instead of control duration? Call them "Primacy of the Dominator" and "Dominating Grip," with the exact same set bonuses and procs. It would actually be pretty simple to make these new IOs exclusive with the existing IOs; that's basically achieved by having each IO check that you don't already have that IO OR the Superior version slotted, so they'd simply have to be modified to also check against the damage/control version of the IO. For example, Ascendancy of the Dominator Accuracy/Control currently looks similar to this:

Requires NOT_SLOTTED(Ascendancy of the Dominator Accuracy/Control) AND NOT_SLOTTED(Superior Ascendancy of the Dominator Accuracy/Control)

It would just need to be modified to be:

Requires NOT_SLOTTED(Ascendancy of the Dominator Accuracy/Control) AND NOT_SLOTTED(Superior Ascendancy of the Dominator Accuracy/Control) 
AND NOT_SLOTTED(Primacy of the Dominator Accuracy/Damage) AND NOT_SLOTTED(Superior Primacy of the Dominator Accuracy/Damage)

 

So, this suggestion is quite achievable. In other words, with the "could we?" settled, it's only a matter of "should we?"

Edited October 18, 2022 by Vanden

[Wavicle]

And these would be slottable in the secondary?

[Mezmera]

Ascendancy of the Dominator would make sense to leave the bonuses as they are but change it to damage instead of control so it can slot into assaults.  Then spruce up the other set and make it good for slotting into a control power.  

[TheZag]

Id like to see control sets in general have some damage attached to them or some new control sets with damage.  Dominators in particular are quite limited for where their ATO can be slotted so i say do the thing.

 

[Vanden]

8 hours ago, Wavicle said:

And these would be slottable in the secondary?

 

Any primary or secondary power that deals damage.

[Steampunkette]

You know...

 

Creating an ATO set that can be put into your secondary, and doing the same thing for all the ATs, could be great.

 

Except Tankers, obviously. You'd need to make an ATO set they can slot in their primary.

 

Not changing what exists, but making a new third full set of ATOs for every archetype.

[tidge]

7 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

You know...

 

Creating an ATO set that can be put into your secondary, and doing the same thing for all the ATs, could be great.

 

Except Tankers, obviously. You'd need to make an ATO set they can slot in their primary.

 

Not changing what exists, but making a new third full set of ATOs for every archetype.

 

 

I'm not disagreeing... but I want to share a revelation I had about Tankers and ATOs  (but applies to all armor primary/secondaries):  The enhancement schedules for things like Defense and Resistance are different (lower) so a hypothetical Tanker ATO would have to consider the caps for both Defense and Resistance... and of course, not all Armor sets are equivalent.

 

That is: a Hypothetical Tanker ATO would have to have a 6-piece distribution of something like Resistance, Resistance/Endurance, Resistance/Recharge, Defense, Defense/Endurance, Defense/Recharge to be "fair", and then trying for a 6-piece bonus would be a losing proposition for most Tankers.

[Steampunkette]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

 

 

I'm not disagreeing... but I want to share a revelation I had about Tankers and ATOs  (but applies to all armor primary/secondaries):  The enhancement schedules for things like Defense and Resistance are different (lower) so a hypothetical Tanker ATO would have to consider the caps for both Defense and Resistance... and of course, not all Armor sets are equivalent.

 

That is: a Hypothetical Tanker ATO would have to have a 6-piece distribution of something like Resistance, Resistance/Endurance, Resistance/Recharge, Defense, Defense/Endurance, Defense/Recharge to be "fair", and then trying for a 6-piece bonus would be a losing proposition for most Tankers.

Oh, sure. If you do it that way.

 

I was kinda looking at it like an IO that improves Defense AND Resistance AND Healing on the individual IOs, rather than Resistance on this one and Defense on that one. 'Cause we absolutely can do that kind of thing. HamiOs show it pretty clearly with the +Control HOs.

 

There are a couple power sets where that might be more useful than others, but it'd probably work fine overall since most powers just do one or the other and the ones that do both typically have the 'unenhanceable' flag on one of them. And you'd need to do the same thing for the Arachnos Soldier, Peacebringer, Scrapper, Stalker, Sentinel, and Warshade secondary ATOs, too.

 

I would say "Widow" but their secondary is pretty much just Defense, I think.

[tidge]

So... I get what you're cooking, yet there aren't many powers (certainly not when compared to attacks/controls) that would benefit from from Defense/Resistance/Healing pieces... and if limiting this hypothetical set to Tankers via ATO is narrowing the window. 

 

As I wrote: I used to grumble that that most Tankers could only use ATO in Secondaries (see also Defenders),, and I still occasionally grumble about the 'control' ATOs but specific to Tankers, their primaries and ATOs I feel like disclosing my general feels about ATOs:

1. ATOs are convenient to use while leveling up
2. At level 50, Superior versions often offer very good set bonuses and useful procs (and sometimes excellent globals)

I write the above because my experience with Tankers is: 

1. There are very few primary powers that need many slots, mostly because they simply don't need more than three (set) pieces, often only two are good.
2. There are some Primary powers worth franken-slotting... but then 4,5,6-piecs set bonuses aren't in play.... so ATOs would have to have some extremely good 2 or 3-piece set bonuses

As for the need... I'm specifically thinking about things like resistance toggles:

• They pretty much exclusively only need Resistance and Endurance Reduction
• They typically don't need to be toggled on (depending on enemy attacks)
• Extra (i.e. past ED cap) increases of that specific resistance are very likely to be marginal

On the final point: I know the arguments about damage resistance resisting resistible damage resistance debuffs, the "but 50% of 4 points of damage taken is 2 fewer points of damage taken" and the old (pre-typing change on HC) ideas about S/L ... but creeping up specific damage resistances by fractions of a percentage by gong well past the ED limits is IMO typically a real waste of slots... especially for Tankers that can really benefit from things like %Heal, +MaxHP, Scaling Damage Resistances,  and +Regeneration in ways that few other ATs (Brutes really) can because of the pool of HP.

 

Having written all that: More enhancement sets would be welcome. Personally, I'd focus on gaps in current power types (Primarily: Threat and Fear; see also 'Accurate' powers like ToHit and Defense Debuffs plus "Accurate" Healing) before trying to create more ATOs (or HO/DS)

[srmalloy]

On 9/14/2025 at 10:45 AM, Steampunkette said:

I was kinda looking at it like an IO that improves Defense AND Resistance AND Healing on the individual IOs, rather than Resistance on this one and Defense on that one. 'Cause we absolutely can do that kind of thing. HamiOs show it pretty clearly with the +Control HOs.

If we were going to go that way, I'd rather see 'two-factor' sets like Def/Heal, Res/Heal, and Def/Res than a single set that tried to be the Swiss Army knife of defensive slotting. Or, if you have to have a three-factor enhancement that boosts all of them or it utterly ruins your enjoyment of the game, have it be an HO or D-sync, so that you have to weigh the tradeoff of getting all three defensive aspects in a single enhancement against not getting any set bonuses. But even with the two-factor sets, it would be necessary to look at the available powers to see how many powers would be able to benefit from such sets, or whether it's just a case of "I don't want to have to make the decisions about balancing my slotting between two aspects of a power; do it for me and give me 1337 set bonuses, too".