The Illusion of a powerset

[luxlorica]

Illusion is here for Doms now and I think it stinks. Wow is it terrible.

 

Phantom Army is neutered to the extent that one wonders why it was even included. The time and endurance used to fire it can get you killed but the decoys can’t save you nor do they do any appreciable damage. They are largely a waste of arcanatime and a great way to get even more bad guys targeting you as they completely ignore the decoy smashing them in the face with a boulder to come over and beat you to death.

 

If they are not going to taunt, or be in some other way useful, they should be always up and comparable to imps. Right now they are more comparable to brawl but with a much longer cooldown. And having downtime for such a milquetoast effect is inexcusable.

 

Gleam seems to be hitting pretty reliably. But in doing no damage, it is worthless against those mobs that just ignore your attempts to mezz them. And without the real Phantom Army there is no way to keep them off you so you end up having to run away again, and again, and again. Not to mention a huge endurance cost and a long cool down for very little aid in not dying.

 

Did I say no damage? That’s wrong. It does just enough single digit damage to ensure the mobs can find you with your invis up.

 

Spectral Terror also does a great job at slowly doing nothing. And that works great on a controller with many other ways to stay safe and chip away at a group. If mobs live through the dom terror, they will just come over and beat you to death, and with no way at all to distract them, you are just waiting to die. Or you could run away… again.

 

Its like the whole set is designed to do nothing. Everything in it should be doing damage with the possible exception of Deceive. PA should either be constant companions or they should taunt to make their downtime, and the long chase to shorten that downtime, worth clicking on the icon.

 

Its like they ported the controller playstyle over to dom without any of the safety and in compensation for the loss of that safety, they added a barrel full of nerfs to ensure the new abilities did not become even remotely useful.

 

As if dominator play is supposed to be you running out of instances to save your own life over and over.

 

But that’s just my experience of it.

 

Maybe you have had a more positive encounter with the power set?

 

Does it just need a specific damage secondary such that it can essentially tag along as a dead-weight “primary”?

 

Is it a late bloomer that only becomes useful once you are an incarnate with everything maxed?

 

Am I just an uncultured philistine who lacks the ability to appreciate a set as … “subtle” and Illusion seems to be on dom.

 

What do you think?

 

[Spaghetti Betty]

I will say there's definitely a major difference in the set's performance once you're able to build some recharge bonus into your toon. My Illu/Sav has perma Dom and Perma PA. Gleam is also a fantastic power once you can get it's recharge to a reasonable level and inside Domination it's duration is more than serviceable. I dumped Spectral Terror but IMO it feels like it's there to get you through the early levels.

 

Definitely give it a second opinion at 50.

[twozerofoxtrot]

I agree with Betty, worlds apart while leveling and at 50.

 

But even at 50, it's not my favorite Dom set. Would rather play Dark, Plant, or Grav.

[Meknomancer]

I love illusion on domi's, so what if PA isn't massive damage or taunting, your entire secondary is dps and there's just enough controls in the primary with gleam and flash and spectral to let you pummel everything. Its a fantastic set right from the beginning all the way up to 50 and into incarnate levels. And good as it is low levels its a totally different beast at high levels. Like every toon once its 50 and kitted out its a different experience.

[serxiom]

4 hours ago, luxlorica said:

Is it a late bloomer that only becomes useful once you are an incarnate with everything maxed?

 

Yes and no. As you manifested in your post Illusion for doms in not the set that controllers have at all. The set lacks of AoE control disregarding if you have perma PA or not. Any AV/EB will turn into you and target you with all your pets out. The recharge time of the  tools for AoE control are too long. Not having a AoE inmob or fear as other sets really put Illusion behind other sets. I would rather fix the set deleting Spectral Terror and replacing it for a AoE inmob or fear power or just giving this pet those cones. 

 

At lvl 50 incarnate gets better. You get access to Ageless so your end problems are gone. My Ill/Ice got +193 rech global bonus Ageless/Agility  and still have problems controlling 4x8 mobs.

The positive side for Illusion is the DPS output. The damage coming from PA and Phantom + any high dps secondary is nice.

 

2 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

But even at 50, it's not my favorite Dom set. Would rather play Dark, Plant, or Grav

 

Agree 100% with this. Dark/Plant are overall more complete sets than Illusion. 

[Mayaedits]

Like a lot of stuff with doms, it doesn't really come into its own until 50. In practice, while it has some control that work well once you have perma dom, it lags behind other sets in that area overall. The pets not having taunt and needing to pair it with a dps set are the biggest things I've found disappointing when building one.

 

I wouldn't say it's near the bottom in terms of set as it can be quite powerful, especially in groups but I wouldn't say it's the best either. Sort of that awkward middle ground of meh.

 

Despite that, I have been enjoying my ill/Psy Dom quite a bit, It's still a fun set to me at least despite it's flaws.

[luxlorica]

It has me questioning what dominator play is supposed to feel like. … that came out more salacious than I intended, but you know what I meant!

 

The (any) damage secondary is largely unsupported by Illusion. The control of illusion isn’t enough to make the character viable against mobs and that control disappears as the mobs start to shrug it off more and more.

 

Domination becomes less useful. The core ability modifier of the archetype is minimized because it does nothing for the pets and pseudo-pets.

 

I am thinking that the decent play is just grab all the pets you can and personal force field from Mace Mastery. Then spit out pets, put up force field, go get coffee, and repeat.

 

It makes you the wish version of a mastermind and domination just doesn’t matter. By the time you can do all this, you have ageless anyway so you don’t even need Domination to fill your blue bar.

 

Is there any contention about slotting? Chasing recharge seems a little foolish because PA is so bad. I know you need recharge anyway but, yikes. Chasing proc damage is a huge hole to start digging just to pump infrequent powers up to subpar dps. Your damage set will get you killed, the punishment for using it makes me want to just save it for party play.

 

You should probably chase something, but none of the options lead to anything interesting. You are just pouring time and energy into going from back-up dancer far left to backup-up dancer three from the left.

 

I think that the set should do more to support the damage set. It should pack its own damage potential making the chase for dps a viable one. Then who cares about perma trash PA, let them show up when they show up, whatever. Putting out power activations is putting out damage and that feels more like a dominator.

 

It would be a different feeling than a controller, and making that differentiation seems important.

Edited December 29, 2022 by luxlorica

[Dragotect]

Honestly, illusion doms are only good because of spectral terror (terrorize is like hold light, and WAY better than the AoE immobilize pretty much every single dom set has). However, they're incredibly lack luster in the damage department for an archetype that is already poor performing in damage output to begin with. Phantom army is supposed to make up for the spectral terror not doing damage, I guess, but the recharge is so painfully long it's almost not worth it until you get sets going.

This, however, just feels par for the course as far as my experience with doms go. They really suck at soloing, teaming, controlling, and DPS until you can get them fully geared with sets. I think extra damage against CCed targets, like controllers get, would go a long way toward making them better for solo play. Or if their first two holds (typically single target immobilize/hold) did 50-100% more damage they would be fine for leveling solo. The domination lock down effect, if you can't get it perma, is really only good for locking down AVs on teams otherwise. The endurance boost simply isn't good enough for solo play as it isn't often enough and is done out of desperation FAR too often against groups of around 5 or risk endurance burnout by number 4. Not only that, but I swear just one dominator on a TF adds 5 minutes to the complete time because they AoE immobilize too soon- making all those tighter, more damaging AoEs from blasters/melee 50% less effective- and simply cannot make up the damage lost this way.

I've only gotten minimal enjoyment out of my more recent dominators by focusing on their secondary set because that's where their damage is. Doms, in my opinion, are the absolute worst archetype in the game because everything they do is done better by the other ones. They're either blasters without the burst damage to bring down enemies before enemies bring you down or controllers without the support to survive a battle of attrition. They simply underperform on every regard while leveling, and I've rarely slotted them out with sets because I can't justify the cost to do so when I could have more fun with a factory setting blaster. Even worse, they're the only archetype where I'll ever scale back to -1 difficulty simply to reduce the time it takes to get through a mission.

Essentially, before any other archetype Dominators NEED to be addressed but aren't going to because they're also probably the easiest class to make insanely OP given they're theoretically a control and damage archetype. And on paper that should be a win/win as far as soloing goes, but in practice they're just masters of nothing.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Dragotect

[Redletter]

17 hours ago, luxlorica said:

Illusion is here for Doms now and I think it stinks. Wow is it terrible.

 

Phantom Army is neutered to the extent that one wonders why it was even included. The time and endurance used to fire it can get you killed but the decoys can’t save you nor do they do any appreciable damage. They are largely a waste of arcanatime and a great way to get even more bad guys targeting you as they completely ignore the decoy smashing them in the face with a boulder to come over and beat you to death.

 

If they are not going to taunt, or be in some other way useful, they should be always up and comparable to imps. Right now they are more comparable to brawl but with a much longer cooldown. And having downtime for such a milquetoast effect is inexcusable.

 

Gleam seems to be hitting pretty reliably. But in doing no damage, it is worthless against those mobs that just ignore your attempts to mezz them. And without the real Phantom Army there is no way to keep them off you so you end up having to run away again, and again, and again. Not to mention a huge endurance cost and a long cool down for very little aid in not dying.

 

Did I say no damage? That’s wrong. It does just enough single digit damage to ensure the mobs can find you with your invis up.

 

Spectral Terror also does a great job at slowly doing nothing. And that works great on a controller with many other ways to stay safe and chip away at a group. If mobs live through the dom terror, they will just come over and beat you to death, and with no way at all to distract them, you are just waiting to die. Or you could run away… again.

 

Its like the whole set is designed to do nothing. Everything in it should be doing damage with the possible exception of Deceive. PA should either be constant companions or they should taunt to make their downtime, and the long chase to shorten that downtime, worth clicking on the icon.

 

Its like they ported the controller playstyle over to dom without any of the safety and in compensation for the loss of that safety, they added a barrel full of nerfs to ensure the new abilities did not become even remotely useful.

 

As if dominator play is supposed to be you running out of instances to save your own life over and over.

 

But that’s just my experience of it.

 

Maybe you have had a more positive encounter with the power set?

 

Does it just need a specific damage secondary such that it can essentially tag along as a dead-weight “primary”?

 

Is it a late bloomer that only becomes useful once you are an incarnate with everything maxed?

 

Am I just an uncultured philistine who lacks the ability to appreciate a set as … “subtle” and Illusion seems to be on dom.

 

What do you think?

 

 

Hello, I'm the CEO of Illusion Control on Dominators. I am the beggar that whined really hard about it, and often enough, that I totally got devs who've had people whining about it for years before I even knew this game existed to make it for me. That's the story of my rise to power, I'm basically Gary Gecko, but for Illusion Control (Dominator Version™️)

Your complaints are valid to your experience, but I would want to know how you're playing the set in general. My personal finding is that it's not very good at actually "controlling" enemies.

 

Like, when I look at a set I like to use Mind Control as the baseline comparison, how that set plays, what it's strengths are, and how it compares to the set I'm currently playing. For me, Illusion Control for doms lacks a lot of "agency" with hits controls. I can't name a single primary on the class that REALLY relies on pets for its controls -- Illusion Control is also lacking in its variety OF controls. You have about as many as Gravity control but not nearly the same utility or damage potential, which is understandable because not all these things should feel the same, but it does leave Illusion Control in a strange spot. Leveling it, is an arduous process. It's main gimmick is "stealth confusion" which is the main gimmick of it's controller counterpart until Phantom Army becomes its gimmick. Gleam is kinda pitiful too, not ONLY does it have a heavy end cost, not ONLY is it's CD as long as Wormhole (Gravity Control) and LONGER than Mass Hypnosis (Mind Control) but it's ALSO got a base accuracy of .80? Like, sure it hits Psychic Defense so it's more accurate than it seems since psy is a "rare" defense, but it's NOT a great power. You rely VERY heavily on Blind (a very GOOD power), Decieve (a very standar power) and Spectral Terror (a very NICHE power) early on, and once you get phantom army going you're very much relying on that despite it being such a painstakingly long CD to rely on, and i feel the lack of a taunt in exchange for MORE attack powers on them wasn't a good call. Not only that, but you're waiting a LONG time for Flash. Controllers get that at level 6, Doms get it at LEVEL 22! You are dead ass nearly halfway through the life of the character before you get an AoE hold.

 

With all that in mind, I will say that Illusion Control feels like the only set designed with "Perma Dom" and "proc monsters" in mind. No other set feels like it NEEDS the kind of global CD building for Perma Dom to be effective, but Illusion Control does. I'm not in the heads of the devs, but i'd argue it's why Gleam has such a painful cool down for such a neglible control effect. The idea is that 1.5 minute CD is going to be reduced by 5 LotGs and Haste, and it's control is going to be buffed perpetually by your Domination before you even touch whatever enhancements you wanna stick in it... which will ideally all be procs so you can turn it into an AoE bomb.

Because once you REACH the world of the "finished build" for Illusion Control it's pretty good, Gleam's long CD becomes a boon in making it a proc monster, and that pitiful damage number is spiked right up, and since once you have domination active the stun is MUCH more reliable. This is true for all your controls, the few of them you DIRECTLY get -- which is why I feel like the set seems weaker, youre controls are MOSTLY coming from your pets, Phantom Army even has a "sleeps" to replace its normal Taunt effects, which should probably be Stuns given how damage focused Doms are (you're liable to break the sleep on ACCIDENT before you even realize it's taken effect).

I feel it's a set that demands a more aggressive and mindful playstyle, not a more passive natural one. My Ill/MA and my Ill/PA doms are very fun to play (the psy assult one is FUNNER to play but that's because Drain Psyche and Subdue are GREAT additions to that help Illusion Control, and Illusion Control is a set that DOES NOT benefit as heavily to Build Up type powers as other Dominator primaries) and I couldnt be more aggressive with them if I tried. I know a LOT of people play Dominators as Controllers (in that they forego ALL melee powers and JUST play controll powers with a few ranged tools) which is fine, but NOT good for this primary, you don't have ENOUGH controls to reliably keep groups on lockdown, so the groups you DO mez NEED to die before you move onto the next one, and more "unnaturally" you REALLY need to choose your targets mindfully.

 

Like, I don't want it to sound like "ur brain is 2 small for this class :v]" because any class that requires mindful target consideration and active aggressive play is a class that will always feel worse than a class that can do anything it wants and everything works out.

Like, on my MC/EA dom, I don't need to care. I can mez anything and everything from a distance, then blast and smash whatever. It's well equipped for whatever situation it finds itself in, everything I do works all the time, everytime, unless the thing im trying to mez is in their "You literally can't mez me, im invulnerable to mez, my anti-mez numbers are so high right now because fuck you solo control class, you should have been a Tanker you stupid idiot lol now die" mode.

 

My Illusion Controll doms can't do that. They have a specific order of operations, they have a specific targeting order I need to play to, they need to use all the tools at their disposal to clear packs as efficiently as they can to make the most of their momentum and they need to constantly maintain that momentum, otherwise it's goign to mean a LOT of boring downtime as we get set up again. I believe this is fundamentally because Illusion Control relies very heavily on its pets who don't see the same buffs you get from Domination, and this comes at the cost of your personal control powers, which in turn costs you the player in the "feel" of the class. Like, you can play a Minc Control dominator and never ever feel "weak'. You don't NEED perma dom, you don't even need enhancements to make that primary feel like it's missing something. I know this because I played a dominator without enhancements and perma dom from 1-50. I can say that about a lot of Dominator primaries. I can not say it about Illusion Control.

 

But, i wouldn't say that means Illusion Control is "bad". Like, Kinetic Melee is bad. Mercenaries are bad. Sonic Blast is bad. These are powersets whose only redeeming qualities are that with enough people their faults won't hold back the group. Illusion Control is more in the realm of Traps or Radiation Emission, where it's a set that's pretty good but requires you to play in a different way to really feel like it's not garbage.

[luxlorica]

I see you saying that aggression is the key but, in my limited experience, that key only opens the hospital door.

 

Mobs will ignore the three decoy blasters lighting it up to get a shot at YOU. There is no way that they would know that you are the only important solo target on the whole map, its just broken clock syndrome that the one action the bad guys will always take just happens to be the exact perfect option to totally neutralize you.

 

My play-style is everything, pour it on. Is there something not on cool down? Fire it. No saving for a special occasion, no waiting for a rainy day, everyone out on the field and all activations go go go.

 

That might invite the idea that there is a certain chess game that should be played, a labyrinthine clockwork of options to be threaded with deep-blue precision. But if that is indeed the case, then good luck to the other 99% playing the archetype.

 

And lets talk about sleeps for a moment. In the current, massive AOE, thermonuclear damage-centric game, where do sleeps have even the vaguest place besides on a museum shelf in the hall of used-to-have-been?

 

And its not like the devs don’t know the state of the game. So why in the world would anyone replace a taunt with a sleep unless the idea is to compete for most cursed nerf.

 

I shouldn’t give the devs too much static. I want to encourage the act of moving forward creatively and offering player endorsed content. Many of the offering have been great and well thought out.

 

This one, however, has the flavor of “just show up” on it.

 

But then again, maybe its me.

 

Maybe I am expecting something that dominators are not.

 

I have controllers that routinely maul 1x8 and 2x8 dressed in nothing more than end-reduction IOs at 20. This dom couldn’t fight its way out of a wet -1x3 with half again more levels.

 

But perhaps that is how they are supposed to be. Dainty, risk averse, ready to run at the first red numbers.

 

Maybe I am playing them wrong to expect to stand and fight, thinking that my whole bar should be enough to inconvenience the mobs.

 

Maybe I am the drama. That could be.

 

EDIT --------------------------

 

You know, all my damage set picks are ranged. Is that problematic? Should I be Blapping?

 

Didn't think about that until jut now but I notice that the ranged powers do a lot less damage than the melee powers.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by luxlorica

[twozerofoxtrot]

I just want to say you guys are really killing it with the opening statement on your posts.  Very entertaining, please keep it up.

[serxiom]

5 hours ago, Dragotect said:

This, however, just feels par for the course as far as my experience with doms go. They really suck at soloing, teaming, controlling, and DPS until you can get them fully geared with sets.

Well it looks you dont have good experience building and playing Dominators. Im sure you can use your mouse and keyboard and search through the Dominators forum for all the great things players achieved with this AT. So your statement of "Dominators sucks" is just a personal appreciation from someone that doesnt understand whats the reach, limits and the role of a Dominator.

Any AT in game will underperform if is not fully geared or doesnt use IO set bonusses, it has been like that since Issue 7. Welcome to CoX!

 

5 hours ago, Dragotect said:

Not only that, but I swear just one dominator on a TF adds 5 minutes to the complete time because they AoE immobilize too soon- making all those tighter, more damaging AoEs from blasters/melee 50% less effective- and simply cannot make up the damage lost this way

 

Tankers suck too because they pull aggro more than the team can handle. And defenders sucks too beacuse they dont heal me often as i need it. Oh Controllers suck too because Fluffy goes crazy on the lose pulling more mobs over and over... and so on and on. 

 

Is all about the player behind the keyboard, not the archetype. Some people play better rolling a Blaster than a Tanker is just like that. Sorry you cant handle people doing "wrong" stuff in a game, but thats the way an MMOs are. If i was you ill invest those 5 lost minutes due a Noob Dominator explaining to your team players how to play their characters and when and how to drop their powers as you like, otherwise kick them out. No one wants to lose 5 minutes... in 5 minutes dinosaurs got extinct, Marty Mc Fly went back to 1955 and Will Smith lost his career slaping Chris Rock in the Oscars.

 

5 hours ago, Dragotect said:

Doms, in my opinion, are the absolute worst archetype in the game because everything they do is done better by the other ones.

 

I will put my poor forum career and reputation in jeopardy here: Can Controllers hold, stun, lock, fear etc.. better than a Dominator? Dominators cant tank, cant be top DPS, cant heal your team and cant buff/debuff as defenders. We got that down. So are we going to start to compare Dominators against different classes to get to your conclusion? In my next Dominator i need to aim to Resist cap instead recharge bonusses then try to Tank a 4 star ITF and get to your same point of view? 

 

5 hours ago, Dragotect said:

They're either blasters without the burst damage to bring down enemies before enemies bring you down or controllers without the support to survive a battle of attrition

 

An here is the proof: Dominators are not blasters and are not Controllers. As i said above: you never understood this archetype. Sorry you hate Dominators so bad (i feel you... MM in caves make me feel the same) but people like me enjoy the AT since CoV release. I could spent lines and lines writing all the great things i did with my Doms through the years, but to be honest i dont want you to lose other 5 minutes in hand of other silly Dominator again.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by serxiom

[Spaghetti Betty]

3 hours ago, luxlorica said:

You know, all my damage set picks are ranged. Is that problematic? Should I be Blapping?

Yes!

 

Go mix it up with your Decoys. They are meant to aid in your DPS, not do the DPS for you.

 

Drop PA in the middle of a mob, let the mob react to them, hit Gleam, and get in there.

[luxlorica]

47 minutes ago, serxiom said:

Sorry you hate Dominators so bad

I think it is called criticism with reason.

 

I don’t see any statements to the effect of “Its Bad”. What I see is “its bad because…” and then some reasons.

 

If you don’t think the reasons are valid, those would be good places to add your own comments possible refuting that view.

 

But “if you don’t like then you are bad” isn’t really a participating statement. Consider addressing their points rather than dismissing them just because.

 

3 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Drop PA in the middle of a mob, let the mob react to them, hit Gleam, and get in there.

Ding dern rassin frassin. I should have guessed that. Well I do have a respec or two, lets see what some punchy punchy action yields. 🙂

 

[serxiom]

11 minutes ago, luxlorica said:

I think it is called criticism with reason.

Crticism with reason is: Illusion set lacks of control because there is not enough tools in the powerset. 

Criticism without a reason is: Dominators sucks because they cant do what Blasters do and also cant perform as Controllers.

 

If we are having a serious discussion about this dont start with the "Dominators sucks" deal, because there is a large threads with videos proofing the opposite.  

 

So if you are standing in a Dominator without IOs and lacking of build plan for short/long term to the road to 50 of course you will have a negative crticism about the AT more if you solo through content. All you need is a plan and goals for your build if you want to maximize your character. If you dont have the inf always can team up and have a smooth journey to max level.  

When i leveled my Ill/Ice i got a plan to buy IOs every 7-10 levels. By Lvl 40 was in perma-dom sricking to my planned build. I had hardtimes trying to solo EBs and also trying to run +3 missons. I got some visits to hospital as well but nothing that makes me think that Illusion is broken or at the bottom of other powersets. Is a trade: you got more DPS than Control. The set requires you to approach different than Dark, Plant etc. Illusion calls for agressive playing., this set is just different than the rest. Bottom line is you can like or dislike the set but i find it useful when more DPS and soft control is required for some content. 

 

 

 

[luxlorica]

4 hours ago, serxiom said:

If we are having a serious discussion about this dont start with the "Dominators sucks" deal,

A method of writing, often used in journalism, is to start with a synopsis styled statement and then unpack or elaborate that statement in further exploration of the topic.

 

So if you see an opening statement that seems overly declarative, try reading a little further. There may by additional paragraphs that expand that thought and explore reasoning around the premise.

 

5 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Drop PA in the middle of a mob, let the mob react to them, hit Gleam, and get in there.

So yeah, this is working out better than I thought. I am still a delicate little flower but so much more effective throwing hands rather than scowls. Now I need to look at the whole Archetype to see how best to use this new found knowledge.

I still think Illusion is a bit overly scavenged, but leaning on the melee portions of the damage set really helps.

Thank you  @Spaghetti Betty 🙂

[serxiom]

21 minutes ago, luxlorica said:

There may by additional paragraphs that expand that thought and explore reasoning around the premise.

 

Ok.. so you got a build for your Dominator we can look at and see what you running? Or we are going to make a thread about spelling and grammar?

[luxlorica]

1 hour ago, serxiom said:

so you got a build for your Dominator

I DID, but now I have  to re-figure and refactor. Now I have a loose collection of notes to throw away and revisit the idea of being involved in melee and how to best manage that. My selection of a damage set suddenly becomes very serious.

Indeed I only know of two or three with anything like a heal in it. Would I be a fool to pass them by? I am understanding the other times I have seen other doms with  Rad Assault. Now I get it. But is it that important? Psi has a big heal too if you can catch a crowd in it. Life Drain, as well.

I must rethink my methodology Holmes. I must revisit those paths I once dismissed so casually.

🤔

[serxiom]

Besides Rad you got /Dark got a good heal /Savage as well. Probably i would pick /Dark for the -to hit inherent that helps a lot. Think about it

[Six-Six]

Really? I've been waiting for Illusion to be ported to Doms, and ever since it has, I've been having a blast. A little too much in fact that I had to dial it down a tad because I found it too OP in the lower levels that it didn't pose much of a challenge. It was either that or dial up the notoriety settings way up... but then I'd be gaining XP too fast that I out-level contacts left and right.

Maybe you're trying to judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree. Personally, I take the dom primaries for pure control and not expect much damage from them. Nice if they do, but I rely on secondaries to bring the pain. In the early levels, I was quite happy with just Blind, Deceive and Superior Invis. Even when I got Phantom Army, I ended up not relying on too much and just having it as my Oh Crap power or as a tactic for EBs and AVs.

Or maybe it's just me.
(note that I'm on hardcore rules and while I did die... once... the only thing that killed me was getting mapserved and logging back in dead)

[MoonSheep]

if you’re feeling underwhelmed and want to experience a top tier dominator give mind/fire/ice or plant/energy/soul a go on test, the two unmatched kings 👑

[Spaghetti Betty]

7 hours ago, luxlorica said:

Indeed I only know of two or three with anything like a heal in it. Would I be a fool to pass them by? I am understanding the other times I have seen other doms with  Rad Assault. Now I get it. But is it that important? Psi has a big heal too if you can catch a crowd in it. Life Drain, as well.

Don't forget about Epic Pools. Ice Mastery has Hoarfrost and Hibernate. On my Ill/Sav I ended up taking the entire pool because every power is useful. Just an idea that could open up your options.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Spaghetti Betty

[Sir Myshkin]

20 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Drop PA in the middle of a mob, let the mob react to them, hit Gleam, and get in there.

I read this and suddenly all I could think of was having a polyamorous relationship with my Phantom Army 🤣

[Spaghetti Betty]

11 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

I read this and suddenly all I could think of was having a polyamorous relationship with my Phantom Army 🤣

Well, I do have to say my clones are pretty attractive.

[smnolimits43]

Alright, while i'm waiting for a reply on my Fire/Fire Dom, i will way in.  I've tried a couple of Illusion/Ice, and Illusion/Sonic Doms.  I'm thinking of rolling a Illusion/Energy Dom and seeing if i can get to lvl 50 or higher. I prefer single target Doms to AoE Doms.  You know what i'm gonna go lvl that Dom right now.