Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #37: First Degree Assault (a discussion of Dominator Assault sets)

[SeraphimKensai]

Welcome back folks for another week.

This week's discussion should round out our revolving conversation regarding powersets as we focus on assault sets.

 

Dominator's Assault sets are a fairly unique animal being a hybrid of melee and ranged. Which assault sets do you enjoy playing? Are there any you don't care for? What do you think about only select sets having access to an in set form of power boosts? Do the ones without access to a power boost have something that balances out the fact they miss out on it? Are there any particular synergies between these assault sets and the various primary control sets that you enjoy making use of?

 

As always thanks.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I think all the Assault sets are really cool and interesting. Savage Assault is easily my favorite. I think the thing I like the least about them is that they're tied to Dominators.

[Clave Dark 5]

I'll have to be sure and watch this thread, I just made a new Dom without thinking about it too much and I'm a bit disappointed now.  I was hoping for something leaning more into the melee, but Dark wasn't it.  I've about done Savage Assault to death, much as I love it, and had an Energy, so might reroll with that.

[honoroit]

thorny. it has diversity of powers, toxic dots, and you can skip thorntrops and the ripper cone.

 

for melee on dom: earth assault is hard to beat. pairs well with elec, or fire, or illusion... or anything favoring pbaoe.

 

sonic assault is alright. but earth you can put a lot of force feedbacks in, making permadom easier to achieve.

 

i wrote a guide, just look for the tag you'd think of: #honoroitisfantastic

 

[SeraphimKensai]

At this point I've played earth, thorny, psi, fire, ice, dark, martial, energy and savage up to 50 on homecoming. Dominators were kinda my jam when CoV first launched.

• Psi is built around drain psyche, and has been one of the best assault sets for years. I like to pair this with Elec or FIre.
• savage is a ton of fun and more effective than i had originally anticipated. Paired with Illusion for me.
• Thorny is a better version of spines imo since it does defense debuff as opposed to slow, but i wish its buildup was replaced with toxins because it makes thematic sense. Concept toon paired with Dark Control, it works fairly well but not big syngery.
• ice offers good mitigation but i wish it had a bit more aoe damage. Paired with Ice Control, so maybe I'm missing damage due to the primary as well.
• dark is decent for pushing harder content as the tohitebuff does help the whole team (even though its heavily resisted on advanced difficulty stuff), but a heal and a powerboost is nice. I paired this with symphony and it works pretty well.
• earth has some nice single target, but i wish mudpots and tremor were swapped and then tremor given some more damage. I paired with plant and didn't look back, its a bit end heavy.
• fire was my first assault set way back when i ran my gravity/fire dominator Ravenscar on Pinnacle. I just wish embrace of fire had a lower base CD than 3 minutes.
• energy is kinda interesting on a domi as you can imob your target and then lay into them with bonesmasher/tf. Honestly most energy attacks look good visually and it works well with various themes. I paired with fire control for a concept of an evocation wizard from d&d that got transported into CoH.
• martial for me seemed to underperform compared to others. This one is a mind/martial where the concept was a psychic ninja but it ended up looking like ant man and fighting with a wet pool noodle.

That all said assault sets across the board have a fairly significant amount of light damage attacks. from my experience it seems that most people i know avoid domis the most out of any AT after HEATS, but that's a pretty small sample size.

[Uun]

I've taken Dark, Earth, Martial and Psi to 50 and have a Savage at 34. 

• Dark has a lot of utility with power boost and a self-heal. Wish it had a better ranged AoE than Nightfall. 
• Earth Assault is essentially Stone Melee (Fissure > Fault) and hits like a freight train. So much fun.
• Martial doesn't really have enough melee attacks and has a better flow at range. I cycle the 4 Shuriken attacks. The only ranged AoE is Trick Shot and Explosive Shuriken is really a ST attack. (I'd like to see more chain damage attacks added to the game.) The toxic DoT from Envenomed Blades is garbage and is only useful for the +tohit. Caltrops is on theme but is weak for a T7 and doesn't add anything to the set.
• Psi is a very solid set and works well at range or in melee. I'd like to see the duration (and recharge) of Drain Psyche increased. It feels like I'm constantly having to refresh it.
• I like the ranged attacks on Savage but I find the melee attacks underwhelming. Feral Charge is fun, but it doesn't do enough damage for a T9.

[UltraAlt]

17 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Which assault sets do you enjoy playing?

 

I've made characters with Dark, Martial Arts, Savage, and Thorny.

I have enjoyed playing all of these.

I might have character with other assault sets, but I can't remember offhand.

 

The Dark as for a Dark team.

The Martial arts one was for a ninja. Shuriken! 

Thorny for a variation on the first CoH character I ever made that came from a villains Champions game in the late 1980-early 1990s.

The Savage one I made because someone suggested it after I was making a petless beast mastermind just to get the bird attack powers.

 

argh, now I'm looking at my character spreadsheet.

I also made a radiation, psionics, earth, and ice.

 

17 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Are there any you don't care for?

 

Not that I have tried so far.

 

I have a lot of characters at this point, so I'm trying just to make characters when I get a character conception in my head at this point instead of trying to make character conceptions for every powerset that I haven't made a character for yet.

 

So after looking at the spreadsheet it looks like I haven't made a Energy, Fiery or Sonic dominator yet.

 

17 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

What do you think about only select sets having access to an in set form of power boosts? Do the ones without access to a power boost have something that balances out the fact they miss out on it?

 

Never noticed. I work with what I have access to.

 

17 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Are there any particular synergies between these assault sets and the various primary control sets that you enjoy making use of?

 

Since I'm a character conception player, I'm not so much looking for synergy as much trying to stay aligned to my vision of the character.

 

The Plant one is plant/thorny. Obviously, entirely plant themed.

The Ninja one is dark/martial. The ninjas come out at night.

The Dark team on is dark/dark.

The Bird attack one is a gravity/savage. Seriously, it does fit with the character conception.