honoroitisfantastic POLL: Dominator - best of AT 2023

[honoroit]

POLL: Dominator - best of AT

 

- best primary

 

- best secondary

 

- best epic power pool

 

¡you can choose however you like!

• Most Effective Tactic Available
• My favorite
• My desert island power picks
• If there could be only 1

[honoroit]

tough to choose, I went with symphony / fire / mace

 - symphony is damagey, has great cones, and the pet echo adds a LOT of magnitude

 - fire is fire, and has fire breath

 - mace has 2 proc monsters

 

also, and very close or equally good:

 - elec / earth / leviathan --- so good, even with sleep patch not benefiting from domination

 - plant / thorn / leviathan --- mhm

 - fire / savage / mace --- also damagey

[Thrax]

On 9/16/2023 at 10:20 AM, honoroit said:

POLL: Dominator - best of AT

 

- best primary

 

- best secondary

 

- best epic power pool

 

¡you can choose however you like!

• Most Effective Tactic Available
• My favorite
• My desert island power picks
• If there could be only 1

 

I like the polls.  What is the gif from though?  

 

[Snokle]

13 hours ago, Thrax said:

 

I like the polls.  What is the gif from though?  

 

 

If I would guess the Monogatari series

[honoroit]

its figs

 

also Figs, the part timer

[Snokle]

20 hours ago, honoroit said:

 

its figs

 

 

also Figs, the part timer

I mean yes it could be Lucifer, but Aragagi was my first idea.

 

For the Poll, Plant is probably the best imo, then Psi, probably Psi for epic as well.

 

I have my my dom combo I love the most probably is my ice/psi dom.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Dr_Snokle

[Frosticus]

While my main dom is earth/psi/psi I voted earth/psi/soul

 

Earth stands out as an aoe control set with fast cast times. While its single target control is less than many others (slow hold, no confuse) the pet can control AV's... which is pretty unique and probably more useful.

Psi cause drain psyche is just a big step up in so many situations

Soul because soul drain is really good on an AT that lacks many good sources of tohit and damage buffing and dark obliteration.

[MoonSheep]

interesting that psi mastery is so popular despite being a dreadful choice for dominators

[honoroit]

15 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

interesting that psi mastery is so popular despite being a dreadful choice for dominators

 

hm, it's quite excellent, in skilled hands!

 

mind probe - ludicrously quick, hard hitting, and works well against things that have a psi hole, many do... just people complain psi+bots.

tk thrust - a gtf off me power, also hits hard and fast

 

mental blast - solid damage, recharge debuff effect

 

psychic scream - see that group immob, scream a fan over all of them.

 

drain psyche - good recovery / sustain, lasts for a bit.

 

psi lance - pew

 

psi shockwave - quickly recharging, quick casting. does job, has disorient (works well with earth staligmites, or symphony, or dark).

 

---> whats better? thorns! or maybe savage.

 

 

 

• Level
  Available
  Power
  Name
  Short
  Help
• 1
  Mind Probe
  Melee, High DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 1
  Psionic Dart
  Ranged, Light DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 4
  Telekinetic Thrust
  Melee, Moderate DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knockback
• 10
  Mental Blast
  Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 16
  Psychic Scream
  Ranged (Cone), Light DMG(Psionic), Foe -Recharge
• 20
  Drain Psyche
  PBAoE Foe -Regen, -Recovery; Self +Regen, +Recovery
• 24
  Subdue
  Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe Immobilize
• 28
  Psionic Lance
  Sniper, Extreme DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 30
  Psychic Shockwave
  PBAoE, Light DMG(Psionic), Foe Disorient -Recharge

 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by honoroit

[MoonSheep]

10 minutes ago, honoroit said:

 

hm, it's quite excellent, in skilled hands!

 

mind probe - ludicrously quick, hard hitting, and works well against things that have a psi hole, many do... just people complain psi+bots.

tk thrust - a gtf off me power, also hits hard and fast

 

mental blast - solid damage, recharge debuff effect

 

psychic scream - see that group immob, scream a fan over all of them.

 

drain psyche - good recovery / sustain, lasts for a bit.

 

psi lance - pew

 

psi shockwave - quickly recharging, quick casting. does job, has disorient (works well with earth staligmites, or symphony, or dark).

 

---> whats better? thorns! or maybe savage.

 

 

 

• Level
  Available
  Power
  Name
  Short
  Help
• 1
  Mind Probe
  Melee, High DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 1
  Psionic Dart
  Ranged, Light DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 4
  Telekinetic Thrust
  Melee, Moderate DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knockback
• 10
  Mental Blast
  Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 16
  Psychic Scream
  Ranged (Cone), Light DMG(Psionic), Foe -Recharge
• 20
  Drain Psyche
  PBAoE Foe -Regen, -Recovery; Self +Regen, +Recovery
• 24
  Subdue
  Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe Immobilize
• 28
  Psionic Lance
  Sniper, Extreme DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge
• 30
  Psychic Shockwave
  PBAoE, Light DMG(Psionic), Foe Disorient -Recharge

 

 

 

 

psi mastery 🙂

 

whilst we’re in discussion i do also think psi assault on doms is quite forgettably average thesedays. it used to be S tier on live. but now it’s not bad, not good, just there doing its thing

 

i think it remains a popular choice because of how good it used to be 

 

i suppose for context on my position, i play fire assault and like quick, high end damage. energy assault also appealing for the same reason

[EnjoyTheJourney]

The OP is on to something when saying that it's hard to pick "best" powersets for dominators. They can all play quite differently according to which controls they best support, whether they're better at single target or AOE damage, and the extent to which they can buff allies or debuff enemies. The masteries can provide quite different defensive tools, as well. 

 

In the end, different players tend to assign different value to the controls a set brings to the table, to single target vs AOE damage, to burst vs sustained damage, to the amount and kind of defenses powersets offer, and to the buffs / debuffs available. A lot also hinges on how well specific primaries, secondaries, and masteries mesh together. Another non-trivial influence on choices is the kind of content players like to run (a solo AV hunter vs an endgame teaming speedster vs always-on-a-budget players). And this probably isn't an exhaustive list of significant differences in what players might value when ranking powersets. 

I chose earth / ice / psi for my picks. Earth offers strong AOE controls and valuable debuffs, making it my favorite primary. Ice is my (new) favorite secondary, although radioactive is a very close second choice for that. Ice offers a good balance between AOE and single target damage when key powers are proc'd up, power up enhances defense totals and damage, and chilling embrace is a strong and versatile power. There are some really good synergies with certain other sets for the ice secondary, as well. For example, the movement and recharge debuffs in the ice secondary pair well with knockdown fields such as earthquake. Psi mastery is unique in what it offers, so it's fairly predictable that views about it are split. I like everything about psi mastery other than the AOE damage pick, which offers strangely low DPS for such a long cast time. The confusion aura more than makes up for the bad AOE damage spell, though, and because it takes zero cast time to do its thing it's easy to underestimate its value in both keeping a dominator alive and in speeding up spawn deletion. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Frosticus]

On 9/23/2023 at 4:52 AM, MoonSheep said:

 

 

psi mastery 🙂

 

whilst we’re in discussion i do also think psi assault on doms is quite forgettably average thesedays. it used to be S tier on live. but now it’s not bad, not good, just there doing its thing

 

i think it remains a popular choice because of how good it used to be 

 

i suppose for context on my position, i play fire assault and like quick, high end damage. energy assault also appealing for the same reason

Psi mastery makes a lot of sense as it rounds out builds with 2 lotg spots, reliable ffb, more defense, outstanding psi protection and as I demonstrated in various vids - woc is really good for melee doms.

 

It is a good overall package that leans more toward protection.

 

Psi Assault is still standing tall. What it lost in the psw nerf it gained back in the quick snipe. Shifting its focus from aoe powerhouse to decent at everything. Psw still hits 16 targets and retains top spot for pbaoes as the others only hit 10...it is also a control power in and of itself.

 

Subdue is one of the best ranged options for the +dam ATO and is an easy 2-3x stack

 

Drain psyche remains the best sustain by a landslide, so if that is important to the player there is little else in contention. 

 

There are lots of good choices. I love /fiery for single target ranged as that is utility in and of itself. I lament the lack of ato slotting though as it restricts primary choice (for me) . It is very different from the tankiness of /psi, or the chain teleporting and aoe mayhem of savage.

 

 

[Thraxen]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:53 AM, Dr_Snokle said:

I mean yes it could be Lucifer, but Aragagi was my first idea.

 

For the Poll, Plant is probably the best imo, then Psi, probably Psi for epic as well.

 

I have my my dom combo I love the most probably is my ice/psi dom.

ice/psi/psi is only dom I’ve enjoyed and gotten all 50 and IO’d and stuff. It’s super fun. Confuses the hell out of everything, and bac basically tank. 

[Snokle]

9 hours ago, Thraxen said:

ice/psi/psi is only dom I’ve enjoyed and gotten all 50 and IO’d and stuff. It’s super fun. Confuses the hell out of everything, and bac basically tank. 

 

Yeah, I have played around a lot with different epics for the build, but I always fall back to /Psi epic. I feel with Ice it gives a little bit of everything to round out the build. With the buffs to Artic Air getting Domination bonus now, it is magical.

[Snokle]

10 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Psi mastery makes a lot of sense as it rounds out builds with 2 lotg spots, reliable ffb, more defense, outstanding psi protection and as I demonstrated in various vids - woc is really good for melee doms.

 

It is a good overall package that leans more toward protection.

 

Fully agree with this on Psi Mastery, it is a great swiss knife for layered defense protection. The Res shield is fantastic for S/L/Psi which favors melee Doms as resistance is godly I feel for Doms. Early Mez protection while building first hit of Dom is great. The Mind Link for a nice bonus of +Def and +to-hit, which will usually sit around 25-30% def with IOs adding on the great Res you have, makes you quite tanky. Also Psi Tornado has great mitigation with KD effects which helps more for the soft-lock.

 

Also slapping 7.5 LotGx2 into two low slot powers is amazing.

[honoroit]

so... fire control. any good? i keep wanting hot feet to be amazing. not sure.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Fire control is very good for players who want a dominator that does high damage. The fast animating hold can be proc'd up for very high single target damage and hot feet can contribute 150+ hit points of AOE damage every 10 seconds or thereabouts. Fire cages can also do a noticeable amount of damage when spammed, particularly if the unique ATO IO that does damage is slotted into it. With an assault set that can do very high single target damage, such as radioactive assault, earth assault, savage assault, energy assault or fiery assault, you can end up with a dominator that plays like a higher end DPS character. 

Regarding controls, the one control power that fire control has which outshines similar powers in other sets is bonfire. It's up more often than other, similar powers in other dominator control sets and it does more damage. Every other control power it has is either similar in its ability to control mobs or at least somewhat inferior to similar powers in other sets. It doesn't have a confuse power, either, which is sometimes highly valuable. 

 

One reason why fire control was selected so seldom in the poll could be that if somebody wants to do superior AOE damage, which fire control is quite good at supporting, then plant control shines above all other sets for that (including fire control). If single target damage is the focus then mind control is highly competitive with fire control for that and mind control also offers more consistently effective AOE controls than fire control. If AOE controls are the focus then earth control substantially outshines fire control, especially with stalagmites being quite noticeably better than flashfire. 

Edit: As a thought to finish up, fire control functions absolutely fine in-game. The game isn't difficult enough to make it important to maximize everything and if a character concept calls for fire control as the primary of choice there's no reason to shy away from choosing it. Somebody may quite reasonably really enjoy how fire control feels when it plays and that's more than enough reason to pick it. 

If fire control shines at any one thing, it would be that in a single build it can support noticeably higher than usual AOE damage for a dominator and it can also support top tier single target damage. Plant dominators will generally do noticeably less single target damage than fire control dominators. Mind control dominators effectively have good "burst" AOE through the periodic use of mass confusion and the use of terrify. But, mind control offers noticeably lower sustained AOE than fire control because of hot feet and fire cages. 

Edited September 30, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Frosticus]

50 minutes ago, honoroit said:

so... fire control. any good? i keep wanting hot feet to be amazing. not sure.

It's fine. I like it more for controllers because a lot of the set is tied up in fire imps contributing damage. They get the same imps and have tools to make them excel much more.

 

That said, I enjoy my fire/fire/fire dom. It can do a lot of single target damage with +dam ATO in procd char and high uptime of fiery embrace. The aoe controls tend to be too slow for my liking, so I enjoy it on high con/low team size settings.

[Uun]

14 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

mind control also offers more consistently effective AOE controls than fire control

I play both sets and feel the opposite is true. Mind's AoE controls are sleep, hold, fear and confuse (plus Telekinesis, which has a 10-ft radius and 5-target max). Because the confuse is on a 4-minute recharge and sleep is situational at best in a team setting, Mind relies heavily on the fear (which is on a 40-second recharge). While the fear has a long duration, it doesn't prevent foes from attacking and is resisted by some factions. 

 

Fire's AoE controls are immobilize, stun, hold and knockdown, with the stun on a 90-second recharge and the knockdown on a 60-second recharge. Stun is more consistently effective as it prevents foes from attacking (and when combined with immobilize essentially becomes a hold). Unless you're facing flyers or resistant foes, knockdown patches are also very effective. The key, however, is that Fire has more uptime on its AoE controls.

 

 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

If you strongly value moment-to-moment availability for AOE controls then fire control is ahead of mind control. But, just as fear is ignored by some mobs, stun is resisted by some key mobs (ie: Nemesis once vengeance engages), as well as knockdown (ie: Cims can be effectively immune to both knockdown and stun unless they're applied ahead of when they buff up). Also, mass confusion has such a long duration that you can follow it up with confuse on a variety of types of EBs and they will tend be confused. For example, in a little over 10 seconds a mind control dom can confuse several EBs in the EB / general spawn in mission 3 of the ITF by casting mass confusion on them and then following up with confuse. A lot of EBs and even many AVs can be affected by confuse, while stun and knockdown are frequently not useful against such mobs. Both the single target and AOE sleep in mind control can be situationally very useful.

 

The variety of tools available to mind gives mind doms at least something they can effectively do against the clear majority of mob types. Fire control can have all of its AOE controls, except perhaps fire cages, become ineffective against certain enemy types. 

 

In the end, it feels more limiting to have no AOE controls beyond perhaps an AOE immobilize that can be used effectively against a variety of mob types than it does to have to carefully consider when to use AOE controls that are available. YMMV. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Ringo]

How is the new kid on the block - Illusion Control - working out for Dominators?  Is PermaDom less impressive?

[honoroit]

6 minutes ago, Ringo said:

How is the new kid on the block - Illusion Control - working out for Dominators?  Is PermaDom less impressive?

 

so the pa dont taunt. them doing that meant you use them like a temporary tank and solid opener, as controller illu can.

 

glimmer of flashy beams, or whatever its called is good.

 

doms lose spectral wounds, and have a attack'ey secondary, so that makes sense.  the replacement of spectral wall is crappy.

 

as a dom, Id not recommend illu. youre control light, the fear pet is a pet, so doesnt apply domination mag.  

 

so you lose out imo vs controller, similar mag, a better PA, and a 2ndary up to and including as powerful as dark affinity.

 

obv theres a different focus.

 

if you want damage that still benefits from domination, and gets an echo pet which copues your uses of cc (albeit without dom mag boost, as pet)... check symphony / fire, psi, or the like.

[Frosticus]

11 minutes ago, Ringo said:

How is the new kid on the block - Illusion Control - working out for Dominators?  Is PermaDom less impressive?

It gives up a lot of damage - no spec wounds, Dom PA does much less damage than Troller PA

It gives up the complete small group control that troller PA offers through taunting PA and taunting Phant- Decoy

It gains much better x8 control in gleam, which is a very good ranged stun.

 

Overall your illusions - PA and phant - aren't very convincing compared to the troller versions, but gleam is very pretty.

[biostem]

37 minutes ago, Ringo said:

How is the new kid on the block - Illusion Control - working out for Dominators?  Is PermaDom less impressive?

On the one hand, I like that you have a few more "hard control" powers in the Dominator version, but at the same time, PA, which is widely thought of as the lynchpin of illusion, has been scaled back quite a bit, (IIRC, their damage was lowered, and as @honoroit pointed out, their taunt ability was removed).

Edited October 6, 2023 by biostem

[Frosticus]

Ya, it is even worse than just lower relative damage and no taunt.

The cast times of all their attacks were lengthened, so they can't chain attacks nearly as quickly. They also prefer standing back and throwing water balloons, using melee much less than the troller version. That means less attacks completed when they trigger soulbound buildup, but also less frequent firing of it.

 

There was a lot they could have done to PA, but they did it dirty imo. I think it warranted a different power name.