EDITED-UPDATED - Doing challenging content with Dominators

[Voltak]

City of Heroes is a beloved game indeed.  Since live it won the hearts and mind of many of us.  I am happy it came back to life. 

I know a lot of the game is easy, but especially made much easier since the introduction and further growth and integration of IOs. 

For those of you who would like to challenge yourselves a bit more with Dominators, kudos. 

Dominators are not the easiest Class or AT to play but they are more a finesse type and they reward a more strategic approach.  

They control and damage, rinse and repeat.  The most important factor for their safety being crowd control. 

 

Here are a few ideas to challenge you and it can certainly improve your skills as well. 

1. If you want to team, make your teams small, the smaller they are, the better.  
*** Even in smaller teams, if things get too easy, everyone will have a chance to do something.  
In teams of 8, when things get too easy, some may be doing most or all the engagements and others might do little. 
This is seen a lot when doing radio missions, and you see a team of 8 and they are clearing everything so fast. 
 My suggestion to make things a little bit more edgy is to make the team smaller.  

2. If you want to go at it solo, then increase the number of mobs gradually until you can do the max.  
3. Increase the level of the mobs , gradually until you can comfortably do +4s. 
4.  Little or no inspiration usage. 
5. Little or no usage of temp powers. 

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Eventually work your way towards fighting AVs by yourself. 

Right now, if you do exemp down to do story arcs or task forces , the developers have made it  significantly easier for you.  

You get more powers earlier on. 
You get more slots and more of the benefits of IOs
And, to the levels this applies,  you get your pets much earlier than you could before, very significant. 

So, for example, doing Penelope Yin Task Force is now significant easier to do alone than before. 

Having more slots, having more bonuses/more IOs
Having your pets available 
These things have made it much easier for you

Take advantage of that.  

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NEW SECTION -  SOLOING AVs with dominators. 

Here are a few ideas on how to approach those battles or what strategies to keep in mind when doing this:

1.  Pets - Earth Control 

I did earlier on, way before the changes came to the game on when and how many powers you received as the character levels up, I did some of this.  
When I was doing the AV fights at earlier levels (before 50, but especially lvls 15 and above)  
WE HAD NO ACCESS to pets.  
Then later, when the changes came, you could see players doing those same battles but with a lot more advantages as I mentioned above -- more powers, more IOs, more slots, more bonuses , and pets. 

Having access to pets is an advantage. 
Having access to a PET that DRAWS ALL or ALMOST ALL aggro AWAY FROM YOU is a superior advantage.   That is wha Earth has.  
This makes a hell of a lot easier to fight  a single AV  vs you.  
You won't even need inspirations if all the aggro is taken away from you.  
You will most definitely  need to worry about is taking care of your pet 

Join other groups or other players who seek out hard mode.  
Playing in teams , even smaller teams, is, for many , a whole lot more fun than going solo. 

The kryptonite for Earth is when you are facing more than one AV by yourself.  
Your pet might not help you survive that fight, especially without inspirations or temps. 

This may very well be true in fight with 3 enemies like 1 AV, and 2 Elite bosses vs you.   

2.  Using Dark or Illusion dominators. 

The key here is that you have NO PET that draws aggro away from you.  Illusion for doms is not like Illusion for controllers. 
Players who use Illusion controllers to solo AVs or GMs rely decisively on Phantom Army to get the aggro off the player and Phantom Army soaks the dmg that could potentially kill the controller.   Thus the idea of Earth control above.  

Developers took that taunt power off the Phantom Army for Dominators. 
Phantom Army is still very useful for Dominators.  
It certainly distract AT TIMES the AV and the AV might focus for a bit on them.  

These two dominators will have to rely on making sure they can tank or they have some form of mitigation vs the incoming attacks. 

So when I was soloing, for example, the Carnies AV, I had to tank or mitigate the dmg or attacks that were focused on me , not any of my pets. 
Inspirations were a must, I got no pet to make the AV ignore me. 
The pets are only there to mostly help with DMG and in some very very few times distract the AV.  

So what makes them good for these fights ?   The build, of course, might certainly help for you to tank, but in addition to that, if there are other enemies around, you can posses or confuse those enemies to help you kill the AV.  

That is why Dark, Illusion, and even Mind Dominators have a vast and, perhaps a decisive advantage, over Earth Control in these scenarios of multiple AVs together, or 1 AV and a couple of Elite bosses around.  

You confuse or posses one AV to help kill another AV, or, you posses one Elite Boss to help you kill the AV. 

3. Mind Control --  No one can stack the combinations of holds and confusions faster than a Mind Dominator, and if we talking holds alone, fire control is perhaps the only one that can compete in speed for casting the holds.    But I am going to leave fire out of this since it lacks a confuse power. 
While doing testing vs lvl 54s AVs, we witnessed the speed that a Mind dominator can stack the holds to overcome the purple triangles of protection.   We tested hold, sleep, hold, sleep, hold, sleep, and the number required to reach breach of the triangle in order to permanently hold the AV was acquired far faster than any other dominator could possibly do it, again, leaving Fire out of this discussion.  

But, again, mind can confuse another AV in order to kill some other AV.   I can use an example, not a solo vs AV example,  but to illustrate this point --

4 Dominators doing the ITF at 2 star difficulty.  
Twin fight at part 3.  
The mind Dom and my Dark dominator joined forces to quickly permanently confuse one of the Twins.  
Watching the dmg one of the twins did to the other was awesome, and the other twin quickly died. 

This idea is useful when you want to solo groups of AVs with a dominator that has confuse.  
But Mind has an additional useful instrument ---  Mind Dominator sleeps all AVs, and tackle each AV one by one, or sleep all , then stack the confuse on one of the AVs, then use that AV to kill another.  

The only other Dominator that I know of who has solo'd the  Lord Recluse Strike Force, besides me,  he or she  did it at 0+ difficulty settings with inspirations. 
But this is exactly the tactic used. 

______________________________________

Secondaries to solo AVs --

For a prolonged fight such as this, endurance is a big deal, among other things.  
The only set that gives you a significant boost of endurance in your secondary (assault ) set is  Psi assault. 
Drain Psyche is UBER UBER UBER.  

Vs lvl 54 AVs, your regen debuff is vastly resisted but still contributes , but your endurance help is significant because it allows you , if you are level 50, to use other incarnates for your destiny instead of using ageless to help your endurance. 
For example, you can use barrier to help you and your pets be even tankier and much more sturdy. 

If you are not using Psi assault,  you have other choices but the most important choices will be sets that include self healing

Dark assault 
Radiation assault 

They both do excellent damage.  

____________________________


Secondaries with no heal I just don't like them because that self sustain help is really useful, but...   to each his own. 

Fire
Energy
Earth assault 

Certainly do excellent dmg and earth assault will even help you stack the holds on any AV especially with the very fast cast that Seismic Smash has. 

____________________________________________________

Completing  the Master Lord Recluse Strike Force  at MAX difficulty settings, no insps, no temps, ZERO deaths. 
 

_____________________________________________________________________________

First and Only Dominator so far to verifiably complete the Master ITF at Max difficulty settings, no insps, no deaths, no temps 
 

________________________________________________________________________

Is it possible to tackle lvl 54 AVs WITHOUT having a pet or pets that draw all aggro away from you ?  



It is possible, but you will need either 

Other nearby bosses or elite bosses ( I used this technique to use the EBs in LR SF for the fight vs Kronos the GM in the Lord Recluse SF, the MALTA GUN SLINGER is UBER UBER STRONG  vs Kronos )  for you to posses them and have them help you kill the AV or GM (such cases you don't have to use inspirations )

Or , even better, a friendly Super Hero like Imperious in the ITF ( who can help you kill Rommy , or Daedalus in part 3 who can help you kill either one of the AVs in the ITF ) 

Or, you will need inspirations to help you mitigate the focused dmg coming at YOU from a lvl 54 AV.  

(Important to note that Master Illusionists are useless in helping you kill and AV.  Why ?   Once they summon their minions, the minions are going to fight the Master Illusionist) 
 

_______________________

Other Hardcode challenges, but certainly not limited to these, that you can pursue or engage with your Dominator :  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 28 by Voltak

[tjknight]

What Dominator primary/secondary is best for hard or challenging content?

[Voltak]

Not sure about best now that Illusion is here with Doms. 
It also depends on which specific content it is. 
Like I have said, hard mode content is very varied. 

But solid all around choices, 

Illusion
Dark
Mind
and then 

Plant

_____________

Basically Confuse is super good of a control power.  Illusion now on Doms is a serious thing to appreciate now for different reasons as well. 

Illusion, Dark , and Mind, being the only Dominators that I would place bets to be able to SOLO the ITF (classical) and the Lord Recluse SF at max diff settings, with no insps, no deaths, and no temps.  
The other sets do not have a chance at doing these solo. 
I have done and I can still vouch for Earth to clear mission one and mission 2 of the ITF solo at max settings, but that's it.   Parts 3 and 4... no way.   EDIT ***   meaning, completion of both, not one or the other.  
parts 3 AND 4 must be completed to successfully do the ITF classical. 
Does NOT count if you do part 3 alone and you give up on part 4. 


____________________________

Earth
Elec

Are good runner ups, but there is a gap between Earth and Elec, but again, it depends on tactics.  If you are solo, Elec's sleep is AMAZING !  

Edited January 27 by Voltak

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Adding to the good information provided by Voltak, when it comes to completing hard content Frosticus has done quite well with an earth / psi / psi dominator. The pet is very sturdy, Frosticus supports it well with IOs and skills, and the built-in taunt that animate stone has makes hard content much more doable. That dominator has taken down a fair number of AVs while soloing. You can find relevant threads in this forum by Frosticus and others to learn more, if you'd like.

For hard mode play quicksand is really good with an auto-hit, hefty defense debuff and a substantial slow movement debuff as well. For the upcoming LGTF hard mode TF perhaps animate stone will be a good pet to bring along because he is immune to psychic damage. It's also possible that the earth control pet will just get one-shot repeatedly by rikti chief soldiers, just as many players are likely to see happen to their characters. 

Ice / psi / psi is another powerset combination that players posting in this forum have indicated they use to solo AVs. Not sure how difficult the AVs downed tend to be and I can't recall any specific builds being posted. But, it's being mentioned in case you'd like to explore forum posts and try to piece together some information on how that has been done. 

[Voltak]

15 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Adding to the good information provided by Voltak, when it comes to completing hard content Frosticus has done quite well with an earth / psi / psi dominator. The pet is very sturdy, Frosticus supports it well with IOs and skills, and the built-in taunt that animate stone has makes hard content much more doable. That dominator has taken down a fair number of AVs while soloing. You can find relevant threads in this forum by Frosticus and others to learn more, if you'd like.

 

I encourage others to do the Yin task force now, exemp'd down, especially now.  Yin is much easier to do now than when I did it. 

Developers gave a big hand to Doms with the changes -->

You get more powers to use
You get more slots 
You also get more IO bonuses 

You get access to your pet and in the case of Earth, having access to pet is a HUGE deal because of the taunt. 

So definitely encourage others to do it since it is easier to do.  

Now, for the ITF , I don't recommend Earth, I think it will be impossible for earth to solo that at max settings, perhaps if you do it at 0+ settings.  

LRSF is just impossible no matter what settings with Earth Dom.  

But things outside of that, go knock yourself out.  The game is full of things to explore if you have the time and the drive. 

It's a game within a game. 

Edited January 26 by Voltak

[Frosticus]

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

Nelson Mandela

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited January 27 by Frosticus

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

Nelson Mandela

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

RIght, but again, ITF at 54 x8 was not completed, or to be precise , there is no evidence here that you completed the ITF.  
It appears you gave up on trying to do part 4, since the video of part 3 was 3 months ago or so.  

Remember I said parts 3 AND 4. 

I did not say parts 3 or 4.  

None the less, kudos for giving it a good try.  No doubt. 

So far, only one dominator has completed the classical ITF at 54x8 , no insps, no temps, NO DEATHS, that I know of.  

But if you have evidence of the contrary, feel free to post it. 

I just said or meant that because as a dominator , without confuse or posses , completing everything including the last part is just too much of a task  for Doms who are not either Dark, or Illusion, or Mind (and it would be much more difficult for Mind since it has no pets ) , similar reasons why Earth would not be able to do LR SF solo either, I mean Earth dom has no chance , or a micro tiny chance, in doing the part where all the other AVs are together in the room with NOVA and the others. 

 

Edited January 27 by Voltak

[Frosticus]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:30 AM, Voltak said:

 Parts 3 and 4... no way. 
____________________________

At any rate, you said part 3 was a no go for Earth, I showed you a fairly low risk completion of it (no lore crutch or the npc). People are smart and I'm sure they can extrapolate from there.

 

I think this is about as good as it gets talking to you so enjoy your thread.

 

Players can check my sig if they are interested in what Earth doms can do.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

At any rate, you said part 3 was a no go for Earth, I showed you a fairly low risk completion of it (no lore crutch or the npc). People are smart and I'm sure they can extrapolate from there.

 

I think this is about as good as it gets talking to you so enjoy your thread.

 

Players can check my sig if they are interested in what Earth doms can do.

You say people are smart and can extrapolate.     Well, how's this for "extrapolate" ?   Someone does part 3 of the ITF and gives up because they can't do part 4.    Do they get the credit for doing the ITF or completing the ITF ??    People are smart.

So, when I said parts 3 AND 4,  it's because if you don't do both, you really did not do the ITF, you almost did, but did not succeed in completing it.
Not doubting Earth can do some hardcore stuff. 
I respect that.  KUDOS 🙂 

But it's a
No go on doing the whole ITF classical at 54x8, no insps, no deaths, no temps.   Dark Dom has done it and I am sure Illusion may be able to do this as well. 

No go on doing the LR SF , same difficulty settings.   Dark Dom can and has done it, and I am sure Illusion can do that as well. 

That's where Dark, illusion, and perhaps Mind Doms come through.   ( I know the one mind dom did LRSF solo but at +0 settings and inspirations) 

I am not knocking on Earth but facts are facts , and Confuse is important to do those.  
___________

Now, I don't see the crutch of using Incarnates at lvl 54 to do these complete task forces or anything.  
Everyone I know that has done hard core content of task forces or strike forces  solo at level 54 does them with incarnates.  
At that point that's part of your build. 

A dom without pets that draw the aggro to them and away from you , well that dom will have to use other instruments in the build.   

 Like Earth , if the pet did not have taunt aura, it would vastly more difficult to try to reach the same ceiling that it can reach now because of the taunt in the pet. 
So Using a pet that draws the aggro away from you might be cheesy or might be a crutch or it may be a simple use of what is in your build ?
Depends on your attitude when you approach the issue. 
If you the one using the pet to draw aggro away from you, I am sure you not going to see it as a crutch or cheesy, bias, right. 

____________________



I

Edited January 27 by Voltak

[EnjoyTheJourney]

It wouldn't be surprising if Frosticus was able to solo part 4 of the ITF at +4x8 without any insps, temps, amps, or defeats. 

One obvious strategy would be to clear trash out the whole area near Rom and then bring in Imperious, put a well buffed spirit ward on him, use the taunt-using earth pet as a distraction if and when Imperious gets into trouble, use drain psyche to reduce Rom's regen, and beat Rom down. It might take a few runs to get a sense of how to best organize that. But, that's a matter practice and patience, and eminently doable. With the use of lore pets that tactic would become even easier. 

Edited January 28 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Voltak]

10 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

It wouldn't be surprising if Frosticus was able to solo part 4 of the ITF at +4x8 without any insps, temps, amps, or defeats. 

One obvious strategy would be to clear trash out the whole area near Rom and then bring in Imperious, put a well buffed spirit ward on him, use the taunt-using earth pet as a distraction if and when Imperious gets into trouble, use drain psyche to reduce Rom's regen, and beat Rom down. It might take a few runs to get a sense of how to best organize that. But, that's a matter practice and patience, and eminently doable. With the use of lore pets that tactic would become even easier. 

EJ, you and I have ITF runs , so many, like sand in the beach, two man team, or 3 man teams.  

The problem in part 4 is the group of Nictus AVs.  

Relying on the trick, that Earth controls relies on, perhaps the biggest and most crucial trick of all -- having a pet that draws the aggro of the AV to himself thus ignoring the player almost completely or completely... that trick won't work with the group of the Nictus AVs.  

When you are among them, they all see you, then they multiply, and the Earth pet is easily overwhelmed or he can't draw the aggro to make them ignore the player,  additionally you then have got to worry about the ambushes...  
I don't see it happening.   

I have solo'd the ITF with various toons/ATs, and Earth does not have the instruments to deal with that.  

How did dark control dominator do it ?   
1. Posses Rommy
2. Rommy swiftly kills all of the Nictus AVs, one by one. 
3. Rommy ends up alone
4. Then you move in for the kill. 

Illusion can certainly do this as good or better than Dark.  

Edited January 28 by Voltak

[Voltak]

On 1/24/2024 at 10:19 PM, tjknight said:

What Dominator primary/secondary is best for hard or challenging content?

I updated the post.  Check it out. 

[Snokle]

On 1/25/2024 at 8:58 PM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Ice / psi / psi is another powerset combination that players posting in this forum have indicated they use to solo AVs. Not sure how difficult the AVs downed tend to be and I can't recall any specific builds being posted. But, it's being mentioned in case you'd like to explore forum posts and try to piece together some information on how that has been done. 

 

I am on of the People that have spoken about soloing AVs with the Ice/Psi/Psi builds. While I have not tried a lot against lvl 54, They are mixed around different levels. I can attest it solo, as it leans a lot in Psi to abuse the damage resistance and heavy on procs. Ice helps for the -rech which I feel is crucial to help against damage you take. Then drain psyche helps with end work.

 

The toughest one, I recall was DeVore, cause of her Psi resistance. But with Psi Armor and other effects, I had good Psi resistance, so it was about stacking a tonne of holds from myself and Ice pet.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Dr_Snokle said:

 

I am on of the People that have spoken about soloing AVs with the Ice/Psi/Psi builds. While I have not tried a lot against lvl 54, They are mixed around different levels. I can attest it solo, as it leans a lot in Psi to abuse the damage resistance and heavy on procs. Ice helps for the -rech which I feel is crucial to help against damage you take. Then drain psyche helps with end work.

 

The toughest one, I recall was DeVore, cause of her Psi resistance. But with Psi Armor and other effects, I had good Psi resistance, so it was about stacking a tonne of holds from myself and Ice pet.

Like I said above,  there are TWO routes to take when going solo vs AVs if those AVs are alone

The easiest is to stick a pet there that taunts the AV so the all the dmg or aggro is focused on the pet only , or vastly on the pet.   
So controllers who play Illusion will like Earth because the same idea or strategy is used. 

The much harder way is to solo an AV as a dominator is to  prepare to mitigate the dmg or aggro that will be focused on you , if you are not with help of other NPCs.  

So, as long as your build will allow to pass that mitigation test, you should be only worried at that point  on the issue of if you have enough DMG to kill the AV.  

Edited January 29 by Voltak

[warlyx]

im impressed with that earth/psi gameplay , it looks fun and challenging , i guess u take earth for the tank pet the tons of CC and psi because drain psyche mostly? - recovery -regen + recovery + regen 

 

mind sharing the build?

 

 

[Frosticus]

On 1/29/2024 at 6:11 AM, Dr_Snokle said:

The toughest one, I recall was DeVore, cause of her Psi resistance. But with Psi Armor and other effects, I had good Psi resistance, so it was about stacking a tonne of holds from myself and Ice pet.

DeVore is a nightmare. It's funny because the other carny AV's are pushovers, but she's at least a 9, maybe a 10. She will fold most other AV's and almost all builds. 

This power: Mask of Feebleness wreaks everybody

 

So much of this game is rock/paper/scissors when it comes to countering things. And as Bart Simpsons says

 

In this case if you have "rock" you will beat her. Very few builds have rock when it comes to DeVore

On 1/29/2024 at 9:25 AM, warlyx said:

im impressed with that earth/psi gameplay , it looks fun and challenging , i guess u take earth for the tank pet the tons of CC and psi because drain psyche mostly? - recovery -regen + recovery + regen 

 

mind sharing the build?

 

 

Build is posted in the clamor thread

+1x8 Yin and +3 Clamor

 

Musing on why the combo works I discuss in the Ice Mistral thread

Unique combo: earth/psi

 

It is a super fun combo that really shows off the dominator AT. Utilizing your full suite of controls, playing aggressive and in the face of enemies. I wish it had some more crunchy attacks, but it is otherwise the full package.

 

[Frosticus]

You are right. I didn't complete mission 4 in that run. It had nothing to do with it being too difficult.

You are free to believe what you believe. I only play for about an hr at a time as I have other commitments in life.

 

As you say, we use the tools that our builds have. Mine has translocate so it lets me separate Romy.

Here's a brief clip from the start of the AV fight. As I said before, smart players can extrapolate whether or not Earth can do this mission. It definitely can. I can't though. It takes me too long. But I don't claim to be a particularly great player, I just understand the mechanics.

 

I have seer lore. They put perma fortitude on stoney and spam heal other. Some things just get silly in this game and aren't for me.

 

Here's a bonus clip of doubling down on two GM's at the same time. Earthy goodness and not your average dominator build.

 

[Voltak]

12 hours ago, Frosticus said:

You are right. I didn't complete mission 4 in that run. It had nothing to do with it being too difficult.

You are free to believe what you believe. I only play for about an hr at a time as I have other commitments in life.

 

As you say, we use the tools that our builds have. Mine has translocate so it lets me separate Romy.

Here's a brief clip from the start of the AV fight. As I said before, smart players can extrapolate whether or not Earth can do this mission. It definitely can. I can't though. It takes me too long. But I don't claim to be a particularly great player, I just understand the mechanics.

 

I have seer lore. They put perma fortitude on stoney and spam heal other. Some things just get silly in this game and aren't for me.

 

Here's a bonus clip of doubling down on two GM's at the same time. Earthy goodness and not your average dominator build.

 

Until it is completed successfully, I am going to go with it is too difficult for earth to deal with it.    
I find it strange for anyone to say it is easy but who has not done it.  
I am not going to debate if it is easy or not, but it's better to say those things after it is done successfully. 

Rommy is not the problem at all.   
Rommy is the easiest AV to deal with in part 4.  

You showed a clip of taking on the easiest AV out of all of them.    But the video ended when Rommy was about 80% of full health or so for w/e reason.

I have done the ITF with several toons solo and I just leave the game and come back when I can finish it later.  

The difficult part is the Nictus AVs, especially when they multiply , it is also the auto hit attacks, the slows, and the massive dmg of the AV plus the multitude of pets it releases. 
When they multiply there are too many of them, and my suspicion is they can overwhelm the taunt /aggro cap of stoney, the pet. 

Then on top of all of that, you have the ambushes, and they can vary in amounts.  
Ambushes while fighting the Nictus AVs when they multiply can be a pain in the ass.  


You say lores are silly but to some builds or toons, they may be  indispensable.
Having said that,   the keystone of feature of Earth Doms is Stoney (for the purposes of soloing AVs).   
It draws all the aggro, or most of the aggro.  

You find lore silly, but in reality , this feature of the Earth pet is silly 100%. 
I totally understand why the Devs took the aggro/taunt aura of Illusion Phantom Army from the Dominators. 

It was an OP or silly feature of illusion, and the most important reason why illusion could tackle on AVs solo.   

The AV is ignoring the dominator and just focusing on the pet.  

Other Doms don't have that.  
It is more challenging for other Doms to take on AVs when the AVs are focusing on the dominator.    

I started soloing AVs when we had no pets available at lower levels,  and I don't think it is necessary to emphasize just how much easier things would be if the AVs did not focus on the dominator. 

I don't claim I am particularly great either and I try not to.  

You have been going after me for a long time and I don't know why.  

I did not start any beef with you but it was you who went after me. 

Can you let it die once and for all ?  

Let the beef you have with me die?  

I started posting my stuff without even knowing you existed in the game, so believe me, none of what I posted was addressed at you at all. 




 

Edited February 3 by Voltak

[User]

Voltak, thanks for taking the time to write this up. You've always been helpful in the past, but it's great having so much info conveniently in one place. I'm going to have to have another go at dominator again.