Don't understand a Dominator

[Diantane]

I've been hosting teams for 4.6 years. When I call DPS players, I will sometimes get a Dom calling in. But the attacks of a Dom are their secondary powers (about 25% (not 5%) less powerful than a Primary attack. That would be like a Defender training a ton of their secondary blasts and think that they are a Blaster. Or a Tank training their weak secondary attacks thinking that they are a scrapper or brute with more armor and health.

 

So Dom's are not like a Blaster, Scrapper, Brute, Stalker, Sentinel,  Kheld or Soldier. A MM primary is damage, but I've only seen a few that do much DPS. They definitely need some balancing.

[twozerofoxtrot]

I'm so excited to see where this goes.

[Mr. Apocalypse]

 

4 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

I'm so excited to see where this goes.

eating my popcorn and waiting 🙂

[SeraphimKensai]

9 minutes ago, Diantane said:

When I call DPS players, I will sometimes get a Dom calling in.

Since you've been playing for awhile, you'll likely note that individual players can get more out of a toon than others. That said I've absolutely out damaged pug blasters while using domis and even trollers.

 

Some Domi powersets allow for more damage than others. I mean try a Plant/Sonic/Ice domi, as it leverages -resistance debuffs, -res procs, sleet, and the added damage of plants control. That right there is a hell of a team damage multipler While also tossing out so much CC that other characters on a team don't have to worry about incoming damage and can typically go ham on damage. That is worth its weight in gold.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Thread title: Don't understand a dominator
Thread title analysis: Thread title implies "I don't understand dominators", but not clearly worded. Somebody reading the thread title will probably be expecting questions from an OP who is looking to learn more about dominators. 

 

Summary of OP content: Only a small percentage of dominators do good DPS, they definitely need rebalancing
OP content analysis: "I've only seen a small percentage of dominators do good damage" shows absolutely confidence in the truthfulness of one's own observations, just as "they definitely need rebalancing" does for the conclusion. Thus, the OP content provides no evidence of a self-reported lack of understanding of dominators by the OP, despite a lack of understanding being the main takeaway from the thread title. Also, the beginning of the OP suggests dominators may need more DPS. The "needs rebalancing" conclusion seems to hint at broader problems than just DPS, because if that's not true then the OP could just say "dominators need more DPS." Thus, the link between the premise and the conclusion is not made clear. 

 

Overall, the thread title and OP content seem incompatible, as if they belong in two completely different kinds of threads. Also, the two key parts of the OP are not really in synch. 
 

Recommendation: Re-write the OP to be more clear about what you want to say. Or, start over with a new thread. 

[Diantane]

12 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Thread title: Don't understand a dominator
Thread title analysis: Thread title implies "I don't understand dominators", but not clearly worded. Somebody reading the thread title will probably be expecting questions from an OP who is looking to learn more about dominators. 

 

Summary of OP content: Only a small percentage of dominators do good DPS, they definitely need rebalancing
OP content analysis: "I've only seen a small percentage of dominators do good damage" shows absolutely confidence in the truthfulness of one's own observations, just as "they definitely need rebalancing" does for the conclusion. Thus, the OP content provides no evidence of a self-reported lack of understanding of dominators by the OP, despite a lack of understanding being the main takeaway from the thread title. Also, the beginning of the OP suggests dominators may need more DPS. The "needs rebalancing" conclusion seems to hint at broader problems than just DPS, because if that's not true then the OP could just say "dominators need more DPS." Thus, the link between the premise and the conclusion is not made clear. 

 

Overall, the thread title and OP content seem incompatible, as if they belong in two completely different kinds of threads. Also, the two key parts of the OP are not really in synch. 
 

Recommendation: Re-write the OP to be more clear about what you want to say. Or, start over with a new thread. 

 

Okay, why are Dominators telling me they do DPS just like a Scrapper or Blaster?

[Lunar Ronin]

4 minutes ago, Diantane said:

 

Okay, why are Dominators telling me they do DPS just like a Scrapper or Blaster?

 

I'd very highly recommend viewing and taking in this table of Archetype damage modifiers.  Take a look at the Dominator numbers, then take a look at Blaster numbers, Sentinel numbers, Scrapper numbers, Stalker numbers.  Then take a look at Defender and Controller numbers.

 

Do you notice anything?

[biostem]

TBH, I'm past the point of calling for specific ATs or roles, and will gladly take whomever responds, and it's the proverbial "cherry on top" if they are friendly and competent! 

[Diantane]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I'd very highly recommend viewing and taking in this table of Archetype damage modifiers.  Take a look at the Dominator numbers, then take a look at Blaster numbers, Sentinel numbers, Scrapper numbers, Stalker numbers.  Then take a look at Defender and Controller numbers.

 

Do you notice anything?

Yes, but you have to look at Dom melee vs Blaster ranged. Sentinels got some love a few months ago and boy did they ever -- 1.100 vs 1.125 on a Blaster? I have 8 blasters and 72 sentinels (see the trend?)

[Diantane]

59 minutes ago, biostem said:

TBH, I'm past the point of calling for specific ATs or roles, and will gladly take whomever responds, and it's the proverbial "cherry on top" if they are friendly and competent! 

Yes, but if you do that you might end up with a team full of controllers. Had 6 once and took us 3.5 hours to complete Frostfire. Never again.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Diantane said:

Yes, but if you do that you might end up with a team full of controllers. Had 6 once and took us 3.5 hours to complete Frostfire. Never again.

All controllers!?  That actually sounds like a great time, (again, though, depends upon *which* controllers and *which* players)...

[Luminara]

Just bookmarking this so I can reference it when OP reposts it word-for-word three times over the next year, after having had everything explained forty seven times.

[MaceVanHoffen]

14 minutes ago, Diantane said:

Yes, but if you do that you might end up with a team full of controllers. Had 6 once and took us 3.5 hours to complete Frostfire. Never again.

All controller teams are pretty amazing.  We can truckroll highend stuff at +4.  So I'm not quite sure what your problem was.

 

In fact, given the current state of the game I bet any team of a single AT would do really well.

 

But yeah ... dominators.  I would lump them in with DPS and with control.  But then, I just tend to team with whoever.  It makes forming teams much easier 🙂

 

[smnolimits43]

i'm tempted to make an all controller Posi TF.  As for Doms one of my first 50s was a fire/fire Dom 🙂

[Riverdusk]

I usually don't bother responding when I see anyone "calling for" anything.  Ironically, I tend to find those are the teams that end up struggling the most. 

 

Only exceptions are if they say they are going for one of the badges that require a certain team makeup or are clearly doing it for the fun of it (like an all MM team, tanker Tuesdays, etc.).

[jprewitt73]

[EnjoyTheJourney]

35 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

I usually don't bother responding when I see anyone "calling for" anything.  Ironically, I tend to find those are the teams that end up struggling the most. 

 

Only exceptions are if they say they are going for one of the badges that require a certain team makeup or are clearly doing it for the fun of it (like an all MM team, tanker Tuesdays, etc.).

Players who are very knowledgeable tend to manage just fine with a wide variety of team compositions in all but the hardest content. For example, lots of 3, 4, or 5 player teams have completed a +4x8 ITF in 30 - 40 minutes or less with no defeats or very few defeats, often doing it as a "kill most" along the way. Those team compositions are *very* diverse, not infrequently involving dominators or at times being composed entirely of dominators. Those runs are consistently a lot of fun. 

On the other hand, if a team leader is calling for particular roles / ATs and it's not a hard mode focus or a badge run, then to me that's also a warning sign of a team that's particularly likely to struggle. I also usually shy away from joining those teams and, when I do join, it quite often turns out that the team does struggle. Sometimes those teams do really well, to be fair. It might be fairly common that a noticeable percentage of highly experienced players shy away from such teams, which ends up somewhat weakening them. But, it may also be that the ability and willingness to flexibly respond to ever-evolving in-game conditions serves teams better than having a less flexible mind set about each teammate's role. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

3 hours ago, Diantane said:

I have 8 blasters and 72 sentinels (see the trend?)

 

Yes we have, and this number breakdown of your characters really helps to confirm it.

[Uun]

12 hours ago, Diantane said:

Yes, but you have to look at Dom melee vs Blaster ranged.

Dominators have both melee and ranged attacks. They are 1.05 damage scale for melee (vs. 1.00 for stalkers and 1.125 for scrappers) and 0.95 damage scale for ranged (vs. 1.10 for sentinels and 1.125 for blasters). In addition, the dominator versions of many powers do more damage than versions other ATs get. 

[tidge]

[RelativeQuanta]

I'll expand a bit on what @Uun has stated.  I've had a similar error in thinking in the past.  Dominator attacks frequently have longer recharge times than blaster attacks which means, despite damage scale differences, dominator attacks will deal nearly as much damage (or more!) damage than blaster attacks.

 

Let's look at fire blast vs fiery assault:

• Blaster
  • Fire blast: 62.56 damage + 9.3842 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 3.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s
  • Blaze: 132.6 damage + 14.0763 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 4.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s
• Dominator:
  • Fire blast: 86.6 damage + 7.9245 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 3.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s (~126% of blaster damage)
  • Blaze: 120.5 damage + 11.8867 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 4.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s (~90% of blaster damage)

 

Considering that your average dominator also runs far more +Recharge than your average blaster, they end up doing similar or more single target damage than blasters.  They only really fall behind in AoE damage (no nuke outside of judgments).

 

TL;DR: Dominators are DEFINITELY a DPS AT.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Agreed with RQ above. I've run a fair number of blasters and dominators and do a lot of pylon testing for my characters. My dominators frequently have comparable or better single target DPS in pylon tests compared to my blasters with a similar damage type (outside of ice and earth / seismic, which can have much higher DPS for blasters than for dominators). 

AOE is where blasters shine compared to every other AT in the game (including dominators). Beyond the lack of a nuke, when it comes to AOE the main thing holding back dominators is the target cap of 10 enemies or less for the majority of the AOE powers in their assault sets. Despite these limitations dominators can have pretty good AOE compared to most ATs by pairing a targeted AOE or PbAOE from their assault set with an AOE their epic powerset (epic powerset targeted AOEs and PbAOEs typically have a target cap of 16, which helps to compensate for their longer base recharge times). 

 

"Dominators are not DPS" is a stereotype that is out of touch with reality and it should have become extinct quite some time ago. 

Edited May 15 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Icono04]

14 hours ago, Luminara said:

Just bookmarking this so I can reference it when OP reposts it word-for-word three times over the next year, after having had everything explained forty seven times.

In fairness to the OP, this time he actually read the replies to his thread and responded to some of them. That has not always been the case with his threads in the past, so I think we can at least acknowledge that Diantane has improved as a poster over the years. Trying to keep a positive outlook on things here 🙂

[tidge]

[MoonSheep]

i’m posting a reply simply to be part of a Diantane thread, the Salvador Dali of HC forum posters