/Fire or /Dark? Damage or mitigation?

[Lazarillo]

Trying to decide on a secondary for a ranged-focused pew-pew Dominator. I've been doing /Dark so far, and it feels a tad underwhelming, though it's still fairly new and I suspect some of that is just the teenage blues.  Still, Fire does what Fire do, and I've realized it'd be much higher damage with this concept, and, well, Dominators should be dishing out that damage.  But sticking with Dark will get the ToHit Debuffs, Life Drain, and even be able to boost controls via Gather Shadows, so I'm not sure...its utility may outweigh the hit in damage.  Anyone with practical experience on how the two go care to chime in?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

What primary are you using? I've got an Earth/Fire Dominator and I don't feel like I need more mitigation while I'm burninating everything. However, Earth is also one of the heaviest control sets so a lighter control set may want the extra mitigation.

 

As a side note, Fire is a bit of a late bloomer, getting Blaze at level 38 takes your damage out from "good" to "amazing".

[Lazarillo]

What primary are you using? I've got an Earth/Fire Dominator and I don't feel like I need more mitigation while I'm burninating everything. However, Earth is also one of the heaviest control sets so a lighter control set may want the extra mitigation.

I'm doing Mind/ as a Primary, so, yeah, I've got a fair amount of mitigation from Control as well.  The fact that Mind doesn't get any pets for bonus damage also felt like more a point in Fire's favor, too.  Having made another Dominator to 50 this past week, though, and finding a tendency to squish very easily when controls aren't viable has been making me second-guess my approach to mitigation, though, so I'm trying to get a good feel for the new one.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Yeah I can see that being an issue. It's less of a concern with Earth since having Earthquake greatly reduces the number of times where control isn't viable for damage mitigation (especially since I went for Ice APP giving me a second knockdown patch)

[Mezmera]

My main and favorite character is a Mind/Dark dominator.  There's much more utility in /dark yes, outside of Gather Shadows and Life Drain there's not much reason to play it.  That being said Life Drain allows you to dip into epics for the damage you seek, albeit single target damage, but you will be hitting near as hard as a stalker.  If you want to do damage at 35 you can take Energy Transfer from the Epic pools.  With the snipe being as good as it is right now and having Energy Transfer you have a two punch combo worthy of any damage dealer, just follow up that ET with Life Drain and you're all good. 

 

I've playtested my dom as much as I could to come up with an optimal build.  Here's a list of my powers build: 

 

Mind: Mezmerize, Dominate, Confuse, Mass Hypnosis, Terrify, Mass Confusion

Dark: Dark Blast, Gather Shadows, Life Drain, Engulfing Darkness, Moonbeam

Primal: Energy Transfer, Temp Invulnerability

Pools: Speed: Hasten

          Leadership: Manuevers, Tactics, Vengeance

          Fighting: Kick, Tough, Weave

 

This will leave you 4 powers left to choose a Travel of your liking and maybe another power pool should you just go Super Speed.  I have Super Speed as my travel along with vet power jumpacks and rocket packs should I need to go vertical.  That left me a whole power pool I could experiment with for fun so I went for Unrelenting, I've enjoyed it. 

 

Along with going for recharge build up that ranged defense.  The confuses and the one ATO set allow for some beasty IO defense bonuses.  I will lead into packs with an AOE control and my ranged defenses should keep the hits from coming and you have the ranged heal should you need it.  Once you feel you have a good lock on the group go in and kill some bosses. 

 

[KelvinKole]

Psi would actually get my vote for best ranged set. Trouble is, the two set defining powers are PbAoE that beg you to be in the middle of things. If you don't mind that, you can effectively play it from range and make use of the immobilize and knockback to keep things at range.

[Lazarillo]

That being said Life Drain allows you to dip into epics for the damage you seek, albeit single target damage, but you will be hitting near as hard as a stalker.  If you want to do damage at 35 you can take Energy Transfer from the Epic pools.  With the snipe being as good as it is right now and having Energy Transfer you have a two punch combo worthy of any damage dealer, just follow up that ET with Life Drain and you're all good.

That's a pretty cool synergy idea, (my Ice/Martial uses ET for Single Target damage and Life Drain would definitely help offset its unique cost) though I'm trying to keep things pretty strictly ranged in this case.  Also, how do you keep the Snipe in-rotation.  Overslotting Tactics?  I didn't think it should be possible with /Dark Assault.

 

Psi would actually get my vote for best ranged set. Trouble is, the two set defining powers are PbAoE that beg you to be in the middle of things. If you don't mind that, you can effectively play it from range and make use of the immobilize and knockback to keep things at range.

Psi's an interesting idea, but doesn't really fit the character I'm trying to build (the character in question is actually two people working together, so I want both powersets to be very distinct from each other).  And yeah, I feel like I could do "better" with Psi on a different character (I've become a real Domaholic since Homecoming launched) anyway due to the PBAoEs.

[Mezmera]

That being said Life Drain allows you to dip into epics for the damage you seek, albeit single target damage, but you will be hitting near as hard as a stalker.  If you want to do damage at 35 you can take Energy Transfer from the Epic pools.  With the snipe being as good as it is right now and having Energy Transfer you have a two punch combo worthy of any damage dealer, just follow up that ET with Life Drain and you're all good.

That's a pretty cool synergy idea, (my Ice/Martial uses ET for Single Target damage and Life Drain would definitely help offset its unique cost) though I'm trying to keep things pretty strictly ranged in this case.  Also, how do you keep the Snipe in-rotation.  Overslotting Tactics?  I didn't think it should be possible with /Dark Assault.

 

I have six slotted gaussian in tactics and have kismet +6% tohit in weave.  The secondary boost from Gather Shadows boosts tactics to get me above the 97% for insta snipe without gimping your build.  With the recharge for perma dom I get off 2 insta snipes within the time Gather wears off, plus re-upping domination gives you tohit boost.  That's just on my own, in a team all it takes is one more tactics or watching someone die for veng.  I never go wanting for insta snipe when I need it.

 

My dps string goes Dominate with ATO dmg boosting proc, Snipe, ET and Life Drain.  Mixing in Gather Shadows that chain is easy to maintain. 

[marex]

Trying to decide on a secondary for a ranged-focused pew-pew Dominator. I've been doing /Dark so far, and it feels a tad underwhelming, though it's still fairly new and I suspect some of that is just the teenage blues.  Still, Fire does what Fire do, and I've realized it'd be much higher damage with this concept, and, well, Dominators should be dishing out that damage.  But sticking with Dark will get the ToHit Debuffs, Life Drain, and even be able to boost controls via Gather Shadows, so I'm not sure...its utility may outweigh the hit in damage.  Anyone with practical experience on how the two go care to chime in?

 

From the pure numbers /fire should do more dmg then /dark However I like the exta -tohit for the incarnate content I use

additional a diamagnetic interface for even more -tohit. You can switch to reactive if you just need more dmg. No complains

to run a fire/dark dominator solo through +4/x8  DA and other story arcs,

 

I posted from test some numbers in the scrappers forum

 

I just did a quick test how the Dominator would work out on test

 

Dark Assault+Ice Mastery (Test Server with snipe changes)

 

Degenerative Core Flawless

Musculature Core Paragon

Ageless Core Epiphany (for endurance)

Perma Domination

 

 

Chain:Smite-Midnight Grasp-Gloom-Moon Beam (Gather Shadows-Sleet when up)

 

Assualt Radial Embodiment (double dmg)

 

2:20  ~401.72dps

2:21  ~399.78dps

 

 

Assault Core Embodiment (+dmg)

 

2:13 ~416.13dps

2:04 ~437.96dps

 

The +dmg Dominator proc was in Midnight Grasp. Pure +dmg Hyprid slot did work a little better then the double hit

Sleet did have both (target aoe) -res procs in it

 

 

If you have a hour or 2 time, jump over to the test server and add with the popup a full IO set to your char and test a /dark and /fire what you like more.......