Blaster that plays like a Dominator?

[Geister]

Like the title asks, is there a Blaster set that performs similar to a Mind/Psi Dominator?

[justicebeliever]

what you are looking for differently that has you moving to Blaster and away from a Dominator?

[Jeneki]

Are you looking for psi-based attacks, or AoE mezz?

 

[Geister]

what you are looking for differently that has you moving to Blaster and away from a Dominator?

 

I love the way my Dominator plays. I like the juggling of mezzing targets and burning one down. It just takes what seems like forever; very slow moving.

[oedipus_tex]

Perhaps try Ice/Temporal or Energy/Temporal. It will take a little while to reach the AoE mezz power but its quite good.

 

If you go with Energy Blast try to slot kb to kd procs. Lots of decent control there. (For the record I have a Energy/Temp at 50. The Ice is merely a guess, but it has lots of controls.)

 

[Vanden]

Kinda sounds like what you want is a Fortunata.

[Geister]

Thanks for the ideas folks, I appreciate it.

[Jeneki]

I love the way my Dominator plays. I like the juggling of mezzing targets and burning one down. It just takes what seems like forever; very slow moving.

 

Some of the newer sets have AoE mezzes in them.  If you've picked up Pine's Hero Designer you should be able to find them all, usually towards the last few powers in blaster secondaries.  Also in the ancillary pools you can pick up more single target mezzes, or if you have stuns you can get Oppressive Gloom to stack with it.

 

Something to be aware of though, Blaster mezz may have shorter duration than you are used to on Dominators.  So you may have to be a bit quicker to reapply (or just kill everything hehe).

[senseichen]

I'd go Ice/Atomic over Ice/Temporal. The Temporal Holds are subpar and both sets have good recharge buffs.

 

The main things you're missing relative to a Dominator are AE control and single click Boss Holds. But with two fast Holds, you'll get bosses locked up well enough. You just won't be able to roll through giant packs Mass Confusing to victory

[Novacat]

Ice / TacArrow would also do quite well. Area Slow, two holds (one single and kinda bad on its own so you'll probably just use the two in Ice, but the other's AoE with *severe* drain), the accuracy and perception debuffs of flash arrow, and of course a good amount of -recharge.

 

Lacks melee, but some serious AoE screwjobs for your target group.

[atletikus]

Sonic has stuns, but mostly soft-control via kb and sleep cones that may allow you to emulate your Dominator gameplay. Disadvantage with a sleep is that it's less damage than Ice solo (but not on teams) and of course soft control is less useful on trigger-happy teams. Advantages are that it's a primary that can be combined with a secondary with as much control as you want, available level 18, up whenever you want and can be used for IO shenanigans with (even more) -res and +heal procs that will trigger pretty reliably.

[Snarky]

Ice time has great blue power and Ice is the most control happy set of the ranged damage sets in my opinion.  If you really want to peg the concept to 11 at the expense of everything else go Ice/Ice. More soft controls and messing with the mobs. It is not a FOTM high damage set.  It does okay damage. It is a Blaster after all. But it leans way to control. I like time as a secondary for Blasters because of the End recovery power.  No blue no blast. But I ran an I e/Ice a lot back on live simply because I love ranged Blasters.  Ice is ranged including the tier 9. So soft cap ranged def and freeze them down

[Winter]

My favorite character I ever had was my Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster.  As a blaster, being able to freeze a Boss at range is an incredible feeling.  Picking up Shiver later in your career can max Slow enemies with very little enhancement.  And Flash Freeze makes soloing a breeze.  If you are looking for something that controls close to a Dominator, you probably won't find much better in Blasters than Ice/Ice or Ice/Time.

[Hopeling]

I love the way my Dominator plays. I like the juggling of mezzing targets and burning one down. It just takes what seems like forever; very slow moving.

I know this doesn't quite answer the question, but it sounds like you may want to play a Dominator with better damage (which can be a pretty decent fraction of the way to Blaster damage), rather than a Blaster with lots of control (which will always be a pale shadow of Dominator control). Some sets and some builds are much better at clearing rooms than others. For example, fire/psi is IIRC a pretty strong dominator combo for damage.

[Obitus]

I love the way my Dominator plays. I like the juggling of mezzing targets and burning one down. It just takes what seems like forever; very slow moving.

I know this doesn't quite answer the question, but it sounds like you may want to play a Dominator with better damage (which can be a pretty decent fraction of the way to Blaster damage), rather than a Blaster with lots of control (which will always be a pale shadow of Dominator control). Some sets and some builds are much better at clearing rooms than others. For example, fire/psi is IIRC a pretty strong dominator combo for damage.

 

Yeah I think the inevitable conclusion of this discussion is that Dominators are better at damage than Blasters are at control.  Or if you prefer, Dominators' control is overwhelmingly uber compared to anything the best Blaster could hope to achieve, whereas the best Dominator damage build is actually pretty close to a Blaster's damage.  (This is less true than it used to be, what with crashless nukes on the Blaster side.)

 

In addition to Hopeling's suggestion, I'll point out that pretty much any Dom with */Fire will put out great damage.  Bonus points if you take the Fire Epic pool for Fireball/Rain.  You lose out on the nuke; you lose out on Aim, and you'll be a relatively late bloomer with regard to AoE damage - but perma-Dom offers comprehensive mez protection (along with mag 6 controls), and you get Fiery Embrace, which is basically a build up that lasts for 30 seconds instead of 10.

 

Doms are among the best soloists in the game, IMO.  They may not be as sturdy, or have as much offense, as other builds, but they have what is probably the most comprehensive set of tools to deal with a wide variety of opponents and situations.  Toss on some IO +DEF bonuses, and a lot of Dom builds will cruise through content that can make even tankers weep. 

[Erratic1]

 

Yeah I think the inevitable conclusion of this discussion is that Dominators are better at damage than Blasters are at control.  Or if you prefer, Dominators' control is overwhelmingly uber compared to anything the best Blaster could hope to achieve, whereas the best Dominator damage build is actually pretty close to a Blaster's damage.  (This is less true than it used to be, what with crashless nukes on the Blaster side.)

 

I have never been a big Blaster player, generally losing interest in most I've tried, but I have played Dominators. What Dominator set is close to Blaster damage, keeping in mind that half of a Dominator's blast set is occupied with melee powers and that what limited AoEs they get generally require being almost on top of what they are hitting? I have Dominator's with both Energy Assault and Thorny Assault and they don't hold a candle to what my Blaster with Beam Rife can casually toss out and that well before we consider T9 powers.

 

 

Fire's cone requires you to be within range 40, and at upper levels that can be a pretty unsafe range to be at. Dark gets range 60 with it's cone but its an arc of 20 degree. Several of the "blast" sets for Dominators don't even a ranged, AoE attack. And then there are the Blaster sets with no analogue on the Dominator side. A disintegrate Dominator might be loads of fun, but inherently it (and the other sets that did not get proliferated) probably violate some design rule about AoE damage.

 

But I would imagine just about anything paired with TA would come closest. I do not disagree with Ice/TA being suggested for a controlly blaster. It was my first thought when reading the IO. I am greedy though so I would probably shoot for the best of both worlds and do something like Beam Rifle/Tactical Arrow. Of course that could be my new found love of Beam Riflle speaking.  ;D

 

[Frosticus]

 

Yeah I think the inevitable conclusion of this discussion is that Dominators are better at damage than Blasters are at control.  Or if you prefer, Dominators' control is overwhelmingly uber compared to anything the best Blaster could hope to achieve, whereas the best Dominator damage build is actually pretty close to a Blaster's damage.  (This is less true than it used to be, what with crashless nukes on the Blaster side.)

 

I have never been a big Blaster player, generally losing interest in most I've tried, but I have played Dominators. What Dominator set is close to Blaster damage, keeping in mind that half of a Dominator's blast set is occupied with melee powers and that what limited AoEs they get generally require being almost on top of what they are hitting? I have Dominator's with both Energy Assault and Thorny Assault and they don't hold a candle to what my Blaster with Beam Rife can casually toss out and that well before we consider T9 powers.

 

 

Fire's cone requires you to be within range 40, and at upper levels that can be a pretty unsafe range to be at. Dark gets range 60 with it's cone but its an arc of 20 degree. Several of the "blast" sets for Dominators don't even a ranged, AoE attack. And then there are the Blaster sets with no analogue on the Dominator side. A disintegrate Dominator might be loads of fun, but inherently it (and the other sets that did not get proliferated) probably violate some design rule about AoE damage.

 

But I would imagine just about anything paired with TA would come closest. I do not disagree with Ice/TA being suggested for a controlly blaster. It was my first thought when reading the IO. I am greedy though so I would probably shoot for the best of both worlds and do something like Beam Rifle/Tactical Arrow. Of course that could be my new found love of Beam Riflle speaking.  ;D

 

Generally /fiery because blaze is so good and fiery embrace is a 85% damage buff for 30 seconds to fire damage.

 

Some other doms do satisfying damage, but imo /fiery is the only one that will sometimes cause a blaster to look at you with envy.

[Obitus]

 

Yeah I think the inevitable conclusion of this discussion is that Dominators are better at damage than Blasters are at control.  Or if you prefer, Dominators' control is overwhelmingly uber compared to anything the best Blaster could hope to achieve, whereas the best Dominator damage build is actually pretty close to a Blaster's damage.  (This is less true than it used to be, what with crashless nukes on the Blaster side.)

 

I have never been a big Blaster player, generally losing interest in most I've tried, but I have played Dominators. What Dominator set is close to Blaster damage, keeping in mind that half of a Dominator's blast set is occupied with melee powers and that what limited AoEs they get generally require being almost on top of what they are hitting? I have Dominator's with both Energy Assault and Thorny Assault and they don't hold a candle to what my Blaster with Beam Rife can casually toss out and that well before we consider T9 powers.

 

As Frosticus says, */Fire is an excellent contender.  That was the one I was thinking of. 

 

My own experience with both Fire Doms and Fire Blasters is pretty extensive, though I freely admit that my opinion is probably colored, in part, by conditions that no longer apply.  The most obvious example is that crashless nukes didn't exist for most of my time playing as a Blaster and Dom.  That's a huge added advantage for Blasters (really any non-Dom AT with a blast set).

 

Still, /Fire Doms also benefited in the recent blaster buff-a-thon; they got a fast snipe (soon to be made unconditional), and they got increased range on Blaze.  Oh, and it's always worth mentioning that the Corruptor/Dominator version of Fire Blast (the T2 attack) has always been better than the Blaster version (and now Sentinels too), for reasons I can't explain.  (Note the shorter cast time.  The Dom version also gets a higher damage scale, because it has a higher recharge time, but the longer recharge isn't all that important at the high end.)

 

(Interestingly, Defenders appear to have gotten the better version Fire Blast too.)

 

Fire's cone requires you to be within range 40, and at upper levels that can be a pretty unsafe range to be at.

 

Fire Breath's range is a bit of an issue, but it can be enhanced to ~60 feet without undue sacrifice, and once you do enhance its range the power is flat-out wonderful.  To be clear, though, the reason to enhance Fire Breath's range is  because any cone attack's coverage area expands dramatically with range enhancement - not because 40 feet is unsafe.  After all, we're talking about an AT that can toss around mag 6 AoE control powers. 

 

Blaze originally had a range of 20 feet.  We complained about it, but Blasters still used it.  Then Blaze's range was increased to 40 feet, where it remained until more or less the game's closure in 2012.  Happily, now, finally, it's 80 feet.

 

As I said before, Doms will be late bloomers with respect to (ranged) AoE damage.  You need to take an Epic pool to get Fireball and Rain of Fire, for example.  But you can get them, and being a late bloomer with regard to AoE is no worse than a Blaster being a late bloomer with regard to durability and/or (to turn back to the thread's topic) control.  As it stands now, probably the best control tool available to Blasters is Bonfire, from the Fire epic pool; if you enhance it with a KB-to-KD proc, it turns into a sort of Ice slick analogue.

 

Anyway, I think the bulk of my comment came from years and years of Dominators being obviously and clearly stronger, overall, than Blasters.  I still think Doms are stronger, but thanks to a lot of very recent changes, the comparison isn't quite so one-sided anymore.  Certainly Blasters outshine Doms more on the damage side than they used to, and they have a little more durability than they used to, too.  You could even argue that Blasters with certain Secondaries and the Fire Epic pool encroach a little on Controller Primaries - but Doms still reign supreme in the sphere of control.

[Blaze]

Still, /Fire Doms also benefited in the recent blaster buff-a-thon; they got a fast snipe (soon to be made unconditional), and they got increased range on Blaze.  Oh, and it's always worth mentioning that the Corruptor/Dominator version of Fire Blast (the T2 attack) has always been better than the Blaster version (and now Sentinels too), for reasons I can't explain.  (Note the shorter cast time.  The Dom version also gets a higher damage scale, because it has a higher recharge time, but the longer recharge isn't all that important at the high end.)

 

(Interestingly, Defenders appear to have gotten the better version Fire Blast too.)

 

This is due to the Blaster's T1 and T2 animation standardization back during the Defiance revamp.  Fire Blast was slowed down and Flares immensely buffed.  My guess is that, due to not having Defiance, the devs kept Fire Blast faster for the others, and Sentinels received the same standardization as their inherent is also partially tied to T1 and T2 blasts.

[Without_Pause]

Outside of Ice and /ice, I would offer up Dark and /dark. I think blasters with a bit of control is my sweet spot for the AT.

[DuQ]

I Highly recommend Sonic/MM. /MM Might not have the most control, but sonic sure does, and the 2 synergize very well! I have LOTS of fun with mine, and can melt some enemies in the process!