Interested in finally trying a Dom - Slightly intimidated, if I'm honest!

[Championess]

Hasten is the single best power pick in all of the pools.  It shouldnt be skipped especially on doms where builds call for ruthless efficiency.

[tidge]

 

24 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Note that the global recharge slotting above uses 63 slots, assuming all the superior ATOs/purples are five-slotted.

 

You get 67 assignable slots in a level 50 build.  Plus the inherent 1 slot of powers that slottable powers get (so, if all your chosen powers are slottable, then 24 chosen powers plus a slot in sprint/health/stamina/etc).

 

Like, it's doable!  But again, it becomes overwhelmingly the singular major goal you can have in your build.

 

 

I don't feel like I skimped on any aspects of this (again, most recent) Dominator... by my allocation of slots... except maybe for that T1 attack that I very rarely use.

 

Adding Hasten to this build,  just to have Hasten, would have implications like:

• giving up one of the power pools... maybe no big deal, maybe it is... but this cascades other choices
• having to decide if I want perma-Hasten (so, "find a slot") or not..,
• delay/skip Wall of Force (which does include the %+Recharge piece, but it is for 'peace of mind', it is not required) and or Unleash Potential
• Juggle both Hasten and Domination clickies. This isn't a big deal for me, but it is "one more thing" to have to worry about.

I'm not asking for a different build, I'm simply answering the "how do you do it without Hasten?" question.

Edited Wednesday at 08:09 PM by tidge

[UltraAlt]

17 hours ago, tidge said:

As I wrote elsewhere, I try to achieve perma-dom via +Recharge from set bonuses and use neither Hasten nor %+recharge... so as a practical matter I don't have it until end-build, and lose it below level 23, but this isn't a deal-breaker for me.

 

This is a pretty irrelevant reply to me.

I'm not even sure why it was necessary to defend the use of permadom or your route to get to it.

 

When people come asking about creating characters, I think it is very relevant to know if they are creating character through game content (level as they go) or simply want to go directly to the end-game. The poster would be looking for very different information.

 

 

[Parabola]

12 hours ago, Championess said:

 

The early 1-20s you're getting your controls which you should be taking Seeds and Creepers like you say.  Mid levels 20-30s Doms start to bloom with their assaults which Nrg starts getting access to its best attacks which are ST, Nrg assaults have a reputation as ST boss killers and thats no different on doms, that should be the focus.  Late levels 30+ you start getting access to epic aoe blasts which blow just about any aoe you find in the regular assaults out of the water.  Once you get access to those you'll never want to use Whirling Hands, and in fact it will conflict with the better release mechanic for Power Burst which amps up your ST damage.

 

If you want to take Whirling Hands early on as you level sure I do that with a lot of power sets.  By 30 though I respec into the form I find I want for the later game then kit my characters.  Late game Whirling is just a wasted power pick in comparison to epic aoes, I wouldnt even take it for a set mule.  

 

Doms are about efficient build choices and Whirling finds its way out, same with most of the other powers in Nrg.  My main attack chain has room for the 3 best ST attacks I can get, showing stats to find the best dpa per attack will narrow things down, even before considering proccability. 

Everyone will of course have their own priorities when building characters, the beauty of this game is its flexibility in play styles. Personally I always build my characters with the levelling process and then exemping in mind. They also have to be competent at both single target (solid, end sustainable, able to solo an av attack chain), and aoe (able to clear full spawns solo in reasonable time), for as wide a spread of the game as possible.

 

I simply would never play a character that had to wait until lv35 for aoe, or that then lost that aoe exemping down to several of the commonly run task forces. I take the epic aoe in addition to (generally one of) the available aoe in the secondary on doms. Yes, fireball for example is better dpa than whirling hands but it recharges much slower and whirling hands has both the double tap mechanic and a minor control side effect. It also allows the slotting of an extra purple set which is always a boon for dom builds.

[tidge]

5 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

This is a pretty irrelevant reply to me.

I'm not even sure why it was necessary to defend the use of permadom or your route to get to it.

 

When people come asking about creating characters, I think it is very relevant to know if they are creating character through game content (level as they go) or simply want to go directly to the end-game. The poster would be looking for very different information.

 

... and your point is lost to me. I explicitly described two different approaches to having perma-Dom: one for leveling up (relying on Hasten), and one that waits until a level 50 build (without relying on Hasten). Personally? I tend to level up without perma-Dom, but there is no judgement behind my approach... simply sharing. For more details about the thought process, leveling and testing of the Grav/Arsenal Dom... I have a recent thread about that.

[UltraAlt]

21 hours ago, tidge said:

... and your point is lost to me.

 

Yes.

It is clear that you do not understand that I don't care about permadom.

[Maelwys]

On 1/22/2025 at 12:11 AM, UltraAlt said:

I can never tell if someone is going to create a character to play the game or if the intent is to simply power level to 50 and then "install" a build.

On 1/22/2025 at 1:44 PM, tidge said:

I also can't tell what the thinking will be.

On 1/23/2025 at 7:21 AM, UltraAlt said:

This is a pretty irrelevant reply to me.

  

 

  

On 1/23/2025 at 7:21 AM, UltraAlt said:

permadom

22 hours ago, tidge said:

perma-Dom

32 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

permadom.

 

[aethereal]

On 1/22/2025 at 12:09 PM, tidge said:

I don't feel like I skimped on any aspects of this (again, most recent) Dominator... by my allocation of slots... except maybe for that T1 attack that I very rarely use.

 

Adding Hasten to this build,  just to have Hasten, would have implications like:

• giving up one of the power pools... maybe no big deal, maybe it is... but this cascades other choices
• having to decide if I want perma-Hasten (so, "find a slot") or not..,

I mean, you can "find a slot" by giving up any one of the slots that's giving you say 6.25% or 7.5% global recharge and instead get 70% global recharge.

 

On 1/22/2025 at 12:09 PM, tidge said:

• delay/skip Wall of Force (which does include the %+Recharge piece, but it is for 'peace of mind', it is not required) and or Unleash Potential
• Juggle both Hasten and Domination clickies. This isn't a big deal for me, but it is "one more thing" to have to worry about.

I'm not asking for a different build, I'm simply answering the "how do you do it without Hasten?" question.

 

I get that people get bored of building around Hasten.  I think it's boring too!  And if you want to build heavily for global recharge while skipping Hasten, that doesn't upset or bother me.  This is a game, we should be doing what we enjoy.  Shield is a great armor set that I almost never use because I think it looks dumb 98% of the time.

 

But this build would clearly be able to slot more flexibly for other goals (whether they be procs, defense/resistance, or whatever else) while also achieving vastly better global recharge if you put Hasten in.

[Lusiphur Malache]

On 1/21/2025 at 10:42 AM, tidge said:

I'm in agreement that the Fighting pool being chosen for Tough/Weave is something of old-school thinking

Thank goodness, I learned how to make a Dom from someone who is old school.  I haven't made a Dom in awhile, I'll keep this in mind the next time.

[tidge]

I hear what you're saying, but a lot of time including Hasten (and chasing perma-Hasten), with or without Dominator context) feels to me more like become a goal, in and of itself, than it is to pickup a wider variety of powers slotted how I'd like. This is informed by my play experience: There aren't that many powers in any single build that would greatly benefit from 60% more global recharge above 136%. I'm not saying there are NONE, just that for a control+attack active chain, that much more recharge does relatively little. We can parse the effects of a few seconds faster recharge times on something like Link Minds or Unleash Potential, but these are, to me, marginal.

 

Once we're trying to parse those sorts of powers, I question whether or not it would be necessary to also try for perma-Hasten... like I wrote, it often feels like *that* is the goal, and if so there are only so many places to make changes in sets... see below(*1)...

 

16 minutes ago, aethereal said:

But this build would clearly be able to slot more flexibly for other goals (whether they be procs, defense/resistance, or whatever else) while also achieving vastly better global recharge if you put Hasten in.

 

I disagree about the 'more flexibility'. Yes the build I shared has mule powers, but they are piled into the last power picks... so shifting (or skipping) any of the power picks before level 30 to take Hasten makes the build less flexible IMO. If the goal is "different set bonuses"... aside from (positional) Defenses, I don't think there is that much more life-changing to "chase" beyond the Recharge/Accuracy/Recovery in the Purple sets. Slightly more range and resistances are a thing... but *I* haven't found them to be particularyy life-changing on squishies. As for moar %damage... there aren't that many reliable candidate powers in the build to try for %damage IMO. As I wrote above... I'm not interested in the AoE hold having some chances for %damage every 50 seconds or so when the build actually has an attack primary.

 

(*1) In a final build, I think the one thing Hasten would allow (that would be valuable to me, YMMV) would be to add a handful of Winter sets... *if* I could six slot each of them... for Defensive reasons. As things stand now... almost no power in the build has all 6 slots, so that approach (which I considered!) was going to cause me to pull slots from somewhere, which IMO would have hurt the performance. For full disclosure, se (superior) Winter sets I'd be looking at are (likely a "pick any three" situation) Entomb, Frozen Blast, Winter's Bite, and possibly Avalanche. Some of those can go into sets with (currently) 'inferior' sets, but I'd still have to scratch up 6th slots for those.

[aethereal]

15 minutes ago, tidge said:

As I wrote above... I'm not interested in the AoE hold having some chances for %damage every 50 seconds or so when the build actually has an attack primary.

I mean, it's at least a little funny for you to say, "I don't see what I'd get from 60% more recharge," and also, "My AoE hold is up too infrequently to be worth slotting for damage."

 

Like, look, you mentioned that you rarely used Lift and so didn't mind slotting it with level 30 IOs largely to chase one recharge bonus.  You can just steal the three slots from it, put one slot into Hasten, and then take some of your 5-slotted powers and add one more slot to two of them and pick up either a damage proc there or get one more set bonus, whichever seems more valuable.  And the improved recharge of every other power can almost certainly take you from "rarely use Lift" to "always use one of my other powers which is more available."

 

Is that the best possible way to use Hasten in this build?  Probably not, it's your build, I don't know too much about it.

 

Look, again, you're happy with your build, that's fine with me.  I don't want to dive deep deep deep into how to rearrange your build because you're happy with it, and also you're probably overall a better Dom builder than me.  But building to 136% global recharge with set bonuses alone is a huge commitment, and it's just obviously opens up a lot of choice for you if you can drop 20% of those global recharge bonuses and slot for literally anything else.

[tidge]

18 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I mean, it's at least a little funny for you to say, "I don't see what I'd get from 60% more recharge," and also, "My AoE hold is up too infrequently to be worth slotting for damage."

 

Think of it this way: I came for the control aspect of the Dominator, not the ability to drop %damage in the hold. 5- or 6-slotting the AoE Hold with a hold set it is NOT resulting in the AoE hold being available less frequently.

[aethereal]

6 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

Think of it this way: I came for the control aspect of the Dominator, not the ability to drop %damage in the hold. 5- or 6-slotting the AoE Hold with a hold set it is NOT resulting in the AoE hold being available less frequently.

But you could do both.  You could put another slot into Gravity Distortion Field, put a proc into that slot, and you'd have a power that was up more often (due to the higher global recharge) and which did more damage (albeit not a ton more), without giving up anything.

 

Or hey.  You love your current build?  Okay.  Drop Aid Other.  Add Hasten.  Take two slots away from Lift, put one in Hasten and one in Health.  Put the Preventative Medicine proc in the extra Health slot, two Slot Hasten with 50+5 Recharge.  For Lift, reslot with Hami-O's or 50+5 Acc/Dam/Rech enhancements.  End result?  You have basically exactly the same build you have today, +64% global recharge.

 

Like, again:

• I get that you're satisfied with your build as-is, and that's fine.
• I doubt that any of these minor tweaks that I'm suggesting are huge winners, but tearing your entire build apart and redoing it, while potentially having more upside, seems not worth it for something that you won't use, and also probably is beyond my skills anyway.

But just as a general principle, what you're espousing here doesn't really make sense.  50-60% global recharge is not a small amount!  You can go through every place you have local recharge slotting and see if there's a different enhancement you could put in that would give you more of some desired trait, and still have more uptime on that power.  You can go through every place where you chose a set for its having a recharge bonus and contemplate a different set that gives you something else instead.  There are a lot of degrees of freedom here, and it's just not really plausible that literally none of them result in a better build.

 

To the extent that we're talking about just your character, like, you're happy with it, that's the end of the story.

 

But to the extent that we're giving people advice about how to slot other builds, what I'd say is:  "If you are already slotting for lots and lots of global recharge, Hasten just clearly adds versatility.  If you hate Hasten, cool, don't use it.  If you hate managing the Hasten clicky as well as the Domination clicky, cool, don't use it.  But purely mechanically, it is clearly the higher-power, higher-versatility move."

[jprewitt73]

2 hours ago, Lusiphur Malache said:

Thank goodness, I learned how to make a Dom from someone who is old school.  I haven't made a Dom in awhile, I'll keep this in mind the next time.

 

It definitely opens up a lot more opportunities for build flexibility, and it's something that I think people kind of took for granted about the Dominator for a while. I may be squishy compared to the other members of the team, but those other people can't lock down an entire group of enemies and prevent any damage from coming in. A Dominator can. We just have the ability to do it while also dishing out very respectable damage. 

 

I really do think a lot of people played Doms as a type of Blaster because that's what they were used to. Having a Control/Damage AT is awesome. Very tankmageish if you ask me. 

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Or hey.  You love your current build?  Okay.  Drop Aid Other.  Add Hasten.  Take two slots away from Lift, put one in Hasten and one in Health.  Put the Preventative Medicine proc in the extra Health slot, two Slot Hasten with 50+5 Recharge.  For Lift, reslot with Hami-O's or 50+5 Acc/Dam/Rech enhancements.  End result?  You have basically exactly the same build you have today, +64% global recharge.

 

Having Hasten at level 49 (or at any level 41+) seems a LOT like not having Hasten. The "end result" of this suggestion is pretty much my build, but with Hasten and fewer set bonuses. My ideal choice to take Hasten is either just before or just after the first power that has a base recharge time of greater than 90 seconds... obviously this thinking is slightly complicated for Dominators because of Domination being available at level 1!

 

I get it. You want Hasten, no matter what. I have Dominators with Hasten, even if they already have 'enough' global recharge from set bonuses. But even then, it really isn't necessary to have perma-Hasten via two 50+5 slots (in my experience), that's just one more thing to chase.

 

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

But just as a general principle, what you're espousing here doesn't really make sense.  50-60% global recharge is not a small amount! 

 

It would be (by my crude math) about 12 seconds off the AoE Hold and 17 seconds off Link Minds... not insignificant, but ultimately not earth shattering for me. I suppose if I was the only control on a team and it was my controls that were going to make-or-break the encounter... those 12 seconds might make a difference. +20 seconds on Domination... that is more impressive, but it is basically a wash (considering endurance burn/refill is the only difference, AFAIK everything else is 'replace existing effect') unless some radical slows come into play.... and all this is with my build that already has +136% global recharge from set bonuses. I haven't forgotten that the argument was predicated (on some level) to "take Hasten instead of chasing set bonuses"... so dropping even more recharge set bonuses and/or compromising on control duration... for (at best IMO, more) defense... I don't think the argument in favor of one choice over the other is as crystal clear.

[Frosticus]

OP to cut thru the noise, permadom is well worth going for. I've done a lot of dominators and put up lots of videos for them because they are my favorite AT.

 

My base recommendation at 50 (this can more or less apply universally to all the ATs)

 

-85% global rech (more is ok, but not at the cost of other things)

-Hasten

-At least 50% slow/rech resistance

-Proc out a few attacks like your epic aoe and a couple single target ones. It really makes a big difference.

-Don't chase things that your build is bad at. Ie defense unless you have something with built in defense/tohit debuffs. It's not worth the investment from 0.