Domination Bar

[Uncle Shags]

Three Doms walk into a bar...

 

Jk.

 

So I've gotten almost to 50 on my first dominator and I'll admit I'm still not exactly sure how building and losing domination happens.  I get the general idea I think, but not the details, maybe. 

 

Are there certain attacks that build it faster?  AoE vs ST?  Big dmg or fast dmg?  CC vs not vs both?  Are there tricks to building it faster so that I'm not at zero going into combat?

 

I'm also wondering about the bar dropping down.  I read somewhere that it goes down gradually.  Well mine doesn't!  It just drops to zero.  Sometimes very quickly outside of combat.

 

Is there any rhyme or reason to this thing?

 

Thanks!

[Maelwys]

There's a full breakdown here:

 

 

 

But basically it builds by you attacking stuff and degrades slowly over time (unless it's activated). It also builds faster the greater the number of teammates you have.

 

After you get the bar fully filled up you can choose to ACTIVATE domination:  you get your endurance bar instantly refilled plus a short ToHit buff (15 seconds) and a longer buff which grants you Mez protection and Mez resistance AND a major boost to the magnitude and duration of your own Mez effects (90 seconds). After 90s the buffs will expire and your Domination bar drops to zero... and there's also a recharge time (200 seconds base) before you can activate Domination again.

 

However if you have a sufficiently high amount of global recharge to get the 200s base recharge time of Dominate down to under 90s then you can activate it again before it wears off. This allows you to have Domination up "permanently" without it crashing or you having to rebuild your Domination bar up from scratch again.

 

Edited March 3 by Maelwys

[Championess]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

There's a full breakdown here:

 

 

 

But basically it builds by you attacking stuff and degrades slowly over time (unless it's activated). It also builds faster the greater the number of teammates you have.

 

After you get the bar fully filled up you can choose to ACTIVATE domination:  you get your endurance bar instantly refilled plus a short ToHit buff (15 seconds) and a longer buff which grants you Mez protection and Mez resistance AND a major boost to the magnitude and duration of your own Mez effects (90 seconds). After 90s the buffs will expire and your Domination bar drops to zero... and there's also a recharge time (200 seconds base) before you can activate Domination again.

 

However if you have a sufficiently high amount of global recharge to get the 200s base recharge time of Dominate down to under 90s then you can activate it again before it wears off. This allows you to have Domination up "permanently" without it crashing or you having to rebuild your Domination bar up from scratch again.

 

 

All this. 

 

But it takes a good amount of practice and diligence to get used to using domination.  Getting your recharge high enough from IO bonuses to achieve permadomination is the ideal goal.  Baby steps are fine as you're leveling one and so just activating it when you see a tough fight coming would work well.

 

The more teammates in proximity the more of a chunk you get to build.  You can spam a pbaoe you might have to build it although solo that can take a while.  I tend to interrupt my snipe while having the Gaes accolade active to make up for the chunks of endurance I'm using doing it this way.   And you can always slowly build it by tossing snowballs at people.

[Uncle Shags]

Awesome.  I think I get it now.

 

The part I was missing was that perma-dom means hitting the button again before the timer goes off to avoid the building/crash component completely.  I'm not quite there yet with my recharge and/or I had hasten on autoclick which meant I was probably slow on my dom click.  I'll have to switch those and put dom on autoclick instead.

 

Thanks!

[MoonSheep]

7 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Awesome.  I think I get it now.

 

The part I was missing was that perma-dom means hitting the button again before the timer goes off to avoid the building/crash component completely.  I'm not quite there yet with my recharge and/or I had hasten on autoclick which meant I was probably slow on my dom click.  I'll have to switch those and put dom on autoclick instead.

 

Thanks!

 

if you’re close, consider things like the offensive amplifier from the P2W vendor for extra +recharge. hasten will help too 

[Uncle Shags]

Thanks for the help!  Got 50 last night and it was a much smoother experience.  Very fun. 

 

Now that I'm 50 I'm thinking of jumping in on some purple sets and finalizing the build.  I have another question that's related to the Dom bar so I might as well ask it here. 

 

Should I chase after slow resist?  As perma-Dom is so crucial, I assume getting slowed is a real bummer.  But I'm wondering if it's similar to how some of you think of defense - preemptive cc means no defense needed.  I like that idea and have found some success with it.  Is it the same for slows? 

 

Thanks again. 

[MoonSheep]

3 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Thanks for the help!  Got 50 last night and it was a much smoother experience.  Very fun. 

 

Now that I'm 50 I'm thinking of jumping in on some purple sets and finalizing the build.  I have another question that's related to the Dom bar so I might as well ask it here. 

 

Should I chase after slow resist?  As perma-Dom is so crucial, I assume getting slowed is a real bummer.  But I'm wondering if it's similar to how some of you think of defense - preemptive cc means no defense needed.  I like that idea and have found some success with it.  Is it the same for slows? 

 

Thanks again. 

 

i’d just mez the enemies that give you slows, my mind/fire permadom is built only for +recharge 

[tidge]

8 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

if you’re close, consider things like the offensive amplifier from the P2W vendor for extra +recharge. hasten will help too 

 

The SG base buff "Increase Attack Speed" is also available!

 

2 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Should I chase after slow resist?  As perma-Dom is so crucial, I assume getting slowed is a real bummer.  But I'm wondering if it's similar to how some of you think of defense - preemptive cc means no defense needed.  I like that idea and have found some success with it.  Is it the same for slows?

 

Disclaimer: I typically achieve perma-dom with just set bonuses; no Hasten, no FF %+Recharge. Minimally, I try to work in the Winter's Gift unique for slow resist. As I am pulling so much Global Recharge from set bonuses, there often aren't a lot of opportunities to also get Slow Resistance. IIRC the next 'easiest' is to 2-slot Superior Winter's sets, but because the powers that can take those sets also provide more global recharge with 4 or 5-slots via other sets, I usually don't have a best place for those. I suppose if an attack is franken-slotted with %damage, 2 of the slots in that power could be a Winter's set.

[Championess]

The one good thing about Dommies is how many purple sets they'll have access to.  The downside is there's not as many slots to go around as you'd like.  

 

Typically I look to use the purple melee and range sets then look to controls to fill out the other 3.  After getting purple sets, the ATO set and at least 4 lotgs slotted along with hasten that should get me near the recharge I want.  So then I focus hp and range/melee defense bonuses. Along with proccing out well a few of my big hitter attacks.

Edited March 4 by Championess

[EnjoyTheJourney]

If you're getting hit with lots of recharge / movement debuffs then there's a good chance that so much damage is being received that an awaken inspiration will be needed soon whether your dom has slow resistance or not. And, most of the time slow resistance doesn't matter at all because there are no incoming recharge / movement debuffs. In the majority of cases slow resistance doesn't provide any tangible benefit. 

Still, I tend to view 35% slow resist as a minimum goal. All that takes is getting the Winter universal travel set unique IO into a travel power's default slot and an extra slot into boxing or brawl to slot in 2 "superior" pieces of the melee winter set. That takes a grand total of one extra slot used beyond default slots for each power for a total of 35% slow resist. That's not overly expensive. I usually try to reach 50% slow resist, though, as in my experience that seems to be a functional level for the clear majority of content. 

My primary goal for slow resist isn't so much to preserve domination as it is to keep my doms' powers recharging quickly so a continuous stream of controls and damage can be applied to mobs. Even a single 20-30% recharge debuff can noticeably reduce recharge and movement if no slow resistance is in a build, in my experience.  

[Frosticus]

I Aim for 50% slow res, it makes a difference in QoL.

1 20% slow res in a travel power

2x acc/dam, dam/end winter sets (melee/pbaoe/ranged aoe)

=50%

 

More is welcome, but 50% puts you one common team buff away from immunity. 

[Uncle Shags]

Well, with your help I've been having a fantastic time on my first dom.  It takes some getting used to, but I'm getting the hang of it.  I'm up to T3 incarn and feeling pretty OP.

 

I was having a hard time with the hasten/dom auto and was on the verge of going for trying for non-hasten permadom but I got a rotating auto bind to work and that's been a game changer.  Don't have much issues with dom dropping now at all.

 

I've spent some time tinkering with this build and it's working pretty well, but this is my first Dom, so I'm sure I've bungled some things.

 

Mind taking a look?

 

It's a Mind/Nrg/Soul.

 

Thanks much.

Dominator (Mind Control - Energy Assault)4.mbd