Damage Power Set

[Khan668]

Hello all, trying to decide on a Dom, or Controller, usually play Blasters or Brutes so I'm used to higher damage. Which is why I'm leaning Dom. Are there any "go to" sets for more damage? Primary and secondary? I never played Dom or Controller in the first run so any advice is appreciated. Thanks

[Tigress]

First of all, if you are *just* looking for damage, the class may not make you happy. Second of all, if you still wanna squeeze the class for damage, I suggest either Fire Control or Plant Control. Fire Comes with more damage out of the box (if you slot Bonfire with a knockback to knockdown Enhancer), but plant control quickly catches up in endgame and IMHO offers superior control with its Seeds of Confusion). Gravity is also something to consider, as it has a high damage single target attack in the primary pool, something the other sets seem to be lacking.

 

With Secondaries, it gets a lot more tricky. Again, I'd say Fire comes out on top damage-wise (just a feeling though, I have no hard numbers to back it up), but offers not much else. Martial is a bit wonky with all those shuriken attacks, but its a pretty cool looking, area focused set. However, none of the sets (at least of those I have tried) are really bad. All of them have some cool abilities (Earth with its stone mallet, Electric with its energy drains, Savage with Spot Prey, etc.) and are still pretty decent in damage.

 

tl;dr: Look for what suits you best instead of the numbers. I found this to be truer with Dominators than any other Archetype.

[Frosticus]

Controllers can end up being a very high damage class, but a good deal of their damage is generated through their pets and debuffs. So that means it is usually quite late game where they start to shine in terms of damage. Even then the damage they produce might not be satisfying to some people as it usually comes from multiple sources or lots of dot stacking.

 

 

[Khan668]

DoT stacking is kind of what i'm looking for. Was a Warlock main in WoW, trying to find something as close to that as possible.

[Greentea]

DoT stacking is kind of what i'm looking for. Was a Warlock main in WoW, trying to find something as close to that as possible.

 

Never liked Warlock in WoW.  Drood forever and always!  ;D

 

 

Seriously though, if you like DoT, Dark Blast have lots of DoT.  Fire Blast/Dark Miasma Corruptor fits perfectly with Destruction Warlock theme. Demon Summoning/Dark Miasma fits with Demonology Warlock theme. As for Affliction, that one is a bit hard, any AT have dark blast or dark miasma I suppose...

 

Check Paragon Wiki if you're not familiar with archetype or powersets I mentioned.

[Khan668]

Thanks, might try Dark. Was a Dark Melee regen scrapper the first time around and haven't really looked into any Dark set b/c I didnt want the same thing I had before but might as well give it a try.

[Frosticus]

DoT stacking is kind of what i'm looking for. Was a Warlock main in WoW, trying to find something as close to that as possible.

 

/storm can be a lot of fun. with good recharge you can have a couple tornadoes and a couple lightning storms out and then damage can start to rack up pretty quickly. Paired with a damage heavy primary like ill, dark, fire, or gravity things melt quickly from multiple sources.

 

pretty late game though.

 

Or something like a dark/fire/ice dom. High pet damage boosted by sleet and the superior damage of /fiery. Stuff dies fast.

 

same idea though, it is a pretty late game build.

[The_Cheeseman]

It’s important to note that many Dominator builds do tend to mature late. The difference between a low level, SO-only dom and a max-level, IO’ed our perma-dom is possibly the biggest power difference within one AT in the game. My mind/fire dom took forever to kill stuff in the 25-34 range, but once I got Fireball at 35 and Blaze at 38, it started to really burninate those peasants. Throw in Reactive Interface and Pyronic Judgement and I level spawns with the best of them.

 

Dominator is definitely an AT that rewards patience and investment.

[honoraryorange]

On a similar subject - how is Dominator damage at the top end? (Full IOs with AT and Purples, Permadom, etc)

 

I know their damage scaling isn't -that- far behind a Blaster, but I'm not sure of their powers individually.

[Frosticus]

On a similar subject - how is Dominator damage at the top end? (Full IOs with AT and Purples, Permadom, etc)

 

I know their damage scaling isn't -that- far behind a Blaster, but I'm not sure of their powers individually.

 

It can be pretty good. A fair number of dom attacks have higher than normal damage scale for the power because it has been given a longer recharge. That is generally to their benefit when talking high end builds.

 

They lack a bit of flow when it comes to aoe damage as they are often a mix of cones and pbaoes, but it smooths out considerably with epic powers that are available.

 

They can't self buff to the extend that a blaster can in most cases.

 

Biggest of all is they have no nukes which are really shining these days.

[Sovera]

I don't think you'll see a Dom making huge pylon times. By themselves they are a bit like controllers in the sense that they pile a lot of little hits from multiple sources instead of landing a big fat nuke.

 

In *practical* terms my plant/psi farms the fastest of all my characters simply because a Seeds of Confusion as an opener has mobs tearing each other apart. It's not just safe to lay the hurt but their damage piles along with ours greatly enhancing kill times. But if you are fighting a single tough enemy like an AV or a pylon, then you're not going to have that sweet confusion aiding matters along.

 

All said I much prefer Doms to Controllers. We still help by locking groups but we do damage without the tedious business of setting up Containment.

[oedipus_tex]

Dominator is the class you want if you want a long term project to plug away at for a lengthy period of playtime before seeing its top performance. Permadom completely changes the AT in a way that no other AT is changed. Unlike a Brute or Scrapper, who tend to progress along a linear curve, for Dominators a huge door opens once you hit key Defense and Recharge values. It's also often very expensive.

 

It may or may not be worth it to you. You'll never outdamage the (newly buffed) Blasters, a class that these days requires significantly less investment. But a Dominator makes for a good long duration effort.

[marex]

I don't think you'll see a Dom making huge pylon times. By themselves they are a bit like controllers in the sense that they pile a lot of little hits from multiple sources instead of landing a big fat nuke.

 

In *practical* terms my plant/psi farms the fastest of all my characters simply because a Seeds of Confusion as an opener has mobs tearing each other apart. It's not just safe to lay the hurt but their damage piles along with ours greatly enhancing kill times. But if you are fighting a single tough enemy like an AV or a pylon, then you're not going to have that sweet confusion aiding matters along.

 

All said I much prefer Doms to Controllers. We still help by locking groups but we do damage without the tedious business of setting up Containment.

 

Shrug I don't see a reason why not

 

This was a result I posted in the pylon thread

 

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

 

This was just with the secondary. No primary power used like the pets.  The instant snipe feels pretty much like a Stalker AS if you use it this way.

 

 

[Coyote]

Those are pretty good numbers, and consider that Fire/Fire is even higher damage. Dominators can be built for high DPS.

[Frosticus]

basically just look at the dps of some of the high damage assault sets and then add perma haunt+dog (or imps) and boost it all by sleet and there is no reason a dom can't produce good numbers.

 

Putting those numbers out in actual game might be a different story but ymmv.

[Sovera]

I take it back then, those really are some good numbers there.

[Coyote]

basically just look at the dps of some of the high damage assault sets and then add perma haunt+dog (or imps) and boost it all by sleet and there is no reason a dom can't produce good numbers.

 

Putting those numbers out in actual game might be a different story but ymmv.

 

A Dom can perma-Hold AVs, so you CAN put out a DPS chain that can be done against AVs without worrying about dying, BUT... the Hold has to be slotted for Hold Duration rather than damage, and it has to be spammed. So you would have to plan the cycle with the heavy inclusion of a much lower-damage attack. I did spreadsheets to see which combinations could put out enough Mag to perma-hold AVs, what their DPS was, and what their EPS burn was. Fire/Fire (with Sleet) was by far the highest, but some others (especially /Psy with its -Regen) put out pretty good DPS also. They were significantly higher on the average than Blasters.

 

DPS chains against AVs aren't necessarily a good measure, because spamming a Hold about every 3 attacks is a serious DPS hit, so they can do even better if they don't have to worry about spending so much animation time defending themselves. This is why my planned builds for this server include several with soft-capped defenses, so that I have a chance to put out more of the DPS powers than defensive mezzes.

[Frosticus]

basically just look at the dps of some of the high damage assault sets and then add perma haunt+dog (or imps) and boost it all by sleet and there is no reason a dom can't produce good numbers.

 

Putting those numbers out in actual game might be a different story but ymmv.

 

A Dom can perma-Hold AVs, so you CAN put out a DPS chain that can be done against AVs without worrying about dying, BUT... the Hold has to be slotted for Hold Duration rather than damage, and it has to be spammed. So you would have to plan the cycle with the heavy inclusion of a much lower-damage attack. I did spreadsheets to see which combinations could put out enough Mag to perma-hold AVs, what their DPS was, and what their EPS burn was. Fire/Fire (with Sleet) was by far the highest, but some others (especially /Psy with its -Regen) put out pretty good DPS also. They were significantly higher on the average than Blasters.

 

DPS chains against AVs aren't necessarily a good measure, because spamming a Hold about every 3 attacks is a serious DPS hit, so they can do even better if they don't have to worry about spending so much animation time defending themselves. This is why my planned builds for this server include several with soft-capped defenses, so that I have a chance to put out more of the DPS powers than defensive mezzes.

exactly

 

yes I recall reaching the same conclusion about fire/fire even before they had access to sleet.

 

iirc mind and fire animate fast enough to hold an AV. the others not so much without powerboost.

 

I think we agree that putting  down the theoretical max dps of a dom would tank considerable to achieve that.

 

Defensive is good, great even, but most doms (not all) have some melee attacks that they use. When you walk in to use those you might be safe due to your defense, but your haunts or imps or whatever else is supplementing your dps is less safe. At best they get mezzed or knocked around. At worst they splat from aoes.

 

the reality is some builds can realize their theoretical dps in lots of situations, others have a harder time. For instance fire/fire doms are largely theorycraft. I tried pretty hard with my earth/fire dom but personally never had much success and stoney is a lot more hardy than imps.

.

 

[Nostromo21]

On 7/6/2019 at 1:00 AM, Frosticus said:

Controllers can end up being a very high damage class, but a good deal of their damage is generated through their pets and debuffs. So that means it is usually quite late game where they start to shine in terms of damage. Even then the damage they produce might not be satisfying to some people as it usually comes from multiple sources or lots of dot stacking.

 

 

 

Yep, my Ill/Dark troller just sits (well, hovers) back & does her nails, while her pets annihilate everything in their path! Most fights she only has time for one nail...;)

[Darkir]

4 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

 

Yep, my Ill/Dark troller just sits (well, hovers) back & does her nails, while her pets annihilate everything in their path! Most fights she only has time for one nail...;)

 

*checks timestamps*

 

Holy necropost batman!