First Homecoming Dom: Dark/Psi or Mind/Dark?

[Tachyon Flux]

Greetings! So I'm wanting to create my first Dominator since the old days on live. After some consideration, I've narrowed down my choice to either a Dark/Psi or a Mind/Dark, but I'm having a devil of a time deciding between these two options. I'm hoping that someone might be able to provide some insight into whether one of these combinations is more powerful, more synergistic, or just plan "better" than the other. Looking at the control sets, I see there are some similar powers that they have in common. Both have a cone fear power, confuse powers (single-target), and of course the requisite holds. Dark has immobilizes while Mind has sleeps. Dark gives up Mind's AoE confusion for a more standard control set pet, but it does have a useful AoE stun which Mind lacks. For the secondaries, we have Psi's wonderful Drain Psyche vs. Dark's pretty good Gather Shadows on the utility front. Dark also gets a (admittedly small) self-heal. And, of course, we're looking at psi (mostly - TK Thrust does some smashing) damage on one hand vs. negative energy (mostly - Smite does some smashing) damage on the other.

 

I welcome any and all arguments in favor of one combination or the other!

Edited August 10, 2019 by Tachyon Flux

[Mezmera]

I have played many variations of dominators but admittedly I've never had either a dark control nor psi assault dom.  The general consensus is that plant is the better of all the main control sets then maybe dark and so on mainly based around a theme you'd like to have.  There is good utility in Dark and the standard pet.  The best utility is in Mind though, there's just so many variations of control all with their own unique ability and slotting capabilities.  Yes you don't get a pet but a mass confuse for every other mob is quite nice in itself, you can have 16 pets instead of just one.  

 

My main and favorite character to play is a Mind/Dark.  My thoughts on Mind I already laid out but why Dark?  Well depending on how you slot the ranged heal it can be quite the power.  I have 1500+ hp and life drain tends to heal around 300+ per every few seconds if I want.  A 20% heal every few seconds ain't too shabby.  Gather Shadows yes is a fantastic power it just makes everything about being a dominator that much better.  The pbaoe is nice, bit harder hitting but a smaller area.  Also, Moonbeam is a heck of an attack if you get yourself able to make it into an instant snipe which shouldn't be too hard if you go kismet and tactics and your Gather Shadows boosting you above the threshold.  The added -tohitt is nice too if you build a bit of defense into your character.  Those four powers plus your starter are the ones to grab.  Other than that the capabilities of /Dark let you play around with epic pools like Primal Mastery which you can use Energy Transfer which is a scary power to use on a squishy but the heal alleviates that.  

 

All in all dominators are great but be prepared to invest most heavily into building a beast of a character, if there's an AT that benefits most from lots of money sunk into it is a permadom.  

Edited August 11, 2019 by Mezmera

[Mercurias]

I don’t know why, but I never really could get excited about playing Mind Control. I know it’s powerful and popular, but...Eh. 

 

I would personally go as a Dark/Psy Dominator between the two. It’s a very melee-centric playstyle with three pets and powerful stuns.