Hypothetical: Illusion Control for Dominators

[The_Cheeseman]

14 hours ago, Coyote said:

Well, I have to argue against this... you see, an Illusion Dominator who had perma-PA.... could perma-Hold an AV anyhow. Mind/x can do it. So, with Mind/Psy being able to perma-Hold the AV while putting out damage at it, and the ability to start the fight with perma-Confuse and transition into a perma-Hold... it seems like the idea that you can solo AVs very effectively as a Dom is already in the game.

 

Granted, Illusion would allow you to go higher in AV level, since it may be impossible to perma-Hold an AV at +3 or +4 (though perma-Confuse should be doable)... but this is a relatively niche benefit.

 

The above arguments all point out why Illusion Control is good, but... isn't it too good a set for Controllers, then? And I don't see that argument being made. In return for great single-target control that works on AVs, Illusion has pretty weak team AoE control, which is considered at least as important for most of the players in most of the game. So, if the set isn't broken for Controllers, what makes it broken for Dominators? Controllers have other tools to handle AVs in many of their secondary sets, but Dominators have other tools to handle AVs in many of their powerset combinations (Fire and Mind can perma-Hold AVs, and several other sets can do it if you match them with Power Up from the secondary).

The main problem soloing as an Illusion controller is concentrating damage. Since you can't directly control your phantoms, which comprise the bulk of your DPS, it's hard to focus-down targets efficiently, and as you said, Illusion has weak AoE control options. Dominators have an entire secondary devoted to damage, allowing them to nuke down important targets while their pets tilt at windmills, like the moron AI likes to do.

Yes, Mind doms can perma confuse basically anything that isn't an incarnate-level boss. But what you may not realize if you haven't actually tried it, is that many AVs in Task Forces, such as Lord Recluse Strike Force, are scripted to auto-aggro anything in range, regardless of perception, once they have initiated combat. This means that soloing groups of AVs is actually pretty tough, since once they start taking damage from your confused target, they tend to aggro you, and doms don't handle that well. With some nice invulnerable pets to hold aggro, you can charm one AV as your main DPS, while the other beat on your phantoms and you nuke them into smithereens.

Then you have situations with gimmicks like Lord Recluse at the end of Miss Liberty Task Force, where you can't preemptively control him and are forced to tank him for a bit. I haven't figured out a way to solo him on my mind Dom, but an Illusion Dom could do it, easily. Just sic your phantoms on Recluse, and confuse the Arachnos Flier to kill the towers while you nuke the healers as they spawn.

In short, the only significant weakness of a mind Dominator is lack of ability to deal with aggro. An Illusion perma-dom would be basically unstoppable.

[City_of_Jedi]

CoXG from Thunderspy Gaming has a version of Illusion Control for Dominators.   I only play on Homecoming, so I can't comment on the specifics of how it might be different, or what effect its introduction has had on the game.  Might be informative for this discussion to find out those things. 

 

All I can report is the power selections, which look like this:

1. Phantasm
2. Blind
3. Deceive
4. Flash
5. Spectral Terror
6. Superior Invisibility
7. Phantom Army
8. Group Invisibility
9. Pandemonium

 

Judging from the name, my guess would be that power #9 is a multi-target confuse ability. 

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, The_Cheeseman said:

many AVs in Task Forces,

 

Actually, yes, I realized this... but I am considering it a very niche situation. I mean, making a character who specializes in soloing AVs is a very small part of the characters on the server. Then, making one who solos Task Forces is even rarer. Then, we're looking at the situation where certain Task Forces have special aggro mechanisms that make it really hard to just fight one AV at a time. I understand exactly what you're saying and I agree with it, but my point was that 99.x % of the time spent and experience earned on the server by theoretical Illusion Doms would be in OTHER situations, and in those situations Illusion doesn't seem over-powered.

 

As for the damage, frankly, I run an Ill/Storm, so I get enough damage from my secondary that I don't worry as much about focus-firing down mobs that were damaged by PA in order to minimize heal-back. But while I see what you're saying, my opinion on this matter is that a Dom would have an offensive secondary which will do damage directly, and also help PA do more effective damage by minimizing heal-back... but that's the point of having an offensive secondary, compared to a defensive secondary like Dark Affinity or Time, which won't help much with damage but will make the character and the team far safer. I'm okay with an Illusion Dom doing more damage than an Illusion Controller, since that's the benefit that they gain, by not having a secondary that can help them survive ambushes, over-aggro, etc.

 

Basically, I see your points, but I don't think that the result is an overpowered character. Yes, it does more damage than an Illusion Controller but an Illusion Controller is hardly such high damage that doing more damage makes a character OP. Yes, its unique aggro-control mechanisms allow it to handle a limited number of situations that are very rare in the game. But on the other hand its AoE damage from the primary is non-existent, and its AoE control is quite weak, and far more of the game is played in an AoE situation than against special AVs. And while its damage is significantly higher than Controllers, its defense is significantly lower. This, to me, seems like a balanced trade-off.

[Tater Todd]

11 hours ago, City_of_Jedi said:

CoXG from Thunderspy Gaming has a version of Illusion Control for Dominators.   I only play on Homecoming, so I can't comment on the specifics of how it might be different, or what effect its introduction has had on the game.  Might be informative for this discussion to find out those things. 

 

All I can report is the power selections, which look like this:

1. Phantasm
2. Blind
3. Deceive
4. Flash
5. Spectral Terror
6. Superior Invisibility
7. Phantom Army
8. Group Invisibility
9. Pandemonium

 

Judging from the name, my guess would be that power #9 is a multi-target confuse ability. 

It looks like their version of Illusion Control is almost exactly the same as the Controller version.  The only difference is that Spectral Wounds was removed which makes sense on a Dominator.  Doms already have ST damage in their secondary.  It looks like their Pet is their first power which I heard is something common on their servers. 

[The_Cheeseman]

10 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

Actually, yes, I realized this... but I am considering it a very niche situation. I mean, making a character who specializes in soloing AVs is a very small part of the characters on the server. Then, making one who solos Task Forces is even rarer. Then, we're looking at the situation where certain Task Forces have special aggro mechanisms that make it really hard to just fight one AV at a time. I understand exactly what you're saying and I agree with it, but my point was that 99.x % of the time spent and experience earned on the server by theoretical Illusion Doms would be in OTHER situations, and in those situations Illusion doesn't seem over-powered.

 

As for the damage, frankly, I run an Ill/Storm, so I get enough damage from my secondary that I don't worry as much about focus-firing down mobs that were damaged by PA in order to minimize heal-back. But while I see what you're saying, my opinion on this matter is that a Dom would have an offensive secondary which will do damage directly, and also help PA do more effective damage by minimizing heal-back... but that's the point of having an offensive secondary, compared to a defensive secondary like Dark Affinity or Time, which won't help much with damage but will make the character and the team far safer. I'm okay with an Illusion Dom doing more damage than an Illusion Controller, since that's the benefit that they gain, by not having a secondary that can help them survive ambushes, over-aggro, etc.

 

Basically, I see your points, but I don't think that the result is an overpowered character. Yes, it does more damage than an Illusion Controller but an Illusion Controller is hardly such high damage that doing more damage makes a character OP. Yes, its unique aggro-control mechanisms allow it to handle a limited number of situations that are very rare in the game. But on the other hand its AoE damage from the primary is non-existent, and its AoE control is quite weak, and far more of the game is played in an AoE situation than against special AVs. And while its damage is significantly higher than Controllers, its defense is significantly lower. This, to me, seems like a balanced trade-off.

Hmm... We seem to disagree about what we define as "overpowered". Honestly, I think the term gets abused far too often, and usually doesn't lead to particularly productive discussion, and since we're just talking hypotheticals and have no real data, I can't think of anything more I could say on the matter. Your points are fair, and I think it would come down mostly on public opinion as to whether the build is "overpowered" or not, as there's no objective metric for such things.

[Coyote]

Yup, true enough.

[Dr Causality]

On 9/30/2019 at 6:32 AM, Coyote said:

Well, I have to argue against this... you see, an Illusion Dominator  [Controller] who had perma-PA.... could perma-Hold an AV anyhow. Mind/x can do it. So, with Mind/Psy being able to perma-Hold the AV while putting out damage at it, and the ability to start the fight with perma-Confuse and transition into a perma-Hold... it seems like the idea that you can solo AVs very effectively as a Dom is already in the game.

 

There's just no contest between how much Confuse a Controller and Dominator can stack. Domination is not just double the base magnitude, it's also a longer duration mez allowing for many more stacks.     I'm actually not convinced that a Controller even can reliably perma Confuse an AV through the 'purple triangles."  But the important difference is a perm Domination Mind Dom could stack so much Confuse that they have time to squeeze an attack chain in between when they need to stack their next Confuse.   Controllers as far as I know cannot do that.   

 

An illusion Dominator would still have the same core aggro-less Confuse tool for dealing with AVs, but they'd now also have two sets of pets for a massive DPS boost, one of which is invulnerable adding safety to the AV fights to help cover any Confuse stacking timing slip ups.  

 

Basically Mind versus illusion, gives up nothing core to soloing AVs, but gains DPS and safety.    But maybe Dominators already have most of that in Dark Control set, since it also has Confuse and two sets of pets.     Dark Control's weakness compared to illusion is that Haunt Shades are not invulnerable, so die versus AVs without significant buffs, heals etc.      But since a Dominator that can perma mezz an AV, they don't have to worry about their Haunt Shades being attacked.   I'd like to see real numbers on this and I may go do some testing at point, but the problem I have with Dark Control's Haunt's is the two Shades don't feel to me like they have anywhere near the DPS of the three Decoy Phantom pets.  But feelings are often wrong, when it comes to numbers.     Maybe you can you can make up the difference since you put Dmg procs into Haunt.  But you can put many procs in because you need recharge and recharge set bonuses.      Also, I think Dark's Umbra Beast might have more DPS than Phantasm.  

 

So for mind versus illusion on a Dominator, yeah Illusion is borderline broken in terms of balance.  But since Dominators already have Dark Control maybe Illusion is wouldn't be a significant difference.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Dr Causality

[Tater Todd]

So the question I have is that are Dominators not allowed to Solo AVs?  Brutes, Masterminds, Controllers, Scrapper, Defenders, Tankers, Widows, SoAs or who knows maybe Stalkers and Blasters and other ATs can too.  Is this a discussion about how fast it can be done because I'd imagine for Brutes, Masterminds and soon to be Tankers dealing damage to an AV should be comparable or even higher than a Dominator with survivability in spades and if the Dominator somehow gets aggro for a few seconds he could be toast unlike a well built Tanker or Brute or other ATs.

[The_Cheeseman]

33 minutes ago, Tater Todd said:

So the question I have is that are Dominators not allowed to Solo AVs?  Brutes, Masterminds, Controllers, Scrapper, Defenders, Tankers, Widows, SoAs or who knows maybe Stalkers and Blasters and other ATs can too.  Is this a discussion about how fast it can be done because I'd imagine for Brutes, Masterminds and soon to be Tankers dealing damage to an AV should be comparable or even higher than a Dominator with survivability in spades and if the Dominator somehow gets aggro for a few seconds he could be toast unlike a well built Tanker or Brute or other ATs.

Not sure what you're asking here. Dominators can already solo AVs, I'd even call certain Dom builds premier AV soloers (I have soloed the LRSF and several GMs, on mine, for example). What we have been discussing is whether it would be OP to give a build that can already solo AVs and GMs more tools to trivialize even what little content they can't already solo. Heck, I bet an Illusion Dom, if properly built, could solo several Incarnate Trials (though, it would take longer than I'd be willing to spend).

Edited October 4, 2019 by The_Cheeseman

[Tater Todd]

1 hour ago, The_Cheeseman said:

Not sure what you're asking here. Dominators can already solo AVs, I'd even call certain Dom builds premier AV soloers (I have soloed the LRSF and several GMs, on mine, for example). What we have been discussing is whether it would be OP to give a build that can already solo AVs and GMs more tools to trivialize even what little content they can't already solo. Heck, I bet an Illusion Dom, if properly built, could solo several Incarnate Trials (though, it would take longer than I'd be willing to spend).

Aren't there people who can solo Incarnate Trials now thanks to Incarnate abilities and buffs?  Illusion Dominators would be no different then an end game Blaster, Scrapper or Brute who can accomplish that feat.  An Illusion Dom wouldn't surpass them in damage or survivability either.

 

One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it's possible to out aggro Phantom Army and even the Terrorize and KD from both Illusion pets are not enough to keep the heat off of you which would be magnified ten fold on a high damaging/debuffing dominator.  For example I had Super Speed, Superior Invis., Group Invis, Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, Phantasm all running at the same time.  Phantom Army engaged the Mob and I was unnoticed (I was hiding behind a wall when I cast my powers).  Freezing Rain, Tornado and Water Spout went out; still mostly unnoticed.  As soon as I ran in to hit Flash, Bile Spray, Lightning Storm and Spectral wounds I started taking hits and this is when Phantom Army was up.  I also noticed that my attacks were almost on equal threat/taunt levels as Phantom Army due to the Mk I Zenith Warcry and Equinox Adjutant turning back and forth to me and then PA and then ultimately aiming at PA yet when their blast animated it hit me square on the chin.  When I hit Burnout and summoned another Tornado and Lightning Storm it was clear that I was out aggroing Phantom Army but they were still absorbing enough damage to aid me with survival.  I replicated the same thing but with a Giant Monster and I was met with an untimely end before I could do any real damage to him.

So at best with a very active secondary Phatnom Army should be seen as having an extra defense shield on a Dominator but the reality of it is that you will still out aggro on a Controller and most certainly on a Dominator.  Incoming Mezz that even Perma Domination can't save you from, damage splashes from Cone, PbAOE & AOE would be something you would mitigate through resistance or defense just like any other class.  So in the end you would be on the same level as the top performers if built right and you would not be Overpowered compared to every other AT and set combination in the game.
 

Dominators are great but they have limits.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Tater Todd

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Tater Todd said:

So at best with a very active secondary Phatnom Army should be seen as having an extra defense shield on a Dominator but the reality of it is that you will still out aggro on a Controller and most certainly on a Dominator.

 

I'll buy this as a possibility, but I'm not sold on the certainty... debuffs draw a lot of aggro, especially when multiplied by dealing damage, so a Stormie can pull a ton of aggro with a mixture of debuffs and damage. A Dominator would be putting out more damage (but not all that much more, as Tornado/LS are a lot), but with fewer debuffs and without the really annoying Fear effect that really gets mobs angry when they're not busy running. With pretty much just damage output, a Dominator may find it harder to pull aggro from PA.

 

Now, to be honest, that's just quibbling... I think that when you give extra tools to a character, and those tools overlap in function, the character may not gain as much. For example, PA's Taunt effect is superfluous if you're perma-Confusing (or perma-Holding, this should be possible for most AVs) an AV. So the main benefit of perma-PA... is almost irrelevant to a perma-Dom with Illusion Control. The second benefit of PA is damage... and this is a bigger benefit to the lower-damage AT of Controller, than to a Dominator. So, I agree with the argument that Illusion Control wouldn't be especially broken on a Dominator compared to a Controller... they have less use for the Taunt effect, and do more damage otherwise.