Blind_Minotaur

Dominators in PvP are incredibly unforgiving. I have only tried to PvP with my Fire/Nrg dominator so far and it is a lot more intense than other ATs I have tried at PvP. If you are team pvping your domination bar fills nice and fast but one false move and you are going down. My strategy is all about picking my fights and making sure that domination is up or almost up when attacking. With domination up and with help from power boost I have managed to beat a tank and a scrapper in the past (I think I really suprised the tank) but I have defiantely died more times than I have managed to be victorious.

They also really seem to struggle at lower lvl pvp. I remember being in bloody bay with the all dom team and it took six of us to take down a regen scrapper, and even then it took ages. It must have been like a pack of rabid puppies nibbling him to death.

I guess, in short, if you want a challengin AT to pvp with the go with a dominator, just expect to be far from uber!

How about an improvement to attacks that have KB? If KB is resisted then the attack deals slightly more damage? This works conceptially but I'm not sure it would in practice. It does seem a little odd that acrobatics is taken by every man and his dog, but the other secondary effects of blasters can't be resisted by a pool power.

I'm going to be sorry to see you go Dr Death and I would like to echo some of the other comments here and say that you have done a lot for Union Villains and that you should be proud of what you have accomplished.

I wish I could have spent more time in the violators but as you probably know by now I am a terrible altoholic. I will keep Blind Minotaur in the violators so that I can wheel him out if there is any pvp or TFs going on. I just wish that the would sort out the global sg membership and I could have more involvement in teh VG, as it stands most of my toons don't even bother with SGs/VGs these days.

Grats to the new leaders! If you ever need Blind to lend a hoof just PM here on the forums, or send me a global tell @Blind Minotaur or @Blind Minotaur2 and I'll come running.

Farewell Death and I hope you find a great new MMO.

Will be there at 7 by Kalinda. My toon is called Professor Kindle and it's on @Blind Minotaur2. Looking forward to it

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Imo its a left over power, i think they thought that brutes would be the cov tanks so they stuck it in, then they found out there more of a scrapper and that MMs are the tanks

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I see a brute as neither a Tank or a Scrapper but as a Brute. I am not taunting primarily to save the squishes (although that helps because they can, in turn, save me) but to keep fury maximised. Some type of brute really struggle to build fury (dark for one) and also it can be difficult in a large team, in these situations taunt is invaluable. As I said in my earlier post that not all brutes will find it useful, but I certainly did on my SS/EA.

Non stone brutes are not squishey IMO. If you focus on your defenses you will find you are anything but. OT but my SS/EA was the only brute on a successful RSF run. I'm not sure if it would have been successful if I a) was squishey b) didn't have taunt

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Taunt for tanks but not for brutes.

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Then why have it available at all??

I love the chaos element added to the game when I team with people who do not fully understand their "roles" or the game mechanics. The game would get very dull for me if all that was involved was herd/debuff/AoE move onto the next mob. I love the fact that I can join a team and never know quite what is going to happen when we enter the mission. I will play to the best of my ability regardless of my AT or percieved role and will have a lot of fun doing so. I have nothing against people who play their ATs in a purest fassion, in fact I do this on most of my own toons. It's just for me chaos = fun. I am aware that fun for some people is coordination, efficancy and defined roles, so I for one am not going to knock it.

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something odd happened the other day actually. I've played ALOT of controllers but i was on my grav/rad and i scored no fewer than about 20 critical holds in less than an hour. This is odd because they happen so rarely i tend to forget it's even an inherant power. This has never happened before on one of my controllers, or at least not so that i noticed it.

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Controllers get Criticals on their holds as well as Containment?? I never knew this, in fact I haven't even noticed it on either of my trollers (an ill/storm and earth/rad), how does it work?

I picked up Taunt on my SS/EA brute fairly early on and I love it. It's great for building fury which is something that can be tough to do in large teams. There are so many squishes in CoV that it really helps them out too. I use it when I team pvp as well, heroes always target the corruptor or dom as they see them as an easy target. I have made my EA brute as tough as I can get him, and if I ever get in over my head I pop a purple, or I hit Overload (how I love that power), even when OL drops if I time an end drain right my toggles won't even drop, awesome stuff!

My fire/fire brute won't be picking up taunt though, he does more than enough AoE damage to keep the agro for fury building without it. So I guess it comes down to personal preference and what you actually want taunt for. For an AoE heavy brute, or one that mainly solos it would be a waste of a power.

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Which global is your Fire/Rad on Blind?

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I haven't created it yet but probably 2 as I have more slots there.

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Nope, the costume is a request, not a requirement. So feel free to create your own cossie, I just thought it would look cool if we had an army of (more or less) identical villains running about. You're free to build your own costume however.

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Cool. Once I get the second slot unlocked I'll create the team cossie so I can switch back and forth between them.

Globals: @Blind Minotaur and @Blind Minotaur2

I just re-read the requirements and saw that we have a team cossie. Given the restrictions on powersets and build i'd like to come up with my own cossie for this. I hope that this isn't a problem, it's just that I would like some individuality.

I haven't played the 40+ game in CoH so I am not really qualified to comment on this particular nerf. I am a little concerned with the way these nerfs have been handled. There was no mention of them whatsoever, they managed to say a freespec would be coming after I8 due to some fire blaster changes.

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I was going to choose Psi epic for concept reasons, but with the incredibly heavy nerfs to that particular set I don't know if I'll bother with anything other than the mez protection and the shield. Some of the pool powers are going to be more effective for damage now. Psionic Tornado, now at 0.175? I want to defeat my foes, not gently blow on their faces.

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This is what most villains face with picking their Patorns. I wonder how many people take all four?

So after almost 15 months of playing this game and trying out all the different Ats I finally got round to trying out a blaster. I rolled an Ice/Ice currently at lvl 5. All I can say is I'm so impressed at the moment. I'm not sure how I should be playing a blaster but as I have more experience playing villanous ATs I try to use the inherents as much as possible.

I was playing on a heroic mission at lvl 5 facing mobs of lvl 5 and 6 and found that if I stayed on almost no health I could easily one shot minions and felt really powerful. Should a blaster be played this way or is it as I suspect that the higher lvl you get the harder it is to take advantage of defiance?

Any other tips for a newbie ice/ice blaster will be more than welcome

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Why do these teams always insist on everyone being mostly the same Powersets though? All anything is overkill. The game just isn't that hard. Like most of the "All one set" with the builds dictated flutter on for a few weeks (and clean up as they do normally) and then people get bored since they aren't unique. If I was to do this I'd want to pick my own defender sets & powers. Otherwise I may as well go play World of EveryoneIsTheSame-craft.

An 8 man Trick Arrow team would be an interesting challange though.

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The All Dom team avoided this and the only requirement was that you had to be a dominator. Powersets were down to the player to decide. As a result we have had great fun and are continuing to meet on a weekly basis and this has been running since august. The mix of powersets really keeps things interesting for everyone IMO.

Thanks for the explainations. Fire/Rad suits me fine. Any idea what time this will start? And how long we plan to play for in a single session?

Does the same apply for all ATs inherents then? I.E the powers are unaffected by Scourge.

As it looks like there is easily enough interest for two full teams would you consider running a slight variation to the super team. What I mean is have one team of all Fire/Rad and another of all Fire/? (maybe Dark Miasma) to see what the real super team is? Just a suggestion.

I'd love to join this team. Sundays are great for me as I can pretty much guarantee being able to play. From reading the other thread it's sounds like you already have a lot of interest in this.

Power Boost is so useful to Dominators that I would have to say that Psi does miss a power like this. Instead it is the only set to get a power like Drain Psyche, it is a very good power that reduces the regen and endurance gain of all the foes around you and increases your own regen. I love this power.

Psi does do less damage than other dom sets. Mind Probe and Psi Dart are going to be your main attacks for quite a while. Psi Dart helps you to gain Domination faster than any other secondary I have tried. Mental Blast is fixed in I8 so it is worth picking it up now.

My Psi Dom is only lvl 26 atm so I have no idea how good Psi Shockwave is. I have heard very, very good things about it.

Fire Imps are awesome. I have a lvl 42 Fire/Nrg and as soon as you get the imps you really start to rock, they do great damage and help to keep you allive because they keep a fair bit of aggro off you. I picked up aid other and aid self, the aid other was useful to keep my imps alive in longer fights and aid self is always useful for doms.

Smoke isn't useful as a debuff and you wont notice the effect. It is very good early on at keeping nearby mobs from noticing you, you can get close to them without them seeing you. Smoke becomes incredibly useful once you get imps because you can smoke the mob and get close enough so that the imps take the alpha strike.

Fire/Psi definately sounds like an interesting combination, I'd say give it a go.

Oh and smoke doesnt stack as far as i'm aware.

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The Energy Auras seem to be very poor in anywhere below WB, as the only "godsend" power is Overload. Therefore, good for ambush tactics.

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I have a lvl 50 SS/EA Brute and I find I do much better in the lower lvl zones. I get beat far more often in RV as there is just to many +acc powers about. In Sirens I can more than hold my own as people do have trouble hitting me. You are right about Warburg though, I definately feel most powerful at that lvl. Overload is not the be all and end all of the EA set and I only use it as a panic button because the crash usually means death.

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and maybe have a monthly super session at the weekend for the more painful grinding levels.

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Very nice idea. I would love to see something like this on the other dom team.

I'm still around if you want another brute for any RSF runs. Just send me a tell @Blind Minotaur or @Blind Minotaur2.

In case anyone is interested I'm SS/EA. I did a few runs with BJB when he was organising them, once I was the only brute and it was still successful (EA FTW!).

If we are talking about toons we already have then I have to say my main is my best pvp toon, a SS/EA brute. Closely followed by my illusion/storm troller and my sonic/rad corruptor.

I would really like to try pvp with a stalker but my highest is stuck at lvl 14 (I find pve with a stalker very dull).

I'm interested to see how my ninja/TA MM fairs in PvP but he is a very low lvl atm.

Some friendly tips for the OP to avoid pvp as much as possible:

Pick up some stealth powers, either through the pool powers or temps.
Get telport and TP foe and use them to get yourself out of trouble.
Play at unsociable hours to lower the risk of pvp.
Get a team of like-minded people and be prepared to protect each other if pvpers turn up.
If stalkers are causing you greif get a +perception power like tactics.

Please note that i'm not trying to be patronising, just constructive. Please ignore my advice if you already know all this.