Bradd

I was including that in "biased hearsay."

Again, I'll take you more seriously when you start posting facts and sources instead of biased hearsay.

That would be pointless, since I've read many such posts, and I draw different conclusions. I also know a few stalker & dominator players who've been on successful RSFs. That's why I asked you to actually cite your sources, so that I can see why your impressions differ from mine. Why do you refuse to back up your claims with sources and facts?

Exactly!

Those aren't citations and facts. They're paraphrases of opinions. Why do you expect that to convince me? Even setting aside the fact that I don't trust your ability to paraphrase, it's still a lousy source. Try supporting your arguments with facts rather than vague and biased accounts of popular opinion.

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But overall i have experienced it time and time again, when im on dom heavey teams, we do very poorly or have to run closer to the lower difficulty ....

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And other people have posted different experiences. Are their observations less valid than yours? That's the problem with anecdotal evidence.

Nice, 515A. Instead of moving the goalposts again, how about you actually back up your claims with citations and facts?

It had placeholders for the I7 stuff before it went live. It only got the actual stats updated recently, and as I said, it's still missing some stuff.

How about you actually point out the post so that we can judge whether they struggled because of the doms, the builds, or the players? Or so that we can judge whether the guy is even credible?

And I know the first team didn't have a dom. My point is that they said they wanted one. C'mon, you aren't even trying to put up a reasonable argument anymore.

EDIT: By the way, I do believe the people who say that dominators are dead weight in high-level, competitive PVP. I'm just not that concerned about it, because it doesn't affect my own play at all. It would be nice if the devs did something about our weaknesses, but I'm having fun regardless.

Bull. I call "fallacious appeal to authority." I don't care what the top VGs say. Heck, I don't even know what you mean by "top VG" -- are you going by the in-game lists, which measure prestige rather than expertise with dominators? Also, there's the problem that I can't trust you to represent their opinions accurately. IIRC, the first VG to beat the RSF said they'd like dominators on their team, while you were claiming otherwise.

All that matters to me is whether I and my teammates have fun. Why do you care what the top VGs say? Why do you keep going on about AT popularity in general? It's not like it matters for anything.

Some corrections and notes:

Domination doesn't double hold duration. It doesn't exactly double magnitude either. It adds a second hold with 150% normal duration. The end result is that you get double magnitude for the normal duration, plus normal magnitude for +50% duration.

Mass Hypnosis is an excellent alpha-splitter, in addition to the uses mentioned. Just like it's good for pulling bosses, it's good for waking up mobs a few at a time so that they don't all attack the same person at once.

Terrify has a 90-degree cone. That's about the same as the game's field of view. That's why it seems to affect everything in a half-circle: It actually affects everything in your field of view (in first person mode; almost everything in third person mode).

Three accuracy inspirations is probably overkill for Drain Psyche, unless you're slotting for PVP or the highest difficulty level. Even then, you'll get more benefit per cost by slotting it for heal or recovery; two SOs is plenty so long as you're not fighting single targets. By the way, Drain Psyche is good enough endurance recovery that you can skip Stamina both in PVE and in PVP, if you slot some endcost reducers. Triple accuracy is most useful if you fight single targets that it must hit (e.g., dueling PVP or using it to debuff AVs).

On a similar note, three endcost SOs in Telekinesis may be overkill, especially in the endgame (or other levels where you have +3 SOs). Again, the third SO doesn't give as much benefit -- only about 0.2 end/sec -- and slots are tight in a mind/psi build.

Finally, Psychic Scream is still valuable post-Shockwave, at least on teams. Solo, the set's three best damage dealers are Shockwave, Mind Probe, and Subdue. On a team, Psychic Scream moves up the list, all the way to second place for expected DPS, even taking into account the relatively narrow cone.

Thanks! This is a solid guide. Hopefully I'll get around to posting my own one of these days.

It has all of the I7 powers, and the Patron power stats look roughly correct, but some of the other power updates are missing (e.g., the new, shorter activation time for Confuse). Also note that a lot of values are only approximations drawn from player testing, and some numbers are misleading (i.e., the database lists the per-tick endurance costs for toggle powers, but it doesn't tell you the tick frequency).

I can't complain about Levitate. It's better damage and better soft control than its /psi analogue, TK Thrust.

OK, thanks; I trust your research, since you seem to know what you're talking about. It sounds like the author applied the 0.8 AT modifier to the protection instead of the theoretical-baseline AT mod the pool powers were supposed to get.

/em clap

Did you confirm the -30 scalar for Combat Jumping by testing? If so, was the test conclusive, or is a value of -24 possible? A while back I calculated a scalar value of -24 from the Prima guide data. Just curious whether it's a mistake in the guide.

On a related note, early tests on the new Domination mez protection suggest that Domination has a -30 scalar. I'm still waiting for additional data to confirm it, though.

Thanks, iakona! It's a big help to have everything in one place!

One possible correction: A couple of the Sleep modifiers look fishy (scrapper and stalker are 8, when it looks like 0.8 would be more appropriate). Also, the tables would be easier to read if you lined up decimal points.

Some folks have said that doms suck because they can't solo. Yet my doms solo fine. Some say that doms suck because they're bad for teams. Yet my doms get compliments from teammates. Some folks say that doms suck because they're not competitive in PVP. Yet I have fun and do moderately well in PVP (casual PVP, anyway). So in my experience, no, doms don't suck the way people say they do.

Good point, Djimmi! By the way, if the devs went solely by what I enjoy playing, they'd get rid of all of those silly buffs that need constant re-application. Ugh, what a drag. Corruptors, controllers, and defenders are the gimp!

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I need to stack 3-5 holds on him (the benefits of Acrobatics are kinda ludicrious) and he needs to get exactly one hold on me - casually killing me before I recover. If it took him 2 holds, I could at least take my chances ....

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If you have Acrobatics yourself, it should take your opponent 2 holds to stop you, unless it's a controller or another dominator in PVP.

It's a design defect. That's what _Castle_ was trying to convey: This isn't a construction defect ("bug") but a problem with the design.

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You're obviously not listening to thing I'm saying, and you've apparently convinced yourself you're talking to someone who doesn't have a single clue how the overall game works or how any AT functions.

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No, I'm simply trying to tell you that you picked a poor example, because it doesn't reflect normal play. (Or at least I hope not; next time, consider kicking the MM and resetting the mission.) That's why I asked for more typical examples. That way, we can better understand why you're having trouble and maybe even offer you advice if it's a build or playstyle issue.

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The other AT's don't need their inherents to function ....

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I'd like to see you say that with a straight face to brute, stalker, and tanker players.

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My problem is not that I couldn't kill the bosses. I understand that it would have been of marginal difficulty for any two AT's to tackle two bosses at once. My problem is that I contributed nothing.

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First, I'm confident that "nothing" is an exaggeration. Second, I still don't see any point in complaining about how well a character contributes to a nigh-impossible fight. Game balance is tough enough without worrying about pathological cases. Sorry, but I'm not going to take that kind of argument seriously. If you want to talk about troubles with normal encounters, or even if you want to argue that the "pathological" cases come up all too often, that's cool, but I'm not going to worry about how well a dominator contributes to scenario that's already broken for other reasons.

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Add in fixing at least one of the triple whammies our AoE holds suffer from - hefty accuracy penalty, short base duration, ridiculously long recharge.

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Yep, that was another good candidate that I forgot about while editing. I think I'd be happiest with faster recharge, although longer duration is a close second for the AOE hold.

And to 515A: I don't mind you stating your opinion. Once. Politely.

Ooh, I was going to mention the "defeat leaves domination untouched" thing myself, but I forgot. Hm, not sure which wishlist item I'd drop to make room, though.

Then again, if defeat didn't empty the bar, it wouldn't be much different from a normal click power for me. It's rare that I can't refill the bar in time, especially in PVP. If they made that change, they might as well drop the bar entirely; the only thing it'd accomplish is emptying the bar when traveling between missions or playing with lousy PUGs.