Commando

I would like to put a few things into perspective. I have been playing this game for a long time and I have tried building quite the variety of toons. Fortunatas are NOT easy to build if you are seeking min/maxing the whole build; they are a challenge, even more challenging than a Night Widow.

I have both a Night Widow and Fort build. The bad thing about the NW - it's melee. One of the good things about NW- it's melee. You have to move to catch your target if you went all out claws attacks (except for Darts and burst).

Fortunatas I compare like a Psionic dmg machine gun with the tank armor on the cover of it. I went all single target dmg except for the nuke. But the dmg on the fortunata is nothing short of very effective (unless you find critters who are highly resistable to it.)

From the center of the mob or the center of the room or the center of a park or any other outdoor scenario, Fortunatas can give you a faster kills due to the very solid dmg AND they can stay in place and shoot very quickly at any foe.

Could you place your build and we can try to give you some good advice here in case you are stuck.

Yes, they do.

Be more specific. What is going on? You should use the game launcher, the NCSoft launcher to download beta. You must be ViP to log to beta.

The more players play it, give feedback, and the Devs work on it by the feedback, data mining, etc, the faster it is done. Of course, they may have a date they want to get it out by to us, but I don't know it.

What I suggest is play it now on beta. Make it, play it, get a feel, give feedback if u want, and help out.

You can team in beta too.

You will enjoy it and love it even more.

Nature affinity has some great -dmg debuffs, -to hit debuffs (even better mixed with Dark Control) -resitance debuffs, a very powerful dmg and to hit buff (like a squishy version of Rage but no Rage crash), great heals and regen which, unlike Empathy, buff and heal you when solo, gives you solid resistance and great regen, a dull pain or absorb power, a healing/recovery patch u can stand on...

Now add that to Dark/ Control, which is a very very solid set that has all the tricks and tools to control except a sleep, but with a very very nasty fear, 3 pets which do gooood dmg together, a patch or placement area hold, a freaking wide wide area stun which recharges fast enough, and lots of -to hit debuffs.

You will PWN.

Roll it, try it, no matter what, solo or teaming, you will naturally feel some dark fun... (no pun intended).

Look, Dark/nature affinity

But Vegans who eat fish is what I find perplexing

Not spot on at all.

Here we go --

The reason why Dominators were buffed was because they were a very sub-par AT to play outside of IOs. Controllers were miles and miles ahead of Dominators outside of IOs.

With IOs, you saw an ever increasing number of players who played Dominators reaching for the golden Perma Dom.

It is the IOs who made a totally different AT. I and others have been making that point for a very long time. It is a fact.

No one, no one was asking for a Dominator nerf in ANY power, before IOs came out. When IOs came out, then came the cry for TK and holds to be nerfed in PvP, perma doms were a different AT outside of IOs... guess what? THEY STILL ARE A VERY DIFFERENT AT OUTSIDE OF IOs now.

First thing you should do if you want to nerf it, strip that toon of all his/her IOs. Go play it without IOs, and for that matter, from incarnates too.

Tater, you don't think IOs make THAT MUCH of a difference? Fine, strip your Domis of all their IOs. Now, go play them, and come write on the forums how UBER and cool your Domis are, any of them.

Same reason peeps had been crying that Brutes were too OP and this and that. Gee, all that crying came after IOs too.

Go strip an ss/fire brute of all those IOs... to say that will suck is an understatement.

You might be spot on, but just on the wrong "spot".

Did you by chance team with Spiked Tomato? Please, if that is the case, the way he plays all DOMs makes them all look very good.

I have to agree with the comments made above, and I again invoke this fact -- NO ONE WAS CALLING FOR A NERF ON S O C BEFORE IOS CAME OUT.


IO's make Doms look way way better than they ever did.

SoC is the only reason to play plant. I have said and I will say it again, this is fact, Earth/ is the KING OF CONTROLS, not Plant.

Plant without SoC is not meh, it is as bad as Ice is, no wait, take SoC out of Plant and it will be a good secondary for controllers, like trick arrow or something like that. But take SoC out of plant and plant just does not come close to Earth, Dark, or Mind.

Dark is indeed up there now with Earth, IMO.

Seriously, Plant is a DMG set with SoC. The reason why Plant shines is the DMG and SoC.

The reason why Earth shines is the huge lockdown tools available that cover areas.

The reason Mind shines is the many tools to stop mobs cold in their tracks regardless of what they doing... still is the the only set that can solo LRSF for a Dom.... Maybe Dark/ can do it one day.


Dark, IMO, is already competing with Earth for the control aspect and has very decent dmg to boot. Not one specialty but very nice assortment of controls available.

Plant draws tons of aggro, and will draw aggro from places you are not even looking, if SoC is not up, or you miss, you better run.

Earth has many options to deal with it , Mind does too (and aggro free), Dark/ also has it.

If illusion ever comes to Doms, you can forget about this whole SoC discussion. Illusion on Doms will be UBER UBER UBER UBER. I am almost at the point of saying DO NOT give illusion to Doms. Phantom Army will take the cake and then some.

Again, NO ONE CRIED FOR A NERF TO SoC before IOs came out. STop crying for nerfs to SoC.

I am the OP. I did not say what you are saying.

They are both very good. Earth/ after playing this game for sooo long and trying different control sets, Earth/ is still the KING of controls, you will handle lots of things, and even from the other side of walls/corners, and some pretty sweet defense debuffs and slows.

I got two Earth/ Doms, Earth/Thorns (Thorns rocks the AoEs more than any other secondary) and an Earth/Earth Dom, complete lockdown with SMASH !!!

The thing is I love Dark/ as well. It has a bag full of tricks. It does not specialize in just one thing, it has it all, and the -to hit debuffs means even a little defense goes a long way. The pets are cool too. The Posses is amazing, the MASSIVE AREA FEAR is yummy, the Stun covers a big ol area, and the hold patch that is affected by Domination and the immob has very sold dmg.

As far as secondaries go, I like Dark assault. It has AoEs and St dmg well balanced, not too much of one or the other, and good selection of melee and range. You have a great variety. Dark assault is the ONLY set for Doms that has a hybrid power of powerboost and build up. Nice places for dmg procs in dark assault as well.

I also like Thorns assault even with the redraw. The AoEs and the dmg is very good, and it has some very nice defense debuffs.

Earth Assault is for Doms who want to BRUTE IT UP and feel the earth shake... although a bit light on the AoE, but strong on the ST side.

Arcana, there have been posts, I have read them, of players complaining that this or that Dominator power or set is broken.

I am pointing at a very important and essential aspect - The IO'd perma this, perma that, decked out Dominator. I think players need to keep in mind, and Developers have to always take into account that IOs and Incarnate buffs/bonuses change Doms to practically a whole new AT, in a good way, of course.

Also, Arcana, with all due respect. I remember arguing with you that players did not need a nerf to Elusivity in PvP since at that time many players were just building pvp toons badly when i13 had just been released. With the knowledge and experience many players had or have in more recent times, the former elusivity would not be an item that players just needed a solution handed in a platter to them. Yet, they listened to you, and others.

Well, what you said about widows in i13 is part of the wrong view and feeling going around which motivated the nerfs to widows. Widows were not ever GODS of pvp. I been participating in PvP since 2006. When i12 came out and decked out Widows hit the scene, I still saw very good Spines/Regen beat Widows, saw Rad/Psy defenders beat widows, I saw Mind/Storm Controllers beat widows, I saw Ice/Thermal controllers beat widows (in i12 when slows were still very powerful). In short, it was all rock, paper, scissors.

IOs made a huge divide between peeps who had them and who did not. Many players just walked away from PvP at that point. Either you came up, somehow with a lot of money to buy the IOs or you were not going to compete, not even practice. IOs make a huge difference, regardless of what anyone else says, and that's in addition to skill. IF you want to practice with a non IO'd toon vs IO'd toons, your vision of what really is going on is very short and distorted. Practicing on a decked out character vs another decked character will help any player learn and do better.

i13 made some really neat changes but also made some devastating changes. For example, it was sweet to have buffers in your team before i13 like bubblers, sonics, or slowers and other types of support. DR killed the support aspect of team pvp in a big way. Sonic shields are useless in pvp now, DR killed them. Bubbles... DR killed them, and healing decay also killed the healers until it was introduced as an option to remove HD. I was one of the players who wrote a letter to the Devs asking them to give us the option of removing DR from arena and to remove TS and HD. It was granted thanks to all of the players who voiced this. But the Devs gave squishies cap'd resistances... so what is the point of removing DR when a squishy can cap their resist thanks to the bonus resists given?

Why has not the resist number given to squishies not been reduced in order to accomodate the elimination of DR? WHo knows. If you remove DR, there is still no point for many buffs. Those blasters and squishies will be moving all over the place with cap'd resists already with no outside help.

The best MMO for PvP, IMO, is still Guild Wars, or Nerf Wars, called by many. It is the most balanced MMO for PvP. It is vastly popular for its PvP and PvP there is very very competitive. They implement a lot of great things for their PvP--

1. Their PvP zones or maps will not load until an even number of players are on both said or have chosen to enter the zone. So there is no such thing as an RV type map with 30 players from one side and 5 from the other. You Q up to enter a PvP zone or map, then you wait for the other side to Q up, and everyone is picked from the pool of players choosing to enter, like a lottery, at random, then they all zone in, battle it out.

2. There are Competitive PvP missions in GW as well. So not just zoning in and aiming to kill and only to kill opponents. Competitive pvp missions are an option, not forced upon anyone.

3. The gears, their equip, ANYONE can have them. Let me give you an idea. When I started in GW, I did so to participate in their PvP. My concern was equipment and gear, or I tried to find out, what is their equivalent for IOs in GW. I was very delighted to find out you can buy the PvP Kit for GW. That means you can get the best equipment for PvP and creat a pvp character and use all of that for PvP and for PvP only.

You can not load into a PvE zone with a character which was made for PvP only. But they created a place or a server, or a zone, for PvP only. They offered new players and any player the option to jump right into PvP without having to spend a long long time gather enough Gold or hording equipment and materials to craft or acquire gooooood equipment for PvP. You can buy the PvP kit and you are set, go fight.

4. Devs change the powers in GW to have an execution different in PvP than that of PvE in many cases when it is certain that it would be OP in either field.

5. You can respec your character at any second before entering the fight, without losing your stuff. You can have almost an infinite number of builds stored in a file which you can use at any moment to fight any type of opponent or team setting, etc.

It is very frustrating to build 1-3 toons in CoH and deck them out with everything, then nerfs or other changes happen, then your investment is almost completely lost or entirely lost. Now getting a different toon, getting all the accolades, then IOs, then all the incarnates you want or need to pVP... that's a very long process. In GW, you create a new PvP toon, u got all the gear and powers available when you create it and you can change them whenever you want outside of battle. You don't lose anything.

What killed PvP? THere is not enough interest in making this a more important issues, not enough from enough players, and not enough from the Devs. That is my opinion.

If there is such a way to do this, I am, and I ecourage all of you to support this. List names of scammers. I need to make very clear and stress the importance that the list MUST be an honest list. I mean, we can not afford to make a false accusation of anyone or the ENTIRE list will lose its virtue, and our credibility in posting the list of offenders will also lose its value.

So, if it's not against the rules, and the GMs will not take care of these issues which are easily and very possible to tackle, let's proceed with such a thread.

QFT

Allow me to add something else. It is a whole different issue when you think about GMs tackling players who commit these from the angle of the victim. If it happened to you, I doubt you would argue that GMs should not execute repercussion for this.