Cybercel

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aye I do think it would be better to have on test.

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Dude dont even go there! Union all the way

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Why not? More people can take part this way, and everyone can get onto test.

Okay, it does change things a bit if you want to keep this as more of a hybrid PvE/PvP toon. When I mentioned dropping out TK and Confuse until post-30, I was thinking more about a high-level respec - a lot of my toons that I take into PvP had a more PvE-focused build until late on.

I'd made the assumption you cared about Siren's as you mentioned it repeatedly in the other thread, and then made one change to get Acrobatics in time for it, too. If you don't care, then looking at the whole thing, I have to think it might well be the case that this toon is better built for higher-level PvP. I suppose the benefit there is that you could probably respec immediately without losing anything you want for PvE.

If you do build the character as is, don't be surprised when you're not-so-great in Siren's, though, as you seemed to be complaining about in the other thread. I have some toons I just don't take in there because I know they're not built for the level cap. Amusingly enough, the best Siren's-level build I've come up with so far is a Dom. It's a PvP Grav/Ice, though, which fits together completely differently than this.

I have a Blaster with no Aid Self in Siren's myself. It's not the best situation, but it's not too much of a problem for her because she can generally kill a threat before it becomes an issue. Plus, there are more often people around to team with on the hero side, I find, so she doens't need to be quite so self-sufficient. And if she does die? No worries, it's only a quick jump back. It's entirely different from a Dominator who might be jumping in and out, trying to build up Domination whilst also staying alive so as not to lose the Domination they've built, often with very little backup.

That said, if you're really taking the goal of not being able to kill anyone anyway (which I still disagree with, but it is your choice), then maybe having all those handy tools like Confuse, TK, Terrify and so on IS more useful for you. It still stinks, to me, of trying to be a Controller when you're not one, but again... your choice.

If you're not going to slot Power Blast (which is as good damage as Levitate - which was mentioned earlier in the thread), you might want to think about taking Power Push instead. At least it does something useful when only slotted for accuracy, and it fires off more quickly. It's got a lightly longer recharge on it, but with Hasten and a recharge slotted I don't think it would be bad. Plus, since it sounds like you're going to be busy with other powers a lot of the time, the slightly longer wait might not matter to you.

Super Jump slotting is personal choice, I guess. I can't remember any situation in which I've managed to SJ away, and been caught because I really could have done with another slot in it. Generally, if I can get away, I can get away, and that's it. The zones aren't difficult to lose people in. While I've no doubt the extra speed is nice, I could never do it in a build where that slot could be elsewhere. I know you can catch fliers with it, but I tend to just use the Jump Jet from the Good vs. Evil pack if they're slightly too high.

I don't have the link to the Dom guide to hand. Filth linked to it just a couple of days ago on the PvP forum, in a thread about Doms. It was a lengthy guide specifically about Doms in PvP - I'm not sure what you mean by the "generic" guide. And just because you disagree with some points in a guide doesn't make it worthless! I disagree with things in most guides I read, that doesn't mean that the rest of the information is useless.

All in all, it's striking me more and more that your complaints about Dominators in general are more likely about the /Energy powerset than anything else. Have you tried any of the other sets?

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Basically, the way I see it, Dominators were intended to be ATs that live on their inherent ability. They name of the AT and power are somewhat of a giveaway, I would think. All of the buffs the AT have received have not been to base abilities, but to Domination, which I think presses the point further. Most of the people I've seen complaining tend to be complaining about the AT's abilities while not under the effects of Domination, and I think they're barking up completely the wrong tree.

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Mind/En is probably the worst dominator power combination for this...

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It does look especially tough to make really workable in Siren's, which most people who do zonal PvP want in a build. I'm well aware /En has its problems - if I want Power Boost, I'll go with /Ice, tyvm. I don't think it's an overall problem with Doms, though. Just a power or powerset problem.

/En does have some things going for it, like Disorients and Knockback which are both useful, and rather nice for Dominators, in PvP. Perhaps the powers should have been tweaked a little more from their Blaster versions to make them a bit more suitable, though. It's a bit like how I think Flares is a really awful first attack for Fire Doms - it's a poor power to begin with, but on Doms, it's just unfair to artificially slow down Domination building with that animation.

Anyway, Hammerfall's made a thread on the Dominators forum, might be best to carry on any further Mind/En-specific talk over there, seeing as we're on a tangent of a tangent in this thread.

Good to see you're working on a PvP build.

As Syn has said, it'd be nice to know exactly what you're aiming for here. I have builds specifically made to be playable in Siren's, and others where I've just given up, admitted it's never going to be good enough in there, and gone for making it playable in higher-level zones.

From looking at your build, and playing around in a builder myself, it does look like Mind/En is difficult to build for Siren's. I don't know if you've seen the great US Dom guide that Filth linked to on the PvP board recently, but that guide's author stated that you WILL NEED Fitness, Leaping, and Medicine, no arguments. I tend to agree with him - I wouldn't want to PvP a Dom without Aid Self, and I suspect you'll just end up dying more, and getting less kills. It doens't matter how many fun, fancy powers you have if you're just dying over and over. On Union, we seem to have a tendency for the villains in Siren's not to team up much (and of course, the ones there are mostly Stalkers), so you cannot depend upon there being a Corruptor around to heal you, unless you have a friend or someone from your SG you're always going in with. I still think you're better off self-reliant though, I know my Thermal Corruptor can't always get to Filth's Dominator in time to save him, given how hectic PvP can get in there.

Personally, I'd probably knock Telekinesis and Confuse out until 32 and 35, and get Stimulant/Aid Self in there. Mass Confusion I'd drop, or maybe take later on - fun, but I just don't see how to fit it in at 32 on a PvP build with so many other powers to take. This is all going on my playstyle, though - I don't bother with 1v1s, for instance, so I rate TK lower than some people might. I love Confuse, but I've never found it to be the most important power to have in PvP. Power Boost is another thing you could live without in Siren's perhaps, if that fits your playstyle better. I find Power Boost more useful than Confuse or TK, though.

As for slotting, I don't see the point in two-slotting Combat Jumping. Have a look at the numbers in your builder - it's not very good. I tend to just two-slot Hurdle if I can afford to, the third slot isn't as effective. SJ I tend to leave alone, too - it'll get supressed in combat anyway, and it's pretty quick as is. Those are slots that could go into slotting your early attacks; I know you don't like them, but if you're going to take them and use them, you might as well be able to do some damage with them - at least in Power Blast.

On the upside, getting Total Focus in time for Siren's is really nice, and does give /En something over some of the other Dominator secondaries.

If you compare them to the equivalent Blaster powers, of course they're going to seem weak. Blasters are a dedicated damage AT, Doms are not.

The best Doms I know all take and use attacks, build Dom quickly, fire it off all the time (no saving it just for the boss), and use it not just for control but also for the damage buff it gives you. A lot of people don't seem to play this way, and they're invariably weaker for it, because neither the controls nor the damage is great out of Domination. (Although, unlike you, I don't think the blasts are so low-damage as to be useless, with perhaps the exception of Psionic Dart, which makes up for it by being great for building Domination.)

Basically, the way I see it, Dominators were intended to be ATs that live on their inherent ability. They name of the AT and power are somewhat of a giveaway, I would think. All of the buffs the AT have received have not been to base abilities, but to Domination, which I think presses the point further. Most of the people I've seen complaining tend to be complaining about the AT's abilities while not under the effects of Domination, and I think they're barking up completely the wrong tree.

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Besides the blasts indeed are worse than useless in pve even. I once had power blast but respecced it away.

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I honestly can't understand this. What's useless about them? I don't feel the blasts are anywhere near useless! Notice that a lot of the people who don't feel Doms are massively underpowered take, slot, and use their secondary heavily. I think there might be a connection there.

Oh, and the Defiancing Blaters are a load of [censored], but that's an issue with Defiance being easily exploitable, and is annoying to all squishies. They're generally pretty easy to kill if you just have someone on the team who can fly, though.

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Argh that domination buildup thing is true. Dammit.

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Yeah, that would be why Syn was telling you your secondary is so important. It's pretty fundamental to the way Doms play imo, surprised you weren't aware of it. You build more Domination from your secondary, so spam attacks until Domination is up (which doesn't take long, and has been made easier to to in PvP and large teams, with a bonus). Building Domination using solely your primary is really slow in comparison - in fact, I barely use my primary on some of my Doms unless I have Domination up. Just when neccessary, since there's the risk of running out of end before Dom is ready if you try to spam everything.

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pps. Just been to union sirens call. I see no reason to change my opinions other than power blast/bolt. Anybody who thinks that doms arent underpowered in pvp can meet my heroes on defiant. ( i dont have heroes on union)

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I doubt one visit to Union Siren's Call would help anything. As I said, good PvP Doms are rare on both servers. I've seen more on Union, but we're talking in the range of maybe three of them I can think of, and only one who I've really seen and teamed with repeatedly. (And he's just come back from a months-long hiatus.) Syn and I are curreently levelling a pair of them, and a few others in our villain SG seem to have picked up the Dom bug at the moment, so hopefully we'll be seeing more. I'm guessing the changes to Domination have got a few people interested.

Sadly, my highest villain on Defiant is only around 18, and my only Dominator there is a level 5-ish PvE build. Maybe someday, though - I still have slots free, just not enough time to play everything I already have.

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Ultimately I dont agree that stalkers are easy in pvp either, at least when youre against people who know anything about pvp.

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As you've said yourself, the majority of people in PvP aren't very good. This generally makes them perfect Stalker-fodder.

Anyway, we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on Dominators, as I think they're just fantastic after all the recent changes (and they were a lot of fun before that). To me, the challenge of playing them is just all part of the enjoyment, and I find them to be very powerful and rewarding when played well. I'm levelling up a PvP-focused Dom at the moment, as my two higher ones on Union are running PvE specs at the moment... not sure if I'll ever get around to another on Defiant, sorry.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Syn's complaining it's time to sleep, after all the time spent arguing in this thread, and pointing it out to me.

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but they do exist, and they can get kills. They're just not an easy AT.

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But, as I pointed out earlier, being difficult to play is essentially a weakness, because majority of players as a whole arent very good in pvp. So overall balance will shift to heroes if heroes in general are easier to play.

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Except Stalkers.

Frankly, I'd be disgusted and really upset if they made Doms easy to play, and took away one of the really fun challenges left in the game. They're an absolute joy, and it's so nice having an AT that doesn't have any ridiculous overpowered powerset combinations that you're pretty much locked into for PvP. The person I'd consider Union's best Dom is a Plant/Thorns, which is in no way ideal for PvP, but it's still workable. It's also nice having an AT where every monkey who's been given an FoTM build to copy can't do almost exactly the same things a good player can do.

As far as the hero/villain disbalance, I don't think villain ATs being "more difficult to play" (which as noted above, I don't really agree with - villains have Stalkers) is the disbalancing issue. I think it's just that heroes were made when the devs didn't really have more experience and weren't thinking so much about balance. Villains weren't given anywhere near as many ridiculous "I WIN" type powers - and that's a good thing. Except it does cause a disbalance that's going to be there until heroes get toned down, or they give in and buff villains a bit. Turning Doms into another easy AT isn't going to make any difference in high-level PvP when heroes have the ancillaries they do.

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As far as Defiant goes, I know Abu's Dominator lasts far longer than 5 seconds in the zones, you might want to ask him for pointers if you don't like my advice.

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Bah.. Of course you had to resort to the one exception that I pointed out myself, that is, telekinesis..

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Abu doesn't just TK people around. I've been in Siren's on the hero side, on my high-level Blaster (Sonic/Elec) when he was out, and I'm pretty sure he killed me at one point. He never TKed me, it wasn't any sort of one-on-one fight (mass fight in water near villain base, actually), and he wasn't dying all the time from what I saw.

I really don't think the situation on Defiant is vastly different than it is on Union. There aren't a lot of good PvP Doms around, no... but they do exist, and they can get kills. They're just not an easy AT.

Freaks is going to be awfully quiet without you around. Should anything change, or you find you actually do have enough time, chances are we'll still be around being bastards.

Cybering night just won't be the same. We will not see your like again.


P.S. You *******, what am I going to use my Earth/TA Controller for if you stop leading raids?!

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First time I've PvP'd on my fire/thermal Corruptor and I just wish I'd taken my Ice/Ice one now as I was swearing at the screen everytime I used Warmth and see why people complain about the rooting on it as the other teams empath was happily running round and healing with no loss of mobility!

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I feel your pain there. I'd probably play my Thermal a lot more if they removed the rooting in the heals, and perhaps made Thaw closer to Clear Mind. It would really help even out zonal PvP, especially in Siren's where no one on the villain side has a +Perception like Clear Mind, and the only fear and confuse protection buff along those lines is Stimulant, which is a pain to use in a zone like that.

Anyway, not wanting to turn this into yet another complaint thread, I'll leave it at that.

Yeah, that was fun. Thanks again for organising it, KS - I'm still pretty shocked that I actually fought in (and enjoyed) some Arena matches. I'm even more shocked that I didn't lose them all horribly.

Well done to everyone involved - it was a really nice atmosphere.

It is a huge heal, but I like having the three heal SOs in it anyway, in case I need to heal a Tank in a hurry (say, during an AV fight, or in PvP). They're certainly not high priority slots, though - slot it whenever you can afford to.

I'd already seen this as you PMed it to Syn - it's fantastic! I really like the style of it, and while it might sound odd, I particularly like how the warwall looks, and the various light sources in the picture (PWN shop!). And I'm glad to see Gonzo's signature glowing head. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I think it's sort of sweet that they've ended up sitting and having a friendly chat, rather than fighting. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Those all work for Syn and I, so any of the runs where you can get us both in, we'll bring Aphotica and Antithetix again. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I don't know the exact numbers, but Smoke Grenade isn't a huge debuff. Blasters aren't debuffers though, so that shouldn't come as any surprise - it's certainly not going to be anywhere near a Defender or Controller debuff. More of a nice little bonus to the -Perception.

I have a ToHit Buff/Def Buff/Increase Attack Rate (Synthetic Membrane Exposure).

Ideally I would like an Increase Damage Resistance and Endurance Reduction (Ribosome Exposure, I think?) or Increase ToHit and Defence Debuffs, and Endurance Reduction (Enzyme Exposure), but I might be willing to trade for a few others if no one has any of those to trade.

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Also Ice/Dark might just be too easy to solo in non-EB situations

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If you build it and play anything like the way I do, you'll run out of endurance quickly enough to warrant significant worry at times. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] ("Ah [censored], DN's dropped! Too tired? No, must stack another hold on that boss... no... nooooo... RUUUUN!")

Just to back up what some others have said here, /Dark is fantastic for soloing. A good mix of debuffs and control, and Shadowfall helps make you a little less squishy. /Rad is good too, though - a bit more in the way of debuffing, a bit less in the way of hard controls. Both are very powerful, but also quite endurance heavy - I find I need to rest a lot solo with either set. To give you an idea, though... my Ice/Dark Corruptor was soloing Elite Bosses in the early part of the game, pre-SOs. I would say all secondaries are capable of soloing, but Dark and Rad really stand out.

As far as primaries go, Ice and Fire do spring to mind for solo builds. Both have good damage - Fire is known for AoEs, but it has some good single target powers (Blaze, and the snipe spring to mind). Ice is known for single-target powers, but it actually has a rather nice cone, a rain power, and Blizzard, which is a fantastic nuke for Corruptors. Especially over mobs with -res debuffs on them, which both Dark and Rad can give you. Ice has the benefit of more control - slows for soft control, holds for hard control, while Fire goes more for all-out damage. Again, the other primaries can solo, but none of them really seem as good as these two. A lot of them are lower damage, with more focus on secondary effects. Dark Blast springs to mind - sure, the debuffs are nice and stack up when you're Dark/Dark, but it's just not the damage-dealer you probably want for a solo toon. Energy Blast might be workable, but I've not really tried it on a Corruptor yet - knockbacks are certainly viable soft control for a soloer, though.

Just a quick update on this again - I'm still trying to sort out some problems with my host, but it looks like it should be sorted fairly soon. Then I'll try to get through the backlog of updates to this.

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i shall thus be trying a very ambitious 5 runs next week, meaning more slots for people

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If you could get Synaesthetix and I into one of the runs next week as well, we'd love to come on another, and should be free any time you can fit us into a team during that week.

It's amazing seeing the turn out for these things though - good to see you're trying to get some people in who've not had a chance yet.

You switched Frosthound and I in that photo caption. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Well done all, though. We really tore into them when we decided to rush them after the first two fell.

I honestly think you're reading far too much into this person's comments. People often say "X AT is rubbish in PvP!" when they die, regardless of who - and what AT - they're fighting. That, and it's something you'll quite commonly here about Peacebringers and Warshades.

Edit: Just as an example, to show how little that sort of comment means:

I was watching my boyfriend fighting, on his Scrapper, in Warburg. He ran across a Storm Defender (Storm/Elec I think?) who started trying to fight him. He ended up killing the guy, who immediately started whining about how Storm Defenders are useless in PvP.

Now, using your reasoning, he would have been saying "Look, Stormies are useless in PvP because I can't even kill a SCRAPPER, and they suck." He wasn't, it was just the usual sort of complaining that you hear from people when they lose.

I'm free for the Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday runs, but I'd prefer to come along if there's a space for Synaesthetix, too. Think he's getting jealous at my growing pile of Synthi-Os, and keeps trying to get me to share. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

So put down Aphotica, level 50 Ice/Dark, for any of those three runs where Antithetix, level 50 Robots/Dark can also come along. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] We'll do more than one quite happily - Syn's schedule leaves him with a couple of weeks off work. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]