Darkaj

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I have one incidental concern, though. As if Kinetics and Radiation weren't unofficially considered the "best" support sets before, this just makes it even worse. "We ned healr" is slowly going away, but it seems like it's just being replaced with "we ned rad".

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Ain't it the truth. I have a /rad corr, and I have to hide from my own VG if I want to be able to play any other toon

I wonder if maybe perma-Domination is what the devs want, in order to make doms better on teams? It has seemed to me since the start of CoV that where doms really have problems is on teams, because hard control has big gaps and dom damage is lower than the other ATs. If doms can use corruptor buffs to perma Domination, though, and even overlap it, then doms become much better at control and could be really valuable to (non-AV) teams. Maybe this was what they had in mind with reducing the dom timer in I-7.

The only drawback to this would be that it would require a pretty specific team composition to work, and /kin and /rad corruptors are already very much in demand. It would also require every dom to take Hasten.

Oh cool -- if there is such a thing as double Domination, I suppose we can now expect it to be speedily "fixed."

Anyone see any irony here?

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So, I don't know if any of you have been reading the thread aboutt he Recluse SF contest, but below is a post that just went up in that thread. I'm pasting it in here becuase I think it's a pretty solid example of exactly what the majority of the Dom community has been worried about happening:

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It just shows how ignorant a lot of people are about dominators' abilities. My dom eats AVs for lunch... with domination up. That's the key. Get dom up.

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Yeah right -- you can have domination up all day long and you won't touch an AV with triangles.

When you succeed on the Recluse TF with your dom let me know -- I'm not holding my breath.

It's also worth noting that no Stalkers or MMs are on this ideal team for recluse either. I think that's tolerable, however, because Stalkers and MMs at least solo extremely well. Doms are actually better solo than teamed, but they aren't very good solo because they don't do very well against EBs with triangles.

Many of the things that people are pointing out as to why doms do so badly in PvP also apply to PvE. PvP just points up the problems better because you cannot use player skill to overcome the problems with a toon in PvP, since PvP is so unforgiving.

I have found that my doms (with the exception of Plant/) do not bring as much to a PvE team as the other ATs. Doms bring partial control and the lowest damage in CoV. That's not enough to earn a spot on a team. Multiple corruptors on a team can stack debuffs to accomplish the same or better damage mitigation, while also bringing buffs and healing. So who needs a dom, since you get more damage with a corr? And dom damage is not only low, but doms have to get into melee to use their best damage powers - but with low HP and no defenses, this makes them toast on large teams.

Domination is a great inherent, and with Domination running, the dom can hold a boss -- oops, the Stalker just disoriented the boss and now, 3 seconds later, the Brute and the Stalker have killed it. Well, the dom can hold an AV -- oops, no, the triangles mean that Domination is completely ineffective against the AV. Maybe Domination can help with this ambush -- ooops, no, the dom popped Domination a couple minutes ago and now it's not ready. Oh well.

Doms are the least-played of any AT except Khelds (which require a level 50 hero to unlock), and their popularity falls off more at higher levels. Surveys I have done on multiple servers have shown that doms are only about 6% of the non-hidden CoV toons being played at levels 35-40, whereas you would expect 20% if all ATs were equally popular. No one expects absolute equality in popularity, but when a toon has less than 1/3 of the numbers you would expect as an average, it's indicative of a problem. And, since doms certainly have no need to hide due to excessive blind invites, the actual % is probably even worse.

This is a broken AT.

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I did notice a slight increase with my Grav/ENG, but we're only slighty behind */Fire due to 3 melee attacks (one being TF).

Small steps folks, we got a melee boost now we need a ranged boost, Power Boost/Aim/Psychic Drain tweak, mez protection ....

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I thought someone tested TF and the increase doesn't apply to it?

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It does...why wouldn't it? It's a Melee power >.>

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Did you test it?

I was just wondering -- I thought I read a post that indicated it was questionable whether TF got the bonus.

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I did notice a slight increase with my Grav/ENG, but we're only slighty behind */Fire due to 3 melee attacks (one being TF).

Small steps folks, we got a melee boost now we need a ranged boost, Power Boost/Aim/Psychic Drain tweak, mez protection ....

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I thought someone tested TF and the increase doesn't apply to it?

I'm really scratching my head over the melee damage increase. It seems like it helps /Fire by far the most (with Incinerate), and that's already the highest damage secondary. And, the increased damage over time, since it's just an increase for one or two powers per set, is going to be what -- 1%? 2% for the other sets? Is that going to be even noticeable?

We are the only AT that has to go through such a process to build up to use our inherent. A Stalker may be very dependent on Assassin Strike, but the Stalker has that power available every few seconds whether attacking or not. A Brute gets the benefit of building Fury while it is being built.

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So, most of the attack-spamming that will be used to build Domination with the new timer must come from the secondary attack powers.

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It's only the secondary attack powers that award the extra 8 points on the Domination bar, and that only when they hit. The primaries are still only 2 points.

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My post, as stated, is about PvE. It addresses the reduction in the dom timer from 300 seconds to 200 seconds.

Here's my attempt to state in somewhat of a syllogism form why I think the PvE change for Dominators doesn't help much for large teams:

1. The timer reduction makes Domination available more often only if the dom is constantly attacking.

2. It is not good tactical play to spam holds for Domination building on large teams because, with a few exceptions (such as Mesmerize) the recharge timer on holds is so long that you need to use them when needed, not whenever they come up. So, most of the attack-spamming that will be used to build Domination with the new timer must come from the secondary attack powers.

3. A Dominator who concentrates on constantly spamming attacks on a large team in order to build Domination is not going to also be able to give maximum concentration to surveying the entire field of battle and positioning and calculating to use the control powers to best effect -- instead, he or she is going to be in melee (in order to be able to spam the secondary attacks) trying to stay alive. Some very skilled players may be able to use the control powers just as effectively as if they were not spamming attacks, but most of us won't.

4. The attack powers that Dominators will be spamming will not be of much help to a large team, since the attack powers that doms have that build Domination best are the fast-recharging, low damage ones like Brawl and Psi Dart, and because domination-building attack powers in general don't do that much damage compared to what other ATs can do.

5. So, the reduction in the recharge timer is of most use to people who solo and play on small teams, where it is possible to spam attacks and still be effective at control, simply because control in those situations is easier to do without as many mobs.

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Spending a majority of your time soloing (my survey) and prefering to solo (your claim) are _not_ the same thing.

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Ummm, OK, whatever.

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However, I *prefer* teaming. Soloing is boring, because I'm basically in complete control of the situation at all times.

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So does this mean you solo a lot because you can't find a team -- odd, after all the claims by others that their doms have no problem finding a team.

Anyway, I don't care whether people are soloing because they want to or because they can't find a team -- the fact is that they are soloing a lot and your own survey bears that out. So please don't flame me for saying it.

Some of you would flame me for saying the sun rises each morning, and it's pretty tiresome.

FivefifteenA

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Most MMs dont control their pets. They don't use the goto command, they only cause confusion spinning back and forth running in circles. They take forever to equip. MMs should team with other MMs. Maybe you should try LARGE RELENTLESS TEAMS without MMs...

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There are bad players in any AT. If your complaint is that MM setup time interferes with Domination buildup, then that is a problem with the nature of our inherent, because it makes it difficult to team with an entire class.

Brute Fury isn't the same thing, because there is no total lockdown in the game. A Brute can always find a mob that isn't held, except maybe in a very small team. In fact, the only time a Brute has ever asked my doms not hold was in duos.

FivefifteenA

Ninja, I don't think the dom role confusion stems from comparing doms to other ATs -- at least, not for me. The role confusion stems from the fact that doms don't have one identifiable thing that they are good at. You seem to be arguing that this is a de facto comparison, since "good" must be defined relative to other ATs. Perhaps -- but the way I look at it is that an AT has to at least reach the threshhold of being good enough to contribute their fair share to a team -- i.e., not leeching. Above that, one may be uber and another not, I don't care, but a minimum level of team contribution should be available.

As for the debate you had with Pilcrow about Defenders, that was the Offender debate that I referred to -- yes, a def can be built (or could, back in I-3) that had blaster-level damage or even more. That truly is a case of embarrassment of riches, because you have an AT that can fulfill 2 jobs splendidly well. The dom problem is the opposite, because it cannot fill either job -- control or damage -- very well.

However, I fear that all of this talk is irrelevant. With so many people saying they are perfectly happy with their doms, and criticizing anyone who suggests otherwise, I doubt that the devs will feel any urgency to fix doms, in spite of the small number of people who play them.

FivefifteenA

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As I have noted many times, most of the people who like doms seem to prefer a solo or small-team playstyle.

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"All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." - Paul Simon

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agreed, I don't know how many times 40 people have to say they play in mostly large teams with their doms.

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I am going to reply to this politely and ignore the flames.

There was a survey on the dom board a while back that asked whether people soloed or teamed. About half of the people who responded said they excusively or almost exclusively soloed, and most of the rest said they soloed and teamed more or less equally. Very few said that they almost always teamed.

Now, is this statistically significant? Probably not -- but it does represent a cross-section of people who report their experiences. Take that as you will.

fivefifteenA

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That was a hot topic in the Defender forums back around I4 or so. People were confused and upset that there was a lack of definition to the Defender "role". I never understood why it was important really.

IIRC some were trying to figure out if Defenders should be protectors, team multipliers, or part-time damage dealers. To me the fact that you could do either was a bonus and not a crutch. The same could be said for Doms.

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I have played defenders since I3, and I don't recall any big debate about defender roles, except for the debate about Offenders -- and that was never really much of a debate because pretty much everyone agreed that Offenders were not as valuable to a team as a Defender. Nothing against Offenders -- I had one myself -- it's just that it was seen for what it was, which was a primarily solo build. The only other Defender role debate I recall had to do with Controllers having the Defender primaries at mostly full strength, but that had to do with comparison of ATs, not defenders themselves.

Defenders always knew what they were best at, and they have a very clear role -- team support with buffs and debuffs. The fact that someone could make a Defender with a different emphasis did not obscure what was their clear strength. Doms have no such clarity. Are doms supposed to be primarily team support? Then why do they have only 80% of controller primaries and a secondary that doesn't synergize with the primary? (Defender secondaries don't synergize with their primaries either, but defender primaries are so overwhelmingly good that they don't need any synergy.) Are doms supposed to be damage dealers? Then why do they have damage as a secondary, weak damage, and melee powers with no way to protect themselves in melee? Are doms supposed to be some sort of blend of the two? If so, then what exactly is their role on a team?

All of the CoV ATs seem to be blends of abilities, and all of them seem to be designed to have better soloability than most CoH ATs, which were more specialized. That makes me think that the devs probably conceived of doms as having a mixed role. But maybe not -- after all, doms are the only CoV AT that has a damage secondary.

FivefifteenA

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Tip: Don't team with MM's.

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I never ever invite MM's to my team. It might seem trite but their pets are always in the way. whether its blocking a doorway and I can't attack, or somehow Im in front of them and need to run. I just can't deal. Plus all the downtime for resummons and buffs is annoying, its detrimental to domination and fury.

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I don't think it is a very viable option to just say "don't team with MMs." For one thing, MMs are about 1/3 of the population of most servers at any given time. For another, when I am forming a team, I'm not going to turn down a VG member who I know is a good player just because his AT makes my inherent hard to use. If our inherent is structured in a way that it hinders us from teaming with the most popular AT in CoV, then there is something wrong with our inherent.

As I have noted many times, most of the people who like doms seem to prefer a solo or small-team playstyle. That's fine, but I don't think any AT should be structured so that they *have* to play solo or on small teams to be effective.

FivefifteenA

The only real change for doms in PvE is the reduction in the timer. The only people I see this as helping are those who solo or play on small teams. On large teams, with MM set up time and the inevitable afks you have with 8 people, the Domination timer is not a problem. Some people advocate that, during team afks, doms should find a minion and beat up on it to keep Domination up. This is both kind of pathetic and, on a big team, dangerous. I personally would kick anyone who attacked mobs while the team was afk on a large team, because with improved mob AI there is always a change of unintended aggro in this situation.

I think that doms need help on large teams, and so I was very disappointed in a change that only helps doms that are constantly attacking -- because doms on a large team are not going to be constantly attacking.

I would prefer to see a change to the acc and duration of holds as mob level increases. As it is now, there is a very sharp drop-off in the duration of holds and their chance to hit with harder mobs. Since a large team on Relentless will generally have +2 and +3 mobs to the highest person on the team, it becomes very difficult for a dom to add much control. When I started my first corr after playing doms for a while, it was really noticable to me how much better the corr soft controls hit and last on harder mobs. The falloff in dom abilities against harder mobs needs to be addressed.

I'm sure some people will reply that they hold higher level mobs just fine, and I'm glad that they are happy with their performance, but really, when you get maybe 10 seconds duration against +2s from an aoe hold that is three-slotted for hold duration with SOs, that's not too hot.

FivefifteenA

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Dominators need to be completly analyzed by the devs and they need to run the numbers and see whats wrong. Only problem i can see is, they might see plant as good enough and leave everyone else in gimpitude.

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Good point. No one really agrees what doms should be. There are lots of different playstyles -- the mostly solo scraptroller -- the team oriented toon that maxes out the primary -- the wanna-be damage dealer who slots holds for damage.

With a Brute, there is no question what the playstyle should be. Same with an MM or a Stalker. There is a little controversy with corrs, with some people thinking they should be support and others thinking they should be offense, but corrs are really able to do both pretty well.

There is none of this clarity as to the role of the dom. Perhaps it would be helpful if one of the devs would share with us what their thoughts were in designing the AT?

FivefifteenA

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Knock it off 515A.

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????

Ummm -- I am the one who asked why we didn't all pull together -- and then got flamed for my trouble.

Or were you being a tad sarcastic?

FivefifteenA

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You're still talking to him? Do you remember the thread where he argued about the definition of majority for 5 or so pages? I respect Five's total, utter and blind willingness to defend any point he's ever made no matter how ill thought out, but I respect it the same way I respect the crazy necrotic bacteria colonies in the mouths of komodo dragons: from a distance, and with no interest in experiencing it myself.

edit: good call fish, that would be funny, and kinda typical.

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Just another day on the dom board -- oh, this isn't the dom board.

This is the dom community displaying it's disfunctionality to all those who might not ordinarily see it.

I imagine they are watching in fascinated horror . . . or disgust.

FivefifteenA

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you call out, annoy, troll and harrass folks. Its not an opinion we're angry with.

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Would you care to point out an example of me doing that, or is this an example of "wishing makes it so"?

FivefifteenA

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Then how come we are not all pulling together?

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Because repeatedly waving a "doms suck" banner isn't the way to get people who actually *like* dominators and playing dominators to rally to your side.

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This is the OTHER reason he gets flamed, lol. A lot of us don't actually think Doms suck, we like doms but we all think we need a bit more power.

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And why do you think it is necessary to "flame" someone merely for expressing an opinion that may differ slightly from yours?

FivefifteenA

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We're a fiesty group when it comes to people talkin about us >.>

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If by "feisty" you mean "rude" and "abusive," then yes you are. If you want people (i.e. the devs and a broader cross-section of players) to take you seriously, and to actually begin to read the dom board, then that has to change.

FivefifteenA

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Then how come we are not all pulling together?

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Because repeatedly waving a "doms suck" banner isn't the way to get people who actually *like* dominators and playing dominators to rally to your side.

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This is the OTHER reason he gets flamed, lol. A lot of us don't actually think Doms suck, we like doms but we all think we need a bit more power.

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And why do you think it is necessary to "flame" someone merely for expressing an opinion that may differ slightly from yours?

FivefifteenA

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Then how come we are not all pulling together?

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Because repeatedly waving a "doms suck" banner isn't the way to get people who actually *like* dominators and playing dominators to rally to your side.

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In the first place, my view of doms is considerably more nuanced than you indicate. But whatever.

In the second place, if you like doms now, you will love I-7.

FivefifteenA