Darkaj

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Something needs to be done, dominator population is low and sinking. Even with the changes dominators are still little more than fodder in pvp.

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I fully expect to get flamed for saying this (because I have been saying the same thing and getting flamed for it for 3-4 months now) but doms really need to present a united front to the devs in saying that we need changes. As long as the dom board presents a happy world where everything is wonderful and naysayers get flamed till their toenails are curling, we are not likely to be high on the priority list for buffs.

FivefifteenA

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And yet you STILL dont get it. We dont need a complete overhaul like you think. What we need is some tweaks. VIABLE Tweaks. No reducing the recharge time on Domination IS NOT a viable tweak. Thats the problem. Period.

Increased Damage
Increased charging of Dom bar (maybe 4pts per attack in PvE)
Increased control duration
Increased mag or perhaps the controllers 2nd inherent (the ability to crit on a hold)

Any of these would have been viable solutions for PvE... we got none.

Complete overhaul of the AT, nope.. wrong way to go about it. Viable tweaks... Yes!!!

Shame we are still waiting for them

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I agree with both of you. We do need buffs like those presented, and maybe our secondaries need to be re-ordered (Psi especially, LOL) but we don't need to be rebuilt from scratch or anything.

And as you can see, FivefifteenA, the Dom boards are anything but a happy world where all is well right now. Maybe there are a few people like Ditzy_Blonde who think that just because we're a support AT we don't deserve to be balanced for damage OR support in all situations, but they are greatly outnumbered by the people who think we got jacked in I7.

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Then how come we are not all pulling together? I just got criticized by whatshizname because he thinks I want a "complete overhaul" while he wants "tweaks." Of course, I have never said I want a "complete overhaul," but why let facts stand in the way of flames?

Anyway, as long as we are flaming amongst ourselves over minor details, the devs aren't likely to pay us any heed -- and rightly so.

FivefifteenA

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Something needs to be done, dominator population is low and sinking. Even with the changes dominators are still little more than fodder in pvp.

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I fully expect to get flamed for saying this (because I have been saying the same thing and getting flamed for it for 3-4 months now) but doms really need to present a united front to the devs in saying that we need changes. As long as the dom board presents a happy world where everything is wonderful and naysayers get flamed till their toenails are curling, we are not likely to be high on the priority list for buffs.

FivefifteenA

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Saddens me to read that people are going to abandon their dom's because they are unhappy with the changes.
Ironically ? Noone whohas posted that sentiment has a dom over lvl 37.

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Personally, I don't think I should have to play a toon to level 38 before it starts getting good

FivefifteenA

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I don't have time to play Broken AT's anymore and you people shouldn't either. So take it up directly with Statesman and Positron like I did....then go roll something else in the meantime b/c it's going to be a long friggin way to Issues 8 and 9.

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My sentiments exactly. When CoV went live, I loved the concept of doms, and rolled 6-8 of them, with my highest level now being 30-ish. I knew doms were borked, but had high hopes that I-7 would provide some good buffs. Looking at the low number of people playing doms, especially at higher levels, and their obvious flaws, I felt that doms would be a high priority for the devs to fix in I-7.

Well, I-7 is on test and there is nothing that helps doms in PvE. The reduced recharge on Domination won't help people who team, and it is only likely to be useful to a few of the solo scraptroller types who think it is fun to run around with Brawl on auto.

Unless some major changes are made, I'm done with this AT. I have rolled some MMs and a couple of Stalkers, and I already have high-level corrs. All of these toons are so much fun, solo well, and contribute a lot to teams. Count me as one more dom drop-out.

FivefifteenA

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They are the only AT to have a mediocre primary and a mediocre secondary. Other ATs have inherent powers as a bonus; Dominators are the only AT to DEPEND on their Inherent power.

We need some serious fixing, and this was sadly not it.

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You're absolutely right. The heart of the problem, as I see it, is that the devs weakened the dom primary and secondary because they thought the inherent was very strong and would over-power any AT with normal-strength primaries and secondaries. They then gave doms 2 hurdles to jump before being able to use Domination -- the timer and the build up/decay bar.

It's obvious that very few people like this playstyle of having to wait/build up to use an inherent that makes us slightly better than average, when we are well below average otherwise.

Comparing this to my corr -- Scourge is fabulous when it hits a whole group, but my corr is not at all dependent on Scourge, and if I never had it, I would still be able to be very effective solo and team. And -- my Ice/ corr has Blizzard which, every few minutes, can unleash a huge amount of destruction -- but if I did not have Blizzard I could still have a very effective toon.

Other ATs get their "special" abilities in addition to primaries and secondaries that work well. Doms don't. That is the fundamental problem, imo. Personally, I would be willing to see Domination toned down some if it meant the primaries and secondaries could be brought up to par.

Domination is less problematic for people who solo all the time, because they can control when to build it up and use it. It is much less team-friendly, because the team isn't necessarily going to want to wait on the dom to be ready. That's one reason why so many doms are people who like to solo.

FivefifteenA

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Are you currently testing the changes or is this just your opinion of the changes? This thread is for testing the pve and pvp dominator changes. The above might be better suited in the General AT forum.

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Cricket said : "This thread is solely for discussions regarding the recent Dominator changes in Issue 7."

FivefifteenA

The problem with the Dominator changes is that, while they may have helped the AT a bit in PvP (and that remains to be seen), they have done nothing really for PvE. Doms need help in PvE because, as they are, they bring less to a large team than any other AT. Doms are OK solo (if you don't mind having to take a long time to kill things, and if you don't mind having to team for most EBs), and they do well in duos and trios, but on a large team doing hard missions, they have several problems. Dom control acc and duration falls off rapidly as mob level increases, so on large teams doing hard missions, where levels will be +2 and +3, dom's already shortened controls (from controller durations) are even shorter -- when they hit. Domination is hard to build and maintain on a large team because of the afks between battles and the time MMs need to set up. A dom's entire secondary is pretty useless on a large team, because the dom's highest damage attacks are melee, and wading into melee with 15 or so mobs is death to the low HP dom.

Now, a couple of builds are OK for specific things. The Plant/ primary is pretty good at control because it has one power -- Seeds -- that is level 8 and can be perma'd pretty quick, and it has Carrion Creepers, which is a very effective control power. High level Fire/ doms with imps slotted out apparently do fairly well at damage. And that's it. One build that is decent at control, and one build that, post-32, is average at damage.

There is a reason why doms are consistently the least-played AT and why dom population falls off even more for higher levels -- it's because doms don't really contribute much to large teams and take forever to solo.

FivefifteenA

*If* they change it back in PvE to what it was, it will be a hopeful sign for the game, cuz it will mean that they are least listening to us PvE players. But they haven't done it yet.

FivefifteenA

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So if everyone(or nearly so) agrees that pve should have been left alone, lets think of ways to solve the specific problem of pinning a player to the wall WITHOUT affecting pve.

My suggestion is suppression of the repel effect if its on you for x amount of time. It is already in the game for some powers, so it might be easy to put in.

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Or they could take the time to code it so that PvE is not affected at all.

Maybe there is some reason why this is impossible or not practical. If so, it would be nice for the devs to say "we tried to make this a PvP only change but it is not possible because (reason)." That would go a long way toward making people feel better about this, I think. The way it is now, with the fact that they didn't even bother to mention PvE in the patch notes, it seems like they didn't even care enough to try to code it so PvE would be uanffected.

FivefifteenA

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It's not about being arrogant, it's about being humble. Everyone has things to learn.

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Lol, and you're going to teach them huh, savior of the world? Goodness, you started out with a "can I have your stuff" post and have now turned into freaking Gandhi.

Hmmm -- let me guess -- the child went to bed and now the older brother is on the comp?

FivefifteenA

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Actually, I was using the irony as a "teaching tool". You know, so you can see it as well from the flip side? It is a shame you didn't see my post of "Can I have your stuff" as lighthearted (as it was intended), but as an attack.

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That is the most arrogant statement I have seen in a long time. Why do you presume you have anything to teach anyone? You act like you're 12 years old and you're very rude. I suggest you learn some manners before you try to teach anyone anything.

FivefifteenA

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*shrugs* Actually, it's because I find you have NOTHING to contribute, other then a basic BMW post. It really gets to the point where I see your name, and I know that what follows is basically nothing but insults, hyperbole, and the general inability (or lack of desire) to be helpful to your cause.

Basically, what I'm saying is you remind me of a spoiled child.

So toddle off, little one.

Basically, I've just contributed with exactly the same amount of information and "good posting" that you did with the last post. Generally, if you find yourself just attacking people with your posts, you're not exactly doing anything helpful. Even if our opinions differ, there are better ways to share it then with such gratuitous insults, you know?

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Well, I'm sorry that you felt it was necessary to attack me just because I was expressing an opinion that differs from yours. And it's always ironic when someone makes a post that is full of attacks while pretending to take the high ground. But, whatever.

FivefifteenA

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When you're done, can I have your stuff?

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Sure fanboy.

Y'know, the people who say that remind of me of little kids who hear a joke that isn't funny, but they think it is and they repeat it over and over until all the adults around are ready to strangle them. I guess that's the point.

Toddle off, little one.

FivefifteenA

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Actually, the patch notes say explicitly that this change was solely for PvP. It doesn't say that the change carries over to PvE... but it doesn't say it doesn't, all it says is the power changed.

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Ummm -- the patch notes are supposed to tell us what the patch does. The patch notes in this case did not say a single freaking thing about Hurricane having its guts ripped out in PvE play. Is that honest? No. Is it straightforward? No.

I don't think you get it. The devs just ripped the heart out of a nice little set that was actually a bit on the gimped side for PvE but lots of people liked it because it was so fun. Now, because of PvP, which hardly anyone plays anyway, the Storm set has been pretty much destroyed. And the devs did not even have the honesty to put it in the patch notes !!!!!

Thanks, devs.

FivefifteenA

Well, I didn't see any post from the devs saying, "hey, we tried to come up with a way to nerf this power for PvP that would not affect PvE, and we couldn't, so we are nerfing the power for PvE too -- sorry about it, we know that Storm is already a very well-balanced set for PvE, but we think PvP is more important so just deal with it." At least that would have been honest.

But no -- what they said in the patch notes did not even *mention* PvE. It was like they thought they could slide that past us without us even noticing or something. That's just frikkin dishonest.

On a broader note, have all of these nerfs and game changes that were made for PvP really helped with the subscription base of the game? No one knows for sure, but it seems likely to me that any boost in the numbers playing the game has been from CoV, not PvP. When I go to the PvP zones to run missions there are usually less than a dozen people there, and usually almost all of those people are in missions.

FivefifteenA

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What would help the devs cause in making these changes would to be a little HONEST about why they are being made. We're talking powers that have been around for 2 years and NOW they're like they're too overpowered for PvE???? It's because of PvP and I've grown bored and tired of outright lies.

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I totally agree with this. I am sick of the lies about why powers are getting nerfed.

The devs made a promise that PvE changes would not be made solely for PvP.

They are breaking that promise with this hurricane nerf.

They are lying about it.

That really, really, really, pisses me off.

I guess all their promise meant was that they would never *admit* that they were making a change solely for PvP.

This is such a blatant lie that it is insulting to our intelligence. Do they actually expect us to swallow the lie that Storm has suddenly become overpowered for PvE?

Devs -- it's the *lies* that piss people off so bad. Think about it.

FivefifteenA

The nerf to Hurricane sucks. After I-5 my Fire/Rad controller wasn't much fun anymore, so I rolled an Ill/Storm controller. Illusion control is lousy, but Storm made up for it. A big part of that was Hurricane.

It's deja vu all over again. Except this time I don't think I'll have the motivation to roll yet another char. What's the point, when you have no freakin idea what the char will be like after the next nerf -- I mean issue.

FivefifteenA

Something still needs to be done about the EBs.

Almost every story arc seems to have an EB somewhere in it -- or more than one. This is a real pain for people who are soloing. If I am soloing a story arc on Vicious with my Ice/Cold corr, then I have to change to Villainous for the last mission, because otherwise I won't be able to kill the EB. Even with the difficulty adjusted, I sometimes can't kill the EB and then I have to get a team together or wait till I level. If I get a team together then I am stuck doing several missions with them because it would be rude to dump them after one mission. Don't even ask about my dom -- I really wonder how I'm going to do story arcs solo with that toon.

One of the big attractions of CoX is that it is solo-friendly, but having an EB in almost every story arc is really calling that into question. I wouldn't mind an occasional especially hard mission in a story arc where I need a team to finish it, but it gets really old to have that be the case in almost every story arc. It's nice that they are no longer AVs for soloers, but they still need to be dialed down a bit for people on the lowest difficulty setting.

Why go to all the trouble of creating all these interesting story arcs and then put EBs in all of them, which is a huge disincentive for people to actually do them?

FivefifteenA

This is GREAT! Especially the news that Stealth won't be nerfed. Stealth is one of my favorite parts of the game.

I also love the idea that people will be able to solo all the missions -- no forced teaming -- yay!

Now, there are other commonsense changes that should also be made. For example, the wildly popular Jetpacks showed that there is no reason to make the first 14 levels a grind to get a travel power. Having a good travel power at level 1 did not imbalance the game or spoil anyone's fun -- so why not make it permanent?

Second -- get rid of the Stamina grind. One of the least fun aspects of the game is that in the teens, right when a bunch of great new powers are becoming available, you can't take any of them for *6 levels* because you have to get Stamina. The changes to Health to make the pool a little more worthwhile were nice, but there is still no justification for having to take the first 2 powers in order to get Stamina. Make Stamina an inherent = game will be much more fun.

Finally -- you really, really, need to find a way to accomplish the goals of suppression without suppression. Suppression is one of the most un-fun aspects of the game.

FivefifteenA

Thanks for the terrific guide. I have a level 26 three-form WS and a level 8 WS that I'm going to try to go all-human with. This guide will be a tremendous help with both toons. One of the most frustrating things (in a good way) about WS is all the power choices -- your guide is great at helping to make those selections of must-have, nice-to-have, and not-really-needed powers.