Drakmarth

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It seems like Doms are the ones people make for the high end stuff. Like Trollers, below 32 they pretty much suck, then when they hit the higher lvls, they start to overshadow many other ATs. Both the strongest and the weakest of the ATs, a pain to lvl, but once you get high up, oh boy!!!

Here mr Brute, wanna go SMASH!!! Want the fury? Oh I'm sorry, but I wanna DOMINATE!!!! RAWR!!!

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Actually as odd as it may sound my brute doesn't do bad for fury with Doms. I had a trio of my brute and two doms, we made a mockery of the enemy and I was able to leap from mob with slivers of health (thus easily picked apart by the doms) and into a new mob, keep fury built and hit my high damage before the doms came in a mezzed up the joint, then with slivers of health on that mob it's off to the next mob.

It was like a safety net, before the enemy could really start pounding it'd be mezzed out.

Whilst my normal 1 - 0 refers to my tray 1 with my attacks, mez/attackmez powers first to Shockwave at 0. I have very few toons wherein I don't use NUMPAD along with my regular 1 to 0, usually the NUMPAD refers to Tray 3.

My numpad for my Fire/Psi is:

0 - Domination
1 - Fire Cages
2 - Cinders (used between mobs on Dom team to alternate who is mass-mezzing)
3 - Flash Fire
Enter - Fire Imps
+ - Drain Psyche
/ - Assault
* - Tactics
- - Scorpion Shield

Means I'm able to work two trays worth of powers at once. Though I may drop Assault/Tactics for Concealment and possibly Recall as she was originally set to be an infiltration agent.

Welcome to the AT of Tomorrow......TODAY! If you've looked into some other threads of this part you'll see in Dominators a rare commodity?, we've spoken of our playstyles and to get the most out of a dom you need to understand that they can become many things, all suited to situations as and when you need them, but most of all you have to be prepared to play the maniac, Mez-Melee-Destroy!

Depending on what you pick for a primary and secondary can alter your way of play. Plenty of combos have been tried and tested, but I think you can make any work to your pleasure. Have you had any thoughts on a Primary or Secondary? Be able to give personal experiences of the choices and how we've played them in the past.

Just to get it out of the way Domination is your Inherent, but unlike the rest it isn't not an 'auto power', there is a Domination Bar under your End, this orange bar builds as your dom attacks -- there was a change that means more teammates you have the faster it builds, 8-man teams make it to be full in 10 attacks if that, when you don't attack then the bar slowly falls back to zero, but this is much-much-much slower than Fury falling -- but this is only part of it, on a Dom you'll probably see a power icon on your power tray that is greyed out and looks like a silver Power Boost.

This is your Domination clickie when your Dom bar reaches 90% the icon becomes active and you'll see a sparkle aura around your Dom, any period between 90%-100% the icon can be clicked and you'll explode with domination for 90secs, not only does this increase your damage by 75%, but it fully recharges your End.

Domination also doubles the mag of your own Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize, Fear, and Confuse effects for their normal durations, then keeps them going at normal magnitude for half that amount of time longer. This where you've seen 'Domination' appear over enemies hit during a Dominating Dominator, not just your primary either any Mez in your secondary (like Psi's Subdue Immob causes Domination and increases it's mag, as well as the Disorient in Psychic Shockwave with spout out Domination powered Disorients), but Debuffs and other secondary effects are not improved.

To make it easier I generally bind NUMPAD0 to Domination so as soon as I want it I click with my right-pinkie and get to work.

Oh and Domination has a love extra piece I almost forgot, whilst in Domination you are protected from Knockback/Knockup, Repel, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize, Fear, and Confuse effects, if you are under any of these effects and have Domination ready, click it and it gets knocked off, its your very own break-free.

Once 90 seconds is up your Dom bar falls to 0 and its back to building, but the Domination clickie has a cool down of 200 seconds, this can be cut down by recharge reduction powers like AM, SB, Hasten and also IO bonuses help shorten the cool down period (quite a few Doms have 'Perma-Dom' builds thanks to Recharge bonuses).

You can just shorten this to 'Domination is fjorking fun', but I thought it best to maybe over explain it.

Edit: **DAMMIT STAR!!!** I'm keeping what I wrote..just on principle.

My dear Jenseits is by far my most hardcore effort at going in over her head, at least theoretically in over her head as she generally ends up surviving with a few bruises. I notice a few /Psi end up dropping certain powers once they hit 38, like Psychic Scream, always find that odd as I flashfire, fire cages, leap in, Shockwave, Drain, leap out, mid-air Scream and Subdue, leap back in and its Shockwave time again...well only if something is still standing.

Still building on the levels for my Plants/Ice, but she's definitely taken the early going with Seeds and Ice Sword Circle to wipe out folk, can't wait for the Stranglers to add even more of a distraction.

The Ice/* plan may end up being Ice/Ice, bit of a shame in a way as the /Ice will play the same as my current Plants/Ice, I like to play about more with ATs and 'try' not to use the same thing twice, ended up deleting three Kins because it really is the same-old-same-old. I could cross the line and make an Ice/Thorns, Artic Air to keep folk slowed in melee and stab away. Hmm, food for thought.

Have I said anything about her being bottom of the rung? Or that she doesn't have a special place in the old man's heart. All I said was she doesn't have the appearance (she looks like every other Seer, it is a very 'uniform' society) or what would appear to be the station of the highest ranking, for one I'd hope the highest ranking one would swindle a better job than seeing off all the new meat.

Kalinda: Hi, yes, I'm Kalinda, yes, you're destined (maybe), yes, I've had this conversation at least twice with you already but this is the first time for you. Go. Hunt. Kill Snakes. NEXT!

Aannyway. 42 Fortunatas join together into a matrix of psionics and get shoved inside the Jade Spider? Sounds fun.

Which is oddly enough what Spider said two posts previous. By 'the rest' he meant 'any other ranged attack they may have to choose from', not rest of the attacks if you thought he might have said as much.

Yeah, but I still stand by their incredible ability to miss a 0 Def-anything standing target waving at them so consecutively.

According to her profile she is just Fortunata. And her appearance is that of a Fortunata Seer (lieutenant), much like Seer Marino.

Kalinda being her name, not her rank.

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Psychic Wail, actually.

For the Night Widow, I couldn't guess. If they do have the smoke bomb though, that's likely to be higher up on the list.

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Be a shame that their Smoke Bomb will be likely akin to /Devices and equally as useless. I always get scared when I'm caught in a Night Widow grenade..I don't see them giving me that same mag/% debuff..of course due to PvP.

Well being Arachnos is about Spiders (venom etc) and the mace beams you get for Black Scorpion contain Toxic Damage (it is a Poison loaded into a beam of energy so it attacks the system quickly), I think it would be shameful to not have it on the melee attacks.

What I do see is them changing the pure toxic nature of the attacks to a mix of lethal hit with Toxic DoT, given the general lack of res to Toxic..I guess that'll help with Snakes, they have res to Toxic right...though I think Lethal too, ouch.

Yeah, and like SWAT they shoot everywhere and hit nothing. The amount of times in my storid villains career I have been hit by any Crab Spider's ranged attack (let alone Supression!) I can count on ONE hand.

They got a good right claw though.

Tarantula Mistresses aren't the upper echelon of Fortunatas, takes a few stories in GV to figure out that it isn't highly regarded within the ranks to be a Tarantula.

Of the Fortunata, the Fortunata Mistress is the highest rank much like of the Widows it would be the Night Widow.

The most amusing comment I've heard about dominators is that "going into melee is a mistake and anyone that takes melee attacks is a fool" from someone who supposedly used dominators. Hilarious really. Their reasoning is because they are squishable because the mez can wear off and OHNOES, now really how many of us after playing any AT for an extended time don't know what our powers do and for how long an effect lasts? Bit silly to take your highest damage out of the loop because you can't count in your head.

Dominators 'can' be a hard push through the early stages, which is where some people that think they are playing a controller give-up, but I'd say around the mid-20s and early-30s it certainly changes around. I know my dom's playstyle completely changed when I got my pet at 32 and modified when I got Shockwave at 38, just to let you know the playstyle was 1-31 - Manic Mansion-Style, 32-37 - Manic Mansion-Style with Imps, 38+ Manic Mansion-Style with Imps and Massive Nuking.

Example, I only took Fire Cages early on after a respec simply because the amount of aggro proved too much, but after imps and proper slotting of Flashfire I am able to stun, lock down, let imps go wild and now keep my usually 'staggering drunks' within range for Shockwave. (Now I know why people sent me tells asking if I was a 'farm build', didn'tknowhonest! :x), whilst still doing my old standard between attacks tab enemies and Char, keeps people alive....well keeps me alive.

I have a Plants/Ice at 16 that I want to get into a team, just because I find the AT is so much more fun to play with large numbers of enemies, Power Boost SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDS! *fwing* Still rolling an Ice/* in my head, can't think of a secondary. Also feel like rolling an Earth/Fire in i12, I think the combo will do nicely, lots of control, quite a bit of damage.

I have to say the Weekly Dom Team has been my best learning experience, 8 completely off the wall characters all throwing out as much mez and damage as possible. I think I've ended tying with another member as 'Venge Monkey', die hard, but make sure vengeance is up first.

Well considering Banes themselves require an host of range/melee attacks, a placate and a hide, as well as a ST immob just to give someone else the WEB-PLACATE-WHACK!! combo of ow ow it hurts me. Plus we might get some more shields..I see a few more than two.

Not a clue on the origin front, they might force the issue like Khelds, they might not, from the screenshots it would appear Natural, but can't be certain until they release it.

Speaking of Arcs (that is the subject title even if it wasn't the intention), I do hope we continue with the rather delightful arcs we've become accustomed to in Villains. Can see us being asked to beat up rioting civvies, shake up local motley crews, take down the odd 'villain' and of course, beat the [censored] out of any number of Longbow.

Hell, even with Wardens being the overpowering monsters that they are, I bet we still have to face more Ballistas than normal.

Currently holding the names Operative Sleipnir (Crab Spider) and Operative Nemhain (Fortunata).

I'm thinking of rerolling my elec brute and stalker both to Bane Spider and Night Widow as they make more sense for the characters, just need a good change over name for the Bane.

The choice at 24 is the CAREER branch. So think like the Patron Powers and having a new section of powers opened up to you to pick from 24 onwards. This is not like Squid-and-Beetle kheld powers, you are picking one career to follow through with to 50 (given Patrons are one-choice one-life I think it is safe to assume careers for VEATS will be the same). To simplify what I assume:

Level 24 -> Speak to [X] -> Pick [Career A] or [Career B] -> Now you are able to choose power from [Career] or from your normal choices.

Level 26 -> Now you are able to choose Tier 2 power from [Career] or your normal choices.

And so on and so on.

How it is applied on screen is a different kettle of spiderlings.

My money was on Short Circuit being in the eventual Elec primary anyway, seems more likely..but hey, at least we didn't get Chain Induction like Stalkers...eheh.

Static Discharge, knew I didn't think of APPs..it is used quite a bit by enemies though.

Sentinel is by far the most disappointing 38, even if it does look like the Mu one. Hell even if it does better damage than Charged Bolts.

Much as I'd love to side with this, there are plenty of Dark Miasmists with only the heal (tis a fine heal, yes) and barely anything else and they seem to get to the 30s just fine..30s..without anything else...it's insane.

But yes, report back on if it's still fun after the first 15 levels.

Wouldn't be too sure about Lightning Field, the only aspect of Doms that gives a PbAoE Toggle Aura is the Primary.

Artic Air + Lightning Field?

Hot Feet + Lightning Field?

Not only would it look odd, it'd probably be far too whacky and cause your Aggro-monkey Ratio to go through the roof.

It's all subjective really. I can be on a defender, tank or blaster (ranging from 36 to 30) and get absolutely nothing in terms of teams..though the blaster has made a name within my group of chatty cohorts as being the unluckiest PuG teamer, every PuG would have something seriously wrong with it or at least two members of the team being completely insane or inane.

Its gotten to the point where if someone gets a bad PuG they say "got an Old Fox PuG here". Its kinda depressing as I find solo very dull, but I want to get that darn nuke, buuuuuuuut I end up with more debt when I bite the bullet in a PuG. Catch 22 and all that.

Villains side, I can see some validity in complaints lacking teams, but everyone took water instead of wine to the banquet and if everyone's waiting for a tell from someone else then we're not exactly going to get a team going are we? I'm the same, I've complained, but I don't make a super effort to tell folks I don't know, but there again I don't want an Old Fox PuG.

Usually end up on a team with at least one person I know (and maybe 4 or 6 people I don't), that way its like high school and I can /t the person I know about how outraged I am that the latest Dark Miasmist on team that only has "the bloody heal and [censored] howler".

Okay, being obtuse didn't work.

How about we stop going around..and around..and around...and around...and around...and around...and around...and around...and around...and around...and around in circles as the last two pages have kinda-sorta-maybe said the same things each post, just a different order of words.

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B is [censored] for stalkers.

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Why?

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Because of X.

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B is good for Brutes, why complain?

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X is the reason why.

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Anyone know about Phase Shift in PvE?

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X is Y?

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X IS WHY!

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Did someone mention Y?

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And it goes on like this.

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