Ethric

I saw 4 Dominators in Bloody Bay today when I was collecting Shivan Shards for the Arachnoid EB Biff (which I couldn't take on, his regen was far too high) and checked the /whoall to see if I could suspect any action on the way; 3+1 Dominators (including me) and they were taking on a Defender and a Scrapper, which didn't have Breakfrees, no need to say, they pretty much pulverized them.

After defeating Biff, and after a nice teaming with a Brute and a Corruptor I decided to have a look on Siren's Call, whee, 2 other Dominators there! Both of them were Mind/Nrg, and I started wondering why exactly Dominators suddenly became so hot? Is it because leveling became much easier with the 50% boost to Domination building? Did someone make an inspiring video of a Dominator showing how you defeat squishies without mezprotection along with some catchy songs? Already seen the Dominator-in-teh-PvP-boom on both US and EU boards but didn't suspect it could go this far, as in people actually leveling (or PLing) Dominators strictly for PvP.


And I also see less Corruptors in PvP zones too a connection perhaps?

Dominators take the most skill in PvP to operate, but selecting a good primary and secondary helps with that. Although Plant Control doesn't have any secondary effects (only that it's hold/immob works on the ground, such!) you can become nasty with it. Plant Control works very similarly like Illusion and Earth Control combined, Carrion Creepers add -jmp, and -fly thus the battlefield is in your favor. Seeds of Confusion make the targeting a mess (when you succeed, that is. Pop Aim always!) Bunny hopping is a problem if the enemy is real good at it. I tested this with a Fire Blast Corruptor and he could shoot in midair while doing the bunnyhopping dance, what helps in here is Knockback because the target can get held. (albeit for less than a second, he'll still be able to jump up) Knockback disrupts their bunny hopping, this works especially to the Electric Armor Brutes whose own Mezprotection doesn't provide KB protection and Grounded works only on ground.

Pick Plant Control if you want to cause havoc on a large area, or cause frustration to a single target. Once I encountered a Scrapper in RV who was chasing me all over, I lured him into one of the pools under Atlas, and laid Carrion Creepers, he was stuck there for a long time and couldn't harm me in no way, it was such fun (for me).


Fire Control is pretty much relies on the AI of three imps, who do alot of damage as long as the target stays still. Sure, the hold is the shortest of duration but there isn't any secondary effects either. Bonfire can be used as a toned down Ice Slick (lasts only 15 seconds, no -spd or -rchg and no -jmp)
Pick Fire Control if you want to make sure things die once they get held (in Warburg, RV and Arena)

Psionic Assault sacrifices raw upfront damage for neat tools, a hardly resisted damage type and the longest range and strong -rechg effects. MoG, Unstoppable and such don't give problems unless you rely on things like Sands of Mu aswell. Drain Psyche has a potent -regen, thus assaulting Regenss won't be such a long brawl as it usually is on other Assault sets.

A good thing usually is to post your build on the boards so that the active PvPers will fix & toon it up for you to be the most effective, but not everyone is an expert, so use common sense when someone tells you to 6-slot Brawl.

I've PvP'd mostly on my Plant/Thorns, do you want me to post the Plant/Thorns build or post a proto Ice/Ice-build?

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I have Ice/Ice, but I don't engage in much PvP. I have Hasten but not Aid Self. Generally if you get agro you won't last long enough to use aid self, you are better trying to lock down the attacking foe. Maybe after you get your patron shield you might get a chance to use it.

You could probably live without Hasten too (at least until you get power sink patron power), since endurance is a real problem with Ice/Ice.

Power to avoid like the plague: the AOE sleep.

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Aid Self is pretty much required for a PvP Dom, it has saved me from many situations and it's useful for every PvP Dom out there. The ranged shots always hurt you, and you aren't a regen beast so that'll linger on you until you waste a Rest or use green insps which could've been replaced with something more useful, like Breakfrees.

Endurance usage gets ugly when you can use both Bitter Ice Blast and Greater Ice Sword, but Hasten is too good when stacking holds, trying to kill someone fast or getting Domination back faster. Usually I activate Hasten & Domination at the same time, so when Domination ends, the shiney button has almost recharged so I can launch it off again, and often this time finish the kill if the target was slippery or had used alot of tricks such as a godmode.

I seriously doubt that the OP was even considering Flash Freeze

Also, Jack Frost is a good pet, as long as you summon it ontop of a target on an Ice Slick so he favors melee rather than range, where he uses that ice bolt

My 2 infamy.

Johnny's Soul doesn't have PToD, thus he only needs 2 holds to hold him as an AV. Killing him can take so long though, as he's still got that AV regen (I think). Most of the time the real killer I find is that if I miss one hold (against an EB with 3 holds required to hold him) I'm usually done (so I start running if I miss ) so infact taking on Johnny's Soul is a lot more confortable than taking on, say, a Ballista. Johnny is infact one of the easiest AVs, but still the regen is tough to beat, especially with a such lower DPS secondary such as Energy. The burst feat can be high, but animation times & recharge are a killer.

Cognito, we had me, a Plant/Thorns, a Fire/Fire and a Mind/Psi. We took him on Relentless.

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Interesting. Thanks. Can I clarify tho... 3 dominators and what else? I take it you didnt take down a Hero with just 3 dominators.

I agree drain psyche has a very good -regen component - it just doesent last that long afaik.

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Yup, just us three (3).

30 second duration, with 30 second downtime without Hasten. With Hasten the downtime is about 15 seconds or so. This downtime didn't matter really, we downed him fast.

Was chased around in RV by a bunch of Scrappers and a Storm Defender, I was not going to surrender so I used the temp Hyper Phase from WB patrol mish.

The toggle was still on me, but I'm not sure if my Aid Self using was disrupted (with those debuff anchors on you, you can't use interruptible powers). I was pretty much hopping far, far away to lay a trap & get a heavy.

Thanks for the responses, especially Boerewors for the horrid truth and MarquandDance for the general tips.

You're right about having no immobs-thing, but that's not exactly needed if you play with a smart team. As you know that AV/Hero PToD have no protection to sleep, so Mind Control having one very potent sleep of mag 4 which is enough to sleep an AV/Hero triangles up or not.

I was also thinking of Kinetics, they have to go close to do their Nuke but it's more than often too dangerous. As mass hypno doesn't break from Fulcrum Shift the kin can walk right in and do his stuff. I have a back-up Kin/Psy/Psy as a hero version of this, as they have access to Mass Hypnosis, Fulcrum Shift and a Nova, but I fancy Dominators better.

Teams with the potential to destroy everything they see is not a Mind/Psi's problem, even on my Plant/Thorns I don't usually see how I benefit to the rest of the team if Brutes are made invincible with buffs and Corruptors launch their fireballs of doom. Sure I could take alpha with Creepers and Seeds added more safety but I wasn't exactly needed, they were already invincible.

One thing which works wonders with EBs is to spam Confuse until the EB is confused, then spam holds to get him. If it's a boss that's resisting psionics alot, that's a fight you shouldn't fight alone, anyway.

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Well id be interested how it works out. I take it you havent tried.

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We've tried it with 3 Dominators, we held easily through Infernal when all of us had Domination on. (Yes he had triangles upwards, we checked)

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The problem is the time it would actually take to down an AV when you have no -regen (or a fairly small one at best in /mind) and rather mediocre damage. Take all the lucks you want, I think they might be rather dry by the end.


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You don't exactly need the best damage when you already have pretty decent damage, and post-38 most Doms have really good attack chains, so for that
Also, the powerset you mentioned is /Psi, and it's Drain Psyche is infact pretty potent -regen and -recovery. I've seen an Ice Tank complaining about a /Psi Dom because of Drain Psyche disrupting his Hibernoobing completely, infact, from the toggles he was actually loosing endurance.



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Has anyone had an experience of 8 doms taking down even one +3 Hero? Im genuinely interested. It sounds very tough to me.

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With proper tactics it shouldn't be a problem. With 3 Doms (me, a Plant/Thorns, a Mind/Psi and a Fire/Fire) we took on a +2 Infernal, as I mentioned earlier, we held through him pretty easily and /Psi's -regen was potent enough that the Fire Imps ripped Infernal to pieces even with the high fire resistance (he is a fire Hero)


One thing you can do at least as a Mind/ Dominator, or a Plant/ Dominator, or an Ice/ Dominator would be sleeping all of the Heroes in one shot with Domination on. Mind does this the best due to having a single sleep power which can affect a boss, so it can affect a Hero too through PToD. Then AoE sleeps can sleep them all with Domination on of course.

Then, what any Dominator can do is to launch the AoE hold when the triangles are down, this gives the team enough time (25 seconds) to do what a team's gotta do, like position themselves if there's a need for that. Anyway, it's good to know that those won't do much anything for a while.

I wanted to try something pretty powerful, and Mind/Psi came into my mind (heh, mind!)

If someone has advice how to play a Mind/Psi right, or some nice tips, I'd like to hear them.

Also, my power selection goes like this now:

1. Psionic Dart
1. Mesmerize
2. Mind Probe
4. Dominate
6. Confuse
8. Mass Hypnosis
10.Mental Blast

Many would argue about the uses of Mass Hypnosis, but for me it's a really accurate (or just had very good luck with hitting most of the stuff with it) AoE-control available every 45 seconds, in smart teams Mass Hypnosis has worked really good, but not on the non-smart teams who just do everything what is not supposed to do, eg. charge in with Lightning Field when everyone is in red zone and I have just used Domination to Mass Hypnosis a group of Hellions with two bosses in it. Glad I had Confuse to put the bosses into work for me.

I was thinking of not going the usual Fitness route, and taking Drain Psyche instead. I have a friend who has solely survived on this, with great effort.

Does anyone know how useful would Flight be for PvE Doms? Right now I was thinking of all the webgrenades Longbow throws at me, well, suppose I need to hold/confuse them to prevent that. What I had noticed is that against Knives of Artemis Flight is superb as is Teleport.

How exactly Terrify work? I know it's a fear cone with damage, thus it's a bad opener, but what if you use it in the middle of the battle, do you get suddenly all the aggro or is the time window so small not all get a strike on you?

And do Nemesis resist fear? They have those leadership thingies which protect them from confuse at least.

Also, is Total Domination worth taking? /Psi doesn't have Power Boost which would've made it superb.

-does the moonwalk-

This is great.

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the best is the one you will entertain to play.
there is no uber build
when you see a uber troller its the player that is good .

i saw people owning with "non PvP oreinted" build.

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A good player with a bad build beats bad players with bad builds.

A good player with a good build beats bad players with good builds.

Depending on the situation the good player with a bad build will beat bad players with good builds, but will not beat good players with good builds.
The OP here wants to be competitive with other PvP-oriented builds, so he asked which Controller would suit him. My vote? Mind/Rad.

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Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

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You've no need to light a night-light
On a light night like tonight,
For a night-light's light's a slight light,
And tonight's a night that's light.
When a night's light, like tonight's light,
It is really not quite right
To light night-lights with their slight lights
On a light night like tonight.

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Stop pecking Peter Piper's pickled peppers on me!

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the best is the one you will entertain to play.
there is no uber build
when you see a uber troller its the player that is good .

i saw people owning with "non PvP oreinted" build.

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A good player with a bad build beats bad players with bad builds.

A good player with a good build beats bad players with good builds.

Depending on the situation the good player with a bad build will beat bad players with good builds, but will not beat good players with good builds.
The OP here wants to be competitive with other PvP-oriented builds, so he asked which Controller would suit him. My vote? Mind/Rad.

This is funny, I myself am building a Fire/Ice myself (level 22 at the moment, Cyndor) however he has PvE spec for leveling now.

Your build is very similar to mine, except for a few things:
[*] I slotted Combat Jumping and Hurdle with jump enhancements. I took Swift because of the resistance to slow, and because it's more obvious choice than Health (although the sleep resist might be handy)
[*] My Aid Self is slotted with 3 heals, 2 ints and 1 rechg. This is a personal reference, and you can survive with just 1 interrupt.
[*] Dominator's Chilling Embrace does not have the -dmg as the Tanker version has. You'll also floor the recharge already with your blasts.
[*] My Fire Imps are slotted with just 3 dmgs and 1 acc, I wish I could've slotted more, but didn't have enough space. Imps are the major killer when big things are held (Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes) or tricky targets like Stalkers (damn Placate!) The 1 level drop doesn't affect their accuracy much, they still hit better than you! Their accuracy becomes bad when fighting +5s, but that's not what you're going to do in PvP are ya?
[*] Hotfeet has a damage aura, and it's only practical use might be interrupting Stalker's Assassin Strike. They have alot of AoE defense in their Hide though, so they'll still be able to pull it off.
[*] lol fire cages! That one belongs to PvE.
[*] My build includes Hasten and Superspeed, both which are very important in competitive PvP.
[*] I've planned to take Bonfire. Really. Not only it is autohit (interrupts non-flying Stalkers' AS) but if people have no KB protection and they pop a BF (due to your holds) the Bonfire will do knockDOWN instead of knockBACK, because BFs provide only resistance against KB, not protection.
[*] Slotting Hurdle with jumps increases your jumping speed & height, thus makes you a better kiter & overall better in combat.

On Cyndor (my own Fire/Ice) I've just gotten SOs to my Stamina, Chilling Embrace & Hotfeet can be very devastating when you're buffed with all kinds of shields & you're popping Lucks, their -rechg combined is scary. On 1 on 1s however, as I said, your assault is enough to floor the recharge. (someone prove me wrong here so I can feel happy with Chilling Embrace in my build)

I would've bet a horse that you were going to refer on the "1 immob works on a boss!"-thing. If a bloodthirsty Warden is after you, and you haven't got enough time to stack the hold, using the immob works wonders, as they're mag 4 -> immob a boss.

If you're going Plant/ then the immob is good for it's -fy effect which is great against those flying... things, like Wardens and Boomers.

In PvP it gets hairy because if the opponent is flying, and you NEED to -fly him with either Impale or Entangle, often the Immob isn't slotted for immobdurations (well at least mine isn't) so it might screw up suppression, making your Hold much shorter duration it already is.

I don't have an /NRG but I can assure you that slotting the tier 2 blast is worth it. Impale's initial strike deals very very very very very close damage that of Power Blast.

Many times I have gotten the last strike with Impale, followed by Thorny Darts after it. Remember, that the damage becomes pretty good when you have Domination on. This also helps out with the DPS you need to take out squishies when the hold period is in session. Bonesmasher and TF aren't enough!

On my Plant/Thorns I've taken down pretty much players regardless of the AT I've been against. Gotta agree with PeeWee when there's a Tanker, not to mention 2 Tankers stacking enough mag gets hard as they keep taunting me off. I don't remember if Domination protected from Taunt, but I wouldn't put my money on it.

In Siren's Call/Bloody Bay getting kills is alot harder than in Warburg due to loosing the toggle dropper & the other high damage attack (in Thorns and Ice's case, the others get a snipe) but Energy has it's big attack as early as 28. And as killing becomes harder I mean it becomes longer, and you need more tactics to counter the ATs you go against. -Travel is always good thing when you need to get away while the suppression period is in session. Carrion Creeps, Ice Slick, multiple Levitates or Lifts do all good. Fire has Smoke for the -perc but this doesn't make them stay still.

IMO Doms can be viable in PvP, as long as Domination is on. I remember teaming with a Stalker in WB, there was a Fight Club over the beach, so I built Domination, activated it on the (8?) people being clustered and layed down Carrion Creeps and we both went on killing spree. Someone said afterwards "Random murder ftw" and we had tons of fun.

Regarding that, one thing to do easily now is to hold a lieut, spam brawl and the inherent poke attack until you have Domination. Then go assault someone who doesn't suspect anything. Good stuff.

Ice/EM Blasters
Fire/EM Blasters
Ice/Elec Blasters
Ice/Dev Blasters
Ice/EM Tankers
Fire/EM Tankers
Spines/Regen Scrappers
Spines/SR Scrappers
BS/Regen Scrappers
EM/Nin Stalkers
EM/Regen Stalkers
Rad/Psi Defenders
Rad/Sonic Defenders
Mind/Rad Controllers
Ice/Cold Corruptors
Ice/Rad Corruptors
EM/Fire Brutes
EM/Elec Brutes

Those are few which slip into my head, of course there are alot more effective combos.

Marq:
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Oops. I thought you were elec/elec.

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I was elec/elec, silly , note when I said "Even if I was EM/Elec."

MaxPowerz:
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I would imagine that with it the brute would be in a much favourable position. Was the Brute over level 30 and on fresh single orgins?


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I was level 31 at the moment then, so my level 30 SOs were yellow, arguably not the best time to PvP at.

Extremus:
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But the Scrapper should just kill you, ignore the brute, then try and kill the brute.

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I'm one of the few ones who had picked Taunt, lawl. "Over my dead body!"

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Dominators are getting better, but I've still to see one played as well as Bilharzia.

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I remember in my early dom days thinking "I'l just keep stacking holds" and bilharzia telling me to get back because they had an empath. Btw. just last night I was teamed with a brute friend on my thermal. Even buffed and laying on heals, a solo scrapper made short work of the brute. In that 2 on 1 situation we should have at least got close to a stalemate.

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And for everyone else's information, I was that elec/elec Brute. Even if I was EM/Elec I just wouldn't have survived that scrapper. He just did too much damage to be healed by Marq's healing aura (he didn't have Cauterize that time.) I know my Brute's damage wasn't good but even without a 9 BI attack I should at least make a dent. This was also before the fury fix.

CM should be unstackable, pop someone with 2 CMs and that's enough for my Plant/Thorns to hop away. The Plant/ and Earth/ issue for the bunny hopping is also out of the hand.

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4. Disarm- (Foe Disarm) With a swift snap of your chain, you knock an enemy's weapon from his hand. For a short while, he is unable to use any attacks that require a weapon.

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I want this for Valkyrie, Infernal, Luddite Crusaders and BS/Katana Scrappers! Infernal is nasty even without his axe though.

Scrapper: -uses BU-
Dom: -uses Disarm-
Scrapper: <bleep!> you!


I remember devs talking about liking Chains and Dark Control. Chains sound more "Dominatorish", don't you think?

Fireball is great, even before getting Fulcrum Shift. Stack Siphon Power a few times (twice plx!) then fire it off with Aim. Fire Breath after that will give you 10.0 from each judge in the beauty pageon in damage. Post-FS the signs just aren't enough.

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yea, bout time spines/regen wasn't FOTM
don't want to be hypocritical but what server was this
*takes a shot*

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It'sah Union.

I've got a level 28 Ice/Kin of Defiant. Give a shout to @lijacote if you wish to fight

I'll be in there in a snap!

>.>

Hopefully.