Grendar

It's all about the bragging rights. If the game let players run at +10/x24 you know some players would be trying to find builds that let them pull it off, even if it scaled the rewards so you got the same exp and drops as you would from +4/x8. It's the same reason people try to solo GM's and AV's, even though with how long it takes you could have rounded up a few people, killed the monster, and done two more missions. Just bragging rights.

As for difficulty, I don't worry too much. Yes, AV's are going to drop faster now that snipes are instant (especially in trials where everyone will be running Tactics). Yes, those nukes will be obliterating enemies in large groups. But it's no worse than Incarnate powers. Ultimately, very few fights truly come down to how much raw dps you can put out, it's all about the balance of power - can you survive indefinitely while putting out more damage than they can heal. Anything beyond that is just extra, a faster kill or a smoother damage curve.

Actually, barring the horrendous recharge and the slightly lower accuracy (though I can't remember the last time I had any issues with accuracy post level 22, regardless of the power's accuracy modifier), Mass Confusion is better than Seeds of Confusion. It has a longer range, wider area, and doesn't cause aggro. SoC is only better because its recharge is short enough to be up for every pull, while MC is more of an every-other-pull power. Equalize the recharge in either direction and MC is a better power. Plant Control is still probably better than Mind Control is most situations, but its T9 isn't completely outclassed by Plant's T5.

That's probably another reason why Dominators find Mind Control more palatable than Controllers, they tend to build much more heavily for recharge. Once you have the recharge down to 30 seconds or so you can have it up for every pull or so, and with a reliable mag 6 confusion you don't need to worry about trying to get it double stacked to stop a Boss.

Most of the complaints about Mind seem to come from Controllers. Not surprising, Mind Control has less damage than other sets and no AoE immobilize to set up Containment. This is basically a death sentence for the already damaged-starved Controller. It's not a bad set, but its design is a bit outdated when Plant Control gets a slightly weaker version of its signature power 24 levels earlier and much more offensive power.

For a Dominator, it's a viable set. The sleeps are still underwhelming, but the rest of the set is sound and really benefits from Domination. Dominators get most of their damage from their secondary anyways, so trading away some of the damage on their controls is a reasonable trade for the sheer variety they get from Mind. It's a good middle-of-the-pack Dominator primary, but underwhelming for Controllers.

Psi really has two niches. It brings the most -rech of any secondary, and it's by far the most survivable secondary with Drain Psyche. Beyond that, it does good damage, less than fire but more than elec, with solid AoE. The only drawback is you do have to go in close for some of your better moves, namely PS and DP. You have the tools to survive getting in close though, much better than /Psi on a Blaster.

I rarely dip into the Medicine Pool, though if you have no healing powers in your primary or secondary it could be a viable choice. I personally prefer to use all my secondary choices to pump my defense and slot some LotG's, but then, my dom is Plant/Psi so I get +regen powers in both powersets. If you're going into Ice for your epic, Hoarfrost would probably be a better choice in the late game. Longer recharge, but heals more and gives you a pretty massive health boost.

If anything, they buffed Dominators specifically because so many people were aiming for perma-domination. It used to be that you had to be perma dom because otherwise you were doing pre-buff defender damage. Now it's nice to have for the mez protection and being able to quickly and reliably hold EB's, but it's not required.

The only call for nerfs I've seen is for Plant Control, due to Seeds of Confusion mimicking Mind Control's T9 power at level 8 and the overall damage being higher than the other sets. Even then, what most people are asking for is the set to be brought in line with other sets numerically, not huge overall nerfs.

Yes, but then you'd be starting as a villain...

This explains quite a bit, then. Khelds really pick up once they get all three forms, when you can jump into crab to dodge a mez or jump into squid to start blasting they're actually quite good. Same deal with Dominators, they benefit disproportionately from SO's when they can have enough slots to get accuracy, mez duration, and recharge into the same power. If you're obsessed enough to hit perma dom, then they're a blast, nothing like slinging around mag 6 controls with drastically reduced recharges (I think I can get up to mag 18 or mag 24 hold on a single target with my Plant/Psi without really pushing it).

As for me, I always found the Kheldians to be nice in concept but clunky in practice. They have a ton of great powers, but you have to jump forms constantly to make good use of them, or else you ignore a ton of the AT's potential. But worst in the game? Far from it. They just have a higher barrier to entry because they practically require knowledge of macros and keybinds to be played effectively, and because those <@&%[#$}> quantum enemies spawn in illogical places without warning.


Worst set? For my limited experience, it has to be /FF for Masterminds. Not bad, but you basically have two buffs and a toggle, and then your pets run around and butcher everything. It's just absurdly boring.

It's also worth noting that to get the 22.1% tohit you would probably be using 5 pieces of Adjusted Targeting on two powers, which nets you a total of 10% recharge, 18% accuracy, and 4% damage. Not too terrible if you were going that way anyways. Does cut you out of Cold or Mace, but nets you insta snipe if that's what you wanted. Most of that will be shared with your teammates as well, so any other player with 6% tohit will also hit the insta snipe. Not too terrible.

Ironically, I have the opposite feeling. Blasters are squishy, they have some short duration pseudo CC that can't match what a dom will get in their first five primary powers, and they're completely 100% vulnerable to mez. Their primary and secondary powersets have way too many powers that do damage and not enough that do something unique, leading them to have less potential than most other AT's. Being able to access your T1 and T2 blasts while mezzed isn't anything to brag about either, a MM's entire primary power pool keeps working while he's mezzed, and any AT with mez protection can keep all his powers working in 95% of the scenarios where the Blaster would be locked back to his weakest powers.

In contrast, Dominators have two powersets that mesh very well - a control set for keeping enemies from hurting them and an attack set to deal damage. While a Dom can't match a Blaster for damage, it can keep pace well enough. Nobody is going to be asking why they brought a Dominator along on the team, he will do enough damage to justify his place and his controls can easily reduce the incoming damage more than any Tanker ever could. When he reaches permadom, he is actually more mez resistant than many melee AT's since Domination also provides protection from fear and confuse.

I don't necessarily think my experiences are the same as everyone else's, mostly because my two blasters were Psi/Dev and DP/Mental, neither of which are really a solid combination. But while Dom's are squishy, I always knew it was my fault when I got defeated, because I used my controls wrong or accidentally pulled too many or didn't lock down a key enemy. On my Blaster, leveling through the debt was a way of life, even if you played right sometimes the RNG just took a dump on you and your key powers missed or some lieutenant with a mez got you before you got him. I'm not sure where the Blaster's "potential" you speak of is, but I've never seen it.

In groups, both AT's will lead with their primary and try to lay down as much control as possible to prevent the alpha strike (that is, when every single mob in the group fires off their first attack) from shredding the nominal tank. At this point, the two diverge. The dominator will begin his attacks and contribute to the dps of the team. The controller will begin to layer his support abilities to increase the teams damage and decrease the damage they take.

Solo is similar. The only difference is that the troller will be throwing out more controls solo because those are his main source of damage, while the dom will only throw out enough control to keep the group from mauling him savagely. Doms are much more solo friendly though, if that's what you're worried about. Their damage secondary lets them clear content much faster, and often lets them burn down enemies that would cause trouble for a controller. Trollers benefit much more from having a group to do the damage while they keep their teammates alive and powered up.

Ill/Rad trollers are one of the best GM killers in the game, but that's a very specialized task. Generally, unless you crank the difficulty way, way up you won't see AV's outside of group content. In group content, the controller does help a lot against the AV with his debuffs, but the dom contributes a lot of damage himself. A lot comes down to party makeup, a team with little support would benefit more from a troller, a team with little damage would benefit more from a dom.

Both are solid in both teams and solo with nothing more than Single Origin Enhancements, which you can buy starting at level 22 from vendors in game. Both do benefit heavily from pricey builds, but aren't required.

Time and Kinetics are both very good secondaries, and neither has a pet. Time is absurdly durable, Times Juncture reduces enemy accuracy and Farsight increases your teams defense which makes you almost unhittable. Kinetics is more of a glass cannon, weaker debuffs but the increase to damage and recharge is absurd. A good kineticist or two can often bring a team to the damage cap by himself.

Psionic Assault works well, but it really is more of a melee set if that bothers you. Mind Probe and Telekinetic Thrust are its two highest damage attacks, and Psychic Shockwave is a PBAoE which basically requires you to stand in the middle of the crowd. It's not a big issue for a dom to be in melee though, if things are going right your enemies shouldn't be able to attack you. You may run into issues with psychic enemies, though. In the later game, avoid the Carnival of Shadows and Arachnos as much as possible.

Np, hope we're able to clear up any confusion you might have.

Many sets have some soft mitigation like knockdown which can be useful for reducing an alpha. Beyond that, most defensive sets are just fine for taking the alpha. My suspicion is that you're either used to incarnate characters (which outperform everybody) or you aren't building to your set's strengths. It's also worth noting that both Elec and Regen are somewhat lackluster sets for pure mitigation. Try out Willpower or Fire, both of those play very well in my experience.

Yes and no. It's fully possible to play a pure resistance or pure regen character and be very successful. They tend to be more smooth, even, because they don't suddenly dip in health if the RNG takes a crap on them. However, against enemies who like to stack debuffs and mezzes very fast, unless they have massive resistance to those they tend to fall behind. On the bright side, many support sets provide defense, so in a raid environment they handle very well imo, as long as you find the guys with defense buffs and stick close.

Semantics.

Stalkers have a melee damage and a defense set, tankers have a defense set and a melee damage set.

Blasters have a damage set and a "damage support" set, which has a fair amount of very poor control. Just because they don't share the same power sets with primary/secondary switched doesn't mean they don't mirror each other.