This list reflects the community's belief about what the current Dominator issues are. It will be reposted every two weeks. What's on this list affects
you, because the devs are sure to look here when they want to balance Dominators. So, read the list, report new issues, verify discussed issues, and state your opinion.
To ensure the quality of the list, and to make sure that it accurately reflects community feelings, there are strict criteria for an issue to be added to the list. A simple bug-type issue requires two people to confirm that it is a bug, and no reliable negative confirmations. Basic power balance issues, eg "Animation time of Propel is too long", require strong support from many community members, and no serious objections. Bigger balance issues, eg "Snipe powers are not particularly useful" require overwhelming community support, possibly in the form of their own forum threads, and no major objections. Suggestions to change the effects of a power, not just values of existing effects, eg "Propel should have a chance to disorient.", will not be included in this list, because of the difficulty in obtaining community consensus. The criteria for removing an issue from the list are the same as for adding it to the list.
I have intentionally chosen not to classify the issues as bug, quality of life, etc. This is because I doubt this would help the dev team beyond indicating what is most important to the community, and that getting agreement on what is most important is an impossible task. Furthermore, the standard classifications are too subjective for many of the issues.
Some of the items on this list are unlikely to be addressed because they present significant effort due to technical considerations. However, these are still kept on the list because they remind the devs that they are still problems; it prevents players from repeatedly reporting the same issues; and it informs the community of some problems they may not be aware of.
Problem Arises
Add it to the issues list?
Bickering instead.
---Gail_Sieht
General Issues
<ul type="square">[*]Dominators make the least contribution of any archetype (AT) when fighting Arch-Villains and Heroes (including their Elite Boss forms) (AVs). This is completely unreasonable since AVs are the most important team-oriented content in the game, and the Dominator's intended role is team support. This entire problem arises from the special mez protection of AVs, represented by the "Purple Triangles of Doom".
Dominators provide team-support as damage mitigation through control. However, an AV has extremely high protection to control part of the time (currently believed to be 50 of every 75 seconds), meaning that the Dominator can only provide damage mitigation for a part of the fight. Unfortunately complete damage mitigation for only part of the time is not useful to a team, because in most cases, if the team can survive 50 seconds without it, they can survive the entire fight. Furthermore, the Dominator cannot take full credit for damage prevented during the AVs low mez protection period, because at that time the AV is very vulnerable (boss level protection), so the single target controls available to every other AT are also quite effective. A full team without a Dominator could probably hold or disorient the AV for that period anyway. It's also worth noting that it's not feasible to use control on an AV in a tactical manner because the time of low mez protection period cannot be chosen.
Since the Dominator cannot provide damage mitigation in any meaningful way against an AV, their only contribution to the fight is damage, which is the lowest of all CoV ATs, and is further reduced against an uncontrolled AV because the best attacks are melee and cannot be used safely. Even the fact that the AV will be held for a third of the fight doesn't allow an increase to the team's damage, since buffs, debuffs and heals don't take a significant amount of time, and it would be unwise to cease these activities anyway.
A second Dominator contributes even less to the fight, since the additional control has very little effect. With three or four Dominators it may be possible to permanently hold some AVs, but certainly not in all cases. Domination also contributes very little to an AV fight: its control boost does not increase the effective control of the AV, except when many Dominators are on the team; its damage boost does not allow Dominators to surpass other ATs in terms of damage; and its mez protection plays little role because the Dominator cannot survive more than a couple of hits from an AV.
Finally, Controllers are not penalized as harshly as Dominators in AV fights. Although their primary is similarly hampered, their (de)buff secondary allows them to contribute team-support anyway. In their secondary role Controllers can be outperformed by one AT (Defender), while Dominators can be outperformed by every other CoV AT.[*]The Purple Triangles of Doom, which are very important to Dominators, are too difficult to see.[*]The reduction of Arch Villains and Epic Heroes to Elite Bosses actually makes it more difficult for Dominators to control them and doesn't make them substantially less dangerous than the full AV versions. The fact that the Elite Bosses retain the special purple triangle mez protection affects Dominators significantly more than any other archetype, because a Dominator has very little defence except mezzing - moreover the Elite Bosses still have Elite Boss mez-protection when the triangles are down (unlike the AV's who have only Boss-level mez-protection), making it harder to hold them than the AV's. In order to succeed in such a fight a Dominator must be able to survive with little or no defence in a battle against an exceptional foe for the duration of the triangles, and they have to work harder when the triangles are down than they do against the AV.[*]Dominators appear to attract rather more aggro than is warranted. Although nothing concrete has been identified, there are persistent stories of Dominators receiving unwarranted amounts of aggro. In many of the reports the only power used by the Dominator in question was the single target hold.[*]Sometimes during Domination, the big orange DOMINATION will appear when the Dominator has not cast a control power. There appear to be several possible causes: pets, damage ticks, or the reapplication of control powers such as Strangler retaking effect after its target has been knocked back.[*]The pet window needs to be easier to get to. Ideally it should appear automatically when a pet is summoned. At least, the UI should be enabled by default for Dominators.[*]Domination brings Dominators too close to their damage cap, when combined with Fiery Embrace or Aim. This means they benefit less from damage buffs than other ATs.[*]Sometimes a Dominator may get stuck in an animation loop with their back arching. This only happens when the Domination aura is animating (bar is at 90% or Domination is active). In some cases characters were using empowerment station recharge buffs or Hasten which seemed to be related. [/list]
Power Issues
Common Issues
<ul type="square">[*]Most Dominator control AoEs, eg. the AoE holds, can hit a maximum of 10 targets, while the same power can hit 16 for Controllers.[*]The AoE holds are very disappointing, their short durations, poor accuracy and long recharge mean that they are barely useful unslotted, and at best situationally useful at the cost of 4 or 5 slots.[*]Snipe powers are not particularly useful to Dominators. Our crowd control powers provide much better openers for battles. Snipes don't fit well in an attack chain with melee attacks, because of the greater risk of interruption at melee range. They do grant additional flexibility, but they come too late for that to be meaningful; by level 35 our tactics are pretty well defined.[*]Powers should state in the description if they are autohit in PvE, but take accuracy enhancements for PvP, otherwise people cannot make well-informed slotting decisions. Powers affected include Smoke.[*]Intimidate and Invoke Panic, from the Presence Pool, do not generate the "DOMINATION" message, although they are boosted by Domination.[*]AoE immobilizes are problematic. Since they appear in most of the Dominator primaries, and usually before pool powers are available, the AoE immobilizes should be a staple of the control sets. However, they are a common cause of frustration for new Dominators, and typically skipped or rarely used by more experienced Dominators. The specific problems with these powers are:
- They generate a significant amount of aggro for the caster. In CoV, especially at low levels, there is very little effective aggro management, so the AoE immobilize is very likely to cause a large return attack.
- They make affected mobs less controllable. The granted Knock* protection, damage over time, and immobilization mean that many control effects will no longer affect them, namely knock*, fear, sleep, and "run away" effects.
- While they can be used to force enemies to use ranged attacks, the Dominator's low hit points mean those attacks are still very dangerous.
The reason this problem is more pronounced for Dominators than Controllers is that Controllers:
- can take advantage of immobilization to keep foes within area debuffs.
- can team with Tankers who can manage aggro.
- do extra damage against immobilized foes with Containment.[*]The majority of mez animations are extremely difficult to see on spider shaped Arachnos mobs, which can lead to wasteful use of powers against them.[*]Many of the Dominator mez animations are difficult to see, sometimes don't show, or get overridden by others. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly it can cause tactical errors in play, such as re-holding a held mob, or not going into melee against an AV when it is safe. Secondly, it is damaging for Dominators' already poor reputation when their effects are visually too subtle, especially when compared with the holds of the ubiquitous Ice/ Corruptor. The specific problems are outlined throughout the issues list, but the primary concerns are the hold animations for Fire, Gravity, and Mind which disappear when the mob is held by another power, are turned off by knockback, are incorrect for mobs holding guns and sometimes do not happen at all for unknown reasons. Replacing the mentioned emote-style hold animations with obvious rooted style animations would go a long way to solving the problem.[*]The list of status effects which Domination protects against is missing knock* and repel.[*]The AoE immobs (Fire Cages, Crushing Field, Frostbite, Roots) do not inflict -Fly if they are the first power used in a combat. This was observed against Goldbrickers in Cap au Diable. (The -Fly from Roots only seems to kick-in when the mobs return fire.)[*]The patron attacks (Dark Obliteration, Disruptor Blast, Bile Spray, Ball Lightning) are all extremely disappointing. Counter to the intent of epic powers, they do not provide any abilities not already available in Dominator's primary or secondary (ranged AoE is not significantly different from cone or PBAoE). In fact they are numerically weaker than the cone attacks already available in the secondaries, due to their excessive recharge times.[/list]
Fire Control
<ul type="square">[*]Char and Cinders animations are too subtle, especially when the target is also affected by Smoke.[*]A foe held with Char or Cinders who is knocked back does not return to the regular choking animation after standing up.[*]Smoke should take range enhancements.[*]Smoke is essentially a stealth power, and yet its activation suppresses stealth.[*]Hot Feet reports that it reduces attack rate in the combat log, but this is not mentioned in either the short or long description.[*]Hot Feet inflicts -Fly on enemies, but this is not stated in either the long or short description.[*]Flashfire's disorient effect occasionally allows mobs a short action, such as a movement, weapon draw or even an attack. This appears to happen because mobs are released from the disorient when they are not grounded, including falling off very small ledges common in caves. It does not make sense for the disorient to lose effect because the mobs isn't grounded.[*]Cinders takes range enhancements, which seems wrong since it's PBAoE.[/list]
Gravity Control
<ul type="square">[*]Gravity's lack of early practical AoE control means that it can only provide negligible team-support, until level 26 when Wormhole becomes available. This is problematic, since the Dominator's intended role is team-support. In early levels the single target controls are sufficient damage mitigation for the solo Dominator, but bring no meaningful damage mitigation for a team, especially considering how short control duration is at low levels. The early AoE controls are Crushing Field, which suffers from the problem of all immobilizes, that it actually makes affected enemies more dangerous (see the AoE immobilize issue for details); Gravity Distortion Field, which suffers from the problem of all AoE holds, it isn't useful as every spawn control; and Dimension Shift which is difficult for many teams to work with, since affected foes cannot be attacked. This disparity of AoE control is typically explained as a trade-off for the extra damage of Propel, but this isn't appropriate for Dominators, who have an assault secondary.[*]The hold and immobilize animations are too similar, making it difficult to identify which targets are held.[*]Lift's damage is significantly less than that of Levitate, although most other aspects of the power are very close.[*]Gravity Distortion and Gravity Distortion Field animations don't always occur correctly, the held enemy does not always hover.[*]Gravity Distortion and Gravity Distortion Field animations are too subtle.[*]When Gravity Distortion is enhanced with Recharge Reduction enhancements, it is listed as boosting the Slow effect of the power.[*]Propel activation time is far too long.[*]Propel does knockback, but this is not listed in the description.[*]The caster should be able to end the effects of Dimension Shift early. (Similarly to the way Phase Shift is implemented as a timed toggle.) This is unlikely to be addressed due to technical limitations. [*]The Dimension Shift icon has the four cornered border of a single target power, but it's a targeted AoE.[*]Dimension Shift is difficult to work with. The bright glow animation is counterintuitive and highlights mobs for attack, rather than discouraging it. Targetting unphased mobs is difficult, because they must be located visually, but they are obscured in the bright glow of the phased mobs. Other options for locating unphased mobs are not available or practical because the phased mobs can still be targetted and attacked, and the "UNAFFECTED" message is subtle, and only occurs after an attack has been wasted.[*]Targets aggroed by Wormhole have the opportunity to attack the caster prior to being disoriented, if they have line of sight when it is cast. Most other mez powers don't allow this initial attack. [*]Singularity accepts intangibility enhancements, and yet has no intagibility powers.[/list]
Ice Control
<ul type="square">[*]Ice Slick inflicts -Jump, but this is not included in the power description.[*]Ice Slick disappears if the caster is defeated, which is counter intuitive given the power's description, and a weakness compared with similar soft controls in the other sets.[*]The visual effects of Flash Freeze and Glacier are difficult to distinguish.[*]Jack Frost acts very strangely if there are enemies directly above him. He tries to find a way to melee with them, and basically just runs around if that's not possible, and achieves nothing.[/list]
Mind Control
<ul type="square">[*]When chain sleeping a foe with Mesmerize, they sometimes wake up and attack before the next sleep takes effect. This is unlikely to be addressed due to technical limitations.[*]Mesmerize should take recharge enhancements.[*]Mesmerize has a frustratingly long delay before reporting a miss.[*]Dominate and Total Domination animations are too subtle.[*]Foes with guns drawn (eg Fallen Gunner, Ripper, Longbow Seargent) appear to still be attacking when held by Dominate or Total Domination, which is misleading for players. If the gun is not drawn they go into the regular "Aah my head!" animation.[*]A foe held with Dominate who is knocked back does not return to the regular "Aah my head!" animation after standing up.[*]The Telekinesis anchor should be clearly identified, like it is for other anchored powers.[/list]
Plant Control
<ul type="square">[*]Entangle and Roots text states that the target needs to be close to the ground, but it works at any height.[*]Some foes held with Strangler are able to activate powers when they are knocked back. For example a Behemoth Overlord can activate Healing Flames, and other foes can also use self-heal powers. The real issue here is that some powers can be activated while being knocked back, but Strangler is unfairly affected because it's the only hold that allows knockback and can only affect grounded foes.[*]Strangler description doesn't mention that foes need to be near the ground.[*]Spore Burst animation is very subtle, unlike the obvious ZZZ of Mind Control.[*]The immovable Spirit Tree doesn't fit well in a game designed for action, where battles are dynamic, fast paced, and where players progress rapidly inside missions.[*]Spirit Tree obscures vision and blocks movement far too much. (Make it smaller, make it intangible?)[*]Carrion Creepers damage ticks appear in grey rather than orange.[*]Carrion Creepers continues to generate damage ticks on defeated enemies.[*]Carrion Creepers pet names are always visible. This is irritating since there are so many of them, and there's not much useful that can be done with them anyway.[*]When being affected by Carrion Creepers in PvP the debuff icon is misnamed "Bramble".[*]When being affected by Carrion Creepers in PvP the debuff icon reports a -Res debuff, but not -Jump, which is contrary to the short and long power descriptions.[*]Fly Trap has poor attack animation. Her range attack/defense debuff/immobilize aren't very clear when cast, which makes the pet look like it's mostly doing nothing.[*]Fly Trap uses Entangle power regularly, which negates knockdown of Carrion Creepers.[*]Flytraps' Entangle lethal damage is misreported as smashing damage in the combat log.[/list]
Energy Assault
<ul type="square">[*]Total Focus' stun is only mag 3 for Dominators, while it's mag 4 for other ATs. This is unreasonable because Dominators are a control AT.[*]Total Focus has a frustratingly long delay before reporting a miss.[/list]
Fiery Assault
<ul type="square">[*]Flares activation time is too long.[/list]
Icy Assault
<ul type="square">[*]Ice Sword Circle combat log messages use the word "scorches".[*]Greater Ice Sword description and power do not agree. The use of the word "Greater", and the fact that damage is listed as "High", relative to Ice Sword's "Moderate" is not appropriate for a power that deals only 20% more damage. Especially when the damage increase is only to the often-resisted Lethal damage component rather than the Cold damage component which is identical to Ice Sword.[/list]
Psionic Assault
<ul type="square">[*]Psionic Dart's endurance cost is too high. It does the least damage of all of the the first powers in the secondaries, and is tied for the highest endurance cost.[*]Psionic Dart's activation time is too long for such a low damage quick recharging attack.[*]Telekinetic Thrust is too weak. Being a melee attack makes it hard to use, and the animation time is prohibitive in a set already full of long animation attacks.[*]The long travel time of Mental Blast means that it is an often wasted attack.[*]Subdue does not have 100% chance to immob, but Impale from Thorny Assault does.[*]Part of the sound of Psychic Shockwave was removed.[/list]
Thorny Assault
<ul type="square">[*]Imaple does not inflict -Jump, as stated in the description.[*]The immobilize effect of Impale is not buffed by Domination. The "DOMINATION" message doesn't appear, mag is not increased, and duration is not increased.[/list]
Leviathan Mastery
<ul type="square">[/list]
Mace Mastery
<ul type="square">[*]The Poisonous Ray damage resistance debuff doesn't stack on the same target, which is not mentioned in any description, including the plaques.[/list]
Mu Mastery
<ul type="square">[*]Power Sink should not accept taunt enhancements. Any taunt effect should be removed from this power, Dominators do not need additional aggro.[/list]
Soul Mastery
<ul type="square">[*]Dark Consumption should not accept taunt enhancements. Any taunt effect should be removed from this power, Dominators do not need additional aggro.[*]Dark Consumption's recharge is excessively long. In particular, it compares poorly to Power Sink. Furthermore, the original plaques listed a 3 minute recharge, which caused some people to choose the patron in error.[/list]
PvP Issues
<ul type="square">[*]Break Frees are easily available and significantly affect the performance of our primary sets. There is no counter-inspiration for a Break Free.[*]Having high damage powers late in the secondary makes the Dominator weak when malefactored for PvP.[*]Suppressing extra player graphics suppresses our graphics on enemy players. This makes it difficult to see what is happening.[*]The sound and visuals associated with Domination (the rainbow glow and big bang) are problematic in PvP, because they make it far too obvious when the Dominator has become a threat. Glowing before Domination has even been activated is particularly problematic.[*]Some ground based powers will not affect an enemy who is constantly jumping: Strangler, Ice Slick, Bonfire, Thorntrops.[/list]
Under Discussion Issues
If someone brings up a potential issue in this thread, but there isn't confirmation or sufficient discussion to make it an issue, it will be added to this list of Under Discussion Issues. You are encouraged to discuss things from this list, so that they can be discarded or upgraded to a full issue.
<ul type="square">[*]Endurance costs of some sets (Jan 13th)[*]Debuffs, like -Recharge from Shiver should either be equal to a Controller's debuffs, or be boosted by Domination. What are they now? (BlackSly Mar 10th)[*]Does Thorny Assault receive something in exchange for the redraw animation? (Kyril Mar 12th)[*]Losing pet in PvP when defeated is problematic due to its long recharge. (Anglican Mar 14th)[*]Carrion Creepers long text is too long, and is not completely visible in character creation screen. (Liliaceae Mar 15th)[*]Plant effects remaining on PvP enemies after they die and respawn. (Domination101 May 2nd)[*]Powers which can only target non-flying targets are penalized in PvP. (Anglican June 1st)[*]Sleep duration far too short in PvP. (Anglican June 1st)[*]Animation time of Power Bolt is excessive. (Chefshift June 1st)[*]Damage listed on power selection screen doesn't make sense. (Chefshift June 1st)[*]Targets that are missed by an attack aggro and retaliate before damage is reported on those that were hit, and before misses are reported. (Liliaceae June 2nd)[*][ QUOTE ]
The AoE holds are very disappointing. They cannot be used in every fight, due to their long recharge times. Since most spawns throughout a mission are of very similar difficulty and make-up, this means that the team must be able to deal with a regular spawn without the benefit of the AoE hold, which makes it an emergency power. However, emergencies are almost always in the form of an additional spawn, and the max targets of 10 means that the AoE hold cannot deal with that for more than a medium sized team. Finally, the poor duration and accuracy mean that they need to be 5 or 6 slotted to even perform this mediocre function. The only other use for them is stacking mag in order to hold bosses in a small team, but Domination is a far superior tool for this job.
[/ QUOTE ] (PrincessGrace June 16th)[*]Bonfire animation is lame. (Liliaceae June 17th)[*]Gravity Distortion, GDF and Wormhole allowing attacks before taking effect. Under what conditions does this affect these, but not other mez powers. (Gail_Sieht June 19th)[*]Does suppressing extra player graphics still suppress mez animations on PvP enemies? (MightyIsis June 19th)[*]Slows not affecting jump speed in PvP. (DoctorAbominable June 23rd)[*]Arctic Air takes fear enhancements, which makes mobs run away. Should Hot Feet have the same? (Liliaceae June 26th)[*]Some assault sets working better with Domination than others. (Lemur_Lad July 4th)[*]Telekinesis pushes enemies partly through walls rather than only against them. (The_Raz July 12th)[*]Should temp powers be boosted by Domination? This depends on if they can Scourge or Critical, and if they are affected by Fury. (Princess_Grace July 25th)[*]Flares' range is shorter than Fire Blast's. (Swynwraig July 30th)[*]Knockup not working consistently when mobs are affected by cold powers. (ywxiao July 30th)[*]Ice/ has difficulty with flying enemies. (Circuit_Breaker August 7th)[*]Issues with the Recluse Strike Force. (Gail_Sieht August 8th) [*]Is Singularity too subtle in it's behaviour? (QuiJon August 8th)[*]Disorient animations are too subtle. (Natsuki August 21st)[*]Poisonous Ray does damage, but doesn't accept damage enhancements. (Plater August 21st)[*]Disorient duration too short for Wormhole. (Lemur_Lad September 5th)[*]Hot Feet animating but failing to activate. (Desmodos September 6th)[*]Gravity Distortion measuring poorly against other STHs. (Natsuki September 9th)[*]Mobs who are protected from control still react to control powers as a high threat. This is a problem for the Dominator who expected to be able to hold a mob, but just ends up with a face full of aggro. (Infamy September 9th)[*]Balance issue, Strangler needs foes to be near ground unlike other STHs. (MarquisQ September 22nd)[*]Venus will wake up mobs who are sleeping. (RockMonster October 9th)[*]Strangler activation time is too long, especially considering the grounded requirement. (Natsuki, Overthrower October 20th)[*]The issue of mez animations on spider-shaped mobs may have been addressed. Need to confirm visibility of Gravity, Plant, and Fire holds, as well as disorient. (Princess Grace February 19th)[*]Highlight that Dominator contribution against AV doesn't scale properly with number of Dominators. (Princess Grace, Protea, February 26th)[*]Power Boost recharge is too long compared to Blaster and Controller powers. (IceScykle March 3rd)[*]Hot Feet is on ranged damage scale, not melee damage scale. (Kane1 March 10th)[*]AI of pets with both melee and ranged attacks is very poor. (Kane1 March 16th)[*]Mobs are able to walk into Bonfire for several seconds before being knocked back. (Nny_the_mad March 23rd)[/list]
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