1.
Introduction
Ok a few things first. I
AM NOT a numbers kinda guy. So if you're lookin for the math behind certain powers. You won't find it here. I suggest lookin through the Controller/Dominator boards and you'll surely find the information you want. However, I will supply you with first hand experience from a veteran player's point of view.
I've been playing CoX for a long time, and I absolutely love Controllers and now even more I'm hooked on Dominators. So, you can trust that I'll tell ya what works, and what doesn't (at least in my experiences). Ok, without further adieu. Lets get started.
2.
But wait...
Before you read anything I have to say, You REALLY need to take a look at
Waybreaker's guide to "Not Sucking" if you haven't already. It will help you to "not suck" a whole lot! And, that's something everyone should be interested in.
3.
Strengths and Weaknesses
I'll go into a lot more detail about the powers in a moment. First, I want you to have an idea in your mind of what you're building when you start making a Fire/Fire Dominator. You've got 2 sets of powers that you'll be using to build your Dominator, Fire Control and Firey Assault.
Fire Control contains various powers for "controlling" your opponents movements and actions. It's strengths lie in its fast animation times, and of course the Fire Imps you'll gain at level 32. This set ends up sporting the most damage of any of the control powersets in my opinion, which is perfectly married with Firey Assault. Fire Control sports some VERY weak soft control powers, and the pets at level 32 won't help with controlling in anyway, so be prepared for a nice hard road of survival (c'mon, you know it's more fun that way!)
Firey Assault is a mix of range and melee attacks, with 2 VERY nice AOE attacks. It also features a 100% boost to your fire damage for 30 seconds or so in the form of "Firey Embrace". And, oh, wait a minute??? All of your powers DO fire damage. The set also offers a LOT more damage for those who aren't afraid of melee, and if you wanna pull off the devastating AOE combo (breath of fire and Combustion) You'd better get comfortable with it. In fact, if you want to play ranged I'd suggest just picking another set right now, you'll have more fun with Energy probably. The only weakness I can see for this set is that it only sports one damage type, and the inclusion of a crappy snipe power (but, that's just personal preference there's really nothing wrong with it).
Overall, The two sets compliment each other perfectly. Fire Control takes a large group out of action for a short duration. Firey Assault destroys everything around you in a short amount of time. It's perfect! It just takes some time to learn the timing behind all the powers, and the limitations of your generally low Health bar.
4.
The Powers
I'll quickly go over the powers in both sets here. Just so we're on the same page when we get to the strategy section. Again, you should REALLY check out Waybreaker's guide for this stuff too. He did an outstanding job.
FIRE CONTROL
Ring of Fire: A standard single target immobilization power. It stops the enemy in his tracks for a time. The enemy can still attack and activate his powers, She/he just can't move.
Is it good? The damage is poor, the immobilization lasts long enough, but it's just not worth it to get this power. Especially during the early levels, when every power counts. Maybe if you want to add it in to help you build your domination bar or you're tired of people running from you in PVP. I almost always skip the single target immobilization for a Dominator, and you'll see why when we come to your second choice for first level power.
slotting? sigh, if you just HAVE to take it. I'd suggest 1acc/1immob OR if you're gettin fiery embrace you can try 1acc/3dmg it gives a nice mix of control and damage
(but there are better options)
Char: A single target hold. This stops an enemy from moving or using any powers for a short duration. The single target hold is an art form. The more you practice with it and the more you play the game the more amazing and powerful this hold will become. This is the gateway to soloing elite bosses. So, study it well. VERY fast animation time too. There have been times when a +2 boss has been charging right towards me and I pulled off a Char just before he took me out. O.O so exciting!
is it good? I just SAID it was! The only down side is it's hard to see the animation, but you do get a *cough* *cough* sound effect coming from the enemy. Even enemy robots cough!? I just tell myself that my cinders clogged up his sensors
slotting? Most of the time I would say "OMG SIX SLOT THIS" but, for the fire dominator it's a bit different. I use 1acc/2hld/1rchrg. The reason being is you want your fire dom to hit hard. holding is important (especially in the early levels), but killing is just a little more important. However, you can slot it however you want. Not like I'll come to your house and beat ya up or anything. I suggest slowly adding to it until you've got it the way you like it.
Fire Cages: Aoe immobilization. It's like a fire cage for every enemy in front of you. Fast animation like most fire control powers.
is it good? Early levels I'd say NO! But, once you have Flashfire and your AOE/cone attacks slotted I'd say it's time to get it. Still, NOT a must have. Just makes it a bit easier to destroy mass amounts of baddies at a time (which you'll be doing a lot of). Totally skippable if you're gonna use Hot Feet.
slotting? 2acc/ is all you'll need. Maybe 1endur/ Don't waste anymore or you'll hate yourself.
Smoke: Decreases visibility with a BIG AOE, also decreases accuracy. You'll probably need this in your early levels
. This power doesn't cause the enemies to get mad at ya. They just kinda accept the fact that the entire area just got covered in a blinding smoky fog. They don't even "duck and cover" or anything.
is it good? Despite what people say, it's OK! This would make a nice soft control power if the -acc effect was just a BIT better. Unfortunately, you might need to take it to help you survive anyway. I took it, and mixed it with combat jumping for some added survivability. It was a hard road, but it got me to level 32. The GREATEST use for this power is that you can cast it over and over on a mob without angering them. This helps keep your domination bar full while you're waiting for teammates. Another fine use is that it's great for pulling single mobs from a big pack.
slotting? 2accDebuff/ use 3 if you really love this power, but if you're a real man/woman, try to skip it. I'd only get it if you're gonna pick up hover/combat jumping also (every bit helps y'know Specially when you get SOs).
Hot Feet: It's a PBAOE that you toggle on. It does minor fire damage and -speed AND it forces your enemies to flee from melee range for a time. Sometimes they'll go butt monkey crazy and climb every wall in the mission trying to escape you (what a fun bug!) Don't worry, let em go, if they really love you, they'll come back.
is it good? This power IS in fact good. It drains endurance like...well...like an endurance leech, but look at everything you're getting for it. Damage, and 2 forms of minor control. It's not very good early on and I usually only activated it for brief moments to drive enemies away from me. But, just that alone boosted my survivability a fair bit, which is VERY important for us Dominators. And, after you've got stamina and maybe even put some damage slots in hot feet. Well, you'll see when we get to the strategy section (don't skip ahead just yet!).
slotting? 3endur/ to start with, trust me you'll need it. Later on I put 3 damage SOs in it, and with fiery embrace it's AWESOME.
Flashfire: A targeted AOE disorient. It has a fairly lengthy recharge, low accuracy to start with, and a fairly short duration. Once you slot away those problems this is 1 of the mainstays of your control ability.
is it good? Yup it is! The activation time is an eternal four seconds or so, but you usually use this to start a solo fight or let the tank take the hit while you wind up, so it's no biggie. Also, it's a VERY popular combo to combine this power with Fire Cages for a makeshift AOE hold of sorts. You'll need this power to be a successful Fire Dom in my opinion.
slotting? 2acc/2disorient/2rchrg I'd slot this as soon as you can, it's a VERY useful tool once done.
Cinders: PBAOE hold. Locks down everything around you for fairly short duration. A VERY ridiculous recharge time. If you're going solo you might want super speed to get in range to use it (plus smoke helps too).
is it good? This is part 2 of your mainstay control powers. If you're NOT using flashfires you'll be using this, and vice-versa. The recharge on this is WELL over a minute, so use it wisely. Also, stack this with Char on a boss to lock him down immediately.
slotting? 2acc/2hold/2rchrg Same as Flashfire and for all the same reasons. Slot it ASAP and for that reason I try to space out when I get flashfire and Cinders.
Bonfire: targeted AOE knockback. Keep in mind this power KNOCKS opponents away. So it sends them flying and tends to create a lot of chaos. It IS however good for blocking doorways or pinning enemies in corners or against walls. Very situational power, and the graphics aren't very spectacular either (smallest bonfire I ever saw).
is it good? Not good for a Fire Dom who likes things nice and tightly packed together. Especially if you're gonna be going AOE nuts. I'd avoid this power if at all possible. It's got it's uses and I'd imagine it's quite handy during base raids. But, that's it.
slotting? Don't put any slots in it, it's good enough as is. Just put a 1rchrg/ or 1endur/ in the slot it comes with.
Fire Imps: Ah you made it! You can summon 3 insatiably hungry imps (only 3 at any given time) that will pounce on and savage ANYTHING they can get their hands/claws on.
is it good? oh hell yes it's good! It's a must have power! Only downside is you have to watch over them and always control how close they get to an enemy. The only control you have over them is how close they get, once they're in aggro range. There's no turning back. Once you pick these bad boys up, your Dominator life will do a complete 180. People will beg you for your autograph, and ask to watch you take down an Elite Boss for them.
slotting? 1acc/3dmg and you're good to go. If you got a spare you might wanna throw in a 1rchrg/, especially if you PVP/die a lot (hey, I hear it CAN happen to some players).
FIREY ASSUALT
Flares: minor ranged damage with a recharge of nearly zero seconds. Has a crappy animation time though, but hey, you HAVE to take it. Also of note, it's range is just a tiny bit less than your Fire Blast power. So, it's annoying to have to step forward now and again.
is it good? Not really. It's good for building domination, and you might as well add it into your attack combo while other powers are recharging. An extra few points of damage never hurt. In the early levels you HAVE to use it.
slotting? I left mine unslotted. Just 1acc/ was enough. You can save the slots for better more damaging powers.
Incinerate: A melee range Damage over Time attack. Does about 8 ticks of damage take something like 5+ seconds to do it's damage.
is it good? The Damage over time CAN be annoying in the early levels, but later in the game you're dealing out SO much damage it won't be a problem. You'll come to love this power and it deals VERY nice damage. It's even great for when you hit a Sorcerer with it and he teleports away from you only to die a few seconds later from your Damage. Not a bad animation time too!
slotting? 1acc/3dmg is all you need. Later on you can throw a 1rchrg/ if you've got it spare.
Fire Breath: A short range cone attack. It deals 3 ticks of damage. The more you play around with this power the more effective it becomes. You can end up hitting like 10+ enemies if they're packed together right. A tip for using cone attacks is to target enemies in the back of the crowd and then line up as many enemies between you and your target. BOOM!
is it good? It is DAMN good. You can bring an entire crowd down to almost half their health with this properly slotted. And the animation looks VERY cool so you don't even care how long it is! This is also part one of your godly AOE combo.
slotting? 1acc/3dmg/ and/or 1endur/ and/or 1rchrg/ Just play around with it until you've got it the way you want it. I've got mine six slotted and love it.
Fire Blast: Standard long range blast. Does a nice chunk of damage and recharges fairly quickly. Great animation time. So you can hurl these babies all day long.
is it good? It's useful. Helps build domination, good to use while you're closing distance to melee range. You'll need it early on to make a proper chain of attack. Looks like your character pitches a fiery baseball what's not to love?
slotting? 1acc/3dmg and you're good to go. noticing a trend on these attack powers? Throw in 1rchrg/ if you've got spare slots
Fiery Embrace Boost all fire damage your character does for 30 seconds or so. Boosts all other damage types for a shorter duration. Puts burning trails of fire all over your hands too! Perfect for marshmallows. Recharge is fairly long but with proper slotting it's almost ready every other fight.
is it good? Oh HELL yeah it is. This little baby is ridiculously good for a fire dominator. Once slotted with SOs your damage increase just about doubles. Now those extra ticks of damage your powers some times do start to mean something and hot feet is all of sudden another Combustion DoT. This will REALLY help you get to level 32.
slotting? 3rchrg/ With 3 SOs it's just about ready every other fight. I call it the "mini-domination" button.
Combustion A PBAOE that hits everything around you. About the same distance as Hot feet (just beyond melee range). It deals a small chunk of initial damage and continues to do ticks of damage over a nice 6 second period or so.
is it good? At first, I hated this power. IT does it's damage so slowly it's just annoying. And because it's spread out, you end up thinking it's not even doing anything! But, be patient, slot it up, and it's the other half of your AOE combo. If the damage is just too slow for you, turn on Hot Feet to get the job done. So, in the end this is a crucial power if you're going the AOE route (and if you're not you're playing the wrong set).
slotting? 1acc/3dmg and/or 1endur and/or 1rchrg. You know the deal by now.
Consume deals trivial PBAOE damage to everything around you. Same as combustion, but also restores about 1/4 of your endurance bar for every enemy you successfully hit. Fast activation time so it works in a jam. Very long recharge. VERY...long.
is it good? This is a 50/50 power. If you refuse to get Stamina you'll need this power to get by. However, if you HAVE stamina you can probably skip this. I tried to leave out stamina and rely on Consume and Domination alone to keep my end bar full, but it's just not as reliable as going the Stamina route. Save yourself the agony and get stamina. Please, listen to me.
slotting? What!? Not listening to me? Fine, 1acc/1, 2, or 3rchrg. You don't need a 1endurchrg/ in there, if you hit more than 2 enemies you'll be fine.
Blazing Bolt A long range interruptible snipe attack. Can set foes on fire and burn em a bit. Pretty standard snipe.
is it good? When you first get it it deals about 90 damage to a lvl 35 minion. You'll have imps by now so you'll just laugh and laugh at how dumb it would be to stand around sniping. Also, if you have smoke you have NO problems pulling mobs, so again, not to helpful there. Still, it's not bad to have handy if you ever wanna do some damage that's NOT a damage-over-time power for once. Maybe use it to open on a boss or LT that's buggin ya. You can go either way on this power, if there's something else you wanted to get, just skip this and get it. Treat yourself!
slotting 1acc/3dmg Don't bother with anything else you'll hate yourself. NO 1intteruptdecrease/ if I see that, I'll get mad at you and take my guide away.
Blaze A melee high damage attack. At the time of this writing I'm not yet 38, so I'll have to let you know the specifics on animation time and looks.
is it good? When I know, you'll know. But, I'm VERY hopeful about this power (goodbye flares HELLO blaze).
slotting 1acc/3dmg and/or 1endur/ and/or 1rchrg/ Just guessing here (looks at other attack powers), but I think it's a safe bet.
Strategy - the moment you've all been waiting for
Ok, so what exactly do you do with all those fun and fiery powers? Here's a quick run down of how I play a Dominator effectively (but, you should have already drawn some conclusions yourself).
Early Solo It's gonna be tougher than a brute or Mastermind. Get used to it. But, after level 32 you'll be on easy street. Starting powers are Char/Flares, incinerate, Fire Breath, Smoke/combat jumping or Hot Feet, and Fire Blast. If you took smoke/combat jumping open up with it always. Throw down a char on the LT or a minion. Toss your Fire Blast at a non-charred enemy, flares while you close in, and then incinerate to finish it up. After an incinerate it's usually time to turn on hot feet for a bit and give yourself some room to turn on your next victim. Always keep Char going, and make sure you save that domination for the boss. There's no way you can take most bosses out without domination, at least not solo. Watch your End when you've got Hot Feet going, be sure to turn it off. Keep this up and you'll climb up the ranks to Fiery Embrace which will help with soloing a lot.
Early Teaming It's gonna be tougher than a brute or Mastermind. So hide in the back like a little girl and leach xp. Naw I'm just kidding. But, DO stay out of range and away from the brute for the first half of the fight. DO NOT open with fire breath. Fire breath is to be used at the last second before the Mob breaks apart. After you play with your team for a few mobs you'll notice that the mobs stay together for a long while or break up quickly, whatever the case throw on a fire breath at that last moment. If you let off a fire breath and are dead within 3 to 4 seconds after. You did it too early. Live and learn. Use your control powers as much as possible. Always Char enemies who ARE NOT being attacked, and it's a great idea to assist a corruptor/stalker with your attacks. Again, be careful with hot feet DO NOT run head long into a group. Wait till the middle of the fight. Build domination and make Boss situations VERY safe and easy for your team. Pay attention to what your group does and react accordingly. If they're all AOEing like mad, join in. If they're all brutes, leach xp! Ok, that time, I was serious.
Mid-game: Flashfire, Fiery Embrace, and Combustion you're getting warmer, Doc! With flashfire, embrace, and Combustion you're now ready to start a vicious never-ending cycle of AOEs. Seek out a group of white con minions (1 LT is ok too), Flashfire them and grab a snack while the power winds up. Come back just in time to turn on fiery embrace and hot feet while you get in range to Breath fire all over them. Continue your kamikaze run straight at them and let loose with a combustion. Char the LT and wait for everything else to die. Incinerate as needed. Welcome to Xp-ville. Population...you!
Late-game Flaming Monkey Squad Time Celebrate with your loved ones over your amazing accomplishment. Then take your fiery monkeys out for a test drive. Put the difficulty slider up to vicious at least, and head out to have some fun. Alternate your use of Flashfire and Cinders to lock down mobs. Then let the monkeys go nuts and use your AOE combo as needed. Use domination as you see fit, if you get low on Endurance, or there's a big mob you need the boost for. If you encounter a Boss while domination isn't ready (some times happens at this level) use Cinders and immediately use a Char to hold the boss. Then let the monkeys do their thang while you keep charring. Always pay attention to things that need locked down the most. Anything that does insane damage is a problem for the monkeys to digest so you've gotta control the situation. Here's some rules to follow:
1. neutralize healers
2. neutralize anything with an AOE
3. Be sure to neutralize Paragon Protectors before they get low on HP
4. Neutralize Longbow LTs (they have a grenade that can drop ALL your brute's Toggles)
5. When in doubt neutralize the thing you hate the most. I ALWAYS neutralize Tsoo Sorcerer's. I hate those guys.
So that's pretty much it. Soloing? Just open with an AOE control, and then kill everything quickly oranges and reds are really no problem for you. Keep red LTs charred and don't wait till the last second to pop inspirations. You can STILL break easy if something gets loose for a few seconds. In teams, Let someone else start the fight you just can't take the hits. Immediately after it starts do an AOE control and then judge if you can AOE safely or help your monkeys lay on HEAVY single target damage. When it comes boss/AV/Elite Boss time, the team can watch in awe as your lock it down and make numbers rise above his head in a steady stream of pain. MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!
The End?
As I play more and think of more I'll try and update this bad boy a couple times. However, you should have some idea of how to play the AT and set, what it's strong at and what it's weak at. The main thing is to have fun, and kill stuff. I apologize for my terrible spelling and grammar. I just don't have the time to really make this a correct document. If you have any ideas or suggestions Please PM me. This is also my first guide, so, please, be gentle. Have fun guys, and keep on burning stuff!
