Raemos

Ah, apologies, I should have probably said it's more than possible to stack it multiple times alone, through IO bonuses (recharge speed related). Admittedly it's unlikely to be cheap (depending on what kind of dominator you are) but it would definitely eliminate the need for a kin or AM, which was the initial claimed requirement.

That should be more than enough of an explanation, hence builds and examples are hopefully unnecessary.

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You couldn't stack it multiple times without a kin or AM, which would let you take advantage of the higher damage cap anyway.

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No, it's more than possible to stack it multiple times alone.

Also I mentioned the change in the individual performance peak because it affects how players will be, after they've gone through the initial "noobiness" and do significant work on their dominator after reaching 50. In short, the end product is likely to be weaker than it once was despite the better trip there, although it's most likely that people wouldn't be too worried about it considering for many, it's more about the trip than the destination.

Oh, that and I suppose they don't need to know the "destination" was changed, for better or worse depending on your playstyle preferences.

Hmm.

All mez durations on PVE foes in PVP zones are also capped at 4 seconds. Not too sure if that's working as intended, or it's just been missed.

The patch note regarding the change was:
"Capped the base duration of all mezzes in PvP zones and Arena to 4 seconds. Strength mods can still increase the duration of the mez beyond 4 seconds."

but even then it seems a little...broken to reduce all mez durations down to 4 seconds against PVE foes considering the reliance on mezzes for survival for some archetypes.

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if you see any players saying doms got nerfed because domination doesnt boost damage anymore, please correct them and let them know the domination damage is on all the time now.

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Yes but for many veterans who have permadom, there *is* a decrease in individual performance due to the loss of extended damage boosts from multiple stackings of permadom.

This change is indeed better for lowbies, but in this regard the individual performance peak of dominators has indeed dropped so it's understandable for some to call it a nerf (surprisingly enough, not the new players but rather the veterans). It must be noted though that on the flip side there *is* more to gain from teammates who buff.

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My opinion is the longer recharge and higher endurance costs simply make perma dom more of a necessity and widen the gap between the 'casual" so user and the min maxer types.


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Although bare in mind with this issue the overall "peak" performance of individual dominators has reduced making the "casual" player not appear so weak in comparison to a perma-dom as well. A number of players are likely to even ignore the gap entirely from here on, despite the obvious differences in performance (granted they're likely to have their own IO'd extremes, but not necessarily high recharge for perma-dom).

Well, despite this being based on a personal opinion, here's an attempt at your questions...

What are the damage modifiers now if Castles plan goes through?
He has proposed numbers previously, however there's absolutely no guarantee there won't be last minute changes until the patch notes are properly announced. Furthermore as some assault sets might be altered, that makes it even harder to predict precisely what numbers you'll get out of your dominator in the future at this stage. If you're interested in the numbers, perhaps try looking at the dev digest and going back a while to find castle's posts in that thread.

Will this affect my Earth/Fire Dom in anyway?
It effects all dominators, like it or not. If you've got a fresh Earth/Fire, you should like it because it means you should do better damage than you do currently. If you've a 50 dominator which hasn't gone for perma-dom, quite the same. In the end though, generally speaking you're more than likely to benefit from the changes than suffer.

Will is still be worth it to be a permadom?
PVE wise, probably yes. Chances are that if you're really going to deck out your dominator, you'll probably pick up perma-dom on the way as a part to all your other bonuses anyhow, so there isn't too much to worry about. To aim for it specifically would still get you mez resistances, endurance refills and considerable controls in most of PVE.

PVP wise, no. The mez bonuses in PVP don't account for much (with magnitude doing absolutely nothing and a marginal increase in duration), mez resistances making marginal differences to the amount of time you're mezzed (you'll still get one shot mezzed). That leaves just an occasional free endurance refill, which a non perma-dom would get once in a while anyhow. For the ridiculous amount of recharge required in order to achieve perma-dom with diminishing returns, actually aiming for perma-dom for PVP reasons (once the damage buff disappears) just doesn't weigh up too nicely.

Edit: Oh, and in regards to your question about what the best damage secondary is, that's arguable and will depending on the coming changes for assault sets. At the moment /fire, /elec and /psi (with PSW, which is likely to be knocked outta here) are strong contenders.

And to Blue_Mourning, if you were really looking for "A little icon signifying a perma-dom", I suppose you could look for multiple stackings of domination as a sign. That of course isn't going to point out all perma-doms for players and even if it did, many people don't bother looking at buffs.

Just to add a couple of stray notes...

Within the talk of modifying secondary power sets, there's been evidence suggesting that /psi will be significantly rebalanced (notably likely a psychic shockwave change and possibly rebuilt around the blaster version of /psi) and many dominator farmers may become a little upset in the coming future.

Furthermore despite the damage rebalance being beneficial to the majority of mid level dominator players, this comes at the price of bringing down the "outlier" cases such as perma-dom as they will no longer be as effective as previously. This would likely mean that independently, the "peak" dominator performance level will decrease but the average should bump up a little.

For those who PVP it does mean dominators may become slightly more viable...at the cost of a lower "top end" performance. Anyone who's achieved PVP perma-dom will lose their damage bonus stacking, and consequently may wish to rebuild entirely. This practically also sets into stone that dominators will probably turn out similiar to blasters for PVP purposes, with mez vulnerabilities and control capabilities (which unfortunately don't last long in any case).

Edit: I suppose I should also add that against PToD's, technically dominators should function better as we have a higher damage base. For battles where mezzes are ineffective, we play a damage role. Furthermore it may be said that PToD targets are "team" targets and dominators are now even more effective due to the increase in damage cap.

In short most dominator players will benefit from these changes. Most people will do more damage and be more efficient when on teams. The flip side is any long term dominator player who has spent significant time on their dominator is likely to suffer as the "top end", independent capabilities of the dominator is being reduced.

Global Name: @Raemos
Home Server: Guardian

1. 9
2. I. Dominator
3. 3
4. E. Not Applicable
5. 2
6. 10
7. C
8. True but until developers join in, only so much can be done.
9. A
10. As a random comment, I'd really like to note that the plain hostility found against the developers in regards to PVP from most players is a serious deterrent through discouragement from PVP in most cases. I'm aware of how some players feel in regards to i13 changes and so on (and why they feel that way) however the plain negativity seems to simply scream, "doooooom" any time someone mentions PVP.

Oh and it's good of PVPEC to run a survey to find out what people think, props for the initiative.

When they said they fixed the NPC's, that was referring to general NPC's such as longbow and arachnos. Unfortunately the heavies remained obtainable pets, hence sort of sat on a bit of a borderline between a PVE foe and a PVP pet that remains to be looked at.

It's been left the way it is for an incredibly long time and personally I haven't really been too bothered about it. They're both pretty powerful in their own way.

Feature Name or Description: Personal Force field
Zone: All PVP zones
Time: i14 since open beta test to time of this post (4/13/09)
Power: Personal Force Field
Bug Description: Personal force field doesn't appear to be functioning appropriately against PVE foes in PVP zones. Problems similiar to the overly powerful NPC's in PVP zones on i13 release is occurring. (In this case, an approximate 10-20% hit rate bonus through PFF).

Link to Forum Discussions: I've lost track of how many times I've thrown this up in bug reporting sections and reporting via in game support since i14 open beta seems to have yielded no results.

Architect is win, but don't break and forget other things you're trying to fix

*Lurker pops out*

SG drawings. Win!

*Lurker goes back to lurking*

Post deleted by Raemos

Definitely a creative twist, well done.

As for balancing issues with pre-requisites, I honestly don't think it would be much cause for concern. People are talking about massively build altering changes, but when you think about it...

Speed: Hasten's always useful.
Super Leaping: Combat jumping's always taken luck of the gambler's quite well and had it's mobility uses.
Flight: Hover and air superiority definitely have their offensive/defensive uses.
Teleportation: Teleport friend is useful, although some consider it a waste. Teleport foe could also be put in a similiar position.

Admittedly it does make some build changes but being able to skip those powers doesn't exactly come without disadvantages as well. The only real advantage I'd see is probably skipping teleport pre-requisites for the travel power (which now doesn't work in PVP anyhow) and possibly skipping the leaping powers to go straight for acrobatics. Those who would be inclined to go for acrobatics may favor super jump anyways.

All in all, nothing horribly game breaking and a fun reward for the 5 year veterans.

Edit: Should probably mention I'm years away from ever seeing this reward.

Server: ALL
Zone: PVP Zones
Character name: Raemos
Location: Within any PVP zone
Mission: N/A
Mission Contact: N/A
Bug Description:
Dominator > Mind Control > Levitate: Appears to have a 2 second delay on knock up component.

Dominator > Electrical Assault > Zapp: Damage is inconsistent with other snipes.

Concealment Pool > Phase shift: An appropriately timed mez can de-toggle the power during activation, prior to entering phase (Not sure if this is intentional though, actually seems like a good idea).
Link to Forum Discussions: N/A