SpittingTrashcan

And it's not necessarily because the devs themselves have any strong opinions on who should wear what in the world at large, either. Remember that Huge isn't a gender, but it is a separate mesh type that doesn't always get everything the Male mesh type does either. Developing costume parts for multiple meshes is a nontrivial amount of extra work. If the developers think the demand for, say, skirts for Huge meshes is not going to be that great, they may just choose to spend that development time on something else.

If Mr. Nakayama were to make a thread specifically dedicated to mesh proliferation for costume options, I would appreciate it, and I'm sure we'd all have plenty of suggestions (a few of mine: cornrows, cigars, and baron coats for female meshes, and padded gloves for male meshes). But I just want to emphasize that the likely motivating factor here is less sexism per se and more a calculus of return on investment that assumes (not necessarily accurately) a lesser demand for some costume items on some meshes. Now, that lesser demand may be attributed to sexism, and the devs may be assuming more sexism on the part of the player base than is actually present, but frankly at that point we're talking about whether the developers have an obligation to spend resources on fighting sexist assumptions for their own sake, and that's more than I expect of them.

To the extent that being willing to play the market makes one like you or Arcanaville, yes, a player must be like you or Arcanaville in order to max themselves out in the inventions system. And this has been a source of friction, simply because some players don't want to do that activity. Just as some players don't want to do the Incarnate activities.

Speaking personally, I don't play the market much because I don't like to, and I'm not mad that I haven't maxed out my invention capacity. I also don't run the trials much because I don't like to, and I'm not mad that I haven't maxed out my Incarnate capacity. What I personally enjoy is punching dudes, sometimes alone, sometimes on a team, without a lot of extraneous fussing around. Between Alignment Merits and the Notice to Thread conversion, I pretty much have the means to get what I want, by doing what I want, in an amount of time I don't find objectionable. That is strictly my personal opinion, though.

Oh, to be sure it couldn't be done now. The more interesting point for me is that the developers tried to offer a choice between forming leagues the "old way" - by gathering at a spot and inviting from the applicant pool until a full league is formed - and the "new way" through the LFG tool, and I honestly don't think that the LFG tool was ever given a fair shake regardless of its own merits because people overwhelmingly chose to do things the way they'd always done them. If solo queueing had been the only way to get into a trial from day one, I strongly suspect we would be having a very different conversation.

More personally, the idea of just dropping myself onto a queue and being shuttled into a trial PUG is exactly what I want from the system. To the nearest approximation it is player actions that prevent this system from working as I want it to, but it was the developers who gave them the choice to reject that option. Sometimes a choice isn't a choice in practice.

One thing you should probably keep in mind is that Dominators are not analogous to Controllers. People see the control/active mitigation primary in both ATs and assume they play similarly, but this is a very incorrect impression. My personal opinion is that the closest analogue redside to a Controller is a Mastermind - both archetypes focus on strategic layering of complex effects to achieve a scenario of cumulative victory.

My Dominator play snapped into focus when I started playing like a Blaster. Like a Blaster, the Dominator creates early advantage with active mitigation, then quickly sweeps up with overwhelming damage output. The main difference is that the Dominator's active mitigation is more effective, while the damage output is on average slightly lower. But in my opinion you should absolutely be aware of and focused on your personal damage output, because it is a significant part of the way Dominators play.

Note that, compared to a Controller, your active control does not last as long, and you have no fallback mitigation from a support secondary. This means that you cannot take your time defeating enemies, which is why damage output is important. In the early levels for my Plant/Elec, before Seeds came into play, my approach to a spawn would generally be to throw the ST hold on the most dangerous enemy, quickly dispatch the second with burst damage, then hold the third and beat down the first. Contrast with a Grav/Storm, which would not have the capability to take out any enemy quickly, but would have enough control and mitigation tools between the primary and secondary to effect a slow but steady takedown.

Another thing to take into consideration is that Dominators derive an enormous benefit from getting to 70% or higher global recharge (plus Hasten): permadom. Because your build will probably be aiming for this level of recharge, you won't need to have a lot of different active powers in order to maintain activity, so it makes sense to take the best and leave the rest. Against single targets, my Plant/Elec throws a hold to keep the target still and then alternates Charged Bolts, Charged Brawl, and Havoc Punch nonstop. Against multiple targets, I start with Seeds and then rain down whatever AoE is up. I don't have backup control powers: Seeds recharges in well under 30 seconds, so why bother? The AoE hold is worth considering, but Spore Burst is pretty much useless because one or another of your pets is going to wake up those enemies anyway. I used to have it, I don't have it, and I don't miss it. The only reason I'd consider taking it now is because I can put a cheap sleep set in it and get slightly more recharge than I get from my cheap snipe set.

Here's my short list of things that are not skippable:
Strangler
Roots
Seeds
Creepers
Flytrap
Charged Bolts
Charged Brawl
Havoc Punch
Build Up
Static Discharge

And that's it. Those powers are probably 95% of my core power use.

It's important to note that the Thunderstrike from Electric Melee and the Thunderstrike from Electric Assault and Electric Manipulation are very different powers. Elec Melee Thunderstrike has a high chance of knocking down enemies and deals about 50% of its damage in its splash zone. Elec Assault/Manip Thunderstrike has a high chance of knocking back enemies and deals about 10% of its damage in its splash zone. The radial knockback from Thunderstrike is almost never useful - it basically can't be used to consolidate enemies or to drive them in a particular direction, only to scatter them to the four winds. Melee Thunderstrike is a core power; Assault/Manip Thunderstrike is for entertainment purposes only. On the other hand, your AoE immob is also -KB, so if you throw it down first you can use Thunderstrike as a mediocre attack without the side effects.

One caveat to the above: until your build does start shaping up, you might want a few more powers to fill in the gaps, because using a less effective power is better than doing nothing. I did have Lightning Bolt and Thunderstrike in my attack chain for a while. But if you're like me, you'll eventually find yourself not needing them, and then it's time for them to go.

All of the above, I must emphasize, is my opinion. YMMV. But I wouldn't say it if I didn't have reason to believe it.

Stepping right up into the transfinites, are we?

Fine. Aleph omega.

Although, strictly speaking, that's no longer a number and more of a concept (and a pretty brain-bending concept it is, too).

Really, I guess what I'm getting at here is that mathematics has names and uses for some incomprehensibly huge numbers.

Are we doing this?

Then I play BB(A(G,G)) - a number so large that it is literally beyond the possibility of computation.

Your move, sir. o.q

"Small".

And it never was.