bekkar

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So by this logic, they also rock like people say they do since they're not talking about the same thing as the folks who proclaim suckitude. In essence, we're surrounded by conflicting opinions of varying degrees. Figures.

Don't mind me, just moving the thread along...

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, they do, and yes, we are

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Nonsense, I could just as easily pose the question: Are Doms as good as people say they are? Works both ways.

[/ QUOTE ] Um, you're making exactly the same mistake here--you're discussing someone else's opinions but not using their definitions of the words involved. Their opinion of what qualifies as "good" in that sentence has exactly the same relevance as their opinion of what qualifies as "sucks", but you're accepting one as valid and dismissing the other?

I think you're thinking too hard--it means what they think it means if we're talking about their opinions and not correcting their diction, which was the case.

In brief: You do not think they suck, but they do suck like people say they do because, when they say it, they're not talking about the same thing as you are

The question was...
"Do dominators suck like people say they do?"
...and asks why people keep saying "doms suck" so I think it's fair to point out that, when most people are getting all huffy over the "suckage", often they're referring to relatively simple deficiencies.

You might not subscribe to their usage of the word, but the topic does require acknowledging what they mean by it. If you like using more precise meanings, like I do myself, that's great--but we are dealing with their meaning here.

By their standard of what "sucks", which is the standard you accept for what's "nerfed", most people think they do suck.

Constant_Motion, posters on internet boards tend to have accepted standards of exaggeration. I know it sounds silly, but they do.

Nerf: originally from when an archer-type class in another game had an attack so severely downgraded that they "might as well have been using a Nerf Bow and Arrow". "Nerf" became "any massive downgrade to a class/ability"...it's now "any downgrade whatsoever". Standard usage is a blatant exaggeration.

I mention this to set up what most posters mean when they say "it sucks!"...they don't mean "it sucks", they mean "it in any way underperforms when compared to the alternatives"--as most players agree that Dominators do underperform, however slightly, the forums are going to be filled with "doms suck" when, in all probability, a couple relatively minor changes could make them equal.

Basically, this is my longwinded way of saying that they do "suck" but only because it doesn't take much at all to fit the accepted use of the word, at least in forums like this. Something can "suck" by being slightly weaker.

Edit: in my mind, Dominators don't suck. They do underperform, but all it would take to achieve parity is a small boost to their normal play and a shift in how AV's resist control effects.
However, the way "they don't suck" will be interpreted as "they don't need any help at all" by those accustomed to the exaggerations.

I dunno...lowest difficulty, level range and powerset that gave the Dominator more decent attacks than the Brute, and the Brute having slow recharge/animation attacks, and the Dominator firing before the Brute could close...it's still a bit of a stretch unless we're neglecting to mention the incoming-attack Fury thing I mentioned, but it's not impossible.

I agree it's Twilight-Zoneish, but not impossible...

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My dominator used to duo with a brute who complained about me killing all the mobs so fast he couldn't build fury

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I have never seen anything resembling that one. I have seen the occasional complaint (not at me, yet) that too much mez makes it hard to build Fury, since a good portion of Fury comes from incoming attacks...but killing too fast?

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Why do people who haven't played Dominators past low levels feel the need to come on this thread and bad-mouth them? I get the feeling they have 'tallest tree' syndrome. If you're not the tallest tree in the forest cut down the others until you're the tallest left

[/ QUOTE ] Who's the low-level Dominator you're talking about?
That, and I haven't seen anyone asking for nerfs ("cut down the others") so much as buffs...which I won't use this analogy for since I'd rather not get that substance which would be beneficial to the growth of a tree thrown at my character.

Dominators can get into parties, I'm not denying that--in fact I specifically said they would take them.

Even on Liberty, with your good experiences, are you seeing high demand?

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How the heck is this thread still going on?

[/ QUOTE ] A somewhat open-ended question, on an issue people have strong feelings about, when developers have posted their impressions and given some details about an upcoming boost to an AT?

A better question is "what would it take to kill it?", because that'd be harder than keeping it going.

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its good many don't liek doms-keeps demand high for those who enjoy 'em!

[/ QUOTE ] Where do you play? Maybe I need to move to your server. Demand for Dominators on my server is practically nonexistant. Most parties will take a Dom if they want more people for some reason, but I have never seen a broadcast of "Party LF Dom"

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Did they say mez protection is the only new thing added?

[/ QUOTE ] No, in fact he implied that it wouldn't be, so I'm not too worried at this point.

Honestly, I think the Mr. Hyde part is, in a team situation, primarily there to make an encounter you probably could have handled turn a little easier for a while. Domination does help, but it's not something that, in normal play, the team needs from the Dom.

If you have a role in that team, then you're probably meeting it as Dr. Jekyll--that, or the team is in for a world of disappointment when your glow fades.

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I could SWEAR I remember a redname specifically saying fairly recently that the triangles did nothing but add a visual cue to what was already happening...

[/ QUOTE ] I can't deny the possibility that something similar was mentioned, but I can be fairly certain it wasn't stated that way, as a forum search for "triangles" or "visual cue" returned zero redname posts for the last two months...

At this point, it looks like Domination is supposed to be equivalent to a Tier9. Do the same thing you would to any other time-limited power that pumps the heck out of your opponent's difficulty--come back in a minute, when you'll rock him.

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So, you're saying the Devs have made a huge oversight when designing Containment for Controllers?

[/ QUOTE ] I didn't really read that in what he said, rather I got the impression he was saying that there was a hole in Controllers that they fixed with the inherent--making the Dominator, which shares primaries and who made major sacrifices to fill that hole, stand there with egg on his face.

They fixed a problem with Controllers, and now they are working fine. A Controller "working fine" blows a Dominator out of the water. That would tend to imply that the Dominator is not "working fine".

I'm glad the developers are watching and giving some thought to changes before they jump in. I have some thoughts I hope you'll consider along with those, though...

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Dominators give up a bit of control for some good direct damage attacks that Controllers would give their left mouse button for.

[/ QUOTE ] This is extremely misleading. I'm not saying it was intentional deception, but it's apples to oranges. Let's compare apples to apples.

First, the good news. Dominators didn't give up that much control over Controllers. Sure, Doms are a bit weaker without Domination, but then they're significantly more with it. That kind of balances itself out, especially since the Dominator has the option of using that boost when it's most beneficial to him.

So where is our basket of apples? We're really talking about secondaries. Those attacks you mentioned, that thing the Controllers should be drooling over, that's our secondary. There are a couple decent attacks, but as a whole it really doesn't seem to be the kind of damage a sane Controller would be giving up a Support secondary for, you know?

There's our apples to apples. In a strict primary-secondary comparison, Dominators are a Controller who gave up Support for Assault. So, is Assault really as valuable as Support?
Edit: In other words, does Assault pull its weight in a team? All other secondaries really seem to, including Support for a Controller...Assault for a Dominator, though, is a marginal benefit to the team.

Well...it gets a little messy here. If a Dominator and Controller both start a fight by using a control power (and who wouldn't, with a Control primary?), the Controller has the benefit of Containment for the entire battle, while the Dominator quite obviously does not. I don't have a problem with that, mind you, but whenever you're thinking of a Controller's damage, it needs to be doubled in practice--quite the boost there!

I'm suspicious of the notion that a Dominator who isn't in Domination mode really comes out ahead in terms of the number of hits they need to kill an average foe. Every single hit after the first doing double damage really tends to make a difference...and if a damage-secondary AT isn't clearly doing better than a support-secondary AT, well, that's just not right.

By all rights, two things should be happening:
Dominators should be outdamaging Controllers by a very clear margin.
Assault should be as valuable, in the end, as Support.

I've yet to have a fight go by where I thought to myself "where would my team have been without my damage"...while not a fight goes by that a Controller's Support isn't welcomed. There's a lack of parity, and that's really where it shows.

It's true, Dominators aren't the Controllers of CoV. We're supposed to be giving up support and gaining damage. In practice, though, it doesn't seem like the latter is happening. It seems like we bought a Porsche only to find a VW engine in it--Assault looks sweet in the driveway but only "meh" when we hit the road

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[snip]Unless I'm just remembering horribly wrong.

[/ QUOTE ] You are not remembering horribly wrong. With enough support, a Brute can match a Tanker in everything but HP...and depending on where the caps are, HP might be possible too, I honestly don't know.

The difference, as you already know, is that a Brute requires a pretty significant amount of support to get there.

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That's a fair assessment. But I've been on teams that needed more assault, needed more support, had too much assault and had too much support! So the question is, when is one unequivocally superior?

[/ QUOTE ] That's really not the question. Sorry if I was unclear. The question I was raising wasn't "is damage more important than support?" so much as "can a Dominator's damage be as valuable to a decent team as a Controller's support?"

I have been in small CoH teams that say "nah, we don't need a Defender, we have 2 Controllers" but I strongly suspect hell will freeze over before you hear "nah, we don't need to add a Corruptor, we have 2 Dominators"
The secondary value just isn't there.

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You may think that extra assault sucks, until that day you get on that pick up team at 2am PST (when you server is empty) and you have two controllers and four defenders.

[/ QUOTE ] Err...with anything resembling strong builds, that team should have been some serious ownage
I'm not joking. Everyone at their defensive caps and enough buffs/debuffs to make their damage quite strong. One of the strongest CoH team setups is the all-defender team. Stacking does crazy things.


For there to really be equality between Dominators and other AT's, if a Dominator has equal-value controls to a Controller, then a Dominator needs equal-value Assault to the Controller's Support. A Dominator's damage potential has to be respectable--not primary-strength, but still of quite significant value.

To be perfectly honest, I doubt the developers will bite that bullet.

Which is crazy, when you think about it...they gave a significant damage boost to a class that doesn't have damage in its primary or secondary, but a class that is designed to partially rely on doing damage isn't getting any?

Controller: Control/Support
Dominator: Control/Assault

When a Dominator's assault is as valuable to a team as a Controller's support, we'll talk

Don't hold your breath, guys.

If it's still possible to edit this, you might want to fix the numbering at the end of the "basics" section.

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A ton have quit? Just how many is that? Is there proof? I know of absolutely no one that has actually quit over any changes.

[/ QUOTE ] Well, I don't think a ton have quit, but I should probably point out a few things if this topic is up.
First, when most people quit, they just leave without saying anything. This is probably the wise choice anyway.
Second, if someone wanted to say something, they wouldn't be able to--as soon as you deactivate your account, you lose posting ability.
Between those, nobody who has already quit is going to be telling you about it. They won't or can't.

Finally, I do know of some people that, although they still think the game is fun, consider recent changes in the attitude of the game a bad sign. They simply don't log in as much anymore or stop renewing their accounts. On the plus side, NCsoft won't delete their accounts, so they could always come back someday.

Gallant, your post pretty much summed up what I was going to say, and I had already rated you 5. Want a cookie to go with it?

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I have NEVER seen a broadcast "Team needing a blaster!!!"

[/ QUOTE ] I have, but Virtue is a weird server sometimes. I also managed to play defenders for more than a month before my first "r u a healer" message, but I don't doubt people get them all the time.

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Did he apologize to us DA's who still are subPar for threatening to Nerf us? Hell no he apologized to the Regen-Masses (Which I REMIND everyone, I own a Regen too and helped improve them) , We DA's are in the same boat as the Blasters, the SS-Ignored.

Point is, you must have been watching something completely different this week because what he described it exactly the way it happened.

[/ QUOTE ] Or playing /DA.

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How about mezz length? That seems about right.

[/ QUOTE ] That feels like something that would be extremely problematic. If they were just as effective, but didn't last as long, wouldn't that mean that one or two slots would put you right back into the controller's realm?
And if not, would anyone use them?