Veni. Vidi. Vici: The Complete Guide to Domination
By
ageone,
Posted on: 2005-12-26 18:33 in Player Guides
Overview:
Ahhhh...the black sheep. Mind has a ton of soft control options at it's disposal and has the capability to stack almost every method of Control it has. It does have a higher learning curve then a lot of sets. But, if you can learn how to use it, Mind is one of the strongest sets there is. With it's variety of powers you'll have several tactics at your diposal to approach a situation. Not to mention you'll never be bored. Mind also has rather impressive damage capabilities in it's first 3 powers. More damage then any other primary really. If you're willing to learn the tools it gives you, you can't go wrong with Mind. Aside from the lack of a pet at 32, it doesn't have any big weaknesses.
Telekinesis requires a bit of explaination. What Telekinesis does is lift one mob off his feet and keeps him Held. Then levitates him away from you. If he bumps into any other mob on his way, they'll be picked up, Held and pushed away too. It's essentially a sweeping domino effect. Telekinesis is tricky to use and you'll need to practice with it to really get a feel for how it works. It's best used indoors where you can make use of walls and corners to act as a roadblock for mobs being levitated away from you. Telekinesis also counts as a Hold where magnitude is concerned. So you can use it to lower a mobs resistence to Holds before you hit him with Dominate or Total Domination. Ensuring a lock down on bigger targets. It's also great for keeping people away from you in PvP.
One thing I should mention: Telekinesis will devour your end like a soul sucking Hell field from the 7th plane of the underworld. It's one of the most end consuming toggle powers in the entire game. You will NOT be able to run it contiously at first. It consumes almost twice your natural endurance regen rate before Stamina. After Stamina and with 3 End Redux SO's in it you should be able to turn it on and still regain more endurance then it's draining. But it's still quite taxing. You have been warned.
Overall, if you can learn how to use it and don't mind the no pet thing, Mind is a powerful choice.
Plant Control ( Feed me, Seymour! )
Pros:
- Only set made specifically for Dominators, so it's well balanced between hard and soft control.
- Gains AoE / Cone Soft Control very early ( Spore Burst at 6 and Seeds of Confusion at level 8 )
- Powerful early Cone Soft Control tool ( Seeds of Confusion )
- Carrion Creepers is just flat out awesome.
- Does have a regen ability even if it's lackluster ( Spirit Tree )
- Well balanced pet.
Cons:
- Relies heavily on Confuse for soft control till level 26 ( Remember, Confuse = Less exp if you aren't careful. )
- Endurance hungry
- Spirit Tree could use some improvement
- Pet is God damn freakish. ( You may see this as a pro. But that shrieking plant beast unnerves me. )
Must Have Powers:
- Strangler
- Seeds of Confusion
- Carrion Creepers
- Fly Trap
Good Matchs:
- Plant's methods of soft control make it self relient and match well with just about any set. But especially those that rely heavily on close range attacks ( Thorny Assault, Ice Assault, Energy Assault. )
Power Breakdown:
1 - Single Target Immobilize, -Fly ( Entangle )
2 - Single Target Hold ( Strangler ) ( Hard Control )
3 - AoE Immobilize, -Fly ( Roots )
4 - AoE Sleep ( Spore Burst ) ( Soft Control )
5 - Cone Confuse ( Seeds of Confusion ) ( Soft Control )
6 - Ground Targeted PBAoE +Regen ( Spirit Tree )
7 - AoE Hold ( Vines ) ( Hard Control )
8 - Instant Hentai, -Fly, -Jump, -Speed, Knockdown, Immobilize ( Carrion Creepers ) ( Soft Control )
9 - Summon Pet ( Fly Trap )
Overview:
The only "Just for us" primary set for Dominators. As the only set created specifically for our AT it's designed with us in mind. With a great mix of hard and soft Control, Plant is a powerful set and I recommend it as a solid Dominator option. It has no really big weaknesses. One problem a lot of Dominators have is the early levels when we don't yet have all our Control powers. Plant seems to have been designed to counteract this as you get one of the best multi-target Soft Control tools available at level 8. Not to mention an AoE Sleep at level 6. Meaning Plant avoids a lot of the painful maturation time some other powersets go through. So Plant is probably the smoothest sailing powerset from the get go.
Since Carrion Creepers defies a simple description I'll have to go over it. If only because it rules. Essentially it creates a patch of those horrific respec tree vines at the targeted location. You also get one vine for every mob in the area of effect. Alive or dead. Creepers negate Flight and Jump. Plus they can also knock mobs down and inflict a -speed effect. Anytime a mob is killed near the Creepers it creates a small AoE immobilize effect from the body that'll snag any mobs that are still alive. So essentially what you're getting here is an AoE -fly, -jump, knockdown, -speed, immobilize that also draws aggro. In otherwords its absolutely awesome and should be taken the second it's available.
Plant's pet is a mobile Little Shop of Horrors that has both ranged and melee attacks. Plus a little bit of Control. It's a nice little beasty and will serve you well. Check the pet section for some more info.
6. The Art of Assault
So what do you do after you've tied something up? Whip it of course. Thats where Assault comes in. Our Assault sets look like someone mugged several CoH AT's, made off in the night with them then tried to ducktape them all together into one glorious clusterhump of a powerset. Assault sets are a mix of ranged, melee and area attacks with no real emphasis placed on any one category. In addition, every Assault set comes with at least 1 buff power of some sort and all of them are actually worth taking. Which is a pleasent surprise for those of us use to CoH.
For Assault, your bare minimum arsenal should eventually look something like: 2 blasts, a melee attack and one AoE or Cone of some sort. After you get your pets, feel free to drop a single target attack if you want to make room for something else since your pet can more then make up for it. Your pet will provide passive damage in the 32+ game, allowing you to scale back some of your offence and focus more on control or AoE damage. The more militant among you will likely just keep on beating the bejeebus out of things with all the Assault powers at your disposal anyway. To those of you taking that approach I say: Booyah!
Early in the game your cone and aoe damage should be reserved mainly to solo play. On a team they'll draw more aggro then you can justify for the damage they're doing. So unless your team is really rocking I'd save them for late in the fight when all the mobs are already locked down or pissed at someone else. Or else keep them to yourself until you can slot them and make them uber.
Whats up with our Attack Cycle?
Perhaps one of the strangest parts of our AT ( and a quirk thats unique entirely to Dominators ) is that early in the game our attack chain will be split between Melee and Ranged. Every other AT in the game that has an offensive powerset can pick up a 2nd Melee attack or a 2nd Blast at level 2. Not us. We get a blast a level 1 and then a melee attack at level 2. You won't get your 2nd blast till level 10. Which means you're going to have to learn how to get your hands dirty to maximize your damage output. At this point some of you might want to try and use an Immobilize for damage till level 10 rather then live life to the fullest and go for the Control + Beat Down approach. Just keep in mind your melee attack will do better damage. Mind and Gravity Doms have it good here since they'll inevitable have a Control power with a hefty instant damage component such as Lift, Levitate, Mesmerize or Dominate they can rely on when they don't want to close for melee. Fiery Assault can actually create a ranged attack chain in and of itself without help from Grav, Mind or an Immobilize using only Flares and Fire Blast ( Flares recharges almost instantly for crying out loud. ). So Fiery Assault might be your best bet if you intend to play the range game early in your career.
Remember, you should almost always have at least 1 Single Target Control as part of your attack chain. Typically your Hold. Unless your Mind or Grav in which case Lift, Levitate or Mezmerize can fill in. Mid-fight there's almost always something that could stand to be locked down or have it's Control refreshed. Plus Mind and Grav can cheat and get a little extra damage in here off their Control.
Finally, decide what your attack chain is going to be. No Assault set is fast enough for you to run through every power in the set before the first power recharges. So trying would be a waste of time ( and slots really ) Ideally you're going to want an attack chain that consists of around 3 attacks depending on your set with "heavy hitter" powers that you bring out once every couple of cycles for the big damage. Every set has a decent attack cycle with it's first two blasts and 2nd tier melee attack. Throw Control into that and back it up with a "heavy hitter" power or two once every 2 cycles or so and you've got yourself a party. You'll probably find your attack cycle changes at least twice in your career. Once by level 20 and again by level 38. Once you've gotten a feel for your Assault set you can decide on your favourite powers and respec yourself accordingly. Dominator build plans, much like battle plans, rarely survive past the first encounter. They'll always be something thats better then what you'd planned on or something that's just extremely cool that you want to use all the time. Thats what respecs are for.
Slotting Assault
Slotting Assault is actually very easy. Just keep a few basic guidelines in mind and you'll be golden:
1) Single Target Attacks only need 4 slots unless they have a recharge of more then 4 seconds.
Every single target attack, ranged and melee, will do just fine running off Acc / Dmg / Dmg / Dmg unless it has a recharge greater then 4 seconds. In which case a Recharge SO on the end might be in order if you notice a gap and you really want to maximize your damage output by ensuring you have a truely continous attack chain. Some more heavy hitting melee and blast attacks will have an 8 second recharge and a select few will have even higher ( 3rd tier blasts, Total Focus ) and might require 2 Rechargers if you want to have them up as much as possible. Hasten isn't permanent anymore, remember.
Assault Powers with higher then 4 second recharges ( Not including Sniper attacks )
Fiery Assault
- Incinerate ( 10 )
- Blaze ( 10 )
Energy Assault
- Bonesmasher ( 8 )
- Powerblast ( 8 )
- Total Focus ( 20 )
- Power Burst ( 10 )
Ice Assault
- Ice Sword ( 6 )
- Ice Blast ( 8 )
- Greater Ice Sword ( 10 )
- Bitter ice Blast ( 12 )
Psi Assault
- Mind Probe ( 8 )
- Subdue ( 7 )
Thorny Assault
- Impale ( 8 )
As you can see, the fastest attacking sets are Psi, Fire and Thorn in that order. So if you want a continous attack chain as early as possible you may wish to use one of them.
2) Area and Cone Attacks need at least 4 slots but don't lose sleep over it if you can't get more then 4.
If you can't get more then Acc / Dmg / Dmg / Dmg into a Cone or Area attack, don't lose sleep over it ( Control is more important ). It's important to have the base Acc / Dam x 3 in there to ensure you're getting the best bang for your buck endurance wise. While Rechargers are definately desirable for Area attacks its more important to ensure they're at their peak effectiveness rather then that they come back faster. Most Cone attacks don't have too painful of a recharge time so if you have to choose, always put the extra Recharge slots in an AoE attack first. CoV and CoH is, for better or for worse, all about how big of an alpha strike you can bring to the table. Not whether or not your AoE is back 20 seconds after the alpha strike or 30 seconds after the alpha strike.
3) All Assault powers should get the Holy 4 ( Acc / Dmg / Dmg / Dmg ) before anything else.
You'll want to make sure your attacks hit as hard and as accurately as possible before you start worrying about them coming back faster or costing less endurance. We're not an uber high damage AT so it's important we squeeze as much damage as possible out of Assault before we worry about anything else about them. Especially with how precious slots can become to us at higher level.
Secondary Power Sets: Your Weapons of Choice
In this section I'll touch base on all the Assault sets, their pros and cons, damage types and so forth. So without further ado, let the whipping commence!
Energy Assault ( Pink pom poms of death. )
Pros
- Highest single target damage.
- Great secondary effect on melee attacks ( Disorient )
- Knockback can be used to good effect in the right hands.
- Power Boost is a great buff for your Primary set and for Energy Assault's melee Disorients.
- Probably some of the coolest graphics in the game.
Cons
- Very little AoE damage.
- Knockback is frowned upon in teams. Can cause problems if you aren't careful.
- It's biggest attacks are melee range. So be advised if melee isn't your thing.
- Power Push is of very questionable use to Dominators.
- Smashing damage is a common resistence in PvE and PvP.
Secondary Effect:
- Disorient ( Melee Attacks )
- Knockback ( Ranged Attacks )
Damage Types:
- Energy ( Not a common resistence in PvE )
- Smashing ( Common resistence )
- All Energy attacks deal both types of damage at the same time.
Powerset Breakdown:
- Single Target Blast, Knockback ( Power Bolt )
- Single Target Melee, Disorient ( Bonesmasher )
- Single Target Knockback ( Power Push )
- Single Target Blast, Knockback ( Power Blast )
- Buff: Boosts secondary effect of ALL powers. ( Power Boost )
- PBAoE Melee, Disorient ( Whirling Hands )
- Single Target Melee, Disorient ( Total Focus )
- Sniper Attack, Knockback ( Sniper Blast )
- Single Target Blast, Knockback ( Power burst )
Overview:
Energy is the king of single target damage, no question there. Combined with it's very high damage melee attacks, Energy can tear through single targets. But you aren't going to get any real AoE damage here. Whirling Hands looks cool but damage wise it's not much better then Power Bolt. Still, if precision single target death with suberb melee is your thing, Energy is for you.
A quick note about Power Boost. Power Boost boosts the secondary effect of all of your powers. Primary, Secondary and Pool. By Secondary effect I mean it will boost your Holds, Disorients, Sleeps, Confuses, Heals, buffs, debuffs, knockbacks, everything. Since every power in your Primary powerset has a secondary affect, this is a great little boon and can be considered a sort of mini Domination power. Especially if you're of mind that your Control powers are lackluster.
Fiery Assault ( Because everything is flammable...eventually )
Pros
- One of the highest damage sets.
- Great AoE damage
- Attacks recharge quickly and many have fast activation times
- Has a self damage buff ( Fiery Embrace )
- Can recover Endurance ( Consume )
Cons
- Absolutely no real secondary effect. So attacks have no real utility beyond just damage
- Only has one damage type ( Fire )
Secondary Effect:
- Damage over time
Damage Types:
- Fire ( Not really a common resistence in PvE )
Powerset Breakdown:
- Single Target Blast ( Flares )
- Single Target Melee ( Incinerate )
- Cone Blast ( Breath of Fire )
- Single Target Blast ( Fire Blast )
- Self Damage Buff ( Fiery Embrace )
- PBAoE Melee ( Combustion )
- PBAoE Self Endurance Heal. Requires Enemies. ( Consume )
- Sniper Attack ( Blazing Bolt )
- Single Target Blast ( Blaze )
Overview:
The king of Area Damage. Fire is great if you just want sheer killing ability. Breath of Fire hits fantastically hard and Combustion isn't too shabby either. Most Fire attacks are rather swift and recharge quickly. It also gets 2 buff / utility type powers ( Fiery Embrace and Consume. ). Fiery Embrace is a nice damage boost right before Breath of Fire and Combustion. Fiery Assault's area damage is high enough to be a welcome addition to teams.
A quick note about Consume: Consume will heal roughly 25% of your endurance for every mob it hits and barely takes any endurance to activate. Meaning you'll always have a net endurance gain as long as you hit at least 1 mob. But at least 2-3 is perferable to make it truely significant.
Ice Assault ( Ice, Ice, baby. Sorry, couldn't resist. )
Pros
- Best secondary effect of all the Assault sets ( -speed / -recharge )
- Best secondary effect for PvP ( -speed / recharge )
- Fast activation times
- Power Boost is a great buff for your Primary set and for Ice's -speed / -recharge debuffs
- Chilling Embrace adds some great debuffing and utility to this set
- Variety of damage types
- Ice Attacks are a form of Soft Control all by themselves due to debuffing effect.
- Ideal Assault set for kiting ( Due to -Speed component )
Cons
- Like all Ice sets it eats endurance.
- Ice Sword Circle uses way too much Endurance and comes very early in the set. Tempting you to embrace its sweet, sweet devil candy.
- Very melee range orientated. So be warned if melee isn't your thing.
- Melee relies in part on Lethal damage. Which is probably the most resisted damage type in the game.
Secondary Effect:
- Debuffs speed and recharge ( A brutal effect in PvE and especially PvP )
Damage Types:
- Cold ( Not really a common resistence in PvE )
- Lethal ( Commonly resisted )
- Smashing ( Commonly resisted )
- All attacks have a Cold damage component.
- Single Target Blasts are both Cold and Smashing damage.
- Melee attacks are both Cold and Lethal damage.
Powerset Breakdown:
- Single Target Blast, -Speed, -Recharge ( Ice Bolt )
- Single Target Melee, -Speed, -Recharge ( Ice Sword )
- PBAoE Melee, -Speed, -Recharge ( Ice Sword Circle )
- Single Target Blast, -Speed, -Recharge ( Ice Blast )
- Buff: Boosts secondary effect of ALL powers ( Power Boost )
- Cone Blast, -Speed, -Recharge( Ice Breath )
- PBAoE Toggle, -Speed, -Recharge ( Chilling Embrace )
- Single Target Melee, -Speed, -Recharge ( Greater Ice Sword )
- Single Target Blast, -Speed, -Recharge ( Bitter Ice Blast )
Overview:
Ice Assault, quite possible the best Assault set when it comes to utility. Between it's powerful inbuilt debuff, Power Boost and Chilling Embrace, Ice Assault brings a ton of tools to the table for any Dominator. Probably the best Assault set to be using for a PvP Dominator. -speed / -recharge is one of the best debuffs for PvP play. It's also a great debuff in PvE. It's potent debuffs will make kiting in PvE and PvP so much easier. Chilling Embrace will screw with those Stalkers that try to creep up on you in free for alls. So in case you missed my subtle hint: If you want to PvP, this is the set for you.
One strange quirk about Ice Assault is it looks like 2 of it's powers are reversed. The typical Assault set gets a Cone attack at level 4 and an AoE at level 20. Ice Assault gets an AoE at level 4 and a cone attack at level 20.
If Ice has one flaw, its the same one shared by every Ice themed powerset in the game. Endurance. It harbours perverse lust for Endurance. Stamina will be a must at 20 here.
Psi Assault ( Because the awesome, unrestrainably vast power of the mind is clearly pink in colour. )
Pros
- Least resisted damage type in the game
- Eventually gains some of the best AoE available
- Psi Dart is stupidly fast and great for building Domination.
- Base Secondary effect is very desirable ( -recharge )
- Psi Shockwave acts like a debuff ( -recharge ) and provides AoE soft control ( Disorient )
- Can buff it's own Health and Endurance recovery ( Drain Pysche )
- Grab bag of secondary effects ( -recharge, knockback, immobilize, disorient, -regen, -recovery ) depending on the power used.
Cons
- Weak at low levels. Takes a lot of time to mature.
- 1st and 2nd Blasts are questionable. Psi Dart is fast but feels weaker then it should be. Mental Blast has been loathed by Defenders since release.
- When Psi damage does get resisted, it gets resisted very heavily.
- Secondary effect cannot be enhanced.
- It's PINK.
Secondary Effect:
- Debuffs recharge.
- Knockback ( TK Thrust )
- Immobilize ( Subdue )
- Disorient ( Psi Shockwave )
- Debuffs regen ( Drain Psyche )
- Debuffs recovery ( Drain Psyche )
Damage Types:
- Psionic ( Rarely resisted. But when it is the resistence tends to be high. )
- Smashing ( Commonly resisted. )
- All powers deal Psi damage except for TK Thrust which deals some very minor Smashing damage.
Powerset Breakdown:
- Single Target Blast, -Recharge ( Psi Dart)
- Single Target Melee, -Recharge ( Mind Probe )
- Single Target Melee, Knockback ( TK Thrust )
- Single Target Blast, -Recharge ( Mental Blast )
- Cone Blast, -Recharge ( Psi Scream )
- PBAoE, Foe -Regen / -Recovery, Self +Regen / +Recovery ( Drain Psyche )
- Single Target Blast, Immobilize ( Subdue )
- Sniper Attack, -Recharge ( Psionic Lance )
- PBAoE Melee, -Recharge, Disorient ( Psi Shockwave )
Overview:
Perhaps the most eclectic Assault set with its myriad of secondary effects. Psi Assault ended up suffering the same problem as Psi Blast: Lackluster intial powers that make the early levels more difficult then they really have to be and end up being skipped at higher level. I suggest relying on Mental Probe for your big damage early on. Or pairing Psi Assault with Mind Control. One of the reasons those two fit together so well is because Mind Control can easily be slotted for damage. Allowing you to rely on Mind Control and Mind Probe in the early levels for damage until you can get up to Subdue to replace Psi Dart. But before you go thinking you can do the same with Gravity's damage powers with Psi Assault, I wouldn't attempt it. No sense screwing yourself on Control and Damage at low level.
But enough of that. Let's focus on the upsides. The happy thoughts. While it does take much longer to get going then any other blast set, it does mature into a decent Assault set with good AoE capability. Psi Scream has always been a nice cone attack on Defenders and Psi Shockwave seems like the economy version of Psi Wail. The other plus is the grab bag of useful secondary effects littered in the set ( Knockback, Immobilize, Disorient )
I've heard mixed things about Drain Psyche. Ranging from awesome to sucktacular. The truth lies between the two. It's not the end all be all of uber, but its certainly worth grabbing anyway. Endurance recovery isn't that uncommon of a power, but a sharp boost to health regen isn't something you can get your paws on outside of melee ATs. Drain Psyche works just like Consume. The more mobs it hits the greater the resulting buff to your regen / recovery will be. It's worth mentioning that as of me writing this Drain Psyche does not accept Accuracy enhancers. But it is on the board to be fixed in an upcoming patch.
Thorny Assault ( Me So Thorny is the best name for a Plant / Thorn Dominator I've ever seen. )
Pros
- Great secondary effect. ( Defence debuff. )
- Lots of AoE abilities to play with.
- Has some Control oriented powers.
- Has AIM! ( <glee!> )
- Deals some Toxic damage ( Next to no one resists toxic. )
- Impale is just down right aggravating to be struck with in PvP.
Cons
- Time delay from Thorn draw animation when going from Control to Assault.
- Lot of powers orientated to melee / short range. Be warned if that's not your thing.
- Primarily deals Lethal which is commonly resisted in PvE and PvP.
- Being covered in Thorns may crimp your fashion.
Secondary Effect:
- Debuffs Damage
- Poisons ( Toxic DoT )
Damage Types:
- Lethal ( Commonly resisted )
- Toxic ( Practically never resisted. )
Powerset Breakdown:
- Single Target Blast, -Defence ( Thorny Darts )
- Single Target Melee, -Defence ( Skewer )
- Cone Blast, -Defence ( Fling Thorns )
- Single Target Blast, -Fly,-Jump, -Defence, Immobilize ( Impale )
- Self +Acc, +Damage ( Aim )
- PBAoE Melee, -Defence ( Thorn Burst )
- Ground Targeted AoE, DoT, -Speed ( Thorntrops )
- Cone Melee, -Defence, Knockback ( Ripper )
- Single Target Blast, -Defence, Knockdown ( Thorn Barrage )
Overview:
Perhaps the oddest Assault set. But none the less a good one. With a powerful secondary effect ( -defence + toxic poison ) you can't really go wrong with Thorns. The thorn burst animation when you activate an Assault power intially will delay you a bit. But if you can cope with that you have a solid set on your hands. Thorns is oriented to close range combat with heavy melee attacks, cones and a short range 3rd tier blast. It also has some utility in the form of Control effects ( immobilize, knockback ). Impale is a truely awesome tool for PvP with it's -fly, -jump and immobilize components. Look forward to pissing a lot of people off with it. I've been nailed with Impale on my Fire Dom a couple of times and swift death followed very quickly afterwards as I was sent to the ground express post.
One particularly potent aspect of Thorny assault is that it actually has Aim in the set. While Fire is potent, Fiery Embrace only provides a boost to damage. Whereas Aim will boost both Accuracy and Damage. Definately a nice little toy to have in your Assault set.
If Thorn has any drawback, it's that it relies on Lethal damage. Which is a pretty common resistence in PvE and PvP. But the additional Toxic damage and access to Aim should more then make up for it.
7. Trying not to Suck
Ahhhh, simple to say, but perhaps difficult to accomplish. As I have said, your biggest challenge on a Dominator is similar to that of a Blaster. Staying alive without the luxury of passive defence. This means you need to be aware of whats going on around you at all times. One missed mob and you're going to be in some hurt. Especially later on in the game when one good melee whack from a boss can one shot you or come damn close to it. While it's good advice for any AT, it's even more so for us: Don't start a fight without some sort of plan of attack. I'm sure most of you can formulate such plans. But here's some advice just in case:
Solo:
1. Make sure you see them all.
Aggro'n a second group while on the first sucks bawls. Especially for us with the recharge times on our AoE control. If a group is too close to another, restrict yourself to ranged attacks or pull. Try and make sure there isn't another [censored] around the corner you can't see or another group standing just in range of the AoE you're about to use.
2. Look for the biggest target.
Act like a stalker. The biggest target is always the biggest threat to a Dominator. You want them locked down first. Lts and Boss's can be problems. Whereas you can safely take a shot or two from a stray minion.
3. Lock em down.
Pin down their arses with the control weapons of your choice. Don't let any of them remain unmolested by your primary unless you're positively sure you can take a hit from them. Because you *will* take a hit from them.
4. Go to town.
As a Dominator your primary goal in life is to tie people up and whip them. The principle is simple. Stick to it. Unlike your approach to Control ( Biggest first ) your approach to murder should be smallest first. Why you ask? Because smaller targets take less Control and Damage to deal with. The duration of control on them is also longer. While the duration on the frothing killing machine boss next to you is shorter. What this means is you need more regular applications of control on the boss then you do on the minions and you can kill the minions quicker. So what you do is reapply control to the biggest target as needed, while targetting the smaller targets for attacks. Chances are after SO's you can kill the minions before the AoE control you hit them with wears off. Leaving you to off the LT and/or boss at your leisure. Dropping AoE/Cone damage is ideal in this situation as you can aim for the boss and hit the minions as well.
Still not sure why you should murder the weenies first? If you focused on the boss first, it will take some time to kill him and your primary single target control, the Hold, will be tied up keeping him locked down. Since you can't hope to do enough damage to a boss before the duration of Control wears off, you'll have to reapply it continously. The minions can and will recover from the aoe control before you get all the way through the boss. So they can start pounding on you. But changing the attention of your single target control onto them risks the Boss getting loose. See what I mean? Go for the big, kill the small. Focus your single target control on the biggest threat while focusing your attacks on the smallest ones. Once you've cleaned up the annoyances you can mop up the big threat at your leisure.
Teamplay:
Dominators end up being one of the most significant contributers to a team at higher levels. We end up providing the highest amount of defence a team can have and people will end up seeking you out for this. Due to a combination of our contribution and the fact that not many Dominators make it to high level, your skills ( or lack thereof ) will be sought after. That being said we're often the first to die shrieking on a team. Since we're the most adversingly affected by mistakes made by teammates.
Teaming need not be difficult if use some common sense and follow some basic guidelines:
1) The temptation to AoE in a team is immense. But don't drop your AoE control opener until after someone or something else has taken the alpha strike ( Brute / MM Pets. ). This is a good rule for every CoV AT except for Brutes. We're too squishy to be taking return salvos from mobs we might miss or we didn't have enough magnitude to lock down. Let them shoot the Brute first. That's what he's there for.
2) Don't go to town with AoE damage either unless you're confident in your team's ability or you've waited a bit for the aggro to build up on other teammates / pets.
3) Your goal here is the same as your goal solo: Lock down the biggest threats to the team. Minions are dogfood to a decent team so you won't have too worry much about them after the intial AoE control hits them. But LT's and Bosses are a problem. As are any aggravating mob types that can mezz, sap, debuff, slow, etc. So target them for single target Control first.
4) Once you've locked down a spawn, feel free to go to town. If you see anything loose or remember something about to, lock it down, then resume murdering. Ideally you should still be throwing out single target control between attacks whenever it recharges. While no one invites a Dom to the team for damage, the fact of the matter is we can contribute a good amount. At high levels we can contribute a significant amount. Especially Energy and Fire.
5) While murdering is good fun, remember your role is control. Don't neglect it in a team situation because thats why they invited you. Otherwise you're basically just Gimplet the Halfwit Blaster. Keeping mobs from attacking you and your teammates should be your primary concern.
The Zen of Mental Timers:
Probably one of the most useful things you can learn as a Dominator is to keep mental timers going in your head. Get a feel for how long your various control powers last so you know when you need to retarget a mob to reapply control. This is especially critical when dealing with larger targets like bosses. Or mobs with aggravating powers ( Mezzers, sappers, etc ). Getting carried away with attacks and forgetting to reapply a Hold to a large threat can be fatal. Keep in mind that the duration of your powers is reduced depending on how big and how high level the target is in relation to you. Dominators are either completely in control of a situation or being beaten into a odd smelling carpet stain. Try to aim for the former.
Domination: The Happy Button:
For those of you that don't know, Domination is an inherent ability that can be activated whenever the Domination bar is full. This bar slowly fills up over time as you attack. When activated, Domination will, for a glorious 90 seconds, allow you to challenge things you probably wouldn't carelessly attempt normally or simply allow you to chew through a spawn or two that would have taken a while normally. Domination provides a full endurance heal, a boost to damage, a boost to Control duration and a boost to Control magnitude. What this means is mobs that typically required several applications of Control can likely now be locked down with only 1. For instance a Boss typically has to be hit twice with a Hold in order to be Held. With Domination up you'll only need to hit him once. Every mob has a magnitude that must be whittled down before they can be Controlled. The easiest way to picture this is that every mob has Control hit points and every Control power does damage to them. If they hit 0 or lower, they end up Controlled.
Never be afraid to use Domination if you see a tricky situation come up. If you know something bad is coming up ( Such as a large spawn of mobs, a tricky boss, an elite boss or AV ), consider saving Domination for them. If you are heading towards or have just spotted a tricky situation you aren't confident you can handle, look around for another mob and Hold his [censored]. Then sit there and Brawl him till you build up your Domination bar. LT's are particularly useful for this since they can take a lot of punches but are easy to keep held. If he's in a group, Hold him then off his minions first. Then resume punching him in the face till the happy button lights up.
8. Pool Powers
I won't flog you by saying you'll be gimped without this or that when it comes to pool powers but I will offer advice and reviews. The only one you really need is of course, Stamina. Since Dominators use a lot of active powers we really do need Stamina whether we like it or not. Domination does help, but it won't keep you going. Fire Assault: Consume is a nice perk to have too, but trust me, it can't replace Stamina. I've tried. I haven't tried Drain Pysche so I can't say whether or not it could. I do recommend at least Stealth from the Concealment pool for the Sneaky [censored] approach. Other then that I'll just offer reviews from my experience:
Concealment
Rating: 4 / 5
Recommended. The ability to just skip over parts of the level you don't feel like doing is a huge advantage. If you're careful you don't need any more then Stealth. If you're bored you could grab Grant Invis but I wouldn't waste a slot on it unless you really want it. Don't bother slotting any of the Concealment powers for defence. Their defensive bonus is so miniscule now it's not worth it. I guess you could grab Phase Shift if you're extremely accident prone or need an oh fark button for PVP.
Fighting
Rating: 3 / 5
In the absence of Epic Pool Powers we Dominators have no method of gaining significant additional defence or resistence ( Such as an EPP armour toggle ). So if you really feel like you're taking a beating and can fit it in Tough + Weave can provide you with a decent amount of Smash / Lethal resistence as well as some Defence. But you can survive without them.
Fitness
Rating: 5 / 5
Yes, I hate having to get it too. But we need Stamina, sadly. Though Health is a bit healthful.
Flight
Rating: 4 / 5
My favourite travel power. Offers a great option for manouvering and positioning mid fight as well as some ghetto knockdown / back protection with Hover. You won't get much use out of Air Superiority unless you intend to PvP. In which case it can't hurt to grab it. You might think Group Fly would be nice for your pet. But if you do you've never been pissed off in a group after an MM teammate flipped it on.
Leadership
Rating: 2 / 5
Dominators unfortunately recieve the lowest values for the Leadership pool. I've tried running with Leadership for quite a while now and have come to the conclusion it's just not worth the endurance cost. Me and my pets are fine without it. Assault barely added 10 more points of damage to my pets attacks and Tactics is only a 7% boost to accuracy ( 12% if you fully slow it. ). So unless you want a free Training Origin Accuracy enhancer for 0.45 endurance a second I'd recommend spending the power slots elsewhere.
The only reason I gave it a 2 rather then a 1 is because I've been testing out Vengeance lately and found it to be a rather nice buff to save a fight thats gone bad in a team. But definately not worth wasting two slots on Assault and Tactics just to get.
If you don't know already, Manouvers is completely worthless.
Leaping
Rating: 5/ 5
While not my personal perference, I can't deny that the extra defence and hold resistence this pool can provide makes it quite worthwhile to Dominators.
Medicine
Rating: 5/ 5
I didn't use to think much of Medicine in CoH. But in CoV where there's far less healing around I've seen some players put this to wonderful effect on teams. Our ability to lock mobs down gives us plenty of time to use Aid Self and we eventually get good use out of Aid Other after we get our pets. I've even seen a couple players that took the rez and loved them to death for it after they got the team back up a few times on an AV mission.
Presence
Rating: 1 / 5
Not much help to us. We don't want to be taunting things and we already have better control options then Intimidate and Invoke Panic.
Speed
Rating: 4 / 5
I've never been a a fan of Hasten or Superspeed, personally. But I won't pretend to deny that Hasten is a potent ability and I've seen a few players do some great things with Whirlwind. Even if it does look silly.
Teleport
Rating: 4 / 5
Based on more testing and feedback I've upgraded Teleport by a point based on it's PvP performance. While you don't get any status protection out of this pool, it is probably the best travel power for keeping out of harms way in PvP. Human players rely on being able to visually track you from point A to point B. So being able to instantly move from point A to point B will really screw up someone as they're forced to take the time to look around and find you again. Secondly, Teleport Foe is completely evil in PvP and I fully endorse using it not only to frustrate and confuse people but also to complete crush the hope of some poor [censored] that thinks he can get away.
9. 32+ or Holy )&*@ I have a pet!
Pets have always been considered a huge turning point for Controllers. They're, frankly, an even bigger one for Dominators. The pet is the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is the Dominator. I can't say enough about how the pet completes the Dominator AT. I've seen people on the forum talking about how they don't think Dominators should have a pet, how the pet doesn't "fit" the theme of a Dominator or how they intend to skip their pet. To all of them I say: You're out of your friggan mind. Dominators were built with the pet in mind. This becomes crystal clear when you hit 32 and bust the pet out. When I finally got mine I truely felt like a Dominator. It felt like this is what the devs had in mind when they made the AT. The difference they make in your gameplay and effectiveness is *immense*. Not taking your pet is as good as completely gimping yourself in the high level game. Period. Dominators with a pet ( or who took Mass Confusion ) will be vastly more effective then you. No arguement. There's no reason to skip your pet / 32 power.
The range of benefits having a pet brings to the AT is immense. Not only do you suddenly gain a significant damage boost ( Damage which doesn't require endurance usage on your part ), but you've also gained your own personal tanker. You finally have a form of passive defence that can take damage and aggro for you. Low on endurance? Let the pet mob up. See a tough spawn? Use Stealth and let the pet take the alpha. Just feeling lazy? Lock down the mobs and let the pet do most the work. While I completely enjoyed my Dominator from level 1-32, the difference in having a pet is like night and day as far as my effectiveness. The rate at which I can defeat mobs literally doubled. The situations I could tackle expanded even further. My Dominator just started working so much more smoothly. Not to mention they're just great fun to have around.
While the recharge timer on pets may seem long, chances are they'll always be up at the start of a mission and they honestly don't die often unless you start a fight then go afk or really screw the pooch during a fight. So don't be worry if you can't or don't want to waste a slot put putting a Recharge on them. If you're worried about it, back yourself up with the medicine pool and you'll rarely if ever have to resummon them mid mission long as you make sure to heal them up every fight or two. But you can probably find a better option for slots on them. Especially if they have control powers to enhance.
Pets are also one of the very few Primary powers that are great right out of the box. Slotting does make them immensely better. But they're good right from the get go.
Pet Behaviour: We're not Masterminds.
Like Controllers, we have no control whatsoever over our pets. They follow us loyally, but thats about it. If you want to know what a Dominator pet is like, think back to any number of "Rescue NPC" missions you had where the NPC helped fight after you rescued them. Thats exactly how a Dominator pet acts. They follow you, but they aggro like a mob does and pick targets of their own accord.
Your pets will actually go for targets that aren't locked down first. They always perfer to attack mobs which haven't been hit with a Control power. ( Except for Disorient. ). This is helpful in that it makes sure they're always rounding up loose mobs and keeping the aggro off you. On the other hand if you Hold a target they're attacking, they actually have a tendency to stop attacking that target and move on to a target thats still loose if one's available. However, if all mobs around them have been locked down, they'll attack them.
There's 3 specific rules you need to know about your pet:
Rule #1: Your Pet doesn't give a damn about you.
If you're attacked, the pet will not react and attack the attacker. Unless that attacker is within the pet's aggro range. In which case it's probably already on it's way to the mob. If you're attacked at a range your pet will stay by your side. In many ways this is actually beneficial. Since it keeps your pet from running off frothing at the mouth at the slightest provocation like a Mastermind pet does when the MM isn't paying attention.
Rule #2: Your Pet doesn't give a damn about itself.
Your pet likewise will not attack if it's attack by something outside of it's aggro range. In fact it's pretty much oblivious to anything outside of it's aggro range. Again this is actually beneficial. As it prevents your pet from running off on a killing spree unnoticed.
Rule #3 Your pet is friggan RABID.
Your pet will brutally assault anyone and anything that comes too close. Regardless of level. Doesn't matter if it's a archvillain or homeless orphan. Your pet will be on it like a starving dog on a bacon bit. I've had times when my pets started in on something and it ended up like a domino effect. They wouldn't stop murdering things at random till the entire area was clear. If you want to see how much chaos this can cause, try summoning them in a newbie zone and walking around. They'll slaughter entire city blocks before their bloodlust is satiated. Sometimes the only way to figure out where the hell they went is to follow the screams and bodies.
Which Pet is Right for You?
The strengths and abilities of pets vary from set to set. If you ever felt like Dominators were lacking something, I fully encourage you to pick the set with the pet that covers the weakness you percieved. Pets are surprisingly tough. But you don't want to leave them tanking a +2 Boss or anything without giving them a hand. But, you don't have to lose sleep over the possibility of them dying either.
Fire Control: Fire Imps
Pros:
- Damage. A ton of damage.
- There's 3 of them.
- Reach peak effectiveness with only 4 slots ( Acc / Dam / Dam / Dam )
- Fast moving. They can chase down most mobs.
Cons:
- Can't do anything except damage.
- Really only have 1 attack.
- No ranged attacks and thus easily negated by an Immobilize
- Weak to crowd control and easily fall prey to the first Hold, Sleep or Immobilize that comes their way.
- Tend to spread out to multiple targets when more then one target is present. Thus diluting their damage.
- Not great tankers. Anything bigger then an LT will put serious hurt on them.
Powers:
- Imp Melee ( This seems to be a modified version of Fire Sword or something similar as it has an intial hit then several damage ticks )
Overview:
These are my babies right here. If you ever felt like you weren't doing enough damage, I highly recommend the Fire Control route. While Imps don't help out in any other area, they do do a ridiculous amount of damage. Out of the box they do a surprising amount. After being slotted it's absolutely sick. I love it. When on one target they'll kill the average minion in a matter of seconds and can reduce a even con LT's hitpoints to half in their intial round of attacks. However, when given multiple targets they'll spread out and tie up 3 enemies at a time. Which can be helpful, but their damage suffers. Though it's still good even individually.
There are a few drawbacks. First, they only have 1 attack. A melee attack. They can't attack at a range and they won't help out by controlling or debuffing like every other Dominator pet. Since you get 3 they're also individually weaker then other pets. In fact they have roughly the same amount of hit points as you do ( Around 700-800 hp per imp at level 32 ). Though they do take hits better. They can easily tank minions and LTs, but a strong melee boss can and will 2 shot them. Just as they would you. So you have to take a bit better care of them then other pets. Generally rule is: If it can kick your [censored]. It can kick their [censored].
Oddly, despite being made of fire, they really don't have much if any fire resistence.
Gravity Control: Singularity
Pros:
- Tanking ability.
- Control ability.
- Will stack Magnitude with you, allowing you to shut down tougher mobs and players faster.
- Stupidly resistent to damage and control.
- Can fly.
- Built in Repel works as your own personal "safe zone" if you stay near the pet.
Cons:
- Poor damage compared to other pets
- No melee attacks so it will not voluntarily enter melee range. If for some odd reason you wanted it to ( Remember that Repel ).
- Constant repel can aggravating teams and scatter mobs.
- Cannot be healed.
Powers:
- Lift
- Crush
- Gravity Distortion
- Repel ( Passive Ability. Always on. )
Overview:
With some additional testing and research, I hath returned with a better opinion of this little [censored]. Singularity has two major strengths: Resistent and immunity ( Can't be locked down. Can take a lot of punishment. ) and the fact it spams the same Control powers you already have. What this means is Singularity stacks its Magnitude with your own. Allowing you lock down tougher mobs and players faster and easier then you could do so normally.
Additionally, the Repel effect allows you to use Singularity as a sort of personal flying fortress. Anything that makes it through your Control and gets to you will be repelled by the Singularity. Allowing you to remain essentially melee free as long as you keep the Singularity near you and reposition yourself during fights so the Sing is always between you and the biggest uncontrolled threat. The repel effect CAN cause a far bit of chaos in a team situation. But careful steering of the Sing can prevent a lot of this. Sing doesn't have any melee attacks so it's perfectly content to sit at a range, spamming control powers and flinging away anything that charges it.
Finally, since it's near impossible to lock down, if you remain near it, it will continue to defend you with it's control and Repel even if you yourself get locked down or knocked down in PvE or PvP. Essentially covering your [censored] when you're incapacitated.
Ice Control: Jack Frost
Pros:
- Well balanced pet.
- Good tanker.
- Has a mix of Melee and Ranged powers so can't be negated by kiting.
- Debuffs nearby mobs with -recharge / -speed with his built in Chilliing Embrace
- Can stack Hold magnitude with you on tougher targets.
Cons:
No real big ones, honestly. Looks slightly dorky, perhaps.
Powers:
- Ice Sword
- Greater Ice Sword
- Ice Bolt
- Chilling Touch ( Melee range Hold )
- Chilling Embrace ( PBAoE -recharge / -speed toggle )
Overview:
Jack is a nice all around pet. Good damage with a range of abilities. Essentially an Ice Tanker, he can take a good amount of punishment and actually provides some help in the control dept. Can't really go wrong with him, honestly. Well, unless you have an Ice Tanker yourself. In which case Jack might make you cry at times. All of Jack's attacks have a -recharge / -speed component, making him a very useful debuffer. In addition he has Chilling Embrace so anything that enters melee range with him will likewise be debuffed. Finally, he does have a Hold, but it's a melee range Hold so you'll have to rein him into melee range if you want him to put it to good use.
It's important to note that Jack, while he does have a ranged attack, is more powerful at melee range then at a distance. You might want to consider grabbing Teleport Friend so you can port him directly into melee range of a pack of mobs and let him go to town. Or else get use to diving into a pack of mobs head first yourself so he follows you straight into melee range.
Jack looks like Ice Tanker armour without the Tanker inside.
Plant Control: Fly Trap
Pros:
- Well balanced pet.
- Mix of ranged and melee attacks.
- Has some minor crowd control ability.
- Looks extremely freakish.
- Attacks debuff enemy Defence.
Cons:
- Like Jack, doesn't possess any major flaws. A solid choice.
Powers:
- [censored] Chomp ( I have no idea what else to call that. It BITES God dammit. )
- Thorny Darts
- Fling Thorns
- Entangle
- Modified version of Carrion Creeper's AoE Entangle.
Overview:
First of all, it looks and sounds really freakish. They're kind of creepy. Especially the way they skitter along (shudder). But a good pet none the less. As the only pet built specifically for Dominators you can't go wrong with the Fly Trap. I've observed this little [censored] for a bit more now so I can get a better grasp of what it's up too. Like Jack it has a mix of ranged and melee attacks, but unlike Jack he has more ranged attacks then melee attacks so if he gets stuck at a range at least he has enough toys to be decent at a distance. However his melee attack is still his strongest attack.
There's no official list of his powers as of yet, so I'm going by observation of what he's swiping from the Thorny Assault set. He seems to have a single target thorn attack ( Thorny Darts I'm guessing ), Fling Thorns for a Cone and Entangle for a single target immobilize. But he seems to use an AoE Immobilize of some sort too. I can only assume he's creating a similar effect to Carrion Creepers ( Which create a small AoE Entangle around a mob when it's defeated near the Creepers. ). I'm guessing he's doing that only without the dead body requirement.
Mind Control: Mass Confusion
Pros:
- Everyone's my pet!
Cons:
- But only for a little while and not really.
Overview:
While not technically a pet by itself, Mass Confusion will briefly turn every mob struck into your pet for the duration of the power. They will then turn on any other mobs near them and begin to attack. This can create abject chaos in a spawn but definately keeps any attention off of you and your team. A Confused mob will act exactly like any other pet does except they won't follow you. They'll remain stationary and only move to attack any enemies that come into their aggro range. If there's no enemies nearby they'll stand there and let you beat on them. This allows you to use Confusion as a ghetto AoE hold as well.
While it's accuracy does suck intially, like all AoE control, Mass Confusion actually lasts quite some time even unslotted. However, it's on the same long timer as normal pets are ( 4 minutes ).
10. Stealth: The Art of Sneaky [censored] Exping
I know not everyone will agree with me when I say this, but the Concealment pool is probably one of the biggest advantages you can ever get for your Dominator. Not only does it open up new tactics, but it will be a huge assistence in gaining exp at a faster rate when you're solo'n. Especially in your mid teens to late 20's. How you ask? By being a sneaky [censored].
Dominators are Stalkers too:
You ARE going to reach points in your career, pre-pets, where the solo exp you get for killing minions isn't worth the time investment required to kill them with your current damage output. By this time "Kill all mob" missions will also be very few and far between. Most of your missions will be based around a specific objective. This is where playing like a Stalker comes in. The exp reward for completing a mission can be earned faster and with far less fuss then the exp earned by killing every minion on your way to the mission objectives. The huge advantage we have here is that CoV's newspaper provides an infinite stream of missions so even if you zip through missions quickly ( passing up mob exp ) you'll never run out of missions and be forced to street sweep. By using Concealment to zip through missions straight to the objective you can gain experience at a faster rate then you would trying to use your moderate damage output to slug through all the mobs on every mission. In fact once you get use to the rate of exp you can earn, you'll probably end up Stealth / Invis'n your way through most the missions you do solo. At least until you get your SO's and / or pet to boost your killing ability ( and make slaughtering minions vastly more entertaining. ).
Mission Objectives: How to Win them with a Minimum of Fuss:
95% of your missions are going to be broken into 3 flavours. However there's a slight difference in how to complete them based on whether it's a Contact mission or a Newspaper mission. If you're going to be Sneaky [censored] exp'n, you need to know what these requires are:
A. Steal / Plant / Destroy (insert object here)
Find the glowies, plant the glowies, kill the glowies. Interacting with a glowie will NOT drop Stealth / Invis. So don't worry.
Contact Version:
Find all the glowies and click on them. Simple as that. These can typically be done without fighting a single mob. On a map with multiple glowies sometimes ambushes are triggered when you click a glowie. Don't worry about this. Ambushes seem like they're running to you. But if you remain Stealthed / Invis'd and move on the ambush will only go to the glowie in question. They won't hunt you down across the map.
Newspaper Version:
Newspaper glowie missions are pretty much always Steal (insert object here) missions. In the newspaper version you have to steal the glowie AND kill every mob in the same room as the glowie in order to win the mission. Simply stealing the glowie will not win the missions.
B. Kill (insert mob here) and his guards / gang / posse / groupies
Find the named mob. Spank him.
Contact Version:
The contact version of this mission will require you to kill the named mob and any other mobs in the same spawn as him to win the mission.
Newspaper Version:
In the newspaper version you have to kill the named mob, his guards and every mob in the same room as him in order to win the mission.
C. Kidnap / Rescue <insert mob name here>
Find the named npc. Lead him or her to the door. The objective here is identical in both Contact and Newspaper versions. However, kidnapping an NPC means you'll have to either fight your way in or fight your way out. Therefore kidnapping missions aren't the best choice for Sneaky [censored] exping. But thanks to the Newspaper, which will offer 3 missions at a time, you can typically avoid having to do these unless they're given by a contact.
Sneaking and Infamy:
The only real concern with Stealthing your missions is that you won't earn as much Infamy as you would if you had killed every mob. Missions do award some Infamy but it will pale in comparison to the Infamy you'll eventually be able to earn by selling DO's and SO's at the appropriate stores. This is a valid if somewhat minor concern IF you're solo'n ALL the time. However if you still team from time to time you shouldn't have any monetary woes. I've managed to earn Infamy just fine over the life of my Dominator even though I mostly solo'd and made healthy use of the Stealth approach. After you get your pets you can go on a killing rampage through your missions all the time anyway. Infamy comes easier the higher level you get. So don't worry about it too much. The DO to SO hump is always painful regardless of how you play. But it does get better eventually. If worse comes to worse, make friends with rich high level players. -.-
Concealment Benefits:
The other benefit to having Concealment is the simple fact that mobs can't see you until you attack. This comes in rather handy, especially if you want to use a pbaoe as an opener. ( Such as stacking Cinders and Char to hold a boss with Fire Control. ). Since you can sneak up to the mobs and activate it before they realise you're there. It also comes in handy in teams where you can avoid taking intial aggro by being Stealthed just as the Brute dives in.
Another big perk is 32+ when you have your pets. Since you can't command your pets like a Mastermind, Stealth allows you to still put them to work as tankers for you. By appoaching a spawn with Stealth or Invis up, the mobs will notice and attack your visible pet first. Likewise, your pet will attack them first as well. Generating some intial aggro that will ensure when you begin your attack the mobs attention will be diverted. Allowing you to put your Control to use with a minimum of risk.
Concealment Recommendations:
If you use Fly or Superspeed, Stealth alone will be enough for you to sneak through missions as long as your careful. Stealth only reduces the range at which mobs can see you. If you bump into one, he will notice. If you're using Superjump or Teleport you'll want to be more careful if you're only going to use Stealth or resign yourself to just sprinting through the mission. You might want to consider Invis so you don't have to worry about it at all.
Both Stealth and Invis are great out of the box with 1 slot alone ( Which should have an end reducer in it ). Don't bother putting any additional slots in them. They do have a very minor defensive bonus but it's hardly worth slotting. Their end cost is also quite minor so 1 end reduction is enough.
Unlike PvP, Mobs with +perception are actually very rare. So you won't have to worry about being spotted in Stealth / Invis for the most part. I've been Stealthing around for something like 16 levels now and have yet to see a mob that can spot me.
11. Final Thoughts
Well, once again, there you have it. I've covered practically everything about the Dominator AT and addressed pretty much everything I've seen and read on the forums. So I'm hoping this will serve the community as a complete guide to what the heck to do with a Dominator. It certainly took long enough to write so I hope you find it helpful.
Peace,
- Waybreaker ( Phasma Ara, Infinity )
EXECELLENT guide! 5 stars!
definatly a worthwhile read, thank you, i think my dom will be much more fun to play now with those pearls of wisdom.. sadly im a gravity/energy dom, so i may be in for a rough time
magnificent job, this is a must read for all dominators
Added Thorny Assault, which I somehow completely forgot.
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Quick comment (read about half of guide so far).
There's a guide for Confuse somewhere in the 'troller guides section. I read that (and a TK guide) when I was getting ready to build my Mind Control Dom.
Your guide is a little misleading about confuse. Saying you don't get experience for stuff killed by the confused mobs isn't very accurate. The quick of it is that your partial xp gain for a defeated mob is proportional to the ratio of the damage you did to it vs. the total damage done to it before death. This is between you and people not on your team (non-teamed players, other mobs, etc). Confused mobs only count 25% of their damage on that total. So you get more XP than you'd expect.
[ QUOTE ]
There's a guide for Confuse somewhere in the 'troller guides section. I read that (and a TK guide) when I was getting ready to build my Mind Control Dom.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll look into it for the next version. But it's too late for me to edit this one 
Quick comment on your AV/Hero section. It's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be, and doesn't usually depend on what level you are. AV/Hero's usually have periods where they're highly resistant to holds and periods where they can be held. In low resist periods, they're usually as easy to hold as a boss. When the resists flip, unless you have multiple dominators, you're not going to keep them held.
Generally you'll be able to hold them the same amount of time no matter what your level is as long as you keep laying down holds.
Other than that, great post. I espically like the "why does my dominator suck" section 
I know a few people who should read that 
Plus confused mobs are completely tame. With confusion you can greatly increase the rate at which you and/or your team can complete missions, thereby, increasing your exp/hour.
Spines/ D A lvl 50 Scrap, stone/wm lvl 50 tank, Kat/reg lvl 50 Scrap
Grav/Kin lvl 50 Cont, Fire/Enegry lvl 50 Blast
Warshade lvl 50, PB lvl 39, nightwidow lvl 50, crab lvl 42
plant/thorns lvl 50 dom, ice/fire lvl 40 dom, grav/nrg lvl 41 dom
Good guide!
Having played a fire blaster to 44 and an ill/ff troller to 33 has allowed me to understand dominators and how to turn them into beasts!
Good insights man! 
This is a great guide. It coincides and agrees with my own experience as dom. Having played a couple of blapper type characters in COH, i'm discovering that those strategies lend themselves well to my Grav/Energy Dom. Given the blapperish tendencies, I've found that Air Superiority with its knockup and fast recharge makes a welcome addition to my attack chain. I pull with power bolt and see who comes. If it's two mobs I hold one with GD and pound the second. With three ghetto holds (Lift, AS, and the occasional stun of bonesmasher), I've found soloing the first 10 levels or solo to be a breeze.
I think my favorite move is to use lift on someone who has a sliver of life left, and go underneath them as they fly through the air. It just looks very nonchalant- pound and toss.
[ QUOTE ]
This is a great guide. It coincides and agrees with my own experience as dom. Having played a couple of blapper type characters in COH, i'm discovering that those strategies lend themselves well to my Grav/Energy Dom. Given the blapperish tendencies, I've found that Air Superiority with its knockup and fast recharge makes a welcome addition to my attack chain. I pull with power bolt and see who comes. If it's two mobs I hold one with GD and pound the second. With three ghetto holds (Lift, AS, and the occasional stun of bonesmasher), I've found soloing the first 10 levels or solo to be a breeze.
I think my favorite move is to use lift on someone who has a sliver of life left, and go underneath them as they fly through the air. It just looks very nonchalant- pound and toss.
[/ QUOTE ]
You and I have chosen the same play style. I use lift at range and run under and BoneSmash 'em into the ground on the way down.
Satisfaction at it's finest!!
I agree with the Confuse sentiments above. I actually would say that Confuse should be listed as "must-have" and Total Domination for Mind controllers be removed. the soft control of Telekinesis and Terrify are more capable of making up for the lack of Total Domination. I myself have skipped Total Domination entirely on my build and have not regretted it.
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the soft control of Telekinesis and Terrify are more capable of making up for the lack of Total Domination. I myself have skipped Total Domination entirely on my build and have not regretted it.
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My concern there is three fold:
1) Telekinesis takes practice to learn how to use ( and frankly some people *never* get it >< )
2) Telekinesis is extremely endurance heavy.
3) Terrify is great but doesn't come till level 26. While Total Domination is available at level 18.
I'm sure an experienced player can get by just fine waiting for Terrify. But Total Domination will probably be an easier tool to use over Telekinesis and you can freely AoE the bejeebus out of Held mobs. Whereas Feared mobs will swing back once if you attack them.
Ice on the other hand has Ice Slick at 12, which is a simple, straight forward and brutally effective tool. Having no where near the learning curve of Telekinesis.
So while I'm sure you made it just fine without it, less experienced players then you will probably still want to look into it. Especially if they have an AoE heavy secondary.
terrific
Excellent guide and well written. Your sense of humor really helps and kept me amused (even though I'm well familier with controllers and their pets).
Fantastic guide -- the gold standard as far as I'm concerned. Well done, sir!
A thorough and complete guide like few others. Covers all the bases very well.
My only suggestion would be to clean up a few spelling grammar things like "definately" (its definitely) and "then"s that should be "than"s. Also might rephrase some things that get censored, especially ones that look like they should be "what" ... I don't even know what you put in there.
Very good guide. Unable to read it all right now, but what I have very good. Boss is giving me funny looks.
Got to go
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Of course, if you've taken Propel, you've already shot yourself in the foot honestly.
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Alas! You and I feel very differently about Propel. Let's take a look at it from a different angle.
What is Gravity? A control set, right? So why would I look for damage in a control set? The obvious question here is "If Propel isn't damage then what is it?" I say it's control. Noting the hideous animation time (and it is horrifically long) brings up the next question, "What can you control with a power that the effect lasts shorter than the animation time?" Well Propel by itself isn't so hot, but combined with Lift I can keep a Boss or some Elite Bosses on their back and out of the fight. The animation for Propel takes just about as long as it takes for the target to stand up from Lift, making cycling between these two a beautiful single target control, I consider this pair of powers to be one of the gems of the Gravity set. The damage is just gravy.
Check out the Repeat Offenders network of SGs! You'll be glad you did.
Waybreaker, just wanted to thank you for such an excellent quide. After running a blaster to 50, a tank to 40 and a Brute into the 20's i was looking for something different. After reading your guide I rolled a Ice/Fire Dominator last night. She is awesome! Skipped the immobilize powers as you suggested and took block of ice and shiver along with the fire blasts and concealment. She leveled to 9 in just over 3 1/2 hrs and each level I am liking her more! I just wish i had seen this guide on the weekend and rolled her in time for the jetpack.
I do have one question, what do you suggest for a travel power? I think fly would be helpful but that takes alot of slots to be of real use. Would SuperSpeed work well having hasten for recharging the holds and superspeed along with concealment to help stealth some missions?
My ice/fire dom took hasten, So I'll be getting SS just cause there are alot of powers in the primary I want.
Spines/ D A lvl 50 Scrap, stone/wm lvl 50 tank, Kat/reg lvl 50 Scrap
Grav/Kin lvl 50 Cont, Fire/Enegry lvl 50 Blast
Warshade lvl 50, PB lvl 39, nightwidow lvl 50, crab lvl 42
plant/thorns lvl 50 dom, ice/fire lvl 40 dom, grav/nrg lvl 41 dom
I liked this guide. I thought it was, overall, better than most I have seen. But i have a few minor constructive criticisms:
1. Your observations about stealth really don't belong in a dominator's guide, First of all, most of what you say is no longer true (that's the breaks of this game that all things must change). But second, and most importantly, there is NO ONE in the game that cannot make use of Stealth to do everything that you say that dominators can do with it. So even then, while it might have been true, (at one time) its just not the right place to say it. The only people who couldn't really benefit from the stealth pool in the ways that you mentioned, were people who already had equivalent or better abilities in their primary or secondary powersets.
2. At one point you mention that an advantage of (I think) gravity control is that it can bring down flyers, yet other powersets have the same ability. I'm mostly familiar with Ice myself, so the first thing I said when I read that is 'Hey I can do that too'.
3. My Ice/Ice dom is only 22, but I already see uses for having more than one AE control, simply because some fights can last a long time, and you can save the second for when the first one drops. I agree that this is not necessary for every fight. But to say that you don't need an AE hold if you have Ice slick is just a little worrisome to me (then again, I didnt' try putting 3 recharges into Ice slick, so maybe I'm wrong about that).
4. Another advantage of immobilizes (besides bringing down flyers ) is that on maps where there are lots of corners, pillars, and other obstacles, you can position yourself so that several of the immobilized mobs don't have a line of sight to you. This is as useful at low levels as it is on high levels. Admittedly, this is a situational use, but still, its a commnly available option. (You should ALWAYS use the available 'terrain' to your advantage)..
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I liked this guide. I thought it was, overall, better than most I have seen. But i have a few minor constructive criticisms:
1. Your observations about stealth really don't belong in a dominator's guide, First of all, most of what you say is no longer true (that's the breaks of this game that all things must change). But second, and most importantly, there is NO ONE in the game that cannot make use of Stealth to do everything that you say that dominators can do with it. So even then, while it might have been true, (at one time) its just not the right place to say it. The only people who couldn't really benefit from the stealth pool in the ways that you mentioned, were people who already had equivalent or better abilities in their primary or secondary powersets.
2. At one point you mention that an advantage of (I think) gravity control is that it can bring down flyers, yet other powersets have the same ability. I'm mostly familiar with Ice myself, so the first thing I said when I read that is 'Hey I can do that too'.
3. My Ice/Ice dom is only 22, but I already see uses for having more than one AE control, simply because some fights can last a long time, and you can save the second for when the first one drops. I agree that this is not necessary for every fight. But to say that you don't need an AE hold if you have Ice slick is just a little worrisome to me (then again, I didnt' try putting 3 recharges into Ice slick, so maybe I'm wrong about that).
4. Another advantage of immobilizes (besides bringing down flyers ) is that on maps where there are lots of corners, pillars, and other obstacles, you can position yourself so that several of the immobilized mobs don't have a line of sight to you. This is as useful at low levels as it is on high levels. Admittedly, this is a situational use, but still, its a commnly available option. (You should ALWAYS use the available 'terrain' to your advantage)..
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1. Concealment is highly useful for a Dominator and I've already gone over why. I realise there's changes coming that will require me to update part of the Concealment section. But I do intend too.
2. For Gravity, I was referring to Lift to be specific. Same with Mind, where I was referring to Levitate.
3. I have not played an Ice Dom extensively. That opinion came from high level Ice Doms I spoke with who did not bother with Glacier. As such it's not a recommendation, only a possibility. It is possible to forgo Glacier (and since it does not come till 26 you wait a while for it anyhow) if you so choose and think you can work without it. I personally think everyone should have their AoE Hold. But that's just me.
4. At low levels, AoE immobilizing to take advantage of terrain is still extremely costly endurance wise and impractical with the accuracy disadvantage of no SO's. Single target immobilizing...go for it if you want I suppose. But I think we have better options at our disposal and I can't recommend wasting a power slot just for that.
Thanks for the feedback just the same though. I'll likely look to clarify Gravity and Mind's sections on what I meant.
Veni. Vidi. Vici: The Complete Guide to Domination.
- Waybreaker ( Phasma Ara / Infinity )
Table of Contents:
1. Overview
2. So [censored] is a Dominator?
3. So Why Does my Dominator Suck?
4. Building a Dominator of your very Own.
- Balance in all Things
- The Unholy Trinity
5. The Art of Control
- [censored] does all this crap do?
- He's Still Punching me in the Face! Magnitude and You
- Omigodwtfhax! A Word about Duration Scaling
- Slotting Control
- Slotting Control for Damage?
- Primary Power Sets: Whips & Chains Excite Me!
6. The Art of Assault
- Whats up with our Attack Cycle?
- Slotting Assault
- Secondary Power Sets: Your Weapons of Choice
7. Trying not to Suck
- Solo Play
- Team Play
- The Zen of Mental Timers
- Domination: The Happy Button
8. Pool Powers
9. 32+ or Holy )&*@ I have a pet!
- Pet Behavour: We're Not Masterminds
- Which Pet is Right for You?
10. Stealth: The Art of Sneaky [censored] Exping
- Dominators are Stalkers too
- Mission Objectives: How to Win Them with a Minimum of Fuss
- Sneaking and Infamy
- The Perks of Concealment
- Concealment Recommendations
11. Final Thoughts
1. Overview
Yes, I'm back again. For those of you who read my previous guide, How Not to Suck, this guide incorporates the majority of information from that guide. But with a hefty chunk of new stuff. As requested, I've added indepth sections on individual Dominator powersets. I've also added new information on a variety of subjects ( From completing attack cycles to slotting control for damage. ) and finally I've revised several sections after doing some more testing and field work ( Niether the Grav Dominators nor the pro-immobilization crowd will have reason to flame me this time around. I've also got some expanded pet info for you. ). What I've ended up with, I hope, is a complete guide to the Dominator AT. A one stop shopping reference to all things Dominator. The Wal-Mart of Dominator guides. Only without the corporate soul crushing and abuse of labour laws.
As I stated the first time around, my original objective in writing guides was a mixture of helping new Dominators avoid common pitfalls of suck and telling the naysayers on the forums to shove it. My objective is still pretty much the same. Naysayers can still shove it ( "It" hopefully being a rabid porcupine. Which is on fire. ) and everyone else can hopefully read and pick up some advice. Or at least a laugh. Hell, this time around I'll just be impressed if you manage to read this entire thing. As it has become somewhat epic in scope and filesize. 126 kb's and 40 pages long to be exact. Over twice the size of my original How Not to Suck guide. God damn I have way too much time on my hands.....anyway, here we go:
2. So [censored] is a Dominator?
The short answer would be: A kitten with a tazer. The long answer would be: Dominators are a versatile, Jack of all trades AT that brings a consider amount to a team in the form of Control and is always welcome ( Unless the team is made up of idiots, anyway. ). CoV was designed to have far less overlapping of roles then CoH has. Meaning a Dominator will always bring a considerable amount of benefit to a team regardless of the team's make up. No other AT on the team will be able to take over your role ( Despite what a Corruptor or two might think. ). To make things even better, having a 2nd ( Or if Hell has indeed frozen over, 3rd ) Dominator on the team only increases the overall effectiveness as they stack magnitudes. Thus allowing them to lock down even bigger baddies at a faster rate. But in all frank honesty you can expect to be the only Dominator on your team at higher levels. So bask in the glory.
Unlike Controllers, which are a mix of Control and Support, Dominators are a mix of Control and Damage. Our Control duration is shorter then Controllers, but in all honesty once you hit SO's and have some slots, the difference in duration isn't really a problem. As for damage, our Assaults secondaries basically read like happy fun surprise packages stolen in the night from other powersets. We have both ranged AND melee attacks. In addition, with the exception of Thorny Assault, there are extremely few original powers in our Assault sets. While this does take away some of the new car smell to the AT, it does give us a some measure of guidence on what powers are going to be good and which will be lackluster. Simply by referring back to the powersets they were swiped from.
That holds especially true for our Primaries, which were ( With the expection of Plant ) all taken from Controllers. There isn't much new and exiciting here. But once again it gives us a powerful resource to draw off of: Controllers. When in doubt about a power from your primary, ask a Controller. They've been using most of these powers for a year and have already praised, whined, debated or outright biznitched about them. So if you're really doubtful of something, by all means check with a Controller. They already have the inside scoop and have tripped and dropped it on the sidewalk. Where it's now melting and a dog is licking it up. Dominators on the other hand are still trying to decide what flavour ice cream to get.
Before I ramble anymore I should touch on our inherent power: Domination. We're actually fortunate in that we got a pretty good inherent. An active inherent at that. Most AT's have passive inherents. Essentially the way it works is every time you attack, your Domination bar fills up a little. Every active power used counts as an attack ( Control and Assault. ). When this bar is full, Domination can be actived. Domination boosts the magnitude of your Control ( Allowing you to lock down bigger things faster ), boosts the duration of your Control, gives you a full endurance heal and boosts your damage. Domination lasts for about 90 seconds. Thats a pretty sweet deal right there. Plus, it looks cool. Which is obviously the single most important part.
3. Why Does my Dominator Suck?
An unfortunately common complaint: My Dominator blows! But why is that? There are several reasons actually. We'll cover them point by point and I imagine most people's issue fits into one of the following categories:
Potential Suckfest #1: Dealing with Active Defence
If you've never played a Blaster before the concept of Active Defence will be new to you. Not new in a "Wow, what is that?" kind of way. But new in a "Jeebus, what the hell is that sharp pain in my rectum?" kind of way. Only two ATs in the entire game rely on Active Defence. The Blaster and the Dominator. Active Defence means you must specifically address every threat to your toon at any given moment with an active power. Every other AT in the game has a method of generating passive defence. Whether through armours / defensive toggles, anchored debuffs, pbaoe debuffs, a private army of pets, etc etc. These are all methods of defending yourself and increasing your survivability that require little to no further input from the player after being "flipped on". They are constant abilities that aren't typically hampered by durations of effect.
Blasters and Dominators are different. They must specifically address each threat, each mob, with an active power to defend themselves. With Blasters their best defence is a great offence. With Dominators, or defence is Control. We must use an active power on every threat to our person. Every mob needs to be targetted directly or indirected. Every mob needs to be addressed with a Hold, Disorient, Sleep, Confuse, Knockdown, etc. After which each mob, if still alive, will have to be re-addressed before the duration of Control expires. If we fail to do that, we die. Death on a Dominator is the result of you, the player, losing control of the situation around you. You've either missed a mob, failed to notice a mob, let a mob get a loose or been surprised by a mob. Your first and only level of defence is suddenly forfeit. There's no armour, toggle, debuff, anchor or anything to that effect left to save you. Unlike our Controller cousins who possess a Defender set loaded with any number of buffs, debuffs, heals, toggles and so on that can increase their surviability.
Ironcially, a Blaster coming over from CoH will probably have the best playstyle mindset to deal with a Dominator. Rather then a Controller. Who's life is actually much safer.
Potential Suckfest #2: Poor Power Choices
There are some suck powers in every Controller set. They won't cripple you or anything but they may prevent you from choosing better options. There's also some powers that in all frank honesty, just aren't of much use to us. Lastly, there are powers which ARE good but not until later on in the game when SO's, slots and Stamina are available. Controllers have already been using our primaries for over a year. Our best point of reference for which powers are good and which are passable is the Controller community. If you're unsure about a particular power you should read the associated Controller guide before bothering to ask on the Dominator forums. The Dominator community is a bit on the small side and our population is a bit on the low side. Not to mention half the advice given there is completely horrible. Whereas Controllers, as I said, have already been using these powers for a year. They've already debated all these powers to death. Read the advice of those that came before us. Even if they are filthy heroes.
I'll go more into specifics about power choices in the next chapter.
Potential Suckfest #3: Poor Slotting
Probably one of the most critical failures. To put it bluntly: 90% of our primary powers suck out of the box. They need slots. They need enhancements. Your core control powers WILL need 5-6 slots. Single target control can get away with 5 slots. AoE control NEEDS 6 slots. Your secondary, Assault, can maintain a solid amount of effectiveness using 4 slots for single target powers and 4-6 for Cone / AoE powers depending on the power and your perference about it.
Once again, I'll go into specifics next chapter.
Potential Suckfest #4: My damage sucks!
Honestly, it really doesn't. With proper slotting our damage is perfectly fine. We also have a snowball's chance in Hell of ever seeing any sort of significant boost in damage. So you'll have to get over it or go play a Corruptor. We're a support AT. We do deal a good amount of damage but we're not going to topple high damage ATs. Nor should we. If you really feel you aren't doing enough damage then pick Energy or Fire as a secondary. Both are heavy hitting and Fire has it's own inbuilt damage buff. Either that or wait for your pet. Most of our pets can contribute a significant and even surprising amount of damage.
Potential Suckfest #5: Not all Dominators are created equal.
Finally, and sadly, not all sets make a good Dominator. Simple as that. If you're looking for uber damage, Psi Assault probably isn't the way to go. If you're looking for oodles of control, chances are you shouldn't click on Gravity. Yes, it's unfair, but thats the way things are. Once again I refer you to the Controller community if you really want to know how a set stacks up. However, I will, bluntly, warn you about Gravity. If you pick Gravity you are in for a rough time in the early game and it'll take some know how to build the best Grav Dom you can in the long run. The painful truth is it doesn't make a very good Dominator set. Even as a Controller set it's needed love for a long time. Skip to the Primary powerset section if you want some advice on how to build and play a Grav Dom with a minimum of frustration.
Lastly, if you're truely unsure which set is going to do it for you in the long run, I suggest Plant Domination. Plant is the only primary that was specifically designed for our AT. Thus it's built for us and contains all the tools the devs felt Dominators needed. You can't really go wrong with it.
4. Building a Dominator of your very Own.
Unfortunately, Dominators, like all support ATs, require a decent build to be effective. Grabbing and slotting powers willy nilly will leave you with a pretty sorry toon, frankly. Players with more experience and / or knowledge of the game will likely be able to build a decent Dominator. But those newer to the game or new to support ATs will want to read up a little first. Even when fully prepared chances are by the time you reach 24 you'll have some powers you want to drop and some you want to pick up. They'll likely be a respec or two in your future. Tuning your Dominator into an effective asswhipping machine as well as tuning it to fit your own personal taste will probably take at least 1 respec to be honest. So look forward to having your [censored] kicked by a tree at some point in your future. Still, I'll go over how to properly build and slot your Dominator. It's by no means the carved in stone final word on Dominators, but you can't go wrong following it.
Balance in all Things
Everyone that tells you to build your Dominator like a Controller is wrong. So is everyone that tells you to build your Dominator like a Blaster. Your Dominator should be constructed like a Dominator. Only a proper dietary balance of tying up and whipping, Control and Assault, will do. Neglecting your primary will gimp you in teams and leave you a halfwitted Blaster solo. Neglecting your secondary will gimp you solo and leave you completely team dependent. But without the damage contribution Dominators can provide. Which, will not immense, grows steadily more welcome in teams the higher level you get. Neglect one of your powersets and other Dominators will laugh at you and you'll be playing alone in the sandbox during recess.
Thus you must achieve the Zen of Balance. The sweet spot between tying your opponent up and whipping them. Don't neglect your primary or your secondary. To do so is to neglect half of your AT. How many times have you been on a team where a Defender has joined and proudly declare they "Only heal" when you know full well they could be much greater help if they buffed, debuffed and blasted too? Or had a Controller that never once used the oh so delicious Rad debuffs in their secondary? You know the one. The one the other Defender and Controller on the team mentally label an idiot and roll their eyes at. Know the one I'm talking about now? Good, now, don't be THAT Dominator either.
The Unholy Trinity
Now, to build an effective Dominator there's 3 core powers you'll want to pick up from your primary. An Unholy Trinity you shouldn't go without. These are your Single Target Hold, your AoE Hold and at least one form of Cone or AoE Soft Control of your choice. By Soft Control I mean something that disorients, fears, sleeps, knocks down or basically takes a mob out of a fight in some regard but isn't actually a Hold. These are your core 3 tools. At high level you should have enough AoE Hard and Soft control to be able to stagger between them so you have at least one up every fight. In the case of Soft Control chances are you can get it to the point where it's up every fight. Reaching the point where you have ( or are close to having ) one method of AoE soft or hard control up at the beginning of every fight should be your eventual goal with your primary. Not only does opening a fight with AoE control make it a ton easier for you and / or your team, but it sure as hell beats trying to lock down 12 mobs one at a time with single target control.
5. The Art of Control
Control is the single most important aspect of your AT. Not only is it your only defence, but it's also the only unique thing you bring to a team. Every AT can bring damage to a team. But you're the only one thats going to bring a formidable amount of control. ( Shove over, Dark Corruptor. ). Learning to use your Control is important. Anyone can click the icons that make the people fall down. But not everyone can figure out how to click the icons to make all the people stop moving so they can be punched in the face. So let's aim for the punching in the face thing.
[censored] does all this crap do?
There's a lot of variety when it comes to Control. If you've played the game for any length of time you're likely to have at least a passing familiarity with some of them. But we're still going to touch base with all of them to make sure you know all the tools available to you and what they can and can't do.
Holds ( Hard Control )
A Hold is a complete shut down. A Held mob is unable to move or take any action whatsoever. They are at your mercy. Get the whip. Holds are the best form of Control, but the best form of Control also tends to be the shortest in duration. At first you'll likely find your single target Hold duration to be just shy of suck. Your AoE Hold duration will have moved into a mobile home next to the river of suck. But rest assured both will get quite a bit better as you slot them up and get DO's then SO's into them. In the early stages you'll be relying very heavily on your Single Target Hold while your AoE control matures.
Your Single Target Hold is quite possible the most important power you will ever have. You should be using it regularly as part of your attack chain. In fact, consider it completely unacceptable if it's sitting on your tray in a recharged state. They'll almost always be something around you that needs to be Held or needs to have it's Hold refreshed.
Disorients ( Soft Control )
Disorients are another powerful tool. Like a Hold, they render a mob completely unable to attack or take action. However they can still move. Disoriented mobs will stagger around like 3am bar patrons. This isn't typically much of a problem unless you've disoriented a flying mob. Flying mobs will move at random like other disoriented mobs, but they'll do so at full flight speed. Which can be somewhat annoying when one rockets off 50 yards away into a wall. You can combine an AoE/Cone Disorient with an AoE Immobilize to create your very own ghetto Hold. Which, ironically, lasts longer then an AoE Hold does.
Sleeps ( Soft Control )
A Sleep is essentially a Hold that breaks when the mob is attacked. Players from other mmorpg's will know this more commonly as a Mezz. Sleep is one of the best solo tools available in our toolsets. Since Sleeps are typically very long in duration even when unslotted. Allowing you to take mobs out of a fight for quite some time while you focus on their more concious companions. The major drawback of Sleeps is they don't gel well with area attacks and you'll probably drive yourself insane trying to use AoE Sleep's in a team. Since every time you do a teammate will evitably wake up all the mobs with a cone or AoE of some sort. Single Target sleeps are more effective in a team, where you can pick and choose mobs on the fringes of the battle that aren't likely to be hit by AoE. If you are going to attempt to use AoE Sleep in a team, wait till AFTER your team's alpha strike when they've used up most of their AoE's.
Confuses ( Soft Control )
Confusion is one of the most potent control options available but tends to be underappreciated. The most basic explaination of a Confuse is that it changes a mob from "enemy" to "pet" status for the duration of effect. A Confused mob will fight for you just like a pet will. The perks don't end there though. Confusion doesn't trigger aggro so you can safely Confuse mobs and turn them on their friends without any risk to yourself as long as you aren't in aggro range. Mobs being attacked by a Confused mob won't fight back either. But wait! There's more! A Confused mob won't aggro on you for any reason whatsoever. Meaning you can freely attack them while they're attacking other mobs. If you only have 1 mob around and you Confuse him, it'll act like a ghetto Hold. The mob will let you slap him around without retaliating ( Get the whip. ). The only drawback to Confusion is you won't recieve experience for any damage a Confused mob does. So don't just rely on Confuse to wipe out an entire spawn for you. It's better used to for things like softing up a spawn or taking a boss out of the mix for a bit.
Knockdown / Knockup / Knockback ( Soft Control )
Probably the most ghetto form of crowd control: Knocking a mob off his feet will take him out of commission for a few precious seconds while he gets back up. This can be quite useful and chances are if you do have a power to this effect ( Such as Lift or Levitate ) you can get it to recharge fast enough to allow you to permanently juggle a single target.
There are some AoE versions to be had as well. The AoE knockdown of Ice Control's Ice Slick is absolutely evil. While the AoE knockback of Fire's Bonfire is more for comedic relief then of much practical use. Knockbacks have always been frowned upon in CoH. While CoV isn't as strict with knockbacks as CoH is, it's still not the best idea to lay out an AoE Knockback in a team. Or blast some mob 200 feet back unless you're sure it'll be a fatal blow. Course, if you're solo, by all means go for it, there's no one to annoy but yourself then.
Intangabilities ( The Control no one will like you for )
The most loathed form of crowd control. A mob hit by this effect will be unable to attack but can't BE attacked either. The con often outweighs the pro of these powers. I can't recommend picking up an Intangability power if your set has one. The situations where an Intangability power can be used to good effect are few and far between. If you use one of these powers while on a team you WILL annoy your team. Period. Regardless of how helpful it actually was, at least one person on the team will get upset with you for it. It doesn't matter if you just saved their lives. It probably won't be appreciated. Few things are more annoying then having a team of 8 standing around waiting for 1 mob to become attackable again. If you're solo, you likely have better options at your disposal to save you anyway.
Immobilizes ( Much like tying someone's shoelaces together. )
Before I say anything, I will say that you can skip your immobilizes and do just fine. That being said, it's not that immobilizes are useless. In fact they have some key uses you might not want to pass up. Immobilizes do vary from set to set and some are more useful then others. Much as the name implies, all an Immobilize does is hold a mob in place. They still can and will attack. But it does force them to use ranged attacks ( Which could be better or worse depending on the mob in question. ). Immobilizations have little PvE value by themselves and are best used when combined with other powers to hold mobs in a pack. ( Such as disorients or AoE attacks. ) or as a method of keeping a particularly big nasty ( Like an Elite Boss or AV ) in one place for the Brutes instead of running around whacking your squishies.
In PvP however, they're a worthy tool and can be of help if you learn where to apply them. For instance, if you manage to land an Immobilize on a melee AT it will end up neutering them. Even if it doesn't stick, it'll create a -speed effect. Most melee AT's, if they even have a ranged attack, will only have 1. In rare cases 2. The ranged attacks open to melee AT's tend to be inferior range wise compared to standard ranged attacks. So immobilizes are a way to keep them at arms length or escape them altogether if you play smart. Another great use of Immobilize is knocking down fliers in PvP ( Though not every set has a -Fly component ). If you intend to PvP a lot, having an Immobilize actually becomes a nice tool to have as it can readily prevent opponents from fleeing the second they feel threatened ( An extremely common problem ). If PvP is your aim, you should pick up your single target immobilize. It can and will come in handy. The only drawback you might run into is AT's with Superjump, who will have additional Immobilization resistence in the form of Combat Jumping.
One more thing, Immobilization is cheap and effective method of getting pets off of you. When you're fighting a pet user you're going to want to be focusing your main Control on them, not their pets. This leaves your Immobilizes unused on your tray and the perfect option for negating or kiting the pets. Pets don't typically have much in the way of Control resistence ( Except for SIngularities which are completely immune for all practical purposes ) and the majority of pets in the game are far more deadly at melee range then they are at a distance. ( The only exceptions being Singularity which has no melee attacks, Dark Servant, Mercenaries and Robots. ). Some can even be completely negated ( Fire Imps have no ranged attack at all ). But all of them experience a sharp decrease in damage if they can't bring their melee attacks to bear on you. So if you can divide your Control between the pet and the master you'll be golden. Since if you only focus on the master you're not negating the majority of incoming damage. Even if you Hold a pet user, he still has a passive form of damage working in his favour in the form of his pets. So both have to be negated. In fact in some cases ( some Masterminds ) you may want to negate the pets FIRST. Since the player himself will have very little in the way of powers that are a threat to you. Meanwhile, as a Dominator, you may not have enough damage to kill the Mastermind fast enough before his pets become a problem. So it might be in your best interest to negate the pets first.
Finally, early in the game, if you're really desperate to complete a ranged attack chain and / or your 1st Blast is subpar ( I'm looking at you, Psi Assault ), consider using your single target immobilize as a blast and slotting it for damage. The average single target immobilize will do about as much damage, over time, as a 1st tier blast and you can respec it back out at 24 when you're in better shape. But I don't recommend doing this unless you're having problems with damage output early on. Since you might end up kicking yourself later on when you can't fit Stamina in by 20 thanks to picking up that single target immobilize.
Overall I would actually ( gasp! ) recommend picking up your AoE Immobilize. BUT! At low level your AoE Immobilize is going to draw far more aggro then it's worth in a team situation. It's also extremely hard on endurance. Plus, all the best uses of AoE Immobilize ( Bunching up enemies for AoE attacks or disorients and what not ) won't come to pass until after you've gained some powers, levels and slots. The funny thing here is that Immobilizes are actually more useful later on in the game then they are in the lowbie levels. So what I recommend is this: If you intend to PvP, grab your single target immobilize by level 16 if you can fit it in. It's a great PvP tool. But has very little PvE value later in the game so if you intend to mainly PvE you can skip your single target Immobilize or respec out of it later on. Leave off on grabbing your AoE Immobilize till after 20. At which point you'll have the endurance to use it and have some form of AoE/Cone soft control or AoE/Cone Attack that can combo nicely with it. WIthout making your end bar cry.
He's Still Punching me in the Face! Magnitude and You.
All mobs have a thing called Magnitude. This is how resistent they are to various forms of crowd Control. Likewise, all of your control powers will have a Magnitude rating. The easiest way to think of this is that the mob has Magnitude hit points that have to be reduced to 0 in order for the power to take effect on them. The majority of mobs you face will only take one hit from a Control power to effect. But tougher mobs will require multiple hits from one type of Control for it to take effect. That being said, powers with the same form of Control WILL stack with each other. So if you see two powers in your powerset with the same effect ( Such as Single Target Hold + AoE Hold ) you can combo them on a tougher mob to lock them down.
Stacking Control on one target will only keep the effect on that target for as long as BOTH effects are active on it. What I mean is if you have a Boss, which requires 2 Holds to lock down, and you hit him with Single Target Hold + AoE Hold. He's only going to be held for as long as both effects last. If one fails, the mob will get loose and no longer be Held.
Say your Single Target Hold lasts 20 seconds and your AoE Hold lasts 10 seconds. The Boss will only be Held for 10 seconds. Since once the AoE Hold wears off the total Magnitude of powers affecting him will decrease even though the Single Target Hold is still in effect.
Basic Magnitude is as follows:
Minions:
Only require 1 Hold, Disorient, Fear, etc.
LTs:
Likewise, most of our control powers are high enough magnitude to affect an LT in one hit. Though the duration will be shorter.
Boss's:
Boss's will require two applications of love in order for it to stick. Some special boss's, such as Lost Anamethas, are hold resistent and will require 3 applications. However it's rare for a boss to have resistence to multiple forms of Control. Anamethas for instance have no such resistence to confuse. So if you run into something that seems resistent, try another form of Control if you have it.
Elite Boss's:
Elite Boss's can be tricky. Don't attempt one without having Domination up. With Domination up they'll require 2-3 applications of crowd control to lock down. However, once you have them Held, a single target hold with 3 Hold Duration SO's can actually keep them there even after Domination wears off. If you miss once they'll get loose and smack you one though. It'll take while to wittle them down, but at least they can't hit back in the meantime.
Heroes / Archvillains:
Yes, with Domination you CAN hold one of these bad ( good? ) boys ( and girls ). At low levels it'll only be for brief moments. But at high levels you'll be able to get a good grip on them for a significant amount of time. Which helps immensely when taking one of them down in the later game. Teams will learn this and love you for it.
Omigodwtfhax! A Word about Duration Scaling
It's extremely important to remember that the duration of your powers will change depending on two things: The level of the target and how big the target is ( Minion, Lt, Boss, Elite Boss, etc ). The bigger and higher level a mob is, the shorter the duration of your control will be on them. This is absolutely vital to keep in mind if you don't want to die shrieking.
Slotting Control
Slotting Control need not be hard. In fact it's quite easy long as you follow some basic guidelines:
Rule #1: The Unholy Trinity gets 3 Duration SO's
The most important aspect of your Control as a Dominator is how long it lasts. Don't scrimp by cutting your 3 core powers short. ( Single Target Hold, AoE Hold and one AoE or Cone Soft Control of your choice. )
Rule #2: AoE Control gets 2 Accuracy SO's
AoE Control powers have absolutely ABYSMAL base accuracy. If you want to have any hope of hitting things with one, it's going to need 2 Acc SO's in the long run. Cone Control is fine with 1 Acc SO.
Rule #3: Recharge > End Redux
While you might be tempted to toss an End Redux into that AoE Hold, you're much better served by putting Rechargers in there. As long as you have Stamina going you should do just fine. If you are having Stamina issues, then slot End Redux in your core Assault powers. With our recycle times + our Control duration, Recharge is always a better option then End Redux if you have spare slots to go around. The only time you should be putting End Redux into your Primary powers is if you have a toggle such as Hot Feet or Arctic Air.
All that being said, here's a solid slotting plan for your core Unholy Trinity Control powers:
Single Target Hold ( Take it as soon as it's available. Typically at level 1 or 2. )
( 5-6 Slots. Acc / Hold / Hold / Hold / Recharge. Throw in one more Recharge in the 6th slot if you want. But you can get by on 5. )
As a Dominator you'll end up doing a lot of single targetting and holding cycles as you lock down mobs one by one. The duration of your single target hold and the speed that it recycles will dictate how many mobs you can keep locked down at any given moment. Which is what you want. Typically you'll be saving your AoE control as an opener on larger packs of mobs. It's not worth using on smaller groups of 2-4 ( Depending on your level ). You can easily get them wrapped up once your single target hold ( ( even easier if you're Mind and have multiple forms of single target Control. ). You'll also need it for the mobs that you miss here and there with AoE control. Finally, when in doubt, you can use an AoE control to give you time to single target control some or all of the mobs. An ideal use of Aoe Control is to take the minions out of the fight and give you time to single target Hold the LTs and Bosses which will shrug Aoe Control off much faster.
AoE Hold ( I'd recommend taking it as soon as it's available. Typically at 18 on most sets. So you have plenty of time to give it some slots before SO's )
( 6 Slots. Acc / Acc / Hold / Hold / Hold / Recharge )
Recharge times are abysmal on Aoe Holds but duration and accuracy are more important. AoE control has suck and all for accuracy. You'll need 2 Acc SO's in it in the long run, to make sure you get everything. Frankly, your AoE hold will not be much use outside of Domination until after you get SO's at 22. But once fully slotted it DOES hold mobs for a significant amount of time and will make an impact on a fight in solo or team situations. It may not be uber but it is a good tool and you should get it as soon as it's available to give you plenty of time to get slots into it. Putting it off for too long leave you scrambling for slots and deprive you of a powerful tool till later in your career.
AoE Soft Control ( Take at least one as soon as it becomes available. Usually around 8-12 with most sets. )
( 6 Slots. Acc / Acc / CC Enc / CC Enc / CC Enc / Recharge )
Having some method of AoE or Cone soft control is ideal. By soft control I mean a disorient, fear, confuse, knockdown and what not. But not an immobilize. Ice also has a Cone recharge/speed debuff that can fill in ( Shiver ). AoE and Cone soft control recharges faster then AoE holds. In the long run you can likely look forward to having it up at the very least every other fight. If not every fight. On normal spawns, after SO's, you should be able to stagger between your AoE Soft Control and AoE Holds so you have at least 1-2 AoE control powers for every big spawn. Depending on your set.
Note that some sets have more then one method of AoE / Cone soft control. Mind and Ice are stuffed full of it, for instance. You don't HAVE to 6 slot every one of them. But you should have one favourite picked out and 6 slotted to use as your primary soft control tool. Although, honestly, there's little sense in choosing multiple forms of aoe / cone soft control if you don't intend to give them some slots. Not many are good right out of the box.
AoE / Cone Soft Control is specifically:
Fire:
Flashfire. ( Recommended )
Bonfire ( Though it's rarely ideal for any situation and I wouldn't recommend it. )
Ice:
Ice Slick. ( Highly recommended )
Artic Air. ( I wouldn't try running it till it has some End reducers and / or Stamina behind it )
Flash Freeze ( Kinda weak for a level 18 power, but decent enough. )
Shiver ( Not technically soft control but a worthy substitute. )
Mind:
Mass Hypnosis. ( Great solo. Not much use in groups who will wake everything up in short order. Lasts a good while though. )
Terrify. ( Just because it's funny to watch them cower. )
Mass Confusion. ( Abject chaos at it's best. )
Plant:
Spore Burst
Seeds of Confusion.
Carrion Creepers. ( Creepers are awesome. Get em asap. )
Gravity:
Wormhole. ( Only soft control Gravity has. )
Slotting Control for Damage?
This is something that crept up after my original guide and something that pops up on the forum from time to time. So I'm going to address it ( Because I'm just *that* nice. ). I would only recommend slotting control powers for damage if you fall into one of the following categories: A) Mind or Gravity Dominator, B) Are low level and want to try squeezing in a little more damage to make leveling easier with the intention of respecing later when you're in better shape or C) Are completely petrified of entering melee range. If you fall into one of these categories you can slot for damage ( Just don't neglect anything else when you do. ). Keep in mind if you opt to try and go completely for ranged attacks your damage output will be lower then Dominators that uses both ranged and melee. That being said I do have some advice for you. There's a few key ways and situations where you can slot for damage:
First up is Mind. One of Mind's advantages to make up for not having a pet is that it's single target control has a very potent damage rating. On par with most 1st tier Blasts. However, I don't recommend slotting your Hold for damage. Hold Durations and Recharges are always more important. Levitate and Mesmerize on the other hand you can go wacky with damage slotting in. Mezmerize is essentially just a blast that has a sleep side effect. It's base duration is already decent out of the box so using damage enhancers won't crimp your performance. While Levitate is probably better served with damage enhancers then knockback enhancers anyway.
Second up is single target immobilizes. Single Target Immobilizes have a minor to moderate DoT component that does roughly as much as the average 1st tier blast. Only slowy over time. Since immobilization isn't a highly prized effect you're not going to lose anything by slotting it for damage rather then duration. This can give you some extra damage at lower levels that you can easily fix up later with a respec. Just don't slot damage into an Immobilize if you have an Assault power that still needs slots. Assault powers will still give you better damage returns then your Immobilize will. So they should take priority.
Finally, Gravity. Gravity has *4* powers with significant damage ratings. Crush, Lift, Gravity Distortion and Propel. All of these are damage enhancer worthy if chosen. But once again I recommend avoiding slotting a Hold for damage so that leaves Crush, Lift and Propel. Of course, if you've taken Propel, you've already shot yourself in the foot honestly. Propel was only acceptable as a Controller power because they lack a direct damage power and they have containment. For us Dominators, Propel is a subpar blast with a terrible animation time that will actually *slow down* your attack cycle. Which is bad. Skip Propel. Crush deals its damage over time which isn't as perferable as instant damage. Which means Lift is the clear winner here if you want some extra damage and I highly recommend picking it up if you're a Gravity Dom anyway.
None of the AoE immobilizes really does significant damage and they cost a healthy amount of endurance. So don't bother trying to squeeze a cheap AoE out of them regardless of what anyone tells you.
Once again I want to remind you: Slotting Control for damage should be done to support Assault, not at the expense of Assault. Slotting Assault should take priority ( Unless you're Psi Assault and can't stand Psi Dart or Mental Blast ). Since Assault powers will give you a better return damage wise for your investment and, in the case of Single Target Immobilizes, Assault powers deal damage instantly rather then over time. Which is always more perferable.
Primary Power Sets: Whips & Chains Excite Me!
Ahhh....the primaries. The whips and chains. Our methods of leather clad domination. The silky ropes of villainy with which we tie our victims to the bedposts with....er...(cough)..where was I? Ah, yes. In this section I'll cover every primary powerset, it's pros and cons, it's must have powers and all sorts of fun stuff like that. So let's begin, shall we?
Fire Control ( If at first you don't succeed, fry, fry again. )
Pros:
- Strong core tools with fast animation times.
- High damage pets
- AoE damage option ( Hot Feet )
- Can debuff enemy visibility and to some degree, accuracy.
- Pets only need 4 slots to reach maximum effectiveness.
- Ring of Fire seems to have a surprisingly high magnitude ( Which is great for PvP and Elite Bosses / AVs )
- Nifty graphics
Cons:
- Fewer Control options then other sets.
- Only one real option for soft control ( Flashfire )
- Hard on Endurance pre-Stamina. ( Especially in mid to late teens. )
- Pets have utterly no utility.
- Pets are more fragile and have issues tanking anything bigger then an LT.
- Smoke has been a bit unreliable since it was "tweaked" for PvP.
- Can and will debuff your framerate if given half a chance.
- Immobilizes don't seem to have a -Fly component like most sets.
Must Have Powers:
- Char
- Flashfire
- Cinders
- Fire Imps
Good Matchs:
- Fiery Assault ( For sheer damage potential. Fire / Fire is one of the best. Burnnnn, BUUURRRNNN )
- Ice Assault ( Sounds weird, but Ice expands Fire's arsenal with great debuffs and Chilling Embrace + Hot Feet is a nice combo. Plus Ice is very melee range oriented which goes well with Fire Control. )
Power Breakdown:
1 - Single Target Immobilize ( Ring of Fire )
2 - Single Target Hold ( Char ) ( Hard Control )
3 - AoE Immobilize ( Fire Cages )
4 - AoE -Visibility, -Acc ( Smoke )
5 - PBAoE DoT Toggle, -Speed ( Hot Feet )
6 - AoE Disorient ( Flashfire ) ( Soft Control )
7 - PBAoE Hold ( Cinders ) ( Hard Control )
8 - Ground Targeted AoE Knockback ( Bonfire ) ( Soft Control )
9 - Summon Pet ( Fire Imps )
Overview:
Perhaps not the easiest starter set but a strong set none the less. Fires strength lies in its core tools ( Hold, AoE Hold and AoE Disorient ) and it's high damage pets ( The ever wonderful rabid fire monkies. ). But on the flip side it's a poor set for soft control ( Flashfire is quite potent and works well, but its your only real option for soft control. ). It's worthy to note that Fire tends to put you in melee range with Hot Feet and Cinders being PBAoE. Fire does have a few passable powers. Frankly you can very easily make due with only 4 powers from this set ( Char, Cinders, Flashfires, Fire Imps ) but the more adventurous among you will likely want to play with all the toys yourself. So I'll cover a few of the highlights.
Smoke. It seems very useful based on the description alone but be advised it's not all it's cracked up to be. Not that it's not useful, it's just not as uber as it sounds. It's quite useful for pulling a spawn apart mob by mob when you're solo but such situations rarely arise in a team. The accuracy debuff component may seem like an uber addition to your Dominator but it's actually rather minor and doesn't stack with itself like other -acc debuffs do. Once your Fire Dominator gets going an -acc debuff won't be of any practical use anyway. Since you can look forward to having all the mobs ( or close to it ) locked down in one fashion or another. One situation where Smoke does come in handy is for stealthing kidnap missions where you can Stealth in then Smoke mob groups on your way out to slip by them. Another situation where it comes in handy is Smoke'n a 2nd group thats close to the one you're pulling to prevent them from aggroing. This is useful from time to time, especially solo. It doesn't creep up much on teams though. All and all it wasn't useful enough for me to keep past level 24 on my Fire Dom. But you may feel different.
If you're wondering what Smoke does in PvP: Hitting someone with Smoke will essentially make you stealthed on their screen. You'll remain hidden until you attack them just like any other concealment power. But keep in mind other enemies can still see you. It's just the one you smoked that can't. So Smoke does have practical PvP applications if thats your thing.
Next up, Hot Feet. There's nothing inherently wrong with Hot Feet aside from the fact it probably uses far more endurance then it really should considering what it does. Hot Feet creates an area of fire around you that will slowly damage and debuff the speed of any enemies caught in it. But damn does it suck up endurance. I can't really recommend running Hot Feet till after level 22. Why you ask? Several reasons. First, you just can't take the endurance cost. Niether end redux TO's or DO's are going to offset the endurance cost enough to let you run Hot Feet continiously without sacrificing your active abilties and Fire Doms are hard on endurance as is pre-Stamina. So it really needs to have Stamina backing it up. Secondly, the amount of damage inflicted per tick by Hot Feet isn't really worth it until it's slotted with SO's. Finally, at lower levels you simply can't deal with the aggro Hot Feet is going to draw on you in a team situation. The risk far outweighs the benefit. I'd save Hot Feet for later when you're better equip'd to run it and can defend yourself from the aggro it can generate.
Lastly, Bonfire. Bonfire is a ground targeted knockback that stays in play for a while. Much like Ice Slick. Except Bonfire knocks BACK instead of down. Anyone who's played the game for a while is already groaning at the problems this would cause. Especially in teams. The few situations where Bonfire would be helpful just aren't enough to merit taking this power no matter how hurting you are for more soft control. Focus on slotting Flashfires, it'll serve you much better.
I'll leave Fire Imps for the pet section. Leap forward to that if you want a review of the little bastards.
Overall, Fire is a slow starter but matures into a strong set. It's one of the best options available if you're looking for a Dominator that can kick out damage in the late game. Since Fire Imps are utterly vicious when it comes to damage output. For those of you looking for Control or utility, it might not be your best option since it's Control takes a while to mature and you really only have 3 good options ( Char, Flashfires, Cinders. ) in the set and Fire Imps add nothing whatsoever to your Control abilities. I do wish it had more "omigod sweet" powers but the fact of the matter is you can make do with only Char, Flashfires and Cinders till 32 and not have any major problems. Which is a bit dissappointing.
Gravity Control ( The red headed step child. )
Pros:
- Can bring down a flying target and knock them on their [censored] ( Lift )
- Can juggle a target with spammable knock up ( Lift ).
- Has 4 powers that deal significant damage ( Crush, Lift, Gravity Distortion, Propel. )
- Has the toughest pet available to Dominators.
- Pet uses Control powers and helps lock down mobs.
- Pet can fly.
- Pet is practically immune to all forms of Crowd Control.
- Pet's inbuilt Repel can serve as a "safe zone" for you.
- Cool graphics and high "flying bodies" giggle factor.
Cons:
- Unnessacarily long animation times.
- Relatively weak soft control options.
- Few soft control options.
- Has an intangability power ( Dimension Shift )
- Pet cannot be healed.
- Pet has poor damage output compared to it's cousins.
- Pet may cause more havoc then good with it's Repel if you aren't careful.
Must Have Powers:
- Lift ( Which I recommend just to help out in the soft control department. )
- Gravity Distortion
- Gravity Distortion Field
- Wormhole
- Singularity
Good Matchs:
- Energy Assault ( Adds to Grav's Control with knockback and disorient. )
- Ice Assault ( Adds to Grav's Control with -recharge / -speed debuffs )
Power Breakdown:
1 - Single Target Immobilize, - Fly ( Crush )
2 - Single Target Knockup, -Fly ( Lift ) ( Soft Control )
3 - Single Target Hold ( Gravity Distortion ) ( Hard Control )
4 - Blast, Knockback ( Propel )
5 - AoE Immobilize, -Fly ( Crushing Field )
6 - AoE Intangability ( Dimension Shift )
7 - AoE Hold ( Gravity Distortion Field ) ( Hard Control )
8 - AoE Foe Teleport, Disorient ( Wormhole ) ( Soft Control )
9 - Summon Pet ( Singularity )
Overview:
Gravity, the poor red headed step child of the Controller world. They left it in a cardboard box in the rain marked "free kittens" and we Dominators took pity on it and brought it home with us. I will grudgingly admit that while I've always liked the graphics I've always felt the set was a flawed unachiever at best. But in a grim determination to make the bloody thing work, I've put in yet more time with the red headed step child and walked away with this final verdict: It's flawed, but it can work provided you're willing to rough out the early levels and know [censored] you're doing. Now that I've achieved that level of enlightenment, I shall share it with you all ( Because, once again, I'm just *that* nice. ). Yes, I'm actually about to give love to Gravity. Hell has frozen over. Mail Satan some hot cocoa for Christmas.
In order to work with Gravity it's important to know exactly what it's flaws are so you can adapt to or counteract them. The first flaw is Gravity's animation times tend to be long and painful. This is most apparent on Gravity Distortion, your single target hold. Gravity Distortion's animation time is 3 times as long as Fire's, to give you an idea. Most single target Holds only have an activation time of 1 second. 2 tops. While Gravity's is a full 3 seconds long. Which can seem like forever when you're trying to get down the line of your attack cycle.
Solution? I can't believe I'm saying this...but don't rely on Gravity Distortion for everything. You've got an alternative: Lift. Lift recharges faster, only takes 1 second to activate and still takes a mob out of the fight. Albeit by more ghetto means. Use Gravity Distortion to take out the mobs you aren't currently attacking. But for the mob you're focused on, don't bother Holding him. Just juggle his [censored] with Lift between attacks. You'll still keep him out of the fight, won't slow down your attack chain, will get more damage out of it and it'll be a lot more amusing then Holding him would be. Remember, if you put 3 Recharge SO's in Lift that will cut it's recycle time down to about 3 seconds. Which should easily allow you to juggle a couple of mobs at a time.
Secondly, the temptation of Propel. Looking at Gravity closely shows that it was likely built to be a "damage" set for Controllers. With its high damage ratings for several powers and 2 direct attack powers ( Lift and Propel ). What you need to understand here, and this is most important, Gravity is far less useful to Dominators BECAUSE it's a "damage" set for Controllers. Dominators have an Assault secondary. We already have damage. So damage from our primary is not a requirement. It's just a perk. This is why Gravity tends to fall on it's face when given to a Dominator. We need Control, not Damage. So no matter how cool Propel sounds or how cool it looks. Don't take it. Period. Propel's damage output is roughly that of a 2nd tier blast but it's activation time is *4* seconds and it's smashing damage. Which is one of the most heavily resisted in the game next to Lethal. 4 seconds is completely unacceptable for a blast power. It will drag your entire attack cycle down with it. In the time it takes you to throw that pool table, my Fire Dom will have already thrown a Hold and 2 attacks. Thats how far behind you are. If you absolutely want damage from your primary with Gravity, use Lift. It will do more damage over time anyway.
Thirdly, Gravity is incomplete at low level. You don't recieve AoE soft control until level 26 ( Unholy Trinity, remember? ). This leaves you relying on Lift and Gravity Distortion alone till level 18 when your AoE hold becomes available. Whereas most sets have some form of cone or AoE soft control between level 6 and 12. This is likely why Gravity was paired with Energy. Since Energy provides additional soft control ( Knockback and Disorient ) to help out Gravity. Ice would also be a good pair with Gravity since it provides -slow and -recharge to increase Gravity's overall Control toolkit. Even Thorny Assault offers a few token methods of ghetto Crowd Control to help out. However, Fire and Psi provide little if any help to Gravity's survivability and should probably be avoided unless you want to take the more difficult route.
I would venture to say that Gravity isn't "complete" until 32 when the Singularity comes in. Singularity's primary purpose in life is to spam the bejeebus out of Control powers on mobs. Thereby greatly assisting the Grav Dom in locking things down. Sing is also stupidly tough and has a built in Repel function. So the Sing can tank practically anything and the Dominator can use the Sing as a fortress by remaining near it. So any mob that does slip through the cracks in Gravity's defence will get knocked back away from the Dominator. Giving you the extra time required to lock them down.
PvP is, ironically, where Singularity becomes more useful. With it's ability to stack magnitude with the Grav Dom, complete immunity to crowd control and the ability to repel foes that attempt to enter melee with the Dom, Gravity is ironically in better shape in PvP then in PvE in some ways.
I'll go more into the Singularity in the pet section.
One last note: For extra fun, use Wormhole on a pack of mobs and then place the exit portal high in the air or off the edge of a building for that added giggle factor.
Ice Control ( Or how to make people hate you in PvP. )
Pros:
- Offers quite possibly the best soft control available to Dominators.
- Has powerful direct debuff abilities ( Shiver and Arctic Air )
- Ice powers have a useful secondary debuff component that stacks with itself. ( -recharge, -speed )
- Has one of the best AoE soft control options in the game ( Ice Slick. )
- Well balanced and relatively sane pet.
- Has one of the most dreaded debuffs in the game for PvP play ( -recharge / -speed )
- Very team friendly.
- Due to the strength of it's Soft Control, having AoE Hard Control ( Glacier ) isn't vital for Ice Dominators. Since Ice Slick is pretty close to the same end result.
Cons:
- Like all Ice powersets it can be hard on Endurance.
- Does not recieve it's AoE Hold till level 26 ( Whereas most sets have their's at 18 ).
- AoE Immobilizes can negate the effect of Ice Slick ( knockdown ). Including your own. So be careful.
- No real damage powers. But that matters very little to Dominators with our Assault secondary.
Must Have Powers:
- Block of Ice
- Shiver or Ice Slick
- Glacier
- Jack Frost
Good Matchs:
- Ice Assault ( Stacking -recharge / -speed debuffs is completely brutal. Arctic Air + Chilling Embrace is a total shut down. Power Boost + Ice = <3 )
- Energy Assault ( Ice lends itself well to Energy's melee and pbaoe. While Power Boost + Ice is beautiful. Energy adds Disorient, which Ice doesn't have by itself. Energy also lets you knock things onto or back onto Ice Slick. )
Power Breakdown:
1 - Single Target Immobilize, -Speed, -Recharge, -Fly ( Chillbain )
2 - Single Target Hold, -Speed, -Recharge ( Block of Ice ) ( Hard Control )
3 - AoE Immobilize, -Speed, -Recharge, -Fly ( Frost Bite )
4 - PBAoE Toggle, Confuse, Fear, -Speed, -Recharge ( Arctic Air ) ( Soft Control )
5 - Cone -Speed, -Recharge ( Shiver ) ( Worthy of being called Soft Control )
6 - Ground Targeted AoE Knockdown, -Speed ( Ice Slick ) ( Soft Control )
7 - AoE Sleep ( Flashfreeze ) ( Soft Control )
8 - PBAoE Hold ( Glacier ) ( Hard Control )
9 - Summon Pet ( Jack Frost )
Overview:
There's not really much bad to say about Ice. It's one of the best Controller sets and thus ends up being one of the best Dominator ones. It's two real weaknesses ( Endurance and lack of damage ) are easily fixed with Stamina and having an Assault secondary. Ice provides a wealth of Soft Control options that will tide you over quite well till the AoE Hold at 26. Which you may not even need anyway. -Recharge / -Speed is one of the best debuff combos you could hope for and practically every Ice power has it as a secondary effect. -Recharge / -Speed is also brutal in PvP. It's also one of the most team friendly sets you could hope for too. Still, I'll cover some of the high points:
First up, Ice Slick. Ice Slick is Ice Control's defining power and the one most often associated with Ice Controllers / Dominators. Ice Slick is essentially one big aoe knockdown that repeatedly knocks mobs off their feet over and over. All the while slowing them so they can't run off it easily. This is quite a potent ability, but there are a few quirks you should be aware of. First off, AoE Immobilizes have a bad habit of negating knockdown for about 10 seconds after they land. So one AoE Immobilize can negate your Ice Slick. This includes your own AoE Immobilize. So be careful. Secondly, smaller mobs like Ritki monkies will be knocked back rather then down by the Ice Slick. Which is a lot less desirable. So keep that that in mind if you get a big [censored] horde of Ritki monkies or Clockwork or something similarly tiny thats very weak to knockback.
Second, Shiver and Artic Air. These are both potent debuff and soft control abilities but having them both might end up being overkill unless you intend to both pve and pvp heavily. In which case Shiver will be a bit more practical in PvP. Since both powers have a significant -recharge / - speed component, it's best to decide what your playstyle is and choose from there. If you intend to stay at a range, get Shiver. If you intend to wade into melee range all the time, get Arctic Air. But you can safely get by with one or the other. You don't really need both. I should also mention that while Arctic Air can be quite potent on a pack of mobs, it is the most gluttonous end sucking beast monster power short of Telekinesis. Arctic Air NEEDS End Redux SO's if you want any hope of running it. By itself it almost completely negates your end regen pre-Stamina. Post Stamina you're going to want 2-3 End Redux's and 3 Confuse durations in this bad boy. While it does have a Fear component, that component isn't enhanceable last I checked. So do yourself a favour and avoid trying to run Arctic Air till post Stamina at least. If not post SO's.
Like Fire, Ice will force you into melee range with Arctic Air and it's PBAoE Hold.
I should also mention good old Jack Frost. Ice's pet is very well balanced with a mix of ranged, melee and control powers. He's also a bit less pyschotic then Fire Imps. Jack is a great help and I fully recommend him. Check out the Pet section for some gritty details on him.
Overall, you can't really go wrong with Ice. It's a great all around set, very team friendly and quite potent in PvP.
Mind Control ( The Black Sheep.)
Pros:
- Ridiculous amount of single target control.
- Most damaging Control set.
- One of only 2 sets that has direct Confuse powers.
- Only set that can stack Confuse. ( Confusion + Mass Confusion )
- Only set that can stack Sleep. ( Mezmerize + Mass Hypnosis. )
- Second only to Ice when it comes to soft control.
- Has 3 powers that deal significant damage ( Mezmerize, Levitate, Dominate. )
- Has an AoE toggled Hold ability which in the right hands can be extremely powerful. ( Telekinesis. )
- Only set that can stack an amazing *3* Holds ( Dominate, Total Domination, Telekinesis )
- Always has some form of Control ready. You'll never be caught with nothing up to defend yourself with.
- Can bring down a flying target and knock them on their [censored] ( Levitate )
- Can juggle a target with spammable knock up ( Levitate ).
- Deals both Psionic damage ( Rarely resisted ) and Smashing damage ( For when it IS resisted. )
Cons:
- No pet.
- Higher learning curve then most sets.
- Confuse is powerful but you recieve no experience for damage inflicted by a Confused mob.
- Confuse has a hell of an activation time ( 6 seconds. )
- Best AoE Soft Control doesn't come till level 26 ( Terrify )
- No immobilize capabilities.
Must Have Powers:
- Dominate
- Telekinesis
- Total Domination
- Terrify
- Mass Confusion
Good Matchs:
- Ice Assault ( Because adding -recharge / -speed to Mind's already formidable arsenal is so brutal I imagine you'll make someone cry in PvP. Power boost is a also huge boon to Mind since practically every one of Mind's powers will benefit from it. )
- Psi Assault ( If you really want to stack the Psi damage. With the amount of Control Mind has, you can indulge yourself in Psi's AoE's with little risk. Mind also helps out Psi by covering for it's early weaknesses to get you up to it's better blasts, buff and AoE's.)
Power Breakdown:
1 - Single Target Sleep ( Mesmerize ) ( Soft Control )
2 - Single Target Knockup, -Fly ( Levitate ) ( Soft Control )
3 - Single Target Hold ( Dominate ) ( Hard Control )
4 - Single Target Confuse ( Confuse ) ( Soft Control )
5 - AoE Sleep ( Mass Hypnosis ) ( Soft Control )
6 - Targeted AoE Hold Toggle, Repel ( Telekinesis ) ( Hard Control )
7 - AoE Hold ( Total Domination ) ( Hard Control )
8 - Cone Fear ( Terrify ) ( Soft Control )
9 - AoE Confuse ( Mass Confusion ) ( Soft Control )