Do dominators suck like people say they do?
By
Aleshanee_NA,
Posted on: 2006-07-05 13:59 in Dominators
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There is a difference between mez protection and mez resistance. Resistance will be ...meh
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I strongly suspect he misused the term; a lot of people do without th inking about it.
Mez resistance would be boarderline useless in PvP; anything that can mez us can usually kill us before the mez runs out, and even substantial resistance wouldn't change that. He probably means protection, meaning it will take more mezzes to mez us in the first place.
If he really does mean resistance, well, I guess it can't hurt, but I can't say it'd help much either.
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Part of the game is figuring out how to make things work for you, and part of being new to something is screwing that up.
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It's one thing to have folks figure out how to play - you can correct play mistakes as you go.
It's another to figure out how to build - build mistakes are harder to correct. The AT system is suppose to push you toward a playable and enjoyable build (barring intentional stupidity).
I've found only a few ways to play dominators in the low to mid levels - certain powers you really need (single target hold) and others that won't perform alone (immobilize) or without heavy slotting (area control).
Unfortunately there are many ways to build dominators. Some of those builds just don't support decent play (like my first dominator - ouch!).
Brutes, corruptors, masterminds - you can be fairly sloppy with these and still function okay. Not so with Dominators (stalkers can be tricky too, if only cause there are so many must-haves to shove in early).
I expect Devs probably play every AT. Perhaps they should try random builds based on real-player choices. Playing average and poorly built ATs might provide useful insight.
What I'd really like to hear a Dev talk about: AVs and there bang-head-against-wall triangles. It may be a workable solution, but it has zero entertainment value.
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I can see how melee is useful when soloing the standard 3-4 mob format...but when in a team situation it has no effective use...and it leads me to believe that this AT wasn't designed with too much thought.
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I agree somewhat. I have Ice Sword Circle and I don't dare using it in big groups 'cause I can't stand the aggro and I don't like relying on other players to heal me.
I tend to stay back and spaming ice attacks. The only time I would go at up front is if all the foes are controlled somehow.
The end cost on ISC is ridiculously HIGH. 18 end?? Are you kidding me?! Frost Breath isn't any better.... but ISC's cost is way too high.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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We've got a nice tweak to the Domination ability coming down the pipe (it will crank up your Mez resistance while it is active), and are currently data-mining PvP to see what effect our last set of tweaks to the AT have had.
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Great idea! Nothing's more annoying than having a Domination up and not being able to use it (Mezzed, no end, dead, stuck in Mercy Island, etc.)
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There is a difference between mez protection and mez resistance. Resistance will be ...meh
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I strongly suspect he misused the term; a lot of people do without th inking about it.
Mez resistance would be boarderline useless in PvP; anything that can mez us can usually kill us before the mez runs out, and even substantial resistance wouldn't change that. He probably means protection, meaning it will take more mezzes to mez us in the first place.
If he really does mean resistance, well, I guess it can't hurt, but I can't say it'd help much either.
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Exactly, I'm hoping for clarification.
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
Dominators were not originally balanced around domination but they are now. They are an AT that has ups and downs. Getting the most out of your dom means getting the most out of domination, doing what you can to fill the bar quickly (even while grouped) and knowing when to save it and when to use it.
This means it is just not the class for everybody. If you want consistency then play another class. It really bothered me when they changed regen from a constant level to long time clicks for up and down from gimped to pre-I6 uberness. But I had already played my character for 50 levels and over a year, it was a change in expectation. I went into my dom knowing the situation and accepting it. (By the way my dom currently has domination up alot more than my scrapper has IH up.)
Could Doms use a few tweaks? Sure, low level doms could probably stand a boost and the purple triangle thing is really annoying (someone once suggested making holds and stuns in debuffs while the triangles were up...) But high level doms are great solo or teamed. The only real exceptions are the Recluse SF (where everyone but /rad and /dark corruptors and /stone brutes is gimped) and solo pvp (where balance is nonexistant and likely to remain so.)
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I don't get it. Part of the game is figuring out how to make things work for you, and part of being new to something is screwing that up.
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There are plenty of opportunities to screw up even if you have a general idea of how the AT is supposed to work.
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I don't know, but it sounds a little to me like asking for the solution to a puzzle so you can actually enjoy it.
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Not the solution, a hint.
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You hold 'em and hit 'em. That's a hint. Is it enough of one? I have no clue. Slot 50/50 primary/secondary. That's also a hint that seems to have turned out to be true of a lot of people. Does that mean that people don't work outside it and work very well? Nope, and it'd be a shame to pidgin hole people into doing that because that's what 'works'.
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But, on the subject, this isn't a puzzle, nor should it be. It's an action MMORPG, not Sudoku. If I want to wrack my brain trying to figure something out, I'll go read a murder mystery. If I want to fly around being a badass with Mind Control powers..
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I guess that'd be the root of your problem then. Your comment seems to imply that you'd rather the game was set to easy, and then could cruise control your way through things by being 'bad [censored]'. Personally, the only reason I play any game is to try and work out the strategy of playing it. This is also why I have completely given up on Masterminds, since I've found out that all it takes for me to finish a solo spawn on the second highest setting at lv 12 is two clicks and a book to kill the time till I win.
Seeing as doms are all about winning through stragety, it's no surprise you don't like them.
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Plus you can't hand players a guide to how to play an AT, since there isn't one. The devs might have an idea of how something should work but players are the ones that come up with the real strategies.
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I can't believe this is right. It makes too little sense.
Are you trying to tell me that the Developers designed something.. that they don't know how to work themselves? How could you possibly expect to develop something that is balanced and fits into a class dynamic if you don't know just what it can do?
If they're not doing this (and reflecting on past changes, holy christ, they aren't are they?), then why the hell not?
This seems like it's basically tantamount to 'Okay, we'll release this functionally untested and unknown quantity as a finished part of this complex game onto the public, without any warning about it's true nature. When things go pear shaped, we'll fix it a few months later'.
Speaking as a guy with a degree in programming, that concept scares the everloving [censored] out of me.
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Speaking as someone who also has a programming degree, I'm rather unperturbed by it. I won't say they don't have some idea of how things will work, a general idea that this is a support class that does X, Y, & Z and has these relationships with these AT's in planning. But the entire environment of a MMO is impossible to replicate through testing. You can do part, but you can't possibly come up with every idea that a player will, and every idea that will spawn off of that, and every idea that'll spawn off of that. This would matter a lot less in a static one player game, where someone eventually 'breaking' things through unconventional play wouldn't spread (like Herding), or where adding something new wouldn't could interact with millions of things in unexpected ways (like Cudda Farming).
Some planning has to be done, but in the end it's the players who decide how the game is going to be played, not the Devs. I think I'd cite for this the most old fear effects. Useful in the developer's vision of how the game was to be played, but distinctly not in how the player base decided to go with the game. Blappers would also be a good example.
At this point, seeing how people react to things, I'd be much more inclined to give them a playground to work in, where I've generally balanced things out, internally and in team play, and then tweak things to suit their needs as their inclinations begin to show up.
I guess its the same way Im not afraid of the developers of my web browser because someone, somewhere has designed a piece of strange but otherwise standard HTML that it cant read right.
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This is why we have to tell them something doesn't work or occasionally something works far too well.
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This honestly seems like their job. It's not, nor should it ever be, the player's job to act as quality assurance for anything but problems relating to having over a thousand people using something at once.
Not unless we're gonna get paid QA's wages.
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Again, from a MMO perspective I can see why to do this. There is simply no way to test every AT combination on a team, with every power set combination, with every possible build, with every strategy, in every situation in the game every time you make a change. You can take what seems a representative sample, but the player base will find the exceptions to the rules, just because there's so many more of them.
Id probably pick Double Domination as an example here. They could probably have foreseen this, and might have. The matter of whether it needs to be changed though is entirely up to the player base. Since everyone and their cousin hasnt started triple boxing doms and /kins, I think its safe to say that this could stay a feature rather than having to be fixed.
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I'd *much* rather have Support for a secondary than Assault. I think Doms would give their left mouse button for Dark Miasma or Thermal Radiation as a secondary long, long before a Controller would ever ask for any Assault set instead.
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The reason for this is that controllers essentially already HAVE an assault secondary. When holds work (99% of PVE), trollers do as much damage or more than dominators. This isnt a fair comparison, because trollers are like dominators with buffs/debuffs/heals, what not to like?
Controller damage is slightly reduced by not having the number of attacks to complete a good attack chain, but if you build in pool attacks (air superiority, box, etc), you can get a decent attack chain, that does great damage once containment sets in (doubling you enhanced damage makes even brawl look pretty decent, not to mention triple in PVP).
This is the problem with comparing doms and trollers, trollers didnt originally have any real damage, making people want what became dominators. However, in the meantime, controllers gained real good damage in addition to the uber team assist powers in control and buff/debuffs/heals.
I was testing my domination gain per hit.
Do I only get 1 point when I use attack powers?
I think I get 2 points when I use my single hold but every other power gives me 1pt. At first I thought the difference is in primary and secondary set but that's not true. All attack powers (including Lift and Propel) give +1 per use. Which other skills give +2?
Can somebody tell me the exact formula? 1pt per attack (hit or miss) doesn't seem fast at all. If they calculate Domination gain based on attacks, then those AoE should gain more domination because they draw more "danger". That's a good trade off to become a real Dominator.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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I'd *much* rather have Support for a secondary than Assault. I think Doms would give their left mouse button for Dark Miasma or Thermal Radiation as a secondary long, long before a Controller would ever ask for any Assault set instead.
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The reason for this is that controllers essentially already HAVE an assault secondary. When holds work (99% of PVE), trollers do as much damage or more than dominators. This isnt a fair comparison, because trollers are like dominators with buffs/debuffs/heals, what not to like?
Controller damage is slightly reduced by not having the number of attacks to complete a good attack chain, but if you build in pool attacks (air superiority, box, etc), you can get a decent attack chain, that does great damage once containment sets in (doubling you enhanced damage makes even brawl look pretty decent, not to mention triple in PVP).
This is the problem with comparing doms and trollers, trollers didnt originally have any real damage, making people want what became dominators. However, in the meantime, controllers gained real good damage in addition to the uber team assist powers in control and buff/debuffs/heals.
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So, you're saying the Devs have made a huge oversight when designing Containment for Controllers?
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
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Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
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Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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Ooooooo 
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
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Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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YESSS!!!!
100% Awesome 
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
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Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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NOW WE ARE TALKING!!! YEAH BABY.
Thanks for the clarification. Now I want to be in Domination form!
This is great 'cause I always save my Domination for bosses and if I have good mez protection, I can at least survive better since I have Aid Self to prolong the fights. Good job!
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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So, you're saying the Devs have made a huge oversight when designing Containment for Controllers?
[/ QUOTE ] I didn't really read that in what he said, rather I got the impression he was saying that there was a hole in Controllers that they fixed with the inherent--making the Dominator, which shares primaries and who made major sacrifices to fill that hole, stand there with egg on his face.
They fixed a problem with Controllers, and now they are working fine. A Controller "working fine" blows a Dominator out of the water. That would tend to imply that the Dominator is not "working fine".
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Out of curiosity, does this tweak include the ability to fire off domination when mezzed?
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Not initially, but the patch following should have it. I forget to stick that in on the original change, and QA helpfully pointed it out, but not in time to reach the version going out.
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Out of curiosity, does this tweak include the ability to fire off domination when mezzed?
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Not initially, but the patch following should have it. I forget to stick that in on the original change, and QA helpfully pointed it out, but not in time to reach the version going out.
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YESS!!!!!!!!!!
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Out of curiosity, does this tweak include the ability to fire off domination when mezzed?
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Not initially, but the patch following should have it. I forget to stick that in on the original change, and QA helpfully pointed it out, but not in time to reach the version going out.
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Crap, I need a new catch phrase.
Um... 112% Awesome!
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Out of curiosity, does this tweak include the ability to fire off domination when mezzed?
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Not initially, but the patch following should have it. I forget to stick that in on the original change, and QA helpfully pointed it out, but not in time to reach the version going out.
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Wow, this is even better! So we can use Domination to get ourselves out of "held" and basically become the "super-man" version of Dominator?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
[/ QUOTE ]
Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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Zomg LOLOL.
Wow devs! This is much more than I expected. LOL I'll be able to walk through Force Bubble and Telekinesis. Plus Confuse and Fear protection? That's better than what most melees get.
Awesome job so far! I'm very pleased. Thanks devs.
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
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Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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That will be nice
Oh btw, DOOOOOOOOOOM
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Ok after I've calmed myself down a bit, I'm wondering...
Mez resistance or mez protection?
[/ QUOTE ]
Protection vs. Knockback, Knock Up, Repel, Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Confuse and Fear. Pretty much the whole suite.
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Zomg LOLOL.
Wow devs! This is much more than I expected. LOL I'll be able to walk through Force Bubble and Telekinesis. Plus Confuse and Fear protection? That's better than what most melees get.
Awesome job so far! I'm very pleased. Thanks devs.
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Yup... but the trick is to get into Domination form first! So everything is revolving around Domination now rather than relying less on it like many of us suggested.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
There is NOTHING worse than popping domination then getting held/slept et cetera for my dom- as such
<performs the Happy Dance>
There is a difference between mez protection and mez resistance. Resistance will be ...meh
Especially, if one has to wait to hit domination to see even that.
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