Hambone's Guide to Dominator Zone PvP
By
Baleful_Deity,
Posted on: 2006-10-21 15:44 in Player Guides
3.c. Icy Assault
Icy assault is all around the best secondary for pvp. It has a number of high damage, fast activating ranged attacks that also slow your opponent significantly. It also has power boost for utility purposes.
Ice Bolt:
Now this is what the default attacks should be. It animates fast, does decent damage, slows your target, and gets you closer to domination. This is a nice, proper attack, so dont be afraid to slot it well. The only potential downside is that there is a recharge of 4 seconds, which ties with power bolt as the slowest of default attacks.
Ice Sword:
Ice sword is another nice attack. It animates fairly fast, it does nice damage, and slows your target. Some players try to go full ranged attacks with ice, but you need the damage to kill a held foe before it breaks. This is a must have attack. It does have a 5% chance to drop a toggle, but it is so low it cannot be relied upon.
Ice Sword Circle:
This is a nice attack for PvE, but like most AoE attacks it is not optimal for the one on one pvp encounters. It has a large endurance cost of 18, but it does animate fast and do decent damage. If your enemy is held and you have no attacks up, it can serve to fill the chain.
Ice Blast:
This is ice bolt redux. Very fast 1 second animation and a decent recharge time of 6 seconds. Get it, love it, slot it, use it often for all purposes.
Power Boost:
An excellent ability. It will roughly double control duration and effects. How you use this will depend on your primary, but every primary can use it to put a long lasting hold on a squishy AT. Against squishies you get one hold before hold suppression, so it is best to make it count. It will also double the health you get back from aid self. And, a lesser known effect, it will boost your acrobatics to over 4 hold protection so a controller will not be able to hold you in one shot while power boost is up. Youll be held afterwards, but it does give you some time to counterhold them. This is a must have.
Frost Breath:
Low damage, a high endurance cost, a low range, and long animation time makes this a poor attack. There are just too much stacked against this ability to make it worth it.
Chilling Embrace: A pbaoe slow aura toggle that can be put to use. It doesnt take a lot of endurance and has a very small area of effect, but it is still there. If pvp builds werent so tight in terms of power selections this might be worth it, but as it stands it is best that it be skipped.
Greater Ice Sword:
This is ice assaults 65% toggle dropper. It is heavy, but not extreme damage attack with an average animation time. It doesnt do a lot more damage than ice sword, but it has a much more powerful slowing effect built in. This is another must for killing power.
Bitter Ice Blast:
Ice blasts are just getting better and better. This attack animates extremely fast, does good damage, and has a heavy slowing component. It also debuffs enemy accuracy by a small portion. Another must have attack.
Primary Pairings:
Icy assault is so powerful in pvp that there is no primary that it does not mesh well with. All the attacks are fast, do heavy damage, and slow. Primary control sets that have little in the way of pvp soft control or slowing ability such as plant and fire control benefit hugely from having a slowing secondary such as icy assault or thorny assault. The presence of power boost is just another boost to this already sweet set.
3.d. Psionic Assault
Psionic assault is an interesting assault set that has some unique advantages. The fact that psi attacks are the least resisted in the game is not as much benefit as it would at first appear. When a dominator kills a player it is 90% of the time after the dominator has successfully held or otherwise dropped the opposing players toggles. Any player that you are unable to detoggle is going to beat the hell out of you in a damage shootout. Psi also lacks a way to reliably slow an opponent, which makes it a poor pair with fire or plant. That said, the recharge on psi is spectacular, but will not be enough to rely solely upon. Players often have full attack chains that, while hurt by recharge, still gives them enough to outgun you. The most important thing about recharge is its ability to slow the recharge on special powers like heals, unstoppable, or impale. Drain psyche can be useful at times. Subdue is a solid attack and psi shockwave is the only aoe toggle dropper in the game, and it is rapid fire.
Psionic Dart:
This is made to be a domination building tool. It activates fairly fast at 1.33 seconds and is one of the fastest recharging attacks in the game at 1.5 seconds. You can fire this off fast and often and youll have domination up before you know it. It doesnt cause a great deal of recharge, but it hits often and builds up. It isnt too hot for damage even though it recharges quickly. The one thing to remember though, just because you can spam this every 1.5 seconds doesnt mean you necessarily should. If you are being chased by a scrapper you can get off the occasional 1.33 second attack to build domination, but if you are stopping for that attack every 1.5 seconds you are making very little travel time.
Mind Probe:
This is mind assaults basic melee-range attack. It has a 5% chance to drop a toggle. It activates very fast at 1.16 seconds and does good damage. It has a much more powerful recharge effect than psi dart does. This is a very solid dominator attack and should be owned by all psi dominators. The fact that mental blast is such a stinker makes this even more valuable.
Telekinetic Thrust:
This power does only a little damage and has a longer animation time, but it can be useful in a number of situations. If you do not have lift or levitate from gravity or mind primaries this can be useful in pvp. After an opponent is held by you they will often reach toward their break free trays, but if they are in the process of a knockback they will not be able to use inspirations. The downside to this is that the range is only 15. This is problematic because half of your foes that lack mez protection will be held at maximum distance, generally 80. The whole point of knockback powers is to knock the held blaster on his [censored] before he can hit a break free. Because of the range aspect alone this power is not recommended.
Mental Blast:
This attack does less than decent damage and is one of the longest animating attacks there is. Psi dart animates in half the time, recharges over twice as fast, and even does more damage over time. Psi assault dominators tend to be short on attacks from not taking this power, but at least they arent stuck with a stinker that will get them killed. If future patches reduce the animation time it will be a needed and viable attack.
Psychic Scream:
A decent aoe attack for PvE, but one that is not needed in PvP. Its damage and activating for one target is almost identical to mental blast, but scream takes twice the endurance and only has 30 range. Dont bring this to a pvp fight.
Drain Psyche:
Drain psyche is the most unique power in the dominator secondaries. It boosts your health and endurance recover while at the same time decreasing your opponents health and endurance recoveries. With health enhancements the heal will be very potent over the 10 seconds the power is active. Due to the endurance recharge granted on activation of domination having endurance enhancements is not necessary. /Regen scrappers, one of the more common combinations in pvp, can be severely hindered by an application of drain psyche, which tends to nullify their ability to heal for roughly 30 seconds. The negation of regeneration can be effective against any AT, but regen scrappers are by far hit the hardest. The downside is that this power requires a to-hit check and only has a range of 10 feet around you. The short radius means that it must be carefully used unless your target is held. Drain psyche will mess up a regen scrapper, but a queup up headsplitter will mess you up as well.
Subdue:
Finally, a nice ranged attack from the psionic set. And subdue is a nice attack. It does solid damage, recharges in 8 seconds, and has a moderate animation time. Throw in the significant recharge and the immobilization it can inflict and you have yourself a nice attack. If this was available at level 10 instead of level 28 psionic assault would be a much more tolerable secondary. If there is a downside it is the endurance cost of 8.5, which is rather heavy for a single target ranged attack.
Psionic Lance:
Sniper attacks take a very long time to animate, and as a dominator you will be harangued by enemy players almost constantly. If you dont have domination up this attack wont do much damage, and if you do have domination up you need to be getting into the fray and messing some people up. Since psionic assault has a low number of ranged attacks this might be an option, but even psi dart will come close it in terms of damage over time.
Psychic Shockwave:
The big bruiser of psionic assault. Shockwave is an excellent attack all around. It does good damage to even one target, it has a 65% chance to knock toggles off players, and has a ton of recharge attached to it. It has a large area of effect and even has some extra bonus accuracy. This is the only dominator area of effect attack that is really worth using in pvp. If you jump into a team on team fight and pop this off a few times the opposing team will have some trouble unless they kill you fast.
Primary Pairings:
Psionic shockwave has no good way to slow enemy movement, so it works best paired with a primary that does. Ice, mind, and gravity all mesh well with psionic assault. Ice and mind have slow and telekinesis respectively to keep you safe and to allow psionic assault to do its work. Gravity and psionic assault can combine to give a greater total amount of movement and recharge than ice control can on its own.
Plant and fire lack the movement slowing powers to keep melee ATs off you, so pairing it with psionics is a bit iffy. Plants ability to confuse and spam immobilizations pairs well with the recharge and immobilization of psionic assault and subdue. Fire and psionic assault does not provide enough safety when compared to other combinations.
3.e. Thorny Assault:
Thorny assault is an all around unique and powerful secondary. It has some quick attacks to build domination, tons of def to help hit targets in pvp, and movement slowing attacks through impale and thorntrops. Aim is another unique aspect of this set that will allow you to hit with extra reliability or counteract the enemies use of lucks or force fields. Since most dominator damage is done to held or toggle dropped opponents the fact that the vast majority of damage is lethal is not a huge issue. The toxic DoTs attached to many of the attacks can aid in the prevention of your target using aid self.
Thorny Darts:
Darts is a good quick attack to build domination with. It has a fast activation of 1.33 seconds, and a quicker than average recharge of 3 seconds. It reduces defense and for a default attack it does good damage. Use this one often and dont be afraid to slot it up. This is an excellent way to build domination during a fight.
Skewer:
This melee attack does nice damage with a quick activation time. Theres nothing not to like about it. No matter what level your dominator is skewer will still hit hard and be essential to your attack chain. Like most thorny attacks, this inflicts def to your opponent.
Fling Thorns:
While fling thorns is a nice aoe attack in pvp, it lacks the damage, endurance efficiency, and range to be used in a pvp setting. If youre opponent is almost dead and you need one more attack, sure you can use it, but that is about it.
Impale:
Ahh, impale is a nice attack, but it does have some drawbacks. The good news is that this is an effective long ranged attack that does decent damage, slows your targets movement speed, inflicts def, can immobilize those without protection, and can even do fly. The notorious scrapper version has a range of 40, but luckily we are granted 80 range on our version. The attack has a recharge of 6 seconds and is endurance efficient. The bad news is that this power has a 2.43 second animation time, which can be a problem if there is a scrapper on your heels. Still, this is one of thorny assaults two effective movement slowing powers, the other being thorntrops. In addition to being a nice attack in your chain, impales main use is to keep your enemies slowing than you are. Keep the impale pressure on a melee AT using impale and you are well on your way to having the time necessary to blow their status protection. Another aspect is that the immobilize part of impale, while not boosted by domination, can still be used to stack immobilizes which Plant Control dominators can do quite well with entangle and the root happy pet. Just make sure that you have enough time to perform the 2.43 second animation without getting killed in the process.
Aim:
Aim can be quite the useful tool, especially in pvp, but I still find it not quite as useful as power boost. The accuracy is quite nice, but it takes us a lot longer than 10 seconds to kill players in pvp. The damage boost is 42.5% base, which results in a roughly 21% boost in overall damage with 3 damage SOs in your attacks. It can be used to good effect against defense based sets, but the hold stacking process will take more than the 10 seconds aim is up. It can be used to ensure that area of effect controls with substandard accuracy hits everyone you want it to. Its still a very nice ability, but we cant quite put it to use like a BU+AIM total focusing blaster.
Thornburst:
Very small damage, very low radius, and a very high activation time and heavy endurance usage means that this aoe doesnt have a place on the battlefield.
Thorntrops:
Ahh, the secret weapon of the thorny dominator, and one that so many poor souls dont take. These are essentially caltrops: slow field, -jump. Thorny assault is unique in this ability, and it can be used to great effect. Drop this in the areas where you are fighting melee players and theyll almost certainly step on them. Melee ATs think were easy food, and thats all the thinking they do. Theyll rush right in on top of them, and lose the ability to jump, which is the travel power of choice. This leaves you time to stack your holds or use aid self. Some hardcore pvp players will also have super peed to escape these slowing fields, but with 3 slow enhancements it will still buy you plenty of time. Another great use of this power is to drop it on the feet of squishies after you hold them. This way, even if they pop a break free they will still be hindered. It will also slow them down when mez suppression kicks in. Smart dominators will drop these under a held blaster, and hide around the corner when the blaster goes into the mez suppression period. When the period is over and the blaster is reheld, walk around the corner and finish them off.
Ripper:
This is a small melee cone damage attack with some potential knockdown. It has the highest damage of any thorny attack, but it does have a slightly long animation time of 2.17 seconds. This is thorny assaults 65% toggle dropper. It does cost 11 endurance and has an 11 second recharge, but it still an effective attack. Every dominator will need this power in their attack chain to significantly boost their damage over time. Another plus side, this power looks incredibly sexy. Incredibly.
Thorn Barrage:
Another solid attack and like energy burst and blaze it has a range of only 20. It does about the damage of skewer and inflicts def. It has an animation of 2 seconds, an endurance cost of 10, and a recharge of 11 seconds. This is another solid attack that will boost your killing power. Some have asked about the animation, so here it is: you brace yourself with both fists held forward and fire off many volleys of thorny darts. It is similar to power bolt, but with spikyness.
Primary Pairings:
Thorny assault can fill in the movement roll for primaries that are weak in that aspect such as fire and plant. Both control sets benefit a lot from the movement of impale and thorntrops. The best combination, however, is gravity/thorny assault. It sounds unconventional, but it is very effective. Imagine this, youre in a team v team battle. You throw down a thorntrop field, you hit aim and use wormhole to teleport multiple players onto the thorntrops, then you hit dimensional shift if necessary. Dont feel like you contribute? Grav/thorny will dispel that right away. Also, gravity is excellent at slowing meleers and stacking holds with itself and the singularity. Add in impale and thorntrops and you are ready to cause some havoc.
Thorny assault also works well with Ice/ and Mind/, but there are some synergy issues. Mind control will be using telekinesis against most players that they need to slow down, so the value of thorntrops is somewhat wasted. Ice control is another primary that doesnt need or utilize thorntrops. Ice slick can do the same movement and jump as the trops, so the powers are slightly redundant.
3.f. Effective Combinations
I know many players dont want to read all that information, or require a summary. Even with this detailed guide they will still ask what is the most powerful. Well, here are the combinations that synergize the best. In no particular order:
Ice Control/Fiery Assault:
Ice/fire is one unassuming combination that has a number of advantages. First of all, fiery assaults large amount of ranged attacks makes it fairly easy to build domination when your opponent is mired in your ice controls. Fiery embrace will be a nice boost to your damage, and the potency of ice control allows you to get good use out of it. Blazing bolt, while not necessary, can be handy to attack you target out of his range while he has hold suppression yet is still stuck on an ice slick. And the number one, and most overlooked feature of Ice/fire is its ability to toggle drop. Fiery assault has the only ranged 65% toggle dropper. Combine that with toggle rich melee ATs that cant quite catch up to you and you have a recipe to utterly destroy tankers, scrappers, and brutes at high levels. While other assault sets make you enter melee range with a scrapper with headsplitter qued up, blaze gives you some room to drop them without counterattacks. The range of blaze is short, but it is there and can be utilized.
Ice Control/Icy Assault:
This combination will make your opponent hit the movement and recharge caps. In fact, many of the slow effects on your assault set will be redundant since ice control can keep them at the cap by itself. Still, this is an excellent combination. It is also very effective against players that use break frees constantly, as the slowing aspects are not removable. Icy assaults large number of effective ranged attacks and presence of power boost lets you keep the pressure on whomever your target is. Very nice damage and survivability, but it can be a little rough on the end, so expect to turn off artic air at times. Power boost will let you drop a boosted shiver on an enemy team, which can have a significant impact.
Gravity Control/Thorny Assault:
It sounds unconventional, but it is very effective. Imagine this: youre in a team v team battle. You throw down a thorntrop field, you hit aim and use wormhole to teleport multiple players onto the thorntrops, then you hit dimensional shift if necessary. Dont feel like you contribute? Grav/thorny will dispel that right away. Also, gravity is excellent at slowing meleers and stacking holds with itself and the singularity. Add in impale and thorntrops and you are ready to cause some havoc. Heroes rarely fight dominators so they dont know what to expect, but this combination will make even experienced PvPers scratch their head.
Fire Control/Icy Assault:
A fire/ice dominator is able to deal swift single target damage through icy assault while slowing your opponent. This gives you time to spam your already fast activating hold. Icy will also give you access to power boost, which is useful for keeping a long hold on a squishy or further slowing the movement and recharge of a melee. Having your opponent slowed down by the icy attacks will also give your imps more time to catch up and lay waste to your targets.
Mind Control/Icy Assault:
Mind control has accurate, fast activating powers that run the gamut of mez protections. It also has the ability to keep itself safe through telekinesis. Icy assault has a large number of high damage, fast activating ranged attacks that also slow. Not to even mention power boost. This is the combination of a very powerful primary and a very powerful secondary. Icy assault will allow you to slow down players in situations where telekinesis is a poor option.
Plant Control/Thorny Assault:
A combination with plant control primary got in here through affirmative action. You can read the plant control section for a list of its weaknesses and strengths. Thorny assault does give some helpful def and the jump on thorntrops will help to prevent your opponent from bunny hopping to avoid the plant single target hold. This sounds harsh, but I have a plant/thorny dominator myself and I still have a high kill to death ratio on him. Even if he has some downsides it is one of the funner combinations to play in pvp, and both the primary and secondary are something heroes have never seen on their side, so it gives you some character.
3.g. Pool Powers
Ok folks, I know some people dont want to hear it, but in order to pvp you WILL need the leaping pool, fitness, and medicine. No, dont start argueing, you are wrong. If you do not have endurance, combat jumping/hurdle, acrobatics, and aid self you will be slaughtered. Sadly there is no way around having these powers.
Our main defense in pvp is to keep ourselves away from harm and buy ourselves the time to stack holds and build domination. That is where combat jumping and hurdle come in. These two powers will allow you to jump around and prevent melee ATs from closing in on your. This form of movement is fast, controllable, and does not suppress. In addition to the critical movement aspects, combat jumping will also provide you with significant immobilization protection and some defense. If you do not have combat jumping one of the hordes of spine scrappers will completely immobilize you with one shot of impale, and youll be killed horrifically. There are so many fly powers in the game, especially in the pvp crowd, that fly is not viable in the least. As soon as you are hit with a fly you will drop to the ground, and most likely immobilized as well. And in the world of dominators, immobilized is as good as dead. Teleport does not give you the fine control necessary to dance around with your opponents and keep the heat on them. Not only that, but teleport takes a ton of endurance simply moving around. Superspeed can be decent, but lacking vertical movement and being lit up like a Christmas tree is inferior to combat jumping.
Acrobatics is another necessity. Without acrobatics the majority of players will either hold you or spam you with knockdowns. The majority of blasters use ice blast in pvp, and theyll be hitting you with plenty of freeze rays. The fact is that nearly all players in the game have access to knockdowns and holds, and we cant afford to be affected by them.
Stamina is another necessity. Dominators can get a full endurance refill through domination, but you will still need stamina to get you that far in the fight. A dominator is using abilities constantly in a fight. He needs to stack holds to stop his foe and build domination all while staying alive. My dominators all have stamina and still run nearly dry before I pop domination. And no, the 10 seconds in which drain psyche is active will not replace stamina. Hurdle and health are also helpful powers, so it is not a total wash.
The medicine pool is also required. I have spent significant amount of time PvPing with and without aid self, and I know it is a godsend. The fact is dominators kill slowly and almost always take some hits in their game of keep away while stacking holds or building domination. With aid self you can have a roughly 75% heal, or 125% heal with power boost, that will keep you in the fight. As a dominator we can also feel free to use aid self with no chance of interruption after we have our opponent under our controls. When I didnt have aid self I would often find that my opponent as hindered and well on the path to defeat, but I simply did not have the health to continue the fight. Against some combinations, like spine scrappers, you are almost guaranteed to take some damage as you do your work. If a spine scrapper hits you with a critical impale for the majority of your life, you can either wimper and flee, or hit aid self and take your revenge.
Your fourth power pool is up to you, but since dominator builds for pvp are often tight, there often isnt much you can do in your fourth pool. Hasten, stealth, or leadership are other possibilities. Hasten can be useful to recharge your long recharge powers or to stack holds very quickly on an opponent, especially if you have the super fast animating char and dominate. Stealth is a poor choice since so many heroes boost their perception enough to see stalkers, but dominators do best when we get the jump on an opponent and stealth can help. Leadership can give access to fear, taunt, and confuse resistance/protection, but the heavy endurance costs of the toggles are hard for dominators to afford. Also, dominators are easily detoggled by any disorientate, and the long activation animations of leadership powers make them very difficult to retoggle.
4. Know Your Enemies: Heroes
Unless you really enjoy the arena or Warburg, heroes are going to be your main target in your zone pvp career. Hero ATs tend to be potent and have a very strong specialty that they use as leverage. But us dominators can beat them, and Ill tell you how.
4.a. General Tactics
Before I go into details about each individual AT, I need to describe how the general fighting process of a dominator plays out. First of all, a dominator cannot stand toe to toe with anybody, period. Even a defender will most likely be able to gun us down in a straight game of trading shots. In order to kill an opponent a dominator first needs to either hold them, or drop their toggles.
Squishies such as blasters, defenders, controllers, corruptors, and other dominators are, with the exception of some defender and controllers, able to be locked down with a single hold through acrobatics. From here your opponent will either pop a break free, or stay held. If your opponent pops a break free you will need to back off and stack two more holds to negate that break free. If they pop many break frees youll most likely need to retreat, especially if it is a blaster or corruptor. If youre opponent is using heavy break frees feel free to back off. The break frees only last roughly 15 seconds, so if you can disengage and come back you can often catch them when their inspirations are depleted.
If your opponent is held, you can begin wailing away at them. Get in close so you can use the damage from your melee range attacks. Keep the pressure up and try to do as much damage as possible. Also keep a mental timer of about when you think the hold is going to break. In bloody bay and sirens call, where we lack our best attacks, you will often not kill them in one hold period. If you have power boost this initially hold may be long enough for you to kill them outright. When your opponent goes into mez suppression mode you need to be prepared to defend yourself and survive until the suppression is over and they are held once more. Be sure to throw one last hold on them so that they will be held when mez suppression time is over. The mental timing is critical, as a defiance-filled blaster can kill you in a single attack from melee range, which is where you will most likely be due to your melee ranged attacks.
If you have thorntrops, creepers, or ice slick drop it on the feet of your held target. The slowing effect of these powers will ensure that your opponent will not be able to escape or reach you during the mez suppression period. Having your opponent locked in one place will allow you to totally step out of the fight during the mez suppression period, only to rejoin after your target is reheld.
Against defenders and corruptors we can most likely survive straight up until hold suppression is over. In the case of blasters you will need to literally find cover. Hide around a corner, put objects between you and him, etc. After a few moments of dodging his death rays he will be reheld if you still have a hold on him, and you will most likely have the power to finish him off. The majority of the blasters I kill that survive to mez suppression time spend most of their free time trying to find where I went to. I watch till they are reheld, and I kill them, and I do kill a lot of them. Controllers and dominators are tricky; as they will hold you in one shot unless you have a break free, or in some cases a power boosted acrobatics. If you are held by a controller with no break free you are most likely dead, as they out damage us against a held target. Locking them down and avoiding them when hold suppression is up is a simple tactics that lets me kill nearly every squishy I come across. Were dominators, we have to be sneaky.
The standard tactic against tankers, scrappers, brutes, stalkers, and some kheldians is to keep them at a distance while you stack your holds enough to break hold suppression. It will take 3 holds to break their standard hold protection. It will take 4 holds in the case of level 40+ tankers as they have a higher AT index for their protection powers, which means that at level 40+ they will be slightly above the 12 points of hold three of your holds will provide. Anyways, the three critical components to this strategy is combat jumping/hurdle to gain distance, some form of movement preferably, and your single target hold, the faster activating the better.
This form of dance around the meleer is a careful balanced of distance and the animation times of your powers. Your goals in this keep away game are to stack holds and build domination using frugal use of your powers. If you get greedy and stay in one spot and spam your powers, even your single target hold, you will be killed shortly. It is hard to describe this technique, as it is a very fluid thing. Mix up your directions, and keep the pressure on without getting caught up in your own animation times. It is often necessary to make critical battle decisions during this process. You may be forced with a choice to use impale with its 2.43 second animation time, but you have to make sure that broadsword scrapper with headsplitter queed up wont make it to you in time. Use your powers, but get a grasp of how much time you have to work with. This is something that only lots of practice can grant you. Even doing it well, it is likely youll take some damage over the course, so if necessary jump extra far and pop aid self.
After your opponent is held the fun begins. The big bad melee ATs will lose their toggles and the vast majority of their defenses. Hit them hard and whittle away at them, you will often build domination when fighting melee ATs. The nice thing about melee ATs is that they are less likely to have break frees on hand. They will most likely hit mez suppression periods, but the nice thing about fighting melee ATs is that by the time they retoggle all their armors mez suppression is over and they are once again held and detoggled. Its a beautiful thing. By the time you got domination up and they cant manage to retoggle you will soon be the winner.
4.b. Blasters:
Blasters are by far the most common opponent you will be facing in the zone pvp. They do extreme damage, and for as much as they like to say they are frail, they have significantly more hp than us dominators. Their ability to do such large damage at either range or melee makes it difficult to play the ranged game against them. Defiance, the blaster inherent, can be used to mess us up badly. It takes a long time for us to kill even blasters, so they can potentionally be at low health and full of defiance for a significant amount of time. Blasters tend to carry break frees quite often as they are used to being held.
The good news is that a single one of our holds will lock a blaster down unless they pop break frees, so we have an advantage right from the start. After the hold lands jump in and start wailing on them. Keep throwing holds, as sticking 3 holds on them will counteract future break frees. Keep a very good mental timer on how long your hold will last. If you are close to them when the hold breaks they will be able to hit you with defiance fueled melee attacks for massive damage. It is better to back off and wait for hold suppression to end before you finish off the blaster. In the same vein, be careful when approaching a blaster with low health, as their already large damage will be boosted even further. Some devious blasters have been known to keep their break free in check until you start meleeing them.
Many blasters also have aim and/or build up in their sets, so prepare for them to use it. If you see red or yellow sunbursts on them immediately go into evasion mode. Duck behind buildings or get range on them for the 10 seconds that aim and build up will be active.
The most common blaster power sets in pvp is Ice Blast/Energy Manipulation. This grants the blaster a variety of fast activating, high damage ranged blasts that will also slow you down. The slows hurt, but ideally we avoid the majority of the blasters attack chain. Ice also has freeze ray, which is a hold. But, since you DID take acrobatics, you wont have to worry about that. Many of the blasters melee attacks have disorientates attached to them, so be very careful to avoid melee ranged fighting.
4.c. Tankers:
Tankers are one of the easier ATs to beat given enough time. The low damage produced by tankers makes it safe for the dominator to stack holds and build domination. Still, it is important to avoid as much damage and attacks as possible. Keep jumping around and spam holds along with fast attacks. It takes awhile to kill a tanker, so the dominator will almost surely build domination around the middle of the fight. That is where our killing damage will come into play. Save your big attacks until the tanker is held or you have domination. If planned wisely, you should have some movement slowing powers amongst your sets; use them wisely.
Once you stack three holds on the tanker their status protection will be broken and theyll be held. The exception to this is in the 40+ game, where the tankers larger AT modifier on their status protection powers bumps it up to where four holds are required. When this happens lay on the damage and build up to domination if you dont have it up already. The great thing about the melee ATs is that hold suppression is not long enough for your opponent to retoggle and attack you. In the majority of cases the tanker will put his toggles back up right after he gets out of the hold. As long as you have kept the holds up on the tanker he will be immediately reheld and detoggled again after mez suppression is over. This is very frustrating for the tanker but great fun for us. By the time you have domination up and the tanker is in toggle hell you will have the damage output to drop him.
Most serious pvp tankers will go for energy melee, so expect to be disorientated on occasion from anyone with glowing hands.
In team v team fights tankers will often act as taunt bots, which is quite annoying. If the tanker is focused on you fall back out of his range. If the tanker follows you he will leave whoever he was protecting open for your teammates.
4.d. Scrappers:
Scrappers are the second most common AT youll see in the zones after blasters. They are one of our greatest threats. They have status protection and high damage. But, like tankers, once they are held and detoggled they will have a hell of a time retoggling during the mez suppression period is over.
Scrappers are the reason I advocate having some movement slowing powers somewhere in either your primary or secondary power sets. If you have a combination with no movement at all you will find scrappers to be your most difficult target.
There are two types of scrappers, those without ranged attacks and those that do. Spines and Claws both have 40 ft ranged attacks that do significant damage. Claw scrappers in pvp are fairly rare, but spine users are all over. They will spam impale constantly. Impale also has an immobilization attached, so make sure you have combat jumping toggled. We have a number of options to work around the ranged attacks. First of all, we significantly outrange them, so keep your distance as much as possible. Ice and psi will hit impales recharge time hard and reduce the damage you take significantly. Still, it will most likely be necessary for you to do an extended jump and pop aid self. Ranged attack scrappers are one of the toughest fights, but with the help of aid self and careful maneuvering they can be defeated.
Against non-ranged scrappers the fight is very similar to tankers and brutes. Use combat jumping and hurdle to keep your distance while you stack holds and work on building domination. If necessary, dont be afraid to back off and use aid self.
If the scrapper happens to get lucky criticals on their larger attacks it is very difficult to come back in the fight. I once had a spine scrapper kill me with three critical impales in a row, there isnt much to be done but try them again another time.
4.e. Defenders:
Defenders are one of the easier ATs for us to take out in a one on one situation. The bad news is that they are most likely to be in teams, and many can grant massive status protection on their allies. The good news is that only force field and sonic resonance primaries grant status protection to the defender himself.
If you encounter a force field or sonic defender that has toggled mez protection you can either break it normally with application of three holds or use a sleep attack to go right through their protection and detoggle them. If you apply a hold before you use your sleep the defender will be held for the full duration of your hold.
The defender secondaries are all ranged but with fairly low damage modifiers. You can reasonably stand toe to toe with a defender if you must, but many are able to heal themselves. Other than that, it is fairly easy to hold them and if necessary, live long enough to stack holds past any protection.
4.f. Controllers:
Controllers are a dangerous foe indeed. Like us dominators, they can blow right through acrobatics. Ironically, controllers can also significantly out damage us against a held target. If you are held by a controller it is unlikely you will be alive when their hold fades.
A nice trick is that if you have power boost active it will boost the status protection of acrobatics above that of a single controller hold, which will grant you just enough time to counterhold the controller. You may both be held, but he wont be able to damage you significantly without containment.
Like defenders, force field and sonic resonance will grant the user status protection. And like against defenders, a hold followed by a detoggling sleep will allow them to be held for the full duration. If you do not have a sleep attack you may find that status protected controllers are the toughest opponent you can face. The battles typically revolve around whoever gets the first hold in and goes for the kill. Since you can be held in one shot, and it will take three to hold him, it is an incredibly difficult fight.
The most common, and dangerous controllers out there will use the Illusion primary. This will allow him to create up to seven pets, and then confuse you. Being confused in this scenario means that it is extremely difficult to cast on the controller himself. There is always the trick to rotate your view to ensure the controller is the only target viewable, but with so many pets around it can be difficult to pull off.
Many will have pets present, but like other pets in pvp they are unable to accurately follow and attack. They also have a tendency to attack the npcs that hang around the pvp zones. If you are having troubles with pets, such as fire imps, you can jump over or around some npcs in hopes of them being distracted.
4.g. Peacebringers:
Kheldians are rare in pvp and one of the easier fights for us dominators. If you arent familiar with them, they are able to fight in a variety of forms. They have a flying, high range damage nova form and a teleporting, tankish dwarf form. Some focus on a single form while others may have developed both forms for utility.
The nova form does not have status protection and is fairly easily defeated. Like defenders or corruptors their lack of burst damage and weak status protection make them fairly easy to dispatch.
The dwarf form is like a tanker. This form has status protection, but it is fairly easy to overcome with stacked holds. The dwarf form mostly teleports, which makes it fairly easy to avoid by bunny hopping around.
5. Know Your
Friends?: Villains
If you fight in Warburg a lot you will find yourself up against other villains on a fairly regular basis. The good news is that most villain ATs are more well rounded and thus tend to lack powerful, easily utilized powers.
5.a. Brute:
Brutes fight very much like tankers. They have status protection, but without fury they hit for less than tankers. The bad news is that the large number of attacks we use to build domination also tends to build their fury.
It will take three applications of your hold to toggle drop a brute, so your main concern is to survive long enough to perform the stacking. Since the brute damage starts out low it is entirely possible to hop around them while playing the stacking game. If you have some movement powers in your primary or secondary it will be a great help in keeping the brute off your back.
Like the other toggle rich melee ATs once you break their protection and detoggle them it will be difficult for them to retoggle during the hold suppression area.
The one difference between tankers and brutes is that later in the fight the brute will often have a bit of fury behind their attacks. Because of this it is important to have a mental timer on your holds duration. Since you will most likely be in melee range when suppression is over you run the risk of taking a very strong alpha from the brute.
5.b. Corruptors:
Corruptors are very similar to defenders. They have moderate ranged damage and a set of buff/debuffs. Like defenders, only traps and sonic resonance users, which are extremely rare, will be able to grant themselves status protection. If you do run into a sonic user, a hold followed by a detoggling sleep will drop them like a rock. Traps is another story. Their force field generator is essentially status protection that cannot be detoggled. It has a quick recharge, so do not bother killing it. It is also status protected itself, so you will not be able to easily affect it. As long as you have three stacked holds on the trap user he will remain held. The force field generator is a slow flier through, so you may be able to get the corruptor out from its area of effect for short periods.
Since corruptor damage isnt obscene like blaster and scrapper damage, it is a fairly easy fight. Simply hold them and start the attacks. It may be important for you to duck and cover during hold suppression periods. Some may be able to heal themselves using their secondary, but it should be manageable.
5.c. Dominators:
Dominators suck, they are such easy kills! Seriously though, this match will equate to whoever gets the drop on and holds their opponent first. If the held dominator survives to hold suppression the match could change drastically as the other dominator is held.
Like the dominator v controller match, power boost can be a major player in these fights. Power boost will put the status protection of your acrobatics above that of a single hold, which will grant the time needed to counterhold. Also, the power boosted hold will last long enough that you should have time to kill your target.
5.d Masterminds:
Masterminds are a tricky beast, but you can play mind games with them to win. When their pets are in follow and defensive modes bodyguard will be activated. Bodyguard means that the damage done directly to the mastermind is split between them and all their pets. It is extremely difficult to do enough damage to kill a mastermind who has bodyguard active.
The thing is masterminds cannot issue commands to their pets while held. This means if you manage to hold them when they arent in bodyguard mode they wont be able to activate bodyguard until they are free. To get the mastermind to go out of bodyguard mode you can either walk up to him without using any powers on him. The mastermind pets wont counterattack until you use a power on the mastermind, and when the mastermind sees nothing is happening he will most likely switch his pets into attack move momentarily, and that is when you stick them with the hold. If the mastermind doesnt fall for that you can drag his pets away from him or run them through mobs, in which case he might leave bodyguard mode to call them back.
The pets do a lot of damage, so it will most likely be necessary disable them in some way. This is one of the rare occasions where aoe controls can be a great help.
If you have a confusion power, use it on the mastermind himself instead of his pets. This will make his pets attack him on occasion, and that can be a scary thing indeed.
If you cant get the mastermind out of bodyguard mode at all, start killing his pets. The majority of their damage will come from their tier 1 or tier 2 pets, so if you take them out first you will boost your own survivability. The more pets you do kill the less effective bodyguard is.
5.e. Stalker:
Stalkers are very dangerous opponents. The level of perception needed to pick them up is more than most of us dominators can afford to get. To avoid assassin strikes it is necessary to be constantly be moving and jumping around. If you stand still you may quite possibly take a shot. If you are hit by an assassin strike you should immediately jump away and use aid self. If you successfully use aid self you will be back in the game. From there the fight is very similar to a scrapper. If you are placated during the fight just play keep away for the few seconds in which the power is active.
6. Team v Team
Team versus team battles can be quite empowering for a dominator. By hanging around the sidelines you are often able to stack holds with impunity. Your primary targets will be squishies and others that you are able to hold in a single shot. Defenders and controllers in particular are important enemies to negate quickly. After that you can focus on those with status protection. Defenders and controllers can grant ridiculous status protection to your opponents, but usually have none themselves. Holding these high priority threats will help your team out greatly.
If youre facing full 8 man well designed teams it can get tough for dominators. Defenders or controllers can grant massive status protection to their team, and make it very difficult for you to do your job holding. There are some things that they cannot protect against though. Slows, both movement and recharge, are difficult to fully counter. Teleporting via wormhole can only be stopped by orange inspirations or the kinetics power increased density. Fly and jump have absolutely no counters, so feel free to inflict fly on appropriate targets and lay ice slicks, thorntrops, and carrion creepers in the center of the opposing team. Dimensional shift in gravity control has absolutely no counter, so enjoy!
Sadly, most of the players will be scattered too far for your area of effect controls to be effective. There are exceptions though. Gravity can use dimensional shift and wormhole to great effect. Both powers will go for to split the opposing team apart and distract them. Mind, and to a lesser degree plant can use aoe confusion powers to greatly disrupt the opposing team. Ice can use both ice slick and shiver to affect multiple targets.
In small scale PvP a dominator will need some partners. I find stalkers, corruptors, and dominators to be the most potent comrades. Stalkers have an annoying tendency to swoop in on your held kills and assassin strike them to death. Theyll be doing this anyways, so you might as well have them on your team. Still, in a 2 v 2 or similar fight you can hold the enemy squishy and have it be instantly killed, leaving you and the stalker to deal with only one. Corruptors make good partners as they are able to buff your resistance, damage, and status protection which is all good as your opponents will most likely be gunning for you in particular. The corruptor can also help kite and finish off your opponents. Dominators are excellent partners in pvp as the two of you can stack large amounts of holds ridiculously fast, which can make short work of tanks or other status protected individuals. /Cold corrupts have benumb, a power that acts as a reverse power boost. Benumb will half your opponents status protection.
Brutes and masterminds can make fine partners too. The brute can taunt opponents off you and add damage to your held targets. Masterminds can be nice too. /Poison masterminds are actually awesome partners. They can give you status protection through antidote, and their weaken poison will half the magnitude of your opponents status protection.
7. To Sum It Up:
Have fun out there! Dont get too upset when you die, its a continuous learning experience. The more time you spend in pvp the more tricks and tactics you will pick up. The unfair nature of pvp can be frustrating to any AT, not just dominators. Dont get too upset about break frees either, all the inspirations unbalance the fight.
Im still not satisfied in the tactics and procedures I have described here. The fact is, no amount of guides will make you a good PvPer. What is necessary is a lot of good, solid practice. My main goals in writing this guide is to both let players know it can be done, and give players a glimpse to how their power sets will act in PvP before they spend days and days leveling up to battleground levels.
As a side note, this is only a draft, so I would appreciate any and all criticisms, comments, or advice.
Wait, Doms PVP? 
Minor nitpic - cap in Warburg is 38, not 40 (my brute got exemped at 39)... other than that, so far, looks good.....
very nice guide.
one comment: Break Frees do protect against knockback, at least in PvE they do.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
You keep mentioning things like "you will get one hold before hold surpression", what exactly does this mean?
Is the second hold you use less effective than the first or something? I looked through a couple dommy links and couldn't find an answer there either.
That said, I really liked the guide, it inspired me to make a Mind/Ice.
Out of curiosity, if I had domination and powerboost up, how hard would it be to break telekenesis? Or does domination/powerboost not effect the magnitude of the repel?
Domination will have no effect on the repel portion of telekinesis. Powerboost will half the interval between "pushes" of the telekinesis. This usually doesn't mean much unless you're under the effects of a reverse power boost like weaken or benumb.
It will take 4 break frees to hit 100% repel resistance. 1-3 Break frees will not have an effect.
As for of hold suppression. You're first hold lasts for the full period. After that hole fades your opponent will be in hold suppression for about 15-20 seconds. After that period is over any holds that are still on your target will go into effect again.
Just a question... why didn't you mention warshades? If you ahven't played khelds yet, Warshades are actually rather differant than peacebringers... and weaker in PvP. This is partially because they need dead bodies for their best powers to work. They are however pretty much the same in nova/dwarf form.
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Just a question... why didn't you mention warshades? If you ahven't played khelds yet, Warshades are actually rather differant than peacebringers... and weaker in PvP. This is partially because they need dead bodies for their best powers to work. They are however pretty much the same in nova/dwarf form.
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or human form for either for that matter. Their inherrant could be significant for team based pvp.
Really nice guide!
A minor note about hotfeet: it does NOT affect recharge time. It damages, slows enemy movement, and has a -fly.
Arctic Air is similar, but it does not damage, it DOES slow enemy recharge, it can confuse, and it has -stealth.
Thanks for the great guide!
I have a mind/fire dom, he is at level 38. I have not used him for pvp yet but plan to after I respec into leaping. I have most of the powers you suggested and was wondering if you could recommend a patron power or skipping it and taking another pool power? I have medicine, hasten (speed), fitness, and leaping will shortly replace fly, my pve travel which i mainly took because of my wings.
I have a mind/fire dom, he is at level 38. I have not used him for pvp yet but plan to after I respec into leaping. I have most of the powers you suggested and was wondering if you could recommend a patron power or skipping it and taking another pool power? I have medicine, hasten (speed), fitness, and leaping will shortly replace fly, my pve travel which i mainly took because of my wings. (SORRY GOOFED)
Mind/Fire dom:
forget that im taking fitness, leaping, medicine, and leadership. I am also (at 38) taking mez, dom, tk, terrify, and mass confusion as primary and flares (sob), fire blast, fiery embrace, consume, and blazing bolt for secondary.
Here is why: mass hypnosis., and total dom dont do so well in pvp i find cuz of acc check, duration and recharge. fire breath is slow anime, incinerate is melee range danger, combustion is blah, short range, and blaze is only good in RV because of the level 38 spawn in WB. IM taking Mass confusion for masterminds despite the prevalence of tactics, many cant fit it in until after level 40. I also want more than one true click aoe. Consume is for end because i dont always get dom up quick enough for end recharge and i will have some toggles. I have heard fiery embrace and blazing bolt are very big dmg so i thought to take it for an openning attack and maybe a post held toon attack.
Any one care to comment?
/fire without blaze....? 
I totally agree, i need blaze, but i will take it a 41 because as you know, blaze gets nerfed in WB because we are made to be level 38 toons in WB which mean blaze would be one slotted unless i missed something but i think im right. I totally intend to take blaze next and i agree it is a must have.
you...um......left out fire blast in the feiry assault secondary secontion...hehe kind of a key power there. 
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I totally agree, i need blaze, but i will take it a 41 because as you know, blaze gets nerfed in WB because we are made to be level 38 toons in WB which mean blaze would be one slotted unless i missed something but i think im right. I totally intend to take blaze next and i agree it is a must have.
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The only time your blaze works as one slotted in wb is when you hit 38. After you hit 39 and start slotting it it follows normal exing rules of decreases %s on all slots in a power.
Duel me.
I will work on my sig pic more when I have time.
nice guide
what about ring of fire's use to prevent aid self & stalker recloaking? backed by char that would seem a good combo
currently working on a fire/ice thanks to your guide - I have sands of mu and nemesis staff so it really makes it easy...
Very nice guide it was alot of help
Salutations all. I'm making this guide in order to give dominators who wish to enter the wide world of PvP a taste of what to expect. This guide is focused on what I feel I am most qualified to write about: Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg. Arena combat, static team PvP and Recluse's Victory are not commented on as I do not feel I have spent enough time doing those three to comment on them. That said, a lot of what is discussed here will be applicable throughout the level ranges and should prepare you for a number of encounters. I have done zone pvp with an ice/ice dominator, a plant/thorn dominator, and a fire/ice dominator. I am making no claims to knowing everything about pvp. What I do know is that I have confidence in taking on any AT 1v1 in zone pvp, or at least be able to escape alive. With so many stating to avoid 1v1 at all costs and sit in the sidelines hoping you don't die, I felt compelled to post. Also, this guide is not about proposed changes to dominators or any sort of complaining. This guide is simply to do what we can with the tools we currently have. The tactics in this guide are also written assuming minimal use of inspirations, although I will note when one might be particularly valuable.
Contents:
1. The World of Zone PvP
1.a. PvE v PvP
1.b. Before You Enter
1.c. Bloody Bay Overview
1.d. Siren's Call Overview
1.e. Warburg Overview
2. The Primaries
2.a. Fire Control
2.b. Ice Control
2.c. Mind Control
2.d. Gravity Control
2.e. Plant Control
3. The Secondaries
3.a. Energy Assault
3.b. Fiery Assault
3.c. Icy Assault
3.d. Psionic Assault
3.e. Thorney Assault
3.f. Effective Combinations
3.g. Pool Powers
4. Know Your Enemies (Heroes)
4.a. General Tactics
4.b. Blasters
4.c. Tankers
4.d. Scrappers
4.e. Defenders
4.f. Controller
4.g. Peacebringer
5. Know Your Friends? (Villains)
5.a. Brute
5.b. Corruptor
5.c. Dominator
5.d. Mastermind
5.e. Stalker
6. Team v Team
7. To Sum it Up
1. The World of Zone PvP
PvP is not nice. It is also not balanced. The majority of players you encounter in zone pvp are built using combinations of power sets that are ridiculously overpowered. In arena pvp it is even worse. Players also think nothing of using inspirations to win, especially break frees. If two scrappers are fighting and one pops five lucks he will probably be called names. If somebody is fighting a dominator and pops five break frees, it is par for the course.
As a Dominator you have very low hp, very low damage, and your control is far weaker than what it was in PvE. Not looking good? You're right, it isn't. As a dominator you will have to work hard to kill. You will be almost at a constant disadvantage and in many cases it will be almost statistically impossible for you to win. So why play a dominator in PvP? It's the downright most exciting thing to do in CoV and CoH. You live on a tightrope and can be killed instantly at the slightest mistake. And the best of all, you can almost feel the other player's misery. I like to think that the blaster I have just popped domination and held is cringing as I approach and take him out. When the tanker gets hold suppression and starts retoggling, only to be re-held when suppression ends, it must be frustrating. I love causing such pain, and after all, isn't that what us Dominators are made to do?
1.a. PvE v PvP
How a power acts in PvP can be drastically different than how they act in PvE. Firstly, all your holds, immobilizes, sleeps, and other controls will be operating at reduced efficiency. The reduction varies based on power type, but expect everything to be operating at 2/3 efficiency or worse. Confusion is an exception, as it does not have its duration reduced.
Some powers act differently in pvp as well:
Smoke:
This is not autohit in pvp, and it will only have a nominal impact on perception in the majority of cases. Even operating stealth and smokeing your opponent you will still be seen.
Hot Feet:
The flee effect it causes against mobs will obviously not work on players.
Confuses:
In PvP, a confused enemy will have a chance of having his target switched to another target in his field of view. If you are the only target it will have no effect, although in most zones there are mobs nearby that he may target. Also, he will be able to attack other players even of his faction. This can make confusion quite useful in team pvp. As a third change, the confused player may be attacked by all pets, including his, and will be subject to any localized AoE effects or trip mines.
Telekinesis:
In PvP the hold component of this power is reduced to 1.5 magnitude, and it shuts off completely when you attack them. That said, this power is still awesome for its ability to repel, more on that later.
There is also the factor of mez suppression in PvP. This is a critical issue for dominators. Once your first hold, sleep, disorientate, etc wears off your enemy will be immune to effects for a time. This means that, if possible, you must make full use of your first hold. Using a sleep that youll momentarily break or a two second disorientate is a very poor use of your first stint of control time. A power boosted hold on a squishy is about the best you can ask for, and even a lowly dominator like me and kill a blaster before it ends. If you have a hold on them when the suppression period ends they will once again be under its effects. Often melee ATs will use this time to retoggle, and will once again be held about the time they are through. I often use zone geometry to hide during the suppression period, and emerge like a bloodthirsty woodchuck when they are held again.
1.b. Before You Enter
There are a number of things you must plan ahead on before you enter a PvP zone. First of all, the zones will automatically change you to a set level. Any powers you had before those levels will not be available to you. Make absolute sure your critical powers are at or below that zones set level. As a dominator we are against the wall to begin with. If you enter the zone without your critical abilities available to you, it will be a severe disadvantage.
If you plan on using inspirations inside the zone, make sure you have your tray filled out and organized beforehand. Arrange your inspirations in stacks so you can use F1-F5 and know exactly what youre triggering.
Know the general territory and terrain of the map. Vidiotmaps.com is an excellent resource. Keep mental notes of where large groups of mobs or drones may be present.
Be as high of a level as possible. You need all SOs, and you need to have as many slots as possible for both your controls and attacks. A level 50 in bloody bay will be at a significant advantage slot wise over a 15, even when both are set to level 25.
1.c. Bloody Bay Overview
Bloody Bay is the first PvP zone available to players. The entrance is in Cap Au Diable and the minimum level is 15. Upon entering, your level will be set to 25 and all your abilities will act as if you were a level 25 player. You will lose access to all abilities level 26 and above. Bloody Bay is a Hero v Villain zone and features a base of both sides surrounded by faction mobs, turrets, and drones. Bloody Bay is similar to Sirens Call, but has significantly lower population at most times.
Bloody Bay can be good to dominators. Many players will not have all their status protections or other abilities at level 25, but dominators get our bread and butter controls and our three early single target attacks (two ranged and one melee). Like those other ATs though, its still very difficult to fit all your best powers into a pre-25 build. Medicine, fitness, and leaping are all critical abilities, and it can be a tough decision as to what you leave out. In my experience it is best to have leaping and fitness filled out. Medcine is nice, but since many players have lower offense in Bloody Bay, it is not as crucial.
The zone mini-game can be obtained from the Evil Scientist in the villain base. It entails visiting each of the meteors in the zone to collect samples, and then the destruction of a firebase somewhere in the zone. For dominators taking out the firebase before the turrets respawn can be very difficult due to our low offense. I recommend damaging all the turrets to a sliver of health, then kill one. When the one you killed respawns kill it again as well as all the others. You should then have enough time to use the computer inside the base and return to the evil scientist for the shivan shard.
1.d. Sirens Call Overview
Ahh, Sirens Call, the most popular and perhaps balanced of the PvP zones. This is most likely where you will spend the majority of your time if you enjoy zone PvP. Sirens Call can be accessed through Sharkhead Island. The minimal level to enter Sirens Call is 20 and the set level is 30. This set level has a large impact, as none of the level 32 tier 9 powers are available. For dominators, this means we miss out on our pets and mass confusion. Its not as bad as it sounds though, as pets are easily distracted, generally inept, and painfully slow in a PvP environment. We also miss out on our level 35 and 38 assault powers, which forms a significant portion of our potential damage and contains our major toggle dropper in all but Energys case. The good news is that Blasters wont have their nukes. Tankers wont have their god-mode powers. All controllers except illusion will miss out on their pets. And thankfully scrappers miss out on their most brutal attacks.
Having all of our key abilities by level 30 is an issue. Dominators will need fitness, leaping, and medicine pools all filled out for Sirens Call. Youll most likely have to make some tough choices, but that is how its going to be.
The mini-game in Sirens Call is map control. The zone can be switched between hero and villain control through a large number of victories in the hotspots scattered around the zone. Having control of a zone will let you buy temporary powers from the merchant in each base. These are generally useful and can fit some gaps in your power sets. That said, the zone is typically in hero control for the vast majority of the time, so dont be expecting the powers. Upon entering the zone you will also be issued a hero as your bounty target. By seeking out and killing your bounty you can raise your own bounty and get a new target. As luck would have it you are usually issued some AFK player in the hero base or some tanker grouped with a whole team of blasters, so dont sweat it.
1.e. Warburg Overview
Warburg is the third PvP zone available. It can be accessed from St. Martial. The minimum level is 30 and the set level is 38. Being set at level 38 means all but your patrol powers will be accessible to you. For dominators this means youll have your pets and your last two assault powers. We got a lot more offensively ability in this zone, but so do many of our enemies. As we gain our last couple of attacks we also gain our major toggle droppers, which can be used on melee ATs in a chance of taking down their status protection in one shot.
Warburg is a FFA zone. You can attack any heroes or villains in the zone. This brings a lot more prey to our table, although we now have to deal with stalkers. There will be more on fighting villain ATs later in the guide.
The mini-game in Warburg is the nuke collection. By entering the lower labyrinth we can rescue three scientists, use a terminal in the labyrinth, and use the control panel at the rocket to gain access to a nuke of our choice. There are three entrances, so it is not uncommon to run into other players in the tunnels at peak hours.
2. The Primaries
There has been a lot of debate over what the best PvP primaries are, but I find that they all have advantage and disadvantages. And while I have spent the majority of my time playing Ice/, Plant/, and Fire/ I am confident that I can utilize any of the primaries to great success in zone PvP.
2.a. Fire Control
The advantages of Fire Control in PvP are its fast activating fire based single target hold, hot feet, and fire imps. Quick animations in all your core abilities make this an effective set indeed. Popping hasten and spamming the fast activating char will allow you to stack holds safely and quickly.
Ring of Fire:
Ring of fire is a standard immobilize. Immobilizes are rarely effective since combat jumping, which the vast majority of PvP player use, grants roughly 8-9 magnitude of immobilization protection. The best use of ring of fire, as with the latest patch, is to use it to knock down fliers. Most blasters, controllers, and defenders will be held in one shot by char and fall, so fly is mainly useful for flying melee ATs who have status protection and controllers/defenders who have status protection through sonic dispersion or dispersion bubble. Fliers that use break frees or are buffed with status protection wont be held or dropped by char, so a fly can be handy.
Char:
Char is an excellent hold to stack on any AT out there. It activates in 1.1 seconds and will barely stop your battlefield movement. Since it is all fire based it will not be deflected by smash/lethal defense as some other single target holds may be. With hasten you will be able to stack holds quickly, without being delayed and rooted by animation times.
Fire Cages:
The immobilization powers in generally are rarely used in pvp, due to their inability to actually immobilize anybody with combat jumping or superior toggles. Without any secondary effects this power will do nothing in the majority of cases. It is rare to find a large clump of fliers at one time, making ring of fire the superior choice.
Smoke:
Smoke does is not autohit in PvP, and is a relatively minor drop to enemy perception. To get use out of this in PvP one would have to use it on an enemy and then retreat to use a stealth power, only to come back. Obviously this is a ridiculous process, and in most cases the enemy perception will still be enough to make your whole tactic a joke. Anyone serious in PvPing for a long amount of time should not even have this power.
Hot Feet:
Hot feet provides a PBAoE toggle that will slow the movement and recharge of those near you similarly to arctic air, which gets a lot more press. The damage is very poor and it costs a lot of endurance, so it is best to switch it off when your target is held or otherwise no longer chasing you.
Flashfire:
Flashfire can be of marginal use. As an aoe disorientate it has the capability to affect a number of squishies who lack status protection. The main use is against groups of blasters, controllers, or defenders in small scale skirmishes. With power boost this can be a useful tool in a few instances. There are three problems. First, any congregation of players that makes an aoe like this worthwhile makes it likely that they will have a defender or controller granting status protection. Also, and perhaps worst of all, you can only fire this ability off on players on the ground, which is a rarity in PvP. Third is the high animation time of 2.4 seconds.
Cinders:
Cinders is another ability that can be either useful or useless. With a fast activating time it can be used to help stack holds against melee ATs in an effort to break their status protection. The problem with this is that you must be quite close to the big bad meleer to fire it off effectively. Its other use is to shake off squishies who are near your target. Blasters often hold their ranged attacks back to try to blindside you with a boosted up total focus. There have been cases where defenders or blasters have joined in a fight I had going only to get hit by the fast animating cinders. It can at least give you a head start in running.
Bonfire:
Bonfire is of dubious use in PvP. Enemies without knockback protections are rare. Generally the only time you can knock one back is after you have already held them. In bonfires case it will immediately knock them out of its area and serve no further use. I have tried it for a time, and there is the occasional instance where a blaster chases me through a bonfire without retoggling his acrobatics, but it is generally rare and thus mostly useless. The only significant use of this power is against masterminds in Warburg, which is a rare fight, and even then youd have to deal with its long activating time of 3.1 seconds.
Fire Imps:
Imps are a bit sketchier. They can do extreme damage, but their lack of ranged attacks means that they will only rarely get to attack flying or jumping opponents. When fighting a blaster, defender, or controller without hold protection I find it best to hold them and immediately summon your imps right next to them. When using imps this way it may be worth slotting a recharge and/or end reduction in them. Against melee ATs they can add damage as you work on spamming hold to overcome the tank or scrappers status protection.
Seconday Pairings:
Fire control lacks a way to significantly slow melees from chasing you down and thus benefits the most from Icy or Thorny assault. A fire/ice dominator is able to deal swift single target damage through icy assault while slowing your opponent. This gives you time to spam your fast activating hold. Icy will also give you access to power boost, which is useful for keeping a long hold on a squishy or further slowing the movement and recharge of a melee. A fire/thorny dominator will be able to slow a meleers movement through impale and thorntrops. A melee AT, who most likely jumps, will often follow you right into thorntrops, letting you jump back and keep spamming them with attacks and holds to gain domination and blow through their protection. Thorntrops is also extremely handy against held targets. By holding a player, and setting thorntrops at his feet he will not be able to escape or move much before his hold suppression period is over. The dominator can hide or back off until the trapped target is held again, and then go back in for the kill.
Fiery assault is not a good choice for fiery control. While fire controls do slightly more damage than the other control sets abilities, it is miniscule, and it is not going to be significant even with fiery embrace. Fire controls lack of slowing or hindering abilities means that it cannot afford fiery assaults lack of slowing powers. Energy or Psionics are poor choices not particularly suited for fire control, although energy does have power boost.
2.b. Ice Control
Ice control is a classic and potent pvp tool, but it is mostly a one trick pony through the slows. Luckily for ice dominators, slows are one of the hardest things for any AT to avoid. Ice Controls keynote powers are block of ice, shiver, and ice slick.
Chilblain:
Chilblain is a standard immobilize with fly. As discussed before, the majority of your enemies will have significant immobilization protection through combat jumping. The fly is used for flying melee ATs, defender and controllers with self status protection, and flyers using break frees or status protection buffs. If you can fit it in, chilblain can be useful to drop your target down onto an ice slick, but thats about as far as it goes.
Block of Ice:
Block of ice is a fairly slow activating hold, but it does have two perks. First of all, it checks cold defense, which is fairly rare. Even ice tankers get mostly cold resistance, which wont stop your hold from landing. The other and most obvious advantage to block of ice is that it slows your targets movement and recharge significantly. This will give you some breathing room for melee ATs, and occasionally a foolish blaster will try to crawl over and total focus you without much success.
Frostbite:
AoE immobilizes are unable to immobilize anybody with combat jumping or other, superior immobilization protection powers. The power can still inflict an aoe fly and slow. The problem is that the slow is not that potent in a single application, and it is rare for flires to be clumped together. If you must get an immobilize, get chilblain.
Arctic Air:
Arctic air is a good ability as well. Meleers that get too close will be slowed, and potentionally confused. The confusion is not reliable, but it can be a nice perk at times. Arctic air would be a top rated power if dominators fought pet ATs more often. If you fight in Warburg a lot where you might run into masterminds, get arctic air and wade in. It can also be useful against controllers with pets, to help lower damage and perhaps reverse the pets. I have also once used the confusion to blow up a blaster sitting on a pile of mines, but the unpredictability and relatively low range makes that sporadic at best.
Shiver:
Shiver is another nice ability. It will allow you to inflict a powerful slow on your opponent from range, further enhancing your ability to kite until you break status protection. Shivers very wide arc of effect also means that it is quite possible to slow an entire team of heroes at once in team v team pvp, especially powerboosted. Shiver does cost ten endurance so use it if necessary but do not go overboard.
Ice Slick:
Ice slick is another powerful ability. Do not expect your enemies to be flopping around like fish like how they do in PvE, at least not initially. Ice slick has two functions. First of all, it can be used as a defensive mechanism against melee ATs. Ice slick inflicts jump, and the majority of melee ATs, and all pvp players in general, use the leaping pool. This effective makes your ice slick a caltrop field. Slowed to a crawl and unable to jump around, tankers and scrappers will start to feel the dread. The other use of ice slick is also powerful. If dropped under the feet of a held opponent they will begin flopping as they have lost their acrobatics toggle. When flopping around it will be difficult for your enemy to use a break free. They will be able to use a break free after enough spamming, but they will still be slowed and unable to jump. Chances are theyll still be there crying when your hold suppression ends and theyre once again encased. Your own block of ice does give knockback protection for the first period of its duration, but in the later half of the duration, or after it fades, your opponent will be flopping.
Flash Freeze:
Flash freeze is a sleep, which for dominators has one primary use in pvp. That use is to shut down the status protection bubbles surrounding the occasional sonic or force field defenders and controllers. This may seem a minor issue, but a /force field controller is a great threat to a dominator unless a number of break frees are used. In such a matchup the first one to get a hold off is often the clear winner, and when they have protection to our holds it is not pretty. The bad thing about this power is that your target must be near the ground to be used. Defenders and controllers with status protection are often the ones flying, so chilblain and a flash freeze is your best bet. That said, its still two powers used for a rare situation.
Glacier:
Glacier is one of the poorer aoe holds statistically. The activation time of 2 is not particularly fast, and you must be near the ground to use it. That right there is in most cases a deal breaker. The best uses of glacier is to utilize it as another aoe slow with a chance to momentarily hold any squishies that happen to be in the area. With powerboost this aoe hold and slow can be significant, but it has a lot of things going against it.
Jack Frost:
Jack is the ice pet. Pets in general have a poor time navigating, attacking, and staying focused in the PvP zones. Its still an ability worth having, but do not expect him to be your superhero in pvp. If you have a held target you can summon jack right next to him, in which case jack will indeed mess that player up fairly well. If you are fighting meleers and other ATs that require time to stack holds Jack can add in slight damage as well as slows from range.
Secondary Pairings:
Ice control is a fairly self sufficient control primary, and as such it can do well with most secondaries. Ice/fire is one unassuming combination that has a number of advantages. First of all, fiery assaults large amount of ranged attacks makes it fairly easy to build domination when your opponent is mired in your ice controls. Fiery embrace will be a nice boost to your damage, and the potency of ice control allows you to get good use out of it. Blazing bolt, while not necessary, can be handy to attack you target out of his range while he has hold suppression yet is still stuck on an ice slick. And the number one, and most overlooked feature of Ice/fire is its ability to toggle drop. Fiery assault has the only ranged 65% toggle dropper. Combine that with toggle rich melee ATs that cant quite catch up to you and you have a recipe to utterly destroy tankers, scrappers, and brutes at high levels. While other assault sets make you enter melee range with a scrapper with headsplitter qued up, blaze gives you some room to drop them without counterattacks. The range of blaze is short, but it is there and can be utilized.
Icy and psionic assault are average combinations. Icy assault is such a good assault set that I cant say its bad for any combination. It also has power boost to better hold squishies. The large amount of good ranged attacks in icy assault makes it easy to kite your opponent. The slowing attacks in icy assault can often be redundant when combined with ice control, but it never hurts to be sure your opponent is at the slow cap. Psionic assault is not the deadliest of sets, but the control of ice gives you time to peck away at your opponent. Both ice and psionic can be dangerous to highly resistant and defensive melee ATs, so both combined can boost the odds even more.
Thorny and energy assault are the worst combinations with ice control primary. The biggest advantage of thorny assault, the thorntrops, is redundant as ice slick serves the same purpose, and can be nearly permanent itself. He slowing ability of impale, while nice for other primaries, loses some of its luster compared to all the slowing ability of ice control. Energy assault is also poor. The powerboost of energy assault can make your shiver and slows even more potent, but it is possible to slow cap your enemy without it. The thing that makes energy so bad is that your ranged attacks can only help your enemy escape an ice slick.
2.c. Mind Control
Mind control is another very potent pvp primary, right up there with ice control. Mind brings a number of hard to resist unique tricks that burdens your opponent. Mesmerize, levitate, dominate, confuse, telekinesis, terrify, and mass confusion are all brutal status effects.
Mezmerize:
Mesmerize can do two very important things in pvp. First of all, it is extremely adept at detoggling force field and sonic dispersion defenders, controllers, and corruptors. This is important, as a /force field controller is one of the most dangerous things many dominators will face. Its other use is to take squishies out of the fight for a period of time. Sleeps do not last long in pvp due to a combination of reduced power and a prevalence of the Health power from the fitness line. But a powerboosted mesmerize can stop a blaster, defender, or controller as you and your team attack his allies.
Levitate:
Levitate is a handy pvp tool. A held enemy typically loses his knockback protection such as acrobatics. This will open him up to be levitated. Whats the use of levitating a held foe? A foe in knockback will not be able to use a break free until he lands and gets back of his feet. Many players panic when they hit their break frees and nothing happens. Your opponent will still be able to get up and use a break free shortly, but even after he pops the BF he is still not resistant to knockback, meaning further levitations will still be effective until they retoggle their acrobatics.
Dominate:
Dominate is simply the best pvp hold in the game. It animates very fast at 1.1 seconds. This will allow you to stack holds on melee ATs without slowing down enough for them to catch you. And even better yet, dominate only checks psi defense. This means that foes who use super reflexes and other defense sets will be easy to hit. If you want to hold a defense based scrapper or stalker, dominate is the tool to get it done.
Confusion:
Confusion is very handy in a pvp setting. A confused enemy will have his targeting randomly switched amongst any target in his field of view. If you are the only target it will have no effect. It will also allow the enemy to attack his allies, which can be both effective as well as amusing. Perhaps the best of all is that a confused player will be subject to any location based aoe abilities such as quicksand, ice slick, caltrops, etc. It will also cause any trip mines near the player to explode to your great amusement. In large fights this will go far to slow down the foes that will almost surely be gunning for you. With enough targets in his field of view it will be very difficult to perform any attack on the dominator. The downside is that the leadership pool power, tactics, will provide both protection and resistance to confusion powers. With stalkers and +perception being so prevalent, a surprising amount of heroes take tactics for pvp. Against a one on one with an opponent with hold protection it is of little consequence, as a single hold will hold them and drop the tactics toggle. The leadership toggles take awhile to reactivate, so you most likely will not be seeing it again for that fight. When buffed players, meleers, or teams have tactics it will prevent confusion from coming into play unless you can find the player running tactics, usually a squishy, and hold them to drop the toggle.
Mass Hypnosis:
Mass hypnosis in the pvp setting is a very short sleep effect that grants all your targets hold suppression. It can be used for the same purpose mesmerize is used for, but it simply is not as effective.
Telekinesis:
Telekinesis is the best pvp ability in mind controls arsenal. In pvp the use of this power will inflict a 1.5 magnitude hold and constantly repel your target. If you attack the enemy that 1.5 magnitude hold component will be negated, but your target will still be repelled. Very few enemies have repel resistance, so the majority of the melee ATs you meet will be unable to attack back as you stack up the holds and build domination. It takes the use of four break frees to counter the repel effect of telekinesis. God mode powers such as unstoppable and moment of glory offer repel resistance for their duration. In addition to frustrating melee ATs to no end, telekinesis is invaluable as a way of splitting up enemy teams. Hit an enemy defender with telekinesis and soon he will be out of range and no longer about to support his team.
Total Domination:
Total domination, like other aoe holds, is a short duration hold made even shorter by its pvp restrictions. It is truly one of the better aoe holds, but is often statistically hamstrung by the time it gets up to the pvp plate. With power boost it can be used to stack holds on status protected ATs, but dominate is such a good, fast activating hold that it rarely seems necessary. Without power boost total domination may well fade before you can stack enough hold to break status protection. With the tightness and pvp builds and the lack of real need for this power, I cant recommend it.
Terrify:
Terrify is a powerful cone fear power. Fear tends to go through the armors of all melee ATs except for dark armor. A feared opponent cannot move or act for a period of time or until he is attacked first, in which case he will be able to perform one action before resuming fear status. Dropping fear on your opponent can stop him from chasing you, buy you time to aid self or event rest, or allow you to close in for a chance at a toggle dropping melee attack. The downside is that fear duration is significantly reduced in pvp, so do not expect the effect to be permanent. Players that have tactics will be granted both protection and resistance to your fears, meaning that it will not take effect in one shot and its duration will be significantly reduced. The good news is that leadership toggles take a long time to toggle back on, so a recently held blaster will often not bother putting it back up.
Mass Confusion:
Mass confusion will be a powerful ability in clustered team v team pvp battles. The sheer amount of constant retargeting, wasted abilities, friendly fire, and traitorous location based aoes means that your team has quite the upper hand. It does everything regular Confuse does, and like confuse is does not suffer a reduced duration in pvp. The only problem is that the leadership pool power, tactics, gives both resistance and protection to confuse. In a large team of heroes chances are one of them is running tactics. The only true counter to this is to find the player running tactics, generally a squishy like a defender, and toss a hold on them to drop the toggle.
Secondary Pairings:
Icy assault, energy assault, psionic assault, and fiery assault are all on roughly equal footing when it comes to mind control. Minds large amount of single target control means that it does not rely on many utility powers from the assault sets. Icy and energy assault will both provide power boost, which is always useful for any amount of controlling. Fiery assaults ability to drop toggles at a range through blaze combines with telekinesiss ability to keep melee ATs safely distanced creates a potent combination to destroy late game meleers. Psionic assault does what psionic assault generally always does, a little bit of damage and domination building while inflicting recharge. Psychic shockwave can also be used as a ranged toggle dropper against an opponent repelled into a corner by telekinesis.
Thorny assault isnt exactly worse than the other assault sets, it is more of the fact that many of its utilities seem wasted. The general high accuracy of mind control makes aim not needed, and the repel ability of telekinesis overshadows even the potent keep-away abilities of thorntrops.
2.d. Gravity Control
Gravity control gets a bad rap in a lot of cases, but it is actually one of the more powerful of pvp primaries. The hold and immobilize provide potent movement reduction. Dimensional shift can isolate players. Wormhole can move players around the battlefield, and the singularity is by far the best pvp pet.
Crush:
Crush is the best single target immobilize out there due to its movement slowing component similar to distortion. You will be able to use lift for fly, so this ability isnt critical. That said, this is a useful ability for two reasons. The movement speed debuff stacks very nicely with distortion, and with your singularity in tow you can break immobilization protection much easier. It is often a good idea to slot this power with three slow SOs, to really smash your opponents movement speed.
Lift:
Like levitate, lift can be a handy pvp tool. A held enemy typically loses his knockback protection such as acrobatics. This will open him up to be lifted. The difference between mind control and gravity control is that the gravity control hold also gives your opponent knockback protection. Therefore, using lift on a foe you have just held will do nothing at all. In most cases, especially one on ones, we will be spamming our single target hold on our opponent, so lift will be useless.
Gravity Distortion:
Distortion is an interesting single target hold. It checks smashing defense, which means that against defense sets it will miss more than, say, dominate. Its activating time is not particularly good at 1.8 seconds. What is awesome about gravity distortion is that it comes complete with a very powerful movement slow built in. Meleers can be reduced to a crawl as you do your work and stack even more holds, further slowing them. Do not discount the importance of gravity distortions ability to slow movement, it will be a great boon against melee ATs.
Propel:
If you are alive after using this attack something is very wrong. It only does moderate damage and has a disgusting animation time of 3.5 seconds. It has a bit less range than other attacks as well. It doesnt even give you 8 points towards domination like any attack from your secondary would. The only reason I can think of owning this attack is to use it as a gloating taunt to finish off the last couple hp from a held enemy.
Crushing field, like the other aoe immobilizes, arent very effective in actually immobilizing your opponents. The area where crushing field differs, however, is that crushing field applies a substantial movement effect. With three slow SOs in crushing field it is possible to use it as an aoe movement and fly. The difficulty is finding room for it in the ever tight pvp builds.
Dimensional Shift:
Dimensional shift can be used like the notorious sonic cage. When used against a group or even single player it will isolate them in one shot. Got an enemy defender or controller providing way too much team support? Take him out. It is also useful to use on players that have just popped timed abilities such as build up or aim. The time in which your opponent is shifted is also enough for you to aid self back up to full, or even run off a little ways and rest. Keep in mind that your opponent can use self affecting powers while shifted such as aid self, or even rest. Like in pve, dont use this on a single hero surrounded by your team, save it for extra players that join in the fight. It is often better to shift scrappers and tanks first so you can take out their support unhindered.
It is possible to attack a shifted opponent to build domination, but you will only get the 2 points of domination rather than the 10 total points for a successful pvp hit. Dominators often dont have much endurance to spare, but if you are a couple points away from popping domination, this could help.
Gravity Distortion Field:
Gravity distortion field is your aoe targeted hold. Its main use is to stack with your single target hold to break status protection on melee ATs. Due to gravitys ability to stack holds with the singularity, and already cripple melee ATs through the movement slow, it is not necessary. If you have power boost it makes it a better hold stacking tool that may be worth it.
Wormhole:
Wormholes ability to teleport foes can come in quite handy in pvp. Players arent used to being teleported without seeing the long activation of teleport foe. Teleporting jumping heroes right under a ledge will often take them by surprise, which you can capitalize on. The bad thing about wormhole is that if squishies are disorientated by the effect, you have spent your first hold suppression period on an ability with less duration than your single target hold. It can also be useful against a group of enemies, it will throw them for a loop and give your team a few moments to make it count. A nice trick in team v team battles is to use wormhole on the cluster of enemies, and then dimensional shift when they are teleported. Instantly isolates numerous heroes and puts locks them intangible. Dimensional shift can also be used to place people on caltrops or thorntrops.
Singularity:
If you want a pet for pvp, singularity is the one. Its ability to fly is an absolute godsend. All other pets will get stuck in geometry and be unable to effectively follow you or close in, not to mention all the mobs they argo. In battles it is able to help you stack holds on tanks much easier. Its use of lift also can hinder break free use. The crushes and distortions the singularity puts out also contributes significantly to slowing your opponent down. And last of all, its knockback field is occasionally able to keep someone from closing in on you. These cases usually involve having dropped someones acrobatics with a previous hold and whether they use a break free or waited it out, they wont have knockback protection until they retoggle. The downsides are that it is still not able to keep up with fast moving characters, and it is easily visible to any enemies in the area.
Secondary Pairings:
All the assault sets can be paired pretty well with gravity, but icy and energy assaults are superior due to access to power boost. The power boost will make the movement slows on your hold and immobilize extremely potent. Fiery assault is viable since gravity control will give you enough breathing room to use your ranged attack chain. Like in the case of ice and mind control sets, fiery assaults ranged toggle dropper in blaze can allow you to drop a slowd scrapper or tankers toggles in relative safety. Psionic assault will give the recharge to compliment the movement slows on your grav powers, allowing it to debuff movement and recharge similar to ice powers. Subdues immobilize can also be stacked with your immobilize and that of your singularity. Thorny assault doesnt benefit gravity as much as it does some other sets, but def is always helpful. Aim can be useful in team v team wormhole + dimensional shift combinations. Thorntrops can add jump and further slows to players, allowing you to completely lock them down movement wise.
2.e. Plant Control
Ahh, how the mighty have fallen. Plant control is a fine, jack of all trades power set that has one minor difference than the other sets. The single target hold, strangler, does not take effect until an enemy is on that ground. This is a MAJOR disadvantage. If a blaster is charging at you any primary but plant can stop them dead in their tracks with a hold. In plants case the blaster, who is most likely to be jumping, is able to fire off one, two, even three attacks before he hits the ground and is held. Three attacks from a blaster can do a lot of damage, it requires you to use aid self right afterwards. If you and a controller jump at each other his hold will always be the first to land, as his is instant and yours is not. A plant dominator must be constantly aware that his single target hold is a delayed process. Other than that, plant has some nice control abilities. It has spore burst to detoggle forcefield or sonic defender/controllers, it has seeds to add confusion, and creepers to slow and disrupt your opponent.
Entangle:
Due to stranglers inability to hold targets off the ground, your immobilize and fly power is almost required. Almost every encounter will be a strangler followed by entangle. Since plant single target hold has issues, I find myself often spamming entangle to give me more time. Three or four applications will be able to root most players, so it does have uses. Also, since the fly trap loves to spam entangle over and over, it is very easy to stack it through any protection.
Strangler:
As I mentioned before, stranglers inability to hold flying or jumping targets until they land is a major issue that will give you a certain amount of frustration. That is not to say plant cant hold and kill people, my plant/thorn dom can still take down any AT, but it is an issue. To make things worse strangler has the highest hold activation time at 2.1 seconds. Also it checks smashing defense, meaning it will miss more on those with defense armors. Lets move on to more pleasant aspects of the set.
Roots:
AoE immobilizes are not of great use in pvp. To immobilize someone you need to spam them with the power repeatively, and entangle does a much better job of it.
Spore Burst:
Like the other dominator sleep powers, spore burst is used almost exclusively to drop the status protection toggles from force field and sonic defenders and controllers. And again, it may seem like a rare encounter, but it is the only way a dominator can one on one with a ff or sonic controller without eating break frees like candy.
Seeds of Confusion:
Confusion is a useful tool in pvp and special in that it does have have its duration reduced. While it can be used to confuse groups of heroes, the slightly shorter range and cone nature will make it very difficult. In pvp you do not often have the luxury of perfect cone positioning as you do in pve. Confuse is great against any AT, but particularly useful against masterminds and controllers with pets. One downside is that the power, as an aoe, tends to take an aoes worth of endurance. 15.6 endurance to cast a confuse. Its still worth it, but plant does have some endurance issues. Also, many players, heroes in particular, take tactics to give perception against stalkers. A side effect of that is protection and resistance against confusion powers. If you can hold your opponent to detoggle their tactics then seeds can be of use.
Spirit Tree:
I guess you can plant it in the hospital very decorative. Seriously though, this power will do absolutely nothing for you in pvp.
Vines:
Like the other aoe holds in pvp, vines serves primarily to stack holds to drop toggles on melee ATs. And like the other holds it takes a lot of endurance and has poor duration even for stacking outside of power boost. To make matters worse it has a 3.1 animation time. If a melee AT is chasing you, which they most likely will, you really wont have the time to get this one off. If you do have power boost then vines may well give enough time to stack holds.
Carrion Creepers:
Now this is PvPing with style. The creepers can be tossed as a slow patch, but benefits greatly from a lot of slow enhancements. There are two things I love about creepers. First of all, foes that are confused with seeds may have their target switched to one of the vines. One or two vines tend to spawn during a fight with one player, so if you keep those two vines between you and your confused foe they will take a lot of attacks aimed for you. The ability to both confuse a player and set up decoys for him to attack is unique villain side, just make sure to keep the vines between you and your enemy. The other useful aspect is to drop it on the feet of a held player. The vines will knock the player around occasionally, which does make it more difficult to pop break frees. Also, a player who does pop a break free probably wont take the time to retoggle acrobatics, so your vines will still be able to knock them down occasionally and give you more time. There are two downsides to creepers. For one, it costs a whooping 26 endurance. Using seeds of confusion and creepers on one foe will put you back almost 42 endurance. I find that my plant dom runs through endurance the fastest out of my dominators in pvp due to the costs of those two abilities in addition to standard hold spam, attack spam for domination, and sometimes immobilize spam. Plant doms need to either carry blues, slot some end reduces in creepers, or ensure that you have domination ready for use by the time you run out of endurance. Another downside is that creepers have a fairly long recharge time, so it will often not be up every fight.
Fly Trap:
Pets arent so hot in pvp. They wander around, attract argo, and are not able to keep up with you at all. That said, a pet is still nice at times. The fly traps tendency to spam entangle often can aid you in immobilizing a foe. Other than that, a bit more damage, a bit more def, and a bit more liability.
Secondary Pairings:
Plant controls lack of significant slowing ability means that it does best with either icy assault or thorny assault. Icy assault, in addition to its stellar damage and activation times, will slow your opponent and give you the breathing room you need. It also has power boost, which can be helpful is stacking your hold on a tank and help ease the slow activation of your hold. The recharge on ice attacks also means that it will really hurt when the confused tanker accidently uses KO Blow on a vine. Thorny assault is also able to slow your opponents quite well. Impale has a slow, fly, and immobilization aspect which a plant dom can put to use. It also has thorntrops, which will not only slow your opponent significantly, but it will inflict jump. Keeping them on the ground with jump and fly is crucial for a plant dom to keep your holds and creepers working at maximum efficiency. The def from your attacks and the presence of aim also helps to make up for the fact that strangler checks smashing defense.
Energy assault can be useful due to the presence of power boost and the ability to use total focus to hold fliers in the air like you cant do with strangler, other than that it is pretty baseline. The lack of slows will not be felt. Psionic is once again pretty average. The recharge can be quite useful when a confused enemy is wasting his heavy hitting attacks on vines. Subdue also has immobilize for stacking purposes.
Fiery assault does not bode well. Plant does not have a routinely way of slowing your opponents, and fiery assault offers no utility to add. Blaze and fire blast animate quickly and are nice attacks, but you need to stop your enemies before you can kill them.
3. The Secondaries
Dominator secondaries are pretty uniform. We automatically get a weak ranged attack and soon get a melee attack and a mediate damage ranged attack. We then get some utility powers, and at 35 and 38 we get our heavy hitters. All of the secondaries have their strength and weaknesses, but the most important thing to remember is that your secondary must have good synergy with your primary. Using your secondary to patch holes in your primary is how most dominators survive in pvp.
3.a. Energy Assault
Energy assault is a pretty straightforward assault set with limited utility. The more important things energy assault has going for it is power boost and total focus. The set suffers from animation times, but it can do well. The knockback can be good or bad. If your primary has a patch effect such as ice slick the knockback can be a hindrance. Otherwise, the general knockback can be used to position held foes and hinder the use of inspirations.
Power Bolt:
Power bolt sucks, plain and simple. The animation is long and it does little damage. The main use of quicker assault attacks is to build domination, but power bolt performs very poorly in this role. It can still be used in situations where you have the room, but it is not worth taking a headsplitter for.
Bone Smasher:
Good, quick damage. Nothing to hate about this power, except that the shorter than hold disorientate may set your suppression period before you wanted it. Slot this up and love it. This attack also has a 5-6% chance to drop a toggle in pvp, but it is so low it cannot be relied upon.
Power Push:
Many consider power push to be useless, but there is one thing it is damn good at: building domination. Power push has an extra 40% accuracy, a quick animation of 1.1 seconds, and a recharge of 8 seconds. If you put one accuracy and some recharge and end reduction enhancements in this power it can be of great use, since the other energy assault powers animate so slowly. Building domination against a squishie generally isnt necessary, but youll almost certainly hit it against a melee AT. Use power push on melee ATs and you can have domination up sooner and significantly safer. Power push can also be used to move an opponent around who has lost acrobatics due to your holds. A successful hold followed by a power push can prevent your opponent from using a break free for a few moments. When players click on their break free and nothing happens they tend to panic as well. It is also extremely fun to use a power boosted power push on a held opponent on a rooftop. Players that pop break frees or are in hold suppression often dont retoggle their acrobatics, meaning that they do not have knockback protection. A blaster that pops a break free and heads right toward you can get some reverse thrust right back in their face.
Power Blast:
A pretty average attack. Animation time isnt too bad and it recycles in 6 seconds. This will be used often during the fight to build up domination. It will also be important for your final damage chain.
Power Boost:
Any excellent ability. It will roughly double control duration and effects. How you use this will depend on your primary, but every primary can use it to put a long lasting hold on a squishy AT. Against squishies you get one hold before hold suppression, so it is best to make it count. It will also double the health you get back from aid self. And, a lesser known effect, it will boost your acrobatics to over 4 hold protection so a controller will not be able to hold you in one shot while power boost is up. Youll be held afterwards, but it does give you some time to counterhold them. This is a must have.
Whirling Hands:
This attack is poor even in PvE where AoE is king. It does little damage and is not needed in an energy assault users attack chain. Just dont take it. I can be used to build domination or maintain domination when you are not attacking an opponent.
Total Focus:
Total focus is a highlight of energy assault. It hits very hard, does a 100% disorientate, and has a 65% chance to knock off a toggle. It is also the only heavy attack and 65% toggle dropper that is available to dominators in Sirens Call. The downside is that it has a high activation time of 3.3 seconds. Do not use this attack when your opponent is still able to cause you substantial damage. Its a good attack, but it wont overpower people like the blaster version does.
Sniper Blast:
Sniper attacks take a very long time to animate, and as a dominator you will be harangued by enemy players almost constantly. If you dont have domination up this attack wont do much damage, and if you do have domination up you need to be getting into the fray and messing some people up.
Power Burst:
A good, solid attack that often causes knockback. The range is only 20 and the animation time is a mediocre 2 seconds. Its a nice attack that is an important part of your attack chain, but dont get yourself killed using it. Even if it isnt a massive level 38 attack it is useful for your attack chain.
Primary Pairings:
Energy assault goes well with the mind and gravity primary. Mind control will give you the control and distance from melees to allow for energy assaults single target nature and ability to keep melee ATs at bay. Gravity control also has enough slows to keep melees at a distance, and power boost allows you to make those slows go from excellent to awesome.
Ice can be an odd choice as all the knockback present in the attacks can knock and enemy off an ice slick. That said, some careful maneuvering will also allow you to knock some players back into ice slicks. Also, the powerboost will allow your slows to be massive.
Energy goes poorly with plant and fire. Plant and fire control lacks ways to slow energy players down, so energys long animations and lack of utility are really felt.
3.b. Fiery Assault
Fiery assault is a damage orientated assault set with no utility. Fiery embrace, the option to take a snipe, and the ability to drop toggles at range with blaze are all the perks. The nice aoe damage of fiery assault is of great benefit in pvp. The fact that a great number of attacks also do damage of time means that opponents that rely on aid self use are in trouble.
Flares:
Another horrible attack. It has a nice recharge and not as bad of damage as people make it out to be, but the animation time of 2.17 seconds is a serious issue. Since the early assault powers are generally best for building domination, flares poorly fits into this role. It can still be used, but make sure you have the distance. Flares and 10 points of domination is not worth taking an energy transfer to the face.
Incinerate:
A good solid melee attack, but one that does its damage slowly over time. Its a very useful ability for added damage on a held foe. The one advantage of it being damage over time is that it can interrupt future aid self attempts by your target. It has a 5% chance of dropping a toggle.
Fire Breath:
Very short range and a long animation time make this not an ideal attack for pvp. It can still be used in the early levels to fill out your attack chain on a held foe, but any other use will most likely get yourself killed.
Fiery Embrace:
The long duration and significant damage addition of this ability is critical for any fiery assault dominator. The ability to attack on an unheld foe is limited, so save it for after your target is held and you can unleash your full attack chain.
Combustion:
This is an aoe that does not do a significant amount of damage, and does it at a long animation time of 3 seconds. This power doesnt have a good use in pvp.
Consume:
This one might be player preference, but it is generally not necessary and a poor use of a power slot. The fact that domination refills our end bar about the same time that it gets low from the attacks that build domination make extra endurance not necessary. Consume would also require a fair amount of slots to reduce the recharge, increase the accuracy, and boost the endurance recovered.
Blazing Bolt:
This is the most useful for dominator snipes. The fact that blazing bolt has a higher damage than other snipes combines with the presence of fiery embrace to make it a potentionally useful tool. Fiery embrace, domination, and a blazing bolt can lay out some serious damage. It is not the best to use in an attack chain, but it can be used from range or against enemies stuck in ice slicks or caltrop like fields.
Blaze:
Blaze is the best attack any dominator of any assault set can obtain. It is a high damage attack, with a very quick animation time of 1 second, and a recharge of 10 seconds. This is also fiery assaults 65% toggle dropper. The one downside is that the range is only 20. Its ability to drop toggles at a range can be used to great effect when combined with a primary that can keep melees at a distance such as mind, ice, and gravity.
Primary Pairings:
Fire lacks utility and any way to slow your attack, making it reliant on the primary to cover these holes. The well developed ranged attack chain and fiery embrace can do the hurt on your enemy, but you have to make sure it doesnt put the hurt on you too. Mind, ice, and gravity are the primaries with enough soft control and slowing potentional to make your fiery ranged attack chain worth it. Ice can use slows and ice slick to keep the enemy at bay while you burn them and toggle drop with blaze. Mind can use telekinesis to lock a melee into a corner where he can be toggle dropped. Gravity has enough movement slow ability that you can stay at a range and still put out damage with fire.
Fiery assault is a poor choice for plant and fire control. Neither of those controls have reliable ways to slow down and keep back your opponent, and fiery assault does not have the utility necessary to keep the dominator surviving.