Every Control set has a bread-and-butter AoE power that is up very often. Always open with that, and then player blaster.
If you have a Boss to deal with, either Levitate, Lift, Mesmerize, Earthquake, Ice Slick, Carrion Creepers, or your pet can be used to negate it. Also, since Domination doesn't need to be used for damage, you can save it for boss fights to lock them down in one hit.
Really though, you are just experiencing one of Gravity's faults. You don't have your bread-and-butter power yet. Once you get Wormhole things will improve.
This is likely one of the reasons Dominators were determined to do better with a "dual Primary" of Control and Damage.
Even so, I find there is a big difference between stunning a foe, immobilizing him or knocking him down, or otherwise disabling his attacks, and actually holding him. Most Control sets also have the capability to do that in addition to holds. The oft-maligned Propel, for instance, is a guaranteed knockback, which means it's a guaranteed damage mitigation. It's not that a Controller or Dominator has these powers in spades, making a Blaster look like a child with a toy in comparison. But then, a Defender's ability with its Buff/Debuffs doesn't overwhelm by a large margin the capabilities of a Controller or Corruptor with those powers, either.
It is primarily a matter of degree. A well slotted hold with Domination running can lock down what a Blaster cannot, for quite a bit longer. Without Domination, the Dom is more like a Blaster, while a Controller has a little better time of it, plus Overpower. The Blaster actually comes pretty close to that, and I think it should, because it needs the ability to defend itself. With just attacks, the Blaster just can't survive to deal the damage. That's been established in testing.
The nice thing about Control sets is, they're consistent, while Blaster Secondaries aren't (try locking down a foe with Fire Manipulation 
) and more importantly, they deal damage. The Dom doesn't just have a Secondary full of attacks and some holds, he has two sets with attacks, like a Blaster does. He now has a little bit better control, and a little bit worse damage. He can't make the burst damage a Blaster can with Build Up and Aim, but the Blaster doesn't have an AoE lock down. So I think it's fairly even.
I guess, but even Wormhole doesn't look like it lasts very long and recharges in 90 seconds. I guess I could call that once per fight with slotting, but doesn't it still trade a bit too much for being a large-scale AoE? For instance, with Stunning Shot and Taser, I can keep two enemies almost permanently stunned. I say "almsot" because they don't exactly self-stack, whereas Gravity Distortion self-stacks by a fair bit, but I doubt that would be possible even with Wormhole. I suppose using it with Power Boost, itself on a 2 minute timer, could prove to be quite powerful, but I'm still a little unsure.
I've always wondered if status effects could work a little more like blasts. Say, a rapid-fire hold that lasts 10 second and recharges in two, but doesn't stack from the same caster? It just seems odd that it's either one, single person, everybody and nothing in-between.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The nice thing about Control sets is, they're consistent, while Blaster Secondaries aren't (try locking down a foe with Fire Manipulation ) and more importantly, they deal damage. The Dom doesn't just have a Secondary full of attacks and some holds, he has two sets with attacks, like a Blaster does. He now has a little bit better control, and a little bit worse damage. He can't make the burst damage a Blaster can with Build Up and Aim, but the Blaster doesn't have an AoE lock down. So I think it's fairly even.
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That's interesting. I keep hearing about Dominator controls dealing good damage and, truth be told, I'm seeing the numbers for them back this up, at least for single-target status effects. It worries me, though, that I won't have enough slots to put damage both in my out-and-out attacks AND in my holds. Besides, when they do barely as much as Power Bolt, I'm not sure it matters too much. Of course, if we're counting pure attacks from primaries, such as Propel or Lift, I guess I could get behind this. I don't have enough (read: any) experience with anything other than Gravity Control, but isn't the presence of genuine attacks in Control primaries more the exception than the rule?
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Even so, I find there is a big difference between stunning a foe, immobilizing him or knocking him down, or otherwise disabling his attacks, and actually holding him.
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I actually don't see a significant functional difference between holds and stuns, enemy resistances aside. About the only one is if you want to keep enemies into an effect with "Avoid" or keep them grouped up for AoE carnage, neither of which seems to be a Dominator speciality.
Now, my concern is that this additional stun capacity of Control sets comes in AoE form, meaning it has lower accuracy and padded recharge attached to it. These powers are useful, there's no denying that, but their usefulness is limited to when they're recharged, and I fear that may be a bit too little, given their timers.
Heck, it looks to me like Gravity Distortion is treated almost like a mini-nuke, and it doesn't last all THAT long even with slotting. Should I really be banking everything on Wormhole?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I don't have enough (read: any) experience with anything other than Gravity Control, but isn't the presence of genuine attacks in Control primaries more the exception than the rule?
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Well, yeah, but not every power in Energy Manipulation is Total Focus, either.
I do agree with the dilemma about whether to slot Control powers for control or damage, and if you want to specialize with control in the Primary, and damage in the Secondary, that's fine too. But you have exactly the same dilemma when slotting Blaster Secondaries, the immobilize or stun has to be slotted for either damage or control, and usually you would choose the damage first. (Or I would...)
There is also a big advantage in Set IOs. You actually can slot for both damage and control, and I often do.
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Heck, it looks to me like Gravity Distortion is treated almost like a mini-nuke, and it doesn't last all THAT long even with slotting. Should I really be banking everything on Wormhole?
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Well, from what I understand, Wormhole is not the greatest of AoE control powers. There are other sets that perform much better. That's Gravity, there are other sets that perform much better. You hear a lot of that. On the other hand, Wormhole being effectively an AoE Teleport Foe has a utility which goes beyond it's Control capability. That's not going to show up in the numbers, though, the DPS or the "survivability time" or whatever the heck metric you're using to compare A to B.
The thing is, as I said, I feel the AoE holds are not really meant to be up all the time. That was the behavior of control sets long ago, before ED. Controllers got a serious nerf to control, gaining Containment and its damage in exchange for their AoEs. Blasters ended up getting nerfed, too, losing some duration from their controls so they would stay "weaker" than Controller counterparts.
But it's like when Tanker and Scrapper defenses were all cut in half. Since everything was cut in half, the difference between the two became closer. Since control powers had become nerfed across the board, Controllers and Blasters became closer simply because their maximums were closer together. And Control became something that is really not reliable. As you said, it's up as an AoE maybe once a fight. No one can lock down 100% of a spawn 100% of the time, not even a Tanker.
I agree that if everyone has enough magnitude to be useful, then it's just duration that becomes a difference. So it's an on or off thing. And Defenders and Controllers (and Corruptors) seem to specialize with "soft" controls, in Buff/Debuff. Knockback, herding powers, and especially Slows (since they are also Recharge slows, as well as movement slows) are often the specialty of Buff/Debuff. Doms lack that capability. And where they do have that ability, such as with AoE immobilize, it can be dangerous for them to use it.
Is that good, is that bad, is that different? I'm not really going to judge. I don't think Dominators should be Controllers. But that's just me. Controllers certainly have plenty of damage, and both Doms and Blasters have an issue with powers that it is fatal to them to use. But that's really a balance issue.
If you solo a lot with Gravity the much maligned Dimension Shift is your friend. This power works very well for the dom soloist. DS the mobs, deal with the remaining mobs (Lift, Gravity Distortion, blast, blast, dead).
I would also add, I'd slot gravity for control and recharge and not damage. You especially want your single target hold slotted up ASAP. Think of it as your primary means of damage mitigation. It's like a shield on a scrapper, tank, or brute.
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi
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I do agree with the dilemma about whether to slot Control powers for control or damage, and if you want to specialize with control in the Primary, and damage in the Secondary, that's fine too. But you have exactly the same dilemma when slotting Blaster Secondaries, the immobilize or stun has to be slotted for either damage or control, and usually you would choose the damage first. (Or I would...)
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Not quite the same, as Blasters are quite obviously designed for damage, so slotting things for damage is more or less working as intended. I more or less have my answer on that one, though - given that both powers I can slot for damage or status effect do barely as much as my weakest, fastest-recharging attack, I'll put off slotting them for damage until later to never, depending on what slots permit. I suspect that, even in the best case scenario, I won't slot them for damage by much anyway.
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Well, from what I understand, Wormhole is not the greatest of AoE control powers. There are other sets that perform much better. That's Gravity, there are other sets that perform much better. You hear a lot of that. On the other hand, Wormhole being effectively an AoE Teleport Foe has a utility which goes beyond it's Control capability. That's not going to show up in the numbers, though, the DPS or the "survivability time" or whatever the heck metric you're using to compare A to B.
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I'd be interested to hear what large-scale enemy teleportation can be good for. Again, never having played Gravity Control, I just don't know, and I was never able to glean any useful on the subject from the few flamewars I read. I have use for single-target enemy teleportation to sucker-pull on occasion, but that doesn't seem to be an effective tactic for group-teleporting enemies around. Without substantial AoEs, I don't believe I have much use in herding, either, though I suppose teleporting and immobilizing a spawn can let me hide around a corner and pick them off a few at a time while avoiding enemy fire. Never was a fan of terrain-dependent powers, though, as terrain is too unreliable in itself.
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The thing is, as I said, I feel the AoE holds are not really meant to be up all the time. That was the behavior of control sets long ago, before ED. Controllers got a serious nerf to control, gaining Containment and its damage in exchange for their AoEs. Blasters ended up getting nerfed, too, losing some duration from their controls so they would stay "weaker" than Controller counterparts.
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Yeah, I remember the outcry when the control changes happened And I actually agree with them... To some extent. Locking down everything all the time is useful, but not very interesting to actually do spawn after spawn after spawn. I went through the old bugged Smoke Grenade like that, so I know roughly what it's like. The problem is that there really isn't anything in-between large-scale, slow control powers and small-scale control powers. It's either one enemy or all enemies. But what if I need to catch TWO enemies? Either alternate the hold, or AoE hold, which doesn't last long enough anyway. Alternating the hold, however would require me to get its duration to twice its recharge and a little over, but then that begins to take a significant toll of upkeep, both as time spent recasting it and endurance paid doing so.
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Is that good, is that bad, is that different? I'm not really going to judge. I don't think Dominators should be Controllers. But that's just me. Controllers certainly have plenty of damage, and both Doms and Blasters have an issue with powers that it is fatal to them to use. But that's really a balance issue.
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I guess the big thing for me is drastically low hit points, much lower than Blasters, which necessitates even MORE control to keep from getting killed. They don't seem to have that much more control, but rather they have larger-scale control. Which is cool when it's up, but its scale limits it to only occasional use. What about the time when these powers aren't up, though? Do I simply idle until they recharge? Because I have neither the hit points nor the mitigation to stand up to certain factions, and pulling doesn't always work. And even when pulling works, it's SLOOOOOOOW! Slow enough for me to abandon a character over if that's the only way he could fight.
SOs helped, and I'm hoping Wormhole will help. Gravity Distortion Field + Power Boost is also pretty cool, for the rare occasions I remember to use it, too
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If you solo a lot with Gravity the much maligned Dimension Shift is your friend. This power works very well for the dom soloist. DS the mobs, deal with the remaining mobs (Lift, Gravity Distortion, blast, blast, dead).
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Wow. With all the hate on Dimension Shift I never even considered it, even though I recommend essentially the same thing with Detention Field in FF. It's an irritatant on a team, but solo it's extremely important.
Even so, Dimension Shift doesn't fit my concept, and the lack of pinpoint precision makes me think I won't find it as useful as Detention Field for eliminating foes from the fight. I really have no trouble soloing my Grav/Electric, even before the changes I didn't really have problems with being overwhelmed. Then again, I played on Diff 3 or 5, not 4.
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I would also add, I'd slot gravity for control and recharge and not damage. You especially want your single target hold slotted up ASAP. Think of it as your primary means of damage mitigation. It's like a shield on a scrapper, tank, or brute.
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I primarily use my attacks on that Dom to deal damage. I do have Propel, but mainly for concept. My /Fire, though, makes major use of Dominate for damage, because he has Confuse to mitigate damage. Held foes don't hit you, Confused foes don't hit you and DO hit your enemies.
I have yet to see the foe that survives being held long enough for the hold to wear off, though, with my holds even one or two slotted. I don't really see the need for three except on an AoE. (Which usually doesn't deal damage anyway)
What Dom primaries have you tried at this point? Maybe I misread, but you seem to be basing all this strictly off of your experience with Grav/. Might I suggest trying a Mind/? It might give you a slightly different perspective.
You may also be having trouble with the highly tactical nature of Doms. Don't forget, some of us swear by the AT.
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Not quite the same, as Blasters are quite obviously designed for damage, so slotting things for damage is more or less working as intended.
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Well, with 0.95 ranged compared to 1.125 ranged, and 1.05 melee compared to 1.0 melee, one could say slotting things for damage is more or less working as intended for Dominators, too.
And since Corruptors get a true Critical with Containment and not a bonus, and thus slotting your holds for damage will result in double that damage...
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I more or less have my answer on that one, though - given that both powers I can slot for damage or status effect do barely as much as my weakest, fastest-recharging attack, I'll put off slotting them for damage until later to never, depending on what slots permit. I suspect that, even in the best case scenario, I won't slot them for damage by much anyway.
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On my Blaster, Ring of Fire is one of her "Bread and Butter" attacks, and she uses it as a basic attack. It does about the same damage as her other basic attack, too. Although that is Fire, so the damage is somewhat better than the norm, even if it is DoT...
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I'd be interested to hear what large-scale enemy teleportation can be good for.
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I would too. At the moment, it just looks cool.
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I guess the big thing for me is drastically low hit points, much lower than Blasters, which necessitates even MORE control to keep from getting killed. They don't seem to have that much more control, but rather they have larger-scale control. Which is cool when it's up, but its scale limits it to only occasional use. What about the time when these powers aren't up, though? Do I simply idle until they recharge?
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First of all, are you talking about before or after the Domination change? Because I can take out one foe right off the bat with a Sniper attack. A Hold will take out another. I can usually concentrate enough fire on another that by the time he gets into melee, getting into Blapper range with me is instantly fatal. That's three right there. What spawn sizes are you taking on? Do you have your Difficulty set to 4?
No, you don't stand around, that's fatal. You shouldn't need an AoE hold to take on a spawn, though. In fact, opening with an AoE is the surest way to get killed. If you are soloing and can't make do with single target holds, there's something way wrong.
I'll also disagree that Blasters have as much control. My Blaster has Tesla Cage. Gravity Distortion is a 18 second hold cast every 8 seconds. Tesla Cage is an 8 second hold cast every 10 seconds. Sure, you could perma-stun a foe with /Energy but 1) you have to be in melee 2) you have to keep attacking to keep up the stun and 3) not all Blasters are /Energy.
If you can't hold a foe and deal with the rest of them within 18 seconds, well, I don't know that more hit points would do more than just delay the inevitable.
One suggestion I can throw out for gravity/energy is foe juggling - keeping them in the air or on their back as much as possible with lift+power push can provide a considerable amount of mitigation. Don't try to use propel for this - the activation time will get you killed and power push is far better in every way.
This is still of limited help with strong ranged enemies as the rag doll physics make it difficult to properly chain KB/KU - if you hit them to soon after you knocked them back nothing will happen (or they lift up in the air and land back on their feet) and if you hit them a second to late they have already queued up an attack and fire if even if flying back.
I also tried a grav/energy with the i15 changes as it seemed a combo that might work with the upgraded damage. I got to L12 and finally gave up - just to much incoming damage that I couldn't handle with immobilizes and I didn't see any respite coming until L26. Now, the dimension shift trick DOES sound good and I may try it again but I rerolled the last attempt as a mind/energy instead.
If you aren't tied to specific concept or are willing to try a different character you might want to give mind/energy a try. Mind has all the single target control you could EVER want at low levels and fairly fast recharging area controls - the trick here is that most of the controls aren't as well suited to grouping but if you solo they are great. Mesmerize is a low cost, single target sleep that lasts forever and will even get bosses as its mag 3.5, Confuse lasts nearly as long and will also get many bosses as very few things are confuse resistant and you get the usual single target hold (Dominate). Early on you get a fast recharging AE sleep in mass hypnosis (45 second recharge) and later you add in an AE fear that also recharges in 45 seconds with terrify. The only potential drawback to mind is that you get mass confusion instead of a pet. Note that this is only a drawback if you are intent on having a pet - mass confusion itself is an awesome power and with sufficient recharge alternates nicely with the AE hold for full spawn lockdown.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
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First of all, are you talking about before or after the Domination change? Because I can take out one foe right off the bat with a Sniper attack. A Hold will take out another. I can usually concentrate enough fire on another that by the time he gets into melee, getting into Blapper range with me is instantly fatal. That's three right there. What spawn sizes are you taking on? Do you have your Difficulty set to 4?
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After the changes. I wouldn't have even looked at Dominators before. "Support" ATs that may or may not become good at level 32 don't do it for me, but I've found the changes to "unlock" the AT for me. And I wouldn't hedge my bets on Snipes. My biggest problems are specific lieutenant pairs, and those aren't easily one-shotted with a snipe. Though that's actually not a bad idea. Soon as I get mine, I'll likely be opening with it. There doesn't seem to be much else that's as good for a first attack in an Assault set.
Also, I have my difficulty set to Level 2.
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No, you don't stand around, that's fatal. You shouldn't need an AoE hold to take on a spawn, though. In fact, opening with an AoE is the surest way to get killed. If you are soloing and can't make do with single target holds, there's something way wrong.
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I didn't mean stand around in combat More stand around and wait for them to recharge before I open, which I've done a few times. I can't say that my experience opening with Power Boost + Gravity Distortion Field have been bad. Most of the time I can whittle down enough enemies by the time they wake up that Gravity Distortion and Death can take care of the rest easily. There's just this pesky recharge to deal with...
If my inability to survive on just a single-target hold means something is wrong, I am more than open to suggestions as to how to fix it. Being faced with five minions all firing at range, though, there doesn't seem to be much a single-target hold can do to save me. Such situations (which didn't end in my defeat) are resolved through either killing two or three and holding the rest or Dimension-Shifting them all so I can rest in the middle of them. Either works, but isn't reliable or indeed very productive.
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I'll also disagree that Blasters have as much control. My Blaster has Tesla Cage. Gravity Distortion is a 18 second hold cast every 8 seconds. Tesla Cage is an 8 second hold cast every 10 seconds. Sure, you could perma-stun a foe with /Energy but 1) you have to be in melee 2) you have to keep attacking to keep up the stun and 3) not all Blasters are /Energy.
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Blaster SETS don't (typically, there are exceptions) but Blasters as a finished product often have multiple control effects. Dominators simply don't have access to these in their entire AT. Their Secondaries and Epics simply don't offer more control. That would be kind of like offering more melee attacks in Scrapper Epics. So Dominators end up with a single-target hold, a single-target stun and a bunch of AoE effects. Which is good for AoE control, but not as good for single-target control. I WILL grant you that their single-target control powers are easily evidently superior, which is how things SHOULD be. I was just expecting a bigger difference than I'm seeing.
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If you can't hold a foe and deal with the rest of them within 18 seconds, well, I don't know that more hit points would do more than just delay the inevitable.
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Interestingly, that's rarely the problem so much as the 10 seconds it takes for my hold to recharge and affect a second target. And no, sometimes I can't handle everyone in 18 seconds. Sometimes I can go down from a full-spawn salvo in a couple of seconds flat. The Lost Anathema, for instance, take me down to 1/3 health in just two ranged attacks, and I CANNOT stop them from firing them because they're resistant to holds and show up in every spawn. Council soldiers play firing squad on me, and unless I can AoE-hold them, I have to take their fire. More hit points would give me more time to reduce the enemy numbers or take out dangerous enemies, after which point the fight becomes easy.
Interestingly, most of my Blasters can clear a spawn in around 4 seconds, but that's besides the point Comparing to a Blaster, though, I can afford to stand and fight a LOT more on a Blaster than I can on a Dominator. I was hoping I wouldn't HAVE to stand and fight as much, but with AoE controls on long timers and single-target controls coming short against 5-man spawns, that isn't always the case, and I don't have the patience to teleport-pull out of every spawn, even if it didn't cause full spawn aggro as often as it does.
I'm not saying the AT is broken, but rather that I'm probably missing something obvious.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If you aren't tied to specific concept or are willing to try a different character you might want to give mind/energy a try.
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I'm afraid I am pretty much tied to this concept at the moment. It just fits the character very well and I like the general idea. Plus, I'm really not prepared to invest all the time to get another Dominator to 20 if I don't have at least SOME assurance it will turn out OK. I'll stick with this one for a while yet and hope for light at the end of the tunnel. But I'm having unpleasant flashbacks to Blasters pre Defiance changes, and how much I felt like a wimp who runs away screaming like a little girl at the sight of a boss or more than three minions. Blasters still have that going against them to some extent, but between some degree of control and HUGE damage with access to really strong buffs, it sort of makes up for it. I've yet to see what Dominators have that balances against their apparently even worse survivability.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If you aren't tied to specific concept or are willing to try a different character you might want to give mind/energy a try.
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I'll add that while Energy has really strong attacks now (with high recharge) you also lack either Fiery Embrace, Aim, or Build Up. What you do have is Power Boost, which increases your holds. So you have a more defensive Dominator to begin with.
It's not easy to solo a non-damage oriented Dominator. You can do it, but it's just not as easy as it would be for Fire or Energy. Stick with the concept if it's what you want, though, even though you may have to rely more on Wormhole, and your soft controls.
Maybe try picking up Tough, or Aid Self/Aid Other from the Pool.
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I've yet to see what Dominators have that balances against their apparently even worse survivability.
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To quote Yoda (and the following would apply to controllers as well as dominators) "Control. You must learn control." and "You must unlearn what you have learned."
It may well be that controller/dom controlling will not satisfy you. I am not terribly satisfied with my blasters' lack of control in situations when I don't kill everything in one or two blasts.
But you chose Gravity which is the most controllerish primary to me. I love my Grav/Rad Controller but long loathed my grav/energy dominator because of far less damage out of domination.
Doms really struggle in their teens and likely you won't get a lot of pleasure out of a gravity one until mid to late 20s. You need to hold them and beat them to death with the secondary and use soft controlling from things like Lift to stay alive.
Once I stopped trying to play them like a controller and read the dom guides I was a lot happier with them. You have to learn to play them like they are and not try to mash them into an inverted blaster role.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
I think the biggest problem is that you picked the *only* set that does not have a reliable, quick-recharging AoE control available early on - instead it gets some single-target stuff and dimension shift.
At level 8, plant becomes able to confuse everyone in sight for ages, and do it every 60 seconds. At level 12, mind can start putting whole spawns to sleep every 45 seconds, fire and earth start being able to toss out AoE stuns (admittedly poor accuracy and short-duration, but they still weaken the alpha and give you time to start holding/attacking), and ice starts laying down 30 second duration slip-n-fall patches. At 18, earth even adds its own version of ice slick for *two* reliable quick-recharging AoE controls. Grav is the only set that is left out in the cold until 26, with only the extremely situational dimension shift and horrendously long-recharging grav distortion field. Things will pick up greatly at 26 (or actually, 27, since it'll need slotting), when you will finally have something to open with that doesn't take 4 minutes to recharge (alternate wormhole with GDF and you should have *something* up for every spawn. But honestly, if I could recommend any set to a player who's never touched controllers or doms before, grav would be the *last* one I would suggest, simply because it plays so different from the rest. Fire, mind, earth, ice, plant - all are much more straightforward early on.
Also, one thing that I find helps with some doms - don't play on difficulty 2 or 4; instead, play on difficulty 1, 3, or 5. Making the mobs go up one level is actually less annoying than adding more of them, at least for mostly single-target sets. Since you're in the 20s and can slot SOs, you should have the accuracy to play on level 3, which should probably be a lot easier than level 2.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
(QR)
When it comes to single-target holds, the difference between a Blaster and a Dom is quantity versus quality. The Dom will only have one single-target hold, where a Blaster can have several. But the Dom's hold lasts longer, recharges faster, and (if Domination is up) can hold a boss in one move.
You'd have a point in claiming that a Blaster's controls can seem better for locking down several targets faster, as you don't have to wait for the power to recharge before you can toss another control out. On the surface, this is true. However, every Dominator set gets access to one or more 'soft control' options that are typically up before every fight. These powers will lock down much of the spawn (even if it's team-sized) in a single click. These powers accomplish the same goal - controlling multiple enemies at once and softening the spawn - with just one click. Even if they don't last for the whole fight, they still provide you with enough breathing room to establish the ST hold on multiple enemies. And with Domination/Overpower, you can sometimes control bosses in just one application, mitigating any painful alphas entirely.
And the Dom/Controller ST holds are good enough to do things that the Blaster holds just can't, like permahold multiple bosses or, on some powerbuilt Doms, stack enough magnitude to break through an AV's purple triangles.
Fortunately or unfortunately, you picked Gravity Control, which doesn't get its best Soft Control option (Wormhole) until level 26. The other sets get good AoE soft control options way earlier than that. Once you do get it, you'll see the difference. And once you get to 32 after that and pick up Singularity (an incredibly tough control-heavy pet), the gulf gets even wider.
The Ballad of Iron Percy
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Skimmed through the thread after the OP and the first few replies... The_Hegemon's post seems to sum up most of what I was going to say.
Yes, Dominators only get 1 single-target hold. It lasts longer than a Blaster's or Corruptor's (Dominators have the same mez modifiers as Defenders so I'm leaving that AT out of the comparison), so you can double-stack it fairly easily or if Domination is up you don't even need to since Domination is essentially a doublestack of all of your mez powers, with extended duration on the second casting. You can also hold multiple things in a spawn with just the one hold, and your AoE controls will last long enough for the recharge on it so that you can. You can still permahold multiple things, it just takes a little longer for that second hold to go off.
Or, if you just really want to lock everything down so that nothing even gets a chance to shoot at you through the course of the entire mission, play Mind Control. Mesmerize is a one-shot boss sleep (one-shot EB sleep with Domination up) that has a long duration out of the box and a fairly quick animation; Dominate is your standard single-target hold with a fast animation, and Confuse is a long-duration, short-recharge "no, you don't want to hit me" power.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Fortunately or unfortunately, you picked Gravity Control, which doesn't get its best Soft Control option (Wormhole) until level 26.
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I seem to have this kind of luck when branching out into a new AT. When I first played a Blaster, I picked up AR/Dev, which I consider to be the WORST combination for a Blaster after having played around with them. Unfortunately, that was also my first Blaster to 50, was made prior to the Smoke Grenade fix and before the Defiance changes, so I got to enjoy every miserable moment of every problem Blasters ever had. Yuck! When I first played Brutes, my original pick was Stone/Stone, which while very good, is also VERY endurance-heavy, something which plagued me ALL The way up to 50, as that was my first 50 villain ever. When I picked Masterminds, my first serious character was a Mercs/Traps Mastermind, and at the time Mercs damage was... Not very good, let's put it like that. And while Traps is a cool set, a lot of its powers are slow and cumbersome to use, just like Devices, which slowed him down even further. He was 44 last I saw him, and I got to enjoy all of his shortcomings, though being a Mastermind, that wasn't nearly as evident. And now I picked Gravity Control for my first Dominator, a set I have since seen pretty much nothing but criticism for. Oh, well. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Singularity does look very promising, but... Well, one thing I've never so much as considered accepting is the notion that a character is horribly terrible now, but will be OH SO GOOD in just 30 levels. And in the meantime? It's a long trudge of suck. I just don't roll that way, which is why I never touched Controllers and Dominators before. I don't enjoy taking bloody ages to kill stuff, even if that changes later. So far, I'm still not at the "total suck" mark, and things do look to be improving, somewhat. I'm still worried for the future, though. I'll see how much Wormhole helps, but I'm not sure I'll be able to hold out until Singularity.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Also, one thing that I find helps with some doms - don't play on difficulty 2 or 4; instead, play on difficulty 1, 3, or 5. Making the mobs go up one level is actually less annoying than adding more of them, at least for mostly single-target sets. Since you're in the 20s and can slot SOs, you should have the accuracy to play on level 3, which should probably be a lot easier than level 2.
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The thing with difficulty 3 is that it sends my accuracy in the tank. Yes, with SOs I can slot for it, but it would require me to multi-slot accuracy, and I just don't have the slots for that. I never have. If I had my way, I'd never fight anything above even con, in fact I suppose I could get back down to Villainous, but... Well, having my bosses scaled down isn't very exciting. And besides, all my other characters, even my crappiest Blasters, manage to hold out well on Tenacious/Malicious. If my Dominator can't, that would make him a second-rate character that I can't really condone. Hopefully more reliable AoE control will help keep me where I am.
I'm slightly worried about status effects, though. I'm back to the dark days of Blasters where if I got held, it was all done for. Now Blasters can shoot even when held, killing what's holding them, but for a Dominator, that isn't an option. About the only thing I can do to avoid that is pop Domination, but... What if that's not recharged or built up? Or what if it has decayed? Or what if holding enemies are present in every spawn, such as they Yellow Ink Men? This has me worried.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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dim shift can work while solo. If you expect to take at least 30 seconds to kill those that it didn't hit. Of course it isn't a small aoe (25ft radius). Hitting everything in sight can and will happen. What then?
People that use dim shift in this way generally don't slot it for accuracy and actually want it to miss some of the targets.
You really shouldn't need it while solo though. If an ice blaster can cake walk the solo game with just freezeray there is no dom primary that should ever have issues.
Just get GD slotted up and use lift on targets you haven't hit with GD. Grav really isn't a set that is designed to solo on the even difficulty settings. It does much better against less targets.
Wormhole, I'll give you unbiased information, and yes I've used the power extensively, which from the looks at it most people offering you insight haven't actually played grav before.
You asked what the use of an aoe enemy teleport is.
Pros:
-not many while solo 
-moving a spawn and jamming them into a corner. This makes small aoes very effective
-taking extra mobs and tossing them the heck away from the group. On some maps this is amazing when you toss a group off of a cliff.
-taking extra mobs and stacking them on the existing fight. People have already laid down aoe debuffs and the aoe damage dealers are doing their thing, just add more fodder by porting in an extra group. Very fun and actually increases team speed, which is pretty unique.
Cons:
-The aoe is only 15 ft. It is very rare 16 enemies will occupy an area that small without herding, which sort of defeats the purpose of a relocation power.
-The stun is delayed 3 seconds. If you are using this in plain sight and it happens to miss any of them, thus alerting the entire group - you will die.
-The knockback is significant and generally a hinderance to using the power. I've encountered very few situations where the kb in addition to the relocation is more beneficial that just relocating them. One scenario is when porting something that has stun protection, they still get knocked over.
Gravity damage:
There are only two powers in grav that should generally be focused on for damage slotting. Lift and propel. But you shouldn't take propel. So that leaves lift, which is a very good power.
Slotting the hold for damage is unadvised until your build is mature enough to kill quick enough to not need the duration, or has enough IO's to not matter if they are held or otherwise.
Slotting crush for damage can work, but you already have lift to fill attack chains and it is a much better attack than crush. Pretty much every assault power is a better attack than crush for dpa and dpe. Crush doesn't have all that much use on a grav dom for control or damage generation solo or teamed. It is good for AV's though. But if you already have the aoe immob that can work vs an AV almost as well, so is the extra power that is generally not very useful worth taking?
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People that use dim shift in this way generally don't slot it for accuracy and actually want it to miss some of the targets.
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I've heard that mentioned, and I'm not a big fan of this approach. I like my powers to be reliable and predictable. Counting on them to MISS is very much counter to that ideal. I've already learned to use it to catch parts of a large spawn if enemies scatter around enough (it happens), but generally I use it as an escape from imminent death, either my own or a team-mate's. 30 seconds is more than enough to even rest in the middle of an enemy spawn, so saving yourself when you're dying comes easy.
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You really shouldn't need it while solo though. If an ice blaster can cake walk the solo game with just freezeray there is no dom primary that should ever have issues.
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An Ice Blaster doesn't work on JUST Freeze Ray. Even ignoring Bitter Freeze Ray, an Ice Blaster has access to a whole Blaster primary with aim, and very often to a whole Blaster secondary with build up, still often Ice Manipulation. A Blaster is also working with around 50% more hit points, and despite what people keep telling me, having those hit points matters. I can count on a Blaster to survive noticeably longer even just doing nothing than I can an idle Dominator. So a Blaster doesn't actually need as much support and survivability as a Dominator, but I wouldn't put that down to the control they have. After all, one of the strongest Blasters I have is Fire/Fire and that has NO control.
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Gravity damage:
There are only two powers in grav that should generally be focused on for damage slotting. Lift and propel. But you shouldn't take propel. So that leaves lift, which is a very good power.
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Despite all the Propel hate, I have to insist on taking, slotting and using it. It's VERY endurance-efficient, more so than most Assault attacks, and most certainly more so than anything I have in Energy Assault. Granted, it's also slow, which gives it poor DPA, but when it comes to endurance expended for damage done in return, this is the most efficient power I have, so using it actually saves me endurance. Provided so many people criticize Dominators for their endurance consumption, I feel this is one power I should stick to to mitigate that.
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Just get GD slotted up and use lift on targets you haven't hit with GD. Grav really isn't a set that is designed to solo on the even difficulty settings. It does much better against less targets.
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I wish that were an option, but Villainous is too pathetic and I don't feel like scaling my bosses down, and Level 3 is too difficult, because my accuracy isn't very good against +1s, let alone +2s, and I don't fancy fighting purple bosses as a general thing. Kind of in stuck on this one.
On Wormhole: would I be at a disadvantage if I only used it for its stun and not for its relocation function? The pros you gave for it don't really excite me all that much, partly because they seem to be geared for big, powerful teams and partly because they don't seem THAT useful. The AoE radius shouldn't be THAT much of a problem and I don't believe knockback or relocation are going to be problematic, so I intend to focus on just stun for the moment.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It sounds like you have your mind made up about everything gravity. gl and enjoy the toon. I can promise grav plays like no other out there.
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I've played Gravity Control up to almost 24, and... I'm not seeing more than one hold. In fact, I'm not seeing much in the way of hold at all.
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Control will always be the weak point of Gravity and Illusion. What control they have is enough to get by, but I can see why you wouldn't find it as solid as say, Ice or Earth's knockdown patches, or mind's confuse, sleep, fear, and hold.
As a set, Gravity's bonus is more apparent to controllers (where having two actual attacks for containment makes soloing quite powerful); but for dominators it suffers simply because it's AoE hold (generally considered weak) is considered one of its best control powers.
Honestly, I didn't even bother to take the AoE hold or Telekinesis on my Mind / Psi dominator. Between mass confusion, cone of fear, mass hypnosis, and my single-target holds she can regularly go entire missions without taking a single point of damage (unless, of course, I bump into something with an irritating level of psi resistance / defense (Malta Turrets! >:/ )).
My suggestion: Don't base your impression of an AT on a single powerset. If gravity's not working for you, give something else a shot. If you like to control, I really do suggest Mind. Really, all dominator sets have enough controls (hard and soft) to compete; Gravity's just the competitor playing the game with a knee injury. >_>
I'm new to control-centric sets, this has to be said first and foremost. My only real encounter with the utility of control has been from some particularly control-heavy Blasters. I've always known that control for them (and, really, anything other than Controllers and Dominators) will only ever be secondary to killing the foe, and as such their control tools would have limited use, far inferior to that of REAL control sets. What I'm finding out so far, however, is that this doesn't appear to be exactly true.
Let me explain.
I'm used to Blaster control, which means largely single-target holds and stuns, and several of them, plus either an area denial power or an immobilize of some sort. Dominators (let's talk about them, as I've LITERALLY never played a Controller at all) seem to beat Blasters in the area of burst AoE control, as one would expect, but their superiority in single-target control that I was expecting to see plain isn't there. Now, many Blaster builds can afford to stack or double up on status effects. AR/Dev and Archery/Devices has two stuns, Electric/Electric has two holds, Just Energy Manipulation has two stuns, and Ice/Ice has THREE holds, with the possibility of extra holds and such from Epic pools.
Now, I've looked through a bunch of Dominator sets, and I've played Gravity Control up to almost 24, and... I'm not seeing more than one hold. In fact, I'm not seeing much in the way of hold at all. The framework seems to be single/AoE hold, single/AoE immobilize, possibly AoE stun, and then utility. Which would be really cool, were it not for I5's legacy of long recharge to short duration and crappy accuracy for AoE control powers. As it stands, AoE control in most sets is REALLY cool, but also REALLY rare, in the neighbourhood of once per battle up to several times per mission. This didn't become an issue to me until just a while ago.
Normally, my favourite approach of choice when my AoE hold isn't available is to hold one enemy and then immobilize the rest. This works GREAT when immobilization keeps melee enemies from beating me to death, but isn't nearly as effective when enemies don't really care and just keep on shooting with their full attack arsenal. Such as... The Council. In these situations, I find myself lacking anything that's in-between total spawn incapacitation and only a single enemy held, and this is where the lack of a second single-target status effect - say a stun so it doesn't stack as easily with the stock hold - would have come in handy. But I didn't have one. When a spawn has two dangerous lieutenants and I can't hold the entire spawn and all therein, I'm left with having to pick one to hold and one to take fire from.
Granted, few powersets have two holds in them (like Ice Blast) and most of the characters that have access to multiple, stacking effects do so by drawing from both of their powersets and from their Epics. Dominators don't really get to do that, though, as their secondaries are already an amalgam of two powersets to begin with, and in the process of mashing them together, status effects that the sets may have held were left out. After all, why have status effects in your secondary when you have an entire primary devoted to them? So I would assume the logic goes.
This leaves me at a quandary, however - what do I do when I need two enemies held, but don't feel like waiting four minutes? Holding one, waiting for recharge, then holding the other seems like an obvious solution, but this takes time and the hold doesn't self-stack by THAT much for it to be effective enough. When immobilization works and matters, the fast-recharging, though expensive AoE immobilize does prove very effective, but the situations where that is tryly meaningful dwindle as he levels go by. And... I struggle to think of any other solutions. What am I missing? What is there that's available to a Dominator which can approximate plain having two holds?
I guess I'm just running against yet another aspect of the binary nature of status effects in this game, and probably another reason to gripe when next that topic comes up, but at this time, I'm more interested in finding a practical solution than worrying about existentialist problems.