Ice doesn't get good damage till level 35, then the end cost goes through the roof too.
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
Dominators were supposed to have damage dealing powers as compensation for containment (the inherent power) and containment (the ability to contain the baddies)
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Aha, you mean both containment and containment then? 
I'm not sure the assault set was put in as a secondary for Dominators as "compensation" for containment. Assault is there for attack! not because the designers were thinking "sorry guys, Domination is a bit [censored] - you can have some wacky tanker/scrapper/blaster attack powers instead!"
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in reality they got the raw end of the deal and are way outclassed 99% of the time by a troller.
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Personally I have no problem with the primary set, or how Domination works (it could do with improvement in PvP). The likelyhood of the Assault powers actually being changed is zero - look at what happened to blaster secondaries (nothing) - even when Cryptic have admitted they were perhaps ill-considered.
If anything I'd like the damage buff to be increased further during Domination this would increase the temptation to fire it off more regularly, it wouldn't need changing the set or changing anything under "normal" circumstances and it would be completely in keeping with the AT. It would also finally make sense of the Assault set.
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The likelyhood of the Assault powers actually being changed is zero - look at what happened to blaster secondaries (nothing) - even when Cryptic have admitted they were perhaps ill-considered.
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The voice of reason. Sad but true. I hope no one is holding their breath on this one. 
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Ice doesn't get good damage till level 35, then the end cost goes through the roof too.
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Most of the assault powers are like that (except Energy). As far as high end power endurance use goes, Ice is actually cheaper than Fire, Energy and Psionic - only Thorns is less endurance intensive than Ice.
The main difference between domination and containment is I get domination on at best 5% of attacks and containment on 95% of attacks.
I really should do something about this signature.
You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway? 
It did become much more manageable after level 22 when I got accuracy SOs and Stamina. Before that I could and regularly did run out of endurance when fighting 3 even level minions using just my single target hold and the 3 first single target attacks from Icy Assault. Add Arctic Air and you have the ultimate end hog. You can't keep that power running without 2-3 endurance reduction SOs and Stamina if you wish to do anything else at all.
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The main difference between domination and containment is I get domination on at best 5% of attacks and containment on 95% of attacks.
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That's an unfair basis for comparison - largely because the containment you can do is due to your secondary, and very little to do with your Illusion primary. Most Ill 'trollers will be lucky to get a 60/40 split in the course of normal gameplay, with only Blind and Flash setting up containment (and even then Spectral Wounds only does partial containment damage, and the main source of Ill's damage - that of pets - isn't affected at all).
I may just be imagining things, but I've noticed that the secondary effects of the secondary (stay with me) get buffed by being a Dominator too - /Energy's stuns and KB, /Ice's slows. Maybe I'm just more appreciative of soft-control, but you can't fail to take that into consideration when making comparisons.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
Going off on a tangent here, but I've been wondering if Dominator primary powers (including pets) do more damage than controllers' since we have higher brawl index? Does anyone know?
Illusion is a bit strange beast among controllers. I would hazard a guess that most dominators will outcontrol an Illusion controller.
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You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway?
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As things stand on my Plant/Ice, I can run through missions without stopping using only Domination (to refill my Endurance), and maybe 1 blue in especially protracted fights. (pre-Stamina, pre-SOs)
I'm guessing therefore, that the problem lies in the Ice primary - or moreover, in heavy use of the toggles in both, with the additional expense of the secondary tipping the balance. Do you fight regularly with Arctic Air on? Do you need to? How are you slotted for Endurance Reductions in your most end-heavy powers?
Endurance is a problem for many builds, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything needs to be done about it, more that the player needs to manage his/her endurance more effectively. If endurance really is such an insurmountable issue for your specific build, then I'd list my concerns on the Suggestion forum using figures and extensive testing where appropriate - Cryptic have shown that they're more than willing to change endurance costs either in whole or in part where imbalances have occured.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
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You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway?
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Be careful what you say I said ;>
My figures are from Character Builder I'm not at all sure that all the figures it uses are correct, however, the ones I have been able to check are spot on, not that means anything else is right.
Edit : so it's right of you to challenge what I'm saying about costs/damage etc. but you're also in a position to check the figures I can't.
I don't doubt that Ice/Ice together may have endurance problems. Ice Assault itself does seem to have higher endurance needs than Thorn, it also has higher damage - in some cases much higher damage than Thorn. If you take a look at the other assault sets, ice doesn't look too bad. if you look specifically at the high-end powers Ice is not the most expensive, it's actually the second cheapest.
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It did become much more manageable after level 22 when I got accuracy SOs and Stamina. Before that I could and regularly did run out of endurance when fighting 3 even level minions using just my single target hold and the 3 first single target attacks from Icy Assault.
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I did as well using Thorn. After testing the AoE/Cone powers I decided I wasn't going to use any of them since the damage wasn't good enough and the endurance cost was too much of a problem. That's one of the reasons went with taking and slotting only 2 (single target) attacks.
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Add Arctic Air and you have the ultimate end hog. You can't keep that power running without 2-3 endurance reduction SOs and Stamina if you wish to do anything else at all.
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I don't doubt it - but you have the option to use it or not - it seems pretty powerful to me and is an option I don't have so there's that tradeoff; so sure, Ice/Ice can be endurance heavy but it looks to me that it also has more control in the primary and higher damage in the secondary. Did you know Ice Assault has the second highest damaging AoE attack and gets it at level 4? (the highest is Psionic at level 38).
I know it's a little off-topic, but I have to comment...
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Ice/Dark Corruptors on the other hand can control almost as well, easily do more damage and have significant aoe capabilities.
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No, we can't control anywhere NEAR as well as any Dominator. Yes, you can take three single-target holds... however, one of these has a three-second activation time that's such a pain that some Ice/ Corruptors drop it entirely. Corruptors have a much lower modifier on control effects, so these holds don't last anywhere near as long. I have a hard time keeping many bosses held with (slotted) Freeze Ray and Petrifying Gaze. Fearsome Stare is good Is that what you were meaning by AoE capabilities? Only thing I can think of.), but again, lower modifier means it really doesn't last massively long, and the moment you attack anything feared it hits back. I've killed myself by using a cone attack on things I'd just feared, in fact.
If I were to spend my time trying to effectively control, I'd have no time (or endurance) left to actually deal damage. So what Ice/Dark works out to be is - as it should be - a damage-dealer and debuffer who can throw a few handy control effects around sometimes. The build also has the worst endurance usage I've ever, ever played, which really factors into my general underuse of the control options. Oh, and the lower control mod again means that slows (which are classed as control, not a debuff) work better for Dominators than for Corruptors, so the slows from the Ice attacks and from Tar Patch aren't anything amazing. There really aren't any ATs or builds in CoV that step on Dominator's toes.
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You, Filth, should go play an Ice/Ice and come back to say that endurance isn't a problem. Where are you taking the numbers from anyway?
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As things stand on my Plant/Ice, I can run through missions without stopping using only Domination (to refill my Endurance), and maybe 1 blue in especially protracted fights. (pre-Stamina, pre-SOs)
I'm guessing therefore, that the problem lies in the Ice primary - or moreover, in heavy use of the toggles in both, with the additional expense of the secondary tipping the balance. Do you fight regularly with Arctic Air on? Do you need to? How are you slotted for Endurance Reductions in your most end-heavy powers?
Endurance is a problem for many builds, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything needs to be done about it, more that the player needs to manage his/her endurance more effectively. If endurance really is such an insurmountable issue for your specific build, then I'd list my concerns on the Suggestion forum using figures and extensive testing where appropriate - Cryptic have shown that they're more than willing to change endurance costs either in whole or in part where imbalances have occured.
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It's not an unsurmountable problem, it was fixed very neatly by getting Stamina at 22. I don't really have much trouble at the moment, although I will have to see how Greater Ice Sword and Bitter Ice Blast affect the situation. At the moment my biggest concern is recharge - there are very large gaps in my attack chain despite the fact that I have all the attacks from my secondary. But I come from a blaster/scrapper background so I'm probably expecting too much there. I will probably respec out of the AoE attacks when I have all the ST ones, so I can slot everything I have effectively and because I have some gripes with both of them.
Obviously I wasn't running any toggles when I was running out of endurance even without them. Like I said, the ST hold and the 3 attacks were enough. I suppose I could have managed it better by holding less, balancing the loss of HP and loss of endurance, but it seems off to not hold something you can hold.
I do question why Arctic Air is available at level 6 if you're not supposed to use it, though? It is not really needed when soloing, but in teams it makes a big difference . Much bigger than the puny attacks, but unfortunately you need the puny attacks to get Domination.
I do applaud people who have time and inclination to do extensive testing but unfortunately I'm not one of them. I can only give anecdotal evidence that my time before Stamina felt more painful than on any other toon I've played up to 20. Other comments I've seen by people with Ice/Ice seem to mirror my experience. I'm pretty sure it's because with low accuracy even slightly higher endurance cost and slightly lower damage add up. Moreover, this was my first CoV toon so I had little infamy for enhancements. However, I do fine now and thus have no vested interest in it anymore. It's unlikely I'll start another Ice/Ice anytime soon.
Hehe, sorry. That was sort of tongue in cheek anyway
Someone from US forums tested Icy assault numbers quite a while ago. I'll see if I can find the thread and check the numbers are same as in the SherkSilver builder, although I'm not sure if it included endurance costs. If needed, I'll try to muster up enough effort to check the assault numbers one of these days. The reason I distrust the planner numbers is because at least at some point right after the CoV launch they were taken directly from other ATs and were incorrect. Dominator powers apparently scale in a weird way too, so that melee brawl value is actually higher than ranged "brawl" value.
Ice Sword Circle does do really nice damage for a dominator, but I'm going to respec it out anyway. Reason: IMO the activation time, which is over 4 seconds, is way too long to fit my dominator playstyle. 4 seconds often feels like a lot of time to not to be able to cast any controls. It's also too slow for building domination and has a long recharge. And it eats a good chunk of endurance. But the damage is definitely good and I'll be sad to let it go, I just feel that in most situations there are other powers that will benefit me more.
I'm definitely not saying that Ice is a bad set, though. It's probably the best one out there for control, and the damage isn't bad although I'm surprised if it really is higher than Thorn. Thorn gets Aim for damage boost, though.
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The main difference between domination and containment is I get domination on at best 5% of attacks and containment on 95% of attacks.
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That's an unfair basis for comparison - largely because the containment you can do is due to your secondary, and very little to do with your Illusion primary. Most Ill 'trollers will be lucky to get a 60/40 split in the course of normal gameplay, with only Blind and Flash setting up containment (and even then Spectral Wounds only does partial containment damage, and the main source of Ill's damage - that of pets - isn't affected at all).
I may just be imagining things, but I've noticed that the secondary effects of the secondary (stay with me) get buffed by being a Dominator too - /Energy's stuns and KB, /Ice's slows. Maybe I'm just more appreciative of soft-control, but you can't fail to take that into consideration when making comparisons.
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Okay, I confess, /TA is the secret butt-kicking containment king, but even a regular controller gains containment far more often than a dominator gains domination.
As for the soft contol, yes slow is nice, but it doesn't keep me alive solo when using any aoe will get me killed in no time flat. MORE HP PLZ.
I really should do something about this signature.
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The main difference between domination and containment is I get domination on at best 5% of attacks and containment on 95% of attacks.
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That's an unfair basis for comparison - largely because the containment you can do is due to your secondary, and very little to do with your Illusion primary. Most Ill 'trollers will be lucky to get a 60/40 split in the course of normal gameplay, with only Blind and Flash setting up containment (and even then Spectral Wounds only does partial containment damage, and the main source of Ill's damage - that of pets - isn't affected at all).
I may just be imagining things, but I've noticed that the secondary effects of the secondary (stay with me) get buffed by being a Dominator too - /Energy's stuns and KB, /Ice's slows. Maybe I'm just more appreciative of soft-control, but you can't fail to take that into consideration when making comparisons.
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Okay, I confess, /TA is the secret butt-kicking containment king, but even a regular controller gains containment far more often than a dominator gains domination.
As for the soft contol, yes slow is nice, but it doesn't keep me alive solo when using any aoe will get me killed in no time flat. MORE HP PLZ.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Oh, they will! Jack makes such a difference. He has a sword attack that makes me drool if I can just get him to use it.
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Jack will stay at range using his Ice Bolt all the time, unless he gets hit, then he switchs to melee, runs in and starts using both his sword attacks and Freezing Touch (which is sooo good!) and the odd Ice Bolt, but usually just stands there waiting for his melee attacks to recharge
I had just the same problems pre-stamina with endurance. I am guessing Ice Sword Circle causes problems for a lot of */Ice doms and Arctic Air adds to them. I'm used to having to manage endurance coming from stone/stone tank so it wasn't too much of a shock, and as it turns out Thorn is pretty cheap compared to the other secondaries.
If you want to compare the endurance values you can do what I do and just read Character Builder, it pretty much supports what you're saying, but it also shows you the horrific costs of some of the other sets
Do you need Artic Air on? Well as the control and damage for ice mostly comes from Melee, you have no armour, then yeah I'd say a big part of playing an Ice Dom is using the toggles. Can I run both AA and CE at the same time? Only with a friendly Kin. I feel like a stone brute when I'm looking for a team, each corruptor I invite I hope is a Kin.
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I don't run artic air much at all, it usually generates far to much aggro. I'm still running out of end with all by toggles off (and I don't even have Ice Sword Circle).
I really should do something about this signature.
I didn't have any end problems with my mind/psi until I started dipping in the power pools for toggles to run during battle. I was amazed that by lvl 24 I didn't have or need hasten or stamina and had a good lockdown chain and I was useful in battles.
Running Stealth, Combat Jumping, Acrobatics and a couple of Leaderships was a bit too much though and I decided to get Stamina.
as far as i am concerned there is no way to fix the dominator AT, but made it a controller.
i think the Dominator is very bad. well in fact all AT of CoV suffer from a rigidity in their pool combinaison but this one isthe worst case?
first its controle magnitude is not equal as the troller one. cool they gave us Domination yippi 1 minute of normal control magnitude for 1558522 hour of poor control capacity (in PvP some ice corruptor hold far better than me and i can't put more than 4 acc so in a power i'm sorry).
ton continue what kind of dominator have we? only one. control/damage we only have choice in the color of the emote (you know ice is white, fire is red..)
and the "amage" set is ridiculous. it does ligth and sound but no damage. so in fact a dominator have only one poll power.
why no FF?
why no buf/debuf?
instead of that "damage" pool that is useless?
ifyou wantto fix Dominator then give them theopportunity to choose their secondary set in other AT (like trolleur) and give them some defense or life.
and stop doing such unplayable power like arctic air (i have it sloted with 4 -end reduc SO and 2 -confusion SO + the Endurance power sloted with 6 -end SO. if i turn it on i hold, i attack one time and then no endurance left. cool the better power of the set is unplayable and nullifiate the endurance power taht cost you 3 power to have : /)
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as far as i am concerned there is no way to fix the dominator AT, but made it a controller.
i think the Dominator is very bad. well in fact all AT of CoV suffer from a rigidity in their pool combinaison but this one isthe worst case?
first its controle magnitude is not equal as the troller one. cool they gave us Domination yippi 1 minute of normal control magnitude for 1558522 hour of poor control capacity (in PvP some ice corruptor hold far better than me and i can't put more than 4 acc so in a power i'm sorry).
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you are wrong - the magnitude is the same, as well as that the Mag is doubled during Domination, duration is also greater with Domination. Without domination the duration is less than a controller that is the difference (and Controllers sometimes critical their holds).
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ton continue what kind of dominator have we? only one. control/damage we only have choice in the color of the emote (you know ice is white, fire is red..)
and the "amage" set is ridiculous. it does ligth and sound but no damage. so in fact a dominator have only one poll power.
why no FF?
why no buf/debuf?
instead of that "damage" pool that is useless?
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The secondary isn't useless - it isn't as good as a Corrupter but it's not bad at all, it could be improved a little.
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ifyou wantto fix Dominator then give them theopportunity to choose their secondary set in other AT (like trolleur) and give them some defense or life.
and stop doing such unplayable power like arctic air (i have it sloted with 4 -end reduc SO and 2 -confusion SO + the Endurance power sloted with 6 -end SO. if i turn it on i hold, i attack one time and then no endurance left. cool the better power of the set is unplayable and nullifiate the endurance power taht cost you 3 power to have : /)
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6 slotting Stamina is a bit silly. Slot some End Reducers in your attacks, be careful how often you use AoE attacks, don't run Artic Air all the time. Dominators aren't Controllers - but their control powers can be much more effective with Domination.
I like domination when it's up, but It doesn't really compensate for the "down time"
And I find myself just controlling during a battle anyway and leaving the damage output to everyone else, as they are all better at it than I am. Don't know whether this is because I'm used to playing as a pure support class in CoH or not, but due to the shorter hold lengths with a dominator I find myself not really having time to deal damage either.
I usually focus almost completly on control when teamed - there are always far better damage dealers on the team.
That's ther problem really, a secondary that is of little use. Defenders and Blasters have weak secondaries too, but at least for them thier primary is the best at doing what they do.
I really should do something about this signature.
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It's endurance per point of damage that is the issue.
It goes like this for a solo boss fight:
1) Activate domination, hold boss, kill minions
2) Refresh hold on boss, use secondary attack to damage boss
3) Repeat 2)
4) Domination expires
5) Endurance runs out with the boss still at 10% hp
6) Boss kills dom
ant that is just for 1 equal level boss.
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I tried doing a careful test myself using your situation. I'm level 34 plant/thorn. I deliberately didn't use the Flytrap pet or Confuse in order to not get any damage help from either.
I've got 2 main attacks 6 slotted - Skewer and Impale with 2 ACC, 3 DMG, 1 Recharge, I also have the base attack with the one slot for ACC. All three of these attacks are single target, both Skewer and Impale are supposed to be 'moderate' damage - Skewer does more damage and is melee. To an even level no-resistance-to-Lethal minion at this level I'm doing around 100 points of damage with Skewer and (I think) 74 with Impale.
Anyway, I didn't have the fatal problems with Endurance / Damage that you're describing. I could Hold the Boss, use an AoE control power on the group (Creepers) and dispatch the minions/Lts whilst keeping the boss Held, then switch to the boss and finish him off.
This is without using Domination. If I do use Domination I seem to get a +40% damage boost along with the Mag & duration increase. Maybe it's just a difference in tactics or power use - I don't use or have any AoE/Cone attacks from the Assault set and this certainly saves me endurance. Impale and Skewer are the only attacks I've actually chosen so far.
I just took a look at comparing Ice Bolt+Ice Sword+Ice Blast with Thorny Darts+Slewer+Impale (so the 3 basic single target attacks) and they are very close - ice is very slightly more endurance intensive and does very slightly less damage. If you figure in the Cone/Aoe attacks it gets more complicated - ice starts doing more damage and ramping up the endurance use.