My fire/fire is level 13 and the control seems desperately bad to me, but then I'm comparing to Ice and Plant, both quite early bloomers. The problem is that Flashfire requires heavy slotting to be useful. On a plus side, everything seems to do a lot of damage and I expect Fiery Embrace at 16 will almost make me a damage dealer, as opposed to a poor blapper with a little more control.
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Soloing is very easy now....even lvl minions are falling like flies.
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Hm. With my Plant/Thorns at L41, set on Vicious, I am taking on yellows, oranges and reds without undue problems. Teamed with 1 or 2 others (notably a brute and/or corrupter), we just eat our way through anything and everything up to and including Elite Bosses.
While I confess that Plant/Fire may be better for damage, following my respec (where I dropped Thorn Burst and Spirit Tree in exchange for the Medicine pool) I am extremely happy with my powersets 
Sounds good _Doc_ , but if damage is what you are after why didnt you rolled a corruptor instead !?
I know well that corruptors cant possibly hold an Elite Boss or even a boss...but still.
This is not an attack on you _Doc_ but it just seems that more and more forgets the main role of Dominators, namely crowd control.
Jeg leser i h�nden, om tiden som kommer.
Jeg lytter til havet, og ser tiden som var.
Jeg snakker med fjell, og tiden st�r stille.
Jeg snakker med meg selv, og tiden g�r.
Jeg lukker et �ye, og ser halvt.
Jeg lukker begge, og ser alt.
La meg ligge...
La meg ligge...
La meg ligge...igjen.
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Sounds good _Doc_ , but if damage is what you are after why didnt you rolled a corruptor instead !?
I know well that corruptors cant possibly hold an Elite Boss or even a boss...but still.
This is not an attack on you _Doc_ but it just seems that more and more forgets the main role of Dominators, namely crowd control.
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Dominators are balanced between control and damage. During Domination they will out-damage most Corruptors. Playing them like a Controller doesn't make the most of them.
Although I doubt that dominators outdamage most corruptors during domination... uhmmm, ok, I have seen some corruptors with really crappy damage output... ok, I don´t doubt that they outdamage many corruptors and I must truly second your point of view.
It is true that some dominator builds are more control-heavy than others, but even they have a very different playstyle from controllers if they want to use their abilities for optimum effect.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
I'd wager my fire/fire will in time outdamage quite a few corruptors outside Domination. 
From what I've seen, high level fire/fire doms absolutely destroy things.
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Sounds good _Doc_ , but if damage is what you are after why didnt you rolled a corruptor instead !?
I know well that corruptors cant possibly hold an Elite Boss or even a boss...but still.
This is not an attack on you _Doc_ but it just seems that more and more forgets the main role of Dominators, namely crowd control.
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Dominators are balanced between control and damage. During Domination they will out-damage most Corruptors. Playing them like a Controller doesn't make the most of them.
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I know Filth, but when dominators seriously starts lacking on the control side they should rethink their template....or even their choice of class.
By all means, people should have their own style of play...but you dont pick a healing class and are more worried about boosting your damage than healing...forexample.
But Im gonna stop here as this discussion doesnt have very much to do about the OP.
Jeg leser i h�nden, om tiden som kommer.
Jeg lytter til havet, og ser tiden som var.
Jeg snakker med fjell, og tiden st�r stille.
Jeg snakker med meg selv, og tiden g�r.
Jeg lukker et �ye, og ser halvt.
Jeg lukker begge, og ser alt.
La meg ligge...
La meg ligge...
La meg ligge...igjen.
A rant forthcoming, so beware
Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much? Nobody tells scrappers to take less powers from their secondary, nobody complains when controllers slot their secondary early and spend half their time using it. But dominators, defenders and tankers? Oh noes, it's a gimp, a scranker, an offender, a scrapinator and should come with a health warning!
I think the reason why a lot of people have trouble with their dominators is precisely because they neglect their secondaries. A dominator's secondary supports the primary just as much as scrappers' defense sets do. The secondary eliminates enemies before controls run out and so helps to keep the dominator alive, it has self buffs and utility powers that make the primary better and most of all, it builds Domination. A Dominator who doesn't use the secondary a lot is nothing but a controller with a gimped primary and no secondary. So, if you need to use them anyway, why would you not want them to be as effective as possible?
Another reason to build secondary heavy is the nature of the sets themselves. The control sets tend to have a few standout powers and lots of others that have a marginal use. Often, the difference between taking all of the primary and skipping half of it is not very noticeable. Skipping something like AoE immobilize doesn't make me much worse at control, in most situations it just makes me less dead. Everything has its uses in some situations, but does it have more use than an attack I can use all the time, in every fight? Even if the damage isn't quite corruptor level (and it's not like it's that far behind, dominator melee damage is on same scale as corruptor ranged damage), it does add up.
Don't get me wrong, I see my Dominators' primary role as crowd control. I just happen to think that having a good sortiment of well slotted secondary powers makes me better at it. 
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Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much?
[/ QUOTE ]Any character who neglects their secondary is ineffective, and more of a liability than one doesn't, IMNSHO.
My point, Pee Wee, related to the thread subject - _soloing_ as a dominator (although I did throw in the bit about teaming with a couple of other alts). If you don't have the ability to damage things, it makes soloing a whole lot harder... 
P.S. And, just FYI, I have a 41 dom, a 41 MM, a 32 Brute, a 30 Brute, a 27 MM, a 26 corrupter, a 19 MM and a 10 corrupter. As you can see, I'm not short of alts...that was just the villains *grin*
P.P.S. And I do have a 'test' stalker at L6, but don't like it much
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Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much?
[/ QUOTE ]Any character who neglects their secondary is ineffective, and more of a liability than one doesn't, IMNSHO.
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Not true, my pure empath is awesome, my defenceless EA stalkers are more than effective, my AR/Dark and my Rad/Kin corrupters with only 2 attacks from their primaries are also huge boons to teams. As always its what you do with them which counts
**Acceptable "support" responses**
Its your fault
Its your computers fault
Its your ISPs fault
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Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much?
[/ QUOTE ]Any character who neglects their secondary is ineffective, and more of a liability than one doesn't, IMNSHO.
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Thats rubbish, it depends on what role you want to play.
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Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much?
[/ QUOTE ]Any character who neglects their secondary is ineffective, and more of a liability than one doesn't, IMNSHO.
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Thats rubbish, it depends on what role you want to play.
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A specialist character works well with other specialized characters, if they cover different aspects. This often leads to the "Holy Trinity" of MMOs (Tank, Healer, Nuker). This approach is popular with those who are used to such from other MMOs and those who want to be needed.
A generalist works well with other generalists, almost regardless of how they've set up. This is what the ATs in CoV seem geared towards, everyone can deal decent damage and provide some level of self/team-defense. This approach is popular with those who want to solo and those who want to be able to just add people to a team without any requirements (beyond level).
Mixing generalists and specialists is frequently not as useful as pure teams of either type. The specialists will be overkill in their area(s) while the generalists will cover the remaining angles less adequately.
The above assumes adequate communication between the players and equal levels of skill. It is also a very broad generalization.
All those character would be better if they also had a few secondary or primary powers. They might be good now, but when you get some more powers from the other set they're even better 
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All those character would be better if they also had a few secondary or primary powers. They might be good now, but when you get some more powers from the other set they're even better
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nope, its the mix of playstyle and powerpools that create awesome specialised characters, taking more powers for primary/secondary would only compromise the specific build. Its far better to excel at one thing than be mediore a several and those who know my alts can verify they are pretty much optimised.
My ice/ice dom is taking large chunks of both primary and secondary but thats becasue the powers compliment what I want this character to acheive.
**Acceptable "support" responses**
Its your fault
Its your computers fault
Its your ISPs fault
Any character that can't solo (pure healing troller/defender/corrupter, tanks using only the basic attack and taunt, doms without attacks, etc.) are not good characters IMO, they may be good in teams but the CoV/H population isn't big enough to do that. An empath without attacks will have keep spamming heals/buffs and can't help the rest of the team picking of the minions. A Troller with only holds will make the battle easier, but using buffs/debuffs it will also be faster. Specialised characters excel at one thing to help the team, but dropping a few powers (and thus making them less capable of healing/buffing/holding/etc.) and pick maybe a few damageing or buffing attacks will boost the teams speed.
A corr wasn't designed to be a reversed defender or a only blasting blaster. A tnaker wasn't designed to be a wall only using taunt and dealing low amounts of damage, defenders aren't intended to only use buffs and neglect damage. It's what makes the AT the AT it is and not some generic charcter. The "holy trinty" in CoH/V will be effective, but it won't be as effective as the same team using a blaster that also melees, a tanker with more than just jab and taunt and a defender using singletarget attacks to kill the leftovers.
Cleary you never partied with a dedicated empath or a fulltank tanker... And judging what are 'bad' characters, wrong again.
I can name several sets that even taking every single power of prim and sec, still cant solo very well.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
Go on then
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I can name several sets that even taking every single power of prim and sec, still cant solo very well.
[/ QUOTE ]Is that 'taking' or 'taking and slotting correctly'?
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Cleary you never partied with a dedicated empath or a fulltank tanker... And judging what are 'bad' characters, wrong again.
I can name several sets that even taking every single power of prim and sec, still cant solo very well.
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I've never seen a situation where a "pure" Empath was needed. Nor a "pure" Tank. Unless of course you're talking about something like herding an entire 8-man outdoor mission on highest difficulty after ED. Then again, you'll have a small problem holding the aggro of that, or defeating it the same way as before the AoE target limit.
The powers that make an Empath worthwhile to team with are the buffs (Fort, AB and both RAs) that let him/her concentrate on something else than the green bars. That "something else" preferably being defeating enemies.
Any Defender primary can step in and take over for a "pure" Empath, without going "pure". You just have to employ a different tactic than "Tank Aggro, Healer Heal, Nuker Nuke". The Holy Trinity of MMOs isn't required to run at the highest level of efficiency in CoX. You should try an 8 Rad/x Offender team at some point, you may even learn a thing or two.
You need competent players much more than you need specific ATs, except when the devs make something like the recent AV regen debacle. Then again, the player solution for that would you not find in any amount of "pure" Empaths or Tanks. In fact, both of those styles were counter productive in that situation.
As for soloing, you need to slot your attacks. If you do that then even an Empathy Defender with only two single target attacks should be able to solo his/her missions (barring EB/AV). Not at the speed of a SO'd Scrapper, but don't expect anything but a Fire Epic Controller to catch the solo speed of a well designed Scrapper.
That is purely from a view how you want them to play the game. Welcome to the world of MMO's and its huge different sides of balance.
Scranker, offender, 100% empath are wrong? Why i would ask.. If this player like to be a no-attacking defender its his full right be one, because every ying has its yang. I've been in 3 blaster/1 defender Positron TF, you think that defender did a single attack? It was the healing that kept us alive.
Fire tankers (talking lvl36) with only blazing aura and fire shield, tell them to f00k off because they cant mean anything to the team?
Reminds me of the topic about the defender without Fort who got kicked from the team or my yesterday encounter of a rad\ being kicked because he only had AM and Mutation.
My empath has 2 attacks from /rad, its my choice. Yeah, i can solo missions, about 25 minutes per mission on heroic. Nope, then i rather join a team that accepts the fact im a full empath healer, a full empath that i like to be.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
Totally agree with the last argumentation of Sinergy-X, but just 1 thing...
I would like to go a bit further in ur explanation: as a teamer, i like to play my toons depending in the team i am, so, if im in a 3brutes/1corr/1dom(me) group, i would spam mostly control, and this dont makes me a controller. If im in another kind of team, i just adapt my way to play to get the better for my team... This is, imho, the best way to teaming and play...
The problem is that, if u make a toon with just 1/2 power of ur prim or sec set, u are just reducing urself the plenty ways u can play it.
I try to build my toons as flexible as i can, mostly seeing in soloing missions, and then i try to get a team, and enjoy the game, making my teamm8s life much easier... If the team needs me to kill mobs, i will do it (try it at least ). If they need support, i will do it, without any problem...
If i build my toon only with assaults powwers, or only with control powers, i will be suxin air when i found a team that need me other thing that im built for...
Thats just my opinion. No intention in being rude.
Peace.
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nope, its the mix of playstyle and powerpools that create awesome specialised characters, taking more powers for primary/secondary would only compromise the specific build. Its far better to excel at one thing than be mediore a several and those who know my alts can verify they are pretty much optimised.
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Some of us can multitask and excel at more than one thing.
A "pure" anything is far from useless, but far from optimal in anything other than a PuG or PvP.
My empath is pretty pure with 2 secondaries but i do have 4 epic powers as i do like 3 of them being controlling therefore damage mitigating. I personally would find soloing an empath a slow bore even with all the secondaries so i much rather base my slots on team effectiveness. Empathy does no debuffing to make better the use of the secondary powers and the only self buffs are regen aura recovery aura and heal aura out of 9 powers making it even more team biased anyway. In teams other sets are more likely to offer more time or no choice for time to be offensive and/or more damaging. I'd prefer not to be caught in a pants for damage action time when someone is killed or mezzed as it lowers the rest of the teams overall dps. I will say cleverly selective timed use of attacks is okay.
As for best dom to prolly solo i reckon fire/ice would be good.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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My Fire/Thorns isn't much fun to solo at the mo. Only level 14 though and I hear Thorns is quite a late blooming set with 2 great end powers. Plus Fire Imps at 32 would be great for soloing.
Plus I initially tried a Damage King build with Hotfeet & Firecages. Just gets you killed a lot it seems. I've Freespeced the build and am planning to get Aid Other/Self. Then I reckon it'll be a good late soloer.
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My sense of Fire control is that it isn't as good as other sets for control, especially solo, not that it's bad.
Thorns does have good attacks - Skewer & Impale, and a decent Cone attack if AoEs are your thing. The problem with Thorns is that it's the slowest assault set for building Domination, since trying Psi I've realised how much of a difference this makes. I've found Thorns good for PvP though, and yes the last two powers are great.