Mind /energy or Psionic?

hey guys!

i really want to start a dominator but i am really torn between Energy and Psionics, especially with there being a buff (am i correct??) to psionics in i8.

what are the stong/weak points of energy and psionics??

cheers, Pidg

Im not sure if there is a buff, but as far as I know the animation of psionic dart (or mental blast cant remember) will be fixed so it is much faster and more in line with other sets.

Personally I think that energy is good for power boost and decent melee attacks. Those who know psionic can tell about that set. Power boosts ability to double your mez durations for a moment is nothing to scoff at though.

Damage wise they feel pretty similar to me. /psi has been tough previously at certain levels because a lot of people dont take mental blast, obviously not a problem soon. With drain psyche you can leave out the fitness pool, its a bit tricky to use, if you play your doms like a pinball machine you might like DP over stamina. With /psi carnies will make you cry, I normally stock up on inspirations and confuse other players to help me :P

I've got a Mind/Psi Dominator, and I would recommend taking the fitness pool even if you do grab Drain Psyche.

While it is definitely worth grabbing and definitely very useful, Drain PSyche's buff is very short duration and is a little situational (it needs nearby enemies for example) to rely on all the time.

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Damage wise they feel pretty similar to me. /psi has been tough previously at certain levels because a lot of people dont take mental blast, obviously not a problem soon. With drain psyche you can leave out the fitness pool, its a bit tricky to use, if you play your doms like a pinball machine you might like DP over stamina. With /psi carnies will make you cry, I normally stock up on inspirations and confuse other players to help me :P

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I skipped Mental Blast - and plenty more. With my Mind/Psi I've got to L23 using the same 3 attacks I've had since L4 - Psionic Dart, Mind Probe & Levitate (handy for psi-resistant enemies I figured, and better damage than any of the attacks I've skipped) - not really any gaps in that attack chain (thanks to Psi Dart being so fast) so it builds Domination fast too - but it's certainly been an experience I wouldn't recommend to others because my playstyle has been the same for 17 levels (since getting Confuse at L6) while I took lots of pool powers

The only time I've felt I'm doing decent damage is against enemies weak to psi (CoT spectrals especially, but also Clocks), otherwise it's felt horribly weak on damage compared to my other characters (and compared to my Plant/Thorny duo partner), even with Domination running, and not much safer either (usually the opposite). Honestly I can't wait to get Subdue, Terrify (slotting it for damage) and Psychic Shockwave, if only for some variety - god I hope they're worth waiting for

I've played all the dom secondaries to L10-14 and Psi is definitely the weakest early on I'd say (but lightest on End pre-Stamina, possibly tied with Thorns), but fastest for building Domination because of Psi Dart. /Ice would have been my choice for early damage, but sometimes with Mind/Ice I found myself struggling to finish solo spawns on Villainous at low levels before my End ran out.

I can solo slowly on Villainous (thanks to Confuse, mainly), but honestly I doubt I'd have stuck with Mind/Psi past the teens if I wasn't teaming 99% of the time with my regular duo partner (the aforementioned Plant/Thorny). So I think Mind/Psi is one for patient people only - from my experience it's taking a long time to get good (probably due as much to my build as the powersets, but I didn't want to have to do pre- and post- respec builds, and there are so many good powers to take later in both sets I wanted to fit in all the power pools early).

Oh and I took Stamina at 20 and was glad I did as I can run non-stop now - so I put off DP til 24 (I took Acro at 22).

I think stamina is pretty much a must for dominators because they are spamming so many holds and stuff.

I have a lvl 28 mind/energy dominator atm and I use just bonesmasher and total focus from the secondary. I had power blast earlier but I respecced it away because it's negligible damage. Power bolt is obviously even weaker, but I must take it. The damage output is bearable atm and I can easily solo missions on relatively low difficulty(propably higher one as well) now that I got Terrify. I recommend leaving total domination until later with mind doms because its duration/recharge will cause problems. Terrify is 10 times better than total domination straight out of the box, especially with power boost I will get all AoEs save mass hypno for my dom eventually.

The major weakness in the psy assault set is the lack of a boost power, ice&energy both have a boost that effects mez duration, fire has a damage boost that will also effect fire primary and spines has an accurecy boost.

The damage amounts are low for psi esp on the ranged attacks, but every dom's ranged attacks are weak, it's the melee ranged attacks that do the damage.
The real crowning glory to psy assault is the last power, which is a devistating PbAoE which can realy chew through groups of mobs.

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The major weakness in the psy assault set is the lack of a boost power, ice&energy both have a boost that effects mez duration, fire has a damage boost that will also effect fire primary and spines has an accurecy boost

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Yeah /Psi should have got something buff-like in place of Mental Blast or TK Thrust - maybe Power Build Up Though in all seriousness I think Drain Psyche is supposed to fill that "buff" niche. Sadly it doesn't do what /Psi really needs imho - a damage boost.

Honestly I wish they'd just remove the damage boost from domination and instead give dominators an across the board damage increase to make up for it. I know it's supposed to be a Jekyll & Hyde AT, but you spend most of the time as poor weak Jekyll - imho the AT only feels close to being on par with the other villain ATs when domination is running.

Or alternatively they could just drop TK Thrust & Mental Blast and instead give us TK Blast and Will Domination from the Psychic Blast defender set

I play a Mind/Psy and I can tell you that the damage is bad. I am now lvl 39 and the only saving grace is psy shockwave, it charges fast and does awesome dmg. I solo on ruthless and never ever die, the problem is: I take almost 3/4 of my end bar to kill one purple leut non dominated.

Confuse helps a lot with this, I even "drive" mobs towards a purple leut with TK to get more DPS.

The other thing is: you are so gimped in most people's eyes that you will not get a group unless your SG/friend group supports you. Hence I solo PVP zone missions non stop for xp.

Sure its the safest dom to play, more holds than a WWE match and they last longer but you still take 5 minutes to dig your way through a orange vault door with your spoon. Also, doing story arcs after 35 or so becomes almost impossible, as soon as you meet an EB solo, bye bye. I cant even solo a yellow EB.

Good luck!

Fortunately I have a regular duo partner - I only play my dom when he is playing his (which is 99% of our playing time at the moment). I've had a couple of team invites, no doubt from people who probably didn't realise I was a dom and already teamed

Duoing we've had few problems with native EBs - nothing a hefty dose of Lucks and both using Domination couldn't solve - even Ballista-1 was easy once we had persuaded his Longbow friends to help kill him - but we've only faced two AV-downgrade EBs with purple triangles (Calystix and Silver Mantis) and they were tougher but not too bad (in fact Calystix was surprising easy - oddly enough he didn't summon anything, even though we couldn't hold him as PToDs came back up - but he usually summons slag golems as an EB (like he does as an AV) as he did against my corruptor solo on Vicious) - I certainly don't fancy meeting more AV-downgrades though.

Got Terrify this weekend which made things a bit more bearable and I should get Subdue this evening, then I just need to slot them up (I put the 2 slots at L27 into Terrify). We've been staying with Villainous because we still suffer more than enough deaths on that reputation level (with our other duos we usually played on Vicious/Ruthless/Relentless with very few deaths). I still feel weak against everything except CoT spectrals though (they seem to take double damage from psionic-based attacks) - partly because we're playing on Villainous and our levelling speed is slow (cos of the xp confuse takes, plus our low damage, plus lower mission bonuses on Villainous, plus the debt we've been getting - we have a slower time-to-kill on spawns and less xp from them than any of the other duos we've done).

I can't wait for Psy Shockwave - if I ever get to L38 - we may not - even my Plant/Thorns partner feels weak compared to the tons of brutes/MMs/corrs we've played in duos (when, in my eyes, his dom is much more powerful than my Mind/Psi as he can kill most stuff faster), and I know I wouldn't have persisted with my Mind/Psi without him - so I think its very likely that I8 will arrive and tempt us both to play heroes again before we get anywhere near the late 30s with our doms.

It's a shame, but our doms just seem to totally suck at PvE compared to the other ATs we've played (only my Stalker levelled slower, and only at those times I soloed him at lower levels when I didn't have a group of friends to "carry" me). They feel inadequate at everything except control, even when Domination is up, and they rely on Domination far more than any other AT relies on their inherent, with the exception of brutes - but then at least brutes can benefit from their inherent 99% of the time, when with doms it's more like 30% of the time, if that (and I build Domination fast, I just have to wait for that silly button to come back up). It's not even that there is a big pay-off waiting for Doms at the higher levels, because PPPs suck and I'm well aware how little Doms bring to the LRSF

There are 3 things I think the Devs could do to improve doms - 1) improve their normal damage, even if it means losing the damage boost from Domination, 2) make the domination button available immediately as soon as Domination ends, 3) scrap the purple triangles of doom on AVs/Heroes (and their EB downgrades) and introduce suppression instead to prevent perma-holding them (similar to what I understand players get in PvP)

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They feel inadequate at everything except control, even when Domination is up,

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I agree to this wholeheartedly. Im getting more control powers because I feel thet the secondary (I have energy) is pretty pants.

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and they rely on Domination far more than any other AT relies on their inherent, with the exception of brutes -


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ALthough I disagree with this, I don't rely on domination as such, mostly I use it just to fill my end bar, or save it for the odd elite boss. I have not even been thinking about domination the few times I have PvPed.

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There are 3 things I think the Devs could do to improve doms - 1) improve their normal damage, even if it means losing the damage boost from Domination, 2) make the domination button available immediately as soon as Domination ends, 3) scrap the purple triangles of doom on AVs/Heroes (and their EB downgrades) and introduce suppression instead to prevent perma-holding them (similar to what I understand players get in PvP)

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Id like to see all these happen.

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and they rely on Domination far more than any other AT relies on their inherent, with the exception of brutes -


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ALthough I disagree with this, I don't rely on domination as such, mostly I use it just to fill my end bar, or save it for the odd elite boss. I have not even been thinking about domination the few times I have PvPed.


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That's possibly because of how I've started using Domination.

Pre-Stamina I mainly used it to refill my End-bar, as did my duo partner.

Post-Stamina we both started saving it for boss fights, however I figured we both had holds and both had confuses so could handle a boss even without domination, and Stamina and Drain Psyche solved most of my End probs, so I started using Domination purely for the damage boost - basically I use it now as soon as it is available.

I can usually get Domination up 2-4 times per mission and I feel the damage boost helps me slightly to get on par with my Plant/Thorns partner damage-wise - he still saves domination for the boss. The only time I save Domination now is when I know an EB is coming.

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There are 3 things I think the Devs could do to improve doms - 1) improve their normal damage, even if it means losing the damage boost from Domination, 2) make the domination button available immediately as soon as Domination ends, 3) scrap the purple triangles of doom on AVs/Heroes (and their EB downgrades) and introduce suppression instead to prevent perma-holding them (similar to what I understand players get in PvP)

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Id like to see all these happen.

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Oh and I've read people saying on US forums and these forums that we'd never get a damage boost to our base melee/ranged damage modifiers, because we're already too near to Corruptor damage base and they have damage as primary set. I'd argue it wouldn't matter so much if we had same damage base as them, or even slightly higher, because most corruptors would still outdamage us due to scourge and the damage boosts available in several of the corruptor secondaries (either directly from AM, FS, Siphon Power etc, or indirectly from -res debuffing in Tar Patch, EF, etc.).

In truth the other change I think dominators should have had from the start, which would have justified a higher damage base (and the fact our control durations are gimped anyway compared to controllers), and made it easier for us to get a working attack chain quickly, would have been if our primaries and secondaries were reversed so Assault set was primary and Control set was secondary. Honestly all the other CoV ATs set that precedent anyway (damage as primary).

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That's possibly because of how I've started using Domination.

Pre-Stamina I mainly used it to refill my End-bar, as did my duo partner.

Post-Stamina we both started saving it for boss fights, however I figured we both had holds and both had confuses so could handle a boss even without domination, and Stamina and Drain Psyche solved most of my End probs, so I started using Domination purely for the damage boost - basically I use it now as soon as it is available.

I can usually get Domination up 2-4 times per mission and I feel the damage boost helps me slightly to get on par with my Plant/Thorns partner damage-wise - he still saves domination for the boss. The only time I save Domination now is when I know an EB is coming.

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I have stamina, without it I would class my dom as utter junk. For my opinion domination is not up often or fast enough or last long enough to make me bother with it really.

ps. and its not like I class corrupters as a damaging archetype either.. (dammit I can't believe how biased I really am to my blaster and stalker..)

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ps. and its not like I class corrupters as a damaging archetype either.. (dammit I can't believe how biased I really am to my blaster and stalker..)

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Again I'm probably biased cos my two are Fire/Rad and Ice/Dark, so both have high damage primaries (formerly blaster-only) coupled with highly soloable secondaries that can debuff resist.

I'm looking forward to playing blasters more post-I8 (it's the main CoH AT I'm interested in atm) - my stalker is a damage-machine, but only in burst mode; my EM/Elec brute and Bot/Dark MM could both slice through missions faster solo at L35 than my EM/EA stalker can - in fact I think of my EM/Elec brute as my heavy-stalker cos he can one-shot his way into and out of spawns faster than my stalker can, once his Fury gets going (which isn't hard with EM).

Hammerfall, can I make a suggestion since you seem so unhappy with your dominator yet determined to play it?

I think a big part of the problem is that you have decided the secondary is pants and are playing your dominator like a controller with no secondary but instead a few power pool attacks. Maybe I'm assuming too much here, but that's what it sounds like. If that's the case, no wonder you're having a bad time. Why not try to invest in your secondary more, power pick, slotting and playstylewise, and see if that improves things?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of the suggestions here, I just don't think it's quite so miserable at the moment. Lots of people manage to have good time playing their dominators and in general they seem to be the ones that play aggressively, constantly striving for Domination, and pick and use a lot of powers from the secondaries. Sure, damage is not great, especially before mid 30s, but with enough spamming it adds up.

Some things I have read in this thread confuse me... Talking about confuse: I love my mind/psi dominator not only because of her good looks, but because she is so damn powerful. I am quite impressed how easily she takes on almost anything. Soloing Elite-Bosses is no real challenge... although I have to admit she is quite weak if I compare her to what she will become after I8.
I recently took my I8 build to Test (very aggressive domination building) and was honestly shocked. I took on groups of six +1/+2 enemies and they actually dropped really fast without doing any harm to me. Sure, my brute or my corruptor would have dropped them slightly faster (although not much), but both of them would have taken some damage during that fight. Did I mention that domination was up after one such spawn and the next enemies thus fell even faster?

And I have to add that I thought similar things when I read Hammerfall´s posting. Domination too slow to bother? Corruptors not being a damaging class but stalkers are? Sorry, but at least mind/psi builds domination fast enough that it is up most of the time (and will - like mentioned - be even better after I8) and with my kinetic corruptor I outdamage any stalker without breaking into a sweat... well, actually not quite without breaking into a sweat, but that´s kinetic style.

Its not like that Im not having good time with my dominator, I have been having a blast with my friends rad/rad corrupter. My dom also plays PvE very safely.

What I wanted to point out is that dominators feel more *controllerish* than controllers themselves, imo, having to focus on the primary. Second I have never been very happy about devs policy regarding domination (and especially since they want to pile any good buff changes dominators are getting INTO domination and not anywhere else.)

Most importantly, everytime I moan a lot, it is because of PvP, I just think that everybody and their dog, cat and gerbil can PvE effectively, so Im not usually ever moaning for PvE changes. In PvP dominators need a LOT of attention. I guess often I don't make myself clear enough that im thinking about PvP.

LAst time I really moaned after PVE changes was before the changes to claws animation times. Which they came up with and now claws is good.

PS. Indeed there is one thing.. Total Domination needs its duration increased..

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Hammerfall, can I make a suggestion since you seem so unhappy with your dominator yet determined to play it?

I think a big part of the problem is that you have decided the secondary is pants and are playing your dominator like a controller with no secondary but instead a few power pool attacks. Maybe I'm assuming too much here, but that's what it sounds like. If that's the case, no wonder you're having a bad time. Why not try to invest in your secondary more, power pick, slotting and playstylewise, and see if that improves things?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of the suggestions here, I just don't think it's quite so miserable at the moment. Lots of people manage to have good time playing their dominators and in general they seem to be the ones that play aggressively, constantly striving for Domination, and pick and use a lot of powers from the secondaries. Sure, damage is not great, especially before mid 30s, but with enough spamming it adds up.

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On the flipside I've tried to play mine like a blapper, focusing on max-slotting attacks over controls - in fact Terrify is the first AE control I've taken, as I thought the AE hold would be too short duration, the AE sleep would be negligible with my partner having cone confuse, and TK would stress my End too much pre-Stamina - and honestly I haven't found it that much more fun. And control is my second favourite thing in the game after damage, just ahead of debuffing (I'd say my fave ATs are brutes, MMs, blasters, scrappers, debuffing/controlling corruptors then stalkers - so I really am a sustained damage junkie).

Maybe I should have picked a different secondary (I have no problems with my primary on the whole), but I didn't like the changed look of the red blasts in Energy, I had already played most of the Fire attacks on my corruptor and brute, already had Thorns on my Plant/Thorns dom (which stalled solo in the early teens - I definitely know I don't want to solo a dom), and I avoided Ice because I knew it drained end even worse than the other secondary sets, from back when I played them all to early teens in the first couple of months of CoV.

So I don't know what to do - maybe doms just aren't for me. I do like the basic gameplay and the fact its so busy and tactical - I even want to play a controller once my friend and I devote time to CoH post-I8 - I just hate feeling so gimped when I play my dominators compared to every other archetype I've played, in almost every situation.

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What I wanted to point out is that dominators feel more *controllerish* than controllers themselves, imo, having to focus on the primary.

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Considering your missing trust in domination this statement is no big surprise. On the other hand this is exactly the point, why domination seems not to be working for you.
If I relied too much on my mind/ primary it would be a lot harder to build domination (and PvP would be next to impossible), but with a nice mix of /psi secondary powers neither domination nor Pvp are too much of a problem. Even if your PvP opponent brought breakfrees he will notice the power boost from domination and the -recharge from psi... and your mez protection due to domination running.

PS: And you are totally right about Total Domination. IMO it´s hardly worth taking as it is since there is so much good control in mind/.

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Considering your missing trust in domination this statement is no big surprise. On the other hand this is exactly the point, why domination seems not to be working for you.
If I relied too much on my mind/ primary it would be a lot harder to build domination (and PvP would be next to impossible), but with a nice mix of /psi secondary powers neither domination nor Pvp are too much of a problem. Even if your PvP opponent brought breakfrees he will notice the power boost from domination and the -recharge from psi... and your mez protection due to domination running.

PS: And you are totally right about Total Domination. IMO it´s hardly worth taking as it is since there is so much good control in mind/.

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I hope were not letting this conversation veer into PvP. Well. first you have psi and I dont. I dont know how good domination buildup is with psi as my /psi dom is very low. I didnt notice any particular difference though. I acknowledge that psi has better spammable ranged attacks than energy. Biggest problem why I dont like to spam random powers to build domination up is because it is a waste of endurance. Instead I spam dominate and mesmerize which are up practically constantly.

Secondly it is natural that domination helps in PvP to drop toggles. I have however already dropped toggles and held scrappers, tanks and kheldian dwarfs in sirens call without the use of domination. (all on the basis that they were fighting someone else and didnt attack me) Domination itself is never up in PvP, because you dont survive long enough.

And mez protection in domination? HAHA

If a blaster two-shots you it doesnt matter if youre stunned or not between those two hits.

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Some things I have read in this thread confuse me... Talking about confuse: I love my mind/psi dominator not only because of her good looks, but because she is so damn powerful. I am quite impressed how easily she takes on almost anything. Soloing Elite-Bosses is no real challenge... although I have to admit she is quite weak if I compare her to what she will become after I8.
I recently took my I8 build to Test (very aggressive domination building) and was honestly shocked. I took on groups of six +1/+2 enemies and they actually dropped really fast without doing any harm to me. Sure, my brute or my corruptor would have dropped them slightly faster (although not much), but both of them would have taken some damage during that fight. Did I mention that domination was up after one such spawn and the next enemies thus fell even faster?

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I like powerful builds and quite frankly in the mid 20s (where my dominator is now) all of my other CoV ATs have felt more powerful than my dom with the probable exception of my stalker. My Brutes/MM/Corr killed faster and they've felt safer too, whether they had to rely on self-heals or insps to top them up between fights or not.

My MM and brutes sliced through most EBs no problem while solo - sure they each had their own problem ones, usually down to certain weaknesses in resist types, status types or pet behaviour - but they could handle at least six +2/+3s no problem, often more. Before the GDC in I7 my Fire/Rad corruptor was equally as powerful and as fast at destroying spawns - now he can still handle a couple of spawns at once, say 6 mixed lieuts/minions (or 8-9 just minions) on Vicious/Ruthless, but with more risk than he used to before RI's minor nerfing (when ToHitDebuff enhs changed schedule).

My complaint is partly that my dom can't handle the higher difficulties reliably, but also that the dom is so much slower at killing (only my stalker was slower than my dom, but felt powerful if only because of the burst damage). Sure you can make doms totally safe if you over-rely on confuse - my partner and I probably do - but it's not time-efficient nor xp-efficient - if you let confuse do most of the work it totally kills your xp per spawn, per mission and ultimately per arc/contact, which I can already see is going to leave my friend and I doing a lot more newsies to fill gaps (dominator is the ONLY AT I've been able to fit in all of the content at every level range on - I haven't missed a single mission badge or contact - whereas my brutes/MM/corr outlevelled contacts while levelling up much faster).

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first you have psi and I dont. I dont know how good domination buildup is with psi as my /psi dom is very low.

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The only reason dom-building is fast with /Psi is because of Psi Dart - it's back up almost as soon as it's been used, and it animates quickly, so you can use it as a filler between other attacks. I have mine fully slotted (2xAcc, 3xDmg, 1xEndRdx) and while damage is still pitiful, I use it so much as a filler between attacks I figured it was worth slotting up to bulk up my average dps.

By contrast my Plant/Thorns partner still has gaps in his attack chain while he waits for things to recycle (and he has taken more attacks than me cos he hasn't been able to fit in Aid Other/Self yet like I have).

I took Levitate (so at least I had some non-psi damage for resistant stuff) and Mind Probe, plus will have Subdue soon, so basically I cycle those with my ST Hold, with Psi Dart filling gaps. I avoided most of the other /psi attacks mainly because they either had low damage or long animation times, or in TK Thrust's case an annoying knockback I didn't want.

Lack of attacks is probably part of my problem, but when the alternative is taking Mental Blast or TK Thrust then I'm willing to put up with it. I wish I could have fitted in Mesmerise actually, but it was hard to justify it when I had other stuff to fit in, it was lower damage than MindProbe/Levitate and I already had a full attack chain.

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I have however already dropped toggles and held scrappers, tanks and kheldian dwarfs in sirens call without the use of domination. (all on the basis that they were fighting someone else and didnt attack me) Domination itself is never up in PvP, because you dont survive long enough.

And mez protection in domination? HAHA

If a blaster two-shots you it doesnt matter if youre stunned or not between those two hits.

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Blasters have no mezz protection though, I think its really a case of awareness against them. If you can spot them 1st you can 1 shot hold them, even if they break free you can use levitate to bounce them off the pavement all day. If they have a friend nearby you can also confuse the blaster and laugh when they shoot there teamate in the [censored]. In pvp I use domination all the time as long as heroes arent outnumbering villains by something silly.

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Domination itself is never up in PvP, because you dont survive long enough.

And mez protection in domination? HAHA

If a blaster two-shots you it doesnt matter if youre stunned or not between those two hits.

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Well, the situation you describe is a blapper ganking a squishy. I don´t expect domination to save me from this as I wouldn´t expect Scourge to save my corruptor´s behind in the same situation... although domination might even grant you a chance of survival if you are good/lucky. Anyway, it prevents the ice blaster freezing you from afar and the darkie´s petrifying gaze is a lot less petrifying.
I totally see your point with domination never being up in PvP. If I didn´t have more to spam than just dominate and mesmerize (which are far from anything that I would call an attack chain) I wouldn´t live long enough to see domination up either.
And since I don´t want to let this conversation veer too much into PvP either, I have to add something about advantages of domination in PvE and why it is good to have fast-domination builds: Domination enhances duration and MAG of your mezzes. This may not be too much of an issue if your team is mowing through normal mobs, but two dominators using domination can demonstrate that the dreaded purple triangles of doom grant no perfect mez protection.
... and I guesss without domination it woul take ages to solo EBs.