Your're not mad 
Certain builds can solo with their difficulty at the highest, earlier. Others just have to wait.
I think ultimately, Doms are able to play with their setting at the highest, towards the end of their career.
@Under Control
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Your're not mad
Certain builds can solo with their difficulty at the highest, earlier. Others just have to wait.
I think ultimately, Doms are able to play with their setting at the highest, towards the end of their career.
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very true. there was a point when I thought 'well yeah im pretty evil, but I need more of a test... time to spawn me some purple bosses and kick their shins till their parents come round and make me apologise' 
I currently solo on villainous with my lvl 29 dom. I propably could do it with highest setting but its slow enough on villainous even.
I usually play on relentless unless I am in danger of levelling too fast for my contacts.
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'm currently sat on the easiest rep at lvl28, but fully intend to up it once i get my Imps....man i really want Imps
ice/ice: vicious after the pet, relentless in late 30s
plant/thorns: haven't soloed it much but ruthless after Carrion Creepers
fire/fire: relentless after SOs.
Before SOs I tend to play everything on villainous. After that it's really a question of damage output and endurance. Plant/Thorns soloes well because of Seeds, fire/fire because it has the best damage output and its lack of control isn't an issue when solo.
Easiest level for me. I hate running back from the hospital all the time.
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
Mind/psy
Used to do relentless missions and villainous for mayhem solo.
Discovered that at 33 or so story arcs are impossible solo due to high number of EBs even on villainous.
Now grinding warburg missions at relentless solo. Each mission takes 16 minutes.
@Boerewors
Have been playing with Dalron on Ruthless since his late 20's....sometimes its easy, sometimes its hard.
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.
since mids 10's i set up in Vicious and i dont usually get down it. Instead, i usually rise up it when i do some papers...
When get the pets, relentless will be my home...
Forgot to say...
My Plant dom is on Relentless all the time - my Gravity dom is usually on Relentless, but I switch to Ruthless if I can't handle the mobs :P
@Under Control
My Plant/Thorns solo's really well.
No problems at all actually managing the aggro or staying alive, but had problems aplenty actually trying to scratch away and take the bigger stuff like EB's down.
I set my rep' according to how I'm doing with contacts, arcs and badges. Whenever a free run presents itself, I go to Relentless. Now I have my Flytrap, I find there's enough of an extra kick in damage I can take that big stuff on now .
I must have done something wrong with my Mind/Psi - at 30, duoing with my friend's Plant/Thorns, we found it tough enough on Villainous and didn't dare put the reputation up. Sure we could probably have handled single spawns on Vicious, but it would have been guaranteed death those times we ran into a couple of overlapped spawns around a corner.
We've played brutes, corrs and MMs in duos and always been able to play on Vicious/Ruthless/Relentless with minimal deaths (maybe 1 death every 10 hours played, if that), but with our doms on Villainous we were still getting 3-4 deaths per evening (we play about 3-4 hours on weekday evenings), and tbh I found that pretty bad.
In fact we were levelling so slow due to debt, over-use of confuse and low difficulty level that they were our first duo'd characters that didn't miss a single contact nor mission badge all the way to 30.
For me with a dom it seems like you have to concentrate and innovate more than other CoV ATs - with the possible exception of a stalker played well (mine can be as busy as my dom powers-wise and in terms of tactics, but even more position-dependant) - that's great, I don't mind that at all (I like a challenge), except that my reward for that seems to have been less xp and more deaths.
My 25 pl/th has been on ruthless since seeds; he could probably do relentless, but there are two problems...
1) EBs are trouble enough already, and
2) he's my third alt, and goes long spells without being played, which means that I forget how to use him sometimes, and get killed before I have him working at full speed again
Mind/Psi and Plant/Thorns sounds like a good duo on paper and it seems like you're both experienced players, so not sure what the problem would be. What usually kills you? Is it alpha strikes, ambushes, control running out, endurance running out, getting mezzed? For a duo like that I think especially the plant dom should build secondary heavy, with emphasis on AoE damage.
There's definitely less margin for error in both building and playing a dominator, but that's what makes it exciting for me tbh
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Mind/Psi and Plant/Thorns sounds like a good duo on paper and it seems like you're both experienced players, so not sure what the problem would be. What usually kills you? Is it alpha strikes, ambushes, control running out, endurance running out, getting mezzed? For a duo like that I think especially the plant dom should build secondary heavy, with emphasis on AoE damage.
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Before my partner got Creeper Patch it was quite often the alpha in double-spawn situations, either because he could only nullify part of that with Seeds, or because Seeds missed a lot of targets. I mention Creeper Patch because it has proved useful against a notable situation in Longbow bases where you have two spawns waiting around an s-bend of a corner - that was always death for one of us before.
Usually my partner leads with Seeds - if theres a boss I'll hit that with Confuse beforehand. But I often follow his Seeds with my Terrify, so we're doubly covered (we can just about perma both of them), as we mainly want Seeds to nullify incoming damage not contribute to a faster time-to-kill (because we lose xp from it, and we're already running out of story content in some level ranges - yes I'm aware confuse can speed up xp-over-time, but it does the reverse for maximising xp from finite contact arcs). Obviously my Terrify doesn't do much for stopping an alpha on its own (and I didn't take Mass Hypnosis as I knew he'd be using Seeds as opener), although sometimes I have to use it in that way when we get ambushes or additional spawns.
I'm usually the weak link - and usually the one that dies. For some reason I get a lot of aggro, even though my partner generally does more damage against everything except CoT spectrals - I know this cos quite often in a spawn with 2 lieuts we will take one each, and he finishes first 99% of the time - he has his cone attack from secondary and I don't (originally I was planning to use Terrify as my cone attack, slotted for damage). And often getting aggro from one briefly uncontrolled lieut can kill me (Council Adjutants have almost one-shotted me) then usually not even Aid Self and Drain Psyche's +regen can save me.
I don't know why I pull more aggro than him - Mind/ is supposed to be a low aggro primary although Levitate does seem to pull a lot more aggro than it should for its damage, maybe due to the knock-up - but then again I'm not losing that because I'm glad of some smashing damage when we face robots that resist psi, lethal and toxic. Therefore my aggro has to be down to the psi secondary. It can't be psi dart (so low aggro I can often pull singles with it), so I'm not sure what it is. Stuff does tend to turn on me after I use Mind Probe or Subdue. I'm also wondering if Drain Psyche causes aggro far in excess of its effects.
Another point against me might be the way I use Domination - my partner always saves it for bosses but personally I've started using it as much as I can (sometimes 3-4 times per mission) for the damage boost if nothing else (because otherwise I feel like I'm slacking compared to my partner on damage) - do attacks under Domination cause more aggro? And I play quite blapperish (spend 80% of the time in melee) so maybe it's proximity too. End usage isn't a problem anymore (since Stamina, and DP for me - without DP I still seem to burn End faster than my partner, while doing less damage), although it was pre-SOs.
That aside getting disorientated will often mean death for one of us, usually me (we both have CJ/Acro and always carry BFs, but often I'll die a second after using a BF) - and while a lot of EBs have been surprisingly easy, we're now getting into AV-downgrade EBs with purple triangles who are stupidly hard, even with a tray full of Lucks.
Maybe by other people's standards we don't die that much, but I hate to die at all if I can possibly avoid it. And our dominators die a LOT more than our other characters. Maybe we need a team, but teams never seem to want us.
With my partner getting a pet at 32 as well... well, lets just say I'm sure he could handle higher difficulties on his own, but sometimes I think he agrees to being on Villainous just because he knows my build would probably struggle if we pushed the rep up (and did when we tried that half a dozen or so levels ago). Even so he still complains nearly as much as I do that his build feels much weaker than all of his other villains (mostly brutes & corrs for him) - maybe he's just saying that in sympathy with me
Ok I wasn't expecting to feel this powerful, but I did expect to at least be competitive with the weakest of my other characters. I could probably have handled dominator being slower to level if they were at least safer than MMs, Corrs or Brutes (I won't mention Stalkers, because I had some problems with mine early on, although it felt a lot more powerful at my dom's current level), but that hasn't been my experience of the AT so far.
Ooops I've typed a lot - I guess I could post my build in a new thread if you think it might help (don't want to hi-jack this one beyond talking about difficulty). I'm wondering if it's just a perception issue though. How much do you guys die on a per-hour basis with your doms?
Someone else would be better to give you power specific advice since my mind/nrg is only level 24 and I've never tried Psi. That said the Plant doms in our all dom team really appreciate Mass Hypnosis because it allows them time to line up their cones in peace and then we can assess the situation and ST control anything Seeds missed before they wake up. In an ideal situation we can clear 8 man spawns without anyone getting hit once. It's also useful for dealing with any extras, but I have mine slotted just 1 accuracy so it's basically just to buy a little time to place a more effective control without fear of aggro. Not saying you absolutely need that power but personally I think it's really underrated.
What strikes me in your post is you talk a lot about pulling aggro. Mind and Plant both have great control so in a duo like that, you shouldn't have to worry about aggro with normal spawns. Everything should be pretty much controlled throughout the fight, and especially nasty lieutenants in melee who can nearly 1-shot you. Playing a dom is all about active defence, you need to be alert and aggressive, switch targets a lot and prioritize as needed. Maybe you're duplicating controls?
As for domination, yeah I think you probably pull more aggro then, just due to the extra damage you do.
I won't even begin about the EBs with purple triangles. Yes they're very hard for doms, yes it seems very unfair, moving on. 
I very rarely die when solo, usually I'm at least able to run away. I lower difficulty if I find myself running away a lot, for example recently I discovered my fire dom can't reliably handle Scrapyarders at Relentless. In all dom team we do die a fair bit, sometimes more sometimes less, I think mainly because coordinating controls for a 8 man spawn can be very tricky. There are some things (*cough*respec*cough*) that can turn into a debtfest, yet sometimes we can go for hours with nary a death between us. I think it's still less than a dom in an average 8 man PuG, though.
I've noticed doms tend to pull lots of aggro as well, I always assumed it was a dom thing rather than build or playstyle. Interesting because like you I play more blapperish and also tend to use domination as soon as its up. It isnt so much a problem later on when there are more powers up more frequently, means I pretty much have a tool for every occaision.
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
Yeah it's control pulling insane aggro, mostly. When I duoed my ice dom with Blaze's stalker and we'd take on triangled elite bosses, he'd have to hit the EB lots of times before getting the aggro back from me after one application of hold (which didn't even have any effect, to add insult to injury)
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What strikes me in your post is you talk a lot about pulling aggro. Mind and Plant both have great control so in a duo like that, you shouldn't have to worry about aggro with normal spawns. Everything should be pretty much controlled throughout the fight, and especially nasty lieutenants in melee who can nearly 1-shot you. Playing a dom is all about active defence, you need to be alert and aggressive, switch targets a lot and prioritize as needed. Maybe you're duplicating controls?
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I think there definitely could be an element of control duplication - it's easy for me to tell when my Plant/ friend has held something, but he often doesn't notice the little bubbles that show when a target is held by Dominate (the head-holding animation doesn't always seem to play).
My partner's Seeds does seem to miss a few targets (not so bad now I have Terrify to overlap with it), but generally the times we die are with multiple-spawns, either because of map bottlenecks like the aforesaid Longbow base, or ambushes (especialy in mayhems). Although there are cases where a single uncontrolled mob can be enough to kill me (Council adjutants in melee, as mentioned). In a usual situation against a single spawn we'll have most of them controlled.
I switch targets a lot, so that isn't the problem. In fact I have taken down ambushes just using my single-target controls pre-Terrify after my friend died - on one occasion I even elicited praise from him for that (he thought I was bound to faceplant after he went down). I certainly play aggressively and actively - that goes for just about every AT I play
Points noted on Mass Hypnosis - I may have to try and fit it into my build (lord knows where). I would definitely take it on a Mind/ troller (mainly for Containment reasons tbh), but for duoing with both of us being doms I knew my partner would have Seeds first (which I'd already experienced on my lowbie Plant/Thorns, so I knew it was good) so I didn't think it would be useful. Also I knew I'd never have to solo, as I only play that dom when my friend plays his.
I definitely feel the /psi lack of damage to be a main part of my problem with my dom, aside from a few deaths per evening. /Fire, /Ice and /Energy are supposed to be the best ones for damage from what I've read, so maybe we're doubly compounding that problem.
Tbh I'm not sure it will be a problem for much longer - my partner is on hiatus for a couple of weeks and I8 should be live when he gets back, and we both want to play heroes a lot more than we have been this last year. Plus my Fire/Rad corruptor just hit 30 and I enjoy that far more than my dom, so if we do play the dom duo again I'll be highly tempted to switch to my corruptor to up our damage and make EBs with PtoDs easier to kill.
So thanks for your advice, but I think circumstances may have conspired to retire my dom, at least for the forseeable future. In retrospect I think perhaps a Plant/Fire or Plant/Ice would have suited me better gameplay-wise (Drain Psyche, Psychic Shockwave and my concept were the main things that drew me to Mind/Psi) - if I ever try a dom again in future I might go with one of those builds.
Mind/psi= Villainous or the next lvl up. I found that on solo any diffs higher were just to slow to work through, and in missions few teams would work with a dominator (hell getting them to work with mms was bad enouhg :P).
Fire/En =so far im having fun on ruthless, solos much faster than my previous dom and plays really nicely too.
Cages of fire does draw Huuuuge Aggro though, and it is kinda upsetting to see the entire map ignore the raging brutes and come hunt me down
I am curious how other doms at various levels set theirs - I see a lot of people talking about villainous and malicious etc, but I swear I have been set to Relentless for the last 20 levels. Its only recently that I have started to lower it sometimes because post 45 its all about Heroes and EBs. Please tell me im not mad
(My dom is lvl 49 Ice/Fire/Mace for those that are interested)