IMO
Firstly, they work better on teams. Dominators are the least solo freindly class on CoV.
Secondly, things improve when you get Single Origin Enhancers. You can get your second target hold up pretty quickly then (e.g. slot 2 acc, 3 hold, 1 recharge)
Thirdly, I would avoid getting the AoE hold to later. They have such a large timer they are generally only useful in big teams as a "whoopsy daisy" power when things start to go wrong. Save for emergencies, dont use routinely.
Thirdly. Get Wormhole, this recharges much more quickly and will stun all your enemies.
Fourthly. This is my sequence when locking down when I play my Gravity controller.
Vs 3 enemies:
Hold no 1
Lift no 2
Hold no 3
Lift no 2 again
Propel (or in your case, any attack) no 3
Hold no 2
Rotate holds on 1,3,2 according to how dead they are.
for Lt / Minion
Hold Lt
Lift Minion
Propel / Attacks
Hold Minion
etc.
In other words, Lift is your freind.
(PS is it lift or levitate? cant rememeber)
It's Lift.
And thanks for advice. I'll try that!
EDIT: What about mass immob?
Mass imob isnt very good for solo play to be honest. You would be better taking wormhole / single target lift or a psionic attack from your secondary.
In big teams it can be helpful, particularly when you have "Scatter" powers (like rain of fire) which can cause chaos. Usually you want enemies to be tightly knit so you can get the most out of AoE attacks.
Interestingly, Gravities AoE immob can be slotted with three inventions: Proc chances of lethal, smashing, and damage (from Immobilise, SLow, and AoE damage invention sets). Put all these together and it can become a reasonable AoE attack from a damage point of veiw.
Sometimes immobilises can provide good damage mitigation. It depends on the enemy. For instance, longbow mainly used ranged attacks so it is practically useless against them. In contrast, against mainly melee toons (like Carnival strongmen or Council Warwolves) it can be excellent damage mitigation.
The mass immob is good for using with wormhole to cut down the amount of stuff that gets sent flying but otherwise will just generate lots of agro for you imo.
Edit:
Ah yes forgot about the procs, good idea!
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
It varies with the powerset - Ice, Mind and Plant are all easy going, Fire and Grav are hard going early on. The AoE Hold is much more useful if you have Power Boost from one of the assault sets since it will last longer.
A top tip with Grav is to use Dimension Shift on groups slotted with no ACC so that you count on it missing a few who you can then beat up whilst the others are shifted. I'm guessing you have Psi Assualt as secondary? not especially hard hitting early on, but at least you have the Psi Dart machine gun which will build Domination insanely fast.
[ QUOTE ]
It varies with the powerset...
[/ QUOTE ]
This.
Just a note. Saying Dominators are the least soloable class in villains isn't really the whole picture by any means, and IMO not actually accurate at all. It really is dependant on sets.
At higher levels you should be finding that it's a different story altogether. Otherwise somethings going a little pear shaped for some reason.
Doms are squishy!!!
But with different mixtures of powersets as said you have different playstyles..
I play my plant thorns like a spines scrapper and die a lot
But i don't care 
I may out pace the team and after dying make things more challenging for them
But i don't care 
As my others I try to be sensible as your survival can depend on whats and whens on who from where.
Mass immobs are fine on foes tight around a brute. In fact that applies to most AoEs that can win you aggro if you miss. They are also fine when you can be a blocked target to all but one, the one that you work on. I often try to contain more than one at a time myself. Its like tanking tab attack, tab attack, tab attack, I basically try to mess with the whole group rather than focus on any.
Slot up the hold asap for soloing, you want that one not missing and fast recharging. You should ideally perma hold 2 with it asap.
I think your grav control from what you were saying and not mind control.
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.
Dominators are one of my favourite villain ATs, being fairly dynamic to play when solo and team.
The two I have active at the moment are a plant/thorns (concept character) and a Fire/energy.
At low level the fire/energy was much easier than my plant/thorns but I put some of that down to my experience with /energy on other ATs.
On the whole I find its a fairly aggresssive combo that leads to a steady "rolling" of mobs and more than meets my expectations for the "assault" archetype
Depending on the mobs I open up with my mezzes then close as quickly as possible to melee range, demolishing targets while occasionaly throwing out more mezzes to restrict any other enemy around me.
A lot of the time its just like a variation of blapping with my blasters.
I always enjoy playing my domi, but find him the toughest to play, and find he requires a good deal of concentration to play well, and I end up dieing regularly on big teams. He is a ice/psi domi, and now he is in his 40s, I am really having a lot of fun with him.
I dropped my aoe immob on him pretty quickly for the single target one, as I use that to drop flyers out of the sky. Aoe Immobs have a use, such as keeping mobs tightly packed around a herding brute, or keeping them in the rain of fire/ice etc. Otherwise, I just found it an end heavy, aggro getting power I dont miss.
The above advice allready given is good. Your primary is your mezzes and holds. Use them first, then tear things apart. Domies are best described as the chains and whips AT. You chain them up so they cant do anything to you, and then dish out the damage in relative safety. The other way to play a domi is the blapper playstyle, just with more control. It takes a lot of getting used to, and I still havent quite got the hang of it, but I still find them a lot of fun.
Also, some domies can solo pretty well, I made my ice/psi domi for teaming, and thats where he thrives. Nothing quite like seeing an 8 man spawn hit by glacier while in domination then being wiped out by my PSW, makes me smile every time.
a good bind for domies i found was: /bind numpad0 "powexec_name Domination" This means that the numpad 0 key, which is nice and big, and very easy to hit while still using the arrow keys activates your domination/happy button. Anyone who has ever teamed with Chilling Thought, will also remember the bind that goes with it "MIDGET POWER!!!"
I find the aoe hold handy for getting 2 holds on a boss right away but, as you can see, some people disagree.
Since you are playing grav you will prolly want lift to take an enemy out the fight for a few seconds. You will also want to team with 7 patsys so you can build domination quicker :P
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
Oo Happy Cake day Marquandance!
Gravity is just so very superb and is loaded with hard control.
The single best piece of advice I can give is this: your controls are your power. Do NOT skimp on slotting them. As a certain Nexus Com *should* know by now is that higher up the dominator is horrific. The best powers in the whole set being Gravity Distortion and Wormhole. Once slotted well these 2 powers mean you can make a mockery of groups and bosses alike by worming them and then stacking the hold on the boss. Being /psi, you will have iffy dmg output for a while til the mid 20s - but once you have drain psyche and PSW you will just be laughing.
Catch me when I'm on later mate and I can advise ya heavily on doms, gravity control and Starscreamer's build overall (and as it happens my new dom Starmenasor is grav/psi as well)
[ QUOTE ]
Oo Happy Cake day Marquandance!
[/ QUOTE ]
Thankies 
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oo Happy Cake day Marquandance!
[/ QUOTE ]
Thankies
[/ QUOTE ]
Again happy birthday fella 
On a Grav/Psi Dominator, the above advice is good Basically you'll be holding two foes with the single target hold, using lift on the foe your not using your secondary powers on. I'd perhaps have Air Sup in there for added control and have TK Thrust from the secondary for the same purpose. Damage levels are low early on, at least till Psi Scream (and it would need heavy slotting assuming you take a 50/50 power in terms of being good) or Subdue at 28. May as well make it safer with Air Sup/TK Thrust
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oo Happy Cake day Marquandance!
[/ QUOTE ]
Thankies
[/ QUOTE ]
Again happy birthday fella
On a Grav/Psi Dominator, the above advice is good Basically you'll be holding two foes with the single target hold, using lift on the foe your not using your secondary powers on. I'd perhaps have Air Sup in there for added control and have TK Thrust from the secondary for the same purpose. Damage levels are low early on, at least till Psi Scream (and it would need heavy slotting assuming you take a 50/50 power in terms of being good) or Subdue at 28. May as well make it safer with Air Sup/TK Thrust
[/ QUOTE ]
Thankers muchers!
I'm sure we teamed with a grav/something who took as many kb powers she could her hands on to perma juggle enemies :O)
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
Happy Birthday!!
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.
I have a Grav/Psi dom myself, To be honest in the whole set of grav i would avoid propel and possibly dimension shift. Although they are both very good powers they do have their little niggles. For example propel's animation is dead slow you'd be able to use three more attacks in the time you used propel, Dimension shift well seems really handy but is an escape power.
Personaly i would not take air sup as you'll have enough -fly powers, Psi scream and subdue are very good and worthwhile taking aswell as drain psyche and psi shockwave, Most of the others i avoided on my dom.
Pretty much everything changes when you get your singularity.
One of the leaders of the Harlequins villain group and currently on defiant.
I've got one more question.
After slotting up a bit, I definitely improved. However, today, I took a mission that involved the Lost. And surprise surprise, the first group of 3 (included an Anathema) mashed me in record time. I couldn't hold the Anathema... held for a second, then went straight after me.
What do I do against such groups?
Solo wise they aren't easy to deal with, But personaly if you have wormhole i'd use that alot. Domination is somehing you need stacking multiple holds on one target will hold it eventualy. Thats where hand to hand will get you plastered cause you don't usually have the defence or resistance to cope with their huge damage in melee. Use as many slows as you can on one target and hold the minions if you have to, Psy drain is very handy for those moments where you know your gonna get mashed.
If you have psi shockwave use it out of combat to build domination up till your able to activate, In theory you should hold the luits for a short time that way. A good tactic is hit the anthema with loads of slows and fall back while he crawls at a snails pace, In that time you should be-able to pick off his chums. Which should help with the troublesome bunch much more, Hope it helps anyhow.
One of the leaders of the Harlequins villain group and currently on defiant.
Yeah, anathemas have some kind of hold protection that needs 2 holds to lock them... And they can hold u with 1 apply if u arnt in domination...
That is what i hate with gravity, that u can only hold enemies, or lift them (and many other have knock protection)... Until late 20s that u start to have slotted wormhole and u rise in control...
How u can kill them?? Many ways, not sure ur build:
1) inmob the anathema, take range and left the minions come to u, kill minions, and then eat 1 BF and spam the hold between attacks. Dont let them melee u, they hit hard with his sword.
2) Use Dimension Shift, and ull split the group (dont put much accuracy, or u will make intang all of them). This way will make it longer to kill, and bored.
3) Get a team. This is the easier way.
4) Eat 2 purples and rush them... Dominators can rush too, with a good bunch of insps
If u had another primary u could use another powers, but untill u get Wormhole u will be lacking of control... Then, when u get WH and Sing, all the way should be easy
Cheers.
ok, my best guess would be to, in the case of two minions...
first use the group imob and move away to protect yourself from melee, if you have a few + imob time enhancements on your group imob it will hold them for easily long enough.
then next hold whichever one is strongest e.g. an lt or the guy with most health. then repeatedly spam attack the other guy till he dies.
make sure that you keep hold of the stongest guy, or if your hold racharges fast enough or holds for long enough you can hold the other guy so that both are held, it helps if you have AoE attack's when spamming attacks cos i have a /fire and fire breath does help diminish the nme's health. and im sure power has some cone AoE's or summin.
yr well with 3 or more it useually gets tricky if ones an lt and i useually confuse them cos im plant/ but i guess you dont have a cone confuse so i cant rly give much help on that.
hope you have fun with your dom, my current dom is the furthest iv'e got with a char before and its lvl 32 :P not too bad but its still not close to 50.
Ps: but then again shouldn't rly worry bout gettin a 50 cos the dev's are thinking of a way to make the villain epics avaliable before 50.
i mezz them and PSW things to death, in teams i die fair amount but then again i can farm missions set for 6 solo weird that ....lol
I would take Hasten early on to get your hold and attacks recharging much quicker and aid self is very good for helping you stay alive and provids some stun resistance for a short while to.
How do i play my dominator?
Well
I GRAB IT BY THE LEGS, AND SWING IT FURIOUSLY AT THE ENEMYS
It generally works quite well
I've made a Grav/Mind dominator, and... well, for the first few levels, it's been fun. A bit slow at times, but fun. But now I'm starting to wonder how the heck does a Dominator do it?
I find myself against a team of 3 WHITE Longbow, and they nearly kill me. I've got one single hold, one mass hold on a huge timer, a mass immob... but the immob is useless, they just shoot me to pieces. I can hold one, yes, but that still leaves 2 shooting.
So... what am I doing wrong? How do you use this class?