Remember when I did this for thorns? As part of the I15 revamp to Dominators, I did a pass through all my dominators and made some new ones, with the idea I'd see the low-level experience and determine what I thought. One of those builds - because the complaining was so great - was a Fire/Psi. I hadn't levelled one up through the 'hard yards' in the old game (though I did have a grav/psi that I got to 22 out of a sense of bloodymindedness, then deleted because I never wanted to see him again), and this was seen as somehow delegitimizing my opinion.
Now, a bigger man would have ignored such claims as a rule. But a bigger man wouldn't have levelled a mind/energy dominator to 50 purely to prove that you can permadom for a small amount of inf. So, indulging my sense of pettiness, I made a fire/psi, and took him out in a variety of test environments while levelling him up. I feel that some of this information might interesting to share.
The Good
Char, Flashfire and Fire Cages are all the same as they've ever been. Good powers that I'm used to using. The biggest gap in power came at level 12 to 15 when DOs were just not cutting it for my AoE stun, which wouldn't be up every spawn. On small teams, char would do the job because it wasn't up to me to control everything, just whatever was in my grill. On larger teams, the stun became more desireable, and less available. Oh well.
Endurance wasn't the problem I'd heard it would be. I was far more frustrated in the low level region of the game by accuracy woes rather than endurance problems. Looking at the set in mids (which obviously is old info, but it was the resource I had at hand) indicated that it was mostly in my head - there weren't any clear crap powers for accuracy. Still odd.
The Bad
Drain Psyche looked like the bees knees, and one of the things that most excited me about playing the set. I now don't believe I was right in this perspective. Drain Psyche is a great power, but it's not as useful to my playstyle as Stamina - certainly not out of the box. DP needs something in the district of 4 slots, probably 6 to really shine with just SOs, which is a very distinct change in how I expect to play once I get SOs. Rather than go up-and-down I'm planning on respeccing and using 20 to pick up Stamina, and put Drain Psyche as my level 22 or 24, with intent to slot it out.
Psionic Dart has no sockets, Psionic Dart gets no sockets. It still seems like its only purpose is to love-tap opponents (unlike the Elec Assault T1, which seems a lot more of a solid hit). I couldn't pick Mental Blast from Psi Dart, either - they just seem to be there, with a quiet expectation that come 38 I'll probably forget I've got 'em.
The Ugly
Now with the build I have, and the play experience I've had so far, level 38 with PSW actually looks not like an evolutionary change, but a revolutionary change. I fear that come 38, the entire character's playstyle will transform to accommodate thise elephant-in-the-room power.
Fire control's still a little thin for my tastes, and with Psi as its backup instead of Fire, I have more powers I think I should pick up for their niche utility (to combine with my own fear of being caught with my pants down).
Also, the set feels very bleh as far as IO options go. I'm sure I could bust my butt to get high recharge - again - but I don't feel this combo has had anything opened up thanks to the domination changes. I can't see an easy or clear build idea beyond making Drain Psyche permanent and getting Psw to Psw more often.
Remember when I did this for thorns? As part of the I15 revamp to Dominators, I did a pass through all my dominators and made some new ones, with the idea I'd see the low-level experience and determine what I thought. One of those builds - because the complaining was so great - was a Fire/Psi. I hadn't levelled one up through the 'hard yards' in the old game (though I did have a grav/psi that I got to 22 out of a sense of bloodymindedness, then deleted because I never wanted to see him again), and this was seen as somehow delegitimizing my opinion.
Now, a bigger man would have ignored such claims as a rule. But a bigger man wouldn't have levelled a mind/energy dominator to 50 purely to prove that you can permadom for a small amount of inf. So, indulging my sense of pettiness, I made a fire/psi, and took him out in a variety of test environments while levelling him up. I feel that some of this information might interesting to share.
The Good
Char, Flashfire and Fire Cages are all the same as they've ever been. Good powers that I'm used to using. The biggest gap in power came at level 12 to 15 when DOs were just not cutting it for my AoE stun, which wouldn't be up every spawn. On small teams, char would do the job because it wasn't up to me to control everything, just whatever was in my grill. On larger teams, the stun became more desireable, and less available. Oh well.
Endurance wasn't the problem I'd heard it would be. I was far more frustrated in the low level region of the game by accuracy woes rather than endurance problems. Looking at the set in mids (which obviously is old info, but it was the resource I had at hand) indicated that it was mostly in my head - there weren't any clear crap powers for accuracy. Still odd.
The Bad
Drain Psyche looked like the bees knees, and one of the things that most excited me about playing the set. I now don't believe I was right in this perspective. Drain Psyche is a great power, but it's not as useful to my playstyle as Stamina - certainly not out of the box. DP needs something in the district of 4 slots, probably 6 to really shine with just SOs, which is a very distinct change in how I expect to play once I get SOs. Rather than go up-and-down I'm planning on respeccing and using 20 to pick up Stamina, and put Drain Psyche as my level 22 or 24, with intent to slot it out.
Psionic Dart has no sockets, Psionic Dart gets no sockets. It still seems like its only purpose is to love-tap opponents (unlike the Elec Assault T1, which seems a lot more of a solid hit). I couldn't pick Mental Blast from Psi Dart, either - they just seem to be there, with a quiet expectation that come 38 I'll probably forget I've got 'em.
The Ugly
Now with the build I have, and the play experience I've had so far, level 38 with PSW actually looks not like an evolutionary change, but a revolutionary change. I fear that come 38, the entire character's playstyle will transform to accommodate thise elephant-in-the-room power.
Fire control's still a little thin for my tastes, and with Psi as its backup instead of Fire, I have more powers I think I should pick up for their niche utility (to combine with my own fear of being caught with my pants down).
Also, the set feels very bleh as far as IO options go. I'm sure I could bust my butt to get high recharge - again - but I don't feel this combo has had anything opened up thanks to the domination changes. I can't see an easy or clear build idea beyond making Drain Psyche permanent and getting Psw to Psw more often.