New to Doms

I've read a lot of posts in this forum and it seems as if most powersets within the AT are well-loved. I'm having a difficult time choosing my first dominator. I normally solo with an occasional duo and or TF. I'm an aggressive player looking for damage as much as control.

Any suggestions? Thank you all!

I *LOVE* my plant/fire. You get Seeds of Confusion at 8, and TONS of damage in fire.

I tried a lot of different combos, but this is the only DOM I have been able to stick with, 5 bubs shy of 50 now.

There are very few 'bad' combos with Doms, all offer lots of Control and Damage. The real questions are these-

1) Do you prefer 'Hard' Controls (like holds, stuns, etc) or 'Soft' controls like sleeps and KB/KD/KU?

2) Do you prefer melee range destruction or to blast your enemies apart from range?

Hard controls, definitely.

I like both melee and ranged. Whatever does the job. I adapt to the situation.

For Hard Control, prob your best bet is going to be Mind.

For secondary, you have alot of options. If you plan on doing alot of solo work, pick a secondary with good single target damage, like Fire, Energy, Ice or Electric. The only secondary I *don't* recommend pairing with Mind is Psi, because when you face Psi resistant mobs, it's painful.

Mind isn't really all 'hard' controls. The two major 'every-spawn' controls are both soft-ish - fear and sleep. Sure you have total dom and mass confusion for hard controls, but those aren't what you're using every time you roll up to a group of baddies.

If you want lots of hard control, I'd go with plant. Seeds of confusion is basically the best mez in the game, and it's a lot harder of a mez than sleep or fear. Plant/fire is a really great combo.

I went with plant/fire. Thanks for the help!

I agree with Muon. Mind Control has TONS of control, but unless you've got some insanely crazy levels of global recharge and hasten, you won't have reliable AOE hard control, because Mass Confusion and Total Domination are on very long timers. And on crazy global recharge you'll kill faster so you still wont usually have hard control every fight.

Of course, what people mean by "hard control" varies. In COH, I use the term to mean "if affected, foe cannot retaliate against me or my allies". That means the types of hard control are: Hold; Disorient/Stun; Confuse; Intangible. Whether they wobble around or not is irrelevant. Mind Control has AMAZING control, and it is effective, but their bread-and-butter controls aren't what I consider "hard" control. That said, Mind Doms are very effective.

Anyway, I think the way to go for a newbie is Plant/Fire. That was my first Dom as well back when COV came out. I made him as soon as it went live. Great combo. Plant/Fire isn't my favorite Dom, but its definitely one of the best beginner Doms.

I also really like Earth/Fire, but it takes a little longer to mature.

I think that for a new Dom, the primary powersets to avoid are Ice and Gravity.

Ice Control is ... well it requires finesse and a different approach in my opinion, because it doesn't have a "safe" opener. I'm not saying you cant use the other tools to survive, but to me, "safe" means "I can open on the foes with out retaliation". Ice doesn't provide this (other than the AOE sleep power, which you can definitely use but requires finesse). That's really what it comes down to. Ice Control requires a bit more finesse or a bit of a different approach that is very different than the way other Dominators play.

Gravity simply gets all its control later than other Dominators, and their AOE stun which eventually IS available every fight as a bread and butter hard control, well it teleports foes, but it can also scatter them some. So it requires some finesse at times, and it gets its reliable AOE controls much later. Well, you get Dim Shift but you can't attack the shifted foes. if Grav were to swap Dim Shift and Wormhole in terms of level they become available, a lot of my reservations would go away. You do get Singularity though, which gives you extra hold magnitude and gives you a wee tank. But I just dont think this combo is really very newbie-friendly.

Any of the other primaries are fine, but as I said above, I think Plant/Fire is the best newbie Dom set, and Earth/Fire is also massively effective, it just doesn't rock hard by level 8 like Plant Control does. Earth control feels strong by 12-18, but it doesn't feel truly monstrous until level 26 or above, whereas Plant feels monstrous as soon as you get Seeds of Confusion.

Lewis

Being perma *before* hasten is so uncommon, though, that I honestly wouldn't consider it in terms of talking about the types of control each set offers. Mind's staple controls are still soft, massive huge recharge just lets you make extra staple controls out of things which usually aren't .

Ice slick doesn't absorb an alpha. Cast it under the baddies while you're within line of sight and you'll be attacked by everyone in the spawn who wasn't hit by the first KD tick of the ice slick (and that's a flat % roll, not an acc check, so it can't be improved, and it's not high enough to get most of them on the first go). It *reduces* the alpha, but it doesn't *absorb* it.

In my book, an alpha *absorber* is one that's able to reliably prevent the whole spawn from shooting back - something like stalagmites, once sufficient accuracy is slotted. If you can get up near the CTH cap, you'll prevent 19 out of every 20 targets from shooting back, which is IMO what it takes to truly *absorb* an alpha.

Now, ice does have advanatages, especially in the toggle-up - ice slick - jump in simplicity you mentioned, but it still does have to worry about alphas.

Ice *does* have an every-fight alpha-absorber (or alpha mitigation) in the form of Flash Freeze (ranged AOE sleep). I know, I know. Things don't stay slept for long. But when you are soloing, it is a nice way to get a safe opener going. THEN you can run in with AA and/or cast Ice Slick under them. Much safer.

Most people don't like taking it, but it can be good for that if you are willing to commit to using it when it makes sense and not using it when their wont be much point. Plus the AOE sleep is a good place for the purple sleep IO set.

Lewis

I'm reading anything I can find about perma dom. Specifically, how early can I achieve it. When I cast domination for the first time I was in seriously lust. Must have perma-dom!

I believe you need 70% global recharge, in addition to having Hasten 3-slotted with recharge, in order to get perma-Dom. I think. I also hear that you probably want your global recharge to be more like 75% or 80% just to give you a bit of a gap or a moment to recast it with some luxury.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong though. I've never done it myself.

Lewis

I don't know about anyone else, but I was seriously unimpressed when I tried flash freeze on my ice/ice, even after leveling again and getting it to 4 slots. I was hoping to use it for exactly that purpose - alpha absorber - but I found it didn't actually prevent the alpha. Every time I used it, I would take a shot from at least some of the spawn, and it seemed random exactly how many got to shoot me. I think it's because of the tiny tick of damage and the sleep therefore being delayed for a quarter-second, allowing some mobs a chance to que up an attack before being slept. Regardless, I respec'd out of it since, imo, an unreliable alpha absorber is worse than none at all.

Gravity Control would be the big no no for a first time Dom, in large part its primary soft control comes so late in the build( but once you get it, and have Wormhole slotted, things get much better for you).

Ice Control isn't bad, it just works a little different than the other sets

I admit I am one of the few who aren't crazy about Mind Control, but I recognize it is a solid set( I don't know its just not flashy enough for me)

All of the other sets are fine. Although I really do wish they would give Doms Illusion Control, I so want to make an Illusion/Psi Dom