How do I play dom?

Altitis... this deadly disease can strike without warning, at any moment.

So, I have a plant/thorn and an elec/elec dom lying around, but neither is at all high level. I want to Try Out Dom. I don't know whether I should work on them or build Something Else.

My favorite control set so far is illusion, with gravity a fairly close second. Obviously, illusion isn't one of my dom options. I am a little confused by the blapper model of the Assault sets, because I tend to play control sets as more ranged, but I'm open to learning new tricks.

Suggestions as to fun sets or how to go about playing dom effectively welcome.

You know how Blasters get Ranged/Melee+Control? Well Dominators get Control/Ranged+Melee. Basically play them as you would a Blaster (or Blapper) but with better survivability.

If you want a melee focussed Dominator then you could try Electric/Earth. Ice/ and Fire/ can also be used well as a melee based control set so you could try that.

Really it depends on the primary and what you want to accomplish.

One thing that I have noticed is that with all the Doms I have played they are slot hungry and don't really blossom until the late 30s/early 40s.

If I'm going to solo a Dom I usually concentrate on single target powers and bypass the AoEs until the 30s (inherent stamina changes this in some cases).

If I'm going to be teaming regularly I'll take some of the AoE powers early.

Outside of domination all of my doms feel like a combination of an under powered controller plus an underpowered blaster. Most of the animation times on the cones and PBAoEs are long. My corruptors always felt like they were defeating mobs faster even though they have a much lower damage modifier.

Inside Domination the Dominator becomes a minor deity being able to affect bosses in a single application of a control power and for long enough to actually have a chance to defeat the mobs before they unmez and retaliate. Elite bosses can be affected in 2 applications making the Dom extremely fun to play.

Permadom isn't a way to play..... It's the only way to play.

The easiest primaries to perma are Mind, Elec, and Plant

First rule for playing dom - if you've played a controller, forget almost everything you do there.

You do damage.
You don't need to set up containment. You've got a whole secondary to do that damage with.
AOE Immobs are easier to put off. (At least for me.) You'll find other powers being more (or less) useful, or want them earlier (or later) than a controller.

Run the plant/thorn. I was - given the proper environment (when they stop on the ramps near Vince Dubrowski, bunching them up nicely) and a few purples - soloing the Scrapyarder spawns at 24-26. It's a blast. And more fun when you have your vines. That and my mind/fire (mostly ranged, there) are among my top "fun" characters to play.

And I'm not sure what miladys_knight is doing. Permadom is useful, sure, but I have exactly zero. Don't forget our damage got moved *out* of domination, we've got that all the time.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Okay, looks fun. I'll see whether I can get my plant/thorn a little enhanced -- no enhancements at all will be rough, even at 13.

I'm a bit unsure about the ranged/melee thing. Are the melee attacks enough better than the ranged that I should be staying in melee range to use them?

Yes. Basically you lead with any hard control you have up (confuse, hold, stun, etc) then head into melee and pound some face. In the event your hard control isn't up, you can kite/pull with your ranged attacks, and get mobs into melee range, then pound on their face

as someone mentioned, having a controller mindset doesn't work with dom's.
melee attacks have higher damage modifiers than ranged, and tend to be your strongest attacks.
If your having problems thinking in terms of playing a blapper with controls, another good example are debuff defenders/ corrupter
When playing a debuff type, you lay down your debuff/ controls and then start attacking, likewise if I were to hop on my plant/thorn dom, I would throw out seeds of confusion first, let off with my cone, hold the first target I plan to attack, and then attack. Note on melee vs. range, ranged attacks can be used in melee, but melee attacks can't be used at range, its only the Cone attacks that you do really get the most out of by being range, so you will be using a damage chain mixed with ranged and melee attacks. And you will be much more safer in melee than your average blapper when solo. Furthermore some sets actually have specific powers that encourage you to be in melee depending on what sets you take.
There are some foes obviously you might want to keep at range, but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

Illusion as you mentioned isn't available to doms, although many long term doms, really do hope they give it to doms one day

gravity for doms is interesting, in its current form, its much better at lower levels to controllers than dominators, that is until you reach higher levels. Dom's really don't need either lift or propel for damage, since they tend to have better attacks available in the assault sets, and w/o a secondary that provides some damage mitigation like controllers do, that wait to get wormhole and sing and to get them properly slotted does hurt.

Played the plants/thorn a bit. Was level 13, so I decided to get a bunch of level 15 IOs, and WOW does that make a difference. Went around on a team a bit, made 14, had fun.

While I was doing this, I was chatting with friends, and as a result I now also have a mind/psi, who's all of level five or so. I'm quite liking mind/psi; with the first three powers from mind/, I can keep two enemies permanently locked down and repeatedly mitigate a third by throwing it in the air. This leads to a question:

The mind/psi guides say that mesmerize can stop a boss without domination. It's listed as a 3.5 mag sleep in Real Numbers. I thought bosses had 4 points of mez protection. So, is sleep an exception, or did it get nerfed, or what?

yes, mesmerize will sleep a boss in one application... so you could do a dominate->mesmerize->dominate chain to hold them without risk (if you don't have domination up).

i'll also agree with the others that say perma-dom is almost required to have. that said, you no longer need to build up so much recharge in order to get it to stack since the +damage buff was removed. THAT being said, having enough global recharge to get domination back in a little over a minute is still awesome because it means you should never run out of endurance.

otherwise, just build up enough global recharge to get it perma (i like ~90% without hasten) and build up other set bonuses like hp, acc, and damage. my mind/psi is perma dom and perma hasten and i wouldn't have him any other way

since the legitimate responses are out of the way...

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Despite their shared power category, controllers and dominators are very little alike. The controller, as the name implies, controls a fight: through combinations of layered active control and support powers, they tip the balance of a fight toward a point where they will survive and their enemies will not. While there are notable exceptions, the general method is to guide enemies along a path toward helplessness. Controllers tend to favor longer fights where their cumulative effect is devastating, although their instantaneous damage tends to be low.

Dominators don't generally have the support powers to layer on top of active control. This changes the dynamic from a spiral downwards to a race against time. The dominator gets an early edge with crowd control abilities, and then needs to quickly press this advantage while it lasts. To this end, dominators have a vastly greater capacity for instantaneous damage. Control is used as a means to set up enemies for attacks, both at the single-target and area level. In the early game, where unenhanced area controls and attacks are relatively weak, the dominator is better off fighting a few enemies at a time, using controls to keep stronger enemies out of the fight while taking out weaker enemies with burst damage. In the later game, especially with high levels of recharge, the same general principle applies at the whole-spawn level: incapacitate with area control, then quickly kill with area damage.

It's possible to play a fully-ranged dominator, but it's neither necessary nor particularly advantageous. The mitigative benefit of staying at range is obviated in the short term by the much stronger mitigation of active control, and in the long term by the much stronger mitigation of defeating enemies.

If I were to compare a Dominator to another archetype, I would compare with a Blaster, particularly those sets that mix some control with burst damage. The Blaster has more upfront damage, but the Dominator doesn't need to kill as quickly because their initial incoming damage is much lower. Personally, I think that Dominators got the better end of the deal, but opinions vary. Both, however, rely exclusively on disabling enemies quickly for their survival: you must do unto them before they do unto you.

Ahh, okay, that's two of the great mysteries resolved.

In most control sets, the third power is an AoE immobilize with some damage. My experience has been that in theory this is very nice, but in practice at low levels it means everything shoots me and I faceplant. I'm sorta liking Mind's different tradeoff, where I can shut more things up completely. At least so far.

While I'm at it: There are many guide threads where at least one person says to skip the ST immob because the ST hold is better, and another person says the ST immob is really useful. This doesn't really apply as much to mind, but I'm curious about why some people seem to like the ST immob and others seem to think it's useless.

(... and as to the "so many bannable answers", I've already discovered that an lft message which exploits the ambiguity gets more responses.)

mind/psi is now 10. I can confuse one, sleep one, hold one, and then do interpretive dance while they eventually fall down.