Why doesn't Domination do more?

Domination doesn't affect different primaries equally. To oversimplify, if you get permadom on a Mind Controller, you have an unstoppable maelstrom of mob lockdown. If you get permadom on an Earth Controller, you have...a Dominator with mez protection.

What I'm wondering is, why? Unless the power info is wrong or flat out lies, Domination effects are just an extra thing the power does that only kicks in while Domination is active. I'm pretty sure they could have the powers do things besides have a second control effect that last 50% longer when Domination is active. For example, maybe Jolting Chain could have more jumps, or do decent damage. Hot Feet could have a chance for Knockdown.

Since it's possible for pets to inherent buffs from the caster, they could even use this to port Illusion Control to Doms without the problem of the set getting very little benefit from Domination.

the only problem some sets have is that they use pseudo pets which are unaffected by domination

in the case of earth domination, i think its fairly reasonable because volcanic gases is already really powerful without the double mag mez

i do not think that illusion would have a problem with domination because the only pet it has that does mez is spectral terror which is just a fear, the illusionist gets flash and the other mezzes that dont require pseudo pets so illusion would benefit just fine with domination

Do plants feel?

the best mez protection in the game, full endurance, and instant reliable boss level lockdown is as good as inherents get aside from scrapper criticals. even earth control has plenty of powers that domination affects, people just love to *****. imo you lost the right to complain about it ever since they removed the damage bonus to improve the appeal to new players. if you want random procs go buy them, dont complain to the devs and get another set changed because you suck at playing it.

I miss the damage bonus.

Yeah, from where I'm sitting, the only thing Domination doesn't do is my laundry. It's true that Domination does more for some sets than others, but that's not intrinsically a problem; it's the classic MMO player's fallacy, wherein the lack of a bonus equates to an active penalty.

Don't get me wrong; I fall into that same trap all the time, and there is something to be said for build paralysis vis-a-vis Domination. For example, I might be tempted to decide not to play an Ice or Elec Dominator because I feel that Domination is "wasted" on them. I might decide that I need to have soft-capped DEF to take advantage of Domination's mez protection, or I might decide that I need to play an endurance-heavier set to take advantage of the extra End Domination gives us.

All of those things speak to the strength of the Inherent, not its weaknesses. It offers something to almost everyone; the fact that not all sets or all players can take full advantage of (or can fully appreciate) all of its various bonuses isn't important. What's important is that Domination would be a huge boost even if all you had were single-target mezzes. What's important is that any squishy, even one that doesn't have any mezzes at all, would give its eyeteeth for Domination.

Take the aforementioned Ice Dominator. Superficially, she loses out relative to other Doms because she doesn't have an every-spawn AoE control that gets boosted magnitude via Domination, but that superficial weakness hides a strength too; because Ice relies in large part on an offensive toggle power, the mez protection in Domination is even more valuable to Ice than it might be to someone else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

When the damage buff was stripped from domination, the AT's damage modifiers were boosted at the same time. Certainly not statistical evidence, but in my game time I have seen a significant increase in the number of dominators being played since the change.

As for Vanden's original question, I suppose it would take a reworking of several powers. It's work that should have been done when dominators were created and probably more work than will ever be done on an AT that seems to be performing just fine. Though I am a bit surprised they let Electric come to the table as is. If Synaptic Overload worked properly with domination it certainly wouldn't overpower the set.

Domination is fantastic as is. It would be great if it just filled your end bar or just gave you mez protection but it does both !!!! Holy Cow.


Edit: If you want something that could use a buff its the alignment power. The heroic version should do the exact same thing the villain version does.

Just to clarify something here, if you play an Earth Dom you get some powers which aren't affected by domination, but which are as effective as the controller versions all the time. And you still get a blue bar top up and mez protection.

Some dominator sets could do with a pass overall, and in certain cases changed to add domination effects to them (arctic air mainly) but Earth Dominators don't need more domination affected powers particulary.

As for why domination cannot work with pseudo pets it's a mechanical reason, the same "caster" issue that things like the Forced feedback proc suffers from. The game can't use the usual "if caster is in domination mode" check because the caster for patch powers is an invisible pseudo pet which cant be in domination mode ever.

I've often wondered if they could add a domination conditional second pseudo pet summon which would do a one off effect though, so for example with Spectral terror you could do an additional one off 10 second fear effect if domination is up. But then they'd be obliged to weaken the spectral terror effect, dropping the fear durations and the rather nice 15% to hit debuff it has and can double stack.

While its a shame that Domination provides more of a boost to some sets than others, it's also still arguably the best inherent in the game.

Like others have said, Domination isn't just about its boost to your control powers. Personally, I like the mez protection from it more than anything else.

Well, of course it would be nice if Domination did more for Ice control, but the mez protection is incredibly useful. Without that I get held/mezed and arctic air gets turned off then I am basically screwed lol. I would NOT be happy if all it did was fill my end, but if all it gave was mez prot then that would be more than enough for me.

Earth Control may not benefit from Domination as much as a Mind Controller but Earth Control has Earthquake, making any argument for Mind Control invalid. Oh, and a cool poo-monster.

Seriously though, yes, Domination doesn't affect all powersets equally. No, it shouldn't be changed because the sets that aren't affects a whole lot (Earth, Ice, Fire) generally have saving graces:

Earth: Earthquake, Poo-monster/tank
Ice: Ice Patch, Arctic Air
Fire: Fire Imps, Bonfire

So whatevs. Domination isn't really used to boost the mag of powers much anyway. It's generally used as a free end bar and a way to get out of a mez. Free Blue+Break Free? Yes please.