How bad is Gravity?

I recently rolled a Grav/Psi dom, and I've been asking around, trying to get input on how good the powersets I've chosen are. He's going to be Psionic Mastery once he's high enough.

And I've received a terrifying onslaught of responses along the lines of "Gravity is the worst Dominator primary," and "Dude, Gravity? Sorry to hear that."

I've also heard some people tell me Gravity is pretty good for doms.

So, how bad is Grav? I've taken him to lvl 26, just picked up Wormhole but haven't had a chance to really use it yet.

Should I reroll with different powersets? Is Gravity so terrible it underperforms, even with IOs?

Go on the test server while you have a chance and make a grav/everything. They get autoleveled to 50 right away.

Play for yourself and decide. I wouldn't call it "terrible," no - I've got some grav doms and controllers (including a grav/kin at 50.)

The biggest complaints I think you'll run across are:
1. Animation times. Propel's the most visible of this, to me - I've had my targets get killed before I finished "summoning" whatever so often I ended up skipping the power on the doms (who, to be fair, have an entire secondary devoted to damage.) Wormhole's somewhat like this, too (but such a fun power, and useful to reposition and stun.)

2. Not being able to see what's held - it's rather subtle in its "controlled"... um... wave... thingy. You can recolor this, or course, and I'd generally recommend it.

3. There's no -kb in your immobs. So stuff can still get scattered. (Don't confuse with repel, a different effect all together.) Mostly an irritation when it comes to Wormhole - if there were a -kb, you could immob a group and just reposition them. To reduce scatter, you generally want to "aim" them against a wall or something similar instead. (Of course, the plus side there is that you can use your immob on top of someone else's ice patch/earthquake without losing the knockdown from that.)


Of course, the plusses (to me) include Singularity - nothing like turning one dom into two (or one and a half.)

(Edit to remove "holds" from "no -kb.")

See my Guides and Tutorials

I'm currently leveling a grav dom. It's not that bad, but it's certainly not the best. Until 26, I was a brute/blaster with a hold. Lift was a godsend, but on bosses I often didn't hold them at all, just using Lift and Mallets to keep it knocked down. Your single target hold applies -kb, so it negates lift. I skipped Propel, given that my secondary is /earth, and went with a melee approach, focusing on getting weave and maneuvers to stay in combat. At 26, I got Wormhole, which I found useful IF you had a way to get the animation off without dieing. If so, it's great for repositioning enemies, or my favorite tactic, teleporting Circle of Thorns in Steel Canyon off of the top of the buildings and sending them plummeting to their deaths.

Gravity isn't as terrible as its detractors would have you believe. It IS a late blooming set, and many of its powers aren't worth taking as a Dominator, IMO. Dimension Shift and Propel are the worst offenders. Propel may be a good blast in the context of what Controllers have access to, but a Dom has much better options. Dimension shift is purely an emergency brake for your group, and a really crummy one at that. Skip both. I'd also recommend passing over Crush. It's no worse than any other single target immobilize, but Doms are usually brimming with single target powers, and grav is no exception. As a damage power, Crush really fails to inspire, it ticks way too slowly to be bothered with.

Let's move on to the good stuff. Gravity Distortion, Wormhole, and Singularity are your staple control powers, with Lift pitching in with a decent combination of fast damage and soft control. GD is a typical single target hold, in the middle of the pack in terms of animation speed. Wormhole is an AOE stun with a linked teleport foe and knockback effect. Used properly, it can be amazing. It does animate slowly, but can be fired without line of sight, and piling an entire spawn into a corner can work wonders. The one thing that underwhelms about wormhole is that its radius is only 15 feet, compared to 25 for stalagmites or flashfires. Singularity is, IMO, the best controller pet in the game, by far. Nearly indestructible, it has an always-on repel effection (just like repulsion field or hurricane) which can keep you and your fellow squishies safe almost indefinitely. It also spams Gravity Distortion, Crush and Lift, to stack magnitude with your own control powers, and they recharge very fast compared to other pets with control powers. This effect makes a Gravity Dominator the best single-target magnitude stacking AT in the game, courtesy of Domination.

Lastly, don't overlook Crushing Field as a source of damage. Since it's a immobilize, a slow, and a damage power, it can be slotted up with a few procs to make it fairly respectable versus large groups of enemies. It's HUGE radius of effect makes it easy to reach the target cap every time it's fired, and unlike most other AOE immobilizes, it doesn't confer knockback protection to its targets. This makes it synergize strongly with knockdown controls like Sleet, Freezing Rain, Earthquake and Ice Slick.

Bottom line, Grav is a perfectly functional control primary. It may be the weakest control primary, but that's far from making it the weakest powerset. Slot for damage, play your grav controller like a single target blaster on steroids, and you won't go wrong.

PS: Your holds DO confer knockback protection. It's just your immobilizes that don't.

Wait...people take the single target immobilize? On any control toon? Who knew?

It made me fall.
It hurt.

Although, it does help keep my house in the same place.


(sorry... )

I use the AOE immob all the time as a ghetto blast. I've got 5x Positron's Blast with 2 damage procs in it. When you're soloing, you've got all the aggro anyway, and in groups it's not hard to lock down the outlying mobs who aren't occupied by your teammates. Also, with permadom, endurance cost is laughable. I simply CAN NOT run out of blue juice.

I have a Fire/Storm controller on which I've taken the single target fire cage, but I can't see taking the single target immob on a Dominator.

One of the reasons I love my 50 grav/nrg is all the secondary effects you CAN get from the backset - kb and stun - that the frontset generally lacks. And personally, I don't take the 1-target immob or any melee, but that's just my playstyle with him. He's a BlastDom; love playing him; leveled him (easily) to 50 even before the damage boost on Dom secondaries.

I enjoy my Gravity bubbler very much. The two defining powers for me are Singularity and Wormhole, for much the same reasons as mentioned above. Here's what I like most about playing this toon:

He's at the ranged defense softcap. I cast Singularity and turn on Force Bubble. I start blasting Propel/Lift/Epic Power Blast with Gravity Distortion. I maneuver just enough to keep mobs under control, and use Wormhole and Gravity Distortion to move and hold mobs in place. NOTHING touches me. Melee is a total non-issue. An occasional ranged attack will plug me, but it's infrequent enough that it doesn't slow me at all. I can solo whole maps like this.

It's not a farming build and he doesn't kill lots of things quickly, but it's both solo and team friendly if you know how to use Wormhole well.

The secret to understanding Gravity is knowing a good portion of the set's controls come from the pet. Once you get Singy, the set's problems vanish. Playing Grav Doms, I often find myself not even having to throw controls out as Singy gets everything locked down and tanks all the aggro off you. Grav Doms get more blapping time than any other Dom. It's a completely unique feel.

WARNING: I bold names.

The obvious choice for aiming Wormhole is straight up and then to run around shouting "It's raining men!" while your teammates call for the men in white coats.