I don't recall there ever being a damage buff that worked only outside of Domination; the changes whenever ago removed the damage buff from Domination and baked it into the AT modifiers, so you did old-Domination-level damage with or without Domination active. But in any case, whether or not my memory is faulty on this point, there's definitely no damage buff that only works outside Domination now. You do the same damage with or without Domination, so perma-Dom is purely beneficial.
Domination doesn't debuff dmg so perma dom is awesome it also still refills your end bar 100%.
@pax parabellum
since they removed the damage buff from domination and increased the damage modifier in the assault sets, I don't think there has been any major changes directly in domination itself
Other things they've done since then, that may explain what your seeing
-Purple Sets & ATO's( I think purples came after, diffinitely ATO's), made building a perma-dom much easier
-not too long ago they did rebalance some of the assault sets, for example, Psi Assault used to have all of its damage concentrated in Psychic Shockwave, with its other attacks having weak damage, now its other attacks are much more consistant with damage from compariable attacks from other assaults, with Psychic Shockwave toned down( its still the #1 Dominator PBAE, but no longer the fast recharging mini-nuke it used to be)
-Doms now get epic sets which do have some nice AEs in them( I don't think I've ever seen a good comparison of the Dom Patron Sets vs the Dom Epic Sets), but I would say Doms were one of the winners of redside ATs getting Epic Sets.
When Dominators were first introduced, they had mediocre control and mediocre damage until you hit Domination, then both control and damage went wild. So "permadom" was always the goal there, because you got the end bar refilled each time it came back up and you got great control and great damage.
Then they changed that mechanic, so that when Domination was NOT active your damage was buffed, and when Domination WAS active your control was buffed -- this meant you'd have to choose whether you were going for better damage or better control. Suddenly Domination was, while still useful, no longer absolutely necessary to have up all the time.
I stopped playing dominators for a while, and now when I visit the forums I see everything seems to have tilted pro-permadom again. Is that because they've changed the mechanic again? Or is it because someone did some math and discovered the damage buff with Domination off wasn't as useful as the control buff with Domination on?
EDIT/UPDATE: Looking at the Dominator Revamp post above it looks like the change increased damage for Dominators across the board, whether in Domination mode or not. If that's true then there's no trade-off to consider at all... which means I REALLY WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION when they did that.
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