DarkCurrent

Ice Control has almost zero ranged control in my opinion, that being the biggest issue. Any foe that attacks from range while you're in melee with AA and on top of slick has a free pass to whoop you good.

Oh, I didn't forget. I was screaming at the time that that qualifies as breaking the cottage rule, so there was no reason dimension shift couldn't be changed as well.

Anyway, the idea was that energy armor wasn't losing anything, but the ability was moved from A to B and A had X added to it to make it better. So can't the dmg from Flashfreeze (why does a sleep do dmg???) be moved to Ice Slick? Would make sense that the falling would do smashing dmg wouldn't it? Maybe put a DoT version. Then slick could take dmg sets.

This would improve both powers without much effort (IMO). Ice slick would have more utility just like every other patch power in the game, plus the sets you could put in it would give it some nice dmg potential.

I'd further like to see flash freeze receive the static field treatment. Make it a sphere of cryogenic freezing. Anything that enters is slowed and has a sleep proc hit it. I wouldn't mind the aggro then as it'd make sense.

You do that and ice control goes from bottom of the barrel to mid-level.

If Synapse feels really frisky, he could beef up Shiver while he's at it. There have been two suggestions I've seen on the forums that would make it quite nice. One was to add a -range debuff a la hurricane and taunt. The other was to add a shatter mechanic. Any target hit with shiver would then be susceptible to bonus 'shatter' damage from a followup hit with BoI or Chilblain.

Toss that in with the above and now you have a top tier set with useful powers from 1-32 that you'd have a hard time deciding to take/skip.

So I finally figured out a way to make an ice dom awesomesauce. I recently respec'd and incarnated my ice/earth dom and here's what I did:

(This guy's an end hog and extremely toggle heavy, but you can make it work with proper IO sets and incarnate choices.)

Go for mega-stacking confuse.

From Ice Control you take Arctic Air of course. I six-slotted with frankenslots for a combo of confusion and damage procs. Cacophony dmg proc + end/confuse, Malaise dmg proc + end/confuse, Impeded Swift dmg proc + Coercive Persuasion contagious confusion. This allows AA to do its standard confuse duty, saves on end costs, gives you 3 dmg procs that provides 'hot feet lite', and spreads confusion quickly in a wide AoE.

From Earth Assault you take Power Boost of course. This will lengthen the confusion time on targets affected by AA. Also, take Mud Pots. Yes, I know the radius is small. But take it anyway. You'll see why in a minute.

I swapped primal forces mastery for psionic mastery and picked up World of Confusion. Yes, I know the radius is small. Yes, I know the confusion chance is only 20%. But take it anyway. You'll see why in a minute.

From those three powersets you should easily be able to achieve permadom status. I have my guy at 90% without any purple sets, so you can do it too. This will give you the recharge to spam attacks, boost your other control mags (doesn't work on AA's confuse to my knowledge), and refill your end bar (which is critical because I gave up Conserve Power when I respec'd).

Okay here's where incarnate abilities come in. Take Vigor and go up the right tree. That'll give acc, end redux and heal boosting that all have usefulness (the end redux is mandatory fyi). It also will boost your confuse duration 33%, which helps AA and WoC

From Interface, take the Cognitive set and head up the left hand tree. At tier 4 you have a 20% confuse proc on all dmg attacks + psi dmg proc DoT to all attacks. This makes it so any of your attacks... oh say from mud pots and WoC... proc confusion every 5th hit. It'll stack up to 5x. Combined with your AA and WoC hits, you're confusing targets potentially 7x stacked.

I took Void Judgement cuz I live in melee with this guy. Barrier destiny for the def/res boost in melee. Lore doesn't matter much but I haven't given much thought (I went vanguard, but don't like their ranged nature).

Okay, last but not least is your Hybrid slot. A lot of folks poo-poo this tree, but I can't say enough about it for this build. Control. If you head up the left hand tree, you can get the +1 mag boost to all mezzes and a chance to dmg to all mezzed targets. Well now you're firing critical level confuses from AA and WoC hits. And you're proc'ing dmg because everything is 'mezzed' that stands within your AA cloud, or gets close enough for WoC.

At the end of the day, just standing in the middle of x8 mobs is all the control you'll ever need. You're procing dmg and mezzes all over the place. Hitting with your AoEs like fissure, psi nado, mud pots, WoC, and tremor just spreads the madness. Contagious confusion wreaks havoc even more. You'll one-shot confuse bosses. And even better the mag boost from hybrid lets you one-shot hold mez resistant foes like kheld dwarfs. I seismic smashed one while domination was up (when isn't it?) that was running past me in a DA arc and he stopped dead, held. Those guys usually take a couple, three holds to stop. It was glorious.

Anyway, it's a really fun build. Of course, to me, it just highlights how weak ice control is that it requires massive incarnation to make it work to the level other control sets have in their 30s, but hey, what else is there to do with the end game stuff?

Oh, btw, can't the devs move the dmg from the sleep to ice slick?

Why would anyone take dominator illusion if they change the bread and butter power?

Meanwhile, you'd be okay getting 2 invisibility powers???

If you want to change anything for a dom port look at the invis powers.

I don't have the damage proc in the tier 3 version I have, but the confuse proc doesn't seem to be hitting as often as it should. I'll test some more today and check the logs more carefully to see if I can figure out the exact percentage.

I'm glad to see new sets added, but I refuse to buy anymore until such time as there's more equality in what gets developed. Adding more blast sets (or the upcoming buff and armor sets for that matter) when there's already so many in-game while 'back burnering' sets for control, assault, pet summoning and manipulation is not something I will support whether using 'free' points or ones I purchase.

No.

So who called for a nerf and when? Or is this a preemptive anti-nerf strike?

Something else I'm interested to see is the fallout of the +regen buffs being added to blaster secondaries even when the power chosen doesn't make sense. For instance, with elec there's a question why not Lightning Field? Why Thunder Clap? And Synapse replied it was because they wanted to provide these survival tools in a certain level range.

So you know there'll be calls to reorder the powers to solve both problems. I'm curious to see what response that will get considering gravity control was not reordered.

So why not Water Assault? Or Water Control?

Why another blast set? Did blasters, corruptors and defenders need another new set?

Or do controllers and dominators need a new control set more?

And the assault/control sets can be turned into blaster manipulation secondaries.

I'm curious how the development process works. It's clearly not based on need. So is it purely on how many ATs can use a set? Is it on how many characters exist in the database that can use a set? Or is it simply 'hey I have this idea' design process?

Ultimately, how do control ATs and dominators in particular get on the development radar? Getting one new set every 2 years isn't cutting it.

The OP's problem is assuming dominators were even a consideration when these changes were made. That'll never be the case when power changes/additions are being made (refer to gravity tweaks for the latest example).

The focus of my post was powerset creation and proliferation. The revamp is neither. The revamp wasn't really that intense - dmg boost from Domination removed and placed in full time. But if you want to lump that in as dev time, then don't forget stalkers got a revamp and so did brute fury.

As for a timeline and side-by-side comparison, I've selected just the villain ATs that launched at the same time as dominators:

AT brute
CoV launch: 5 primary, 5 secondary
issue 7: electric melee, electric armor
issue 11: dual blades, willpower
issue 12: battle axe, war mace, super reflexes
issue 13: shield defense
issue 16: claws
GoingRogue: kinetic melee
issue 18: APPs
issue 21: katana, broad sword, regen, street justice
issue 22: titan weapon, staff fighting
future: psi weapons, bio armor, rad armor
total: 16 primary, 10 secondary
increase: 11, 5

AT: corruptor
CoV launch: 7 primary, 7 secondary
issue 7:
issue 11:
issue 12: electric blast, storm
issue 13: pain dom
issue 16: archery, TA
GoingRogue: dual pistols
issue 18: APPs
issue 21: psi blast, poison, beam rifle, time manip
issue 22:
future: water blast, nature affinity
total: 13 primary, 12 secondary
increase: 6, 5

AT mastermind
CoV launch 4 primary, 5 secondary
issue 7 thugs
issue 11
issue 12 storm
issue 13 pain dom
issue 16 thermal
Going Rogue demon summon
issue 18 APPs
issue 21 sonic, time manip
issue 22 beast mastery
future nature affinity
total 7 primary, 10 secondary
increase: 3, 5

AT stalker
CoV launch 5 primary, 4 secondary
issue 7 dark melee, dark armor
issue 11 dual blades, willpower
issue 12 electric melee, electric armor
issue 13
issue 16 broadsword
Going Rogue kinetic melee
issue 18 APPs
issue 21 ice armor, street justice
issue 22 staff fighting
future psi weapons, bio armor, rad armor
total 12 primary, 8 secondary
increase: 7, 4

AT dominator
CoV launch 5 primary, 5 secondary
issue 7
issue 11
issue 12 earth control, elec assault
issue 13
issue 16 earth assault
Going Rogue elec control
issue 18 APPs
issue 21
issue 22 dark control, dark assault
future
total 8 primary, 8 secondary
increase: 3, 3


If you look at the hero ATs you'll see the differences are even worse.

The gap is real. It's existed for years and will continue for the foreseeable future. So why are dominators being overlooked time and again with powerset development and proliferation?

So after reading about all the wonderful new sets that are in the pipeline, I thought about sets for doms and how it takes forever to get anything made or proliferated. Based on paragonwiki, here's the history of dominator power development:

(I6) CoV launch - doms get all controller sets sans illusion and earth + they sport a shiny: Plant control

crickets chirp for 6 issues

(I12) Earth control is proliferated and electric assault is added.

crickets chirp for 4 more issues

(I16) Doms get earth assault

crickets chirp for 2 more issues

(I18) Going Rogue launches - doms get electric control and Hero APPs

crickets chirp for 4 more issues

*Doms are skipped for a proliferation round here, but devs ask doms to be patient as something 'special' is planned.

(I22) Freedom launch - doms get dark control and dark assault. The special treat (umbral beast) is highly criticized for its appearance and noise, plus hits with a dull thud after 4-legged pets for MMs were leaked. The other special treat (inky blackness animations) is only used for controls and not the assault powers due to time constraints.

crickets chirping again for just about 2 issues ... but for how long?

(I24+) Future word - more armors (bio and radiation), more melees (psi weapons), more blasts (water), more buffs (nature affinity) being added to further the development gap between dominators and all other ATs. No new controls or assaults in the works. Air control loses popularity contest to Rad Armor at pummit.

Overlay the other ATs' development time (powerset creation and proliferation) and you'll see it's not even close. Dominators are the red-headed stepchild of the dev team.

My question is, why? If the answer is popularity, then just cut all the low pop stuff out of the game and reduce it down to City of Brutes and Blasters and be done with it.

More control should be placed in the secondary powers. Problem solved.

Kheld dwarfs have taunt. Haven't fought any since i23 but i imagine this will make itfs and ppd more fun.

If it's bothering the OP so much you could just remove the channel from your tab. It wasn't there prior to I23, so you wouldn't miss it.

Can we expand this question to include doms in general, and permadoms specifically?

I didn't mess with Hybrid on test this go round, so aside from what I read on the wiki, I'm in the dark on what this incarnate set can bring to the table for doms.

I'm going to respond to myself:

1. Gravity tweaks were solid. Dim Shift is still pretty useless. Not as useless, but there's really no point picking it over any other gravity power.

2. Dark control is okay. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. My biggest problem is that when doms were skipped with the previous round of proliferation the reason provided by the devs was that doms had a surprise in store. I think this got a lot of people excited, but I personally don't think Dark Control lived up to its hype. Especially when Beast Control was leaked first.

3. Dark Assault - looks really good. Haven't played it much myself, but it's on my list. I still don't think it should have been delayed this long. And I think it was a major slap in the face that blasters got dark manipulation first with the excuse that it was actually just a 'port' of powers in game already. Uh... what is dark assault then?

4. I am not pleased with the announcement of the new powersets not including any control sets. It took forever for us to get electric control after CoV release. Then forever and a day to get dark control. Now we're apparently going to have to wait even longer for the next control. Meanwhile, we're seeing yet another blast set being added. And we're getting a new buff set. And 3 new melee sets were just added back to back to back. And there was blast, buff and melee set proliferation as well. Hey it's great that new sets are being added, but some equity would sure be nice.

5. Dom population has been up, but despite all the tweaks and promises it's not lighting up the servers. Too bad because for my money this AT is the most well-rounded and fun of them all. I think there's a catch 22 with the lack of dev time in new control and assault sets. Why make more control/assault sets if the population is lower than others? But why play a dom when you're not getting new sets at the same rate of other ATs? I believe that new sets, truly special ones, not cobbled together or underwhelming like with dark and dark, will attract more players to the dominator.

6. I think doms rock the new incarnate stuff. However, I think permadom is almost mandatory in DA. Mobs toss out so much mez and kb that without domination, you get punked pretty fast.

7. Illusion. I'm not even a huge fan, but why this set has still not been proliferated is beyond me. The only reason I can fathom is the devs plan to change it. However, if they do, they'll upset longtime controller players. What to do? I'm thinking dark control was a poor attempt to satisfy the illusion cry.

8. Ice control needs help. It sits rock bottom in the control sets and not because the others are so much better. Its biggest problem is its self-conflicting nature and redundancy. The sleep and cone slow need work. I'd also toss fire control out there. It's pretty solid, but I'd put it in the bottom 3. Maybe just some numbers tweaks would improve it. I think there are just too many skippable powers or ones that need heavy slotting to work properly. Even the imps aren't all that anymore. They're just too soft.

9. New sets I'd like: water control if there's plans for water assault to go with the water blast set. Air control sounded interesting. Those 2 would round out the elemental sets. Some sort of tech or gadget control a la traps. Some sort of weapon assault sets. Some sort of natural punching assault sets. I'd love Super Strength on a dom.

I lodged a complaint/bug on the official VIP hotline and was told that I'd just entered my login and password incorrectly. Which of course I needed to login for my master account. Pretty lulzy that I pay for that extra 'service'.

Just curious to find out what everyone's thoughts are on:

1. What's the final word on the gravity tweaks? Were they enough to improve the set's performance versus other controls? Are you satisfied with the changes to Dim Shift, WH, propel and sing?
   
2. What's the final word on dark control? Was it worth the wait? Is it the special thing mentioned by devs or so many months ago? How does it rank versus the other control sets?
   
3. What's the final word on dark assault? Was it worth the wait? Is it unique/special enough to justify why it wasn't created a long time ago? How does it rank versus the other assault set?
   
4. What's your take on the latest announced and rumored power sets? Are you okay with no new control or assault sets anywhere on the horizon? Are you okay with Radiation Defense 'beating out' Air Control at the Pummit?
   
5. How is dominator population these days? Has it increased, decreased, remained unchanged?
   
6. How are dominators handling new content and iTrials? Better, the same, or worse than other ATs?
   
7. What's the status of illusion control proliferation? Will it be proliferated? When? Will it need changing?
   
8. What other sets are in need of 'tweaking'?
   
9. What other sets would you like to see created?