I think there's a point you reach where over-accessing the CoH boards becomes counter-productive. As much as I like my dominator, reading all about how -other- people are feeling miserable is starting to make me feel miserable in sympathy as well.
This is similar to how I am pretty much ignoring all Tanker posts that don't have a constructive headline. What's the point? They are using different measuring sticks (than the devs) to what they want out of the AT.
Dominators can't control as much as controllers. And they don't have buff/debuff support functions. Boo hoo. WTF? Go play a controller then. I HATE (ok, too strong a word) - rather I dislike playing buff/debuff support functions. I can do it, it's just not...in my psyche to 'cast spells and weaken others and buff/healz0r teammates" so I do it as a break, not as an extended playstyle.
Tanks have been gimped, we can no longer tank as much as we used to. Boo hoo. *sighs* Yes, we have been weakened. On purpose, by intention. Hell, I'm having some difficulty staying upright in one Rikti Crash Site spawn once invincibility got fixed to its proper level. Solo, of course. But I can scrape by, 50/50, with liberal inspiration use. Obviously the devs want us to desire teammates - a blaster/scrapper could decimate the spawn in the short time I hold its aggro, a def/troller could keep me buffed up or debuff the mobs to where I can survive without so much worry about my hp bar.
So what? Adapt or die. Now granted, I don't play a fire tank so I'm not sure how hard they've been hit, but I do remember a fire tank completely outperforming my nerfed invul in the Eden trial pre-ED. I had to keep hitting unstoppable to tank at levels he could. If I have to tank avs that reduce my hp bar to 1/4 in a few seconds, I go unstoppable. I dull pain it back up to full. This gives three minutes to kill the av, which good teams can manage. If not, sound the warning and pull back, or try to survive the crash.
Pull in more people if you have to. Just play the bloody game instead of worrying so much about 'balance.'
Take a case in point: my dominator was playing in a small group of pickup friends, we know each other fairly well, we like each other and find each other professional - and hell, we total party wipe many many times. :P
DM/Fire brute, one rad/kin corruptor, one always sk'ed lower leevl energy/thermal corruptor, and moi, ice/energy dom.
We ran into Barracuda's mission, aggro'ed like three groups at once with Barracuda inside and plopped facefirst. We did the Silver Mantis Oranbega mission and ended up inside a CoT jail and having to break out (that was fun, actually). Yadda yadda. Sometimes the av gave us major problems. Sometimes I'd be able to get domination on and completely neuter the av. (I'm starting to suspect that at post lvl 25 - avs have those purple mez arrows. Or they just have higher mez resist per level.)
Enter the Calystix mission. Now we tried many many times to get her, and I was always tasked with holding the bitch. I'd manage for a few seconds, and then get completely totaled by sidelong aggro that wasn't held by anyone. We got her to half health once, and then the bitch re-summoned her coral minions and that erased me and then her hold. :/
So we brought in more, and this time, our brute leader went the whole hog, he got an mm and a stalker along, and they just charged without waiting for my dom bar, and what do you know, they just took her to half hp in seconds flat without their own hp bar moving - the minions must have been sucking up the aggro - and I just had to contend myself with stacking some -speed, -recharge and an immob and playing to see if I could hold before it died.
Does this bring me crying to the forums, going, oh, dominators are teh useless because the premiere function I prided myself in (neutralizing boss-type mobs) was just completely outmatched by the combination of other ATs? Er, no. We've only proven that dominators are not necessary in killing avs. Just like tanks are not strictly necessary in killing avs.
We sure make it easier though. Or should, anyhow, on average.
But I'm not going to worry about shoulds. If they're still taking me in and not kicking me off the instant they see my purple or grey AT icon, then there isn't a problem.
Just becaused stacked defender/corruptor teams are teh proven uber, how come you don't see everyone playing that way? I dunno, maybe it's because people actually like playing/trying out/test spinning other ATs?
You could take a def/corruptor up to level 50/40 that way, but that's it, where are your other ATs gonna function unless you PL them with a stacked team? And that's not the way most people play anyhow.
Updates, lvl 29. *bounce* Alllllmost there.
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