61 Dominator - PvE AoE DPS and Crowd Control

[TheGrinnz]

This is a guide for level 60 Dominator in group PvE content. Dominator has some useful crowd control at lower levels and is useful in PvP at any level (particularly as a subspec) but its area-of-effect damage does not really come into fruition until after level 50.

This is a specialized soul. Do not attempt to use Dominator for a single-target encounter. You have been warned.

What Dominator excels at is AoE DPS, and a lot of it at once, as well as unique crowd-control and utility that can be useful in raid or other group settings.

Build

61 Dominator/10 Stormcaller/5 Harbinger - http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#S8/dGaGllklaGx0/gDE

Buffs

Pain Armor
Lightning Charge

Macros

Lazy AoE:

#show Lightning Wall
suppressmacrofailures
cast @gtae Lightning Wall
cast @gtae Nyx's Orb
cast @gtae Grasping Void
cast @gtae Gravity Void
cast Traitorous Influence
cast Storm Shackle
cast Forked Lightning
cast Neural Prod

Mass Betrayal:

#show Mass Betrayal
cast @gtae Mass Betrayal
yell YOLO

Mass Exhaustion (mass mez, breaks on damage):

#show Mass Exhaustion
cast @gtae Mass Exhaustion

Reflect mouseover:

#show Reflective Command
cast @mouseoverui Reflective Command

Deny (cleanse) mouseover:

#show Deny
cast @mouseoverui Deny

Single target:

#show Haunting Pain
suppressmacrofailures
cast Haunting Pain
cast Malevolent Bolt
cast Neural Prod

Separate on bar:
Void Wall
Split Personality
Static Flux
Transmogrify - Squirrel
Death's Edict - Stun
Thunder Blast - Interrupt/Knockback
Arresting Presence - AoE Silence/Interrupt

Use separately to maximize DPS:
Lightning Wall
Nyx's Orb
Storm Shackle

DPS

The usage of Dominator for DPS is in essence very simple. You have damaging abilities, and ways to buff those abilities.

First, Static Flux is essentially a free 10% damage boost for a period of time, as your only other charge-consuming DPS ability is Lightning Wall.

Second, if you have the 4-piece bonus from the raid synergy crystal (http://rift.magelo.com/en/item/95F7F...inator-Crystal) then Split Personality (1 minute cooldown, 30 second duration) will increase your spellpower while it is active, so it is a powerful cooldown especially in combination with Mass Betrayal.

Finally, Dominator has a talent called Dominant Personality which increases your spellpower by 20% for 5 seconds whenever you successfully mez an enemy with Transmogrify, Death's Edict or Mass Exhaustion. So if there are enemies that can be mezzed (which if you are using Dominator, there probably are), then you want to use one of these abilities (usually Transmogrify) before dropping your large cooldowns. At the same time, your cast time is halved by Swift Control so it is doubly useful for Nyx's Orb, your only AoE cast-time ability other than Forked Lightning. In essence, while dropping your big cooldowns, you want to use one of the crowd-control abilities every 2-3 casts. With no ability lag you can fit 3 casts in between but if your framerate is low or the server is lagging you may want to mez again after 2 casts. Don't bother maintaining this buff for Forked Lightning or single-target damage.

Most of Dominator's AoE abilities have a 30 second cooldown so your burst will be timed around that. Mass Betrayal has a 2 minute cooldown and is one of your highest damage abilities, so it should be used separately so it's not wasted on small groups. There are some caveats to the usage of some of Dominator's AoE abilities that you should pay attention to. If you wish to maximize them, take them out of the "AoE spam" macro and use them separately:

Void Wall - This ability can not effectively be macro'd. Unlike almost any other AoE in the game, its damage only occurs at the edge of the circle that is placed. So it must be manually placed, and you want to place it so the edge is where the enemies are being tanked.

Lightning Wall - This ability uses 60 charge to activate. So it will lower your uptime on Static Flux (which you definitely want toggled on for this ability if possible). Also, when used with @gtae, it will position itself behind your current target based on which direction your camera is facing (but still hitting your target).

Nyx's Orb - This is the only cast-time ability out of your AoE cooldowns. So it is definitely beneficial to buff it by using a mez beforehand, but you should use it directly after the mez, or the spellpower buff might expire before the cast completes (and thus not apply). Also, it travels from you to your target, and has been known to pull bosses from afar if aimed toward them -- be warned.

Storm Shackle - This ability will root the target (if it is rootable), and only triggers its damage if the target moves (it lasts 11 seconds after the 3 second root expires). So to maximize its effect you want to use it on an enemy (preferably immune to roots) that is running in towards the tank, such as when the enemies are first pulled or are being repositioned. But as you have no threat dump, be careful with enemies that the tank may not have established threat on yet.

That's all there is to it. When you run out of cooldowns, just spam Forked Lightning until something is back up or the enemies are dead.

Dominator is not a good choice for single-target damage but in the situation where there happens to be only one target, you have a couple abilities for that purpose. Haunting Pain puts 13 stacks of a DoT on the enemy, which are removed whenever it moves. It is a good idea to buff it by using a mez first to increase its damage and lower its cast time. Also, Storm Shackle is a good pair, as it will root the target briefly as well as add some damage if it does move. After that Malevolent Bolt can be spammed and Neural Prod can be used for movement. Finally Split Personality can be used as a single-target damage cooldown, especially if you have the Dominator crystal spellpower bonus -- but in that case you want to save it for AoE.

Utility

Transmogrify - What everyone thinks of when Dominator is mentioned, the squirrel. One of the most useful mezzes in the game as (in 61 Dominator) it has no cooldown, no cast time, lasts 36 seconds, doesn't break immediately on damage, and can be maintained on two targets at once if you have a Dominator crystal set bonus. As with most mezzes, bosses are immune to this ability. Also, several trash mobs in the Storm Legion raids are immune to it as well. Regardless, it remains a key ability for taking certain troublesome minions out of the fight.

Mass Exhaustion - AoE mez, is also instant-cast and does not break immediately on damage, but has a cooldown. As with the Bard AoE mez, primarily useful for mezzing your raid while mind-controlled. Before you Mass Betrayal them

Death's Edict - 4 second stun. Can stun some enemies that are immune to Transmogrify, but has a cooldown.

Thunder Blast - Interrupt and knockback. Interrupts immediately on activation (knockback and damage is delayed by travel time), but only useful as a last-resort backup as it is on GCD and has a 15 second cooldown.

Arresting Presence - The second most useful ability in Dominator. AoE Silence toggle, which also interrupts once a second. It does not always interrupt immediately upon activation but for longer casts it can be toggled as an interrupt then off again. Consumes charge while active so make sure not to use Static Flux or Lightning Wall if you need to use this.

Reflective Command - Buffs an ally so the next spell damage they receive is reflected. Useful for certain boss mechanics, but in a boss fight you should only be using it from a Dominator subspec.

Deny - Cleanses up to 3 buffs, can be useful for certain trash that stacks debuffs on the tank.

Reflective Presence - AoE reflect, was useful on Laethys when you were too lazy to find the person to cast Reflective Command on. Uses a flat amount of charge to cast.

Mana Wrench - Channel that drains mana/power/energy from the target. Most bosses with energy-based mechanics are immune to this ability, with the exception of Crucia, however Crucia's mana drain can be handled entirely by the mech suit.

Transference - Drains mana/power/energy from the target and increases their ability cost by 50%. One of the most powerful abilities in PvP, but not very useful in PvE since Laethys. Bosses are immune to the debuff.

Summary

While chock-full of situational utility and damage abilities, in PvE, Dominator is in essence a very simple burst AoE DPS spec, that is also useful for locking down certain raid trash mobs. In conclusion, MASS BETRAYAL!

[sculti]

signed

only thing i might add

get a full stormcaller or full dominator and respec to it for trash

i hate randomraids where mages are playing pyro or sth equal useless and the thrash lasts for ages

[Extrasens0ry]

Mass Betrayal:

#show Mass Betrayal
cast @gtae Mass Betrayal
yell YOLO

Hahahaha bless!

Great guide!

[Frailaq]

First off, thanks for writing this. I"m far too lazy.

I actually use this as my ST spam macro and have Haunting Pain on its own button. Helps to keep my mana topped off and Transference actually hits pretty hard and applies some useful effects if you hit the right target with it.

#show Transference
suppressmacrofailures
cast Transference
cast Malevolent Bolt
cast Neural Prod

You mentioned the buffing abilities separately but I think you need to highlight the exact order that produces the highest potential. For example, Mass Betrayal should almost always be preceded by Split Personality (with the 4pc bonus) and Mass Exhaustion (or another mez but since you're going for AoE anyways might as well mez them all right before you betray them).

The last thing I would mention has to do with agro management and CD rotating. Yes, you can have some obscenely high burst with Domi and wind up with a faceful of mobs all trying to cut you into little pieces and if you, by some miracle, manage to survive (thank you healers and tanks) you'll find yourself completely out of decent abilities to use on the next pull. I recommend spacing your cooldowns out; figure out how fast your group likes to pull and make a judgement call on which groups you'll use which CDs on. Your tank will thank you for not pulling agro and dying and you'll still beat everyone else on AoE dmg even if you aren't spiking over 200k and making everyone have to change their drawers. Forked Lightning is a friendly filler that's spammable and won't usually pull agro off a tank. Use it a lot and simply throw in the occasional 30s CD to keep your damage up.

Oh, one final note... read the tooltips and figure out which abilities have target limits and if so, how many. Several of your abilities seem to have either no limit or such a high limit that you'll never find yourself in combat with that many. That's why it's rare to see a Domi hit 300k. Not because it's difficult to do but because it's difficult to find a group of that many mobs AND have a good enough tank that you don't die in 5s.

[Uruviel]

signed

only thing i might add

get a full stormcaller or full dominator and respec to it for trash

i hate randomraids where mages are playing pyro or sth equal useless and the thrash lasts for ages

Flame Rupture + Firestorm is actually pretty solid AOE DPS even for a S.T spec.

[TheGrinnz]

Flame Rupture + Firestorm is actually pretty solid AOE DPS even for a S.T spec.

Sure, if you like killing trash half as quickly.

[Shadrir11]

THx for the guide. Just wanted to add that Dom is my main and I basically soloed my way to 53 so far with Dominator with 6 elemental and 9 chloro. This is less dps than my 20 stormcaller, 5 harbinger but I don't die with the first spec. Dying slows down experience gain alot. I am experimenting with 11 stormcaller . 4 haringer or 6 elemental and 9stormcaller to get a little more dps. I mostly solo but do a lot of instant adventures when I have time.

Just my 2cp

[SpectralDerp]

So, what's the new best build for 61 Dominator? Not every situation calls for 61 SC when you can have mass betrayal. Do you just get 10% SP from Harb and SC and then get 5% more crit or is something else better?