Dominating Blow

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Antistes wrote:

Hi i'm looking for a nice build idea revolving around this skill, minions in general + this item:

any starting class will do, i was thinking a lot of hp to get to mobs and hit them without dying, minions doing most damage, use the new melee support gems,

I also have a 5L armor chest so 5L skill setups welcome

I use the Chobber with a level 13 Dominating Blow on my level 49 Marauder (2H specialist). It has 5 sockets, (2L/3L) and I have the DB tied in with a Decrease Mana and Determination. Yeah - not an offensive powerhouse but it's a finishing weapon. I use Heavy Strike (1500 DPS), Sweep (~300 DPS), and Infernal Blow (900 DPS) to soften up the targets and then finish with Dominating Blow. Dominating blow really helped me finish Act III, Normal and move through large mobs in ACT I/II cruel just because the enemies aren't all aggro'ing on me. They don't do damage but they absorb damage that otherwise would be directed at you.

I chose not to attach a lot of support gems to DB because of it's cost. Even with Decreased Mana I'm still spending (I thnk) 27 mana per shot and only doing 400 DPS. I can spend 17 mana with Heavy Strike+extra physical damage+add fire damage+plus extra damage on full life and do almost 1500 DPS.

Hey, I've begun using Dominating Blow in Hardcore and have found some things I like and dislike about the skill. I came here to check if anyone else experienced these problems and, sure enough, there are. I noticed nobody posted here since early May, so it's almost been 2 months. I thought I'd share my experiences with Dominating Blow and hopefully revive this thread so that some changes can be made.

- Monsters you dominate still count towards "monsters remaining." This is bothersome when you're trying to clear Fetid Pool and have to wait for your minions to expire before you can claim the quest reward. It's also troublesome when you're in a map and can't find the monsters remaining, only to find out that they are your own minions. This affects group play as well.

- Dominated minions follow the player, but end up slowing the player down. While it's nice that minions will teleport to you when you move far enough away from them, it's hard to keep track of any loot that drops from monsters that your minions kill off-screen. Especially if you're running through content and your minions do substantial damage, you may easily miss desirable loot. You can backtrack through the instance or wait for your minions to finish any nearby monsters, but that really slows down gameplay. I don't really know what can be done here, but small changes to minion reaction to player position will help with quality of life.

- Targeting is a bit difficult when you Dominate some monsters in a mob and can't tell the difference between your minions and other monsters. The introduction of mini life bars on enemies helps, but perhaps something could be done about the positioning of the Dominated mark over minions' heads. Right now, it may be slightly too high, which can cause confusion regarding which monster the mark belongs to. The animation itself is cool, but just like how auras looked before the animation clouds the screen when used with Melee Splash (as it has to be used if Dominating Blow is the main skill). This makes it difficult to see which monsters have or have not been Dominated; perhaps the animation could be made simpler. Especially when Dominating Blow is such a high cost skill when linked with many support gems including Blood Magic (it's possible with EB/Discipine, but the current use of the skill is with Blood Magic), missing a target due to being unable to distinguish friends/enemies really hurts your health, since you don't life leech.

- Dominating a large number of monsters, which I think is the point, causes significant lag and desync. When your minions can Leap Slam or Flicker Strike, it gets a bit crazy, especially when the enemies also can Leap Slam and Flicker Strike. The Flicker Strike/Discharge monsters in Act 3 cause particularly strong lag spikes when you have them as minions. Of course, some of these problems have to do with not having the best gaming computer, but my laptop is not crappy whatsoever. I was thinking that some more standardized models could be used when monsters become your minions, but that might detract from the fun of having certain monsters on your side.

- Not knowing when your minions will expire is sometimes troublesome when facing bosses or deciding whether to engage a tough mob. Summon Skeletons also has this problem, but that skill doesn't require corpses. I think some visible timer should be introduced. This might clutter the screen even more, so perhaps it could be implemented as a fade timer that makes the Dominating Blow mark more faint as the minion nears expiration.

- Dominated Carrion Minions/Swarmers in Act 3 stick around the Carrion Queen even after the Queen dies. This is true for spawns if the Carrion Queen was Dominated.

- Dominated Shield Crabs will turn into hostile Sand Spitters when the duration of Domination ends. This is bothersome when your minions are stuck re-killing it when they should be following you.

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These are just some problems I have dealt with. I don't expect all of them to be changed, but I realize that some of these problems have come up before and it's been about half a year. I think some changes to Dominating Blow are in order.

Thanks for reading!

personally my biggest problem with DB is that the minions AI is stupid as a rock and most of minions are really slow. if minions AI can be made to match that of zombies, DB would be SO much better. as is, it's a cool utility skill at best for a summoner, but it can't fully replace zombies....

Why dont link Minion speed to it, to make minions faster?

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

Why dont link Minion speed to it, to make minions faster?

Generally, Minion Speed is not used even in normal summoner builds because it is a waste of a support gem. If you plan to use Dominating Blow as a secondary skill, you can certainly link it with Minion Damage and Minion Life.

However, if you plan to use Dominating Blow as a primary skill (like I am), you should link it with support gems like Melee Physical Damage, Melee Splash, Multistrike, and others. These will enhance your own attacks as well as the attacks of your minions.

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And on another note, can we please have some Dev love over here in the Dominating Blow thread? It's been too long.

Does the dominating blow debuff apply even if you miss the attack ?

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Vipermagi wrote:

The description explicitly mentions the enemy has to die after being Hit. If you miss, you don't Hit :P

this is what I thought as well, but someone on the forums said otherwise, they had zero accuracy and apparently the debuff was still applied, according to them

personally I have 58% chance to hit without RT and I definitely feel like I miss waay too much

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grepman wrote:

personally I have 58% chance to hit without RT and I definitely feel like I miss waay too much

The big question is why you don't have RT.