Chill_Out

For years, I scowled suspiciously at Storm (troller or fender, didnt make a difference). Only a well-played stormy in my SG made me stop all-out dislike.

Then I rolled one this past spring. I'm a convert. ^_^

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You would have to be crazy not to want every mother-loving buff out there on your toon. Unfortunately, some crazy people do play this game.

So, let me get this straight, you *don't* want to be an invincible tank mage? Really? Do you use inspirations? Do you slot and enhance your powers? *sigh*

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While i have nothing against bubbles, I must say that I have yet to see bubbles - or indeed any such shield - turn myself or anyone else into an "invincible tank mage." Shields are grace-notes. They *don't* make you invincible.

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My bubbler was able to get someone as close to it as possible (especially for a squishy). With Dispersion Bubble, both shields and Maneuvers, with her on the team you'd get:

41.5% defense vs. melee, ranged, AoE
41.5% defense S/L/NRG/NegNRG/Fire/Cold
19.2% defense vs. anything else (Psi/Toxic)

40% Toxic Resistance
86.5% resistance to EndDrain

Mag 8.65 protection vs. Hold, Immob, and Stun. Sleep and KB folks will have to take care of themselves, however.. assuming they get hit at all

This was for everyone.

Seriously... if that won't turn a blaster into a tank mage, I don't know what would. It can also make sure there are few, if any, cascading defense failures for all those SD/SR/Ice melees.

Maybe you haven't grouped with the right defenders. Or maybe, you just didn't realize their contribution due to lack of green floaty numbers. *shrug* You play a lot of defenders according to your sig, I'm a little surprised you haven't recognized the value in shields.

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Acronym.

Anachronism is something displaced or inappropriate (such as in time).

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but it is displaced...well his brain seemed to be displaced in anger of something called MM.

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Obviously the OP is referring to Mallomars!

I dunno. I kind of like Vine. I used it on my plant/rad.

What Aett Thorn means is, if you slot the numina's in Hoarfrost, it only provides its bonus to you when Hoarfrost is active. If you slot it in Health, its always-on.

Mid's does not show that on paper.

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I have a tingling down my leg. I say its here.

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You can get special undergarments for that.

Oh, wait - you said "tingling." Not "tinkling." Never mind.

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At my age, I'm only a few years away from that sort of thing

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Choose 1 of the following for your armor set.

Fire Armor
Ice Armor
Dark Armor

Choose 1 of the following for your Melee Set.

Fire Melee
Ice Melee
Super Strength
Rock Melee

Keep in mind,Mob control,or Mob Damage,or maybe both,is the best way to build a tanker.Dont be a gimp.

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You realize Stone Armor has Mud Pots, right?

You also realize that Shield Defense offers an AoE attack up every spawn or so, and also gives +Def, yes?

For the record, I love my Ice/Ice/Earth for keeping my teams safe and locking stuff down, even if I don't play her much these days due to a newfound love of controllers.

I'd say move AE out of AP and Galaxy City. And possibly remove auto-SK. That fixes the problem with new players getting sidetracked into the farm PL and missing the game the first time around.

Older players will find a way to PL their alts. There are just so many times I know I personally want to run through AP/Hollows/SC/Fault/Striga, etc.

On that note, I recall times when other hot farms were sucking groups into them. The old WarWolf farms, Drek, TV farms, rikti monkey farms, portal farms... this problem ebbs and flows.

No DOOM.

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IMO, kill the AE buildings in Galaxy and Atlas.

However, XP = time spent playing the game. You're playing the game when you play an AE mission, therefore you get XP.

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This.

I have a tingling down my leg. I say its here.

In a nuthsell:

Tank version easier to softcap defense with weave/hover/steadfast. Does less damage (but still respectable).

Scrapper version, will need IOs to softcap, does much more damage.

Oh yes, of course the Tank version will likely be expected to hold aggro for a team. The scrapper can just focus on kicking booty.

Regeneration. Or Dark Armor. Both require thought to play, and both work well without extensive IOs. DA will need a KB protection IO somewhere, of course.

Don't have a lot of time, but I can offer some hints quickly:

- get the steadfast +Defense IO, when you can afford it. Slot it in Perma or Tough (if you have it).

- build for S/L defense since you already have that. 4 Kinetic Combats will boost you up quite nicely. Since most damage is mixed type (energy+smash, for example), you can really help out just with that boost. You can work on this from fairly early on, mid 20s.

As you can, try to bump up Energy/Negative up. Its harder to do than S/L, but still possible.

Of the rest of the set bonuses, you can try for +regen, +recharge or +acc. I find with Ice's slow resist and a good attack chain, I don't really need +rech on my 50 ice/ice, but it all depends - you may want to get Hoarfrost up more often. Hasten would be a poor man's way to get that up, however.

I like +regen on mine. And some +Acc.

Maybe one of the ice experts will be able to offer more substantial help. Have fun!

If you go red-site (villains) I recommend Freedom. Very active at all times (even late night).

If you go blue (heroes), I recommend my home server of Justice. Active and friendly, though not as busy during late nights (after midnight Eastern).

Virtue if you RP.

It should be higher than that - I use the Earth pool on my Icer, and it reliably applies its stun. Earth does give a smashy, controllery feel, and can also reduce defense quite a bit to help teammates, too.

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Also, apologies to Lil, I'm saying 'she' but not really sure of gender. Sorry if I'm getting that wrong. Didn't feel like saying 'it' :P

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Gender is largely irrelevant in this environment. I advocate the use of gender neutral pronouns, preferring "e" in this case.

http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/

I would have quite liked "it" too, if you think of me as the little green plant in my avatar. Typing away furiously of course!

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Good enough for me

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Fiery Assault and Thorny Assault provide the best AoE damage in the earlier levels...

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What are earlie levels? From 1-19, Fiery Assault has one AoE attack, and it's a cone. At lvl 20 and level 28 it picks up two more that are both melee range. Do the other sets really have less low level AoE that that?

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I was quoting Liliaceae, so I won't answer what she means by 'early', though you can refer to her guide in the guide section about Dominators.

Counting, for the sake of discussion we'll use 1-20, there are the following number of AoE powers in each set:

Thorns = 2
Electric = 0
Energy = 1
Fire = 2
Ice = 2
Psy = 1

So you could add in ice, as it does have ISC and FB. Oddly enough, Elec, which is such an AoE set for Brutes/Stalkers, is decidedly ST for Doms.

Fire does also have Combustion, which I think you didnt count.

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I don't see how you got those numbers. I got the following:

Thorns = 3.5 (fling thorns, thorntrops, thorn burst, ripper)
Electric = 1 (static discharge)
Energy = 1 (whirling hands)
Fire = 2.5 (combustion, halitosis, consume)
Ice = 2 (frost breath, ice sword circle)
Psy = 2 (PSW, psy scream)

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Lol, 'Halitosis'

I think we were just counting up 'AoE' stuff from 1-20, so it wasn't a complete count. :P

My 38 Katana/Dark scrappre is awesomesauce. If you carefully manage your AoE aura (ie, turn it off vs. 2 or less foes), endurance isn't an issue. Just make sure you slot each toggle with 1 redux, and each attack also. One of the most fun builds I've played, with a tool for virtually every situation

I love the idea. Earth is one of my favorite power concepts.

Also, apologies to Lil, I'm saying 'she' but not really sure of gender. Sorry if I'm getting that wrong. Didn't feel like saying 'it' :P

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Fiery Assault and Thorny Assault provide the best AoE damage in the earlier levels...

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What are earlie levels? From 1-19, Fiery Assault has one AoE attack, and it's a cone. At lvl 20 and level 28 it picks up two more that are both melee range. Do the other sets really have less low level AoE that that?

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I was quoting Liliaceae, so I won't answer what she means by 'early', though you can refer to her guide in the guide section about Dominators.

Counting, for the sake of discussion we'll use 1-20, there are the following number of AoE powers in each set:

Thorns = 2
Electric = 0
Energy = 1
Fire = 2
Ice = 2
Psy = 1

So you could add in ice, as it does have ISC and FB. Oddly enough, Elec, which is such an AoE set for Brutes/Stalkers, is decidedly ST for Doms.

Fire does also have Combustion, which I think you didnt count.

Note that in I15, Dominators are receiving a buff in damage, so life gets even better than was the case when the guide was written.

Elec does pretty solid damage

Here's some thoughts (excerpted) provided by Liliaceae on Secondaries in one of her guides:

"Dominator assault sets are not remarkable for the damage output, and do poor damage for endurance spent, but they are certainly effective and they allow Dominators to solo satisfactorily and contribute damage on teams.

Fiery Assault and Thorny Assault provide the best AoE damage in the earlier levels, only falling behind Psionic Assault at level 38 when it receives Psychic Shockwave. Icy Assault provides good AoE damage, Electricity Assault provides some in later levels, and Energy Assault's AoE damage is negligible.

Electricity Assault provides the best single target damage, followed by Fiery Assault and Icy Assault, while the rest provide acceptable single target damage. Thorny Assault and Energy Assault are hindered by long activation times, and Psionic Assault by its lack of heavy hitting single target powers.

Fiery Assault includes a very good damage buff from Fiery Embrace, as does Electricty Assault with Build Up. Thorny has a reasonable damage buff from Aim.

Energy Assault and Electricty Assault provide the best damage mitigation of all the secondaries because stuns, knockbacks and sleeps are a good complement for controls from the primary; Icy Assault and Psionic Assault both provide decent levels of damage mitigation due to recharge debuffs, making them the most effective against AVs; Thorny Assault provides some damage mitigation from Thorntrops; and Fiery Assault provides no damage mitigation beyond defeating the enemy faster with bonus damage."

The only thing you might wish to consider is something like Power Boost from Energy. It is nice to have, though not essential. Just so you know what is on the other side of the fence.

Welcome back to the game

I'm not sure you can go terribly wrong with a secondary. While I wouldn't count highly on the -END of your secondary, Electric does have some nice powers (Thunder Strike and Havok Punch), plus I find Voltaic Sentinel useful for extra damage.

I can only speak from PvE, however, as I do not PvP.

More importantly, you're having fun.