DarkCurrent

Replace Dim Shift with something akin to your Gravity Sink (called Gravity Well) idea and all's right in the world with gravity control.

Screw the cottage.

If the vast majority of people skip a power like Dim Shift (and they do), then it needs to go. I would defy anyone who does use DS to state they'd prefer keeping it over something new like this Gravity Well.

Free respecs could be granted to all gravity control character upon the power's replacement. Majority are happy and minority are compensated.

I have a 50 mind/thorns/mace dom myself. Compared to all my other doms I'd say it's the slowest in regard to leveling speed and influence earning while solo. On teams, the combo is really strong at protecting the group. But it's not going to speed up the defeats that much and in fact you'll find youself mid-attack when most stuff is dead, or wasting AoE controls like MC and MH for the same reason.

The problems are:

Mind is a setup control set. Early on you sleep this guy, confuse that guy and hold the other guy. Not until you get Terrify and Mass Confuse do you have controls that reallly speed up a battle for you. Before those powers you're much more selective and cautious.

Now mind is a very powerful control set and you can handle 3-4 spawns at a time, but it's not very 'fast'.

Thorns, imo, is the weakest assault set for the simple reason that lethal is the main damage type and probably the most resisted. The toxic bonus is too low and unpredictable to matter much.

Also, impale and thorn burst have to be the two slowest animating attacks ever.

Lastly, thorns range is pretty short and suits melee positioning best, while mind control is more a ranged control. So the two kind of counter each other.

So if you combine a more deliberate and ranged control set with a lower damage, short range assault set, the synergy is lacking. I orginally made him for PvP with Aim and the non-typed control attacks, but we all know where that part of the game went. He was my first lvl 50 dom though, so I have fondness for him, but I'd pretty much choose any of my other doms to run with before him.

Is that the +recharge one?

Elec/Earth/Primal Forces

1-shot minions
2-shot lieutenants
4-shot bosses

Not sure this is related to the main issues of this thread, but it's the first time it's happened and coincided with the release yesterday.

I was playing on Pinnacle with my alpha-less lvl 50 dominator. There were numerous lag and server instability issues the whole time I was on, both solo and teamed with 2 friends (both not lvl 50).

Anyway, for our first team mission I changed my difficulty and wanted to abandon an old mission I had outleveled (it was 46) so I could then reset to 50 with more mobs and bosses. I had it selected, but couldn't abandon it. I then selected a different mission to see if I could then select the old mission I wanted to abandon. I finally could abandon it. I then called the contact back to rechoose the mission, but instead of offering it to me, I got a previously completed mission instead.

This was the arc from Sister Airlia. The mission I wanted to abandon was Talk to Sister Solaris. The mission she gave me was Free Fortunata Bramlett. I had already done Bramlett a couple nights earlier and had left off with Solaris that was farther down the arc tree. I coulda sworn these 2 missions were in the same arc.

So long story short, abandoning and resetting an outleveled mission reset the whole arc to the beginning. Not sure that's supposed to happen. Maybe if they were linked missions?

But it kind of sounds like the resetting of awards and completion for these bugged strike forces.

Completed this thing on my second run at it. Team was much stronger than first time:

2 doms (plant/fire - mine and grav/nrg - Demon Song's)
2 controllers (/emp and /rad... not sure of primary)
1 corruptor (ice/cold - Hack)
1 defender (TA/arch)
1 MM (bots/FF)
1 brute (SS/WP - Hirsh)

As you can see, lots of ranged options. We had tons of control, plenty of buffs and debuffs, and a lot of pets. At first I was thinking I'd have liked some more heal and raw dmg, but the amount of control and debuff we had, plus the shields made it pretty easy. I think we might've been able to do a master run if we had more experience (at least half the team hadn't run it before). It also helped having 3 people on the team that I've played with a ton.

Anyway, one thing I noticed with the doms was that confusion really helps this TF. Most controls last only a few seconds vs lvl 54s, but just that small window of confuse made the missions go much faster as the mobs beat on each other with their alphas. Demon's grav wasn't very effective with her controls... wormhole was useless as a teleport tool because I don't think the +4s moved (at least the bosses don't). So that took out one of her best tools.

Versus BM, we just stacked the crap out of holds and immobs, then fired at range over and over again. Hirsh's brute played hockey goalie, picking up ambushers and swords while the rest of us focused on BM. The ambushes and nukes suprised a few of the TF newbs, but they got the hang of it after a few deaths. I only died 2x fighting her and it was stray blue patches of death I jumped in that got me.

I think that Creepers was a great tool here as well. The multiple targets seemed to draw a lot of the sword nuke aggro on top of BM's location and away from us ranged squishies. The MMs pets were also great at charging into her and keeping her focus on melee.

Last thing I'm thinking about is the use of confuse. Has anyone (mind dom I would think) stacked enough confuse on BM that she nukes herself with the blue sword bombs? I'm not sure if that would work, or if they're considered separate non-targetable mobs. But if it does work, that could be a great way to dominate her dead in minutes.

Just thought I'd take a few minutes to share some thoughts/advice/experience with the Apex TF in case you haven't done it or used a dom on one.

I ran my first Apex TF on my Plant/Fire/Fire dom the other day with a pug. Off the top of my head, the team was:
2 brutes
1 tank
1 cor
1 blaster
2 doms
1 MM


We got BM down to 1/4 HP, but ended up failing for various reasons: melee heavy team, a couple of the melees refused to 'stick and move', the /kin cor thought they were a 'healer' and kept leaving the BM map to the roof to tp and rez fallen teammates instead of laying on the -regen of transfusion, dead allies waited for rez rather than hitting the hosp and reloading insps, our MM quit team at some point, and the two doms were fighting each other as to what to do:

From my dom perspective, if we held/immob'd BM, then the melees would stand and fight her and the blue nukes would lay waste to them. So I stopped controlling her and let her run free so the melees could hit and run. But the other dom kept rooting her so the blaster and corruptor, plus we 2 doms could leverage ranged attacks.

Anyway, my advice is to change your tactics depending on team composition. If you have a lot of melees, it's a good idea NOT to control BM at all. Just use your attacks. If you have a lot of ranged teammates, then hold/immob her so you can focus everything on where she's standing. Aside from that, follow the advice of this guide.


Overall, doms can really shine in this TF. Controls don't last as long vs the lvl 54 foes, but they can buy your teammates time to get out of trouble and make the missions go faster (confusing the hydra to attack the pylon, holding the healer clockwork, immobilizing the dancing swords, etc.)


I'm going to give this a another go this week hopefully with some folks I know. The increased coordination alone should make the difference.

Caution: Radical Thought Process Below

I've never understood the appeal or use of /fire as a melee set. It's much more a ranged set: flares, fire blast, fire breath, blaze and bolt vs. incinerate and combustion. Consume is skippable with domination and free stamina these days. Embrace of fire helps all attacks equally, so no benefit to melee there.

Meanwhile, ice control is primarily a melee set with AA and Glacier being a couple of your strongest controls.

My radical thought is to go with a ranged ice/fire. Dump AA and Glacier (crazy ain't it?). Instead, go with Flash Freeze, Ice Slick and Shiver. Take the ice APP and add in Sleet and Ice Storm. Those 2 give you damage and additional ranged control.

With that set up you could easily hang back and paralyze foes with slows and knockdown, while unloading ranged fiery death.

Anyway, I don't know if you're as daring as I am with dom builds, but I think I might like this one enough to try it myself.

It's a viable melee build. Although I'd actually wish for more ranged options. Mine's only 40 atm (been on hiatus while I alpha slot my 50s). I built for regen and HP myself just because I could. Considering the nrg APP for some more punch, but the ice APP would give more control and AoE dmg.

Overall, I find the pace a little slow as the controls are more set up and wait than unload and charge. But it's probably one of the safest builds I've played and I find it pretty hard to be defeated.

Overall I like the build. Two things I'm curious about are:

Taking hover seems odd. With just one slot and that being a defense set IO, it's not going to be useful for movement with any speed. If you're taking it as a kb resist mule, that's cool but hover is kb resist already, so seems redundant. Also, you can't activate glacier while flying iirc.

I was thinking you'd get more mileage from CJ. You could put the kb resist in there, get the same base defense as hover, and it'd boost your jump movement, which would be more useful in combat than single slotted hover. With CJ and Jump, most indoor maps are not going to provide obstacles for your jumping over/up to things. Plus, you'd get immobilize protection.

Your AA slotting is overkill on end redux I think if you're going for permadom. You'll have your end bar refilling constantly as it is, so you'd get more use if you put end/confuse IOs or a damage proc in there. Plus, you could also get Cardiac alpha slotting and gain free end redux in that tree.

I just died a little bit inside.

I respec'd my fire/psi/fire and got the alpha slotted today. I put Spiritual in there. Going for Spiritual Core. I figure the +rch will be nice for PSW, DP, RoF, Hasten, Fireball, etc. Then, the +stun will be nice for Flashfire and PSW. I can finally get Heal in there too once the rares come out and that should boost Health and DP regen.

I used her today to trash the Lady Winter mission 3x in a row for canes. Was carrying around some lowbie pugs for fun.

My ice/psi/ice got Nerve Radial slotted (+Acc is nice without having Aim or BU, and the +Def helps ice armor, CJ, maneuvers). She's going to go for the Radial Revamp rare and get +hold (BoI and Glacier) and +confuse (AA).

What QuiJon said. Within a week you can be respec'd, IOd, alpha'd, earning A merits, and have a few million infamy in your pocket.

Download Mids Hero Planner. Decide on a target build.

Respec your toon for free with freespec and use whatever enhancers you have, plus fill in with SOs until you have enough money/merits to get the stuff you really want. Sell anything useless. Take a look at the new APPs available to dominators. You could take fire or ice mastery for more damage, or psi to fit your theme and get permanent mez protection, or power for more attacks.

Head to Ouroborus. Unlock your alpha slot. If you haven't unlocked Cimemora, then run Ashley McKnight's arc first. Also, run the Welcome to Vanguard arc so you can start earning Vanguard Merits (can use 150 of them to buy an incarnate component called Gr'ai Matter).

Run the high level SFs (Imperious, Lady Grey, Lord Recluse, Barracuda) to earn incarnate shards and specific components. Slot your alpha. I suggest you go for Spiritual Core (rech/stun boost). That'll make you more powerful.

Run tip missions (solo set to minimum for speed, or team to help earn more shards). Confirm your villain status. Earn 50 reward merits. Roll for rare recipes with those and whatever other merits you may have. Sell anything you don't need.

Run more tips. Start earning A merits. Buy the super rare recipes like LotG or Obliteration quad with 2 A merits. You can also get 5 rare rolls with a single A merit if you want to take a chance. Sell anything you don't need.

All of these activities will earn you infamy. You can build a strong character with 10-20 million depending on what you're slotting.

Baroness von Zorn (grav/nrg) and I (earth/fire) are about to run a LGSF for more shardy goodness and carnage. Should be a cake walk.

I've been respeccing and playing with my old lvl 50 doms with the release of GR and I19. Free fitness and alpha slotting for everyone.

I haven't played doms that much in the last year (been working a lot with brutes and cors and defs). So I gotta say I forgot how totally dominating they are. In fact, with the new builds at our disposal and then IOing them to match, they're absolute beasts.

I was playing my Earth/Fire the last couple days. I respecced him for the Fire APP, moved slots around to accomodate the free fitness, and switched him from frankenslotting to IO sets. Then I ran him through the Alpha unlock (have Cardiac slotted now), two SFs (Lady Grey and Imperious), plus the Lady Winter (solo 0 x8 no AV).

I gotta say he absolutely tore it up. Screw the brutes and tank on the SFs, I was charging into huge spawns and unloading Stalagmites followed by QS, RoF, Fireball and Fire Breath. Stuff was just turning to ash. For the winter hordes, they were simply melting.

Same deal with my Ice/Psi/Ice (Nerve), Fire/Psi/Fire, Plant/Fire/Fire, Mind/Thorn/Mace, and Earth/Thorn/Soul. I haven't done my Grav doms yet, so I don't know if they're still gimp

Also need to run the Apex and Tin Mage SFs at some point. But as a whole I'm having a blast with the new life my dom beasts are living. Good stuff if you haven't dusted off your lvl 50 in awhile.

Working fine for me. Logging in as we speak and the patch is installing.

So why did you release a bugged event? It went through testing the last couple weeks on Test Server. No one noticed that when you click the present it sends you immediately to MI or AP?