Kitty_Hellfire

hmm strange, wrote a reply but it did post. Anyway, i shall be there if a) i can remember and b) they sort out this nasty connection problem i've been a victim of.

Incidentally what kind of lvl are people running at with these doms?

Hello all, i have a couple of doms i'd love to try out in an all-dom team. Both are high lvl (39 and 43) but more than willing to exemp if theres space at all (of course priority to those at in the lower lvls).

Can't be fussed to look back through the thread right now (plus i'm at work...shhh) so when/were/how is this organised?

something odd happened the other day actually. I've played ALOT of controllers but i was on my grav/rad and i scored no fewer than about 20 critical holds in less than an hour. This is odd because they happen so rarely i tend to forget it's even an inherant power. This has never happened before on one of my controllers, or at least not so that i noticed it.

I think you'll find thats probably just i8 power-lag. nothing has been done to earth control...that we know of.

>.>

<.<

o.O

I suppose this is a good change...though tbh i'd have rather they keep them short range but make thier damage come under the dominators melee range modifyer, you have to virtually be in melee range anyway and my doms tend to blap anyway...you wont kill very much staying at range.

I find it amusing (by which i mean saddening) that the top tier nrg and thorn attacks (the ones i have experience with) do less damage than the lower teir melee attacks (i.e. TF and ripper).

yup...earth really cant solo. well..i know someones gonna reply saying "i soloed mine to 50! it rox!" but being serious...it would take years. You CAN solo with ANY toon, granted. But i have a quality of life i'm just not willing to compromise, and soloing at the kind of pace my earth/emp could is pushing it too far. I cant imagine getting by using the ST immob, fossilise and something like air supe...perfectly doable, but i would switch toons as you say, i have other toons for soloing. This is somewhat seconday dependent i grant you, but still...Earth don't cut it for damage. I tried taking the ST immob and slotting it for damage, and taking stoney and slotting him likewise...and was bitterly dissappointed. I ended up geting rid of poor stoney altogether and slotting the immob for acc and range for pvp, i know my limitations

The problem with the heroes on the LRSF is the purple
triangles they get which alternate between up and downwards facing. I cant remember which ways which but basically when they are on, the hero gets stupidly high mez protection, rendering a dominators entire primary pretty useless during this time. It doesn't matter how fast or how often you dominate, the result will be the same. they will of course be held in the downtimes, but thats you useless 50% of the time pretty much. You can still use your secondary of course but...who brings a dominator along for their damage? especially against a hero.

The triangles effect controllers in the same way, but of course they have a secondary full of useful buffs or debuffs to bring to the team...not to mention in many cases better damage than a dominator too.

Now...a team of several dominators...all running domination at once MIGHT be able to hold the hero, but it's rare to see an LRSF with one dominator, let alone several, and what team is going to sacrifice a corruptor or brute to bring along more dominators?

I personally have two dominators who i love dearly, but were i running a LRSF, i'd have to put dominators at the bottom of the list, which is sad. Those that do get invited along often feel like a bit of a charity case when they get to the hero section...holding a little, scratching the AV then getting insta-killed.

What we've seen here is a promise to make doms more useful on the LRSF, followed by another buff to domination, instead of dominators themselves. Now i know most dominators take the "gotta build domination...gotta build domination..." approach but i for one dont feel half a toon when dom isn't up...and i dont rely on it like a crutch either. Domination is not the be-all and end-all of dominators, and that the devs SEEM to think so is a sad thing.

i did sing it's praises...but also said it was an agro magnet and had low survivability This is simply the nature of Fire/Fire and no amount of pool powers, useful though they are is gonna change that, so it's definately not a set for the faint of heart or debt-phobic

like you i leveled in a team of a stone tank, an earth/rad troller and a D3 defender....so i was perfectly safe most of the time....however as i've started to play with pugs and the like i find the toon does faceplant ALOT more...though that doesn't bother me.

Basically i had the slots left over at 50, and thought...hey if i'm gonna die i may as well come back kicking so i slotted out the rez...2 recharge, 1 heal, 1 end mod, 2 disorient. It's just nice to bounce back knowing you have a nice window to flee or kill your enemywhile they are stunned. Also....RoTP is great in PvP...not that i'd highly recommend a fire/fire for PvP..at ALL. In fact i find myself waiting to get killed in PvP just so i can rez on them and go HA-HA!

Fire/Fire is great fun and you simply can't get better AoE damage. If you play on a team regularly with a decent tank...actually a really good tank, preferably ice/ then you can wipe out as much as he can herd. You'll make other blasters jealous on a good team...and they'll later laugh at you when you've died twice as often :P It's not a fantastic solo set though (gets easier with char for me), and yo uhave no damage mitigation apart from killing everything before it kills you.

Nothing bad to get from fire blast, though i specced out the snipe recently and don't miss it. Fire/Fire really wants to be in melee, so a snipe just doesn't fit in. I've also had every power in the fire manipulation set as one point or another, trying out the powers that people generally tell you to skip. I see now theres a good reason why they do

i lvled to 50 with the fire breath/fireball/fire sword circle AoE combo and then at 50 decided to add in all the other AoE attacks to max out her potential.

I found blazing aura was pretty much pointless, the DoT didn't add enough to my overall damage to justify the end cost...oh and it's not as if i wasnt a big enough agro magnet before Same with hotfeet...pretty nice damage but a HUGE endcost that i just couldn't justify, nice slow though. Works great on my controller, but it's not ideal for a blaster imho. Burn was a bit of a joke, in the rare instances i could get it to hit a mob without them running straight out a fireball would have done the trick far better. Combustion was an odd one...pretty good damage, more AoE, but too slow activating for me and DoT.

In the end i wound up respeccing back to my original build only with leaping taken over flight for the melee kb res and some extra maneuverability. I took BU, FSC (the best power ever, no kidding), consume (not great but i need all the end rec i can get) and i think thats it. The apeal of Fire manipulation is pretty much FSC...but it does give room to put in pool powers to increase your survivability, an area the primary wont help with.

I dont miss the extra AoE damage at all, tbh the trial build was massive overkill. I found that aim+BU+fire breath+fireball+FSC pretty much drops everything, and if things are still standing at the end of that, they are probably recharged anyway. Many times i'd do that combo then hit combustion, only to find everythings dead and i was wasting end

Cant recommend aid self highly enough, had it, speccced it out..got it back. think of it not just for the self heal, but use it before a fight to avoid stuns as it gives a mild BF effect. I find using it b4 a fight with malta of KoA etc can make a huge difference. long as you have a few seconds to launch all your attacks you can drop them all then heal up after. Danger is when you get perma stunned from the start. And before anyone tells me to carry more BFs...yo cant carry enough BFs for malta

Not sure if that'll help, just my experiences with build experimentation. Also i fear i'mgoing to have to give in on my blaster and start slotting for 2 accuracy, even though it means sacrificing my precious end slot...seems one acc just wont cut it these days, even in PvE...the only "defence" you have is killing quickly, and having your finishing, defiance-fueled blaze miss is...well costly.

Oh and get rise of the phoenix and 6 slot it...works a charm :O

sorry to ramble on but i don't often speak of my blaster...and she rocks

i bow to Oktons knowledge, being the only person i know to have more controllers than i do :P

Wasn't saying at all that powersink isn't great, or that it's activation time is detrimental, just that if you run without stamina you will come to RELY on it. I personally dont have to fire powersink whenever it's ready, i might not even have to use it at all if i'm solo and not herding. My damage mitigation primarily comes from footstomp though, and i try to fit in aid self or powersink while the mobs are on thier backs...but the former of these is far more important, hense why i like not having to use powersink all the time.

It's exactly the same if you play a kineticist, you CAN go without stamina, but i hate to rely soloely on transference. There are better things to occupy your time than worrying about getting your next endurance refill at all costs.

My advice: get powersink, slot powersink, love powersink for giving you more end than any other brute, but take stamina too, you don't want to be caught out.

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Of course there is always know it all MaX who i am sure in case of inaccuracy will jump and correct me.


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heh, anyone else vote Max should get a special forum title like this He is a veritable font of information (most if it way over my head)...i reckon he's secretly a dev, undercover to mingle with the lower beings.

Ok am due a respec on my earthy (shall wait till they fix them first) and i'll try 3 hold durations in it, not like i'll miss the slots really. Maybe i'll post my build when i get in, if only so you can all laugh at my overslotting of various travel powers.

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Drop all the recharge go for 3 acc and 3 hold duration and see if there is an effect difference

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Surely this must have been tested before? as it is it seems noone really knows...which is very odd for such a unique power.

though...ask me to try and describe exactly what carrion creepers does and i'd have to get back to you i just know it's great and i use it alot, and it does...stuff

The reason i dont use gasses as an opener is because it doens't take effect right away and i take return fire (not always possible to be out of LOS. However, this could be because i beleived there was no point slotting acc...if doing so will make the power hold right away then i'm all for it.

Also, i'm earth/emp, and i tend to lean heavily on the empathy side. Basically i wanted an emp but didn't want to be a pure one as i'd get bored, so i find adding in the mass control from earth makes for a REALLY good team defender. Therefor i will likely open with a couple of controls, throw down some of the locational stuff and then set about healing/buffing unless noone is taking any damage, in which case i go back to controlling. It's part of why i chose earth...for the fire-and-forget powers, i hate these /emps you team with that have most of the emp powers but never use them. For me, making sure everyone is CMed, 4 people are perma-forted (more with speed buffs) and noones waits more than a second or two for a heal is my primary concern. In 99%of cases i find dropping quake, stalags and sand on a mob is bordering on over control as it is. Not to say i underuse gasses, it's out as often as it recharges, i just dont consider it my primary control tool.

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If you slot 3 hold duration and 3 acc it works.If you slot 3 hold duration and no acc u kill the whole power since u slotted for duration but u dont hold in first place

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But as i say i've been using it for many many lvls with just 3 recharge and i've found it works fine. Ok so it doesn't hold ALL of them right away...but it gets there. I usually use it as a backup as quake and stalagmites are virtually perma and more than adequate for most mobs...it's good for dumping on an additional mobs that agroes when you dont want it to though.

Also, i use gasses in pvp, and find i can easily hold tanks/scrapper/bruteswho are foolish enough to pass through it if they already have a fossilise or two stacked. I've not noticed it "miss!"ing in either PvE or PvP...

If you says it's noticably better with more slots though i'll stick them in...i certainly have enough to go around. would 1 acc, 2 hold, 3 recharge be appropriate?

right....but i heard (and i think it was in doubles guide), that hold durations in volcanic gasses dont increase the duration of the time they are held because of it's pulsing nature. This makes no sense to me as one would expect that it would increase the time the mob is held once they are hit. Incidentally would putting an acc in make them more likely to be held in the first place? I've had and been using volcanic gasses for dozens of lvls with only 3 recharge slotted and i cant say i've ever noticed it underperforming in the way my other trollers AoE holds would if i didnt slot them.

just for refference, does anyone know exactly how volcanic gasses works? i mean in regards to hold duration and accuracy. I understand that it's a pulsing hold that stacks with itself over time, therefor not a good opener, but what would hold durations actually do? increase the frequency of the pulses, increase the time they are held once they are hit with it, or some other strange effect?

My earth/emp had SO many slots left over at 50, due to earth controls light slotting needs that i've ended up with 3 slotted swift, hurdle, CJ, sprint and SJ Went this way for unrestricted PvP movement, but would be open to respeccing the slots to elsewhere if i thought they would have a benefit.

Volcanic gasses is a bizarre power, i'm not sure that acc or hold duration make any difference to it. I just slotted mine for 3 recharge and it's always worked fine. Not an opener though.


assume those are typo's in CJ and SJ.

Earthquake and stalagmites are your 2 main control powers. Quake can be activated from out of LOS and can be a good opener when thats possible.

I would drop stone cages for several reasons. Firstly it draws much agro. Secondly it costs a lot of end. Thirdly it interferes with Earthquake, which can be perma, and certainly will overlap with AM...i found the only way to resist spamming it and ruining my quake was to respec it out . Fourthly, i've never seen a power cause such massive instant lag on a team as stone cages hitting a large mob...it just kills framerates. Fithly, the ST immob is cheaper, more accurate, creates containment and drops fliers to the ground where your ST hold will work.

AM wants 3 end mod ideally.

Your slotting is fine throughout except i would have some end redux in the heal as it's very costly. My ideal slotting would be 3 heal, 2 recharge 1 end (or 2 end 1 rec if you struggle for end at all). I would take the slots from the travel powers.

As for epcis, well it depends what you want to do. Earth/rad has enough control for about 4 or 5 mobs at once, so you might find powerboost unnecessary, though i'd imagine it's really nice with AM. Fire epic is you want to do damage, even with the new "nerfs" it's still the best damage bang for your buck. However, i find earth doesn't solo well at all so it'll be mainly a team toon, so the damage may be unneeded.

EDIT: damn you Okton! next time i wont take that [censored] break mid-post, you stole all my points

I have tried to skip stamina on several toons over my time playing and it's never worked out. Even if you have a end-recovery or regen power i for one hate being totally reliant on it as theres always the chance that a) It'll miss if it's got an acc check, b) if it requires mobs like powersink they could move away just as your activating it, or die, or theres only one left, your on low end and detoggle yourself using it for little return or c) a full attack chain on a lot of toons including brutes may burn almost all your end, and said power might not be charged in time. Stamina helps to mitigate most of these by increasing the amount of time you can go before needing a topup.

Note: using these powers also takes time out of your attack chain. I find powersink has quite a long activation time (relatively speaking) and is time i could better spend stomping/aiding self etc.

What mesmer said. I like tornado, particularly for the Knock-Up effect, but then i'm kinetics, so i get good damage from it too. Could be good slotted for acc, end and recharge as a soft control option i suppose though i've never tried it.

Sonics does indeed have more tricks, but personally i prefer def to res (on squishies anyway) but either is good. Only powers i'd really advise skipping in both sets are the kb fields in FF and scramble thoughts..though again, if you go more for a support roll the status effect powers in psi could be really useful to you. I say get em, try em, then respec out the ones that dont suit you

I read somewhere, and no i can't remember where, that in order for a brute to keep on an even keel with a scrapper damage wise requires a constant fury lvl of about 65%. I can't recall if thats with or without SO's, but i'd imagine it's with...as brutes do less damage than scrappers off the bat, but are able to outdamage them at full fury. This means slotting for damage is very important. I sympathise with the need to slot for recharge and end though. The point, i think...is that keeping fury at full by slotting recharge/end and slotting for damage are both important.

the nice thing about ss/elec is that you have an excellent end rec power so less end red needed and a nice acc buff so you need fewer acc SO's. I found on my em/ea brute although the ST damage was great, balancing end/recharge/damage/fury was a nightmare. Plus if your a teaming brute (so many just solo) its a whole different affair as keeping fury up in teams can be troublesome. Dominators for example (much as i love them - i have 2) can act as the anti-fury (tm) in teams. Brutes often complain they cant keep fury up with my plant/thorns as the AoE control is so effective. In those situations, having good base damage is vital.

agree about powersink, unless you wanna use it to sap in pvp or something. I actually slotting 2 rec 3 end mod and 1 end redux so i can get a better return from one mob at low end without the fear of detoggling...happens on rare occassions if i'm not watching carefully enough.

You actually only need the 2 recharge in Rage if your running lightning reflexes to make it perma, just like practiced brawler.

If need be you can squeeze an extra slot off by losing the third to-hit in rage, you really get a piddly return for the third...difference between 29% to 31% buff if memory serves.

the self-stacking nature of clear mind is a big issue to a lot of people. I like to occassionally PvP my Dominator, a trial in of itself but if theres an EMP around spamming multiple CMs then i often just give up and leave, theres really not much else i can do in that situation.

I'm sure CM will be looked at soon, as we know the devs have a great deal of time for 'balancing' PvP...as theres nothing more important that needs fixing...

I'm not falling into the 'poor-stalkers' camp here though :P most of the time stalkers get pretty much a clear run at most squishies and other toons that cant invest in adequate protection. So inother words...YES to stacking CM when i'm playing my Empath...and NO to stacking CM when i'm playing my dominator

Edit: OMG just noticed i commented on a PvP issue...i realy need to find more interesting work

Personally i would get hover instead of air supe for combat kb protection. You will be in melee a lot so KB is a pain and i prefer taking hover over the leaping pool, partly for concept and also because i'ts nice to have at least one or two toons without the leaping pool.

I take hover on all my kins, 3 slotted for fly speed and with a slow enc in siphon speed (2 acc, 3 rec, 1 slow) it's really nippy once you get going, gives you excellent maneuverability and no supression.

Immob is of course still a problem, but tbh the only insps i need are BFs anyway.

Edit: just noticed wondergran pretty much already pointed all this out, but i didn't notice coz it was all in the quote box I would still suggest 3 slots in hover, just because you will miss with SP on occasion or just for when your getting started. Kin really is a hectic set, once you start rolling things get faster and faster.

Oh and just read that Hover just got a slight buff in i8...base speed increased by 10%...nice little bonus

Big grats to everyone who took part in our successful RSF run tonight, was a great team