MinMin

I much prefer the sound of the Southern Hemisphere Allicance for Global Conquest ... but Oceania will do.

GMT+10:00 (no daylight savings just yet)

Yeah, I'm a little confused too. Why is it hard to solo a L50 Boss? Doms are pretty much the character of choice to solo Bosses from about L10 onwards ...

Or do you mean mez-resistant EBs or AVs when you say "Boss"?

No, not a thread to discuss running into the EU Lounge and stealing their cookies. Why would we need that? We have Tim Tams!

I just wanted to mention that we did a RWZ Mothership Raid on Justice last night at 8:30pm AEST and got a really good turn out for it. We had about two-thirds timezone-natives and some ringers and much fun was had by all. At it's peak we had 3 full teams running; plenty to do this Raid.

We'll do this again soon, so keep an eye out.

Hi, I'm @Min Min and I play on Justice mainly with a fairly strong preference for Villains. I'm an Aussie from Brisbane, Queensland.

I'm also one of the leaders of S.I.N.I.S.T.E.R. and an op on channel Australia.

I do like Dominators, but I'm not a nut like Lili, as only a third or so of my villains are Doms and I don't mind playing blueside occasionally.

I would not recommend the more single-target focussed assault sets. Earth (along with Mind) is the AoE Control master, so there's good sense in backing that up with good AoE damage.

To that end Earth/Fire is obviously good and by far the most damaging option, but my vote is for Earth/Psi. With Drain Psyche's -regen effects, the multitude of -recharge in Psi and nearly every power in Earth providing -def, Earth/Psi is a seriously good team support build.

And TK Thrust is everything that Power Push is now.

I'm usually the first to complain about AoE Immobs for Doms. The extra aggro is not worth it for the benefits that Tw00sh presents above, but I firmly believe that Fire Control is an exception in this regard.

That's because Fire Cages has synergy with three other Fire Control powers: Hot Feet, Flashfires and Bonfire. There aren't too many other Dominator Control sets that get much use out of their AoE Immob.

I would concur with Obscure_Blade about taking them late though. Early on they're more trouble than they're worth.

By my reckoning your build looks basically like this:

Level 20Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Fire Control
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Assault
Power Pool: Fitness

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Char -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Flares -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Incinerate -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Fire Breath -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Hot Feet -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Fire Blast -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Flashfire -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Fiery Embrace -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Cinders -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A)
Your post suggest that you have taken Ring of Fire, but I'm guessing you didn't.

The problem is almost immediately evident: Hot Feet. As with most aura powers, the endurance drain is just too much too sustain before SO-level endurance reducers and Stamina. Hit L22, slot towards 100% endurance reduction in Hot Feet and you'll performance will improve markedly.

I'd also be curious how you have Char and Flashfires slotted. Because you don't have good enhancers yet Flashfires is going to have a crappy duration (and crappy recharge because you don't have Hasten), Char and rapid target-switching is going to be your primary control. So if you're not slotting Char right (lots of recharge), you're going to be up against it.

At your level Cinders is a poor choice as well. Many people would say it's a poor choice without qualification, but I personally appreciate it as a panic button. Take and slot much later in your build.

One last tip: Hasten. Seriously, it's just about mandatory for Doms. We rely on a few long-recharging AoE Controls for the majority of our mitigation - anything that makes those come back faster is brilliant.

As I understand it Energize is a variant on the theme of Conserve Power. As in a reduction in the effect and duration of the Endurance discount, but a huge regen bonus and self-heal added. It's still a self buff and it does do some of what Conserve Power did and it's frankly a much more attractive option.

I'm not sure that the Cottage Rule applies here and it's certainly marginal at best.

I agree with your strategy using Roots: hit the spawn with Seeds and then keep them in place with Roots after they've gathered. I'm questioning why you need Entangle there as well, particularly considering you're going to be wanting to stack Strangler on any Bosses anyway.

If you don't need Spirit Tree early on, then you'll never need it. It's only good for protracted combats, and once you're well into SOs, IOs and slots you won't be doing many protracted combats.

As for Seeds - it's fantastic, don't get me wrong - but unless you're planning on spending the 30s in MA you will need a plan for Longbow Officers, because they grant protection from Confusion to the entire spawn that they're with. And the theme for 30s for Villains is all-Longbow all-the-time. Yes, nemesis can be a problem too, but you can avoid them. I doubt you can avoid Longbow.

There's a few issues with that build.

• Roots and Entangle; both before L5? I'm not convinced you need both at all. There's plenty of good powers in /Thorns that you can take instead of Entangle.
• Seeds at L12? You can take it at L8, and you should.
• Spirit Tree is going to be at it's best in the early game. If you must take it, then you're better off doing so well before L20.
• Vines isn't great, but it makes a good backup for when Seeds doesn't work (particularly as you start to hit Longbow Officers in the late 20s and 30s).

I'll try and post a build a bit later on.

Well, as they say, Crushing Field is not a useful Control by itself. Technically, you're right, it is a Control though.

Wormhole is essential for Gravity, although a PITA to use and explain, and the knockback is really annoying. But hey, it's the best you get ...

The two that synergize best are /Fire because Fiery Embrace boosts all your damage from your Primary as well and /Psi because Drain Psyche helps against tough targets. They're also #1 and #2 with respect to AoE damage.

Earth/Psi. Oodles of def debuff, area denial and Drain Psyche to speed up AV fights.

Plant has Seeds of Confusion which will easily permanently lock down a very large spawn. Seeds will recharge before it's duration with only 2 Recharge SOs and 1 Duration SO.

Earth does it with Stalagmites to get an initial stun and then follows up with Earthquake or Volcanic Gasses. Earthquake is not complete lockdown, but it's pretty close. Gasses is just brilliant. And both Stalgmites and Earthquake recharge quickly.

Mind does it with Mass Hypnosis, Terrify and Mass Confusion. Depending on build and circumstances you can also add Total Domination and Telekinesis to the mix, but the limitations of those powers makes the former superior. Mind also has the brilliant Mesmerize, a Mag 4 ST Sleep, which will Sleep a boss with one application.

Ice uses Ice Slick, which is the highest % chance AoE knockdown power in the game and then uses it's myriad -recharge and -slow to lock them down from there. Again, like with Earthquake, it's not complete lockdown, but usually enough to handle spawns for a team of 6 solo pretty much indefinitely.

Fire is probably the weakest Control-wise because it relies on a single decent AoE Control (Flashfires) which has a reasonably short duration. It's big advantage of course is the extra damage from the most damaging pets and Hot Feet, which is now slouch in the control stakes as well.

Gravity also has to rely on a single decent AoE Control, but it can be fiddly to use and the knockback is really annoying. The upside is that your pet really makes up for your lack of Control abilities, and who needs pets for damage when you have a good Assault set?

As has been said earlier, Gravity is on the low end of Control. Most other Doms can easily lock down entire spawns pretty much indefinitely.

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You'll be able to stack 3 Holds without Domination up, and you'll be able to do it consistently with that slotting.

For a L50 Gravity Dom with 2 L50 Recharge Common IOs and 2 L50 Hold Duration Common IOs [u]without[u] Hasten, GD recharges in 4.36 seconds and lasts for 32.8 seconds.

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Perhaps you missed the "uses SO's, avoids IO's" bit.


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No, I didn't. He doesn't like IO Sets; he seems to have no problems with Common IOs, because he talked about using them a few posts up.

You'll be able to stack 3 Holds without Domination up, and you'll be able to do it consistently with that slotting.

For a L50 Gravity Dom with 2 L50 Recharge Common IOs and 2 L50 Hold Duration Common IOs [u]without[u] Hasten, GD recharges in 4.36 seconds and lasts for 32.8 seconds.

That means you can stack 2 Holds on a target within 5 seconds for the next 26 seconds or so and 3 Holds within 10 seconds for about 20 seconds. Keep casting it whenever it recharges and you're going to able to easily stack 4 or 5 Holds on a target consistently.

Of course, you need to survive for that first 10 seconds

And with Domination and lots of Global Recharge a Dominator can get to truly obscene levels of Hold magnitude ... enough to permanently Hold an AV all by themselves.

We obviously come at things differently; your preference is "strong enough" and mine is usually "strong as possible". That's fine, we all approach the game in different ways.

I'll put my suggestions forward into a set of simple tips that you can take or leave:
<ul type="square">[*] Controls should be slotted with Accuracy, Recharge and Duration unless they're aura ones (Arctic Air and Hot Feet) or just plain weird (Dimension Shift*, Telekinesis). Endurance is usually a distant 4th (one of the benefits of IO sets is getting this in the mix "for free").[*] Each Control set has at least one signature every-spawn AoE Control. For Gravity that's Wormhole, so slot accordingly, either with a good Stun set (Stupefy is pretty good, leave off the Proc and slot with something else to maximise your numbers) or some good combination of Acc, Rech, Duration. When so much of your performance hinges on these powers it's a very good idea to 5 or 6-slot. (Except for Ice Slick I guess).[*] Domination is obviously brilliant, but one of the key things, particularly early in your career, is the complete refill of the blue bar. Most of your endurance issues can be managed by careful use of the blue bar (at least before Stamina).[*] While we're on the subject, Stamina will improve your performance enormously. Yes, you have to sacrifice cool powers to get it, but you have a big head start here: you're playing a Gravity Dom so they're really aren't many cool powers to get anyway.[*] Power Boost doesn't do much for a Grav Dom. You can put it off until the 20s when it makes a nice combo with Wormhole.[*] It is a perfectly reasonable option to not take your AoE Hold (Gravity Distortion Field) as the Acc/Rech/Duration maths make it marginal even when fully slotted.[*] Wormhole is fiddly and you need to be careful to either use it well on teams or make sure the team knows what you're doing with it. Of course, as with Dimension Shift, the opportunities for schadenfreude abound.[*] Stacking your ST Hold is important, in some cases for Bosses, but particularly in your late 20s and 30s when it seems like every other story arc has a Longbow Ballista or two. You need to plan to consistently stack 3 normal Hold's worth of magnitude on these guys, taking into account that they're FF so they have loads of defense.[/list]Hope that helps!

* Dimension Shift is one of the few powers in the game that gets worse with Accuracy. This is because you typically want to use it to break up a spawn ... so you really only want it to hit about half the mobs.

That's quite unusual.

Most Doms would have their ST Hold 5-slotted by L10 as stacking the power is pretty much key to dealing with a Boss when Domination isn't up.

And that's a fairly leading statement about global recharge ... why wouldn't you want it? The defining factor of Dominators is lots of slow recharging AoE Control; most players looking to get the most out of their Dominator develop the character with some level of global recharge in mind*. It's one of the main reasons that Hasten is so commonly picked for both Dominators and Controllers.

* I'm not even talking about perma-Domination here, just the need to maximise the recharge of your AoEs.

Ice/Ice - I swear that just choosing this combo will give you a permanent -50% reduction on your endurance.

At least, you'll feel like that it has.

It's a good combo, but it goes hard, not long.

I was wondering how you have Gravity Distortion slotted?

One of the real strengths of Doms (and to a lesser extent Controllers) is how quickly they can stack magnitudes of mezzing effects.

Typically a ST Hold like Gravity Distortion will be slotted approaching 100% duration and 100% recharge with some pretty good level of accuracy as well. With that slotting, even a Lost Anathema or an Arachnos Huntsman will Hold pretty effectively on the second and third hit respectively.

Given that Doms usually also slot heavily for global recharge as well, stacking ST Holds on tough targets is a tried and true strategy, much more so than with Blasters.

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/Psi will go down in history beside EM and Devices. For good or ill, justified or not, people will be whining about PSW getting nerfed still three years from now.

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Did the 5thSF yesterday with my perma Fire/Psi. PSW is not what it once was, but it's still darn cool and now I can use Psychic Scream with it.