NightSable

I saw an Illusion/Emp troller who skipped PA for the healz.
I saw lvl 50 grav/kin with no sb and no singularity.
I have seen a bubbler who used force bolt and detention bubble every chance they had.

I have seen many a kin with sb say they aren't sb drones and stop asking for sb. I stood my blaster there for one round of attacks and did not fight. The kin said, you need to fight. I told him I was not just some blaster drone who blasts everything in site. But I would support the team by running assault. The team leader, a tank got what was happening. He promptly booted the kin for not using a power they had chosen.

Long story, but there is a point. Some people are new, and the post-coh-apocalyptic world of AE lets them get to 50 to a little too easy. That's OK, because you can always provide some constructive criticism. Most people accept it well as they honestly do not know what powers they should choose. Knowing you have a great power, selecting it and choosing not to use it is far worse.

I rarely see Energy as a primary anymore. Damage is subpar compared to others, and folks on teams hate kb, and it is an endurance hog. I would vote Energy is the least common primary these days. The only ones I see are old 50s, back when everyone wanted people to Nova.

Psi and Sonic Blasters live in PvP zones and they also happen to own PvP. Sonic is actually a great set. Psi excels in PVP, but does not does as well in PvE. For this reason, you don's see them often as most PvP'ers tend to get farmed up these days so they can get right to the PvP.

I think Electric is fairly uncommon. Also, Assault Rifle is uncommon past the 20s once resistance starts kicking in.

If you really want to go rare, then pick energy/devices. Not much synergy really, but can create a lot of theme potentially. This combo may make you unwanted by teams even if you don't play it well. If done right, it's actually not bad.

Common stuff is Fire and Archery. Ice used to be common, but I see less of it lately.

So I do get an occasional d/c. I use unloadgfx or reloadgfx after I zone, although I forget about 50% of the time. I usually only d/c on freedom in atlas in the MA building, but I am not convinced that is a Mac only issue there.

I run COH mac edition on the most recent 24inch Imac 3.0 GhZ processor with 4 mg RAM and the NVIDIA GEOFORCE GT 1300 graphics card. I run no other programs at the same time, although sometimes I forget and leave utorrent on. I run the graphics full screen at the 1920 resolution as well. 2nd to best graphics settings. My last computer ran VISTA, and it was no better or worse for d/c's.

Because I do expect one d/c per ~ 4-5 hours of game play with some regular consistancy, I have shyed away from rolling a MM. I think I would get pissed if I had to reload all the pets again. I also try to avoid Atlas 1 and the MA building is possible.

It may be that I use unloadgfx more frequently, especially after zoning into mishes. It is annoying, so perhaps I should program a hot key or something to avoid the typing even.

Oh, and if I get laggy and sense impending d/c, I quickly type in unloadgfx and this tends to resolve the problem 50% of the time.

I am glad to here a fix is coming as it is somewhat irritating, but overall, I find the game play vastly superior over my old Vista version. Looks sharper, of couse the 24 inch IMac monitor is dead sexy, so that may be part of it too.

I find most games require the higher end versions of the PC or Mac to play better. I have heard of people playing successfully on the laptops and the mini-mac's, so sometimes I wonder if people are just leaving on background programs and such.

For what this is worth, and it makes no sense as to why, I d/c ed much less frequently when I downloaded Mozilla Firefox on my system. That is likely chance, but it was quite noticeable. I do not run Firefox with COH on. Infact to be clear, the only thing in the Dock on when I run COH is Finder and COH. Anyway, weird, but maybe worth mentioning.

Night Sable

Oh, I luv to say "peekaboo, I see you" in sirens with my stalker. People start jumping around like crazy and popping yellows. Then I gently remind them that if I wanted them dead, they would already be cursing me in the hospital.

Then for those that do not attack me, I kill them one minute later when there yellows wear off.

I'm not evil, I'm just drawn that way.

oh, and yes I did duo, so it does not count, but still, I was pretty happy.

My BS/WP scrapper duo'ed with a blaster (NRG/NRG) against a Kronos back in issue 12 (FF GM version). We had great damage between us, but the blaster took several dirt naps. No temps, no pets, but I did use some inspirations here and there. Given the fact we had no additional buffs, I was surprised.

Of course, I have no vids or pics as I was not expecting to be a god that day. It just happened. My build was not purpled out at the time, but I had lots of unique procs and other IOs including the achilles procs at that time. Anyway, no evidence, but I am happy knowing it happened.

I have seen some rad/son defenders and /rad trollers solo GM's. Even today, it is not common.

I think the tough part of the GM's for scrappers is that some attacks do DoT that is significant after getting a huge hit but still surviving it. Willpower with the right accolades and a few IO bonuses can max out hitpoints which in turns makes a regen rate more effective. so before taking on the GM's, make sure you have a way to deal with the alpha strike and can survive any immediate follow-up damage. In otherwords, besides hitting defense cap, maximizing resistance, maxing hitpoints and regen rate if you can, you also need increase your recharge rate, and make sure you have enough endurance for the long haul.

So, you need IOs and you need to shake your moneymaker to get em.

Good luck

24 inch 3.06 ghz here. 1920 X 1200 resolution with 2nd best graphics settings. It runs better than my PC any day of the week except for one caveat which is hopefully being fixed soon. I do get a sudden crash without warning. Not a mapserve (when the CoX server is having trouble), but just a sudden program close. /e reloadgfx seems to prevent it when I enter new zones, but I forget sometimes. That is a pain in the rear sometimes, but I can relaunch and be back in game in about 10-15 seconds. Other than that, it runs like a dream with better quality of graphics, sound and loadtimes than my prior pc experience with COH which I have been playing for a bit now.

Wow, they really need to upgrade the servers to handle people wanting to give there money to em. Now that I have had enough time to think about it, I think I won't give em any.

This is a great guide. I have to add that when I would play my scrapper, someone would say RUN, and I thought they wanted me to run to the other mob to start thinning it down. I also checked the wiki for retreat, and, um.... I don't get it. Maybe someone can explain.

This should be added to The Scrapper Codex (someone needs to start one and collect great bits of scrapper wisdom throughout the boards).

And now a reading from the book of MrLiberty....

I want to make a War Mace/War Mace toon.

Like the dual blades. Perhaps in future, devs can give animation choices for these and many other powers.

Willpower is a lil yellowish for me, but I could make it into an aura with a little imagination.

Good job devs. For issue 12, lets get choices of power colors and weapon type. Dual blades could then be the way they are, the vanguard sort or dagger like. Anyway, lot to ask, but start working out it. Let my NRG blaster blast in red, blue, white or purple. Give me three ninja blades to choose from. Give me cat claws, wolverine pop claws, etc....

This is a nice guide. I have played now for 34 months, and it has truly become diffucult to come up with names for certain themes. I will give a few tricks I use.

Lord and Lady are truly nice because then you can use the last name to take whatever name you probably would have used otherwise. I have a character named Lady Deadshot. She is a TA/A defender and originally I wanted to name her Deadshot. Once I added the Lady title, my bio included how she had royal ties to old English Archers that used to protect British sovereignty since ancient times.

Adding descriptive first names helps too. Blaze is a good first or last name for example that indicates fire.

Anyway, just a few extra tidbits.

So basically, AIM and BUILD UP are good things?

The number crunching is almost more fun than the game too.

Seriously though, nice work. Title is appropriate though.

What are the regen's thoughts about khelds? Just for curioisty and completeness.

My first 50 was a regen. I soloed a lot, but I played on teams too. I always saw my job as killing the toughest enemy on the playing field.

It does suck when you get kicked out of a sg/vg by some nut. Unfortunately, life is not fair. In real life, worse things will happen with real implications. People get fired from jobs when new people come. It sucks and it is not fair. This is however just a game. The only way to guarantee this will never happen to you is to simply start your own group. I have seen people kick lvl 50s for not logging in for two weeks. I have seen people track prestige numbers. When the levels go up but the prestige does not, people get kicked. Sometimes, people make room for friends. Sometimes people just go nuts.

I sympathize with your problem, but I do not think there is a rule about a sg/vg leader kicking people out, changing the base around on you or doing what they want with the group that they are the leader of. The GM's just can't ban a person for kicking people out of the sg that they are leading. That could actually lead to lawsuits. A GM should not have the power to ban a person because another player disagrees with his actions. Short of racial remarks, I don't think they should ban anyone. I mean you can even turn a profanity filter on and ignore people that are jerks. GM's should deal with technical issues and ensuring that game play is fair. Personal vendettas should go to PVP

Look at it this way, if these are the kind of leaders you have, a new sg/vg may be in order anyway.

Fricken brilliant!!!!

Especially date night on Thursday and the heavy starchy meal on Friday night.

Brilliant!!!!

I like this guide and I dislike it at the same time. I believe that the suggestions are excellent for creating what I call classic or golden age, even silver age heroes. This would represent the spandex wearing type such as Superman. I think the color wheel has some uses, but two tones work as well.

The guide does not work for what I call atomic age heroes. These tend to be scantly clad hero types. Example: Witchblade.

I think that you are right that putting a wolfhead with a human body and army boots is weird, but it can work.

The bio can explain why some may look weird. Also, many of my heroes are dark, brooding sorts. More Batman or Punisher like. My heroes don't arrest people(AR, arrows and claws, and swords are unlikely to not kill people), so they dont wear Purple and Yellow Spandex. I dont say to the team in battle, "Arrest him". I say "kill him". Also, if I am on the COV side, I say "brute, bring me his head". I think these are great suggestions for making old school old fashion hero types which are still pretty cool, but it does not work for the modern hero types.

I looked at your toons Crashfreeze and I admit that the costumes do look good. But as a graphic artist, surely you must admit that comic book heroes and heroines have taken on more sex appeal and most of them are not the goody two-shoes of the past. Even classic superheroes have had makeovers. Wonder Woman in 1970s to now is a huge difference. The male characters are becoming more streamlined as well. I'm not recommending people make a female superhero and put her in bikini top and bikini 3 bottom. I'm not recommending people make male superheroes in tight leather pants and no shirt, but if the bio and storyline fits, then it can work. This is where the bio comes in. If you make a dark brooding hero, make a bio that matches. If you dress someone in an American flag, have a bio that matches. I know not everyone has a bio, but if you are taking the time to read this guide, you probably are the sort that would spend time on a bio as well.

As a classical superhero guide, I give these recommendations 5 stars. As a modern guide, I give it three stars because... well, Orange and Blue, c'mon, unless you are making a hero called the Florida Gator, its not appealing really. That(the orange and blue heroine) was the one costume you posted I did not really care for.

You did mention categories of different hero types, but most of the guide suggests tips for classical heroes. Anyway, it is a really nice guide. Add some sections for modern and atomic age heroes. Put a version two out. Also, lets see more some recommendations about wing and capes and auras. I find these can be overdone in many cases. You begin to mention these areas, but then sorta stop.

I used to play a great game called THE BARD'S TALE on my APPLE IIC. It was a blast. I would enter one part of town in the game and have to exchange floppy discs. I never owned the Atart 2600, but I had Coleco then the Atari 5200 (which pwnz). I bought the steering wheel for pole position and suddenly had more friends than I knew what to do with.

I remember the Superfriends. I remember Spiderman and his Amazing Friends (Iceman and Firestar). I remember Voltron(the lions and the original which was 15 vehicles, not lions). I remember running home from school to watch Robotech: The Macross Saga and but I preferred the third season witht the Envid (spelling may be off).

I am not the oldest gamer out there by any means. I have played with husband and wives and talked to them on Ventrilo and I know there are many people older than me. But I think I still qualify as an old gamer.

Anyway, I plan to one day be retired in a nursing home sipping tube feeds through a PEG(feeding) tube and mildly demented, but I will still be gaming. Hey, it's not a bad way to go.

Wrong section for the post.

But it is in the biggest building in the middle of the city map. Click the front door, its pretty easy to find, but you are right, its not on map. Also, try website vidiots.com for futher assistance.

Here is the correct link to Edenfire's Plant/Fire Guide to Domination, Enjoy

plant/fire guide

Post deleted by NightSable

They dont last long. As a rule of thumb, they follow you for one battle basically, but don't appear until you start attack on the second battle. If you sit around for a long time, they won't follow.

Edenfire's Guide to Plant/Fire Domination

Disclaimer: I don’t worry about numbers, the brawl index, the exact percentage of endurance.

Outline:
1. Purpose of a Plant/Fire Dominator & Introduction
2. Plant Control - Overview
3. Fiery Assault – Overview
4. Power Pools
5. Tactics and Strategy
6. PvE and PvP


1. Purpose of a Plant/Fire Dominator & Introduction

Welcome to the world of spectacular graphical holds. Weaker graphics cards will stutter in your presence. Enemies will feel your plants loving embrace. Then you will burn them all and with your fire, destroy any evidence of your plant control. When I made Edenfire, I was feeling creative and decided that plant control would offer a way to literally tie the enemies up and then I could inflict a fiery torture to them with fiery embrace. She is a magical experiment from the Envoy of Shadows and Hamidon shunned by both eventually and forced to walk her own path in the Rogue Isle.

It was soon after I started I realized that there were certain advantages to playing this particular dominator that made it useful to the team, able to solo and most importantly of all, FUN. Your dominator has a specific purpose and this holds true for most dominators. Your purpose is to protect your team. That is correct. I’ll repeat it, your purpose is to protect your team. You are no corruptor. Your damage is gimped to much for that and you really can’t heal the team or provide buffs or debuffs. You are no controller. Your holds are good, but lack the duration of a true controller. You certainly are not a brute, tank or scrapper. Melee for you! Hah! You are squishie. Pure and simple. As it turns out, you are all of these things rolled into one.

You do have holds. They are good. They are visible to the team. Everyone sees your strangler or vines. It is not like mild holds and char. You can inflict damage because of domination and fiery embrace. Combined, your attacks chains do significant damage. You can absorb alpha strikes for your teams. Don’t believe me, well watch as I send in Carrion Creepers before the rest of the team gets into melee. You are very diverse and through all your abilities, you will make teams feel safer, inflict damage and also have a lot of fun. You can solo fine as well.



2. Plant Control Overview

Plant Control is a great powerset that works very well. The dev’s can pat themselves on the back for this one. It is graphically well done. It has a host of different methods of control, excuse me, domination. I will now break down the methods of domination and then individually discuss each power set

Holds: Strangler, Vines

Immobilization: Entagle, Roots

Soft Controls(Domination): Spore Burst, Seeds of Confusion, Carrion Creepers

Heal: Spirit Tree

Pet: Fly Trap

As you can see, Plant Control is a swiss army knife of domination. Let us run down the powersets. I will give my opinion on these sets as we go down

1.Entangle – A single target immobilization that does moderate Damage Over Time (DOT) with a fast Recharge. I’ll get this over with now. If you are a controller or a dominator, do not take immobilization powers. They draw aggro. Your enemy can still attack you, and you are doing very little to him. I did not choose this power. If you have, there may still be time to re-roll another character. Available at level one(Rating 2/5 Stars)

2.Strangle – A single target hold that does moderate DOT with a Mod recharge. Endurace use is low. This is a great power. It is useful from lvl one to lvl 40 and beyond. It is easy for teammates to see whom is held. Try casting it on a behemoth overlord and see giant vines erupt from the ground. This power is required in my opinion. Take this and skip entangle. Slot with 3 Hold Durations, 1-2 Accuracy, 1 Recharge Reduction. Available at level one (Rating 4/5 Stars)

3.Roots – Group Immobilization that inflicts Moderate DOT with Fast Recharge. This power is an aggro magnet that does little damage except to you. I would skip this power. It causes more trouble that it is worth. Besides you get this power for free later on indirectly without the aggro problems. As you will see later, you Fly Trap and Carrion Creepers both create roots in effect as you fight later, but they take the aggro, not you. Bosses, even Heroes will be immobilized by them. If you throw your roots in too, it is simply overkill and draws the aggro from them to you. Available at Level 2(Rating 0/5 Stars)

4.Spore Burst – AOE Sleep with slow recharge. Nope, sounds good, but it is not. Solo, it may be OK, but why solo when you work better in teams. When attacked they wake up. COV is very damage and AOE based. You are fire, so you also have some AOE’s. Skip this power, it is not of use to you. Available at Level 6. (Ratings 0/5 Stars)

5.Seeds of Confusion – AOE Confuse. OK, now you got one of the set defining powers and it is available at level 8. This AOE cone Confuse causes your enemies if hit to attack each other. You have to kill em quick, or your xp from each enemy decreases, but you chose fire with AOEs to help you. Some people use this to open up with, some use it as a panic button. I generally open with it. It protects the team by stopping incoming attacks. I follow a brute it with it early levels and cast it so they can absorb aggro first. After it wears off, they will aggro to you if not already dead or occupied with your teammates. Needs accuracy as AOEs have decreased accu. I slotted with 3 confuse durations and 3 accuracy (prob overkill). You can consider two accuracy and a recharge reduction. If you skip this power, re-roll or get ASAP. If someone says stop using it as it steals from xp, they are a noob. You will move through mishes at faster rate with SOC and complete more mishes quickly (bonus XP). This power is essential (Rating 5/5 stars)

6.Spirit Tree – Fixed object that increases Regeneration Rate if close by. This power is a good power, but not essential. With a three slotted health and three slotted spirit tree, your regeneration rate is significantly improved, but it is not a true heal. It does help however. Problems however are that it is fixes, so team must be close to it for regeneration benefit. Also, it obscures vision. I still find it useful. Two ways to use it. First, follow the meleer’s into battle and plant it in center of battle to benefit them. Second plant it in back for Corrupters and MM pets to keep their HP up some. It has saved my butt many times, so I think it is a good power, but can be picked up later on. Available at Level 12. Three Heath Slots , Consider Recharge Reductions if you have space(Ratings 3/5 Stars)

7.Vines – AOE Hold, no damage, Very Long Recharge. AOE holds are debated by some, but I think this power is awesome and another must. Why? 1. Easy to see hold. 2. Stacks with Strangler, so it is great to fire off this and Strangler on a boss and get em held right up front. With domination, the combination of this and Strangler hold some Heroes and Archvillians and certainly Elite Bosses. I soloed Ballista from the Longbow mishes with Vines and Strangles and never got hit once. 3 holds, 3 accuracy Level 18 (Ratings 4/5 Stars)

8.Carrion Creepers – I need a moment of silence hear. Tear to right eye. This power is the SET DEFINING POWER. To not take it at level 26 means that the dev’s need to cancel your account and ban you from playing because you are obviously a very stupid person. Sorry about that, This is the best power in the set and one of the best on the game. First, for fun aspect, it looks awesome. Big moving vines erupt from the ground, and they knock your enemies over. They immobilize some of them. They decrease attack rate and slow enemies. They follow you into next battle. They do some damage. They draw aggro. One of the most useful things these lil vines do it to take alpha strikes. I cast em into a large dangerous group and watch all the the enemies turn on em and start shooting, then they all start flopping around like they are on an ice slick. Little gray numbers go over there head indicating damage (grey number is a bug I think). The damage is minor, but adds up. This is one of the best dominator powers in the game. You must get this ASAP. Slotting is variable, highly variable. 3 Recharge Reductions is a must, the other 3 slots can be damage, slow, immob, etc… I chose 3 damage. As I said, the damage adds up over time actually. I have tested it on a group of two yellow the other day. Creepers will drop a minions life to half over a min, so in large long battles, it helps actually. Level 26 (Ratings 7/5 Stars – yes 7)

9.Fly Trap – Your pet. He’s pretty good. He casts immobilzations, throws some thorns and bites your enemies. He is not crazy like fire imps trying to draw aggro. He is able to keep up with you running. He is not bright though like all pets. His strength is his bite, but sometimes he wont run into battle. He is a hurt by fire more than others, and since Circle of Thorns seems to be problematic the entire game, you may have to heal him somehow as time goes on. Pets are always a must in my opinion. Give him 3 damage enh and 2 accuracy. Level 32 (Ratings 5/5 stars)




3. Fiery Assault Overview

Fire is a classic since COH and works well. Why Fire? I chose it for concept somewhat, but also fire has good AOE DOT attacks which you need to improve Seeds of confusion. Graphically it is great as well. Has fast animation times overall

1.Flares – a must have. Only because you have to have it. No choice here, sorry. Animation sucks cause it is slow. Skip if you could, but not possible, so learn to use it, You got no choice here. Slot with 1 Damage. (Ratings 0/5 stars)

2.Incinerate – This is a great melee power. Does High DOT with Slow Recharge. Useful to cast after you drop Strangler on someone, then focus attention on the other bad(or good) guy trying to kill you. It is melee, but have no fear, cast in on people that are held until you get used to it. Slot with 3 damage and one accuracy (Ratings 4/5 stars)

3.Fire Breath – Lvl 4, Cone shaped AOE DOT with slow recharge. After you throw your seeds on confusion, cast fire breath to recover your xp. This is a bread and butter power and you need it early on. Slot with 3 damage and 1 accuract (Ratings 4/5)

4.Fire Blast – Level 10. The Classic. It’s pretty self explanatory. Single target Moderate Damage with Fast Recharge. Get it and use it often. Slot with 3 damage and 1 accuracy (Ratings 4/5)

5.Fiery Embrace – Level 16. So you have felt rather wimpy because of your damage. You noticed you can’t one shot anyone even a blue minion. Nothing has changed, but Fiery Embrace helps you deal with it a little better. This significantly boosts all fire attacks for a short while and boosts no fire attacks as well to a lesser degree. Combines with domination, you will actually do some significant damage. Slot with three recharge reductions. Get this ASAP (Ratings 5/5)

6.Combustion – Level 20 AOE DOT with Slow recharge. Some swear by this, some don’t. It is a good power, but I did not have room for it in my build. I chose fire breath because it was earlier and the cone lets me get out of melee quickly. This power puts you in the middle (melee) of a group of enemies and potentially draws aggro. Also, you get rooted as with most AOE attacks, but the rooting seems a bit long to meThe damage is good. I may get this in the 40s, but I have to see the patron powers. If you swear by it, get it, but it is possible to skip. Slot with 3 Damage, 1 accuracy. (Ratings 2/5)

7.Consume – Level 28 – Good Power, but if you chose stamina, it is really not necessary. I had no room in my build for this and once again, will wait to see the patron powers before selecting this power. It does minor damage, but drains endurance from enemies. With stamina and the domination endurance refill, I don’t think this is necessary. Slot end recover and accuracy in what ever way you see fit (Ratings 2/5)

8.Blazing Bolt – Level 35 – Mixed feelings, but I like snipe powers. With domination and fiery embrace, your extreme damage will actually feel extreme. I chose this power for that reason. My old blaster glory needed to be re-lived a bit. I recommend it, but if you don’t like snipe attacks (they are high end and a require you to not be interrupted), then combustion or consume could be chosen here. Slot with 3 damage, 1 accu and if possible 2 decrease interrupt time. (Ratings 4/5)

9.Blaze – Level 38 – So you finally got your last power. It is not a nuke. It is probably the best single target attack you will have. High burst damage with decent recharge time. Get it, but you won’t be in awe of your level 38 power. Slot it with 3 damage and 1 accuracy.





4. Power Pools

I won’t tell you about every power pool. I will tell you what I chose and why

Fitness – Look, it’s just required. I hate having to use three power slots to get decent stamina, but you really have no choice. I chose swift, health and stamina. 3 slot the Health and 3 slot the Stamina. Nuff said

Leaping – Take your preference first of all. That being said, I took Super Jump. The combat jumping and swift synergize well and give you a touch of defense. Super jump is fast and gives you a vertical element to travel. Acrobatics is very useful too. It offers some hold protection which is all I cared about. When the dominator is held, then enemies may not be. This can be devastating to a team, especially if they are used to playing with you. You will still get held from time to time if your toggles are dropped, but I found it useful.

Other Travel Powers – Did not take. Teleport is fastest, but not for beginners. Flight has most control, but is slow. It make become more useful post 40 in the speculated Vertical Zone of Grandville, we will see. Superspeed is good, but if you get it, you should get stealth to take full advantage.

Medicine Pool – I took Aid Other to help out my Fly Trap from time to time. Depending on the Patron Power Pools, I may take Aid Self if I have room in my build.

Other power pools – I did not choose them, so I wont discuss them anymore. Many other guides go though these pretty well.


5. Tactics And Strategy

Pretty easy actually. Protect your team by making your enemies not attack your team. Here are a few scenarios.

Bosses and above – High damage from these guys can get the best of your corrupter. You MM falls and all his pets go with him. Sometimes, a brute takes more than he can handle. Simple fire a Strangler and a Vines right away and most if not all Bosses will be held. Spam your Strangler on the boss and attack in between. In doing this, the Bosses friends will all have been held by the Vines briefly. It is so pretty, oh so pretty. For AV’s, Heroes and some Elite Bosses, you will need Domination for this to work well, but it can work on most of em. Watch out for Back Alley Brawler and Longbow Tanks (commanders, etc..), they can be tougher to hold and you may draw a one shot wrath.

Large +3 groups – Maybe your brute is not the tank he believes he is. It is cool, sometimes, on relentless, you get in over your head. Send in the Creepers first. Alpha Strikes to a pet that spawns after your enemies fall is a pretty safe way to go. Hide around a corner, cast the creepers, send in your team. You got em.

No Healer on team – Well, if you a like me, you took spirit tree and aid other. Not exactly the empathy everyone wishes they had, but it will have to do. So follow the brute and stalkers in after they get aggro. Drop the spirit tree and run back a little bit. Hold who you can and use aid other as permits.

Two close mobs get pulled – Easy for you , a combination of creepers and Seeds of confusion to the groups will create a beautiful chaos. Fire off your fire breath to the group you confused to ensure some xp from em.

Oh, I forgot the Fly Trap – That’s right. If you fire off Carrion Creepers and get your Fly Trap to run it, you will have every one immobilized keeping everyone not conditioned for melee safe.

Combined Tactics. All of these tactics can be combined. There are many other tactics I have not discussed for the sake of time, and you will find your own.

Domination And Fiery Embrace – The boss holder/killer? Yes, when you get to the end of a mission with a big bad boss with a name, click that domination button you have saved up and click that fiery embrace button. Strangle + Vines = Boss held. Now, Blazing Bolt, run in and Incinerate + Fire Breath + Blaze. Repeat as needed. Like I said no one shotting for you, but once and awhile, it is good to feel that you can inflict a little damage as well.

6. PvE and PvP

Well, you will do very well in PvE. Dominators tend to, but you are not the king of PvP. You are not even Jester of PvP. I have gone into PvP, but rarely alone unless trying to rush to mish to get badge. Well, don’t fear PvP. If a hero kills you, big deal, no debt for it. Don’t worry about your rep either, you are a dominator, no one has any expectations of you. That is your strength. You are a squishie target to everyone that sees you, and one thing I have learned in COH/COV, many gamers like to win even if there is no challenge. OK, so paint the target on your chest, get a team and do what you do best. Become bait. That right, you are a little worm on a big hook. Get a stalker or two to watch your back. Now what can you do. Spam holds. In PvP, it probably won’t work well, but you may be surpised. If you hold someone, it increases the stalkers chance of criticals. Also, Seeds of Confusion can be quite fun in PvP. You may make a defenfer heal you up before they realize what has just happened. The best move I ever did was getting an Illusion Controller to Flash his entire team and hold them all. That being said, the experienced professional PvP’ers will eat you for breakfast, so I would plan to go in as support for them mostly.



7. Conclusion

Plant/Fire Domination is a great and powerful combo. I rarely see anyone with this build, but it has provided a lot of fun for me to play. To those, that suggest dominators aren’t much fun to play, this combo will hopefully change their mind some. I consider it the best build to play with a neat tie Mind/Psi. The only reason I like Plant/Fire more so is the holds are so much more obvious to the team, I get Confuse powers early on as well, and I get a Pet. Also The Creepers. The Fire’s AOE attacks synergize well with Seeds of Confusion. Fiery Embrace is great. Fire animation time is overall quick. Fire is also endurance friendly.

That’s it. Hope you found it helpful. Special thanks to the villain group the Trust who has provided a great group of teammates over the time. The Trust is on Virtue and I am giving em a plug as they are one of the coolest VG groups on the server

Edenfire

Much of what you say is true. I play a Bot/FF MM on Virtue Curently Lvl 30 and I dont play the way you do. Infact, I personally take the alpha hits, not my pets. What I do is throw up personal FF with dispersion field and drop a purple. Im not sure of the numbers, but it is extremely rare for me to take a hit, even from AV's and Heroes. Bots on follow to position them behind me. Then I click attack target and my Assault Bot is in a good place to use flamethower and hit multiple targets stealing aggro. The alpha hit did not hurt me and my bots are taking second hits, then I drop Personal FF and hover above out of melee with my dispersion field helping the team and my Assault and Tactics running. With this method, I can preserve my bots and protect my teammates. I bub my teammates also. Now one thing to remember, after the pet dies, the defenseless MM takes the aggro, so give some of the guys a break for keeping their pets alive. MM wont last very long melee. I do have personal FF and Aid self, so I am pretty much unstoppable and usually if the whole team dies, I am left alive alone after bots are dead and can run away monloguing.

Why am I writing this? Two reason. First, a MM can develop a method to protect team and pets. My teammates rarely die and my pets rarely die, even the minions. So if you want to play with a good MM on Virtue, Androidia lvl 30 LFT.

Second, if my team does die because we are taking on +5's the brute aggroed an extra mob and the shields all just happened to drop (hey sh*t happens), as a MM the ultimate villian, I use my escape pod (Personal FF and Aid Self) to escape while I monologue the entire way. I am a villian. I will help the team, but I'm not dying for em either. The other secondaries wont offer the escape or tanking that FF allows. I recognize that as a problem for this strategy. But hey, its not my fault you did not choose the correct secondary. Nah, Im just kidding. I agree the pets are expendible, but if I am going to sacrafice them, I need the team to back me up immediately. One problem is that the MM is requested to send in the pet and the team watches as the group of Longbow run to the MM, load their guns, take aim, stop to reload , check the barrel and then shoot the MM dropping all the pets. I generally do not practice pet sacrifice for this reason unless I am playing with people I have played with before. If it is a pick up group, I tank it myself if my brute is too squishie or no one else can handle it.


No for the doms, Agree wholeheartedly. My lvl 34 plant dom does not have these problems. To all the DOMS, do NOT take AOE immobilize foe any reason. If you do, you are the sacrificial lamb and will eat dirt quite often. The other powers however should prevent AOE and keep you quite useful.

I wont even comment on the other AT's as they usually do not have problems as a whole. A good player can make any AT play well. A bad player can make a well chosen uber AT die and get teammates die too. Here is an idea. If you play with someone who plays poorly or that you don't like, quit or kick the player.

Nuff said

Night Sable DM/Regen lvl 50 Freedom
Edenfire Plant/Fire Dom lvl 34 Virtue
Androidia MM/Bots MM lvl 30 Virtue
OK, a bunch of damn alts all over the place, lvl range 1-50

Good Comment! The choice to make life harder to keep in character is a tough one, but I respect it. Mostly likely you need to team with people who can teleport or group Fly or things. It is personally not for me, because I enjoy going solo sometimes. It brings me to discuss a point regarding capes. My main is a succubus character if you will. Instead of cape, I would like her to have wings, but I cannot get wings. I see some "robots" and battle armor suits where a cape just looks, well, stupid. A jet pack or "jet boots" would make more sense. Capes should have more options to fit the roles characters need. A natural could use a glider, motorcycle, vehicles, etc... Capes look foolish on some characters, so I would suggest that these sorts of capes, or powers be added. If you choose SS, they could allow you to choose whether it is via foot (the flash), or via Vehicle (car or motorcycle). Flight could offer one wings. How many angels do you see running around with the same stupid helmet? How many demons have no wings. Teleporters could have little devices in their hands. It is nit picky, but I think it would enhance gameplay. Also naturals could use vehicles and such to get around. I do not have Recall Friend, and I have teamed with a Natural Scrapper who stayed in role and would not get a travel power. It was a pain to deal with at times, because I would start mishes without him, and he would complain about not getting mish XP. Well, I was not gonna wait 15 minutes for someone to show up. I respect the choice completely however, but it is not for me. Well, if the developers read this, there is some consideration for Issue 4 one day. Wings & vehicles.