Hi! It's me, your friendly neighb- well, wrong intro. Anyway, skip all this and lets go straight to the guide:
[u]0 - Powerset introduction.[u]
Plant is a very powerful primary set. It has everything a dominator needs to survive, hold, immobs, sleep (I will talk about this further), a good pet, and a fast recharge AoE control in form of confuse.
Thorny is, in my opnion, one of the best (if not the best) AoE damage set available to dominators. With the PSW nerf (which wasn't /that/ bad), a fast recharge /thorny dominator can put serious damage on a group of enemies.
Plant and thorny together merge very well, with AoE control and damage, the set gets strong really early compared to some other sets. And thorny looks cool!! Also this is a PvE guide, every power will receive my personal rating based on my PvE experience as a plant/thorny dominator. And I made this guide because I hightly disagree with several ratings and coments on other plant/thorny guides, and I know some people will disagree with this one.
[u]Domination and you![u]
"Nothing delights a Dominator more than inflicting pain. Each time a Dominator attacks, their sadistic nature grows. When your Domination bar is over 90, you can activate this power to unleash their true potential. Your control powers will typically last 50 percent longer and will more easily Dominate stronger opponents. Additionally, you will fully recharge your Endurance and gain resistance to status protection. Recharge: Very Long"
Self explanative, but when to use it? On lower level I used it often on the middle/end of each mission to defeat the last boss without taking damage. Before perma domination you can also use it to replenish endurance and alternate with rest on lower levels. It will increase of the magnetude of your holds, meaning that you will be able to control bosses on the first try! ((Take that controllers!))
[u]1 - Plant domination.[u]
Entrangle - Single target immobilize
You have a more powerful AoE version, and while they may cost you more endurance, you really don't need to immobilize a single enemy anyway, unless you are fighting an AV, otherwise you can just hold them.
Rating:
Slotting: 1 acc / 1-2 immb
Strangler - Single target hold
Your first hold, and you should take it on level 1 for sure over the immobilize. It will be part of your early attack chain and later in the game it will help you to hold that lucky enemy who escaped from your seeds of confusion.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 hold / 1 recharge
Roots - Targeted AoE Immobilize
I was reading the other guide that: "Many dominators do not take AoE immobs because they cause a lot of aggro especially when used as a first attack". Well, on lower levels it will kill you sometimes. But AoE immobs are pure win! Why? It will keep the enemies where you want it, and prevent the undesirable knockbacks and scattering of enemies running all around and hitting the weak members of the team (like you). Take it, slot it, learn when you can use it and love it!
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 immob / 1 rech
Spore Burst - Target AoE sleep
LOLSLEEP!!!
No, not really...
Have you ever done Lord Recluse Strike Force? Died on the Phalanx? Well, this is the power that will save you. AoE Sleep will put all those AVs into a sweet and calm dream, allowing to pull one by one and defeat them easily. Other than that, the power is good on the new 5th Collum SF last boss, use it while your seeds are recharging to keep your team from taking massive damage. Sleep is basically an "wait a moment while my seeds is recharging" power when your team is facing too many enemies.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 sleep / 1 recharge
Seeds of Confusion - Ranged (cone) confuse.
Your "ZOMG" power. This is the reason to go plant. Take it, don't think twice. This power is a fast recharge AoE control, it will be up on each and every pull when you get enough recharge. With this power your team will be safe to swipe the enemies without being hit, great to be used with Roots to avoid the enemies to scatter or to get into mellee with each other and doing too much damage.
Some teams will complain about this power "stealing" experience. This is /not/ true. While it may seem that you are getting less experience per encounter, this power increases your experience per time greatly. For exemple if you damage an enemy 50% of his HP, and a confused "pet" damages the other 50%, you won't get only 50% experience, in fact you will get around 80%. So it's a burst in damage and speed.
Contagious Confusion: This is a proc of the superior set coersive persuasion, what about it? Every target hit by your seeds has a chance for a seperate {Contagious Confusion} power to go off, this power has a 33% chance to give the same effect of your seeds on every target within 10ft. This means you can effectively make your seeds to reach a bigger amount of enemies if they are together and quickly confuse that lucky guy who dodged your seeds! Get it!!!
Rating:
Slotting: 1-2 acc / 2 confuse / 2 recharge
Spirit Tree - PBAoE +regen.
Meh, skip it. Why? Because it's simply not your hole, period. As the use on door block, it's hard to do, will require you to expose yourself sometimes to the group, many enemies will still jump over it, and... why not simply go there and confuse everyone?!
Rating:
Sloting: (stubborn, aren't you?) 2-3 heals / 2-3 rech.
Vines - Targeted AoE Hold.
Your strangle in an AoE version! Haha, you wish, not even close. The recharge is awful, 240s. The accuracy is ridiculous! 60% base, while seeds of confusion for exemple, is 75%. And finally the duration, fully sloted and with domination up, it will last around 35 seconds, against 85 of seeds of confusion. Okay... while this can be a "so-so" power, you have a much better AoE control with faster recharge and that lasts more. The only reason to take it is to stack hold on a boss when you don't have domination up, or use it as emergency button.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 hold / 1-2 recharge
Carrion Creepers
The other reason to be a plant dominator! Mwahaha, no power in the game makes me feel so great than these hungry creepers whiping their vines on the enemies body, my body all goes warm an-NO! it's not a vine fetish! Damn... okay, they do damage, they immob, they knockdown. They are awesome, take them, and remember that they don't deal damage if they stay unused on your tray, use them often!
Rating:
Sloting: 1 acc / 2-3 damage / 2-3 recharge
Fly Trap
Your pet! This cute little cuddly plant will follow you around spamming immobilizes and AoE damage. It will often cover all the immobilize you need after the first Roots you use, so you don't need to bother to use Roots twice on the same group, just the first because the Fly Trap may use other opening.
Rating:
Sloting: 1-2 acc / 2-3 damage / 1 immob
[u]2 - Thorny Assault.[u]
Thorny Darts - Ranged single target attack
You are forced with this power, so, keep it and use it. This is not a bad power, the damage is lower than Skewer but still, it's ranged, good on lower levels.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 damage / 1 rech
Skewer - Mellee single target attack
The damage is highter than Thorny darts, it will help you more on lower level, but on high level I noticed I wasn't using this often enough and respec'd out of it. No regreats.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 damage / 1 recharge
Fling Thorns - Ranged (cone) attack.
Woah! Your first Aoe attack, this power is awesome when used with roots, even more when the mobs can't attack back due to the confusion. The damage is superior to thorny darts and affects more enemies, the animation is fast, the arc is 90º (more than seeds) and the recharge is relactively fast.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2-3 damage / 1-2 rech
Impale - Ranged single target damage and immobilize
The question here is simple: How badly do you need a -fly power? You really do? Take it. You don't? skip it.
Why? simply, because you don't really need six attacks on your chain and thorn barrage is better than impale. I really hate impale long animation too. Some people use it to stack immobilize on bosses on lower levels, that is why I will rate it with two smiles, it's useful on your early career.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2 damage / 1 rech
Aim
An weaker version of build up. It's certainly useful still before a fling thorns and burst combo, I like it and recomend, more damage is always welcome.
Rating:
Sloting: 3 recharge / 0-2 to hit
Thorn Burst - PBAoE damage
Your second AoE and the duo with Fling Thorns. This power would be perfect, good damage, average recharge and a good defense debuff. The problem is the animation time, 3 seconds. I noticed that this power applies the damage to the enemies around you on the beginning of the animation, right when you hit the power, and not when it actually burst out the spines, so any enemy who enters the radius while this power is being activate wont take damage, on other hand any enemy who runs away will still take the damage even if they are miles away from you when you burst. This made me develop a trick with combat jumping and hurdle, I hit this power and jump backward quickly, the power will animate in middle air and I will burst when I land far away from all the enemies and will still damage everyone and be in the exact position I want to throw my other cone attack.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2-3 damage / 1-2 recharge
Thorntrops - Ranged location AoE
Mmmmm... this power is so-so, the damage is not the best, but the recharge isn't bad either, you can keep two of this running on a group of enemies easily, on the best scenario you can keep even four running. The slow is pretty much useless since your enemies will be immobilized. The damage is small, but the trick of this power is on long fights and when you add damage procs on it. Sloted it deals: 350 damage on all enemies over 45 seconds, if the fight lasts a minute and you apply this power twice, you will have around 600 damage on all enemies not taking procs into consideration, not that bad huh? It's as much as a nuke, but spread into a long time. I use this as part of my AoE chain.
Rating:
Sloting: 3 damages / 2 recharges (or procs!)
Ripper - Mellee (cone) damage.
This is the only mellee attack I have, and the damage is good. The animation is a bit long but awesome to watch. The attack is cone, which means you can hit more than one enemy with it, and will do it often, the cone is wide 90º, with 7 yards range, not bad for a mellee attack, the trick is to target the last enemy of a line and let the cone damage everything between you and him.
Rating:
Sloting: 2 acc / 2-3 damage / 1-2 rech
Thorn Barrage - Ranged single target damage
Well, this is the second of my single target attacks, I use it with thorny darts to finish a single enemy usually, the damage is better than all your attacks with the exception of Ripper. Take it if you want, not really necessary. I took it because I skip impale, choose the best for you.
Rating:
[u]3 - Power Pools[u]
Before I go into this, I will say the same thing I said on Spirit Tree: You were invited to a team to lock down enemies and assist on damage. That, and only that.
Concealment
Honestly, I don't see any need for this pool unless you want to stack luck of the gambler for recharge time. Stealth and tp to the end of the mission? Not your hole.
Fitness
I am a fan of stamina, and I took hurdle for more jump speed on my combat jumping to do the PBAoE trick, health is a good place to put a miracle +recovery. My advice is to take it, you won't regreat.
Fighting
With all the enemies locked down and confused, I really don't see any use for the fighting pool. You won't survive that much for the matter unless you are going for defense soft cap or something.
Leadership
While I could just say: This is not your hole, I took leadership for three reasons. First was maneveurs for an extra luck of the gambler. Second was tactics, because the contagious confusion power is bugged and may confuse your flytrap, with tactics it doesn't happen often. Also a good boost for to hit since all your attacks are AoE. And the last one I got was vengeance, simply because of other slot to put a luck of the gambler and more useful than stealth for me.
Medicine
Not your hole.
Really, you shouldn't be wasting your time with aid other, if that enemy is beating on your friend, hold him! When soloing I rarely leave an enemy not held, sleeping or confused to need to heal myself, when teaming I just leave the others to do that.
Presence
Lol...
Speed
This is the best power you can get from a power pool: Flurry! (lol@castle's i13 pvp), okay, broken pvp joke aside, Hasten is the power to get, it will recharge all your powers faster and bring your domination up more often. It's almost impossible to get perma domination without hasten. (it is possible, but will require 125% global recharge and you'll have two seconds to activate it or the domination will drop again). Super speed is not a good travel power in my opnion due to the lack of vertical moviment.
Teleport
I am a fan of teleporting, but not on a dominator, it lacks the mobility you get in combat with combat jumping. And recall friend... well, I guess you guys already noticed that I am not the best team player around, my job is to lockdown enemies, just that, and I do it well.
Flight
A solid travel power pool. Hover is a good place to slot a luck of the gambler, or you could get air superiority. (Remember if you are really needing a -fly power, Impale is still a better choice.).
Leaping
In my opnion, the best travel power in the game. Combat Jumping is a place to slot a luck of the gambler and it gives a very good mobility in combat with hurdle, you can move from mellee to ranged easily to alternate PBAoE to cone.
[u]4 - Patron Power Pool[u]
Honestly, I think PPP is more a matter of playstyle. You can do well with any and without. The idea here is to get at least one of the armors. I prefered to go with resist over defense, so Mace mastery is out of the list. The second thing I had in mind was concept, I am a plant/thorny dominator, I am really didn't want to have an electrical aura on me all time. Mu mastery was out of the list. Then a friend pointed me Soul Drain. This power is basically the same as my aim, but lasts for 30 sec and requires enemies to activate, the recharge is 120 seconds and you can get it down to 60 seconds easily, with a perma-dom build you can even have it on 35 seconds, it's almost a permanent buff! I went for it. But I didn't take the pet, my Fly Trap would eat her anyway... jealous creature...
Thats it, sorry for any english mistake, it's not my primary language and I hope this guide to be useful to people. And I would like some feedback, just don't throw stones at me!!
