RiverOcean

Plant has good aoe soft control fairly early on (thank you seeds of confusion).Since Earth Assault requires you be in Melee frequently, seeds are a godsend. Starting off every fight with power boost and seeds seems like a no-brainer.

Also, Seismic Smash stacks with your ST hold, so you will be stacking holds very quickly. You will be able perm hold bosses pretty easily. Also, Earth Assault has pretty good ranged AoE in Fissure.

All in all not a bad build. It's pretty hard to go wrong with it. Unless you skip any of the above mentioned powers. And that's not even mentioning the tanking powers of Carrion Creepers, the true pet of the set.

Unless they break the mold on this one (like Earth or Plant)...we can be pretty sure what we'll get. ST Hold, ST immobilize, an AOE soft contol, Aoe Hold, Aoe Immobilize, and pets....etc..

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited and I'm hoping that Electric Control breaks some rules! I just doubt that it will.

This is a tough question because I believe the initial comparison is slightly flawed. Even though a Bane/Huntsman has stealth I wouldn't equate them with a stalker. They are more closely related to the Defender/Corrupter family IMHO.

If you want crazy ST damage and survivability, the DM/NINJ is your best bet. However a Bane/Huntsman (especially one with double leadership buffs) will be very welcome on a team. You'll bring reliable defense (as good as Force Field), debuffs, and damage. My favorite description of this build is that "It's a corrupter with teeth!".

I'm going to throw my two cents in regarding plant/fire. It's been a solid build since before IO's were available and is often recommended to new Doms to try. It used be called the "Tank" of Dominators.

Eden Fires guide from I6 still has plenty of good advice. Especially if you're not worried about set bonuses.

p.s. It's nice to see a post abut a building a "non-purpled" out ultimate toon. I wish there were more threads like this.

For those SoA's planning on defecting to Paragon...I've seen quite a few "Ambassador (Insert Name)" running around. For Example I have "Ambassador Athena". She'll be a Rogue, traveling regularly from one side to the other.

Still a very good build. I've had one for years and still love playing it. One of my first CoV toons actually.

Fire Cages + Flash Fire = An AoE control that pretty much functions like a hold. One that's up for every spawn.

Drain Psyche + Psychic Scream + PSW = Pure AoE carnage! Learning to leverage Psychic Scream to hit as many targets as possible isn't easy. Hover blasting is one way to do it..jumping in and out of the spawn another way.


I normally open with Flash Fire and Fire Cages. I next jump into the middle of the mezzed spawn and hit Drain Psyche. Next, I hit Psychic Shock Wave. Followed up by liberal applications of Psychic Scream.

Fire/Thorns is not a combo you see much that really does well. I know you hate the "green poison" effect, but I thought I'd toss the idea out here anyway.

Plant/ or Earth/ plus any secondary are great in pve. While /Psi is no longer the beast it was *sniff*...the set still offers nice debuffs (-regen and -recharge). An Earth/Psi dom is a very potent PVE toon. You don't see them too often though. Earth/Psi offers solid control, hefty debuffs, and damage. The only primary I'd really say avoid is Gravity. Gravity is a great set but a slow starter...that can be frustrating for new dom players.

One bit of playstyle advice, get Flashfire+Fire Cages. Slot them for accuracy and duration, plus some damage in Fire Cages. Spam this combination from range as much as possible s these two powers form an excellent AoE hold. Once the group is mezzed run in with hot feet blazing and imps following. Spam Firey Attacks..watch your enemies melt! Wash, rinse, and repeat until you can't stand it!!!

I disagree with two pieces of Predatoric's advice..

This build looks ok IMHO..solid choices. I'm not much of an IO guy so no advice there.

My only (very minor) criticism is the choice to delay getting hasten. I'd consider swapping the med pool out and getting hasten earlier. I don't think Aid Self and Aid Other will add as much to your gaming experience and hasten will. Having key traps powers recharge faster is never a bad thing.

Demons/Dark Miasma is a solid solo combo. You have everything you need (debuffs, control, aoe heal) in on package. Works with Demons quite while. There's really no hole in the combo at all.

I'd suggest reading Mins thread that was linked to earlier, theres some good advice there. I leveled one of these to about 39. I had a good time along the way. The essence of Grav/Earth is solid single target control. You'll be able to stack ST holds (with singy and seismic smash) faster than almost any dominator out there. However, Grav/Earth does not excel at AoE damage and in many ways that's its Achilles heel. Large mobs will be hard for you to control. While Wormhole helps I've found most PuG teams won't have the patience needed for WH to work effectively. On big teams you're better off taking out the most worrisome NPC you can spot. Solo, the games your oyster...wormhole and smash to your hearts content.

Demon/Traps and Demon/Dark.

If you're curious..you can fool around with a sort of "customization" for MM pets in AE. You can change the colors of various pets costumes and body parts. If we get customization thats my guess on what it will look..sort of an extension of power customization.

What I'd love to see is the ability to purchase NPC skins for pets. Sort of like the Halloween costumes. These could be sold as "Packs" in the NC store. For example you could purchase a pack to make your Zombes look like Vahzilok or Thugs like "Family". Heck even customize your Mercs to look like Arachnos or Longbow. I bet people would pay $$ for that especially with GR and side switching coming up soon.

This issue was brought up in closed beta, but it looks like those threads are all gone..so I can't access them and quote the conversations there for you.

The general consensus, as I recall, was that while inconvenient the change isn't horribly gimping. If you don't respect and have the other sets slotted, they still work. You'll lose them if you respec though.

Merc/Traps Merc/TA, merc/storm, and merc/dark all quite synergistic IMHO. Merc/Dark being quite survivable. Your mileage and insanity may vary though.