SarelFox

On my plant/fire I am definitely going through with Perma-Dom. Plant/Fire/Fire will be able to hit the soft control and hard control marks better, and 30% s/l will serve okay on her through perma-dom, methinks. If I can even achieve that. The recharge bonus will make her pet and aoe confuse recharge that much faster, along with my two single target and three aoe attacks.

QR

I wouldn't say that not having perma-dom is necessary for all doms. In fact, I only have 3 powers from my primary that benefit from being permadom. My single target hold, which would hit mag 6, not a bad choice. My AOE Hold, capping at Mag 6 on a presumably 2 minute cooldown for permadom, and the first and only first hit of my confuse, as the rest turn into a pseudopet, and pseudopets do not gain the benefit of domination. My AOE Sleep is a pseudopet; domination does not increase the effectiveness of my Conductive Aura, and my jolting chain only applies knockdown and is a base for procs, such as disorient and hold, which do not apply with permadom.

However, considering that my secondary is /earth, it makes more sense to prioritize S/L defense over achieving permadom. My attacks are only Stone Spears, which has no slots; stone mallet, my first melee attack, heavy mallet, Seismic Smash, and Energy Transfer. My AOEs are all melee too; Tremor and Fissure all require me to be within a really close distance of my target. Fissure applies a mag 2 stun 50% of the time, making it a mag 4 stun during permadom but certainly not a reliable one. Sadly, the dominator version of Seismic Smash is only a mag 3 hold, and only adds 1 mag during Domination status, making it a mag 4.

I would daresay that being elec/ negates the need of permadom save for mez protection and having a consistent mag 6 hold, as the other two powers are a bit on the long recharge side for being useful to a permanent dominator.

A little preface: I've got an elec/earth dom I've been planning on soft-capping at 45.6% s/l defense, but it requires me to run Weave, Stealth, and Maneuvers. I didn't take Ice shield because it didn't fit and I wanted my energy transfer. ENERGY TRANSFER! I spend alot of time in melee, yes. In fact, I'm almost all melee. But do you guys think it's necessary for a character who isn't a tank to really spend two toggles to reach that elusive 45% to s/l? I like not being hit, but at 35% I should be okay, at least for a little, and it'd free up power choices for things like, Stimulant and Aid Self. Any points or counterpoints?

Fortunata: Operative Phrase

I don't have a bane/crab yet.

The /elec secondary is not something I enjoy terribly much. Especially for a sapper, as it has no reliable form of -recovery save for the cone AOE which lasts for four seconds. The attack chain is kind of screwed up, and the Dominator version of Thunder Strike is a large knockback rather than a knockdown, and would screw up your positioning and sleeping effects, along with your aura positioning. The damage seems a bit out of wack as well, when you compare it to other dominator secondaries. It gives up alot for the ability to drain endurance and not reliably stop recovery.

On the terms of damage, you could compare Thunder Strike to another high tier power, such as Total Focus. Same animation and animation times, but Total Focus does about 226 damage mixed between a quarter smashing and three quarters energy, with no AOE, whereas Thunderstrike does 119 smashing damage with a small 18 energy AOE component. Even comparing it to Ripper, which is an AOE which knocks down instead of knocks back, Ripper does 113 lethal in a 90 degree arc in front of the player and 45 toxic damage over a few seconds.

Overall. elec primary should be enough to satisfy your sapper urgings. Slot your aura to drain endurance, and between that and your sleep you should see a rather good drain on your attacks. When you're in the middle of them, your Chain Fences have the highest chance out of your attacks, save your massive AOE hold and your Chain confuse, to turn off Recovery. If you really want to turn off recovery for a long time, your best bet would be to go with the /mind secondary. The -500% recovery debuff from Drain Psyche will shut down many a mob, and in a pinch the -500% regen debuff it gives will make you more valuable to fighting off AVs.

Actually, I'm 31. The confuse isn't up every spawn, with four Perplex in it for the slight accuracy bonus. I do pretty well when it is up, even in large groups it manages to confuse four or five guys at least, upwards of ten as long as no one hand-claps me out of effectiveness. I haven't been able to afford Kinetic Combats, so I've been using smashing Haymakers for defense, and offsetting the lower accuracy of the set with other 7% accuracy set bonuses and a 5% accuracy, giving me a bonus of around 19%. I've got CJ and Weave, and the 3% def IO in tough which I never really toggle on. I'm willing to bet my pets are really going to help in a level too. I'll do a writeup later and let people know how it works out.

I've got an elec/earth I've been soloing and teaming, and as an experiment I've been stacking sets that give a +defense boost to anything I can get my hands on. As it stands, I've got about an 18% defense to smashing, lethal, and 20% defense to energy/Negative, with 15% ranged. I mostly play by jumping into melee and controlling, what with my aura, standing in my own sleep pet, and applying liberal use of my knockdown abilities and holds. It helps, but I still of course faceplant from time to time. I estimate I can get to 30% defense to S/L/E/N by 50 without dropping too much inf, as I am not terribly wealthy.

My question is, is there anyone else out there who's tried this? Stacking defense on a dom to help survive? Especially in melee? Does it matter later on?

If I write a guide, would it better to post it here first to get feedback from dominators, or should I just post it directly to the guide page? I am confused on the etiquette of such.