SpittingTrashcan

True, difficult end-game content does not really require a Tank - just something that does the job of one, such as a very well built Brute or Scrapper. Probably also need some support, such as a Defender, but really a well-built Controller or Corruptor will do. And of course we'll want DPS, like one could get from a Blaster, but really a well-built Stalker or Dominator or Corruptor can fit the bill.

And when the dozen or so people who actually have such magnificent jewels are busy, the rest of us will go look for a Tank, a Defender, and a Blaster - who can do the same job with SOs.

(Yeah, I'm a little tired of the whole "specialists are weak/useless" noise.)

SS/WP is cruise control for cool. A bit dull for my tastes, but good all-around durability and hard to screw up.

In terms of melee sets, SS, SM, and DM are all quite solid. SS offers decent ST, good AoE, and extra damage from Rage, SM has good ST damage and the extra safety of Fault, and DM has superior ST damage, a nice secondary effect, and a self-heal. In the armor sets, /WP as mentioned is good all-around and has endurance mitigation, while /SD and /Fire offer extra offensive capability at the cost of some simplicity in achieving mitigation. /Stone has superior survivability if you're keen on that, but also has notable drawbacks that are particularly harmful for Brutes. Other primaries and secondaries are also functional, but may take more finesse to perform to your liking.

You may want to try Doms again, though. They've been buffed recently.

With respect to your money situation: merely playing ordinary missions and selling what drops to vendors or on the black market should get you enough for SOs or common IOs, which are entirely sufficient for leveling. Once you reach 50, your natural earning ability and patient bids on the market will allow you to kit yourself out quite nicely, and after that it's a matter of how much patience you have for farming and/or market gaming - I have little of either, which is why my builds tend to be modestly priced.

I play Tanks a lot, so I'm generally indifferent to the direction of the remainder of the team. Should they happen to follow me, I'll do what I can to keep them alive; otherwise, their lives are in their own hands. I'll be fine regardless.

I need less Going Rogue buzz.

Go back and read what _Deth_ actually wrote.

"up all the time and double stacked at times" is not "perma double stacking Rage". It is, in fact, "a single stack of Rage up permanently", plus some overlap during which it is "double stacked at times". And during that overlap, Foot Stomp is indeed quite crazy - but you also have to deal with more frequent Rage crashes, which is why I generally don't try to double-stack Rage on my SS/Elec.

In the end, it is up to you to decide how special you want to pretend your character is. The fact is that no matter what you play, your character is not special. At all. And this is a natural and inevitable consequence of current MMO design, so there's no use crying about it.

Less sarcastically, I agree that EM has fallen behind a bit on a mechanical level: the ST damage, never a privileged specialty to begin with, is indeed no longer impressive, and the AoE is as poor as it has ever been. I'd argue that the stacking stun effect is undervalued, but it does take certain conscious decisions to leverage to its fullest (pairing it with /DA, for instance, helps a lot).

What does get to me is the assertion that the aesthetics of the set are so unlovable that it needs mechanical compensation. I took EM for big heavy hits, and that's what I got. Hell, I'd buy into a change that pushes Whirling Hands up to the Foot Stomp/Frozen Aura/Fire Sword Circle level of dam/end/rech, making it stronger - and slower. I'm not sure how that would go down with users of Ice Melee though, given how hard they had to fight to make Frozen Aura do respectable damage - or indeed any damage at all.

I'm not a dom master, but I do have a Plant/Elec. I don't consider /Elec to be a mistake, but in terms of synergy it may not be the best match with Plant/ - Seeds of Confusion works well with AoE, while /Elec is notable for good ST bashing. My usual approach is SoC, Static Discharge, Roots, Carrion Creepers if they're up, then run in and pummel whatever isn't already dying from the DoT, hopping back out now and then to reapply Roots and Static Discharge. Probably not as quick as, say, Plant/Fire or Plant/Psi, but it does the job.

I'm not sure what you mean by slotting issues - posting your build would help clarify that.

Super-SK does in fact solve a problem I run into regularly - getting the people I want to play with arranged with respect to SK/EX. Now everyone can pick the character they want to play, we form the team, do anyone's missions, and everyone gets rewards.

If you care more about PLing than you do about forming teams with friends, then I suppose super-SK is a nerf. That's not intended as a value judgment, except in the sense that the devs seem to wish to encourage one and discourage the other.

That narrows it down then.

Showing once again that MMO players can find a way to complain about anything, including earning free stuff while you sleep.

This thread reminds me: I need to bring my mercantile demon over to Mercy and see how many lowbie souls I can buy at 100k inf a pop.

Special price! Supplies are limited! Act now!

So, I decided to roll an Earth/Thorns Dominator, mainly for conceptual reasons. It wasn't until I took a good look over my power list that I realized - that's a lot of defense debuffs. And of those defense debuffs, many accept defense debuff sets. Which means there are a lot of places I could put the Achilles Heel -Res proc.

Of the following powers which I am taking and which accept defense debuff sets, which would be the best to take an Achilles Heel -Res proc? And am I missing any powers which would greatly benefit from the proc?

Fossilize
Stalagmites
Earthquake

Thorny Darts
Skewer
Fling Thorns
Thorn Burst
Ripper
Thorn Barrage

My current intuition is to put one in Earthquake, Fling Thorns, and Thorn Burst (as AoEs have the best chance of triggering the proc on at least one target), but that leaves me with the ability to place up to two more. I'm inclined toward Thorny Darts and Fossilize as I'd be using those the most frequently especially against hard targets, but I could use some advice.

I am male. Most of my characters are female. I used to wonder about this. I don't anymore.

I do think that it's interesting that "genderless" defaults to "male". I once had a genderless alien character that used the female model - because it was actually a sort of squiddy thing in a powered exosuit, and the bump on the suit's chest accommodated its bulbous body. Another character, a child that everyone assumed was male, turned out to be a prepubescent female.

Incidentally, neither the male nor the female body is really good at depicting a naturally androgynous character - the female model is quite distinctly pubescent no matter what you do with the sliders, and the male body tends to have broad shoulders, extremely defined musculature, and enormous hands. One would think that it would be possible, albeit potentially quite challenging, to create a single model that could be adjusted toward a male or female appearance with various slider settings - but that may be too much trouble for the benefit.

Oddly enough, Death Shroud has the same DPE as a ST attack...

Death Shroud: 0.2 DS, 1.04 End, 0.192 DPE per target
Beheader: 1 DS, 5.2 End, 0.192 DPE
Whirling Axe: 1 DS, 13 End, 0.077 DPE per target

... so I'm not sure how much end you're really saving, there.

You can probably free up some slots here because not all your primary powers need be 6-slotted. In particular, Soul Drain will probably do just fine with one accuracy and three recharge. The attack powers will do just fine with four slots for most of your career; you may want to stick in more later to pursue set bonuses, but they're not at all necessary. I would definitely move a slot into Resist Physical Damage in order to get your S/L resist as high as possible.

Tough and Weave are unusually expensive for the protection they provide. I suggest you experiment with them and decide for yourself if the protection is worth the endurance; if not, you can trade them in for the passives, which are free. Keep in mind though that for most builds, the endurance consumption from toggles is dwarfed by the cost of attacks.

I'd recommend consulting more experienced builders if you want to pursue an IO build, but I can offer this: for Invuln, set bonuses to typed defense are very valuable. If you can survive, say, 20 DPS with no defense, you can survive 100 DPS with 40% defense - and 200 DPS with 45%. +Recharge is also good, as it means more uptime for Dull Pain.

Invincibility should definitely be slotted with 3 defense SOs and an endredux. As for the other two passives, they have useful secondary effects now: Resist Elements includes a moderate resistance to recharge debuffs, and Resist Energies has a small resistance to endurance drain. They might be worth picking up later on in the build, but I would prioritize getting Tough, to improve your S/L resist further, and Tough Hide and Weave to push up your defense. Some /Invulns also take Aid Self for additional survivability, but you should be able to get by on Siphon Life.

The good news is that you've managed to get past the rough part for /Invuln. With a well-slotted Invincibility you should be seeing a significant improvement to survivability, especially when combined with the tohit debuffs from Dark Melee.

To be clear: I have a great deal of respect for whoever first figured out Permadom, and to those who worked out how to do it cheaply and/or effectively on many characters - and a lot less respect for those who advocated for the preservation the design of Dominators and Domination. Macgyvering up a solution is ingenious; insisting that something isn't flawed because it can be worked around and even exploited leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

And it's not just Doms that this applies to - I had the same reaction to EM/Nin stalkers, high-power Warshade builds, and Poison Gas Trap procbombs...

Some of the most ferocious build optimization I've seen on the boards is on the Scrapper forum - and that's an AT notorious for being idiot proof.

Dominators were also known for ferocious build optimization, but it was all in one direction: maximizing recharge to get the most out of a quirk of their inherent, and in many cases maximizing the utility of one horribly imbalanced power in one set.

You don't have to make an AT broken as designed to make it an interesting challenge for min/maxers, and that seems to be the guiding principle of a lot of the recent AT and power changes. I actually agree that popularity is not a good design goal; it is, instead, a side effect of designing for good base utility in addition to high maximum potential. And it's my personal opinion that the maximum potential of revamped Doms has barely been scratched, given that DarkCurrent's recent tests post positive results for builds that weren't changed at all from their pre-revamp iterations.

I wonder if I should go ask about my Dom build on the Scrapper forums...

Never seen Ice Armor?