Earth/Earth Dominator PvE Guide Below 50
This guide is for playing up from level 1 to level 50 in PvE. It ignores PvP, farming, incarnates, IO sets, and other things that most guides are focused on. It is not intended to maximize the numbers, but as a general guide to what powers are useful and how can you use the sets together to be successful. As in all guides, play your own way and ymmv.
OVERVIEW
Dominator is a combination of control and damage. You gradually get a lot of control and a lot of damage, but using them together is not simple. You need to plan combats before they start as you need to control them before they hit you, it is hard for you to recover as you lack the ability to heal and can be mezzed.
Earth/Earth has many powerful soft controls, limited hard controls, and strong melee attacks. The attack recharge is slow, so you have strong burst damage at the start of a combat but then may have to wait for recharge.
SOLO PLAY
Start with Fossilize and Stone Spears. Open with Fossilize to hold one foe, use Stone Spears to take out the others. At level 2 get Stone Mallet and add into attack chain. At level 4 get Tremor or a movement power.
At level 6 get quicksand. Try to open with Quicksand from around a corner so your other attacks are more accurate. Then do Fossilize, etc. In the open just start with Fossilize as the damage you take while putting out Quicksand is not worth it.
At level 8 get Salt Crystals if you want. Drop Quicksand. Race into foes and drop Salt Crystals. Fossilize one and beat them down. Rinse, repeat. If you took Tremor at level 4, skip Salt Crystals and get your movement power now.
At level 10 get Hurl Boulder if you need an extra attack, or else get Hasten. Tactics are the same.
At level 12 get Stalagmites. If facing 3 foes use Stalagmites as an opener. If 1 or 2 fossilize an lt and take out the other (since Stalagmites will not be up each fight).
At level 28 get Seismic Smash. Open a fight with Fossilize on one foe. Use Seismic Smash to hold a second. Then beat down the third, then the one you hit with Seismic Smash, then the one you Fossilized. For Bosses you can do Fossilize then Seismic Smash to hold them even without Domination.
GROUP CONTROL
Quicksand + Earthquake
Foes will run out of an Earthquake unless they cannot. Start around a corner (behind a pillar, etc). Drop Quicksand, then Earthquake. The foes will start falling down and be unable to attack much. This is sufficient to allow a team without a tanker to attack a group of foes. If you are not around a corner, the foes will all shoot you. These should be up every fight on teams (Quicksand recharges that fast, slot Earthquake for max recharge).
Stalagmites
Not as safe as dropping Quicksand and Earthquake from around a corner, but safer than dropping them not around a corner. Foes hit with this cannot shoot back. Use frequently, not for the damage but for the control. You can save this for emergencies until you get Volcanic Gasses. Note this will not work on bosses unless you have domination. This should be up every fight on teams, slot for max recharging.
Volcanic Gasses
Several short duration holds over the time, when slotted for hold it will provide a long time hold for an AoE, far longer than AoE holds from other sets. Very useful as an AoE hard control if you cannot start behind cover. Do not avoid using, but use faster recharging powers if appropriate.
DOMINATION
Domination is very useful to you, but not much for its domination. It will make your holds, disorients, etc affect bosses, elite bosses and possibly AV's. It also increases the duration. But it will not help Earthquake or your knock-ups and knock-downs. If you play with bosses solo, do have it available for the boss fight. It also refills your endurance and gives you status protection. On a team you will want it for those effects, let others take on the bosses. Get hasten so that after your domination wears off you can click hasten to recharge it. This will especially matter on teams where you can rebuild your domination bar quickly and the limitation is the domination recharging.
EARTH CONTROL POWERS
Stone Prison (1) – single target immobilize with some damage over time. You do not need this for damage. It has –knockback in it that cancels out your earthquake. Since you will be primarily melee, immobilizing a foe you plan to stand next to does not help you much. Skip this.
Fossilize (1) – single target hold. You should use this in every fight to hold a lt or minion. With domination you can hold a boss to arch-villain. You want this to recharge quickly so you can hit multiple people or stack it, and hold duration. Will stack with Seismic Smash later so you can use both to hold a boss even without domination.
Stone Cages (2) – aoe immobilize with some damage. Same problems as Stone Prison, except it aggro's more foes. Skip it.
Quicksand (6) – aoe power that slows and gives a defense debuff. You want to use this almost all of the time as you level for the defense debuff; not missing is very important given the slow recharge of your attacks. But this provides no damage mitigation so it is tough to choose when to drop it. It can be used from around a corner, so slot for range as a convenient corner might not be as close as you like.
Salt Crystals (8) – aoe sleep. Generally useless in a team, can be good for you solo. You have basically single target attacks so putting all your foes to sleep then taking them out one by one is a good tactic. The only problem is that is an aoe around you, so you will take attacks getting among your foes to use it. If you solo you probably don't want both this and Tremor. Skippable, but if you want it slot for accuracy and recharge.
Stalagmites (12) – aoe disorient with minor damage. Recharges in 90 seconds. An important power because it has hard aoe control – the disoriented foes will not shoot back. You want this power and slot for accuracy and recharge.
Earthquake (18) – An aoe continuous knockdown. This is a great power in a team as it will usually affect bosses when your other controls will not. It is excellent damage reduction but it is not a hard control. Foes will still attack you when you drop this. It can be dropped out of line of sight, making it so you do not have to take an alpha. Also foes will run out of the area, so it works best combined with quicksand.
Volcanic Gasses (26) – An aoe hold. Like other AoE holds it is short duration, but it re-holds over time. When slotted for hold duration it is effectively a very long hold that will even stack and hold bosses. This becomes a very useful power, the drawback is its long recharge. Slot for accuracy, hold duration, and recharge.
Animate Stone (32) – Not a control, a pet that attacks. A very tough pet, you should not have to look after it much. Get this, slot for accuracy and damage.
EARTH ASSAULT POWERS
Stone Spears (1) – A ranged attack for minor damage and it knocks the foe up 80% of the time. It is a fast attack and recharges quickly. Use it for a ranged attack, damage mitigation, and to finish off a foe. You can put in an IO to give you a chance to self heal when you use it, which isn't much but it can give you some self healing and you can use this power often if you want due to its fast recharge and activation.
Stone Mallet (2) – A high damaging melee attack with a slow recharge. It has a 50% change of knockdown. Your basic melee attack, slot for accuracy and damage, some recharge and some endurance.
Tremor (4) – A low damaging pbAoE attack. It has a 50% chance of knockdown. Okay in groups if there are a lot of foes. Can be good solo for the damage mitigation of the knockdown. You will have time to use this between other attacks recharging. Slot for accuracy and damage.
Hurl Boulder (10) – A high damaging range attack that is slow to get off (a little less damage than Stone Mallet). You have Stone Spears for range and you want to be in melee for your other attacks so you will not really use this for range and it is too slow activating to make part of your attack chain. You may be tempted to get this as filler until you get more attacks, but respect out of it later if you do.
Power Boost (16) – Increases the duration of your controls for the next couple of powers you use. Can be handy for fossilize and stalagmites but that's about it. Easily skippable. Slot for recharge if you take it.
Heavy Mallet (20) – Superior damaging melee attack with slow recharge. Take it, slot for accuracy, damage, recharge, and endurance.
Seismic Smash (28) – Extreme damaging melee attack which includes a hold for minions and lt's. Long recharge (20 seconds). Slot for accuracy, recharge and damage. Tactically use as a hold - hit a foe with it then move on to others that are not held, rather than using this to finish off foes.
Mud Pots (35) – Toggle that immobilizes or slows foes around you. You have quicksand for slowing, and don't care about immobilizing. It says some damage, but the damage is trivial. Skip this.
Fissure (38) – A short range aoe attack. Basically Tremor with slightly lower chance to knockdown but faster activation. Generally the same points as Tremor – take if you want AoE, but the damage mitigation is less. Slot for accuracy and damage.
POWER POOLS
Hasten – Get it. It will let you recharge domination faster.
Super Speed – Nice for the stealth. For solo you if you use Salt Crystals you would like to get enough stealth that you can run safely into the middle of foes to use it.
Air Superiority – Solid attack with knockup. Much better in your attack chain than Hurl Boulder.
Jump Attack - teleport into melee and an AoE with knockdown. Can be very useful for getting into melee fast and knocking down foes so you can hold them before they react. Works well, but not as well as stalagmites or dropping earthquake from out of LOS.
-Doctor, it hurts when I lift my arm.