I totally agree with the immobilizes, skippin them is probably wise. Dominators have such tight builds to begin with that individual and group immobilizes just cause trouble, maybe later when they can be stacked with something else.
Ive been experimenting with ice-thorns and find it really smooth. The redraw thing hasnt been a problem, the DOT part of fire in my earler attempts were far more damaging....
Primary Powers - Plant Control
Strangler: acc/acc/hold/hold/hold/rechg
Spore Burst: acc
Seeds of Confusion: acc/acc/acc/conf/conf/rechg
Spirit Tree: heal/heal/heal
Carrion Creepers: acc/acc/rechg/rechg/rechg
Fly Trap: acc/dmg/dmg/dmg
Secondary Powers - Energy Assault
Power Bolt: rechg
Bone Smasher: acc/acc/dmg/dmg/damg/rechg
Power Push: acc
Power Blast: acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/
Power Boost: rechg/rechg/rechg
Total Focus: acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/rechg
Sniper Blast: acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/interrupt rdx/int redx/
Power Burst: acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/rechg
Power Pools
Swift: run speed
Health: heal
Stamina: end/end/end
Hasten: rechg/rechg/rechg
Super Speed: end redx
Stealth: end redx
Explanation for powers I chose, and slots:
Strangler - single target hold - a must have. Will allow you to lock down practically anything. I put 2 accuracy because I wanted to make sure it hit often, and a recharge to make sure it was up again soon.
Spore Burst - situational sleep power, handy when Strangler and Seeds are recharging, and there is an add, or the mobs in the corner somehow accidentally just got aggroed. No sleep duration necessary - it will last long enough for me to pick them off with strangler, or, it will get broken (since its a sleep) by my pet or teammates.
Seeds - the most useful power in this set to me. 3 accuracy, because I want it to hit everybody it possibly can when I unload it. The duration is pretty long with 2 confuse enhancements, and with 1 recharge, plus hasten, it is up practically every fight.
Spirit tree - again, very situational. But handy. I never use this solo - if I get into a bad situation, I bail, rest up, and let agro wind down, and come back with a new game plan. But I do use it in team situations - I plant it (pun!) near the heavy action in big fights, and it is fairly effective with the 3 heals. No recharges - if the mission is THAT bad where I would need it up asap, heh, well then we need more than spirit tree to save us.
Carrion - 3 recharge allows this to be up every other fight or so. I slotted 2 acc because I wanted the creepers to do their job of whacking mobs and holding agro.
Fly Trap - with just 1 accuracy, he hits very often, and with 3 damage, he does great - absolutely love it when he takes a big mouthy chomp outta the mobs.
Power bolt - this attack has a low damage cap (its minor), so I didnt bother slotting it since my later attacks are more worth the investment. I put one recharge - since the damage is so low, I dont care if it hits, but with a fast base recharge time, it helps get domination filled up. I often put it on auto.
Power Push - 1 accuracy allows it to almost always hit. Very very accurate power, and knocks down virtually everything Ive used it on (except if the mob is immobilized - more on this later). Great in tandem with Strangler - see that tank swiper boss? Strangler only applied once and still recharging? Power Push him back, while hes getting up, Strangler has recharged, and its all gone, bye bye, sleepy time for Mr. Swiper.
Power Boost - 3 recharge lets this power come up almost every fight. Wonderful at extending the duration time of all of my controls, and the secondary effect of energy melee attacks (stun). Great in tandem with seeds - hit power boost, then seeds, and the mobs are as good as gone.
Sniper Blast - very accurate and high damage slotted this way, and 2 interrupt reductions make this power more usable in fights because it brings down the activation time quite a bit, turning this sniper attack into a more viable use-it-during-a-fight, rather than a pull-from-safety power.
Power Burst - great damage, and also up very often and accurate slotted this way, although it is very short range.
Bone Smasher and Total Focus - very high damage - with Total Focus the jewel of the set. Both of these powers have a good chance to stun, with Total Focus stunning the mob almost every time. Nothing says pwned! than to see a mob, held in strangler, smashed with Total Focus, get the swirly-head animation indicating hes been stunned.
Overall - I really liked the synergy between plant and energy - plant has some great crowd control powers, and energy has power boost to greatly enhance those crowd control powers. Plus, energy has some fairly high damaging attacks. It also has handy secondary effects - the blasts produce knock back - which thanks to the new rag-doll animations actually incapacitates mobs for a few seconds - and the melee attacks produce a nice stun, and a stunned mob is crowd controlled.
Explanation for powers I skipped:
Entangle & Roots - immobilizes arent my cup of tea - they dont stop the mobs from hurting me, dont do that much damage, and they negate the knock back effects of my energy blasts and the knockdown effects of carrion creepers. Plus, Fly Trap has an entangle-immobilize power, which he uses a lot.
Vines - ridiculously long recharge time, substantial accuracy penalty, and a duration about as long as half of a tic tac. I will never take any of the Domination AoE holds - until the above 3 change for the better (or at least one of them anyway). Yes, Vines can quickly surpass the magnitude (hold-resistance) of a boss when you follow up with strangler - but I can surpass a boss magnitude with one application of strangler when Domination is up and running. Pass.
Whirling Hands - I didnt have the slots to properly invest in all of my attacks, so this one got the boot, mostly because it had a hefty endurance cost and did not produce all that much damage.
Solo Play:
I solod on the lowest difficulty settings until I got SOs and some of my higher-damage attacks. Once I got more attacks and fleshed them out with slots, I could solo on whatever setting I wanted to. I never pull when I solo - I hit power boost, and open with either Seeds or Carrion, and use Strangler to mop up any surprises, and go to town up close and personal with my melee attacks, and my blasts. I use domination whenever I want - the recharge time on my attacks is fast enough that I can get domination back for that big fight at the end. Cant remember the last time I died when solo, except for when that damn Spine-Scrapper Tsoo Boss somehow dogged my Seeds attack. [censored]! I paid him back though heh.
Team Play:
Depends on the size of the team. If I have 2 teammates, or am duoing, I tend to play the same way I solo. If I team with 3 or more players, I get into crowd control mode - there are just to many mobs to be attacking as aggressively as I do when I solo, and my teammates out damage me anyway, so I hang in the background like a good squishy should and lock down as many as I can, trading off my crowd control powers. In a team I always, always look for the highest mob in the spawn - if its a Lt., I make sure hes out of the picture for good with strangler. If there is a boss, same thing. The rest are fodder for my teammates, and between seeds, carrion, and strangler, I mitigate a lot of incoming damage for them.