Speaking just about Thorns - it's "interesting" but I'm not sure I'd recommend it easily, there are better assault sets to play I think.
Thorns has a few things that make it difficult -
1) No really useful debuffs. (-Def)
2) Slow at building Domination. (redrawing thorns makes it slow)
3) No generally useful buffs. (it has Aim)
These things make it dangerous to play in both PvE and PvP, especially PvP where your life expectancy is a few seconds.
Thorn positives:
1) Aim - makes it very accurate - actually pretty useless in PvE but useful going up against high Def toons in PvP.
2) DoT Toxic damage - not highly resisted and in PvP DoT is a plus (I think). Toxic makes up about 50% of your damage for some attacks.
3) Some attacks have high -Def. For example according to Prima Impale has a -22.5% Def Debuff base for 15 seconds this can be pretty significant especially since it can be stacked with other -Def attacks. Impale is also generally useful in PvP but pretty much irrelevant in PvE.
All of this high accuracy and -Def is handy, but not in fact very useful generally and has zero defensive properties.
Compare this to Ice - huge -Recharge, Power Boost buff which will buff your heals and your mezz effects, both very effective all the time. Compare to Psi - again huge -Recharge, insanely fast to build domination because of fast attacks (in general) , a nice utility power in Drain Psyche and another control & damage in Subdue.
I chose Thorns entirely for the theme, my feeling is almost any other secondary is more generally playable. Ice/Ice and Ice/Psi has good -recharge synergy, Plant/Psi has Regen, Fire/Energy has some Stun matchup, Fire/Fire has big damage, Mind/Anything has great control.
Ice is a good primary. I wrote an ice/ice guide not long ago, it's in the guides section.
I like Thorns, IMO there are no bad powers in the set and it looks really scary. Filth is right though, the redrawing everytime you switch between primary and secondary makes it a little slow. On the other hand, the individual attacks do a little more damage and that makes it a little lighter on endurance, which could be good. Ice primary is endurance intensive due to Arctic Air. However you don't get as much mileage out of Aim as some other primary sets. The most important AoE controls in primary are IMO Ice Slick and Arctic Air, and they're both auto-hit. And you'd have two sets that are both a little slow building Domination. I don't think you can really go wrong, though, so if you have a concept in mind just go with it.
Thanks for the advice, people. Well I decided to make an Ice/Thorns and it's playing nicely, got good damage output and the drawing time isn't too bad. It is definitely slow on building Domination though, so I'm almost certainly throwing in Hasten to speed things up a little.
Thorny Assault is pretty damn fast at building Domination due to it's cheapness of endurance and fast recharging attacks.
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Thorny Assault is pretty damn fast at building Domination due to it's cheapness of endurance and fast recharging attacks.
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It's pretty damn slow. The fact that you have to constantly change between control powers and assault means that redraw builds up. Compare it with Psi or Energy and you will see the difference it makes. The domination build up in PvP is good because it's the assault powers *which hit* that give the big +8 domination boost, so Thorns is actually better in PvP for domination, but it's the slowest in PvE.
I do not understand why people make such a big fuzz about the redrawing of the thorns. It's not a long time, and I often do not press control - assault - control assault.
Control - Control - assault - assault - assault, that's what I do.
And the difference isn't that big, unless you compare to Psionic Assault, which is just stupidly fast. You'll still get Domination at least once per mission, often twice. And if there's an EB ahead, I'll just smack some minions which were hanging around in the other corridor.
Plus being a cheap on endurance set, you don't have to rest so often, meaning less downtime. (Psi assault doesn't have almost any downtime with combined Drain Psyche and Stamina)
But meh, I really can't argue with someone with a lot of experience with /Thorns. However soon I get my pet (2 bars left) and see how it goes, I might have to change my tactics.
I'm not making a big fuss, the reality is it still is the slowest to build domination which is not the same thing as saying it's slow.
The redraw is like having another attack which doesn't build domination, none of the other sets have this. I'm quite certain that Psi, Energy and Fire are noticeably faster at building Dom, I also don't think Thorns is cheaper in endurance than any of these, I'm sure it's less than Ice but that's about it.
I like Thorns for what it is but I don't think it's a crime to point out its shortcomings and appreciate the differences in the other assault sets.
Fire's fairly heavy on end, until later levels, doesn't really build domination that fast. It has big damage but not that fast. Psi is good but does virtually no damage at lower levels and doesn't have Power Boost, which both EN and Ice do. Ice takes forever to get a full attack chain and is probably the most costly end wise. EN is fairly good all round and if someone was to ask what secondry to play and I didn't know the primary I'd go with EN. Thorns is the only one I haven't really played around with, and I may well get to at some point. It just doesn't appeal to me to have draw time on my dominator when my controller has it with TA. Draw time bad, fast attacks good, end cost managable. That's how I'd sum it up from what I've seen but this isn't first hand experience
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
got an ice/thorn domi and kinda like it..but indeed the draw times can be a big pain
I'm thinking of making an Ice/Thorns dominator for mostly PvE but some PvP too, and I was wondering two things:
Are they any good?
What are the best powers to take?
I'll most likely be going for the Leaping and Fitness pools. I'm considering Hasten and possibly Super Speed too. Any advice would be appreciated.