Earth Assault ... what to skip?

All,

I'm really having trouble planning an Earth Assault build. I just dont see how I'm going to have attacks for all the cool powers in my primary, secondary, and pool powers. It looks like a really tight set.

Does anyone have any instincts about what the most skippable powers are?

Lewis

Hurl Boulder and possibly Mud Pots.

Mud pots definitely, and perhaps hurl boulder if you've got a ranged attack or two in your primary.

Mud pots just doesn't seem to me like it meshes very well with anything a dom does. It's got a tiny radius, and only really does a lot of damage if you spend a long time in melee with multiple opponents - and even though doms *do* melee, as squishies we don't usually stand toe-to-toe with large numbers of foes for a long time. I don't really see much use for the minor slow and immobilize, either - if the foes you're meleeing aren't already controlled, I doubt they'll make much difference, and if the foes *are* already controlled, they won't do anything at all.

Hurl boulder, on the other hand, doesn't have a playstyle mismatch - it's just got a glacially slow animation. I wouldn't skip it normally, as having just one ranged attack seems a bit much, but if you've got something like lift, levitate, or mesmerize, I could see skipping hurl boulder.

Most dom primaries have at least a skippable AoE immobilize, and some have other skippables (such as propel or salt crystals), so having only one skippable in the secondary isn't *too* bad.

I guess I should have mentioned my primary is Fire. It seemed to me like having Hot Feet, Mud Pots and the Immob would be sweet for area damage. As for Hurl Boulder, maybe. I do think its kinda cool tho.

Basically, I dont want to skip those.

What about Spears? I know I cant skip the power, but I could skip slotting it. Or is that a bad idea?

Lewis

I find a lot of T1 blasts to be lackluster, and Spears really holds the crown (well maybe Psi dart still has it). In one of my build plans I do plan to slot Spears. Reason is for set bonuses later on, and I really don't have any other choices to use to fill an attack routine. So if I am looking to slot it for bonuses I might as well slot it as I level. None of my reasoning is because I think this attack is worth it. If I ever built for high recharge it would disappear from my toolbar most likely. If you have more worthwhile powers to slot go for those first, and slot Spears last... or never.

stone spear, hurl boulder are definitely skippable. You'd get considerably better damage out of slotting ring of fire and char for damage if you really need ranged damage . Considerably better heh.

Mudpots you might find you end up not getting a lot of mileage out of even though you are a pbaoe specialist with fire control. The aoe is absurdly small and just doesn't lend itself to dominators because we don't bunch things up as tight as tanks/brutes, but rather stun/immob/quake them while they are grouped but far too scattered for such a pathetic radius.

Unless you corner pull, or are plant. Then again dom version of fissure is so small to compared to the troller version you made need to get used to finding a way to clump mobs tightly.

It seems strange that the last round of dominator changes went about making all of the pbaoes larger if they were under 15ft (ie whirling hand, Ice Circle) and all of the parton aoes are 15ft too. I thought "yay, the devs finally realized that doms don't herd like brutes " and then earth assault was released with two tiny radius aoe powers. Confusing.

I definitely dont corner pull. If Mud Pots is that small, I might very well skip it. Also, I may skip Spears and Hurl Boulder as well.

Thanks to everyone making suggestions and explaining them. Much obliged!

Lewis

You can't skip spears its a tier 1 power

I agree on pots being skipped, radius is tiny and the cost is pretty high. I still would slot out fissure in a fire/earth because of stacking stuns. I made myself a Grav/Earth to stack some stuns as well. I plan to wormhole things into earths small radius powers

Wouldn't count out HB: Chiblain or BoI + HB = decent ST damage w/o KB

[real good low level damage]

It can hold a Hold proc if you so desire; +3 more from the corresponding set for a +3% dmg boost
It can also hold the +recharge proc

[and it has the -Fly component]

Hey U.P.,

Normally I'd recommend skipping PB but I know you like that and work mainly with SO's or non-ueber sets so I will recommend something different:
-Without extremely good recovery, hot feet and mud pots together aren't gonna be worth the drain. If you have great recovery somehow, keep mud pots if you plan to take on really tough single targets ever; those combined DoT's would be juicy.
-Say "no" to hurl boulder except for concept. You can get -fly and better damage from other sources as someone said.
-I have one build that has Stone Spears slotted fully, but it really just depends on the set bonus needs you have.

Other than that you can trim from fire/ obviously. Cinders is arguably skippable while flashfire really isn't. Smoke is very skippable, though you can use it to build dom.

Thanks. Yeah I've decided to skip (not slot) Stone Spears, Hurl Boulder, and Mud Pots. I worked up a build and it was much nicer in terms of having time/room in the build to slot everything.

Thanks again to all!

Lewis

Pardon my ignorance; I've never gotten into playing a Dominator before, but I've been looking forward to Earth Assault. (I've also been reading the issues you guys have brought up, too, which sadly makes me hesitate...)

Havng said that, if you skip Spears / Hurl, what do you do when you need to deal damage from range? You can't always be able to get into melee, can you?

Don't forget you have a primary too Sarrate and depending on the set you might find range damage in the secondary to be redundant.

Doesn't HB also have -fly, whch lets you use spears. Not saying spears is or isn't worth it, but unless the primary has -fly, and you want to use what you must start with, wouldn't HB be worth taking.

and yes, thats a whole lotta "if"

I'd roll with mind or grav if you want any ranged damage (don't take propel though) and I'd roll plant if you want to be a melee centric earth assault. Plant because seeds will bunch things tight enough to actually use fissure and mud.

I'll re-state the numbers I generated in a spreadsheet for earth assault, using data given in the "secondary sets" screen for new characters, after factoring in an "Arcanatime" adjustment for DPA calculations. I don't have trustworthy numbers for other assault sets readily available, given that City of Data is now out of date. And so, I will leave setting out numbers for other assault sets to others so that we can "benchmark" earth assault against other assault sets.

power name: lvl 50 damage, single target DPE, single target DPA

stone spears : 52.83, 10.16, 23.54
stone mallet : 95.76, 11.23, 51.82
tremor : 58.39, 3.47,17.01
hurl boulder : 86.64, 10.16, 32.82
heavy mallet : 133.13, 11.23, 72.04
knockout blow : 207.87, 11.23, 121.14
mud pots : 10.51, 13.47, **
fissure : 61.81, 4.07, 27.54

** mud pots is a toggle, which means DPA is not a very helpful number.

Edit: I changed "round" to "roundup" in my spreadsheet, and finally fixed the numbers both in my spreadsheet, and here. My thanks to Sarrate for noticing the error, as I'll be calculating DPA more accurately in the future.

am I the only one that thinks tremor is skippable? it's soooo slooooooooooooooooow. And seein as a lot of doms these days are permadom (with 70% rech bonus or more) isn't there something a lot better you could do with your time? or do the forums just love aoe lol. FYI I do still rate fissure