Plant control is definitly not a late blooming set unless you have not taken seeds of confusion. Doms in general are squishy. It is the controls that make doms less squishy.
We need more info to better help you. what is your build so far? What enemies are you struggling against?? Are your mezzes nicely slotted?? Are you not opening every battle with seeds of confusion?? Are you spamming your aoe imobolize ??
I just tossed this quickie build together. Slotting this with basic IOs (3 Resist IOs in each Tough and Charged Armor), you can get about 57% S/L resist, which should make you a little more durable.
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Plant Control
Secondary Power Set: Thorny Assault
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Strangler -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Thorny Darts -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Skewer -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Fling Thorns -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Hasten -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Seeds of Confusion -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Impale -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Vines -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Thorn Burst -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Carrion Creepers -- Empty(A)
Level 28: Tough -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Thorntrops -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Fly Trap -- Empty(A)
Level 35: Ripper -- Empty(A)
Level 38: Thorn Barrage -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Power Sink -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Charged Armor -- Empty(A)
Level 47: Surge of Power -- Empty(A)
Level 49: Aim -- Empty(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
You need to focus on control more.
Use the confusion and the single target control on different targets. Cycle through your targets so that you don't attack creatures you have controlled. Reapply your single target hold as soon as it is up.
On teams, watch your aggro. Redside does not have Tanks to hold aggro. Its easy on controllers to aggro a lot of things and not have them controlled.
As others have said, control is your armor. Use your control more and you should do just fine.
*Tanker walks into room, taunts*
enemies pound away at tank, he yawns, reads morning news.
*Dominator walks into room, hits domination, throws controls around*
enemies stand helpless, the dominator checks his email
*Tanker takes intimidate, invoke panic, stun, then tries to control a group*
enemies flinch, wobble, then get back to pounding away at the tanker
*Dominator throws out a bunch of attacks, finishing with a control power*
enemies get hurt, but bear down on the withering dominator before he can finish them all off, his controls coming too late to stop all the damage
There's toughness, then there's 'tough to beat'-ness.
Doms are the latter. They need to do things their own way, however. 
I wouldn't call that a late blooming build - I'd wonder what yours looks like now.
I took my Plant/Thorn into Sharkshead at about your level - I was even or -1 to Scrapyard's mobs. I soloed his mobs - got all the scrapyarder badges in one sitting. Ended up with something like 300-400 kills to 2-3 deaths (leveled in the process, too.) Now, yes, I had a couple small purples and greens, but for the most part - it was seeds, root, AOE, AOE. Didn't even have Creepers at the time, and I certainly wasn't IO'd out.
Post how you are now.
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Maybe I'm just being a little spoiled. My main toon is a maxxed out tank that rarely sees his life bar even move. I play the Dom on a Wednesday night static team, that come to think of it really doesn't have an aggro sponge on it. The team consists of a stalker, 2 controllers and me. So once my holds wear off, I apparently become the sponge. When I died like 10-12 times in a 3 hour peiod last Wednesday, I did a quick WTF. I definately need to check out my enhancements to make sure my holds last as long as possible too. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I wouldn't call that a late blooming build - I'd wonder what yours looks like now.
I took my Plant/Thorn into Sharkshead at about your level - I was even or -1 to Scrapyard's mobs. I soloed his mobs - got all the scrapyarder badges in one sitting. Ended up with something like 300-400 kills to 2-3 deaths (leveled in the process, too.) Now, yes, I had a couple small purples and greens, but for the most part - it was seeds, root, AOE, AOE. Didn't even have Creepers at the time, and I certainly wasn't IO'd out. Post how you are now. |
We'll see how this week goes. Maybe we can get a wandering Brute to join us.
Thanks for the help guys.
Um, controllers? Not sure how you're doing that, unless this is a AE team and you're co-oping in the RWZ. Did you mean corruptors?
Regardless, by the time your mezzes wear off there usually shouldn't be so many enemies left that they're shooting your face off. If there are, something's wrong. Are you using seeds of confusion? That's plant's staple every-spawn control, and it *ought* to be lasting more than long enough to dispose of a spawn. If you're not using seeds, I could see where you'd be having problems. If you are using it, how is it slotted? Does it have at least 2 confuse and 2 recharge (with SOs, I would go 2 acc, 2 confuse, 2 rech)?
Basically, could you describe your current build and, in as much detail as possible how a fight usually goes for you, so that we can try to figure out what's going wrong?
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
Because you have no Defense nor buff sets :P
I don't know, I kind of agree with the OP. If someone looks cross-eyed at my doms they die whereas my defenders, blasters, and controllers often survive surprise situations... or at least it feels that way.
However, I love my dominators and deaths usually only happen when I make dumb mistakes (alas all too common 
) or a surprise ambush is targeted on me. Most of the time I totally sweep missions, solo or in teams from level 1 to the early 30's which is as far as I've gotten so far.
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This here is your problem. Tankers aren't just survivable, they don't have to try to be survivable. Dominators need to be active.
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Originally Posted by Astral_Storm
Maybe I'm just being a little spoiled. My main toon is a maxxed out tank that rarely sees his life bar even move.
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If I might ask, are your dominators fire controllers?|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
I don't know, I kind of agree with the OP. If someone looks cross-eyed at my doms they die whereas my defenders, blasters, and controllers often survive surprise situations... or at least it feels that way.
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When I play fire control (something I do not do any more, thanks to the free transfers), I find the set lacking for the kind of emergency powers I'd want, whereas the alternatives don't. Gravity might have a similar problem (not certain, myself). Plant has a pile of oh-**** powers, though all are positionally inconsistant (targeted AOE, click-targeted AOE, cone) meaning you need to be aware before you use 'em...
Just speculating, mind.
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Just look at them cross-eyed and they'll stand nice and still for you. |
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
I don't know, I kind of agree with the OP. If someone looks cross-eyed at my doms they die whereas my defenders, blasters, and controllers often survive surprise situations... or at least it feels that way.
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ROFL - I'll be sure and give that a try. |
Originally Posted by Scythus
Just look at them cross-eyed and they'll stand nice and still for you.
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Indeed, Jessica is a fire dom and Midday is cold. The "dumb" mistakes generally involve using the one good mass control at the wrong time or missing a few important persons (like the target runs away from the others during animation or just plain missing) and not having something recycled that isn't PBAOE to protect myself with.|
Originally Posted by Talen_Lee
If I might ask, are your dominators fire controllers?
When I play fire control (something I do not do any more, thanks to the free transfers), I find the set lacking for the kind of emergency powers I'd want, whereas the alternatives don't. Gravity might have a similar problem (not certain, myself). Plant has a pile of oh-**** powers, though all are positionally inconsistant (targeted AOE, click-targeted AOE, cone) meaning you need to be aware before you use 'em... Just speculating, mind. |
I have a plant controller so I know exactly what you mean about the oh-**** power depth in that set. I imagine that would make an awesome dominator but variety is the spice of life and Thistle is my plant gal.
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If you are ever on Virtue, look me up (Green Scare). I play a Plant/Enrgy perma dom. Doms at later levels (and once you have a decent chain established.) are virtually unstoppable and really, really fun.
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Originally Posted by Astral_Storm
I have a Plant/Thorn dom thats hanging around level 24 right now. My question is, Will this toon ever get to a point where I don't feel like the squishiest thing out there? I've played around on Mid's trying to find a build that would offer either defense or resistance and I can't find a thing. I have looked at getting all the recharge bonuses I can so I get close to a perma-dom toon but I better hope nothing hits me before my lockdowns take effect.
I have heard that Plant/Thorns is a late blooming build. So when does it start to bloom? I don't think I've even seen a bud yet. |
Thanks for all the input guys. Before we ran last night I made sure that all my SO's were up to date. Our wayward brute also showed up last night for an added bonus. I only faceplanted twice, and those were my fault. Seeds seem to be hitting more and holding longer than before. Maybe it's just me or maybe hitting level 25 made a boatload of difference. I seem to have changed from an OMG! I died again toon to an OMG! I confused THAT many? toon.
Now lets talk about speeding up my toon's animations :P
Thanks again
The biggest thing that gets doms and trollers killed is when they spam their aoe immob.
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This.
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Originally Posted by Negate
The biggest thing that gets doms and trollers killed it when the spam their aoe immob.
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Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Negate
The biggest thing that gets doms and trollers killed is when they spam their aoe immob Without some sort of mitigation .
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It was true to a certain extent, Fire trollers have an AoE Stun that goes well with the Immob as do Earth trollers, Grav have an AoE Stun but it comes with KB so it is kinda hard to keep them together unless you group them in a corner.
Also, I have a dom with a proced out Immo and Softcap Range and S/L defense and it mmakes a great AoE attack at that point.
but for the beginner Dom yeah it does tend to cause debt.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
LOL, I like how you twisted my words there :P. The OP was asking a basic question sos I just responded with a basic reply. I'm not saying Immobs are a no-no, just the fact at level 10 or below you will not have much in your arsenal to keep yourself protected if you spam your immob power.
During late game/mid game it's a totally different story.
I have a Plant/Thorn dom thats hanging around level 24 right now. My question is, Will this toon ever get to a point where I don't feel like the squishiest thing out there? I've played around on Mid's trying to find a build that would offer either defense or resistance and I can't find a thing. I have looked at getting all the recharge bonuses I can so I get close to a perma-dom toon but I better hope nothing hits me before my lockdowns take effect.
I have heard that Plant/Thorns is a late blooming build. So when does it start to bloom? I don't think I've even seen a bud yet.