Thorntrops and Caltrops are functionally identical. (Incidentally, handy reference for powers questions: http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/.)
As for crippling huge spawns, Thorntrops is likely to be surplus to your needs on a plant/thorn. Seeds of Confusion is an utterly, utterly ridiculous power and is available at level 8. Carrion Creepers is also maimtastic.
Thorntrops the same as caltrops yes.
Doms aren't really support there really control and damage the MM dark secondary should be all you need for support. The doms control will be great once the arsonist starts throwing his burn patches which btw is one of the few powers left in the game without a target cap.
Well, "support" as in "let's see how much stuff we can duo with this pair", or "how much can I fill in the weaknesses of that build".
I'm sorta tempted by spirit tree, just because when I was grouping with the thugs before on a /traps MM, I was loving triage beacon's effect on the minions during larger pulls; it helped a ton with keeping them upright. Except the arsonist, who is also suicidal. But I'm not overly attached to it, and it does seem like it might not really be all that useful in context. I've been mostly ignoring the melee powers; the thugs are meleeing more than enough as is, and also have a ton of knockback, so I'm thinking to focus entirely on control and maybe a little light ranged damage to fill in the gaps, and leave the damage output to the swarm of thugs.
Agreed that thorntrops may well be totally redundant by the time I get there. I just love that power so much. (I don't think I yet have a single blaster who isn't /devices. I may be experiencing some slight bias issues.)
Thorntrops is awesome! I just stick mobs on it and root em and and watch them blow up just for the sadistic pleasure it gives me.
But yeah as others have said, it's just gravy for a functionally totally overwhelming primary like Plant.
So, thinking about this power set. For RP reasons, I need flight. What other pool powers should I be looking at? What should I be planning to skip in either plants or thorns? It looks like the first entangle is pretty much disliked because it's redundant and I have better options elsewhere, anything else really skippable?
For Plant you can skip Entangle, Spore Burst, Spirit Tree and even Fly Trap. The only reason I'd take any of them is for IO muling. Spore Burst is great for slotting Fortunate Hypnosis since it's the cheapest purple set out there. Fly Trap is good for a getting 6.25 recharge out of 4 slots if u don't have 5x 6.25 recharges already. Entangle is good for slotting a full Enfeebled Operation if you're going for S/L defense capping. I can't find a redeeming quality to Spirit Tree.
For Thorny, other than for Fling Thorns and Thorn Burst (which you want for AOE goodness, although if you're going to be flying out of melee range, Thorn Burst would be pointless), take ur pick of the rest to come up with a single target attack chain. I usually avoid slotting more than 1 additional slot in Thorny Darts (for 2 Undermined Defenses IOs for the 2% damage buff). When you said you're taking up Flight, did u just mean as a travel power or will you be using Hover for your combat maneuvering? Do you want to stay out of melee range then? In which case you will have to forgo the melee attacks and just pick up the ranged ones. You won't be getting optimal performance, but that's what you sacrifice for RP.
I'm expecting to mostly hover -- I tend to like hover a great deal for mitigation and also for seeing what I'm doing in crowded melees. Although... I've been assuming I should stay out of melee, because dominator looks sorta fragile (similar, I think, to controller?). If dominators really ought to be meleeing, I'm willing to rethink that a bit.
Doms play like a blapper with controls to provide mitigation and your level 41 patron powers to enhance it. I always play mine in melee but the best thing for you to do would be to get out there and experiment to see how you want to make the AT work for you.
Okay, cool. Well, if all else fails, if I guess wrong, I can try again. That I'm playing with a thugs mastermind may also be significant, because I'm expecting to play with a variety of other people attacking (and knocking back) melee mobs. So there's a LOT of knockback going around, which tends to be a disadvantage for melee.
The good news is that Roots has like mag -100 knockback, covers a 30ft radius and hits 16 mobs. And since spamming Roots is one of your more effective AOE damage attacks, there will be no knockback happening.
Yeah. Which may be a downside, as the knockback is one of the primary mitigations the thugs have -- enemies who are in the middle of flying back are not attacking.
I think it'll work out, but it'll take some getting used to.
Actually, Thugs primary mitigation is Maneuvers (8% def) from the Enforcers. Stack that on top of the defense from Shadow Fall (5%), the -ToHit debuffs from Darkest Night(-15% after minimal slotting) and Fearsome Stare (-11% with no slotting), Maneuvers on the MM (3.5%), 2 +petdef IOs (10%) and you have 26% def to pets and -26% tohit debuffs (against even levels). That's not even factoring in fluffy's tohit debuffs. Trust me, I have a Thugs/Dark/Mace MM, you don't need knockback for mitigation with a Thugs/Dark around. Your MM partner will be steamrolling things in no time.
Woah, I'd totally forgotten about fluffy. Of course, that's a loooong way out.
Well, first question:
Does Thorntrops have the same fear effect that the traps/devices caltrops does? I always thought caltrops looked like a crappy power until I actually used it -- that fear is amazing and has turned it into one of my go-to powers for crippling large clusters of enemies.
Apart from that, the primary intended role of this character is support for a thugs/dark mastermind. I'm not yet sure which sorts of things this will change about a likely build.