Plant/Thorn & Speed

Alright, so maybe I'm imagining things, but my question is pretty simple:

Is Plant/Thorn the slowest combination in existance or what?

Strangler's cast time is absurd, Impale's windup takes all day, the redraw seems to happen way too often, and I just got Thorn Burst...Guess what? The wind up takes forvever.

It just seems to me that by the time I execute most of my powers, my target is dead. Especially when it comes to Strangler. Considder the following:

The team is faced with a usual mix of Minions, LTs, and a Boss. Okay, first thing I'm doing is Roots once aggro has been settled. Now I have Strangler to put out somewhere. A minion is a waste of time. I'd love to mez the boss, but that's impossible. Guess I'd be most useful mezzing the most threatening LT in the group. I hit Strangler on a full health LT...By the time he's held, his health has gone down half thanksto the team. A second or two later he's dead. Well, great. Why did I bother?

Hmm lets see:
Seeds cast time: 1.07s
Fling Thorns: 1.63s
Roots: 1.67s
Thorntrops: 1.63s

When in a group, unless ur fighting AVs, why even bother with single target attacks? AOE is where its at and you have plenty of quick activating abilities.

Also, if your group is dispatching Lts within 3 seconds, I suggest you're fighting below your optimal threshold; try going upto the next highest difficulty setting.

Other than for the cast time of Impale, I don't see anything out of the ordinary compared to other sets.

It also doesn't help that on most teams, either I'm the sole source of AoE and/or we have yet another moron Brute who skipped Taunt. Therefore, everything tries to kill me. And usually succeeds. But that's a player issue, not a Dom issue.

You need to start off with Seeds of Confusion. Follow with Fling Thorns and Roots. Your contribution is complete at that point, the rest is just bonus.

If you didn't take Seeds of Confusion, take it now. Roots without Seeds is instant death.

As for Brutes without Taunt, that's just how they roll, build up fury while the team dies, and then finish off the spawn. In my time I've encountered very few Brutes who took Taunt, and they were usually the bad players. Go Figure

I do have Seeds, and I use it pretty much every time it's off cooldown. I'm of the opinion that it is the best power in my arsenal. But still, I'm working with DOs still (Lvl 25, for the record), and it's not the most accurate power. Plus the cooldown means I don't get to use it every spawn. Beyond that, I honestly tend to feel a little guilty because I'm cutting down overall XP, but nobody complains so I guess it isn't that bad.

And really, why skip Taunt? The more trying to kill you, the stronger you are, and the team loves you. What is there to lose?

Don't feel guilty about confuse, it doesn't reduce xp/time because it accelerates the team's speed. If you don't get to use Seeds at every fight, it sounds like your difficulty is set too low, you should visit a Fortunata and push the level of your enemies up by 1.

I've played a few Brutes; the only reason I take Taunt is as a slot mule after I have gotten all the other powers I wanted, or I'm playing my Stoner. Brutes don't need Taunt even if they're competing with Tankers for aggro, so they don't bother taking it. Much easier to throw an AOE in the mobs' face than taunt them.

Also, once u get Seeds, u need to pick up Hasten, like ASAP. Then u need to spend the time to slot them out. If u want help with getting optimal performance from the Plant/Thorns combo, I'd suggest throwing your build up here for people to help you. Seriously, Plant/Thorns is an absolute beast once it's slotted up.

If you're lvl. 25, just hang on till you get to carrion creepers and you'll notice a difference.

As far as the ST-hold goes, slot a Devastation: chance for hold in two of your ST-ranged attacks to stack with strangler while keeping up your attack chain. The combo of those will hold a boss for ya. Hope it helps cause Plant/ is AoE win.