Best Soloing Dominator

Well, now that I found out that you need to create a new toon in order to access the new GR zones, I have decided to created a Dominator which I have not built as of yet. Without having to spend hours and hours trying to figure out, can you guys somewhat guide me in what might be best for someone who does teams but needs to survive while soloing.

So you've got:

EARTH CONTROL
ELECTRIC CONTROL
FIRE CONTROL
GRAVITY CONTROL
ICE CONTROL
MIND CONTROL
PLANT CONTROL

I have built a Controller so does a Dominator somewhat play like a Controller? I will sacrifice defense for more damage if I can so any good suggestions you guys can throw at me would be great. I know everyone has their favorites but there has to be at least a couple of these sets that are better than the others for survivability and damage.

I'd put a vote out for Mind Control for a soloist.

Dominate is a quick activating hold in comparison to other primaries Single Target Holds. Confuse has a long lasting base even without much enhancement and has the added benefit of both preventing damage and dealing damage when the enemies are hitting each other instead of you. Mass Hypnosis can be used when a situation gets hairy and you need to either make a quick escape or it can be used to start off a fight and then pick off targets one by one. Mesmerize can sleep bosses or other dangerous targets and take them out of the fight.

Now that I think about it Plant Control might be another good choice. It blossoms early and gets the oh-so-sweet Seeds of Confusion. These powersets come to my mind because they give good survivability early on while having methods of contributing a decent amount of damage. I think that Ice or Earth probably have more overall control, but they have lower damage, and I'm getting from your post that you'd prefer a faster, higher damage Dom over a safer, slower Dom.

I think both sets are pretty safe, versatile soloing sets because it provides a good amount of control without giving too much control up for damage. Because we're talking about Primaries here, I don't think that straight up raw damage is so big a deal. Fire control is the most damaging of the primaries, but in my experience it can be a little rough sometimes because its a set with a low amount of control.

I wouldn't really say that a Dominator plays like a Controller. They both have Control as a primary, but whereas the Controller has a buff/debuff support set for a secondary, Doms get Assault powers as a secondary. These are a mix of melee and ranged damage powers. A dom has more of an active sort of defense, locking down and mezzing enemies before dealing damage to them.

That's my thoughts on the topic anyway. There's people on the boards that have much more experience with Doms than I have. Hope you have fun if you end up rolling with a Dom. They're loads of fun.

Plant is the easiest set for a starting Dom with Earth a close second. Fire is probably one of the hardest.

Differences to note between controllers and Doms is that Dom controls have significantly shorter duration than controllers (outside of domination) and have no chance to critical (overpower) the target (outside of domination once again).

Dom slotting of the controls is similar (the AoEs have reduced accuracy just like the controller versions) ie: slot intensive, so you don't really get up to speed as a Dom until much later in your career. On top of that to be effective the assault portion of the set is slot hungry too so the Dom doesn't really start getting good until late game (after level 31+ ) when you start getting 3 slots per level and there are 2 levels between new powers instead of just one.

The other big difference is the AoE immob. Many doms skip it. On controllers its useful for keeping mobs bunched in debuff patches or near toggle anchored mobs. For a Dom it just stops the mobs from moving, aggros them all, and makes you the alpha target.

I throw in a vote for Plant as well, paired with Fire preferrably. and here's why:

-you may notice that everyone seems to notice and attack you when you throw down the aoe immobilize, it hurts. Carrion Creepers take the aggro for you, and they're awesome-looking and follow you around for a while.

-seeds of confusion also help with aggro-management. Open up with this baby, lay down creepers and your roots, blow a fire breath in the madness, and watch the orange numbers fly.

-we now have rain of fire AND fireball to play with! toss that on your jungle of death while your fly trap has the time of his life killing everything inside.

I am so glad I found this thread

I too am wanting to play a Domi in Praetoria and have been struggling with which combo to go with...I am a scrapper person

One of my friends has a Mind/Energy and played it solo nonstop for a long while..he said it was like playing a Blaster with holds.

I have a Mind/Elec which plays like a Mind controller who does great damage. I absolutely love her, solo with her, and will try to do tip missions to get her heroside.

Now, for Praetoria, I want something other than Mind, and have been stubbling around trying to figger out what.

I had about settled on Electric Control/Ice, when I read Beyeajus's idea for a Plant/Fire.

Grin..I guess I can do both

Lisa.

For pure solo I'd recommend Fire Control, it's lacking in control but you don't need much solo anyway, and the Fire Imps are a real damage asset.

But if you'd rather fight large spawns solo, then Plant Control is a better choice.

Finally, if by solo you mean "finish off the Strike Force even though the rest of the team went afk" then you're looking for Mind Control.

Secondaries again offer a choice of single target damage or AoE damage.

For my extended opinion, check the guide in sig.

[QUOTE=beyeajus;3128840]-you may notice that everyone seems to notice and attack you when you throw down the aoe immobilize, it hurts.
QUOTE]

OUCH, yes it hurts. However, on my Ice/Ice Blaster I have learned the Tao of Teleport Foe and I have a good time with it.

I peek around a corner, target my chosen victim, duck back out of sight and teleport him to me. I feel like a spider reeling in my prey

This helps break up the mob into a doable number. I find Blasting two bad guys is tons safer than three. My Blaster in the 20s so as I get more good powers I will probably be able to respec out of it..or not as I am having a "blast" with it.

Now, an AOE Immob sounds like something I can work with. Put a lot of immob duration enhancements in the power..encase my victims in the AOE immob, teleport one out and around the corner to me, get him out of the picture, and mop up the rest as I am sure I can handle two irate bad guys.

Hmmm, so I need a good single target hold to render my victim helpless when I transport him to me.

I need to try this out.
Lisa wanders out of this thread wondering if Plant/Fire has a single target hold.

why that's the first move you can take! It's called strangler and it's really handy!
Then at lvl 18 you get an AoE hold! It requires some accuracy slotting but it keeps you alive and burning stuff.

If you're used to playing as a blaster, then you'll already be sort of used to doms, they're pretty much the blaster of the vills cause they don't have support or survivability toggles or anything else to think about than
wrecking everything.

Dang I gotta get that guide up!!!

yes, you have to start a new character to see praetoria. i'm too lazy to reference a thread, but i've seen them in multiple forum sections.

basic early solo tactics i've learned from my doms for 3 minions: hold first minion (hardest hitter or lt), immob/confuse second minion (with preference to melee-type), blast/punch third. keep first two held/immob/confused while you finish off the third - while keeping out of melee range of immobed minion. this is different than controllers as you'd want to be hitting the controlled minions for containment damage.

pretty much any combo is soloable... yes some are more solo-friendly than others, but usually killing speed is sacrificed for secondary effects, but after the domination change, i bet they are at least decent. your low lvl dom should be lvling faster than most low lvl controllers regardless of powersets.

seriously, read liliaceae's guide. its your best dominator reference ever.

As a player that has a Mind/Energy, Grav/Ice, Plant/Thorn, Fire/Fire, Ice/Psi and a Earth/Psi dom, This is my order of soloing Doms:

1. Mind Control
2. Fire Control
3. Plant Control
4. Earth Control
5. Ice Control
6. Grav Control

Someone mentioned that Fire is hard to solo with, but I found it to be easy and after lvl 32 its amazing. I also think it might have to do with the secondary I picked. My Mind/Energy Dom was my first villain when CoV became live and I was the first dom to hit 40 before the lvl 50 cap came out and I was the second over all Dom to hit 50 on my sever. Soloing with a Mind Dom is fun and the most enjoyable run to 50 I had with a Dom. With the Mind you want to set it for +1 or +2 team size for soloing, but at higher levels a Fire Dom can solo +8.

Mind Control. See signature for why.

i'm doing mind/energy and loving it so far. i also have a controller which plays nothing like a dominator. it's almost like dominators are built backwards where you're damage first and control second... or at least played like it

controller = control then assist
dominator = control then blow the #*$&# out of stuff

I like Earth, but I admit that it's not the best soloer. It does much better in groups/teams.

As for play style, Someone, long ago, posted that a dom is a scrapper with controls for armor. Once I read that, I understood. You need to use melee attacks. You cannot play like a blaster or a controller. You need to get in the middle and hit things. If you have a fire secondary, you can almost play like a blaster, but melee attacks are faster, and it's all about kill speed. The faster you kill the held target, the sooner you can hold something else, and stop it beating on you.

AOE controls are nice, but they don't have the length of hold, or recharge to make me comfortable using them. Except for Earth. You can do three full stops with it if you work things right. ( aoe stun/aoe immobilize; Volcanic gasses, the best AOE hold available to doms IMO; and quicksand/earthquake) What's really good about quicksand/earthquake is you can cast it from around a corner, and not be targeted for an alpha strike. then you can walk in, kill and hold and do what you like while everything flops on the floor.

My earth/electric dom is 50. My new Praet is an earth/earth dom. You can see I like earth.