Demon/Thermal Advice Needed

Honestly, I want to make a Demon/Thermal. Even before the shields became AoE, the concept fit to a T. My problem has been, and likely ALWAYS will be:

Being so tight on power slots.

- I want to take the personal attacks, but I don't know which. Corruption and Crack Whip are my favorites, but I have NOT room for both I believe

- I heard Thaw was skippable simply because of Clarion, which frees up a slot

- Also, is Rise of the Phoenix skippable? I'm sort of leaning towards no, only because it's a useful tool to have.

- Whether or not to take Vengeance. It's an LotG slot, but still, how useful of a tool is it really.

- I had plans to take Chill Mastery, but cannot decide on the opening power. Most folks say Ice Blast because Flash Freeze isn't that useful. But I've heard advice to the contrary. Plus Hoarfrost AND Frozen Armor.

- Fitting in a travel power. I'm thinking Teleport, but again, I'm not sure about the slots.

- Is it even possible to softcap your defense with Thermal? (since it's all resistance I'm not sure how)

In general, I need some advice.

Demon/Thermal is a solid build, to answer your questions:

- Crack whip is a good investment, cone attack with -res, definitely worth picking up.

- Yes, that is skippable if you take clarion, even if you don't take clarion you won't miss it much.

- Same with ROTP, it doesn't work on pets so only useful if you're planning on being team oriented.

- Vengeance, same as ROTP, It doesn't affect pets so only really useful if your gonna team alot or you just really need it for an extra LOTG proc.

- Personally I take chill mastery for the defence, you're probably better off taking ice blast and adding a couple of chance for dmg procs on it or something, flashfreeze personally never did anything for me. Hoarfrost is alright, if you got a free power slot then go for it
keep in mind you do have a heal though.

- Travel power, traditionally speed or jump, something to get a little defense out of but it is more of a personal choice there.

- You won't be softcapping your defenses with thermal but depending on what other powers you take and set bonuses etc. you can get a nice little additional defense that will definetly help

I would post you a build but it appears that i am unable to find my demon/therm build... :/ my apologies.

Well, given that Thermal is set built around resistance rather than defense, it figures that softcapping likely isn't possible.

What should I focus on then instead?

After reading this I logged in and wanting to learn a bit I used a empty build to test stuff out. Basically I looked at what I was buffed unslotted and then with 1 resistance SO and 2 resistance SO. I also looked to see what 2 Heal SOs offered for the heal as well.

For the sake of just general knowledge here is the info. So everyone knows ( or might not ) the Ember Demon is the one that is giving you your heal and resistance buffs. The Gargoyle is nothing but an attack pet.

These are MY NUMBERS
Unslotted Tier 2 pet ( Ember Demon and HellFire Gargoyle )
Smash Lethal 15%
Fire 19.99%
Cold 9.99%
Toxic 15.00%
Energy Negative 0%
Abyssal Empowerment upgrade gives the Ember Demon his heal ability. It shows up as 107 in combat window.

1 Slotted SO of Resistance and Heal
Smash Lethal 18%
Fire 23.99%
Cold 11.99%
Toxic 18.00%
Energy Negative 0%
Heal 142

2 Slotted SO of Resistance and Heal
Smash Lethal 21%
Fire 27.99%
Cold 13.99%
Toxic 21.00%
Energy Negative 0%
Heal 178

Beyond these resistance numbers your not getting anything else except what you can get from set bonuses and powers.

I also looked at what the Ember Demon and HellFire Gargoyle resistance numbers. These numbers are based on what the Ember was giving out on top of what the Hellfire already had inherently.

Base Hellfire resistance
Smash Lethal 31%
Fire 24.%
Cold 12.40%
Toxic 37.20%
Energy Negative 0%

Base Ember resistance
Smash Lethal 24.80
Fire 37.20%
Cold 12.40%
Toxic 24.80%
Energy Negative 0%

I didn't check slotted, but I would assume it would follow the same route that it did for me. So respectively each SO resistance would add 3,4,2,3 percentage of resistance.

If you added the (2) resistance unique IOs to Hell on Earth pet you would get an additional 20% resistance.

The bubbles in a nutshell will offer 23% resistance.

So unslotted your PETS are going to be in the 50% range and higher in their resistances and fire resistance will be put over the top at 104%.

Between quickly slotting 3 Bloodmandate sets, 1 steadfast 3 to defense, Aegis and Reactive armor and picking up Scorpion shield I was able to get my typed defenses into the high teens and low twenties.

I am thinking you can either try to cap out smash lethal defense and get the rest of your defenses in the mid 20s and then just play off the whole pet resistance and bodyguard mode angle.

Or go with Soul Mastery dark embrace and Oppressive gloom. Dark Embrace because it covers 4 types of resistances compared to other shields. Oppressive Gloom of course is a great power to have as it just leaves you dealing with bosses sometimes. I was thinking maybe using spring attack combined with Oppressive gloom to start off the attack. Or group teleporting into the group of mobs. Of course in a team group teleport could put those improperly configured teammates into some problems. Which regardless you will be blamed.

Again as I mentioned I only slotted the pets and resistance shield buffs and one PPP/Epic pool power to get some numbers. You can get much better just by slotting in a bunch more.

Hope this all helps.