Help for a Dom Newb

Hello Dominator Veterans. I am in need of some tips for Dom soloing pre-perma.

I have played dozens of Dominator combos since GR came out. Thats when I discovered how great they can be. But to this day, I have yet to break 30 with one. With the exception of the Mind Doms I have played, they all hit some steep road bumps in the 20s.

Much like my Main, they are two different toons. The one with Domination up, and the one when Domination is down. Unlike Controllers, I cannot seem to Hold anything but minions with regularity and even with Domination running, the characters are squishy as heck.

Sorry for the long post, but my current project and favorite Dom is a Fire/Ice.

How do you solo without major soft control every fight? What are some tips and tricks that you would lean on.

Here is what I have done;

Power Boost + Flashfire + Fire Cages <--- LOVE this one. Have the recharge on the first two powers right at one minute so that I can open every battle with them. Gets me killed alot on teams, but mostly works. With Domination up, its friggin be-you-tea-full !

Tried both Chilling embrace and Hot Feet. Endurance bar hates me and to be honest, neither one of these offer enough soft-control as say something like Ice-Slick of Jolting Chains. So how does a Fire/Ice survive long enough to defeat their foes while solo without domination.

One thing I often do in the teens and early 20s is change settings to -1/x2 which helps even out the incoming damage and make experience getting better. However on this toon, I feel like I should be at -1/x0 all the time, even after reaching SO levels, which is unheard of for me. Even my wimpy empath did not need to set to -1/x0 just to get thru missions at a safe pace. Please note some mob types are far worse than others. I used to think Lost were chumps, now they are my Nemesis.

Any tips for this combo will be greatly appreciated.
Please don't tell me I suck though, cause I already know that part.
I am a professed Dominator newb. Help me get the most from this combo.

Thanks

Part of your problem is that you have paired a low mitigation, endurance hungry primary, with a low damage, fast recharging, endurance hungry secondary.

That said.... useful strategies:

At low levels stay away from the end guzzling powers (Hot Feet, Ice Sword Circle), stay single target, and stay at range. Yes, I know Dominators do more damage in melee, but if survival is your problem, melee is the last place you want to be.

Smoke and stealth are your friends use them liberally.

At level 26 my SO'd build would look something like the below and I would be playing at +1/x1, no bosses:

I'd have Stealth on and open with Smoke.

Power Boost and Flash Fires have roughly the same recharge time. I'd use PB then Flash Fires next to stun the mobs.

Fire Cages next to make sure that they don't move too much.

Next I'd Char anything I missed with Flash Fires. With this build Char has a recharge of roughly 5 seconds and a duration of 30ish seconds without Domination or PB. It has a base accuracy of 90% so hitting with it shouldn't be an issue.

After casting Char I'd target the nearest mob and Ice Bolt + Ice Blast and then Char it. Close to melee on it and use Ice Sword, then switch to the next target and Char. Switch back to the nearest target and throw damage at it until Char is recharged, then switch to the next target that I haven't Charred and Char it. Back to the nearest target for damage, switch to the next target and Char etc.

Pretty much repeating this process until I've killed every thing.

Doing this you should be able to lock down a spawn of 4 with some margin for safety. PB'd Flashfires will last 30ish seconds and it should only take you 20-25 seconds to lock them all down individually rotating Char from target to target.

The only other thing I'd recommend for a Dom Newb is to play a power set combination that doesn't have such a high learning curve.....

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.953
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 27 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Fire Control
Secondary Power Set: Icy Assault
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Concealment
Power Pool: Speed

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Char -- Acc(A), Hold(3), Hold(5), RechRdx(7), RechRdx(9), EndRdx(21)
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Acc(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(7), RechRdx(9), EndRdx(15)
Level 2: Ice Sword -- Acc(A), Dmg(5), EndRdx(19)
Level 4: Fire Cages -- Acc(A), Acc(25)
Level 6: Smoke -- EndRdx(A)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 10: Ice Blast -- Acc(A), Dmg(11), Dmg(11), RechRdx(15), EndRdx(19)
Level 12: Flashfire -- Acc(A), Acc(13), Dsrnt(13), Dsrnt(21), RechRdx(25)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump(A)
Level 16: Power Boost -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(17), RechRdx(17)
Level 18: Cinders -- Acc(A)
Level 20: Stealth -- EndRdx(A)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(23)
Level 24: Grant Invisibility -- EndRdx(A)
Level 26: Phase Shift -- RechRdx(A)
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(23)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run

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Thanks for the reply Miladys,

I must have a secret inner need to choose difficult ATs and choices, but I certainly love a challenge as well.

I have Char slotted to recharge around 5 secs atm. The two powersets are very slot needy so far, so I have skimped on some powers in order to feed the important ones (like Flashfires). PB and Flashfire will get more recharge as I increase my global recharge (on the way to perma), but I think that I have ignored one of the good soft-control aspects of this combo.

Just did several missions with a new battle plan and it seems to work just fine (have not tried those pesky Lost yet though). It goes like this: Smoke, Power-boosted Flashfire, close to Frost-Breath range, Breath, Char anything I missed (repeat as needed), Ice Circle if the mobs line up good, Bolt, Blast, Sword one target at a time, all with Chilling Embrace running.

The soft control that I missed was the -Recharge from Breath plus Chilling Embrace. -70% is nothing to sneeze at. There was still some heavy incoming damage from time to time, but I did not need to empty my inspy tray when things went wrong, just pop the appropriate pills as needed and they re-fill during normal battles.

What would you recommend for slotting on CE and Frostbreath ? These two may become lynchpin passive defense for this toon.

Your main control for mobs is flashfire, and the power you'll use the most for control is your st hold, so you shouldn't skimp on flashfire's recharge after SOs.

Doms outside of domination are as good at mezzing minions/lts as controllers, with bosses you'll need to stack holds because you don't have the occasional 'critical mez' controllers do (overpower). Of course at SO level you'll miss a bit with flashfire, so your ST hold is really important (for any dom anyway) as you'll be grabbing more aggro than the usual controller and have no awesome debuffs like them, you trade that for damage.

On fire control I hate smoke because it's a lousy tohit debuff even well slotted and the -perception won't help much if you use your aoe controls and hotfeet later (hotfeet is kind of one of the main reasons to play fire control). I'm not a fan of stealth on doms, in fact I find it unnecessary, but on non /psi doms (psi has drain psyche for +regen/recovery) I usually go for aid self because it's easy to use since you have everything mezzed so often, so ymmv.

But you really must get the recharge on flashfire maxed out asap, it's your main source of control and your opening move like seeds of confusion is for Plant.

Anyway you probably took the most end heavy primary and secondary, especially since you're using CE which many /ice doms skip, I skipped on my Plant/Ice but she doesn't have many reasons to charge to melee like fire/, I just go to use ISC.

Edit: also, remember CE has a lousy radius (10 feet, little more than a melee damage aura) and hot feet, besides doing slow and damage, also has an afraid effect that protects you, plus 20 feet radius.

Thanks for the reply Kioshi,

You and Miladys have given me good ideas to consider.

Regarding Hot Feet, my original plan was to leverage this power because of the large area and multiple effects. CE was not going to be used because it seemed more limited.

After trying Hot Feet in many ways, It seems rather lack-luster (currently 2 SO end reduction in it). Perhaps with some more slotting (damage in particular), it may be more handy in every fight. Here is the problem I noticed using it; Mobs don't seem slowed enough to stop them from reaching and taking a swipe at me prior to the fear effect kicking in. Then the fear kicks in and, seemingly the slow effect as well, so they try to move away. But when their next attack cycle kicks in, they have to make choice between smacking me or continuing to run away. The choice is often to hit me. All that I seem to manage is some dot damage at a VERY high endurance cost. Is it worth slotting slow ?
My thoughts are to go for Endurance reduc, Damage, and perhaps a proc or two.

I know that it is expensive but my preferred slotting for Hot Feet is 2 HO nuc, 2 HO micros, and a multistrike Acc/Dam/End.

Thanks for the slotting advice folks,

I will look at these both in MIDS and see how they look.

Tried some more tips using variations of a Hot Feet strategy and then some more not using either CE of HF and have determined that at 29 these are both just too much endurance for the cost. I did just about as well without them. Time for a respec and some serious Frankenslot work.

Based on everyone's advice and my own initial research, I will go with Hotfeet.
For now, its going to be a short burst power to be used when I need something to get off me.

Thanks again Local, Miladys and Kioshi

Some advice for new Dominators...

If you aren't using your single target hold whenever it recharges, you're doing it wrong.

Your Primary power set is for Control, not Damage. Your Secondary power set is for Damage, not Control. Some exceptions exist (like Hot Feet and most single target Immobs), but treat most powers as above if you don't want to run out of END. Never slot Flashfires for Damage. Here an example (all examples below assume 100% Accuracy). Ice Bolt does 1 Damage Scale (DS) for 5.2 END. Char does 1.1 DS for 8.5 END, because it is also a Hold. Say it takes 5 DS total to defeat a Minion at level 20. That's 5 Ice Bolts at 26 END or 5 Chars at 42.5 END. To survive you'll want to slot Char for Hold and Rech, but you're free to slot Ice Bolt for Damage. Well slotted, it takes 3 Ice Bolts at 15.6 END to defeat that same minion. So if you want to fight without having to rest between every spawn, use your Primary slotted for control to survive, and your Secondary slotted for damage to defeat.

Concentrate slots in your most used powers. Say you have Ice Bolt, Ice Sword, Ice Blast, and Ice Slash for your 4 main single target attacks. They all have about the same ratio of Damage to Endurance, so it'll take about 26 END to defeat a minion as above using any of them unslotted. If you add slots for damage to all of them equally, you can get that down to about 15.6 END as above. But if you remove slots of Ice Slash and use them for END Reduction on your other attacks, you can get that down to about 10 END. Almost all of my first 15 slots go to my single target Hold and my first two Secondary attacks.

Frankenslot FTW. Char has a base 1.2 Accuracy (90%) so give it a little Accuracy and a lot of Hold and Rech. Early on that means 2 Acc/Hold/Rech IOs and 2 End/Hold IOs. My main 2 single target attacks get 2 Acc/Dam, 2 Dam/Rech, and 2 Dam/End IOs each.

AoEs are meant for multiple mobs. As a general rule of thumb, you want to catch at least 3 mobs with an AoE or you are wasting END. Remember Ice Bolt is 1 DS for 5.2 END. Frost Breath is 1.4 DS for 15.2 END, so it's OK to use this on 2 or more mobs. But Ice Sword Circle is 1.2 DS for 20.2 END, so you generally want to use this when you're in the middle of 4 or more mobs. This assumes they're all equally slotted. Fire Cages does 0.33 DS for 15.6 END, so it is a Control power and NOT a Damage power. It would take about 234 END to defeat a single mob using unslotted Fire Cages. Granted you could defeat 16 minion using that 234 END since Fire Cages hit 16 targets, so AoE immobs in general are decent damage when fighting lots of foes.

Hot Feet is similar Fire Cages above, but MUCH cheaper. It does 0.24 DS every 2 seconds for 2.1 END. It would take around 44 END to defeat a single mob. That would make it decent if you could hit 2 mobs, except that it's a toggle. Either you waste time turning it on and off, or you leave it on all the time. Most people leave it on all the time, which means a lot of END is wasted. If you spend half your time attacking mobs, then you need to fight around 6 at a time for Hot Feet to be worth it. This is why Fire Control is often the choice for farming Doms and Controllers. They spend most of their time attacking large spawns. Well slotted Fire Cages and Hot Feet can defeat 16 minions within 20 feet for fairly little END, compared to using single target attacks. For a solo Dom at difficulty x1, Fire Cages and Hot Feet suck END. If you can take x2, then Hot Feet looks better.

Hard controls like Hold and Stun can keep you safe, but so can soft control if you have a little patience. Immob enemy #1 then hide around a corner. He can't attack you anymore. Hold enemy #2 when he comes to investigate, and beat up enemy #3 ASAP. Finish off #2 around the time #1 gets free and comes after you. Hold him and finish him off.

Single target Immobs like Ring of Fire generally do OK damage. Their base Immob duration is long enough that you generally don't need more, plus they have a 90% Accuracy and recharge in 4 seconds, so you can just use the base slot for END Reduction and spend your slots elsewhere. Alternatively you can treat them as a ranged attack that needs more END Reduction and less Accuracy. They're a reasonable combination of control and damage for the patient Dominator. But I'm never patient.

Chilling Embrace is a Control power in your (Damage oriented) Secondary. It isn't all that great by itself when solo. The 10 foot range means many mobs will be in melee range. They may attack less often, but they have (stronger) melee attacks available. Mobs that are hard controlled won't attack at all. It's better in teams, but it can be an agro magnet. It's nice if you can stack it with more Recharge debuffs, but hard controls are generally more effective.

Smoke is meh. It's a pretty small ToHit debuff, only 3.75%. I wouldn't take it unless you are going for a high Defense build.

Doc,

Don't forget /thorns has Impale with immob and -fly, Ripper does some kd iirc, and Thorn Barrage does heavy kb (annoying amounts really). A bit more control there than most realize.

Fire control is pretty weak on control. You have char and flashfire as your bread and butter controls. Cinders is on a long recharge. Bonfire tosses things everywhere. The rest is immobs and damage. But damage is what is specializes in.

Ice assault has little control as well. You get some slows and some -rch. The powers fire quickly, but I find that makes them heavy on the end bar.

This combo is weak on control, heavy on end, and pretty solid on damage... if you plan to play in melee. I'd take the 3 swords over the 3 blasts and cone any day. CE isn't going to help much. Power boost is a winner, though, and will help with the controls you do have.

Heck, I'd pretty much build this dom as a blapper. Pick up the fight pool for tough... maybe weave. Grab some defense with CJ, Maneuvers, stealth. Get your APP shield and something with a targeted AoE (no cone APP) so you can maximize hits in melee range.

Don't forget your hot feet and imps of course.

Dominators are cool because there are several different playstyles that are viable to use.

For Fire/Ice you "could" also go with pure range and slot Hot Feet for maximum slow. You also take Bonfire and slot it for maximum KB and slot up your ranged defense.

Hot Feet and Bonfire have the same radius so you can drop Bonfire at your feet and Hot Feet slows them enough that they never get into melee range before Bonfire kicks them out.

I played my Fire/Fiery/Fire Dom like this for quite some time.

Are you playing +0/x1?

I haven't played fire/ice but I've been playing ice/psi and earth/earth and have found general advice for leveling doms.

3 minion spawn:
* you want to drop an aoe hard control which will have short duration but let you avoid an alpha - for fire that is flashfire. It has an inherent recharge of 90 seconds, you want to shorten that as much as possible.
* you should next use your single target hold.
* as a dom you should be able to take out one minion with a cycle of your attack powers, do that (you can't at the lowest levels but should be able to in teens and higher)
* use single target hold on third mob when it recharges

Lt & minion spawn:
* hold the lt with your single target hold
* cycle your attacks to take out the minion
* do not waste your aoe on the spawn

You probably won't have your flashfire up every fight. But you can use bonfire or cinders when those are up and flashfire is not.

Solo, your best control is your single target hold. You want that to have max recharge and hold duration - don't worry about damage, you have plenty of attacks.

With fire you also have smoke. Even with spawns of 3 you will probably find that not all aggro - especially ones that are facing the other way. You may find that you can take on some spawns of 3 as if they were a spawn of 2 and a spawn of 1 nearby.

Level 32 now and finally getting the hang of this combo.

Did a respec at 29, dropped Chilling Embrace and Frost Breath, then used the re-claimed slots in other powers (including Hot Feet).

Adding slots to Hot Feet is the way to go. Previously had 2 SO End Reduc, but now have it franken-slotted (4 Slots) with Dam/End(x2), Acc/Endurance, Acc/Slow. Will eventually get a couple more slots into it and use some more Damage, Endurance, Slow and Acc.

Have boosted the difficulty to +0/x2 and fights are pretty easy, unless I aggro a second group. Power-Boosted Flashfires, Ice-Sword Circle + Hot Feet and Char, means BBQ minions. In general, I have plenty of time to lock everything down while it slow cooks.

Good Hunting Folks