I usually prioritize things like this:
Perma Dom first,
Secondary effects 2nd,
Defense third.
With most Dom primaries you can get near 100% mitigation from control. I typically recommend layered mitigation and the more layers the better.
When I make a build for myself (or someone else) I try to build in such a way that I reach my goals without using powers simply as set mules. The goal here is layers too. Useful powers stacked with useful bonuses.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
As I level up I just take what powers I need at the time, then respec later. My current elec/psi has gremlins right now and i strongly dislike pets. They are helpful now, but when i turn up the difficulty after getting permadom they won't be.|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. To me, I'd rather have some solid ranged attacks for these situations than taking a couple fluff defense powers that might someday get me to capped def to S/L. If you can max your def without gimping your leveling up, go for it. Or if you make it to 50 and get all slotted up and can respec, sure thing. But playing 40+ levels where I have no choice but to melee is a tougher road to hoe than it needs to be. |
I don't actually waste much chasing defense on my doms. My plant/psi that i love so much runs +4x8 on less than 20% ranged def. That's sort of the point of what I was saying before, with enough mez it shouldn't matter if you are in melee. Against AVs either a tank or a buffer should keep you in melee just fine. I cant say anything about soloing AVs because that isn't something that i try to do.
Soft capped SL defense is irrelevant when targets are controlled then destroyed from melee AND range depending on the circumstance. Building with Def as a priority gimps a lot of builds. Now if you can get your def up and have perma, plus melee, plus ranged, great. Go for it.
As for your original point of contention, you've suggested that range is a necessity for a Dominator, that one couldn't survive melee with an AV or face trouble against particular mobs. Well, I've already shown that a dom can go toe to toe with an AV. The rest of the mobs are just fodder to be ground up by a well built dom. The only one that is a mild annoyance are the Super Stunners, but there's a simple tactic of finishing them off at range which you don't need a full ranged attack chain to do... or just not worrying about it due to the impressive amount of recovery between CA and DP.
As for the irrelevance of soft-capped defenses, I'll toss out the first and most obvious point. You can't control everything. Elec/Psi will have trouble against Nemesis because all of their mobs resist confusion and many resist sleep. Cimerorans can present some trouble if they're not dealt with correctly (confused first so they don't buff one another's mez protection). The second point is that you can't hit everything. At best you have a 95% chance to hit a mob. When you have a large group of enemies, your chances of mezzing everything start dropping; on average you will mez most, but the often at least one or two will be missed. With that some damage will creep through and at higher difficulty settings that creep can be quite a lot. That's why I build for the layered mitigation of mez/defense and if available healing. I feel that provides far more mitigation than I would get from occasionally attacking at range.
Of course, these goals aren't realistic for every dom build. It's dependent on the combination of primary/secondary. Mind/Fire definitely has more reason to utilize range than a Fire/Earth, for example. I probably wouldn't build for smashing/lethal defense on the former, but with the latter I certainly would. It's also dependent on how much you wish to invest in a character. As Milady's Knight said earlier, it's going to be an expensive build. My original post was directed at the notion that defense is pointless on a perma-dom. That's a point I contend with for a number of reasons. If it is possible and desirable for someone to build for perma-dom and defense then I highly recommend it.