Power Pools for Dominators?

I've just gotten to the point where I need to dip into my power pools on my new dominator, but I'm a little puzzled about which pools to use.

I've looked at a lot of the various builds people have put up, and I noticed that people seem to take powers from very different pools (except hasten - everyone seems to take that).

So, I was wondering what pools people recommend for a dominator and why. I've seen a lot of steath, a lot of fighting, a lot of leadership, and the occasional hover and CJ (which I assume is partly to mule LotG).

My own dominator is plant/earth, but I'm really interested in this question for any of my future builds.

I go for Hasten, a travel power, a combat travel power, Stealth, Aid Other and Aid Self. I skip the Medicine pool if I have another way to heal (like Life Drain).

Its worth noting that Doms that take Intimidate or Invoke Panic from the presence pool can boost the effect of these powers via Domination (even though the text doesn't appear as it does when using a primary control power, the mag and duration are nevertheless increased).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twoflower You'd need a scanning electron microscope to find me a violin small enough to play an appropriate song of pity for farmers, exploiters, or anyone else who gets caught bending the design intention of the game past the breaking point by MARTy.

A lot of it depends on your goals.

Stealth is a decent option for Dominators. Being able to control when and how the fight starts is very useful for Doms and having somewhere to mule a LotG doesn't hurt.

CJ is a popular choice for many characters since it gives a little bit of defense for virtually no endurance cost and is useful for maneuvering around.

Hover is popular with a lot of characters that fight primarily from range since it makes you nearly immune to melee attacks. It's not a great choice for all Dominators since some sets require you to be on the ground (Earth Control) and other sets have a strong melee focus. Still for some Dominators it's a good choice.

Fighting is a prime tool for anyone trying to hit the defensive softcap. Not Domiantors tend to build for recharge more than defense but once you have perma-dom building up defense isn't a bad idea either.

Finally Leadership is a nice pool for any character who can spare the slots. Even if your character doesn't get the best values for it (such as Domiantors) it's a buff for the entire team and stacking Leadership form multiple characters can be very powerful.

For Doms, you pretty much always take the Speed pool for Hasten and the Fighting pool for Weave/Tough. That leaves you two miscellaneous pools. Usually you're looking for LotG mules, since you really want to try to get that 7.5% recharge and every bit of defense helps. Stealth is good for this, because it not only lets you decide when or if you engage a spawn but it has up to 3 powers that accept defense IO's. Leaping is a common choice because Combat Jumping gives good maneuverability for very little endurance and can take a LotG. Flight is also good, Hover and Afterburner both accept LotG and Hover is great in combat. Leadership is great for helping the team and, as always, it gives yet another place where you can put a LotG (noticing a theme?). For epic pools, you usually take either Ice or Mace. Ice is just made of win - smash/lethal defense, a self heal with +hp, a rest + temp invuln power, two location AoEs (one with knockdown). Mace is simpler but has two powers that take LotG and a temp pet, which is always nice. Psi may become popular in I24 though, since it's the only way to hit the magic 22% +tohit for instant snipes.

You want to avoid Presence and Teleportation, and if you can get by without Medicine do so (in your case, Spirit Tree should be a valid substitute for Aid Self). Teleportation gives you pretty much nothing, unless you want it for Recall Friend. You're one of the most fragile of squishies, so you want to avoid the aggro inducing Presence powers (keep an eye on it though, Arbiter Hawk mentioned they're revamping the pool), though if you can spare two powers those fears might be tempting for certain primaries that lack good hard controls. Medicine requires a junk power - you're not a Defender or a Controller, you don't need to be spending powers on something that won't benefit you - and can be interrupted.

Or you can just take whatever makes sense for your character.

Aid Other is rarely wasted on most Dominators because most have pets and not a lot of good ways to directly support them. It is also useful for keeping Lore pets from signing off early.