DreadShinobi

Storm is also very good with Sonic Attack. The -res from your shouts increases the damage of your tornado and lightning storm which just rips through AV health bars insanely fast even without regen debuffs in the set. Storm Summoning can be an excellent choice to dip into Burnout in the speed pool to double summon tornados, lightning storms, and freezing rain. This is the strongest way to ramp up your damage fast for AVs - starting the fight with 2 lightning storms and then ramping up to 3 storms. You can take conserve power or power sink to manage the burnout crash from ancillary pools or use ageless/vigor. Sonic is also pretty endurance light, to complement the end heavy storm summoning I would think Storm with Beam Rifle would also be a good combo. You get a bit of regen debuff and you still get 1 resist debuff attack in the set compared to Sonic. The t3 blast is also a stun which could theoretically make Thunderclap useful but I've never played Beam rifle.

Ancillaries were originally introduced before IOs. IOs have drastically warped the implementation of ancillary pools because the main penalties applied to ancillary powers to balance them vs primary/secondary powersets is recharge, damage, and endurance penalties - all of which can be nearly eliminated by IOs or capitalized on with IOs. Using recharge/endurance/damage penalties to balance ancillaries in effect makes them balanced around IOs. The double edged sword here is Homecoming is a small volunteer team. This means both, that changes involving significant investments of time or 'enormous shake-ups' are unlikely, but also that we are currently having epic power pools looked at right now and it is unlikely they will be looked at again in a long time. If things are missed here it is unlikely to be revisited after the patch is released, precedence has shown this. Patching the game doesn't owe any favors to previous developers or previous design directions that are outdated. If powers are just being adjusted to a preexisting damage formula, you could say much of this falls under bug fixes than balance pass, which is what the epic pools sorely need. Powers that are obviously always 'skip this power', 'don't touch this power with a 39 and a half foot pole', and 'we only take this power because it is a prerequisite for tough/weave/rune of protection/soul drain/etc and otherwise i don't even keep it on my power tray' is not good game design. All 5 powers don't need to be amazing powers, but they should all be fine, passable, or situational at a minimum. Powers that are always skipped should be analyzed for how they can be improved. There are typically at least 8 epic power pool options and often I find that for any given character I am really only considering 2 or 3 pools and within those 2 or 3 pools it is only 1-3 powers that I actually want because so many powers have such gutted numbers that they cant find placement in most player's builds. And yes, I am specifically saying that some underperforming powers should be looked at being buffed in ways that breaks the current damage/recharge/endurance formula because they are so bad that nobody takes them. Buff the dust collectors. Edit: I think @Onlyasandwich is articulating my point better than I am 🙂 I think there is too much weight being put on the formula being used for balance and I think the way @Onlyasandwich highlights how important it is in "grappling with that subjectivity" with those perfectly phrased 3 questions.

Maybe using the terms ancillary, tertiary, or patron to refer to these power pools and discontinuing to refer to them as "Epic Power Pools" could clear up some confusion around their placement in the game. As you waited 35 levels to unlock them only to find out many of the power options, while following general guidelines for consistency, are often so gutted to the point of being impractically unusable. The recharge penalties on some powers do not feel like they make them balanced, they feel like enormous red flags saying do not pick this power. If you do not have damage procs or recharge IO set bonuses to offset their penalties they can be excessively lackluster to pick up for a casual player or leveling up build. Many of these powers call into question intended IO usage and is the game being balanced around SOs or IOs -> at lvl 35-49. They feel like a trap for newer players. Should the goal be to balance these powers to a metric that makes x% weaker than primary/secondary version... or should a higher priority be to make more pools viable choices and more powers within those pools be viable choices.

Still seems like this power should do some minor fire damage over time. The problem with Frostwork is that it is a wildly varying massively overkill amount of +max hp, but not that +Max HP wasn't a desired ally buff. So why not keep 25% of the original value of the +Max HP buff and lower the new absorb amount a smidge? Now you get to keep a relevant HP buff in the game and give a very monotone power something new and active to do.

Sooo, I am actually really confused about why Sleet is now worse than Freezing Rain. Sleet was originally a villain only power later ported to defenders. Here, the base value of sleet is being adjusted down from the recipient of powerset proliferation. Sleet was originally 30% on corruptors and if the overall direction of power balancing is consistency then the incorrect numbers for Sleet are Defenders not receiving higher debuff modifiers when it was ported to them... unless your reasoning is different, then freezing rain should also be nerfed here for corruptors/controllers/masterminds, and not buffed for defenders. This is strictly a sleet nerf, not fixing incorrect values. I hope to see more patch notes that look like the thunderstrike consistency pass. HC patches have introduced so many inconsistencies (especially in regards to animation times) where powers with the same name can perform wildly different based on what powerset or archetype they belong to, which was much less common pre homecoming.

Oh my where are the tums for my build digestions... there is much that can be changed here, proceed with caution! -drop an armaggeddon out of inferno for fury of the gladiator resistance debuff -Defiant Barrage is most consistent in fireball for keeping the status resistance active. You get a chance for each target hit, similar to how forcefeedback procs work. -Blazing Bolt would much rather have sting of the manticore set bonuses with an extra dmg proc. -Where is your Apocalypse set? -6 LotG in Weave, 6 LotG in Maneuvers, 5 Aegis in Tough, and 5 Aegis in Fire Shield is a massive waste of slots. -The miracle proc in RotP will only be active after resurrecting. RotP can be slotted with Preventive Medicine proc which is always active, a KB-KD proc for better combat rez, 5 absolute amazement for set bonuses, or 3 eradication for E/N defense. -Numina proc should be in health (alongside miracle) Cauterizing Aura has way too many things to slot to want a full numina set locking out all of those options. -No Gaussian proc in Aim -No LotG in CJ -Flares is completely wasted, Ring of Fire has better DPA, immobilize utility, can be used while CC'd like flares, can be a lvl 1 power pick, and can take those thunderstrikes from flares (also saving a slot) -Fire Sword is also a pretty good lvl 1 power pick if you instead want 5 hecatombs for set bonuses or 2 Hecatombs (dmg+proc) and 4 other dmg procs. -Hot Feet is an integral part of playing fire manipulation and you're much better served choosing a different secondary if you're going to skip Hot Feet. -Fire Breath is stupidly good compared to general perception with 5 Posi Blasts and an extra dmg proc. When you don't have Inferno up, fireball is not enough AoE damage without a second follow-up AoE. You can joust with Fire Breath into the spawn so that you land while damaging them with Cauterizing Aura / Hot Feet. -Rain of Fire is lacking on blasters compared to Corruptors. -Sprint doesn't need 2 slots. Put the stealth proc in a prestige sprint and put a +5 run/end IO in your 'combat sprint' -Skipping super speed means you don't have that extra layer of stealth and no threat level reduction. -if you have extra slots you can beef up with regen slotting in health: Miracle, Panacea, and Regen Tissue uniques, Numina unique and Numina: Heal. Impervious Skin in Tough or Fire Shield. -if you have extra slots 6 stupefy in boxing is pretty good set muling for +rchg and +ranged defense. +rchg and +ranged def in the same set is quite rare outside of purples. -As a baseline for polishing a build, trying to get 4-5 LotG (CJ, Weave, Manuevers, Veng (30% global rchg)) or (CJ, Weave, Stealth, Infiltration, Grant Invis (37.5% global rchg)) and 5 purple sets (50% global recharge) will get you to 80-87.5% global recharge. -Spiritual Core Paragon (and other recharge granting alphas) reduces your proc chance on almost all powers. -Musculature Core Paragon is a significant boost to DPS with Blaster base damage.

I like Poison/Rad/Dark. Venomous Gas/Oppressive Gloom/Soul Drain/Irradiate all lend well to thriving in melee. Oppressive Gloom stuns all minions and stacks with Cosmic Burst to 1 shot stun bosses. You don't need to slot anything for accuracy using soul drain/tactics/kismet/vigor/setbonuses/defense debuffs so you can shove a crazy number of damage and utility procs into the build. Poison/Fire is very strong too or you can go for Dark or Water Blast to have a self heal, but I've never found it a necessary to make poison work.

But causing your allies to puke their guts out 90 seconds post rez is absolutely an obligatory part of playing a poison defender. Storm, TA, and Poison all make for excellent Offenders.

If you are playing Domi pre perma dom you definitely want to be planning out your mission pacing to have your domination bar full when youre ready to engage an expected EB encounter. Seems like you might find some useful info here: Inner Inspiration to refill your insp tray with large insps is super nice. The self rez will alleviate some hospital trips and Return to Battle pops all large insps upon rez. Mission Teleports and travel power temps are nice for zones like faultline. Specific to playing a dominator, the recovery serum is super nice as dominators can tend to be endurance heavy even with domination refilling the blue bar. Dominators typically lack a self heal, you can purchase a med pack for that. Both of these temp powers mean more space in your insp tray for non-blue/non-green insps that are more useful. The offense amplifier is expensive to maintain but the extra recharge can be helpful for a low level dom or an exemping dom to maintain perma dom or for the tohit buff. Lockdown and Devastation +mag 2 hold procs can be slotted in your tesla cage starting at lvl 27 if you want to have more reliable hold stacking before reaching perma dom.

The thoughts around Thorny Assault in this thread are disappointing. 1) Thorny Assault needs few build parameters in order to perform well, once you have enough global accuracy to fully proc load certain powers, there really isnt much else you need other than hitting global recharge benchmarks. 2) Thorny Assault is best with primaries that offer confusion control, because what Thorny Assault does best is apply -def to decrease how often critters miss each other while confused. If your experience with thorny assault hasnt been with Ice or Plant control it just isn't the same. Only Rad Assault can replicate this at all with Atom Smasher which also has a 3 second animation, but also a longer cooldown (22 vs 17) and a smaller radius (10 vs 15), and applies a much smaller defense debuff (12 vs 30). Musculature Core Paragon actually bumps Thorn Burst up to a massive 39.9% defense debuff and used early in your engage will ideally also be rolling to apply fury of the gladiator and achilles heel. 3) Dom AoEs are not fast. Assault sets are not blast sets where things need to compete with 1 second cast time aoes. Engulfing Darkness, Deafening Wave, and Fissure are 2.244s and Tremor is 2.772s and is Thunder Strike. Whirling Hands at 2.64s. Fire Breath and Combustion are 2.904s and 3.168s. Frost Breath and Ice Sword Circle are 2.904s each. If you want to play a dom with any aoes coming from their secondary with under a 2 second cast time you are locked into Martial Assault or interestingly enough... Thorny Assault, with fling thorns. Thorn Burst is very easy to cast safely by jumping as you cast it so you're not a vegetable... 4) Thorny Assault isnt actually all that slow. Skewer animation is faster than Blaze (brawl animation) and 5 dmg proc Skewer with a +5 Hecatomb: dmg IO is just shy of being on par with the DPA of 5 Apocalypse Blaze with an extra dmg proc. Except that Skewer also has an incredible 6 second base cooldown which means you can get the recharge down to fit a skewer in between any other action you take that has a 2 second animation or higher. Skewer>Ripper>Skewer>Thorn Barrage>Skewer for example is very easy to reach. At 290% global recharge buff (70% hasten, 20% sg base buff, 100% global recharge (or 85% with offense amplifier), and during a Forcefeedback cycle, you can even Skewer>Impale>Skewer. Whatever you happen to be doing your next Skewer is probably ready, and they hurt. Good positioning and jousting is very important for a Thorny Dom because you always want to be in melee range of a valid target for your next Skewer even if your previous target died or you need to move to avoid damage. 5) You barely notice the set is a highly resisted damage type when everything you can shove so many exotic damage procs into the set, many being negative energy damage and most others being fire/cold/energy/smashing. Then after a Sleet and Thorn Burst opener you have a resistance debuff potential of -82.5% and their defense is floored so you also have a massive amount of dps coming in from your confusion. 6) Thorny Assault has some nice perks compared to other assault sets. -It has a Build Up power. Tohit buffs are unique only to Thorny, Rad, Elec, Savage, and Martial. -It has forcefeedback access. Dark, Fiery, and Icy assaults do not have any access, and other sets aren't as reliable at keeping forcefeedback uptime as Thorny is. -You can keep forcefeedback active in your single target rotation. -For a dom assault set, it isn't that mean to your blue bar. Not relying on a Snipe in your attack chain, or other 18-20 base endurance clicks in most other assault sets is noticeable. -Tons of flexibility how you want to approach a final build -It is a set that exemplars very well, again rare for doms. 7) So when full time dom player moonsheep describes Thorny Assault as "ok" damage and long animations, an eyebrow is raised at the least. Thorny Assault is a high risk/high reward dom set. Because of reliance on damage procs you're less likely to have as much defensive set bonuses as fiery assault for example that doesn't rely as heavily on procs. And Thorny is not only a melee set running a lower threshold of defensive set bonuses, it is uniquely bound to positioning playstyle. Safely jousting Thorn Bursts. Always using your longer cast times to move your character into melee range for your next skewer. Using Thorn Barrage to fill positioning gaps and finding good multi hit Rippers. I don't use Fling Thorns or Thorntrops, but they both fit the same positioning-esque playstyle. Both your offensive output and your survivability are more heavily impacted by your movement inputs than other sets or archetypes, but that has been a source of enjoyment on this dom rather than a constraint or a frustration. My thorny dom is squishy and frail but lacking in dps it is not. 8 ) Thorny Assault currently does not have all of the correct IOs available to it and if they ever fix Thorn Barrage to allow Def Debuff IOs and Accurate Def Debuff IOs the set could move up quite alot.

Shockwave is great if you can fit it in to your build, it is the best mitigation / soft control you will get for claws/wp via the knockback->knockdown IO. Usually used as an opener to reduce alpha strike damage while jousting in to the middle of the spawn for a following Spin attack. Because of the fast animation time it can even be DPA efficient in a single target rotation provided you have the endurance to maintain it. Juggling bosses usually beneficial as well, but its primary use is as a mitigation opener and 1-2 punch with Spin for your AoE output. Shockwave has some interesting proc options including FF +rchg and annihilation -res, which mainly open up at higher levels when you have global set bonuses to cover Shockwave's accuracy and endurance cost. The following is a higher end slotting example for Shockwave using Musculature Core Paragon to hit 110% dmg buff with a +5 dmg/range Posi IO. Use Kismet/Global Accuracy/Tactics/Focused Accuracy to skimp on the accuracy slotting. 5 posi blast IOs + overwhelming force also works for a a more endurance efficient, less accuracy dependent Shockwave, albeit less damage and utility. Level 32: Shockwave -- OvrFrc-Dam/KB(A), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(33), PstBls-Dam%(33), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(33), Ann-ResDeb%(34), FrcFdb-Rechg%(34)

Soul generally has the most going for it with Gloom being such a good single target attack, Dark Obliteration being a solid AoE, and Darkest Night providing that juicy -30% dmg debuff. Hard to compete with all that, and I wouldn't skip all that for focused accuracy unless there were other reasons. Soul mastery is both power pick intensive and slot intensive to get the most out of it. Tankers usually want all of leadership and fighting which doesnt leave much room for heavy ancillary investment. If you don't have at least 3 power picks available and the slots to fuel it then Soul Mastery's value drops quickly. Focused Accuracy is a bit too passive for me and I generally find it's convenience as an easy 1 power pick up to not be favorable over the utility lost from choosing a different ancillary. Proc Bomb Arctic Breath is my new lovechild looking at Leviathan Mastery in a new light. Sitting at -47.5% resist debuff when both procs go off makes it a great choice for a more offensive oriented team tanker.

Experimental Injection can be a good pool power pick for a blaster/support duo which can let you nab some mez protection for your blaster friend without locking you into specific powersets to grant it, if you wanted to play something like cold domination.

I would love to see a buff to clarity. Either make it an AoE like increase density or increase the recharge and give it additional buff properties akin to fortitude/forge/temporal selection. Clarity could give a large tohit buff and psi resist buff with a longer recharge to compensate. Also agree liquefy needs a recharge reduction and possibly sticky debuff treatment for enemies that move outside the area, akin to freezing rain. Would also like to see sonic siphon actually ... siphon ... like kinetics. Would be cool to see a small self buff or pbaoe buff centered on the target.

Ice/Elec