Vinceq99

This game is city of AOE not city of snooze single target dmg. Mind is an old set and just doesn't compare to the other primaries on a dominator. When everyone is an incarnate level shifted with IOs mind doesn't offer anything more than what another primary can do when all you want to do is delete a spawn with your powers. You have blasters with the mentality of kill or be killed with nukes up every other spawn. You have scrapper and brutes able to decimate in melee, heck even tankers got a damage buff. Basically this game has gotten so much power creep that everyone wants to just aoe spawns instantly so putting a spawn to sleep in order for you to single target something down safely is something you'll never ever see teams following. So the best Dominators who can one shot cc a group to deny their alpha strike are the ones you want to play and match it with the secondaries that do the most damage. Plant , Dark, Earth all have very fast recharging and fast acting abilities to shut down a spawn so you can go about destroying them. Fire has bonfire which is just broken by adding a simple IO to it. Electric takes a multi prong approach with a pulsing sleep, chaining confuse and end drain. In essence elec will shut down a group in time but won't be so successful with completely denying attacks until some time passes. Gravity has wormhole but that takes eons to activate at 3 seconds or so. A blaster would have nuked that spawn dead before you even finished the ability. Gravity is only good as a controller because of the impact mechanic but as a dominator you have your assault secondaries that just make that advantage a wash. Ice has no benefit in being a dominator over a controller. Arctic air after the proc rules are a pale comparison to the beast that it was when the purple proc used to go off more frequently thereby securing it's role as a top controller. Now it's in the bottom barrel like mind control. Mind is a shadow of it's former self. Dark is the new kid in school who is cooler, edgier and better in control and damage. This set I wouldn't ever touch until control set gets their aoe holds unprunned . I just don't get the appeal of mind or ice when you have the big bad 3 of plant Dark and fire as a choice .

Wow what an excellent write up about your experience with this power set combo. Honestly this is why I love this damn game. Everyone can make a scrapper but there are infinite ways to make a unique scrapper. Anyways I'm going to take your build and load it up because after making stalkers I have now come to love the melee ATs. But I just didn't like the lack of aoe from stalker primaries.

Do your own work and you will see how this power behaves so differently. Summon carrior creepers with procs and then count every single proc you get on your combat log per spawn. You will see then which comes out ahead and which doesn't.

This is correct. When I said I tested this out I meant I painstakingly looked at combat logs and counted every proc in creepers. Until you do this on your own you aren't a true believer of carrior creepers. The math takes assumptions and it's not until you do this for yourself you will see how much the targeted aoe procs every few secs on carrion creepers My slotting for this power is one Ragnarok dmg+5 , 1 superior frozen blast A/D/R, one positron chance for energy, one javalon volley chance for lethal, one bombardment chance for fire, one annahilation chance for -res.

I would really love to see this. I play controllers and Dominators exclusively and having tried lots of combos and testing builds on live and on the beta server it's obvious PLANT and FIRE offer the best damage. But I'd like to see which is THE BEST. Plant has carrion creepers which are disgusting with dmg procs. But don't get fooled with any ole procs use only the TAOEs procs and impeded swiftness proc and you will see carrion creepers solo packs on its own. The strength of this power is propertional to mob density, with higher packs averaging the most vines to sprout. It's why Plant can solo the doors in BAFs with just carrion creepers doing a majority of the dmg before the mobs even step out. Roots does 2x more dmg than all other roots and ofcourse seeds is just nutty. Fire obviously has its own damage aura with hot feet. Bonfire also does great damage over time along with being good CC to open on every spawn. Procs unfortunately don't work to well here since toggles get such a penalty to fire them.

Umm thermal has an aoe heal too. But like I said I've played lots of MMs and also have an incarnate demons/nature. Nature is just as overbloated as time since it's one of the newer sets. However if you utilize the aoe hold it leaves you in the center of a pack of mobs and because demons are bulkier pets that also have alot of aoe cone attacks they tend to disperse in a surrounding manner around you. So at times when you need to heal alot of them you can miss one because of having to aim the heal. That's irksome to me since resists doesn't stop dmg it just mitigates it. So if you want to slow down your mobs dmg you gotta be in the thick of things with your aoe hold waiting for it to hold them. Then as I said your demons start "crowding" around you and the mobs and because they are some fat ass hefers they tend to social distance and spread out more than the other pets. Thus I still think dark is the best pairing for demons. Adding all those -tohit debuffs and the fear means very little damage comes through to your pets. Then on top of that with all the resists they have the dmg they receive is low so it's not stressful to heal them right there and then. Tar patch keeps mobs "lock down" and with intuition alpha tier 4 you get a very respectable stacking of slows with the tar patch and your demons prince. Mobs just stay put and melt while trying to hit you and your pets effectively blind.

If you want to be a steamroller then 2 primaries that are just a notch above others. Thugs and demons. Some say bots are good but honestly that's because the assault bot carries the set and the rest of the minions are underperforming. Of the secondaries time is also a notch above the others. Yes we can make arguments and builds for others but no other set has everything you need to solo and melt mobs. Capped defense -tohit -dmg heals recharge buffs +dmg and -res. Yeah it doesn't have alot of -regen for AVs but you can easily purchase envenomed daggers to stack with your own -regen. Demons are best with thermal. You get high resists to pets, aoe heals, and -res and debuffs to melt AVs. But from play testing dark performs amazingly with demons. Demons have innate high resists and dark just has so much debuffs that it's effective +def assuming you get your fearsome stare and darkest night on a majority of the mobs. That layered defense really keeps your pets safe as they stack -res on -res to melt mobs. So my 2 cents after making tons and tons of MMs thugs/times just feels so strong. My thugs/time has 240% global recharge with the Chrono shift buff. 45% def to melee and 45 to range. My pets are all def capped with extra and they all have the unique IOs so they have 35% resistance too. Now to the negatives of MMs. It's alot of babysitting. A patch or 2 ago they removed the behavior of your pets moving so when they are threatened or under a dmg patch they still stay put. Now it seems to be reverted and they run to the high hills still which can be really annoying. Another thing is that because the minions are under leveled they are subject to level penalties when fighting +4 enemies. You can circumvent this by fighting incarnate level content because then your supremacy buffs their levels to your max level as well. Just be aware of course that those mobs are generally tougher.