Championess

Yeah I don't believe PB affects those uniques but I haven't fine toothed combed every value I'm increasing. I'm happy its increasing active defense toggles and long recharging defense shielding when I click them while PBU is active, like say Unleash Potential. You're getting 50% more of the defense value you'd normally get out of the power while power boost is active. Quite nice in my book. I'll always consider PBU for builds so I might skip Aim in primaries in lieu of PBU so I can also have access to a power boosting effect if I ever need it plus then I pick up the nice armor.

You'll probably want one of the offensive ones to help fill in on the lower aoe. Bio or Shield would be good.

Yeah the tanker version is quite alright. Spinning Strike getting that 50% area increase is a real boon to the power along with it being high damage with max combo stacks. Shin Breaker is a real mean looking attack too. Rib Cracker and Shin Breaker combo looks like some real dirty fighting. Street Justice feels like it has the aethstetics that Super Strength wishes it could look so mean. StJ was probably the top ST stalker before EM got its revamp.

It's always good to get your accolades but its much better to have the Gaes accolade doing it this way as you can see you chug through blues. Surely the quickest especially if you have blues or Gaes handy.

I've got one of these. First glance I'd take Smite its one of the best dpa attacks doms can get and at lvl 1 at that. Gloom and Midnight Grasp are whatever. You want 3 beefy ST attacks the rest should be your controls and aoe. The attacks I'd use are Smite, Moonbeam and ET (likely proc'd out). With your strong epic armor I'd likely skip Fighting in lieu of Stealth, should save you 2 power picks there. Also with the change to TK I'd likely take that along with the combo move Levitate. Its a unique type of mitigation you get there. I compare its utility to say Terrify. Of all the powers in Mind Control I could see not taking are Mesmerize and Mass Hypnosis. The rest all bring a unique flavor.

Fast Energy Transfer doesn't use endurance (nor the long version, it uses hp) and its as fast as any of the piddypat attacks. It ensures the target is dead unlike maybe a small brawl finishes the target. Sure Total Focus uses a decent amount of endurance but overall though EM doesnt carry much endurance issues. Its especially fun spamming out fast ETs ensuring targets die so you can tab targets to the next fool npc nearby. I'd muuuucch rather have overkill at same animation/cost as other low tier attacks rather than having to guess if I may eliminate my target so I can move along.

Thats kinda how I see it too. There's two real good hard aoe controls that prevent fire on you and the team for a good while. An actual hold which does its job. Then the aoe confuses manage to not only keep the heat off your team but it also amplifies damage output to mobs at the cost of maybe hearing some whinging about my xps. Which clear speed outweighs the small penalty to xp gain as long as you help them beat themselves up. The aoe stun is great in Illusion also. Powers like aoe fears and stuns can be quite good. They just get a little bit overlooked because they might not accomplish a true lockdown or are highly resisted against thus are considered softer controls.

If you're looking for aoe burn on a dommie I'd say that comes more down to power pairing, pool picks and creativity/competence. There's very few dom assaults that have above average aoe attacks, mainly psi assault would be the pairing you'd look for. Or what I did on my Illusion/Nrg dommie is I went with Soul Mastery for all my aoe needs since ST damage and controls are accounted for in my primary. You can easily burn every mob on your own with a proc'd out Dark Obliteration, Soul Drain and heck even Dark Consumption procs well too if needed. Then you even have access to a far better boss pet in the Fortunata that you can trade in that 'sucky' phantasm. If you lean on what makes Illusion real good and get creative with some of your grievances toward it the tools are there if you're willing to adapt.

The one good thing about Dommies is how many purple sets they'll have access to. The downside is there's not as many slots to go around as you'd like. Typically I look to use the purple melee and range sets then look to controls to fill out the other 3. After getting purple sets, the ATO set and at least 4 lotgs slotted along with hasten that should get me near the recharge I want. So then I focus hp and range/melee defense bonuses. Along with proccing out well a few of my big hitter attacks.

All this. But it takes a good amount of practice and diligence to get used to using domination. Getting your recharge high enough from IO bonuses to achieve permadomination is the ideal goal. Baby steps are fine as you're leveling one and so just activating it when you see a tough fight coming would work well. The more teammates in proximity the more of a chunk you get to build. You can spam a pbaoe you might have to build it although solo that can take a while. I tend to interrupt my snipe while having the Gaes accolade active to make up for the chunks of endurance I'm using doing it this way. And you can always slowly build it by tossing snowballs at people.

It's no Energy Melee thats certain

Well it makes staff much more palatable having the free form and a BU in addition to getting AS as you say.

As for whats good on Scraps you cant go wrong with TW, BA or EM depending on the flavor you're looking for.

I'll have to agree about Staff and Kinetic Melee being meh on Scrappers. Then when you port over to Stalkers the addition of one more great ST attack really help both, and in KM's case the AS defines the set. Thats not to say minor tweaks arent still warranted, in the case of KM the Concentrated Strike animation should get cut down to 2s and keep the damage and everything else the same.

Okay so you're asking to have the t9 pet buffed. But you cant acknowledge how OP Phantom Army is. As others have said, Illusion/Rad's handle big bosses with ease regardless if Phantasm sucks. If they buff the t9 pet you're asking for Phantom Army to get nerfed. Maybe if they swapped around PA and Phantasm it might seem more appropriate to you since then you're getting your OP pets in the iconic 9th power slot.

As others have pointed out Illusion is in no need of a buff. It's in fact one of the best control sets due in large part to how good Phantom Army is. Sure pet AI should be tweaked for all control characters. If that someday happens where most pets are controllable and sets Illusion further ahead than the rest then don't discount some slight toning down of other things in Illusion. Incidently on my Illusion dom I found I could drop Phantasm for the boss Fortunata Seer pet. So much better, maybe adapt?

Yeah Frost is a very above average attack especially for being a melee cone. Although it gets weeded out for me once you can get fireball from the epic pools. Not much around my scrapper is living after fireball, frozen footstomp and DNA siphon. True though the first attacks are bleh. I take the sword because it looks cool and I set mule it.

Every defense power I get I slot a lotg in unless if its a defense based armor set then I get judicious where I slot the 5. Its the cheapest bang for your buck addition to your bonuses. Usually I end up with 4-5 defense powers from pools alone so yeah typically I'd slot 4-5 and look to get kb resists if the character needs it.

I have an Ice Melee Scrapper. Freezing Touch is fast ET on roids because it can be loaded with hold dmg procs as well. When it crits yeah I give FT a slight nod over ET because of the procing. I end up slotting ET with sets to get recharge so I can machinegun them out. Which that likely evens it out. All in all yeah its like you say and true for the other assaults, EM gets a 3rd beefy ST attack that others dont. Ice gets Frozen Aura, thats quite a good pbaoe attack. That and Freezing Touch are the reason to play the set.

The 3 extreme damage attacks EM gets on stalkers is a bit hard for other ones to match imo. Total Focus, fast ET, fast AS is a ruthless ST chain. Honestly there's no stalkers with a non AS attack like fast critting ET. My EM/Bio wrecks

I'd probably have to say it would be close, for blasters it'd be Ice blast and stalkers an EM/Bio, both would pump out ridonculous ST damage. Especially if you can rely on teammates having -res procs popping off so you can just get into your best chains.

Invuln on stalkers attains good resists per the norm for Invuln. Its also nice to have Dull Pain. Though since you're not powered by enemy count feeding your defense through Invincibilty, you get a decent value of typed damage defenses which then you'll need to build on. It's not terribly hard to target dmg type defenses along with things like Barriers and other defense powers in pools. All in all I think Invuln is a good tankier stalker, though I gotta say I enjoy my other armor sets more. Love the offensive ones in Bio and Shield, plus Energy Aura is a real good versatile one. I've enjoyed my EA stalker much more than my Invuln, you may want to look at EA if you're on the fence.

Yeah I'm in the camp of Ice Blast is top two of the blast sets and we want to make it better?! Yes the animation is long and holds you up from dishing out the better faster damage on the other blast powers. Its a power I skip on some ATs but on Corruptors when Scourge kicks in it hits like a truck and procs well. On Corruptors I take it and bury it 5th in my ST attack chain which I never get to, but on an AV when you get to scourge levels it moves up to 3rd for me with all that damage, procing and stacking holds it becomes tolerable to use. Ice assaults are good right where they are at.

Shield defense is a top tier armor. A little more clicky with the mez shield and Shield Charge but they are both so good you'll want to get accustomed to them. Shield can attain high resists/defense and DDR, only thing it really lacks is a heal. Of the more offensive armors it feels like the tankiest without being overly OP like Bio.

He uses that animation time to look into the future to see his target has already been ganked by the fire blaster.