oedipus_tex

Thought about it a bit more, and conceptually I wonder if what you're looking for is a Gravity/Traps or Gravity/Trick Arrow Controller. Both I can picture fitting your "Jedi" concept fairly well. Gravity can solo well from early on thanks to high damage in Lift and ok damage in Propel. As Grav/Traps you can set a field of traps and Wormhole enemies onto them. On teams you can just toebomb the Traps on top of enemies. As Grav/TA you have an arsenal of debuff and a semi-nuke in Oil Slick Arrow. Procc'ed out Ice Arrow and Acid Arrow give this toon surprisingly strong attack capabilities. Aesthetically both sets feature a collection of bleeps and whirrs that sound mechanical. With TA you can even pick a bow that is kind of light saber-y.

You mentioned the ability to solo. IMO the more solo-friendly sets tend to be: Fire Gravity Plant Illusion Dark Not that the others can't solo. The above five will usually have an easier time of it though. For secondaries, IMO the some of the more solo friendly sets for beginners are: Kinetics Trick Arrow Traps Storm (mostly after level 35) Dark Into a second category I'd put "solo-ish" (good but requiring a specific build and understanding of mechanics to harness the solo potential): Nature Radiation Cold Time Electric Poison Again, not that others sets completely can't solo. Some folks also might disagree with my rankings. You mentioned the character being a Jedi. There are a lot of ways that could play out. I happen to think Traps or Trick Arrow are both pretty Star-War'sy. You also said you wanted to avoid buffing a ton. IMO that rules Empathy out. Empathy is one of busiest click buff sets. If you're not that into buffing individual folks or pets, you could try a set like Dark or Nature.

There are a few enemy powersets in the AE that provide +Perception. Not sure if any enemies in the core game also have it. I can't remember which sets specifically have it, but I think there may be some in Willpower and Super Reflexes. I've given members of those enemy groups +Perception in order to make the map more challenging. Super Invisibility can still slip through, though, unless the enemy has tons of +Perception stacked from some power like Clear Mind.

I definitely read this as "Psychic Side-chick" at first.

Hello, thanks for sharing your build. Overall, you're hitting some impressive Defense and Resist numbers, which is difficult for a Dominator, The build you have is very sturdy, at least for a Dominator. I can tell from your slotting you've got some experience, because a lot of the slotting is clever, and the power choices are sound. Where I think you have room for improvement is slotting to some specific skills. Heart of Darkness. This is one of your main controls. You'll likely want Accuracy, Recharge, and Stun Duration. Alternatively, it can be slotted with Damage procs. I usually land somewhere down the middle. If you plan to always cast Gather Shadows before casting this, you can skimp a tiny bit. But I still like the duration on my hard controls to be long. Seismic Smash. This is one of the highest damage attacks in the game. There are two main ways to approach it: procs or damage slotting. Personally I like procs here, because you can put the Dominator ATO proc, plus two purple procs into it, resulting in crazy damage. If you do proc it out, make sure you pick up some Accuracy and ToHit elsewhere in the build. Fissure. This power is unlikely to hit with just one slot. If you take it, slot it for Accuracy and Damage. You can also opt to proc this out. Personally I rarely find in a Dominator build room to proc out more than about 2 attacks, and that's pushing it. IMO Seismic is the better one for procs, and Fissure is usually better for basic set slotting. But other folks may have reasons to disagree. Stealth. This is fine to take, I usually do. Just make sure you've set the Attacked flag in Mids Options. That will show your build after you've been Attacked (lost the Stealth bonus). Doing that currently drops your Ranged Defense to 39%, which is below soft cap. That's fine as long as you're aware of it--especially since Dark Control will be debuffing enemy ToHit. If you decide to increase your Ranged defense a bit, change the purple set currently in Shadow Field to x4 Basilisk's Gaze. You'll lose a small amount of Recharge but gain some Ranged defense back, plus regain a slot and be able to move the Purple damage proc to Seismic Smash. Dominator +Damage ATO. It's currently in Dark Grasp, which is fine, as long as you use that power a lot. I mentioned above possibly putting it into Seismic Smash, but it's up to you. Fearsome Stare. You included a damage proc here which is fine to do. Just keep in mind the damage procs means Fearsome Stare means enemies will shoot back at you (similar to Mind Control's Terrify). Without that proc, if they Fear'ed they normally lose the ability to respond. It's always a difficult choice whether to keep or lose the proc here. Mud Pots. This is an aura with low proc chances. I'd consider slotting with x5 Ice Mistral's Torment. That will provide some +recharge, +slow resist, and provide some endurance discount, while also increasing the slow run speed of the Mud Pots, somewhat useful for you as a Dark Control to keep enemies from staggering away from your Heart of Darkness. Manuevers. It's probably not worth the 2 slots you have here just for some minor additional Defense. I'd move these to Heart of Darkness. Super Speed. Fine to take this, just making sure you know you can gain invisibility from Super Speed with a Celerity proc, in case you want to drop Stealth for Combat Jumping, which costs much less endurance to run. Some players do like to take both Stealth and Super Speed, so really up to you. You pick Nerve. Personally, I'd consider changing that to Intuition, for the Damage, Range (for your cones) -ToHit (Dark powers), and more Slow Movement (Mud Pots).

Something in Arachnos completely wrecks my Dominators. Perhaps it's been this power all along. I need to make some videos of the death point. What I do is know is against Arachnos at high difficulties I'm usually at 100% health until suddenly I'm dead, and I'm not entirely sure why.

In complete fairness, the better I get at making builds, the more I think there's a larger issue with the Dominator class and not just specific sets. I still find my Dominators enjoyable, but lately I've been finding it more effective to build Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors who can get many of the benefits of a Dominator without dealing with Dom headaches. A kinda weird thing is that because it's assumed that Controllers and Dominators have strong controls in the primaries, they tend to not get as much control in their secondaries and APPs. Other archetypes can actually have an easier time stacking mezz. I'm definitely not claiming every Blaster is a pocket Dominator, but it's also the case that they can be built to be very control friendly, and don't share the Dom's overeliance on Recharge or difficulty gaining access to sources of healing and recovery, plus have more hit points.

I agree with this. I am hopeful for a review of the Control sets one day. If that were to happen, I'd hope to see an update to Propel to make it more appealing for Dominators. Among possible options would be greatly increasing its Recharge, which would allow it to have a much higher base damage and thus increase its DPA (with its current cast time, I'd hope for a Recharge around 16 - 20, on par with heavy hitting Dominator attacks.) Or, it could be turned into a true AoE attack. Dominators don't have any ranged AoE blasts, so that would be a unique capability that lines up with Gravity's intended design, a set that trades control for extra damage. All of that said, do not let my critiques of Gravity stop you from playing it. The good news about Control sets is the teams that made them poured a lot of love into the designs. Whether or not each set is an optimal performer is secondary to whether it is fun, and I think even the sets I'm not crazy about in terms of performance are still unusual and exciting to play.

That's true, but since this was an AE fire farm, there was no debuff to worry about. Probably still a good habit to keep it toggled on, so thanks for the reminder. 🙂

This is my Plant/Kin, "Green-Energy," I really wanted to put a little tree on his head, but I settled for a Roman flourish colored green. "Snow Watt." A Bots/Cold Mastermind. With robots named Grumpy, Doc, etc. "Tweetstorm." I've used this costume for a few various Storm runs. He uses the bat aura colored Twitter-blue. "Meal Deal" who has been a few varieties of Fire, Radiation, and Poison sets. One day I'll settle on an actual identity for him! "Pinball Mattachine" "Gender Reveal Artie" is a Fire/Traps Corruptor. "Sarcopha-Guy" who I swear one day I'll commit to a powerset. Rerolled many many times after discovering I didn't like how particular armor particle effects layer on the costume. One day... And my namesake, Oedipus Tex himself, in case you've ever wondered what the figure in my logo looks like life size. Currently a Earth/Savage Dominator. And of course Lisa Frankenfurter, who thanks to Homecoming's efforts to bring us Electric Affinity finally has a life as Beam Rifle/Electric Affinity Corruptor.

A psychic as A psychic astronaut you say? I'd have a hard time not naming him Space Ghostradamus.

Thanks for the info. It's these small, interesting variations that keep this game fresh all these years later.

I'm afraid I don't follow what you mean by the "Dom carrying the Scrapper." I feel like a Scrapper would keep their armor powers on because controls won't carry them through. That's the point. That is the situation the Dominator is always in. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm being pedantic by underlining the point: the Dominator has to rely on those controls to survive. They don't get Armor. They don't get Buff/Debuff. They are the only class like this. They get mezz protection from their Domination and nothing else. You might think Dominators must have excellent ranged damage. But which Fireball below belongs to Scrappers, and which to Dominators? Most Dominator's source of AoE comes from three places: Mediocre ranged, slow casting cones 15ft radius PBAoEs (sometimes smaller) APP blasts, which aren't unique to them. Any class that doesn't get AoE blasts in their primaries or secondaries gets this, including Scrappers, Brutes, Tankers, Masterminds, and Stalkers There is no Dominator set with a ranged spherical attack or rain DoT, with arguably one exception--Roots, the AoE immobilize in Plant Control. Dominators are not Blasters. They are (mostly) up close fighters. Fiery Assault is considered such a good set in part because it provides excellent damage without engaging in close combat. On the single target front, Dominators do have some decent ranged attacks. All of Fire Assault is excellent. Some of the Holds can be procced out for good damage. The Snipe powers are excellent. But a lot of sets don't have very good ranged damage. The designers really wanted the class to get up close and personal. It's a great idea and I like what they were going for. I just don't think it totally succeeds. Sometimes things are what they are--and a Dominator is an unarmored character trying to survive close range based mostly on Control powers. You may feel that's an unfair analogy, but I don't think it's far from the mark at all. I think a Scrapper without armor probably would be able to live for a while and thrive until suddenly taking a giant hit and dropping dead, or running into something immune to controls and hitting the floor. The classic Dom experience.

The Scrapper in the analogy is in a duo with a Dominator.

A related analogy I gave to someone recently about the strength of Dominators was: create a Scrapper and a Dominator duo. Have the Scrapper skip all their Armor powers on the theory that the Dominator's controls will be sufficient. The analogy isn't perfect, but is very close to what playing an average Dominator is, except a Dominator gets 321 fewer hit points. That's why you see the top Dominator builds tending to be what they are. Sets that break the main mold of the class either by allowing mostly ranged (Fire Assault) healing (Dark or Psi Assault), way outliers on damage/control (Plant), or overpowered APP powers (Sleet). Roll something random that actually fits withing the classes' main model, like Elec/Thorns, Gravity/Energy, Ice/Electric, Mind/Martial, lots of others I could pull out randomly, and it's a different experience. It's kinda fun to play on a knifes edge at times, but I'm not sure the payoff is totally there. Especially in AV fights where the whole "blapper with literally zero armor or buff/debuff" concept IMO falls on its face.

I was actually on a fire Farm recently where the Brutes left and a Poison/Water Defender who had been helping them went on to continue farming the map. He did die a few times, and used Soul Transfer to rezz. It was definitely impressive.

Personally I would argue the opposite. I think Armored characters benefit the most from IOs, because they have better bases to work with and fewer holes to try to cover. You can IO a squishy character and get pretty good Defense, but you really you're just chasing behind Brutes and Scrappers, and more recently Tankers and Stalkers. Outside of some specific builds, It's very hard to lose the fundamental squishiness.

Thanks for the suggestion for Thugs Mastermind. Kinda off topic, but I always thought it was a shame Necromancy doesn't have a similar power. Swarming Zombies seems very thematic and fun.

The only inspiration I store is the Rezz ones. I email those to myself as they drop so that I have a reserve. No reason to ever keep them in the tray, just get them from email when they're needed. One kinda nice thing about that as someone who plays way too many alts is it allows low level alts to contribute to the overall roster. They are as likely as any other character to get a rezz to drop, and into the email it goes until I need it.

One of the most exciting things about City of Heroes is how much room there is for new powersets. A smash-into-your-targets Blast set would be a lot of fun. Maybe one day we'll get one.

RE: Red Side. The reason I've never liked it is a villain seems like they should be doing most of their villainous things on the blue side. The Rogue Isles are fine as a home-base concept. I don't like them conceptually for the majority of missions. I know the reasons we ended up with separate "sides" but wish villains had more opportunities to cause problems in Paragon. It doesn't need to be a full PVP scenario, just some kind of way for villains to do actual villainous things versus hanging out in their club house. I feel like in the current implementation the real villains are the Vigilantes and Rogues.

Oh yah, kinda related to the topic of Cloak of Darkness. I don't think the Stealth in the Illusion Control power Superior Invisibility suppresses at all in PVE. I'm pretty sure I remember situations where I've been fighting one group, been knocked back into the middle of another group, and got up and walked away without the second group reacting at all. You do have to watch for your pets alerting enemies, but otherwise I think it will hide you completely until you alert them with an attack. It's been a very long time since I tried it tho, maybe someone familiar with the current way the set works can comment. Group Invisibility looks like it may work the same way based on what I see in City of Data. Interestingly, critters with +Perception may finally draw a dividing line between Superior Invisibility and Group Invisibility for Illusion trollers. Super Invis has 200 feet radius Stealth versus just 60 for Group Invis.

Minor note about that extra base Perception: Extra Perception on critters can be extremely dangerous. Extra Perception doesn't just cut through your Stealth, it actually widens the area of awareness the critter has. That means on a character with no Stealth at all, they'll aggro from further away. This can come as a real shock if you're used to being able to get pretty close to packs without aggroing them. I haven't run into these critters in the new Task Force yet, so I am not sure if they share the same mechanics. In the AE though enemies with certain powersets can have extra Perception, and it will cause them to aggro from much further away than you're expecting. Some mission designers with murder in mind take advantage of this to cause the whole map to descend on the player team and disallow easy tank and spank strategies. I believe having some Stealth on your toon counteracts the extra range of enemy Perception, so even if you're not totally invisible, you're still better off than the player with no Stealth at all, who is suddenly aggroing enemies from across the map.

I don't think there's a current set that's a great match for Cannonball. I imagine the closest match is a Sentinel though. Possibly a Fire/Shield or Energy/Shield Sentinel with minimalized Shield graphics (trying setting one of the particle based ones to a very low opacity). Alternatively he could be any Sentinel Armor like Super Reflexes or Invincibility combined with Combat Teleport. EDIT: Forgot Shield isn't available to Sentinels. 😞 So if you go Sentinel, you could go with Invincibility or Super Reflexes with Combat Teleport. Sentinel nukes recharge in half the time of other blast characters, which seems to fit his theme of big, up close nuker. Inferno doesn't have knockdown/back, but Nova will. Energy Blast colored bright orange looks good as a fire-energy concept. It is possible to Combat Teleport into enemies while Hovering. Note if you prefer to go actual melee, any variety of Electric Melee + Shield character basically is this. You may be put off by the look of the lightning attacks though.

Update, I have now played the Shield version of this toon to 49, both solo and on teams. I was initially worried about how a shield would look with the Energy pom poms, but a great thing about Shield is the many costume options available. I discovered that using an Energy Shield with a low opacity was undistracting, and kinda looked like a field of energy coming from the Energy Melee fists. Combined with a "pixel" aura applied to the fists to give a disco ball kind of effect, I think it came together and looks kinda cool. Anyway, as much as I liked Super Reflexes, I am loving Shield. I had played Shield once before, on a Martial Arts/Shield Scrapper, but didn't come away super impressed. Here I love it. I've been leveling myself up by joining teams when they're available, and doing fire farms in the AE at low settings. I've found a clear of the fire tunnel map at x8+1 is about the right challenge level for the incomplete build. I earn about 3/4ths of a level per run. This toon currently has many of the Uniques slotted, sans the level 50 ones, but no actual sets yet. I made a little video of the character in the AE here. I accidentally left the ally buff toggle on out of habit, but end use wasn't too bad here between all the various sources of it. I specced into Energy Torrent to help a bit with AoE damage in the farm. Not sure I'll keep it, but it looks cool so I may try. I really love how all the powers come together. It's super flashy and a great fit for such a ridiculous character. One kinda minor issue I have is when there are lot of enemies, they like to crowd behind me, which makes backing up a step for Energy Torrent/Power Crash a bit harder. If I can squeeze it in, I may take Combat Teleport. Anyway, long story short, as much as I enjoyed Super Reflexes, this character's future looks to be Shield/En. It's way too much fun. I can't wait to get a build going and see how it performs with some set bonuses and IOs. I happened to do a Summer Blockbuster and got this shot. Unfortunately the shield and energy fists aren't included: