Mercurias

If you want total lockdown as in, all enemies are either held or both stunned and immobilized, you may want Earth/Psy or Fire/, and I would personally go with Fire/Psy. If you broaden that determination to include Confusion and Fear as well as pure Holds and Stunlock/Immob, I would go for Dark/Psy for pure variety or Plants/Psy for the highest damage and strongest Control power in the game for Dominators (Seeds of Confusion).

Looks like a neat build, Tex! How does it play?

Hey there! There isn't really one, single way to build a Mind/Dark Dominator. Like everything in CoH, you can pretty-much find what works for you and run with it. One thing you'll probably want to focus on, though, is getting to Permadom, when Domination recharges before its effect runs out (which will give you a full endurance bar and refreshing your amped controls, as well as maintaining strong mez protection). To do that, you'll likely want 70-ish% global recharge plus Hasten. I tend to prefer 80/85% to be safe. Mind Control: Mesmerize: This power deals Psychic damage to a single target and puts it to sleep for a prolonged period of time. As far as single-target soft control goes, it isn't bad, but its damage isn't really something I would invest in heavily for a Dominator. A single Accuracy IO should be all this power needs to lock a darget down until your team mate uses an AoE and wakes it up again. Levitate: The Mind Control set cousin to Lift from Gravity Control. You yeet an enemy into the air, and they take smashing damage. I find this to be another solid control power, since you can chain it and continuously bounce a boss around before it gets an attack off. For Dominators, I put this in the "Nice to have, but hard to fit into a build" category, since Domination gives your mezzes enough juice to render it a little less useful than it would be for Controllers. Confuse: Your best control power. You make enemies into your minions temporarily, and they hit other enemies for you until they come to their senses. I highly recommend getting this power ASAP and slotting it with the Contagious Confusion proc at 50. Mass Hypnosis: Largely a solo power, or a useful power for running away. It's an AoE sleep, so it will mez most of a group until they're struck. Beware of AoEs. I tend to consider this a situational or optional power choice. Telekinesis: Grabs an enemy and other enemies nearby, then repels them. Nice for grouping up enemies and obliterating your endurance bar. Not my favorite power, but it has some uses and doesn't need a lot of slotting to do its job. Another optional choice. Total Domination: Your AoE Hold. It's ranged, unlike some AoE holds, and with Domination it allows to to instantly lock down anything that isn't an EB or AV so long as it hits. A nice power, but its long duration doesn't make it a 100% required choice. Terrify: Your 100% required choice AoE Mez. A large (90 degree) cone which fears enemies and deals minor psychic damage over time. You can easily make this a permanent mez even without Domination. WITH Domination, you can have it up every ten seconds or so and fear bosses the first time you use it. Mass Confusion: Joy and Chaos at the click of a button. You can make this power recharge before its duration wears off quite easily, and under Domination this essentially ends a fight before it starts. Dark Assault Dark Blast: A weak ST blast power. You have to take it. I'd slot it if you can, but if you can't then by 50 you can basically remove it from your bar. Smite: Single Target melee attack. Nice animation, fun thwack sound when you hit with it. Gloom: ST attack with more range than Dark Blast. This is a sneaky power, because it deals its damage over time. So long as you remember that and use it accordingly, it's a solid choice. Nightfall: A teensy 20 degree cone ranged AoE blast. I don't like it very much, but it's your only ranged AoE option. Gather Shadows: Like Build Up Powers? Heck yeah you do! Well this one also amps the secondary effects of your powers! Now those Dark Assault attacks will deal more -ToHit, and it boosts the duration of your mezzes! A nice little one-slot wonder. Engulfing Darkness: It's a PBAoE attack with a long-ish animation that deals extra -ToHit compared to other Dark Assault powers. If you want to fight in melee, this is a decent power. Life Drain: A decent AT Blast made fantastic by the addition of a small heal. Making this part of your rotation does good things for your survival. Definitely wanna get this one. I also tend not to bother enhancing the heal, because it's only 8%. It adds up to a lot over time, but enhancements wouldn't boost it by very much. Moon Beam: Your strongest ST Blast, and a snipe. A definite choice. Midnight Grasp: Your strongest ST Melee attack, which also immobilizes. Like Gloom, this power does a lot of its damage over the course of time. Because of that, I tend to use both Gloom and Midnight Grasp on one target in order to stack the DoT. For pools, you'll likely want things that give you Defense. Not only does Dark Assault lower enemy chance to hit, which makes defense more attractive for survival, but you can slot up to five Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed enhancements into your build for a combined 37.5% global recharge reduction. That's really nice for working towards Permadom. Hopefully this way-too-long post helps!

Modest makes extremely good points. I would personally play the character as a Corrupter. The slow in Ice Blast doesn’t really feel like it gives enough benefit for me to give up the bonus damage from Scourge at higher levels, but either way the character is going to be solid.

Hey cool! You should be able get find the link to Mids Reborn from here in the forums so you can get started on it! Good luck!

I think you could pretty easily go Radiation/Dark as a defender and be solid. If you want to go nuts with it, a Fire/Rad Controller also has a ST hold that makes people cough. You could run Choking Cloud with Hot Feat. You could ALSO go for a Dark/Rad controller, color the dark powers to be sickly-looking, and treat the Mezzes as symptoms of a disease.

I have a Dark/Energy/Soul Blaster that goes for pure range. I picked all but the T1 blast, skipped all of the melee powers, and zap things from extremely far away with range-boosted Dark Blasts.

Fire/Fire is a Blapper type setup that deals its best damage in melee range. It has a large output, but low defense. Fire/TA is a mainly ranged build that keeps enemies debuffed and easier to kite.

Grav/Time is really fun. You have enough offensive potential to hold your own solo, but you’re buffs and controls make you an awesome addition to teams. It’s my “Everybody loves me” character and still currently my main. Dark/Dark is a Control/Debuff/Support Swiss Army knife of goodness. Its a little light on damage, but if you don’t mind the wait then you can solo anything short of an AV. Elec/Time is fun for me, currently. It’s extremely safe and control-heavy rather than damage-heavy. Between Static Field, Time’s Junture, Distortion Field, and Conductive Aura I’m basically two patch power drops from being untouchable in melee. After that, I use a Procc’d up Jolting Chain and watch enemies flop around until dead. Plants/Storm seems like it would be utter carnage. I keep meaning to try that.

Heya! Those are fun choices! Please keep in mind that any suggestions I make are just that, suggestions. This is a game, and as long as you’re having fun then you’re doing it right. For your Alpha, I might suggest looking at Musculature, Spiritual, or Agility Core. Musculature boosts your damage output, which is a big deal for Stalkers since their main deal is killing things super fast. Spiritual and Agility both raise your recharge, which is good for most any build’s damage and survival because your powers come bad faster. For your Judgment power, Void and Ionic are both good choices. If it were me, though, I’d personally go for Pyronic Core. Void is a great PBAoE nuke, and Ionic hits a lot of enemies, but what I like about Pyronic is that is has a fast animation time and can be fired off at range. To me, that makes it easier to use. For your Interface, Reaction is a solid choice. You may also like Diamagnetic Core, which makes enemies more likely to miss when attacking you. I’m a fan of this one from a survival and support standpoint, and I often grab it on characters who have lower defense or are just a little bit away from the softcap. It’s also good for hunting AVs because it debuffs Regen as well. For your Destiny power, I’d honestly grab Rebirth. If you’re playing a /WP Stalker with Weapon Mastery then you’re probably good on endurance as well as mez protection, so both Clarion and Ageless aren’t necessarily needed. Barrier Core is nice for plugging holes in your defenses (since its t4 is basically a perma 5% global defense buff if you keep it refreshed on cooldown). Incandescence is nice as a team teleport too, honestly I don’t need find myself needing it very often. Rebirth is a big, honking PBAoE heal. That’s it. I like heals. I’m a simple man. for Hybrid, Assault gives you more damage and either Melee will help you out-live your enemies. Both of those are good things, but I’d probably go for Melee and use it as a protective click buff, just because I forget to use Assault hybrid on cooldown all the time.

I bet you could pretty easily do a Staff/Nin/Weapon Stalker that could stay ranged and punctuate it’s normal Shuriken throws with Exploding Shuriken and Serpent’s Reach. Going /Nin would give you a heal, as well as caltrops you could proc out with KD effects and damage to make it easier to kite and kill.

If you’re already diving into the Fighting Pool, I would just nab Cross-Punch and use it on enemies you’d just knocked down with Jolting Chain. Cross-Punch is a solid power with a short animation, a small cone, and gives a very small recharge boost. I have this slotted with a Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge Reduction proc on my DP/Kin Corrupter and spam it in when I’m in melee. Air Superiority from the Fly pool is a solid ST melee attack which knocks and has a quick animation. It’s a favorite for anyone who enjoys those campy linked-hands-overhead-blow moves. Arcane Bolt from the Sorcery pool is a fine ranged attack. Its animation is a bit too long, but the damage is acceptable. If you want to go for Mystic Flight and this attack, you could do a whole lot worse. I’m not a fan of the Jump Kick and Flurry pool Attacks. Frankly I don’t like their animations. Jump Kick’s animation can cancel after the actual kick, which is nice, and on paper it’s quite comparable to Air Superiority, but in practice it feels weaker. Flurry is much the same.

I would go for Ill/Dark. It’s a combo known to be able to solo loads of content, including AVs. you have the staying power of unkillable Phantom Army pets, plus a self-recovery/regen power, the best stealth power outside of a Stalker’s Hide, solid ST damage, an AoE Stun/Rez, and a helper pet that throws out even more -ToHit and -Regen on top of the debuffs you throw out yourself. Also it has the strongest PBAoE heal in the game (with a ToHit check, which means it can miss, but it also debuffs enemies). Also Tar Patch. Ill/Dark is NUTS.

Ooh, a Thugs/Dark or Thugs/Storm would be really solid as a firing squad with added control and debuffs for sure.

Some strong options I can think of for you supporting your brute friend, in no particular order: Fire/Rad Controller: Solid Control and AoE damage. Solid support and enemy debuffs. Illusion/Dark Controller: Powerful, survivable, has solid control, great support, and you’re a secondary tank with PA. Fire/Time Corrupter: Great support and debuffs, as well as great damage. Can easily softcap defense to everything. Rad/Sonic Defender: Made your brute friend hit way harder, while making enemies hit way less. This is a fantastic support character that is able to solo on its own. VEAT: Solid characters that deal large damage and give big passive buffs due to double leadership. Bane spiders are my fave.

I recently started up a Plant/Savage Dominator, and I'm kind of in love with it. I let public opinion push me away, initially, but I'm now pushing level 20 after only a couple hours of play and finding myself having a blast. The Savage Melee/Assault powers have a mechanic called Blood Frenzy, which slightly buff your global recharge and endurance reduction. You can stack up to five Frenzies at once, and you can spend them to increase the damage of either your PBAoE attack or your most damaging ranged ST attack. Handy at lower levels, but mostly used to pump the damage to your frenzy-spending powers at higher levels in my experience. For those of you who don't know, since the wiki doesn't have the set listed, the powers are: Call Swarm: A light damage lethal DoT that looks like a swarm of insects around an enemy. Not the strongest attack in the world. Maiming Slash: ST melee clawing attack which does added minor lethal DoT Vicious Slash: Heavier ST melee clawing attach which does added lethal DoT Unkindness: A shorter-range (40 ft) Cone which deal lethal DoT, reduces defense, slows, and can ground flying enemies. It literally looks like you calling a swarm of crows to peck at people. Spot Prey: 42.5% Damage/ToHit buff for ten seconds. Basically a Build-Up Power. Also instantly gives 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy. Rending Flurry: A pretty big PBAoE attack which spends Blood Frenzy to increase its damage. At 5 stacks, its range is also increased. Also deals Lethal DoT. Blood Craze: A self-heal, half instant and the other half DoT over ten seconds. Good for popping early, but weaker than other self-heals. Call Hawk: You literally sic a hawk on someone. Highest ranged ST damage in the set, with added Lethal DoT. It consumes your Blood Frenzy, and at 5 stacks is increases the power's Damage/DoT Duration further. Feral Charge: An attack which teleports you into melee and deals lethal damage as well as Lethal DoT. The further away you use it, the more damage it deals and the more bloos stacks it can give you. By the time Hasten is perma, this power recharges in under 3 seconds, allowing you to spam it as a way to bounce into and out of melee. In terms of actual damage, it's probably middle of the pack due Lethal damage being heavily resisted. In terms of fun factor, I'm having a blast with its feral aesthetic and the piles and piles of tiny numbers floating around at all times from both Roots and my Savage Assault Powers. Does anyone else have opinions on this set? I don't see it mentioned much other than to pan it.

I’m making a Dark/Savage Dom who could use some friends.

I like Electricity with Kinetics for sapping enemies. Elec/Dark is great for debuffing. Elec/Time is the safest controller I’ve ever played.

Gravity is a really fun control set. My Grav/Time Controller is still my favorite 50. The cool thing about both those sets is that their powers have interesting mechanics. Gravity has Impact, which increases the damage Propel and Life will deal if an enemy is locked down with your holds. Energy Assault will build up charges that can be “spent” via powers like its PBAoE attack in order to increase their damage. It makes for a n interesting experience!

Hey guys! I'm currently running a DP/Kin Corr at level 28 with this general setup, and I was hoping some of you would weigh in with questions, comments, and critique on the planned build. A few quick notes on my overall goals/build: 1) I wanted to make this a build that could play in melee as well as well as at range, which is why the deep investment in the Fighting pool. It's more fun than I thought it would be! 2) I aimed for at least softcapping S/L, but getting other defenses to 32.5% would be nice for the sake of softcapping them with a single low-tier purple insp. 3) I sort of hate Piercing Rounds, so I left it out. Its animation is literally so slow that I avoided clicking it on my DP/MA Blaster. This time around I'm not even bothering with it. I feel like I largely succeeded. Recharge is solid, S/L defense sits at 46% with Energy defense at 37%, and two small purple insps ought to softcap the build against anything. Hasten is perma with two stacks of Siphon Speed, which is pretty easily achievable, and Fulcrum Shift with Incendiary Ammo jumps the damage to near-Blaster levels before even dipping into Incarnate powers. The lack of Piercing Rounds in a ST attack chain is made up for at range by popping either Empty Clips or Bullet Rain when needed to fill in gaps, and in melee I just pop Cross-Punch. Repel is there for giving added melee protection against enemies that are particularly nasty, like Night Widows, who I would prefer spent more time stumbling around instead of hitting me. So what do you think?

Hey yeah! That’s one thing I never remember to mention in these threads. Mez protection is awesome for any AT that can swing it. I’m currently leveling a Blaster and a Corrupter, and I can abso-freaking-lutely testify to how much I miss having it when I play them.

Weight in on Soul vs. Dark, I’ll go for Power Boost every day of the week. That AoE defense boost isn’t just for your team. It makes softcapping your own defenses way easier, which gives you major build flexibility. As for the build itself, I can say from personal experience that Torrent is one of the best “control” powers available in a blast set. Slap a KB to KD IO into that sucker alongside a Force Feedback: + Recharge proc. It’ll keep enemies knocked over so they can’t hurt you without them flying all over them map, and it will also do wonders for your recharge rate. I highly recommend that be part of your final build. I got both IOs pre-20 by running story arcs in Praetoria, and they made an enormous difference for the survival and damage rate of my pure-ranged Dark/Energy Blaster.

Interesting. Makes me wonder if there is any kind of proc madness to exploit in Dominator Secondaries.

My dude, you need to go outside and talk to human beings. It’s for your own good. Elec and Darkness Control are probably my favorite primary sets for Doms. Elec is low-damage, but it plays very well due to its abundance of control and fun powers (and Dominators have an entire secondary dedicated to damage, so who cares if the primary is low-DPS?). Dark likewise has great control, but it’s a little more chaotic and has much more in terms of offense-oriented pets. Fire Control is a better Dom Primary than it seems on paper thanks to its bonus damage, especially if you stay at range. Electric and Energy Assault are two of my big faves for Dominators secondaries for their overall good damage. Both perform best in melee, but can stay at range easily enough. Dark Assault gets an honorable mention for giving an attack with a small heal at lv 28, and Fiery Assault gets mention for being the best choice for pure range. If I played solo, I would make it a Dominator either a Dark/Fire or an Elec/Elec. Dark/Fire would be ranged, with good control, and be able to now enemies down swiftly as long as you have enough blue inspirations. Elec/Elec would be more methodical, with extra time spent in melee, but overall extremely safe for a Dom so long as you play to its strengths.

Oh yeah! You're right about the recharge time for sure. I guess I should've double-checked before I posted. My opinion still stands with both Shadowy Binds and Shadow Field, though. Shadow Field is a good power, but I don't feel it's essential the way Fearsome Stare is. Likewise, my build for Dark/Dark is pretty tight. I can't spare three additional slots and a power choice for a ST DoT Immob. It's purely in the realm of my own preference, but I'm fine with the choice to exclude them if I have to explude something.