EnjoyTheJourney

The increased damage from the build offered as an alternative influenced by having more procs, as you noted. But, damage improvement sources go beyond having more procs. First, tar patch is a soft control that lowers enemy resistances and has a high uptime percentage. It also serves as a multiplier for teammate and pet damage, and so it would have a noticeable impact on how quickly your teams can clear content. Second, substituting smite for dark blast leads to better damage per second of power activation time. Third, for personal damage the presence of a relatively smooth single target attack chain in the alternative build would allow your dominator to take down harder targets much more quickly than they could do otherwise. You can math that out in a very precise way if you'd like. But, even a cursory look at how often you'll have gaps in which a single target attack is available for each build and thumbnail calculations of how much damage those attacks will do per second of power activation time should reveal quite noticeable differences in single target damage between these builds. Pet damage in the original build could not bridge the damage gap, even in the case where you could get the pets to focus on your desired target. On another note, I apologize for having missed that you didn't have hasten toggled on for your original build; I was underestimating how much recharge you have in your build. You actually have more recharge in your build and technically have perma-dom without even using hasten. In practice, though, keeping domination active is not difficult when you have hasten, 110% global recharge from sets, and a decent amount of resistance to incoming recharge debuffs. As another "toggle" topic, to have a better view of actual defenses while fighting, you need to toggle off stealth and infiltration, then add about 2% to the defense totals you see on the totals screen. When you do that you'll realize that default defenses while in battle are about 17% or lower for every kind of damage type defense and all three types of positional defense. I initially missed this, as well. But, having noticed it the alternative build is clearly the more survivable build. Function and (dis)likes are not always in perfect alignment, though. And, suggesting an alternative build may make it seem that I'm questioning your preferences. But, that's not my place or my intent. You may really want one or more pets, umbral torrent, and/or concealment pool powers and there's nothing inherently wrong with any of those preferences.

Here's another version of a dark / dark / dark dominator build to consider. It has some pros and cons compared to your build. The main advantages of the build below are higher damage, higher recharge, better resistance to incoming movement and recharge debuffs, and probably better overall survivability. The build below is more expensive, though. It also has no pets and perhaps you'd prefer to find a way to keep one or both pet skills in your build. Also, there's no umbral torrent and no concealment pool in the build below. You may decide you like one or all of them too much to consider doing without them. PS: Toggle on gather shadows to see the effect on defense totals, on damage from attacks, and on healing from life drain. As a kind of "technical" issue to consider, keep domination toggled off when looking at accuracy for attacks meant to harm enemies. Domination provide a brief +25% to hit buff when it's activated (for 15 seconds). But, then that to hit buff remains off until domination is activated once again. It's overly optimistic to believe that the accuracy totals visible with domination toggled on will be the accuracy totals your powers will usually have in-game. Hopefully you have a blast with your triple dark dom, however you decide to move forward. Dark Humour - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault - Dark Mastery),v2.mbd

Forgot to mention another use-case for quicksand. With a reasonably attainable amount of global recharge quicksand can recharge in about 10 seconds. It's possible to double, triple, or even quadruple stack it in an area, with a 16 target maximum for each casting. That allows for 32-64 mobs to be affected by quicksand in a given area. When ambushes are flowing into an area and/or mobs are being herded or teleported into an area quicksand is one of the most endurance-friendly and effective ways to keep mobs grouped up for AOEs and limited in their ability to attack teammates. Only a handful of other skills offer the ability to scale the number of mobs affected as well as quicksand. A key limiting factor for using quicksand is the long casting time because you can use 1-3 other skills in the same amount of time it takes to cast quicksand once. The long casting time is arguably a good thing, as otherwise quicksand would be a prime candidate for a hefty nerf.

Stalagmites, earthquake, and volcanic gasses are more than adequate for AOE control at lower levels. Also, mobs don't usually stack really high levels of defense in earlier levels. So, the autohit defense debuff in quicksand doesn't help that much in the sub-50 game. Thus, I only take quicksand in the late 40s. But, I always take it for an earth control character. At level 50 the game changes. Quicksand is particularly strong when used against level 50+ enemies that are most dangerous in melee, such as Cimerorans. I'll often drop quicksand before anything else for those kinds of mobs because it makes them pretty much unable to swarm any teammate unless they choose to stand still for quite a while. Quicksand is also great for making it noticeably harder for AVs to run all over, especially when paired with other movement-inhibiting powers; for example, quicksand + earthquake when fighting Rom in the last ITF mission is a very strong pairing of controls. Quicksand is also great when clearing towers after defeating Rom, with teammate defeats tending to go right down to zero after it's been laid down. How it helps for getting mobs to group up has been mentioned by others, as well, and that's another reason to drop it right at the beginning of at least some fights in late-game. That quicksand provides a high level of utility without needing any added slots makes it a particularly efficient build choice. For a team oriented build quicksand has a useful role that it can play, at least in 50+ content. But, if somebody wants to solo AVs, then there's probably not as strong of a case for incorporating it into a build.

Attached is a necro / traps build to consider. It's built to survive toe-bombing big spawns and most AVs with poison trap and trip mine, and to do so quite safely once T4 barrier and T4 support hybrid are in place. That may or may not be appealing to you. But, hopefully there are some interesting ideas here to consider nonetheless. As some general thoughts, traps really loves recharge to have its toys available more often. Also, the panacea proc in triage beacon apparently provides health and endurance to both the mastermind and all allies (including pets and teammates). Trapped in Twilight - Mastermind (Necromancy - Traps - Soul Mastery).mbd

If you'd like to blap from time to time, which your OP mentions, then you probably would find softcapped smash / lethal defense quite helpful. Then a key question to consider is how much more effort you'd like to make on building up either positional or typed defense totals. Having a fair amount of ranged defense helps to limit the number of mezzes and really nasty debuffs that are likely to reach your blaster and to make taking ranged alphas from large spawns much easier. Alternatively, you might want to work on boosting energy / negative energy / fire / cold defense totals to try to bring about a broadly similar end result to boosting ranged defense. Or, you could decide to live with lower defense totals outside of smash / lethal and do the best you can to max out damage and recharge instead. There aren't any a priori wrong choices here. It's just a matter of how you want to play.

Hopefully an experienced third party will come along and take a look at both builds. It's not that there's nothing good about your build. But, another experienced builder will probably shed more light on a bunch of things to consider. Some notes about differences between builds ... 1. There is no* 4 points of knockback protection in your build versus 7 points in the build provided. (*I originally missed the 4 points in super jump, my apologies) 2. There is another mez protection power (rune) that also boosts resists when that's needed in the latter build. 3. Your added global recharge is actually 100% less than what is stated by Mids. 4. Your damage is substantially overestimated. Two toggles should be switched off because the associated buffs will usually not be active (aim, aimed shot). 5. Decimation build up in aimed shot will seldom go off. Also, swapping the sets put into aimed shot and blazing arrow would probably be helpful. 6. Quickform should probably be toggled on so you know how much damage ranged shot will be doing while in combat. 7. The steadfast protection defense / resist unique would contribute more in body armor than the Aegis psi resist unique. 8. Explosive arrow has a default amount of knockback that can frustrate teammates. Putting a knockback-to-knockdown IO in it (either the sudden acceleration or overwhelming force unique IOs) would make mobs fall over instead of knocking them back in different directions. There is more feedback that could be offered. One question I have is the extent to which you see having softcapped smash / lethal defense as being helpful. Some probably overrate its value and it's certainly not even close to being a kind of defense-related "I win" button. Still, it's possible that you're underrating its value if you see your build as light years better. If you'd really prefer the pool powers you have, then naturally there will be ways to make that work.

Here's a candidate build ... Hopefully you thoroughly enjoy the build, however you decide to proceed. PS: Burst of speed is an AOE and it is a waaaayyyy better pick for this kind of build than dragon's tail, in my experience. Also, you can operate at range for safety, or switch to melee for maximum damage. Blaster - (Archery - Martial Combat - Mace Mastery).mbd

I found JJ's build intriguing and wondered if it could be tweaked in some ways. What's below isn't definitively better or worse, overall, but it may (or may not) be more to the OP's liking overall. Or, perhaps the OP can find ideas in each build that they end up using. Tis all up to the OP, of course. The build below is more expensive overall than JJ's build. That may matter a lot. Or not so much, not sure of how much inf the OP has. The build below offers more single target damage, probably better overall survivability, and quicker access to status protection by taking rune of protection earlier. The ability to teleport others in JJ's build gets replaced by a self teleport in mystic flight; that is a loss of utility because the build below can't easily teleport teammates anymore (and can't teleport enemies at all). On the other hand, sometimes being able to self teleport is very helpful. Losing rain of fire in the build below means less AOE damage when first engaging with many mobs. On the other hand, more global recharge in the build below means having fireball and inferno available for use more often. Losing evasive maneuvers means more problems with immobilizes when rune of protection is down. But, having 7 points of knockback protection in the build below means spending less time spinning in place while hovering, after getting hit with knocks. Endurance costs per second are down overall in the build below. But, endurance recovery is better in JJ's build. Good luck to the OP, however they decide to build. Wizard Specified Defender (Cold Domination - Fire Blast - Mace Mastery),v2.mbd

Here is a sample build. It may understandably attract concern from those who prefer better defenses and may also not be chosen by those who prefer to build for high damage and to rely on controls for survival instead of defenses. But, hopefully there's some things you can pull from it that end up being helpful. Regarding AOEs, this build has 3 of them and they work well together. For example, you can begin combat by using spot prey, then use feral charge (an AOE) from maximum distance away from mobs, and then use vicious slash. At that point rending flurry's AOE radius grows from 8 feet to 15 feet because 3 blood frenzy charges from a maximum range feral charge and 2 blood frenzy charges from vicious slash generates 5 blood frenzy stacks. Next, use rending flurry and then cast fireball. That's a decent amount of AOE damage. Feral charge works very well as part of the single target attack chain because it animates quickly and because its DPA is pretty good for an AOE. It also allows for nearly seamless transitions from one part of a battlefield to another, reducing time that would otherwise be spent doing no damage when jumping or running to the next target to attack. Vigor alpha holds the build together with a mixture of endurance reduction and accuracy, allowing for the use of more procs in skills. You could drop melt armor, take tactics, and remove some procs if relying on incarnates to have a workable amount of accuracy isn't for you when fighting higher level mobs. Dominator (Earth Control - Savage Assault - Fire Mastery).mbd

Poison characters can benefit a lot from having fold space, wormhole, and/or singularity in their powers list. All of these powers help you to move mobs into melee range of your poisoner, which helps survivability once venomous gas has been taken and slotted up. Fold space is probably more than enough in many situations, allowing you to bring ranged attackers that never seem to group up into "bear hug" range with your poisoner. Using corners and other terrain features to group mobs up can also be quite helpful, especially when soloing. Bringing mobs into melee range with your usually fragile corruptor, controller, or defender can quite understandably feel uncomfortable at first; it tends to take a while until you gain enough experience with the set for that feeling of discomfort to change to a grin. 😁

In general, dominators tend to have a harder time keeping pet alive than controllers, as controllers have access to a secondary that can often help their pets survive better. Also, controllers have a stronger incentive to take their pets because they're a substantial source of extra damage for an AT that doesn't have a damage secondary or primary. That said, Frosticus has found ways to keep certain pets alive and to build AV-hunting dominators around the ability to do that. You can still find a fair percentage of dominators that take pets, though. Most who post regularly here would agree that there are multiple reasonable ways to build a dominator. There are some who post fairly frequently who prefer to rely primarily on controls for safety, rather than defenses. It's a viable playstyle. But, having good defenses is also viable without necessarily giving up having good damage. Also, a fiery assault dominator tends to do very well operating at range and there's nothing wrong with making that choice. If you're concerned about damage and you'd like to operate at range, then you may want to consider taking fire mastery instead of psi mastery and hover-blasting. Fire breath and fireball (from fire mastery) make a nice 1-2 punch, especially supported with fiery embrace. Melt armor is a good debuff and a self rez is never a bad thing (more fire mastery stuff), depending on how you'd like to put together your build. Hover blasting also allows you to focus mostly on ranged defense and resistances, which lessens the degree to which you may be tempted to sacrifice defenses to get good damage. Below is a sample build, in case you're interested. Barrier core Tier 4 adds a minimum of 5% to all defense and resistance totals while active, plus superior invisibility adds a persistent 2%-ish to all defense totals even when attacking. So, the ranged defense total you end up with in-game will be higher than what shows on Mids. Dominator (Illusion Control - Fiery Assault - Fire Mastery),v2.mbd

I don't have an arsenal / poison build handy. But, here's an endgame arsenal / dark / psi build that can hopefully provide some helpful ideas. If you'd like a budget version, then some substitutions can be made for multiple sets. Good luck with your arsenal control character, whichever path you ultimately choose. Edit: It's been a while since I looked at this build. After learning a bit more about arsenal control I'd probably swap out enflame and instead take psionic tornado, with five armageddon IOs in it (not the knockdown proc, though) and a force feedback +recharge IO in the sixth and final slot. That would make it easier to keep mobs to having been damaged every 15 seconds or less, which helps for keeping mobs confused with smoke canister. Nightshell - Controller (Arsenal Control - Darkness Affinity - Psionic Mastery),v2.mbd Nightshell - Controller (Arsenal Control - Darkness Affinity - Psionic Mastery),v2.pdf

Glad to hear you found the build appealing. I forgot to tweak the IOs in subdue. You can increase the damage a bit more, get a hit point buff from the apocalypse set, and noticeably improve endurance management by slotting it as follows: Apocalype - Damage / EndRed Apocalype - Acc / Damage / Recharge Apocalype - % chance of negative energy damage Gladiator's Javelin - % toxic damage Trap of the Hunter - % lethal damage Superior Ascendancy of the Dominator - % damage buff You'll still have 97.83% accuracy against +3 mobs with this slotting, even with no to hit buffs from external sources or from the Gaussian build up proc.

Here's an alternative build that you may find interesting, even if in the end you decide to go in another direction. Some key changes ... 1. Noticeably more damage. 2. A little less global recharge. Still comfortably permadom, though, and with a good amount of slow resist to better protect global recharge from debuffs. 3. More resistances. Hits will still hurt, but a bit less so than earlier. See further down for ways to increase resistances on a temporary basis. 4. The empty slot in tactics would contain the Gaussian build up proc. On teams it should activate about 3 times per minute, which means about 1/4 of the time there's a good to hit and damage buff active. 5. No knockback IOs. You cut down on "Freem" knockdowns with those IOs, but most of those will be screened out by your smash / lethal defense. You don't really need them. 6. The superior ascendancy of the dominator damage proc has been placed in subdue. If it's being used regularly in the single target rotation then you can get multiple stacks of that proc active at one time. That should help damage for all powers being used. Endurance management is still going to be fine the clear majority of the time, except when drain psyche fails to hit. Haven't really resolved that with the attached build, but maybe it won't happen often enough to be concerned about. Your build seems most focused on fighting from range. And there are benefits from doing that. Still, to get more damage out of your build and to leverage the survivability granted by seeds, creepers, and drain psyche, it is absolutely fine to fight in melee. Plus, with this build you can take the barrier core T4 destiny, which boosts defenses further and provides strong "peak survivability" when your dom is receiving a lot of aggro from mobs that hit hard. Also, consider taking melee core hybrid for better mez protection, better resistances when the heat is on your dom, and better regen. Hopefully you get some ideas from this that you end up liking. Good luck with your dom, however you decide to move forward. Psylantt - Dominator (Plant Control - Psionic Assault - Ice Mastery).mbd