KelvinKole

That's an interesting idea and I like it better for Force Field. Clarity already gives perception and I would rather see it get a psionic resistance buff to help cover that hole for a lot of classes and powersets.

Skip dehydrate and the hydro blast. Hydro blast has a clunky animation that annoys me disrupts and otherwise fluid chain. You can build plenty of tidal power with aqua bolt. Steam spray is one of the best cones in the game. Wide angle and high damage and works awesome with scourge. Take it and love it.

Psi would actually get my vote for best ranged set. Trouble is, the two set defining powers are PbAoE that beg you to be in the middle of things. If you don't mind that, you can effectively play it from range and make use of the immobilize and knockback to keep things at range.

Outside of PvP, I wouldn't play it.

I was pretty disappointed to learn, after hitting level 18, that the Street Justice AoE only has a 6 ft radius; I should have done my homework first. I might even re-roll. I think Fire and Spines are probably best once you factor in size of the AoE and recharge time.

Does anyone know if ground zero will critical hit from hide?

These are all excellent points for Sonic. Fully agree with your notes on disruption field and liquefy. I actually didn't believe the recharge time on liquefy was 5 minutes and had to look it up; that's absurd. Clarity does add some mez protection from types that are not covered by Sonic Dispersion, though they are not very common. It could easily have a +psi resistance buff added to it. That would jive with the rest of the set and cover a big hole

Ice and Water are both fantastic sets.

I have four Expedients right now. Will eventually swap them out for four soulbound allegiance.

For real.

Yes, I second this. I'm not sure which powers are clunkers and which are keepers. I may take a stab at writing one up. It can be a bit of a tricky set in that it really works best in melee with conductive aura, but also lacks the hard control that something like Fire, Plant, or Earth has. In addition, if you want to max the end drain, which is its best form of damage mitigation, you really need to pair it with a secondary that has power boost. The most skippable powers are the single target immobilize and jolting chain. Jolting chain might be useful if you want to play strictly from range and opt out of conductive aura, but again that's not really the optimal way to play the set. Later, both of your Gremlins have jolting chain, so it's also a little redundant. Your bread and butter is the AoE immobilize (for draining endurance), static field (pulsing sleep), and conductive aura. The AoE hold, like any set, is mandatory with permadom, and the Gremlins are too good to pass on.

Sets like Radiation Emission, Kinetics, Empathy, have been in the game forever and I wouldn't say Time or Cold are much better than those. All of those sets are on par with each other; they each do different things, but are good at what they do and are desirable sets. Speaking for force field specifically, I do like the idea that it be a primary buff and positional control set, so I wouldn't add any debuffs. For balance though, it needs to be very good at those two things and because IOs make defense capping so easy for many archetypes, it needs something else. Absorption seemed logical to me.

I'm interested in trying stalker version 2.0 but have no experience building one. I rolled sj/rad and ran some DFB's; liking it so far. Does anyone have a good /rad build with shadow meld?

I know what both sets are designed to do, and I said in the OP that comments like yours are not incorrect; both sets do exactly what you say they do and mostly do it well. BUT, poll any number of people and the answer to which Defenders they'd prefer to team with most is probably not FF or Sonic, those are very far down the list. This is a problem of usability in a game that doesn't favor the use of these two sets anymore. You could fight a long exhausting battle trying to convince people of what they should want, or you can just give them what they actually want and hopefully find a way not to sacrifice what you love to do it. There's nothing wrong with any of your suggestions in there. Mine was just a simpler one to provide an easy, quick, improvement to the set.

BS. There's THREE powers that buff ally defense. Out of NINE. Would you say you "primarily sleep" because you spend a third of your life sleeping? When no one cares about the other six, I'd say its primary function, as far as anyone cares, is to buff defense.

Defense is just not a good attribute if farming is your goal. At the aggro cap, statistics are against you and when attacks land they land with full force. I tried for quite a while to make a shield brute work on live, but fire armor was always better. A Doms best tactic for farming is going to be total lockdown. That's why fire/psi and plant/psi, back in the day, worked well. Fire and plant offer a lot of hard control, and psi kept people moving with great AoE damage.

Many people out there may chime in and say Force Field and Sonic Repulsion are fine as is and don't need a fix, and they may actually be right. Both are effective sets at what they are designed to do, but I do think what they are designed to do doesn't always compliment the way the game is played. As proof of that, both sets are in the bottom of the barrel in terms of usage. Force Field primarily buffs defense; This is good. Sonic primarily buffs resistance; This is good. Force Field is a bit worse off that Sonic in that it offers literally no debuff ability and it's other core function, to knockback and repel things, isn't a highly desired mechanic; Many people are actually infuriated by it. I'm offering one small suggestion that I think benefits both sets enough to boost their popularity and effectiveness. Remove the Capture Foe abilities from both sets (I don't think anyone will miss these) and replace them with a PbAoE or toggle absorption ability. Absorption is a relatively new mechanic, relative to the game's lifetime, and both sets thematically seem to be a natural fit for an absorption buff, i.e. shield. A click power that provides a strong absorption shield or a toggle that periodically pulses a small absorption shield would add to both sets ability to sustain a team and provide a mechanic that is not widely found in other power sets. Live devs probably would not have been able to make this happen very quickly, but the homecoming devs could get it done. I have faith. What do you say?

Definitely Cold. I spent years on a Sonic/cold corrupter and it is a fantastic combination. Cold can debuff resistance just as well as Sonic with sleet and heat loss, plus it offers a plethora of slows, -defense, and the very important -regen. In the buff department, the defense shields are strong, the +hp buff is excellent, and there's the +recover buff from Heat Loss. It's just a very well rounded set that does everything well, but doesn't heal.

It initiates in your target and spreads to nearby targets after what feels like a 1 second delay. Domination will increase the magnitude and duration. The other AoE confuses are instant on a mob, this will eventually spread to the whole mob if allowed enough time. Plant and mind are both more useful for negating alpha damage, but the electric version also sapps some endurance. In any case, I skipped it in my build.

Now that I've got some more miles on this build and did some testing on the test server (thanks Justin!), I've made some revisions and am even happier with how it plays. A couple notes: ~I was previously operating under the assumption that Force Feedback worked the way I remembered it did, with a 2 minute internal cooldown. It does not do this anymore, so you can slot in either of the ranged Energy Blasts and it will proc all day, but with a higher rate in Power Burst. ~Spring Attack actually seems to do knockdown if not slotted with any knockback enhancements. As soon as you slot a knockback enhancement of any kind, including Force Feedback, it starts doing knockback. I removed the Force Feedback proc from it and could then remove the knockback-to-knockdown enhancement. ~Static Field does not do the energy drain that Pine's says it does. It does very little in game and is really just useful for the pulsing sleep and slow field. Due to this, I moved some slots out of it. ~The +damage ATO also does not have a cooldown as I expected it would, so I moved it to Chain Fences which is basically spammed in this build and you can keep 2-3 stacks of it up pretty easily. ~I no longer actually toggle on Tough. You are not getting attacked much when everything is controlled or doesn't have endurance to do anything, so the lost resistance is negligible. I only use to store the global IO +Def and +HP bonuses. ~I have a Gaussian's chance for build up in Soul Drain, but not many miles on it yet. The game says it will occur about once every 1 minute, which is faster than Soul Drain will recharge, so it should have a very high chance to proc on each use; It seems that way. ~The rest is just a bit of optimization, using some different sets to gain a bit more +recharge Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Dominator Primary Power Set: Electric Control Secondary Power Set: Energy Assault Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Tesla Cage -- BslGaz-Acc/Hold(A), BslGaz-Acc/Rchg(3), BslGaz-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(7), BslGaz-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(11) Level 1: Power Bolt -- Dcm-Acc/Dmg(A), Dcm-Dmg/EndRdx(15), Dcm-Dmg/Rchg(21), Dcm-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Dcm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39) Level 2: Chain Fences -- PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(25), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(37), PrfShf-Acc/Rchg(37), AscoftheD-Rchg/+Dmg%(40) Level 4: Bone Smasher -- CrsImp-Acc/Dmg(A), CrsImp-Dmg/Rchg(5), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(7), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46) Level 6: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A) Level 8: Conductive Aura -- PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(9), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(9), PrfShf-Acc/Rchg(11), RgnTss-Regen+(40) Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 12: Static Field -- CaloftheS-Acc/EndRdx(A), CaloftheS-Acc/Rchg(13), CaloftheS-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(13) Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(42) Level 16: Spring Attack -- Obl-Dmg(A), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), Obl-Acc/Rchg(19), Obl-%Dam(25) Level 18: Paralyzing Blast -- AscoftheD-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), AscoftheD-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(19), AscoftheD-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(21), AscoftheD-EndRdx/Rchg(27), AscoftheD-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(36) Level 20: Whirling Hands -- Obl-Dmg(A), Obl-Acc/Rchg(27), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(31), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34) Level 22: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(23), RechRdx-I(23) Level 24: Super Speed -- Run-I(A) Level 26: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 28: Total Focus -- CrsImp-Acc/Dmg(A), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29), CrsImp-Dmg/Rchg(31), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43) Level 30: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(31), UnbGrd-Max HP%(34) Level 32: Gremlins -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(33), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(33), EndMod-I(36) Level 35: Weave -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(36), LucoftheG-Def(37), EndRdx-I(43) Level 38: Power Burst -- Dvs-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dvs-Acc/Dmg(39), Dvs-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Dvs-Dmg/EndRdx(43), FrcFdb-Rechg%(48) Level 41: Dark Embrace -- TtnCtn-ResDam(A), TtnCtn-EndRdx(42), TtnCtn-ResDam/EndRdx(42) Level 44: Soul Drain -- Obl-Dmg(A), Obl-Acc/Rchg(45), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(45), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), GssSynFr--Build%(46) Level 47: Dark Obliteration -- PstBls-Acc/Dmg(A), PstBls-Dmg/EndRdx(48), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(48), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(50), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50) Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Domination Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(3) ------------

I'll give the age old answer of "it depends". It depends on archetype, powersets, pool powers, etc.. From a set bonus perspective, I tend to focus on recharge, hit points, and damage. Aside from slotting the +tohit kismet IO, you generally don't need to build specifically for accuracy; it's a plentifully available set bonus and will come easily. From a power pool perspective, leaping and superspeed give the combined best movement ability. Leadership is a strong choice for the assault and tactics. Medicine is good if you don't have a self heal. Lastly I usually try to build in an escape/reset power like phase shift or hibernate.

A lot of good synergy with either choice, you can't go wrong here. Earth will have higher damage and I think higher build potential, so it gets my vote.

If you want to heal, /therm /emp and /pain are all good. /Cold /rad and /poison are all strong debuff sets.

Dark blast is not very good on corruptors for PvP, it's really on decent on blasters. Psi would be better due to defense and resistance to it being much more difficult to come by than other damage types. Kin is really only good for providing teammates with speed boost. You will not likely be close enough to your target or standing still long enough to use transfusion, transference, or fulcrum shift effectively. There's also no reliable debuffs. Choose something else if you want to solo, or even be useful outside of providing speed boost.

Yes, envenomed blades adds the bonus damage to your primary powers as well. I don't think it extends to pets (it shouldn't).