Coyote

I got Master on my first server. Wow. But when I moved everyone over to Everlasting, I lost a few nice names. That was the best one 😞

Doesn't it have to be activated upon a Stunned target? That is, if you hit Stunned targets with single-target attacks that aren't Release, then there is a chance... but I think that if you don't Stun them first, there is no chance to build up Energy Storage.

4 Cloud Senses in general for me, but sometimes 6 for the nice Ranged Defense boost. I'd use it on more builds, but /Dark Affinity is such a strong defensive set anyhow that I don't know if the extra defense is all that useful. Still, 3.75% for two slots is a steal.

Well, first you have to understand how /Nrg does its area damage... it builds up Energy Stored with Total Focus (melee attack), and then does almost double damage by using Whirling Hands (PBAoE attack). In effect, Total Focus becomes a semi-AoE, hitting one target hard, and effectively setting up AoE damage though it needs a 2nd power to actually release that damage. This means that /Nrg does all of its AoE damage in melee range. Now, my Dark builds will frankenslot Heart of Darkness with 3-4 damage procs. This puts it at 200-260 or so AoE damage, and it's an early use power in every fight. It's also PBAoE, so playwise, it's a real smooth action to start the fight with Fearsome Stare for the Fear (and huge ToHit Debuff). Note that if you have Power Up active at this point, you get a +Defense boost to your Defense powers, as well as a big boost to the -ToHit, so in fights where you have PU ready at the start, which should be most of them, you can start with a huge defensive boost. Now, while the buff is up, you run in and fire HoD, TF, and WH... you get effectively 3 PBAoE powers, 2 of them with damage boosted from PU (HoD gets its damage boosted also, but it does irrelevant damage outside of the procs)... and HoD gets its duration boosted by PU. So it's a very solid and smooth action cycle, with good AoE damage. Dark/Dark has a problem. Engulfing Darkness is a nice PBAoE, but Nightfall is a long narrow cone, and with 10 second recharge it's up a lot but does lower damage. I almost think that /Dark would play best as a range-oriented Dominator, giving up the use of Engulfing Darkness, but playing much more safely and leveraging Gloom, the snipe, and Life Drain. But to do this, it would work better with an all-ranged primary... Mind, Gravity, or Earth. Defensively, stacking the -ToHit debuffs along with the best heal available for Doms, makes it a very strong defensive build. But if you're going defense, I think I'd rather go with Earth, which also has a -ToHit power, and which doesn't have any reason to go into melee range. Single target is also a long analysis, but the short version is that Nrg does significantly more damage... but only by going into melee range and leveraging Total Focus, which builds up an Energy Stored/Released with Power Burst, giving you three Extreme damage attacks (Power Burst, TF, and the snipe). Dark does a lot less, but can stay at range and has a self-heal. So it's again a question of damage or defense. BTW, /Dark doesn't have more CONTROL. It has way more DEBUFFING than Nrg... Nrg has a 100% knockback, TF is a 100% Stun compared to the Immobilize from Midnight Grasp, and Whirling Hands has a chance to Stun while Engulfing Darkness has -ToHit. If you're going /Dark, it's not for more control, it's for more -ToHit and a heal. I like /Nrg option more, but... if you want a stronger defensive combo, Dark/Dark's ability to leverage a TON of -ToHit makes it one of the strongest Dominators defensively. Multiple control options, backed up by good -ToHit stacking, and with a safety net of a solid lifetap attack.

Heh, that's my main. Love the combo.

You could try insulting his dueling and challenging him to an ancestry. Not sure how that'll work, but while you two are busy figuring it out, I'mma gonna steal me some fries 😛

It's also possible that the OP's experience was to ALWAYS use it on top of Fire Cages, which were being spammed. In that case, it WOULD be weaker. It's just that as soon as you stop spamming AoE Immobilizes, it becomes a lot stronger with the KD... but if the OP just fired Fire Cages all the time, they may always have used in a situation where it's stronger without the conversion IOs in it.

People. People really annoy me. What's the point of them, other than to amuse me and to provide garbage cans for my family to knock over?

I didn't state my point strongly enough, I suppose... because TA Defenders ARE more squishy than other characters whose AT isn't specifically designed to take aggro. Specifically, they are more squishy than Time Defenders. .. And Storm Defenders. And Rad Defenders. And Dark Defenders. And FF Defenders. And Nature. And EA. And Sonic. And Traps. And Pain. And probably Poison. Not sure about Empathy. Yes, every characters has some weaknesses when soloing... but TA Defenders really have a lot of them. They do fold hard to mobs that have ToHit Buffs... but that's with a GOOD build that is capped against Ranged attacks and also has good AoE Defense. With an average build that has 25-30% Defense, well, things get ugly against a lot of opponents who don't need to have ToHit Buffs. The reason is that TA doesn't stop enough hits from hitting the characters, and has no mez protection, and also doesn't limit damage very much, with just a relatively weak -Dam power, and has no way to recover from damage (no Regen or healing). So they're vulnerable to mezzing opponents... and also to opponents who don't mez much, but do high damage. Basically, every opponent who does SOMETHING unusually well will be able to do it to a TA Defender who isn't near the Defense softcap. This isn't much of an issue when teaming. It also is less of an issue when you can run Clarion and remove at least one major problem. But leveling up while soloing, compare that to a Rad Defender (let alone Dark or Traps), and the Rad is so much better. It really works better on Controllers (who have another set that they can use for defense) or MMs (who can at least use Bodyguard to survive incoming damage, and henchmen will pull aggro if you're mezzed). But for Defenders it's one of the worst soloing sets.

TA is weak solo, because it has no self-survival powers. No heals, no +Def, no +Res, no +Regen. It does debuff reasonably well, but that doesn't help enough, especially if you raise the difficulty even a bit and then face mobs with +ToHit (so they rip through a Ranged Defense build based on IO set bonuses). On teams, where other players can either provide defense or better yet, take the aggro, it works well. You just have to figure out a way to avoid getting shot at, and it's a fine set. Shame that it kind of folds when accurate mobs actually start shooting at you.

Well, one generally shouldn't have End issues with a /Psy Dominator. Hitting two targets with Drain Psyche takes care of any issues, and usually even a single target is still enough. I run Fire/Psy, and even with Hot Feet and multiple defense toggles, I can manage the End burn as long as I hit a single mob (I always try to target 2+ just to avoid the chance of missing, but sometimes you can't and have to settle for a single victim).

Anything/Savage works fine, and that means Plant/Savage is good. Energy Assault is also pretty good, and works with multiple options, especially ones that do well in melee range: Dark, Fire, Ice. The same is true for Earth, with a bit more focus on melee and AoE, and less on ranged and single-target. Dark is a good primary and works well with most secondaries... I like it most with Savage, but also with Energy and Earth.

Seeds is a lot faster than End draining... but Seeds does have a recharge while the End draining is almost constant, so if you Confuse one spawn and aggro another... you might be in trouble. And some mobs resist Confusion, while very few resist End drain. And Electric Control DOES have a good AoE Confuse power also. Overall, Electric is very safe with a lot of tools, but it's a little slower and does a lot less damage than Plant. For one thing, if you AoE Confuse everyone with Plant/Savage... they tear into each other along with you. If you do it with Electric... they don't do much to each other because you're generally also Sleeping and End Draining (and chain Knocking) them. So they do much less self-harm.

It's one of the customization options under Weapons. Fuzzy, spiked, frosted, flaming, dark aura, and my favorite... electric aura.

Let me guess at the self-nerf.... your armor set is changed to Regeneration? 😄

It really needs 7-slotting to reach its full Multiverse-Conquering potential

The snarky side of me wants to say "It's a date... should I level a Whip Assault Dominator, or a Handcuff Control Controller?". The colder calculating side is looking at my post count, elbowing, and growl-hissing "shut up and keep your head down, nail".

Storm is way higher damage, Dark is way higher defense. In general, especially with a primary like Dark Control that is strong defensively, an offensive boost would be more fitting. Storm benefits more from IO sets, as /Dark is so strong defensively (especially paired with Dark/) that it does its job of shutting the enemies down without needing much investment. Storm can work cheaply, but really benefits from global Recharge (which gets expensive) in order to bring up multiple Freezing Rains, Tornadoes, and Lightning Storms).

I like the slotting on Unkindness, I like the double -Res IOs. But I would drop some slots (Weave and Tough are options), and put at least the 6th slot into Confusion for a 5% Ranged Defense bonus. Also, I would prefer to put Coercive into Mass Confusion for two reasons: 1: the +Damage ATO is more useful as part of a rotation used regularly, as you might do to perma-confuse an AV. Using it with Mass Confusion is not very useful because in the spawns where you use MC, you don't need the extra damage as much. 2: more importantly, if you're not going redside where you can get the Villain alignment power that refills your Domination bar, you can use Mass Confusion at the beginning of logging in on a spawn, and get everyone Confuse including Bosses due to Coercive Persuasion cross-firing from multiple victims. That covers you for at least one fight without Domination, and if you're careful you can whittle mobs down to one victim and build up Domination off him, allowing you to build up Domination from your first fight safely and without having to do many shenanigans. Lastly, I'd push one more slot from Tough into Frozen Armor to softcap... Barrier will also do it, but this covers when Exemplaring. And if you swap the order of Hoarfrost and Frozen Armor, you can keep the high S/L armor when exemplaring down to 39.

Fire Aura works best with a primary that has a PBAoE Knockdown power with high chance to occur in order to better leverage Burn, like Ice Melee, Psy Melee, Dark Armor and Energy Aura have PBAoE mag 2 Stun toggles, so they work well with primaries that have AoE Chance to Stun powers. Or even single-target in order to keep a Boss perma-Stunned. Avoid using melee sets that have a Parry effect together with armor sets that have Typed Defenses (i.e.: Smash, Lethal, etc), because the Parry powers will protect against only one of Smash or Lethal, leaving the other weak. But they do protect against Melee in general, so they work well with armor sets that have Positional Defense (Melee, Ranged, AoE).

I just noticed this, and I want to add: Fire, with procced out Burn, can also do good damage if you have a primary that can help prevent mobs from running out, like Psy Melee (100% knockup) and Ice Melee (Ice Patch). Rad Armor has two different PBAoE damage clicks with long recharge that can be turned into mini-nukes, easily going over 600 AoE damager as an opener. The recharge is too long to be used twice in most battles, but that's more of an opening AoE burst of damage than Shield Charge.

It's about : 1: you have to take one of the first two Mind attacks 2: you can use ranged attacks in melee but not melee attacks in range. And Feral Charge is usable even against a single target since it animates fast, as long as you can spare the endurance, while /Savage is short on ranged attacks. So you're better off adding a 3rd ranged attack than a 2nd melee attack... you'll have a full attack chain easily in melee range anyhow, but sometimes (AVs) you may want to stay only at range.

44% or so, before Barrier and/or Support. And more if you take an Alpha slot with +Defense (and I probably would, if running /Cold).

Just to note... Seismic Smash does enough damage that a damage IO in it adds more to damage than a standard damage proc, until the damage slotting starts running into ED constraints. That's why I'm going with 3 Peroxisomes (makes the Hold duration amazing) plus 3 damage procs... but if you really wanted max damage, go with 4 damage procs, 1 Hecatomb Damage, and 1 level 50 damage IO if your global Accuracy is good enough, and replace the last with a Nucleolus if you need Accuracy slotting in it. The max damage setup shows as about 740 for me (without an Alpha slot activated).

Worth it if they use it on multiple powers. Like, Bruiser has Knockdown on almost every power, the Knockback damage proc is definitely worth it for him. But the Lich has only one Hold power, adding a Hold damage proc probably isn't useful for it. Generally, the guns do well with -Def damage procs, and so do sword attacks, and some pets do knockdown on enough attacks to make that worthwhile. But slots are tight, so... Ninjas use -Def IOs Bruiser and Assault Bot use Knockback IOs (KB converter for AB, damage proc for Bruiser) Mercs use -Def IOs Enforcers use -Def IOs Lich uses Cloud Senses Grave Knights have a lot of IOs available, but they're split with some attacks doing -Def but not all, and same for -ToHit and Knockdown Demon Prince uses slow IO