Coyote

They're under the same selection as Epic. When, at 35, the new option "Pick from new Epic Pool" (or whatever the text is, I forget the wording) appears, you don't get a separate option for the Patron Powers. Instead, the usual selection of 4 Epic Pools has been expanded to 8 Pools... but all under the same Epic Pool selection button.

Right. And it's 5 BASE, but each time you fire a chaining power, you get 1 static... and you get 1 static when you start FCage and 1/10 seconds in it. Each level of static that you've built up is either +3 or +5 additional targets, I forget what the number they finally ran with is, and the static cap is in the teens...12 or 14 or something like that. So the max cap is quite large, actually, and it's easy to go from 0 static to 1 and get everyone if you're soloing, and I think you may only need 2-3 static to get a full team plus your henchmen. Maybe a bit more if other MMs are on the team.

/Fire is best at clearing trash mobs with all of the PBAoEs. It's a decent matchup with Dark Blast since it brings the AoE which Dark is light on. So I think it's a fine combination for a character in general. Specifically for AV fights, what it has is that Ring of Fire is higher damage than usual for an Immobilize along with a fast animation time, so it's a rare Immobilize that's actuall okay in an attack chain... and that Hot Feet adds extra DPS (which costs Endurance, but is easier to maintain with a +Endurance proc in Life Drain). So, you get a slightly better Immobilize (but not as good as Plant because while the attack itself is a lot better, Plant has to throw it half as often so it can use normal attacks more), and a toggle damage aura that's comparable to a weak -Regen power. So, it's not bad against AVs since it does bring some powers that are useful, but it's not great. I'd rather have the stronger Immobilize from Plant, and the -Regen. However, it's not so far behind that it's a bad choice, and it does work well in the rest of the game with fast spawn clearing.

Yes, depending on the AV's powers. Auto-hit powers are nasty, as are -Def powers. Dark Blast is a good choice as it adds a bit of -ToHit (I generally figure the penalty on AVs at about 1/10 normal, so stacking 4 debuffs is about 3% defense which helps when you're close to the soft-cap), but more importantly, it adds a regular Heal as part of your attack chain. As well as being able to slot a +Endurance power in Life Drain to help with Endurance management. Mental secondary is good for the -Regen, and I also like Plant for a 1-shot Immobilize and some weak -Regen. For Dark Blast specifically, Energy is a good secondary since Power Boost is excellent for everything that Dark Blast does.

Ill/Storm for damage and killing non-AV targets. Ill/Cold for killing AV targets due to better -Res and -Regen, which matter more on hard targets. Note that Ill/Storm will actually kill "light" AVs faster, as the damage from Tornado/LS has a greater effect than the -Regen... but usually it's the hard AVs with good resistances that you need to build for. Some AVs have 40% or higher resists to everything, and /Cold can handle those better because Resists don't help against -Regen. But /Cold will definitely be slower to level up, as -Regen is not generally useful for mob killing in regular missions.

A good AV/GM soloer on a budget is Earth/Cold, although it's only usable for that after 32 (27 for exemplaring). However, it won't go through story arcs that fast unless you're keeping the difficulty at x1, since it can only get AoE damage in the 40s.

Wait, you've been SHOOTING the arrows at the enemies? There's your mistake, you're supposed to STAB them with the arrows. In melee. 🤣

Robots/EA is a good set, both thematically and in play. Damage is a bit light, however, except against AVs. Demons/Thermal and Demons/Time, and Thugs/Time should all also be solid defensively, and do more damage.

Short version: PvP Long version: PvP reasons 😉

Is that true even if you're not War Mace/EA?

Martial Combat does most of its AoE damage in melee range, so I like it paired with a primary that has reasons to be in melee range like PBAoE auras... Fire, Electric, Ice.

No, and I doubt it... Arctic Air's radius is far larger than WoC. No, works fine for me. Although I do spam Fire Cages. Yes, though I don't necessarily think that even with it the damage is really worth it. Propel is a good attack for Controllers, but not as good as many Dominator ranged attacks. Yes, as it has a nice control effect. The damage isn't great but it's solid. Your single-target attacks have a chance to create an energy build-up. Total Focus has a 100% chance to creating it. Once you have energy build-up, you release it with either Power Burst or Whirling Hands, doing extra damage (I forget how much, but it's high... like 80% damage increase or so). This makes Energy Assault a high-damage for single-target, and actually not bad for AoE. However, your only AoE is melee-range, and you really want to be using Total Focus to build it up since TF - Power Burst - Snipe is a really high damage series... and Bonesmasher is an excellent attack. So you really want to be in melee range with Energy Assault. Yes. And you will have Fire Blast which is very good damage for its Recharge, plus Blaze and Blazing Bolt. You'll definitely have enough attacks for an all-ranged build. Fire Assault is probably the best secondary for an all-ranged Dominator (and I think that Dark Assault is probably 2nd best).

Another thought is that like many other click-intensive support sets, if you will pair it with a Blast set, then pick a Blast set with fast animations. That way it's easier to sneak in the attacks in between support powers. Ice, Fire, Psy, and maybe Dark all seem like they can sneak in fast attacks with under 1.5 second activations, including snipes for three of them. But I would avoid sets like Rad, Dual Pistols, Water Blast, etc, which generally get a lot of their mileage from powers with longer activation time.

Well, you WOULD want it in the AoE except that it's a Stun power and so it doesn't have the chance to slot one. Otherwise, I think that it's a good idea to put one in Power Burst and one in Sniper Blast while leveling, then once you get purple sets so you have higher Recharge, consider whether the Recharge proc is more useful than a Damage proc. For most builds, I would switch to damage, but I'm not sure I'd do that with a Mind/Energy... Mind really plays much better when you have the Recharge to cycle Total Domination and Mass Slaughterification, and with the long base recharge of Mass Confusion, Mind really likes to have extra Recharge. So... I think that I might leave the two procs in those. It does work out nicely that you can still 5-slot Apocalypse in Burst, and 5-slot Manticore in Sniper.

Yeah, I agree. Storm has great strengths and also gaping holes that need to be filled before it will drive well on the road. Great engine... brakes need work 😄 And it's not "add onto anything without care", that's more like Time or Dark Miasma/Affinity.

Demons are a great primary. Dark is a great secondary. I'm not sure how you COULD make a super bad build except deliberately 😄

Personally, I wouldn't take any Epic pool with either Robots or Thugs that doesn't have an AoE Immob (but moreso with Robots because the Arsonist is only a Tier 1). I'm going with Mu both for concept and because the AoE Immob works well with procs (downside is a smaller radius, upside is that the smaller radius increases the proc chance), because Robots don't do good AoE damage except by leveraging mobs in the ISM patches.

You always go Mental 😛

No, procs don't activate at a high rate in drop powers, and you should be hitting accurately enough already. I might put an Achilles Heel proc in Steam Spray, but I wouldn't bother with enhancing -Defense.

No. Mini-world of Confusion has a 1.5 second duration and a 4 second tick. So even if you enhance the duration, and add Incarnate effects, you'll only be adding about 2 mag or so to the stack, which needs to be a constant minimum of 54 mag. That's really not worthwhile. Heck, the power isn't worthwhile in general, with that short duration/tick ratio and small (tiny) radius.

Well, I think we should compare single powersets unless there is some specific reason why Poison couldn't stack Piercing Rounds with its own debuffs. So leaving aside the Achilles Heel procs, a Poison/DP would be doing -85% Resistance. Yes, it does require melee range, but at 85% the melee risk looks a lot more palatable than at 65%. Also, honestly, in a multi-target situation I'm not sure that I would consider Poison as the better -Resist debuffer, because that splash radius is a lot smaller than Slowed Response.

If you're going Dark and want to perma-Confuse AVs, I also like a secondary with Power Up. Energy Assault is supposed to be good, and it has a PBAoE attack that has a chance to Stun, which can work well with stacking stuns with Heart of Darkness. For the same reason, Earth Assault would also work fine. Both can also put the Fiery Orb ATO in the power to get more AoE Stunning effect. This has nothing to do with soloing AVs, but does help for the rest of the game. I think I do like the idea of Dark/Energy with multiple stacking stuns in melee range.

Well, I don't think players are generally looking to solo AVs with a Storm build WITHOUT filling out the holes at least a bit. Using Illusion or Earth for aggro management, Dark for -ToHit, or Dark Blast/Water Blast for self heals. Maybe Electric (Control or Blast) to leverage the Heal Self proc, etc. And probably build for a high Ranged Def build with solid AoE Def, and use an APP with a resist shield to stack onto the defense. I'm liking Mu in general for /Storm, as it provides a pet that heals and a resist shield, as well as some other solid powers. As a Defender I'd probably use the Electricity APP or whatever its name is, as it has a single-target Immobilize with good duration.

You still need some Accuracy in them, and I like to put some Defense IOs since they're a major source of the set's defensive ability. So you MIGHT be able to squeeze in 3 procs, but I think that it's more likely to get in Achilles and Lady Grey, 1-2 slots for Defense and 2-3 for Accuracy/Damage (and maybe Endurance, I don't recall their Endurance usage).

Why would this dom be especially prone to high levels of debt? 😄 😝