Coyote

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? 😄 😝

I've seen over 400 damage from multiple Controllers in the Pylon threads. Usually with /Storm, though /Cold is also high up, and usually Illusion although I recall seeing Fire. And my calculations are that other sets would also do a surprising amount of DPS if slotted properly (Dark is going to be high up, but Earth/Ice/Electric all manage solid damage stats if done right, and Plant is also quite good). Also, Storm/Sonic should break 400. A note about Storm: I run Ill/Storm as my primary, and she has had no running issues with over 90% of the AVs I've met. There were a few who were track stars, and I think a lot of AV soloers would recognize the names... Nosferatu at the top, also Romulus and Director 11. But most AVs will stand and fight due to PA's aggro, and other powersets besides Mind will have an Immobilize available. Defenders would need to have an Immobilize to get good use from Storm, though. So, one of the two "bad" pairings for Storm on Controllers... really didn't end up having much running problem. Poison really is very high -Res, but Cold is surprisingly high -Res also. You put Achilles Heel in Infrigidate, and your "base" -Res is about -48% (Sleet and Achilles Heel)... but you can often stack Sleet about 1.5x without problem (2x at the top end), and Heat Loss also has some -Res, so you're really averaging over -60% Resistance with Cold.

Earth would be good defensively as you have a pet that draws aggro, and that you can very strongly support defensively. Offensively, it's a bit lacking. Control-wise, it would be great... a very strong pairing defensively, weak offensively. Dark would be a decent option, the +Recharge from EA would help get Haunts out faster, and Dark can be slotted with procs to do a lot more damage than Earth. I also like the Electric Control option, and Fire Control since EA is strong defensively and would cover for Fire's defensive weaknesses.

A few Dominator builds can perma-Hold +4 AVs (with a level shift, I don't know if there's a build that can do it at true +4). Given that Confuse durations are significantly longer than the Holds, even with the longer Confuse animations, it's certainly possibly for every Dominator with a single-target Confuse to perma-Confuse an even-con AV... and I think that all of them can perma-Confuse a +4(3) AV with a high-Confuse, high-Recharge build. It may require a specific Alpha Incarnate slot, but it can certainly be done. I'm not sure that it can be done at all by a non-Dominator. Well, maybe on an even-con AV. Domination basically takes the Magnitude stack that you would build without it and multiplies it by 2.5, while Controller duration compared to Dominator is 1.25, I believe. So... a Controller would have half the stack of a perma-Dom. This might just be feasible against an even-con AV, though I wouldn't bet on it. So... go with a perma-Dom build that has a single-target Confuse, and you shouldn't have any problems against AVs up to +2, and +3-con can be done with a good build. Note that this is at higher levels, when you're fully slotted, have a lot of +Recharge from sets, and the IOs that you have in the Confuse power are at high level. It will be difficult to do at Level 30 even if you manage to make a perma-Dom build at that level. So it's a high-level plan, not a leveling build. Note: I could perma-HOLD (not Confuse) AVs in the 30s with a Fire Dom. So... given that perma-Confuse is easier, it's certainly possible in the 30s. Just not easy.

I would not put the ATO set in Carrion Creepers, since the Immobilize is a minor effect. It's there for damage, and usually gets slotted with damage IOs or damage procs, and Recharge. Tremor does KnockDOWN already, and thus shouldn't have the KB to KD IO in it, it should have Force Feedback: +Recharge. Same for Fissure. I'm not sure why Hurl Boulder is in the build, with only one slot it's not worth activating in a fight. I would rather 1-slot Spirit Tree, put Apocalypse in Hurl Boulder, and turn it into something useful. Maybe put another Force Feedback +Recharge as the 6th slot in it, and really get some Recharge out of it.

The IO from Overwhelming Force isn't clear. What it does is the following when slotted in a power: 1: It boosts Damage (which is why you want to slot it). 2: IF the power normally does NOT cause Knockback/down, it then gives it a 20% chance to do Knockdown. 3: IF the power normally DOES cause Knockback, it converts it to Knockdown. If the power does Knockdown, it doesn't have an effect.

Storm and Dark work well with everything. Electric Affinity works well with Robots, especially since the Bots attacks are terrible while EA is busy, so you're not missing out on making good attacks because you're busy electrocuting your toys. Time works great with them defensively, though offense may be a bit light. Cold and Thermal also work fine... Cold makes it easy to soft-cap their defenses, while Thermal adds a solid Resistance layer behind their base defenses and also heals. Both put out decent Resist/Regen debuffs. Oh, and Pain also works well... normally I consider it a step below Thermal since it doesn't have -Regen, but Bots put out very strong -Regen so that covers that hole, and otherwise Pain is about as good as Thermal

Do we know that this can be done? The details that I recall seeing on powers do have the ability to set up multiple Hold levels on a target, escalating with time.... but I don't recall seeing a way to CHANGE the base stats of the power regarding activation. Now, different powers CAN be activated from the same base power like fast snipe vs insta snipe, but that's checked at power activation. Is it really possible for a toggle to change its user-affecting statistics like the Endurance cost AFTER it has been activated? I don't know that it can't be done, but I don't recall seeing a power where this shows that it CAN be done.