Coyote

1: It hasn't been mentioned in any way by the dev team, and I doubt it. 2: Same.

Plant's main strength is the ability to do a lot of control with little actual controlling. You throw Seeds at the start of the fight, and then possibly Roots (treating it as an AoE damage power and slotting it like that). After that, you're free to use the secondary, so take one that is useful. What I find interesting about Plant, is that the mobs kill each other. So, while it could be interesting to take a secondary like Martial that is busy since you're free to attack... the knockdowns prevent the mobs from killing each other. Instead, my preference for Plant is secondaries that have no mitigation effects, so that mobs aren't interrupted from the self-slaughter, and you do more damage faster. So, I prefer: Fire, Thorns, Savage, Rad. Of the ones that you listed, I like Earth the most, since while it does interrupt mobs, it works best at short range using AoEs. And Plant closes to at least mid-range at the start of the fight for Seeds, so it's easy to continue forward and throw the Earth AoEs. And you'll be using Roots for more AoE, which will also prevent the mobs from scattering from Mud Pots. It should clear groups well, and Earth has good single-target damage also. And Plant is a bit weak on single-target control (read: multiple Bosses), but Earth has Seismic Smash which can both take a Boss out of the fight and also seismically Smash it.

It depends on the animation time. With procs, my Dark Controller gets about 190 damage out of it... I could do slightly better from an epic blast or Arcane Bolt, but I wouldn't get the Containment, Immobilize, 4 second recharge, etc. Plus, for Dark, the -ToHit, although the other attacks would have some useful secondary effect. So it's worth taking and slotting. Same for Fire, it's a fast animation with good damage, even though it takes 1 fewer damage proc. Chillblain from Ice is fast animation, and takes the Slow damage proc. Entangle and Crush are also reasonably fast, although Plant has such good use for Roots that you might just stick with that, and Gravity has better options for single-target damage. The ones from Electric and Earth are slower, so... I would still take them due to some benefits like being available early and faster recharge, but I can see using Arcane Bolt, Project Will, or an epic blast instead of them.

I really like the tears and screams idea. I just discarded mine, but I think collecting them isn't a bad idea 😈

Ice Control: take Block of Ice, Arctic Air, Ice Slick, and Jack Frost. Frostbite is also very useful with your secondary as it will keep mobs from running. If you're going to solo, personally I would tak Chillblain and put damage procs in it, for more single-target damage when soloing. Storm: Gale is mandatory, so put a slot with the KB to KD IO, and another with the Force Feedback: +Recharge IO, and use it on groups of mobs to get a short Recharge boost. After that, Freezing Rain, Tornado, and Lightning Storm are the must-takes in the set, and Steamy Mist is very good (it's a place to slot the Resist unique IOs without having to take Tough). Thunderclap isn't bad while leveling up, and it can remain in an end-game build for exemplaring. It's a bit slow to use regularly once you have high Recharge and other powers are ready to use, but when you're waiting for something to do, Stunning minions isn't useless. Hurricane is a great power early, and a lot of people say they don't use it much later. I agree, but even with a single slot of To Hit Debuff/Endurance Reduction it's still a good panic button even in the end game, and in the middle game it's a game-winner in enclosed maps. Ice Mastery: Frozen Armor is important and useful, and the main reasons to go into this pool are getting two good AoEs (Frost Breath and Ice Storm), so that's the important 3. But I think you need to take a filler power first, and I would take Hibernate and put the Preventive Medicine +Absorb IO there to get some use out of it. Unfortunately that pushes Frozen Armor to your last pick since the AoEs need 5-6 slots, and you can't put that many slots in your Level 49 power. Skippables: O2 Boost. Okay heal, but single-target heals aren't that useful, and it costs a lot of Endurance. Snow Storm. It has its uses, but more at the lower levels. If you do take it, plan on dropping it later. Shiver: See Snow Storm, but in a click form. Flash Freeze: Sleep powers aren't much use except to stop an incoming ambush or over-aggro. It has some use in the lower levels, but at higher levels you'll have better tools and never use it. Glacier: It's an AoE Hold. They don't get much use, but aren't bad powers. You can take it or skip it.

Traps and Storm. Traps because it can pre-set a kill area safely and Wormhole a spawn into Trip Mine x2, Acid Mortar, Seeker Bots, and Caltrops, blowing all the minions away before anyone can react... and leaving everyone else Stunned, debuffed, and heavily damaged. Storm because Storm is mostly a single-target damage set that does a LOT of damage to 5 targets max... but generally will do it to 1-2 targets because Tornado and Lightning Storm are going to be mostly doing damage to single mobs at a time. Now bunch up everyone tightly from a Wormhole (with KB to KD IO), under Singularity, and let Tornado and LS hit 5 mobs every time, and you take what is good single-target damage and turn it into good mini-AoE (with a 5 target max, granted) damage. Gravity already does good single-target damage, so you end up with great single-target damage plus very good AoE, along with the ability to stack Disorients (Wormhole plus Thunderclap, plus some from Tornado, plus an Energy Font once in a while)... single target damage, AoE damage, a lot of Stunning. What more could someone ask for? IMO, it's the best pairing for Gravity.

I have to compare and contrast the tone of this newbie asking for advice, versus another one posting about problems in the end game and how the game is so bad and hard, and then the responses that they got. Not that the other didn't get helpful responses, but ... you get more helpful advice with polite requests for advice than with complaints.

I think Controllers get the most out of Grav. Its extra damage powers are very useful for them, while for Dominators... they compete with lots of other good attacks. Wormhole is great, but... there are Controller combos that benefit more from specific mob placement. Placing mobs together for AoEs is nice for all ATs, and Doms have more AoE powers overall, but there are a few Controller secondaries that really benefit from having an entire spawn put together nicely in one small area.

Travel powers open up at Level 4, but you can get a Ninja Run for free from the Pay 2 Win vendor (in the starting area for both villains and heroes) that moves pretty fast.

My suggestion is two parts: First, in general, all characters are viable in CoH, it's not a hard game. Some situations may be hard, but overall it's pretty easy. So go with the concept of a character that most interests you. Second, if you have time before you make the character, ask on the appropriate AT (ArcheType) Forum, "I want to play kind of like this, is this character design good for that?". As long as you don't get warned off, it should be fine... it may not be the very best combination, but it will be fine at what you want. One additional point, as you're learning the character creator: sometimes it's hard to figure out what you were doing when you found some interesting look, and you can't go back to it... you can save costume designs and reload them. So you can make one character, but design 5 different looks, and not lose the first that you end up liking the most, just because you're working on the 5th option.

The first rule of Feral Club is, we don't talk about Feral Club's AoE ability 😛

Ninja Training has a few strengths, but only once you know the procs and how to use them: 1: The Lotus Drops is a bad power on its own stats compared to other PBAoEs. However, it's long Recharge time means that it has much higher chances to proc damage procs, so it can hit 400 average damage per attack. 2: Smoke Flash is a poor power on its own, because the -Res is not that good and the duration is poor. But if you get rid of the enemies in that span of time, then the shorter duration is better if it leads to a shorter recharge so it's available for the next spawn. 3: Blinding Powder is kind of weak compared to the other Tier 8-9 mezzes since it's Mag 2 and the Confuse only has a chance to proc and it can't take all of the Hold damage procs and turn into a mini-nuke... but Contagious Confusion is a great set, and it probably has the best proc in the game on an AoE power, shutting down a spawn for a few seconds. That's long enough to follow with Smoke Flash, Lotus Drops, and a couple of good AoE attacks from the primary (like, say, Rain of Arrows), and you do a lot of damage in the short window of safety from Blinding Powder and of increased damage from Smoke Flash. And you can use the longer recharge for higher chances to proc -Res powers Overall, the powers are pretty bad, but you can leverage certain procs and turn it into good performance once you get to Level 50 (since it needs the Contagious Confusion proc to get the nice safety boost at the start of the fight). And despite its apparently low stats, Lotus Drops is a great PBAoE if you switch to using procs for its damage rather than enhancing its stats.

I think that the main strength of Energy Blast (other than the visuals, granted) is its ability to push up Recharge with the use of Force Feedback procs. This means that I look at what set would have excellent powers on longer recharges (preferably ranged), in order to take advantage of the Recharge. Actually, TA is one, though I look at getting Glue and ESD Arrows up faster. Other options that benefit well are Mental Manipulation (faster Drain Psyche), Atomic Manipulation (several good powers although some are PBAoE), and maybe Martial Combat (I'm not sure how good getting Burst of Speed up faster is, but it could be an interesting build).

Plant is great for low power usage. You use Fly Trap and Carrion Creepers, but both are on a long recharge. Then you use Seeds of Confusion usually once per fight, and then maybe Roots & Strangler if they're slotted for damage as part of your normal attack chain. Plant works great with most every secondary, but I like the ones that lower mob defenses so that once Confused they kill each other faster... Thorns, Rad, or Savage. Ice Control is not as strong, but it's also a low power usage... you run Arctic Air and drop Ice Slick, and then it's bashing time. It uses Endurance, though, so you may want to pair it with Dark Assault (to put Theft of Essence in Life Drain), or with Psy (for Drain Psyche), or Rad Assault (again, Theft of Essence). Of those, I think Rad and Savage are more melee-oriented.

A few things. First, the slotting on Dominate: if you're going to put a damage proc in a power, slot as LITTLE recharge in the power as you can, in order to make the proc more likely to fire. So, either commit to proccing it out for damage with like 4 damage procs and the other two slots for a mix of Accuracy, Hold, and Damage... or don't put any in. You could also go with a 4 damage procs, 1 Devastation Hold proc, and depending on your global accuracy, either a 5th damage proc (the Apocalypse, saving the purple Hold proc for Poison Gas Trap) or an Accuracy/Hold. Second, the Kismet: it costs 1 slot, and it gives no defensive bonuses. So it actually doesn't matter which defensive power you put it into, so put it into your earliest power that you'll be running all the time.... Maneuvers or Weave. That way you get its bonus earlier. Third, you're not using that much Endurance just flying around. Either put in a Flight Speed IO, or my preference would be to put a Breath of the Zephyr KB Protection IO, and free up the Karma KB IO so you get a slot. Fourth, Seismic Smash has an inherent Accuracy bonus... I didn't download the build to check the bonuses, but you may be able to get to 140% base chance to hit, which is good enough, by using an Acc/Dam IO, and it has high enough base damage that it's worth trying to get some enhancing into it. Fifth, procs in toggle powers don't really help much, except for the kind of procs that check on multiple targets and fire once. Something like Force Feedback, or Siphon Insight. So I wouldn't put damage procs in Venomous Gas... maybe the Achilles is worth it, but since you're already using one in Envenom and they don't stack, I'd rather just put 4x Dark Watcher's Despair in Venomous Gas.

No, no, I did NOT mean to make any kind of suggestion that a xxx/FIRE should be slotting up Strangler for damage. The Fire attacks are just so good that it's not worth it. It's the sets with ranged attacks that activate more slowly like Energy, or that don't even have many for a while, like Savage, where it's a real consideration. My Plant/Savage definitely got a lot of use from it, but my Mind/Fire wouldn't slot up Dominate for damage, even with Confuse to use against bosses. You're right, not slotting for Hold duration (and a bit of Accuracy and Recharge) is going to be a major trade-off, and should be done only if you're gaining a lot in DPS.

Gotta say, I was sure I'd like Dominators since my favorite AT is Controller... but I didn't expect to like my Plant/Savage as much as my main. I absolutely love how it plays. Mind/Fire is great also, and Electric/Earth is pretty good. The only ones I couldn't get into were the Fire/x, so now I'm giving it a last shot as a Fire/Psy, which seems like the best combo. If that fails, I'll run Fire as a Controller. I also have an Ice/Martial, that should be pretty fun when I get a chance to actually play him, since Ice is an Ice-Slick-and-forget set, so I'll be free to kick booty, literally.

I think it depends on the secondary. Proc-slotted Strangler does a LOT of damage, and some sets don't have that much ranged damage. For Fire Assault, I definitely agree... it has some of the best ranged attacks. But for Energy Assault, for example, I'd rather use FF: Recharge procs in a couple of Energy blasts to get the Recharge, and slot up Strangler as damage since the blasts are not very good. On my Plant/Savage I definitely slotted it for damage, since otherwise it's Insect Swarm and then nothing for ranged single-target until Call Hawk at 35. It also matters how much time you plan to spend in melee. Some Doms may not have a good set of ranged attacks... and not care because they're planning to be in PBAoE range all the time, like Plant/Martial or Plant/Earth.

IIRC, it's a 100% chance to Sleep, every 4 seconds. With a long duration, maybe 8 seconds. Since mobs take about 3-4 seconds to go up, the timing would have to be pretty unlucky for a mob to get knocked down (which wakes it) and NOT get re-Slept on the way back up to its feet. Combining Jolting Chain and Static Field gives them few chances to take a shot. Adding in Chain Fences gives them more chances, since now you have more periods when they're taking damage and thus may be awakened right after a pulse from Static Field... but Chain Fences also shuts down Recovery, making End-draining easier.

Maybe Detention powers could be treated as -Damage and -Special debuffs. And... knockback is a nice concept for a set, but it's not enough, and +Defense is available in lots of places. FF is solid for lower level teams, but once other sets start getting more abilities available to them while FF just gets more flavors of KB, it starts showing lots of problems. I can definitely agree with the set needing a pass. I wouldn't even call it a balance pass as much as a usefulness review.

End Game Problems: Solved. Thank you all for your answers, we'll meet again at the same Bat-time (Cat-time for you roleplayers on Everlasting 😉 ) next week. 😄

Gotta agree. My first 50 redside was a soloing Merc/Traps. Soloed every AV I met, and I think only Positron was a problem. Granted, the set didn't perform as well as some others... but it still did pretty well. Achilles Heel in the Tier 1 and 2s went a long way towards making up for the lower damage against single hard targets.

Another point to Synaptic Overload is that it's ranged, while draining mobs is short-range... sometimes you have to aggro a 2nd spawn to fight the first spawn in a room, and throwing a Confuse in its direction helps a lot.

Gravity is a fine set but works better as a Controller since it has more attacks (which are superfluous with a Dominator's secondary) and it really leverages Wormhole when it's combined with Storm or Traps. Dominators don't generally have location-based powers that benefit from having mobs placed for them, though bunching up mobs always helps with AoEs for all ATs. Ice can work as a Dominator, especially since Domination protects you from having Arctic Air drop, but it should be paired with a secondary that interrupts incoming damage. I would suggest Dark with its -ToHit, or else the melee-oriented knockdowns from Martial or from Earth Assault. Between constant knockdowns, Ice Slick, and the mobs shooting each other due to Arctic Air, it does have decent defenses in melee. It's being shot at where you won't have much defense, I'm afraid, so you may have to pull if you're soloing. On a team, the character should be fine in any case. It's also possible that Ice Assault may stack -Recharge enough to be safe... mobs won't be falling as much, but they'll have problems attacking more than once or twice in a fight.

Achilles Heel does not stack from any multiple sources. A target can only be under the effects of the latest AH that affects it.