Coyote

Can you Phase Shift Lord Recluse? And if so, would he lose his buffs? And if so, could you use 2 Gravity Controllers/Dominators to bypass having to deal with the turrets?

All I Want for Christmas is Y... no, actually, it's CoH. 😛

This is right. My top 3 choices would be Plant, Dark, and Electric, with Mind as another option. Controllers may be able to defend themselves from early on with their secondary, but my Fire Dominators just feel a bit naked.

Well, that would be why you're thinking that they do little damage. I'm playing an Earth/Cold and it has solid damage, only because of procs... 3 in the Hold, 3 in Infrigidate, and mobs actually die at reasonable speeds for what's a truly low-damage combination. /Kin especially should invest in procs no later than 38, since Fulcrum Shift will take care of base damage slotting.

I have to agree with the majority. OCD says procs go to the right. Except for KB to KD, which go on the left. And maybe Force Feedback. But definitely not others. And they have to be arranged by color.. you can't mix Hold and Ranged damage procs, all the reds and all the oranges have to be split.

Drain Psyche is a PBAoE (Point Blank Area of Effect) power. It needs the character to be in the middle of a lot of mobs to get a good benefit. Primaries that use cone controls, like to back away from the mobs so that the cone's width is larger at the distance of the mobs, and you hit more mobs with the cones. So you have a nice power that works better when you're in the middle of mobs, and you have cone powers that work better if you back up. It's possible to use both with fast movement (and use of Combat Jumping), but it's easier to play a character with Drain Psyche if that character's controls are also PBAoE or AoE (since you can always target an AoE at short range and have it function a lot like a PBAoE power). Basically, the less movement that you are forced to do in order to make your powers work better, the less time you spend repositioning and the more time controlling and attacking.

I would say that it is. Electric can solo or team and provide a lot of defense early... I was at +1/x3 in the teens without problems... in the land of Praetoria, where the shadows lie. Earth matches nicely with Electric's PBAoE aura since it does most of its damage at short range, so you fight inside the Static Field while draining mobs with Conductive Aura, and doing pretty good damage. Elec/Martial would be pretty much the same idea, BTW... though Earth has a big advantage due to Power Up. Power Up allows you to build for a Defense build and shoot up the Defense stats for 10 seconds and the End Drain stats for 10 seconds, basically boosting your defense at the beginning of the fight, which is exactly when Elec is a bit weaker since hte mobs aren't yet drained. By the time Power Up ends and your Defense drops to normal, the mobs are generally drained. This works best if you take a S/L defense in your epic power pool, and Weave plus some other defense powers so that it has more base Defense to improve. But as a Dominator, you're trying to fit in 5 Defense powers anyhow if you can, so you can get 5 LotG, right?

Illusion/Storm can output enough DPS. I can vouch for Babbage and that was level-limited to the Synapse TF. If you can keep the pets alive, Demon/Storm can definitely do it. It might require hovertanking. If you're accepting in-set -Regen, then there are tons of options. A Beam Rifle character can probably do it, especially if they have a secondary that also debuffs -Regen. Bots have -Regen, and anyone with Traps has perma -1000 regen, so any /Traps MM should be able to do it as well as most Bots/anything. Heck, I think that an Earth/Cold Controller can do it, with Animate Stone tanking the GM and Benumb killing its Regen.

That explains the advice. A Mind specializes in controlling mobs without aggro, so they don't need defense as much as more control. Other doms may have to absorb alpha strikes more often even when putting out controls, and higher Defense will make it easier to control without having to pause to heal up. Ice, Earth, Fire, for example, may have knockdown patches, but when Stuns aren't available or when adds appear, damage will come in. Slowing down the rate of incoming damage from uncontrolled mobs is a big benefit... most Controllers can't go around assuming that they will be able to control all spawns. Also, just as a note... anyone saying that they can control everything should run through the First Ward/Night Ward content. You get enough ambushes that are targeted specifically on you, that the usual Mind Control plan of "I initiate every combat" just doesn't work. When playing in arcs that have lots of ambushes, you do need some solid personal defenses to survive incoming attacks before you can mez them.

Yeah. I keep expecting it to post: Lv 8 Thread LF Fire Farm Team

Well, true as far as canon lore goes, but that doesn't prevent any character from having a story/background that could create a conflict. It's not like we EXPECT any character who doesn't take a travel power to say that it creates some problems with his powers, but if they did, I wouldn't try to explain to them how their story is all wrong.

This is actually the reason I really like Ninja Run compared to Superspeed... it's slower, but SS is so fast at high levels that details around you are a blur on your way to the next door mission. Sometimes slowing down on your way to the next batch of XP makes the game overall more enjoyable. It's not like we're getting awards for getting to 50 faster, after all.

Well, they count as blueside to me since they're available to Heroes, so I count First Ward and Night Ward as blueside content, and I find it excellent. Despite one badly-designed mission that killed me like 100 times (yes, doing it once). Don't forget to add the New Praetorians arc to your list. I don't like doing Shauna Stockwell's arc when I'm given it... it feels like it's better done later in the teens, when you have more powers to face the Skulls AVs. Some people like the Vahzilok Plague arc, some people hate it... I like arresting Dr V, so I like it. Ubelmann the Unknown is also a good story in the 20s, but the mechanics are a bit old-style... just a lot of fighting.

Rad Assault also has a melee-range self-heal... it's twice as strong as Life Drain, but it requires that the target is Contaminated. So it's not dependable, but it's there. Savage has a pure self-heal, no enemies required. It's very strong, but also on a really long timer. Also, Plant gets Tree of Life, though it's on a long timer and with a long activation time, so really only useful for AVs, EB, and maybe higher-level Bosses. Another interesting idea is the Entropic Chaos set, which gives +Recharge as well as a lifetap effect. I think it's only about 2.5% equivalent, after "chance to proc", but if you put that in 3 attacks, it's like you're cycling a 7.5% heal regularly into your attack cycle, which is close to Life Drain. If you're building for Ranged Defense, it's hard to choose that over Thunderstrike (though getting +Recharge along with a defensive benefit is nice), but if you're going for S/L defense, then Entropic Chaos could be a solid choice to increase your effective in-combat regeneration rate.

To be honest, one of my most powerful characters before perma-Dom is my Plant/Savage. He destroys missions solo, and because a lot of his damage scales with mob size, he has no problems with "clear all" on x3. Yes, defenses have big gaps, but when you only use one power to defend yourself from the majority of incoming damage, slotting it up isn't that hard. I only use 3 attacks from the Assault set, so it's not that hard to slot them up. I said some time ago that even without perma-Dom, Dominators have an issue leveling up: all ATs need to slot up attack powers for Accuracy and Damage, and usually Recharge and End Red. But most other ATs get to slot up their defenses with only two IO... End Red and either Defense, Resist, Heal, or ToHit Debuff. Then there are some powers like Holds that need more, but usually get an Accuracy bonus so you don't need as much Accuracy slotting early. So Dominators need to slot up more effects on all of their powers, on the average, which makes the early-levels slot crunch hit them harder. However, if you can bypass that issue by getting powers that are solid with few slots, and only concentrate on a few controls and a few attacks, I think they play better. Also, you need to worry about Accuracy early more than other ATs, because you have to hit with both your attacks and your defenses... the Kismet IO is necessary, as is looking for set bonuses like Positron that give Accuracy and Recharge. Also, assault sets with -Def shine early on when your attacks aren't that accurate and getting -Def debuffs really helps. Later on you fill out your Accuracy and don't need the -Def that much, but when making the slog to perma-Dom, getting -Def debuffs (or a self-buff with +ToHit) makes the leveling up much easier. Lastly, Dominators really play better with a primary that blooms early and can defend you well before you're fully slotted out. To my mind, that's Electric (you can end-drain spawns completely pretty early on), Dark (-ToHit on everything really helps out with underslotted controls), and Plant (because Seeds). If you were to mix one of those with Rad, Savage, or Thorns, I'm sure that you'd see a much smoother leveling experience.

You really don't think that virally-active genetically engineered wasps can be used to improve intelligence in test subjects? 😈

I thought that was a bit of a shame... it was a fun read 😄

I'm getting some nice quotes from this thread. Keep it going 😉

I generally agree with this, with one clarification and one change: the "where -regen matters" does apply to GMs, but not to most AVs other than maybe Madam of Mystery, because the damage Storm puts out is effectively more than -Regen except when you face ridiculous Resist values like MoM has. But for most AVs, more damage from Storm > more -regen from Cold. I don't agree with Plant/Poison, because Poison Gas Trap stops mobs from killing each other, and that's a huge part of the damage that Plant puts out. I prefer Kin with it for damage, since that gives you extra damage (personally, and for the Fly Trap, and for the Creeper vines), and also allows mobs to keep hitting each other. As Parabola just stated, pairing Plant with any secondary that interrupts or slows (or debuffs) the self-damage that a spawn does to itself due to being Confused is likely to lose as much damage from the lost/weakened attacks, as it adds. Granted, Poison is a really good AoE secondary, so it may come out ahead in terms of damage that it deals vs confused damage that it prevents.. but Kinetics has no downside. Frankly, I might consider Plant/Traps, as being able to go up to a Confused blob and Trip Mine the bunch could also be very damaging. But overall I'm going with Plant/Kin as the AoE damage dealer.

Phantasm is already permanent. Phantom Army needs a lot of Recharge... heavily slotted for Recharge in the power, Hasten, and +Recharge bonuses from sets. You need more +Recharge to get perma-PA than perma-Hasten, so if you don't yet have perma-Hasten your PA won't be permanent.

Heh, who didn't enjoy the "kill CoT" missions in Perez Park? The tense excitement of trying to pick off outside straggles from large forest meadow groups while backing up in narrow forest pathways? Trying not to back up into a +3 spawn of the Lost or Vahz?

Post your build, also. To be honest, Time Manipulation is really not at all helpful with regards to doing more damage, but he shouldn't have AV-style resistance to debuffs, so Time Crawl should seriously gimp his Regeneration. Go to the P2W vendor and get the power that reveals enemy stats, see what his Regeneration rate is, and see what it drops down to once you apply Time Crawl. You also have access to Time Stop at level 20, if you're willing to do other missions or grind the experience to get there. Combined, the two are -150% Regen, and even if he has higher than normal Regen this should lower it by a good factor. Also, let's see how you have your powers slotted... it certainly should be possible for MOST Controllers to outpace his regen, but it may require options such as buying Damage procs to put into the Hold power(s), Panacea and Performance Shifter procs to maintain the attack chain, etc. I could see an Ice/Empathy being stuck, but Mind does more damage, and while Time Manipulation isn't great, it does help a bit with the -Regen. Lastly, an interesting trick: RAISE the difficulty level in number of mobs, but not level. Like, try +0x4. Try to get a Boss in the area, then Confuse the Boss... pull Noble Savage to the Boss, and you'll get a lot of DPS added. You do have to switch targets and maintain the Confuse on the boss, but the DPS gain is well worth the time to activate Confuse.

Vahz are limited in range ,but they do so much damage that when I hit a spawn with Seeds of Confusion, if I don't hurry up and hit them with a damage power, they kill half the spawn in like 3 seconds.

Heh, nothing had as harsh a death penalty as UO. I mean, dying to mobs was annoying enough, but dying to PKs... heh.

Echo this.