Coyote

I don't get it 🤔

You might look at a Storm/Water Defender (or Water/Storm Corruptor) for a character who doesn't look that aggressive but blows the mobs away. It washes, it rinses, it even has a spin cycle.

Anything with a lot of Stun effects. Energy Melee, Mace, Stone Melee.

If you want a strong defensive set but don't want to heal, I'd go with /Cold. Demons/Cold would probably be the best option, but Beasts/Cold and Bots/Cold are quite tough. Beasts will be the toughest if you go for high Recharge and a perma-Fortify Pack build... with the Cold shields they'll be way over the softcap, enough to even withstand a decent amount of defense debuffing, and they have pretty good resists behind that. However, they'll face more damage in melee, also. Bots won't be as tough statistically, though they'll also pass the softcap, but will play tougher due to playing at range. They do less damage, though. Thugs do more damage than both, and are not as tough as either but will play pretty tough due to being all ranged. They won't be as far into the softcap as either, and don't have strong resists to back them up like Beasts, or heals like the Robots, but having a lot more damage does decrease incoming damage nicely. A different option would be Necro/Sonic. Eventually the henchmen all get heals, and you can have them at 85% resist to everything if you wish to max things out that way. They'll be suffering a lot more debuffs due to not having Defense, but... will be a lot less vulnerable to cascading defense failure.

Actually, you have a much lower chance for each jump to fail, because it makes an AoE attack... so if it misses a target, it rolls on the next one, until it hits, up to its maximum number of targets. So you really only have a 5% miss chance on the first attack, and then when you're down to only one target who hasn't been hit. Everyone else will get hit basically 100% of the time, as a miss will just mean another attack roll on the next viable target, and the odds of missing 2+ consecutive 95% rolls are very low. The self-targeting procs (+Recharge, +Endurance, +Heal) treat it like an 8 second recharge single-target attack, so they're fine. It's a strong defensive power that works well with interrupting attacks until you have everyone Slept/Drained, so I think it's worth spamming for defense... and if you're going to do that, adding procs for damage is a good idea. I mean, just as a single-target attack that you'll spam on the Boss for damage while knocking everyone else around, it's worth proccing, so any AoE damage from the procs is just a bonus. Now, I'm not sure how good the AoE procs are... although the power that each chain uses to attack says it has a 4 second recharge, it also says that it has an activation period of 4 seconds. I assumed this means that it's treated like a toggle, and considered to have a 10 second recharge. If it's only 4 seconds, then it does a lot less damage after the first target. But without having run tests, it looks to me that it fires chained procs at 1/2 the rate of the main, not 1/5 or so, so it seems that a calculation based on 10 seconds is right. But it could be observer bias. On Doms, they have enough attacks that you can skip slotting it... but it's still a good source of self-buffing procs, knocks everyone around the target down, and drains the primary target. I use it on my Ele/Earth in between Tremor/Fissure, since there will be a downtime, as long as there are enough mobs in the area to make AoEs more worthwhile than single-target. This coincides with the fact that it's more useful at the beginning of the fight when not all the mobs are drained. After a couple of rounds, I switch to Seismic Smash in its place, but it's definitely worth using a couple of times at the start of the fight. It also helps stack Holds on a Boss without getting attacked, at lower levels when Domination is down.

On a quick perusal, there are a lot of things there that I don't like. First, though, can you update to Mids 3.0 or higher? I can't open the data link, there seems to be some backwards incompatibility. Notes: once you get to 50 IOs, getting 2x50 in Hasten is good enough, the 3rd slot doesn't help much. Bonesmasher is a damage attack, not a Stun, and if you're putting a purple in there for the set bonuses, put Hecatomb. Better yet, put Hecatomb in Total Focus (that's where you want more Recharge) and put Crushing Impact in BS. Mesmerize is a damaging attack and should be slotted for damage.. or, better yet, ignored and 1-slotted with Acc/Sleep. With Domination up, the Sleep lasts for such a long time it's not necessary to heavily slot it. At worst, 2-slot it, but I wouldn't spend the slots on it. You're missing Power Burst. It's a good attack without Energy stored... with Energy stored, it's a great attack. Take it and love it. You have enough attacks early that you can skip Power Blast (or respect out of it later) and take Burst instead. Weaken Resolve by itself is not a very good power... it becomes great when you put an Achilles Heel in it, as it will have a 90% chance to proc. That adds an average 18% -Res to it for 10 seconds, making it a very good power. If you're going to spend a valuable pool to get it (Doms usually like to max out on pools with Defense powers to squeeze in more LotGs), then get a better effect from it by slotting Achilles Heel. Here is what I'm running... a lot more expensive, but it has easy perma-Dom as well as capped S/L & Ranged defenses (with Barrier or Power Up active only, though). It can perma-Confuse AVs and kill some (depending on level and their Resists) even with Confuse eating a lot of animation time.

Ele/Nrg is a good pairing, because both work best in melee. Electric does a good job sapping opponents so that after a short while you're safe from short-range attack, so build your set bonuses for Recharge and Ranged Defense. Energy does all of its AoE and its best single-target damage based on melee attacks. You use Synaptic Overload and Static Field to break up and prevent a heavy alpha strike. Unlike most Doms, you will want to take your AoE Immob because it helps drain Endurance, and because both Static Field and Conductive Aura give you back Endurance so you can spam it with less pain on the blue bar than for other primaries. Once you have the mobs Confused and Slept in the Static Field, you go into it so that Conductive Aura starts sapping, and start with the Jolting Chain/Chain Fences combination, knocking mobs down and draining them, and then there is a good chance that Static Field will pulse and re-sleep them as they get up so they don't even get to shoot back. This goes on for a short while and then sleeping doesn't matter much because they're out of Endurance. I like to put the Fiery Orb ATO in Whirling Hands... due to the insta-recharge mechanic when using it after a Total Focus, you get twice as many proc activations out of it as from a normal AoE, and Doms build for global Recharge anyhow so that's also proc-friendly. Triggering the orb when in the middle of a spawn means that it has no travel delay and starts doing damage and Stuns immediately, and its stun aura stacks with Whirling Hand's small chance to Stun, adding another layer of safety at point-blank range. One issue to be aware of: Energy Assault blasts will do knockback, and your Chain Fences do NOT convert KB to KD like most Immobs. Instead, you have to use Tesla Cage to prevent knocking mobs back. That's kind of fine, you can go with AoE attacks while targeting the boss, and then using the blasts along with Tesla Cages is pretty natural. But if you like to bounce around targets, knock this guy down, then Hold that guy, etc, you will end up knocking targets away from your draining area and end up taking more damage. Lastly, put every proc that you can fit into Jolting Chain. At 50, that's 3 damage and one FF, and then at least one more proc... a self Heal or chance for +Endurance (Power Shifter) are probably the best options, but it does take a Chance to Hold IO also. If you have enough Accuracy from set bonuses you might 6-proc it. At lower levels you can't put the Apocalypse into it, so fill it out with +HP, +End, and the FF proc, and spam the heck out of it. It'll give back Endurance, Health, and boost Recharge to get Domination up faster, while constantly knocking down mobs and doing a bit of damage.

I know that location-based powers can be executed at the user's location based on how the power is activated via a macro or keybind. Is there a version of the pet GoTo command that can have the pet come to the Mastermind's location? Not Follow, because that has different AI rules and I may want to set the pets up at a location and then move back, but a GoToLocation command based on where I am currently? I have a macro and set up a mouse click sequence to do it, but it would be nice to have a one-touch keybind for it.

A dedicated sapping build for a Blaster would almost certainly take the Musculature Alpha, so once Incarnated, the character would have higher End Drain. Also, the Alpha at Tier 3 will give a level shift, so you generally won't see +4s again... Level 54 mobs will count as +3 to you when calculating level adjustments. So sapping at full Incarnate levels should be somewhat stronger than in the 40s.

That's my favorite Dom so far. Savage is fun fun fun, but low on mitigation... Plant helps with that, and also eats up very little animation time, freeing you to go all Savage-like on your enemies.

I think Proc Monster is the way to go. Kinetics boosts your Recharge, so you're not as strongly compelled to look for Recharge bonuses. This frees up powers to slot for proc damage, with Kinetics helping you reach the damage caps without them. It creates a build that is rare in Controllers, a direct-damage dealer. The build I'm working on, after Fulcrum Shift, does: 480 damage with Dark Grasp (8 sec recharge) 350 damage with Shadowy Binds (4 sec recharge). Also 320 or so with Ice Blast, but that's rarely going to be used because Kinetics is so busy... SB-DG-SB just leaves room for one Kinetics power out of every 4, so there really isn't much room to use Ice Blast... more as the 3rd hit in a 1-2-3 sequence at a fleeing mob at the end of fights. 600 AoE damage from Frost Breath, along with 700 from Ice Storm and almost 400 from HoD as a fight-opener. And 160 or so from Living Shadows on an 8 second recharge. So... AoE damage, single-target damage, and a lot more survivable platform than the pets. I don't think you can get close to this damage by focusing on putting out more pets, and they also start feeling a lot squishier at higher difficulties even with all the -ToHit debuffs. This is a preliminary build, because I'm close enough to soft-capping that I'm thinking it may be worth pushing a bit closer to it... it wouldn't normally matter since the -ToHit debuffs easily soft-cap for most situations, but sometimes ambushes get to shoot you before you can debuff them, and soaking up an ambush at +4/x8 will kill you if you depend on debuffs/controls to be your main line of defense.

Except that the usual damage procs have a 3.5 PPM and cap out at 90% chance to proc, which occurs at 16 second recharge... so a longer recharge doesn't actually increase the chance to proc on a damage power (though it would on a power like Chance to Hold, which has a lower proc chance), but just lowers the number of checks that the power manages per minute.

Funny, I'm also on the Plant/Poison/Earth wagon. Though Plant/Kin/Cold is a good option also... Frost Breath does obscene damage maxed out with procs and Fulcrum Shift.

Fungi use a sleep, and then if you've drawn aggro, more damage will wake you up, but the sleep will have shut down offensive toggles. Main thing is to try to let the pets take aggro, especially since your AoE Heal will wake them. And if they get slept, it's not such a big deal. Also, convert all inspirations to Break Frees, and see if you can fit in Rune of Protection. I use these for my Demons/Time and it works well enough.

Ummm.... //Ice works nicely with an an ice-based look, and also does great AoE damage which is rare on a Controller. It has a minimal graphics option, where the armor is a frosty ice crystals effect rather than the old "ice block all around you"

Stacking more -Res is not a bad thing, it will keep boosting damage. -MaxHP is also useful against AVs. To be honest, if it's not an AV, the interface proc isn't that useful except for the chance-for-damage, as mobs usually die before you stack much -Res on them. The Control set also helps a bit with damage, so it's not a bad thing. You might ask around specifically for the interaction of the +1 Mag and Arctic Air... if they work together well, then that's a no-brainer, because pushing AA up to Confuse Bosses is a Big Thing. Lore is whatever you like, but I like the Storm Elementals for my Illusion/Storm. Judgment is also pretty balanced, though you go Pyrrhic if you want a fast animation, and the Electric if you don't want to bother aiming and just want to hit everything on the map. For my Ill/Storm I went with Ageless since I don't get attacked as much, but an Ice Controller really needs Arctic Air to keep running so they need mez protection.

The chain heal is really weak. The AoE Immob is excellent, especially for E3 who will have mobs drained and looking to run away. It will also help with draining and -Recovery. ST Hold is not needed, as mobs should be drained & Immobilized (effectively Held). Edit: think of the E3, in terms of Control, as shutting mobs down with a combination of Immobilize and Drain, not with actual controls. With Thunderous Blast and Short Circuit slotted with some End Mod, plus Power Sink as a backup, the only reason you won't permanently shut down entire spawns in two hits (and one more to Immobilize most) is the target cap.

Alright, I've reworked the build to how I would run it. The main thing, is that Controller base damage is pretty low, it's always better to use damage procs to increase the damage, than to slot up the damage. Then, the next thing is that the Immobilizes have really long durations, so slotting up their duration isn't very important... same for Sleeps, because usually the effect will be broken by damage or by Ice Slick before the effect ends. Lastly, Surge of Power has a hard crash at the end, it's not very survivable for squishies, and ones that are resist-capped for S/L don't really need it except for mez protection. If mez protection is that important that she can't wait for Clarion, I'd rather get Indomitable Will or Rune of Protection instead. The only option where I'm unsure is the slotting on Ball Lightning... this does way more damage, but Artillery would cap out the Ranged Defense. I'm not sure it's important enough... if it is, switch to Artillery for more defense.

Oh, I see. Yeah, that would be way too much trouble. Especially since the point is to get a way to defend against them... and if you're inviting a team, likely someone will be able to tank it, or give out team buffs, or debuff it, or something. Looking for End drain specifically as a mitigation method seems like something only practical if you have a set team built for draining.

Well, if you're soloing AVs, there is the question of how to survive. While a lot of squishies can range-tank AVs, some AVs are really hard to tank with just Defense since they have -Defense abilities. Others will self-heal, or summon, or do other unpleasant things. Sometimes, shutting down their abilities and attacks is really important, and End draining is an option (though a pretty difficult one). Especially an AT that doesn't have much self-defense like a Dominator, and not all Doms can perma-Hold AVs.

I ran an attack chain analysis once for an Electric Blaster to drain an AV (I forget if it was /Ele or /Nrg), and found that it could drain a level 50 AV, on the average... this includes the -End effect, so it doesn't necessarily mean 0% Recovery... but if the AV did get a tick once in a long while, it would be re-drained quickly. The catch was, however, that it relied on spamming Tesla Cage and Short Circuit, which do little DPA. So it could drain, but then wouldn't beat the AV's Regeneration. An alternate attack chain could beat an AV's regen but wouldn't be able to drain it. However, an Ele/Psy Dominator would be using Drain Psyche for -Regen anyhow, so using it for -Recovery doesn't hurt the attack chain, and using Tesla Cage slotted with damage procs wouldn't be a big loss given the relatively weak attacks in /Psy. And Static Field, Conductive Aura, and Gremlins contribute to the draining without taking action time. So I think one could both beat an AV's regeneration and drain it. Eventually... you would still have to survive a couple of minutes of draining it, you do have 800 points of Endurance to work through even if the AV is helping by making attacks.

What Nihili said. /Energy is really good, and provides a good secondary effect, places for the FF proc, and Power Up. /Ele's secondary effect is generally poor, and has Build Up instead of Power Up... you want the +Special for your controls more than you want extra damage. The only thing it has going for it is that it can slot the FF proc in an AoE. But it's an otherwise poor AoE, so... it's not much.

Well, you regain 5% of your Endurance whenever you get an Endurance tick. So you can't use powers that cost 20 Endurance. An AV has 800 or so Endurance, so they regain 40 points whenever they get a tick. So they CAN use powers that cost 20 Endurance. I'm not sure that there is a single power that has a cost higher than how much an AV regains in a single tick. AVs can be drained, especially at middle levels. Their resistance gets weaker by about 1% per level below 50, so a 35 AV suffers 30% -Endurance and 30% -Recovery. Given that there are powers like Drain Psyche with -500% Recovery, 15% of that won't shut down an AV's recovery, but 30% would. It is really hard for a single character to do it, you pretty much need two sets that both do -End/-Recovery. I'd bet on a Ele/Psy Dominator, maybe Ele/Nrg Blaster (for Power Boost), maybe Ele/EA Defender. I drained Nosferatu in the late 30s with a Bots/EA MM, but I can't drain AVs at Incarnate levels, since their debuff resistance increased... but if a /EA MM could do it in the 30s, then probably a double-Electric Defender can do it at 50.

Good write-up in general, but to me this is the gem of the post. Other than power-boosted EQ, Earth Control is a good set on Dominators but not really special. However, Doms generally get -ToHit only in Dark Control and Dark Assault... having a long-duration -ToHit that can be Power Boosted to about 16% is a huge difference between Earth Control and other control sets. Even without the knockdowns, it's a huge defensive benefit. Now, run it with Dark Assault and add in -13% from Engulfing Darkness and the Life Drain. You're now running about -30% ToHit debuff around you, with mez protection and a self-heal. Very different from the usual Dominator who depends on mezzing opponents for safety. Especially since you can still mez them. But even if you don't, it's pretty easy to hit the softcap to everything, have mez protection, a bit of healing, as well as damage... if you're not facing -Def debuffs or +ToHit on the mobs, you can pretty much tank spawns at x8 even without having them controlled.

I customize pretty much everything, usually, including most of the character having multiple costumes and using a file-load keybind to cycle costumes, even though it's usually just changing colors. Like using orange lightning for 15 seconds, then switching to green, then blue, etc.... keeps things changing and interesting. Though I do have a character who is a nature spirit, and who changes between animal-themed costumes.