Coyote

Skip the following powers: Salt Crystals: You will be using Freezing Rain and Earthquake, and they will wake up sleeping mobs. This is more of a tool against adds, and I think that Hurricane is very useful against adds while also being useful in other situations. Quicksand and Snow Storm: You don't need movement debuffs, with Freezing Rain and Earthquake to knock down mobs, and Stone Cages to Immobiliize them. Quicksand's -Def is useful, but not enough to take it since both FR and Eq also put out a lot of -Def. delay O2 boost until you're close to getting Animate Stone. On a team, you're too busy with debuffs and controls if things go poorly to have time for single-target healing, and it's not useful if the team is rolling. It's only useful to help someone tank an AV, so getting it late is quite acceptable. Other than that, pretty much everything is useful. Gale not so much since you have two AoE knockdown patches plus Tornado and Lightning Storm, but it can be useful for a Force Feedback proc... and you can't skip it, anyhow. Thunderclap is great for stacking with Stalagmites, or you use Stalags to open and Stun the LTs, then you Hold the LTs while Stalag is active, and then use Thunderclap to extend the Stun on the minions, allowing you to perma-control a pretty large spawn other than the bosses.

I like it, and I like Steampunkette's version also. Going with Whip attacks all as close melee (20' or so) and using Fire Blast attacks for the ranged attacks works. Going with Whip attacks as short ranged attacks (40' or so) and using Fire Sword attacks for melee also works. I like the switch to a patch DoT for the Summon Hellfire animation, it's a very good idea. I think that a Whip/Blasts version would PLAY better, but a Whip/Sword version would be visually more impressive, and I would prefer to play the latter.

FYI, I think that a /Dark Controller can put out over 100% ToHit Debuff against an AV. Add in the debuffs from the primary (including Haunt and Umbra Beast), and I think that topping 150% is doable. Even resisted, that's like 17% ToHit Debuff against an AV, more than a small Inspiration.

To note, this is kind of a non-starter issue for any new Assault sets incorporating Whips, for a simple reason: There are only 4 whip-using animations, and one of them is a bit problematic (the Summon Hellfire animation) since it would be hard to extend it to medium range, and I'm not sure how it would work as a mob runs away around a corner. So any suggestion that takes out one of the few usable whip-based attack animations really is going against the whole idea of making a usable set that adds the Whip animations into the game as an option other than the personal attacks in Demons. In short: use all of the whip animations.

Grav/Dark is a good thought, I forgot about Grav for some reason. I'm surprised a Fire/Storm can do it, though... without a self-heal, and with Hurricane coming after the Skulls AVs are done, what are you using for survival?

Take Tactics and 6-slot it with ToHit enhancements (overslotted, but necessary... they have a higher Buff modifier than Blasters, so you may be able to get it with fewer than 6 slots). Get the Kismet +Accuracy IO and slot it into a power that takes +Defense enhancements. That should get you the needed ToHit.

Dark and Dark are both very strong defensive sets, enough so that I feel you may be getting too many defensive powers if you don't have room for both Arcane Bolt and the Immobilize. If you only take one, I would take the Immob, since the ability to immediately get Containment on a Boss, and to hold AVs in place, is more useful than the extra damage. Personally, I would take both if I were taking the Sorcery pool. This would allow me to slot the Hold for Hold rather than for Damage, and cycle the two attack powers for doing damage.

I like most of it, but not Summon Hellfire. It's not useful if you don't have a pet... I would rather see the animation used for a Lifedrain effect as a ranged single-target blast that does DoT and HoT.

Poison is a very weak defensive Secondary at low levels... weak AoE debuffs, no +Defense, and no self-heal. So you want a Primary that has good ability to control/debuff the spawn early on. To my mind, this leaves: 1: Dark Control. Good early controls, plus great -ToHit debuffs. Also bonus damage with Haunts at 18, and a non-aggro Confuse. 2: Plant Control. Probably the best control power very early on carries the set defensively. No need to wait for the set to mature. Also, AoE Confuse bunches up melee targets nicely, which is good for Poison's small-radius AoE debuffs. 3: Electric Control. Okay early controlling, not great, but can set up to sap spawns pretty early. Nice combo later on with Poison Gas Trap... the Trap prevents recovery, and the Electric powers drain Endurance. 4: Earth Control. Good early controls, good debuffing with Earthquake's -ToHit.

A high-level team can max out the spawn difficulty with 1-4 characters, depending on the character mission difficulties. This does not occur too much at lower levels, as characters usually turn up the difficulty to the highest level that they can handle only at 50. Once you have the spawn maxed out, adding any additional characters does not increase the difficulty of the mobs, but increases the abilities of the team. Therefore, large teams at high levels face easier play since they can stack more power than the mob spawns, and so adding defense-oriented characters like Controllers and Tanks is not as useful as adding damage-oriented characters. The problem will be less apparent as the team size gets smaller, down to the case of soloing, where we can see that Controllers are still excellent characters. Teaming up at sizes 2-5 is a lot more interesting at level 50 than 6-8, because you limit the team's ability to judge & nuke each spawn, and so you have to provide some ability to face retaliation.

Just as a note, a soloing Dark Defender can put out over 100% -ToHit when including the debuffs from Dark Servant, so it will take a significant chunk of an AV's damage. And it makes it a lot easier to effectively soft-cap Defenses when you're getting around 12-15% from your debuffs. It's certainly not as good as a defense-oriented buffer, but it is possible to get to some pretty useful numbers.

Just as a note, the Assault sets for Dominators don't necessarily need control effects like Stuns and Immobilizes. Leaving the Knockdowns and -Resist debuffs in the attacks would work fine, since this would be for a Dominator secondary powerset, not for a primary Control set.

Continuing, to consider sets... what sets could solo AVs at low levels? Controller only, though I can see it being done on a Defender/Corruptor also, and maybe a small amount of MMs. At low levels, healing through the damage is a reasonable mitigation strategy. In fact, as strong as the Kinetics and Dark heals are, they have no problems. I think Pain, Empathy, and Thermal may have more difficulties. There aren't too many other options at this level: you can't set up IO sets for Ranged Defense, you have no Epic shields, and while there are a few sets that can combine Defense and -ToHit to tank an AV (Dark/Storm with Hurricane and Steamy Mist plus the -ToHit from attacking with Dark Control powers can probably manage it), running this many toggles would probably make the End burn unsustainable. So... sets with a good Heal. Could it be possible to combine +Regen from a Plant/Traps (Spirit Tree & Triage Beacon) to get the same effect? Illusion can also do it with Phantom Army, though you need a plan for the inevitable drop, which could be 30-50 seconds at this level depending on Hasten (which will also not be perma). My plan was Hurricane, Steamy Mist, Combat Jumping, a Luck, and the temporary power from the Wheel of Devastation arc, which is a melee-range lifedrain. Well, that plan worked well enough defensively, but when PA's Taunt effect dropped, Nocturne ran from the Freezing Rain. Boy, did she run. Chasing down an AV to drop PA on her head is either no fun, or loads of fun, depending on how you view a challenge. Fortunately, I view it as a challenge ;). Since the AV suffers a decent amount of debuffing, using Dark Control to help with defensive gaps should be quite useful to help tank. So, I see Dark/Dark as the best option... best -ToHit, and heal that combines -Regen and -Dam means that you have no tanking issues. Maintain Endurance and it should be simple. Generally /Dark will work best at low levels. Kinetics works the same way, except that having no -ToHit, and having to use an additional power (Siphon Speed) for the same debuffs will mean taking more damage. Fire, Earth and Cold as primaries, though at levels 18+ Illusion and Dark also gain a temporary pet to boost damage.

So, there has been a lot of discussion about Controllers soloing Pylons and AVs at the top levels (50, and 50+), with most of the discussion being: "how fast?". It's pretty much true that any Controller set combo can solo most AVs with the appropriate IO sets and temporary powers (not to mention Lore). But I find it interesting as a question to see how AV soloing works at lower levels, when we have fewer slots and powers (and thus a much bigger Endurance problem), but AVs are less resistant to debuffs (generally suffering from 30 to 40% of a debuff's effects). So far the lowest I've done is at 14 against the Skull AVs (looking at the powers and slots, a build solely for this purpose should have been able to do it at Level 10 or 11). It used Envenomed Dagger since it's the best End-efficient source of damage/-regen, but a purely focused build would probably be able to sustain the End drain of spamming a -Regen Heal and make up for the loss of the daggers, if you want to avoid Temp Powers. The character was a Plant/Kin, though a /Dark would probably do better. For primaries, any with an Immob would work since you need to keep the AVs at a distance and get Containment. You can easily tank their ranged damage with either Transfusion or Twilight Grasp, especially since TwiG has a -Damage debuff, and with Kinetics you have Siphon Power for a different damage debuff. Fire, Ice, and Earth primaries would all probably work better... Fire does more damage, Ice adds -Recharge (not sure this matters... lowering the AV's DPS is not a major issue, it's beating their Regen without running out of Endurance that matters), and Earth adds -Def which makes it reasonable to use the Blackstaff/Nemesis Staff, which do better damage than the lightly slotted attacks at low levels. Slotting considerations: I had Seeds of Confusion heavily slotted, and also Strangler... an AV-focused build would lower the slots on them, and invest more slots in the Immob and Heal, so you can put more Damage and End Reduction in them. Also, I didn't spend for the Panacea IO, which is the only +Recovery or +Endurance IO that you can slot at this level. Taking slots from SoC and Strangler, adding them to the Immob and Heal,and another to Endurance, and putting Panacea in Health, may allow a character to spam Immob, Heal, Blackstaff/Nemesis Staff and maintain Endurance. Power considerations: I had Hasten and Siphon Speed, and only used Hasten once or twice when I made a mistake, let the AV out of Immob, and they came up and did melee damage, so I needed a burst of Immob/Heal. Siphon Speed was too much End drain when I was already not activating powers at max rate in order to maintain Endurance. This is why I feel it's possible to drop the levels down, since I have superfluous powers. AV considerations: at low levels, the only AVs I think are available are the Lords of Death, the Clockwork King, Doctor V, and a pair in a Faultline arc... one Lost AV, and Nocturne the "run all over the map" Widow (I did her on an Ill/Storm, without an Immob... ugh!). That's blueside, and I think redside doesn't have nearly as many.

No, the character becomes a Nictus and is thereafter run by the Gamemaster. Heh. Seriously, though, no.

Phantom army is a clear cut you want to, if not perma, at least near-perma power. Phantom army is your strongest source of both damage and control (through their built in taunt), so to me it really is the keystone to the whole set. You want to get as close to perma as you possibly can without completing forgoing other things. IIRC I got my illusion/dark PA back on live down to about 65 second recharge and that was sufficiently close for most purposes, even the GM soloing I tried, although it did let a pot shot or two through during the downtimes, it was typically survivable. You also want as much recharge as you can get for howling twilight to keep its -regen debuff up on AV's and GM's as much as possible. Don't forget the easy and cheap +20% recharge buff you can get from a supergroup base now. For some Illusion builds, this is true... Cold, Storm, Poison don't have good survival tools, and are in danger if PA drops for 5-10 seconds. Well, /Storm does if you use Power Boost, but that's a limited build. However, /Dark has such strong defensive tools that it doesn't have to worry about a PA drop. You can put out over 100% -Damage on an AV, and they only resist it with their armor, strangely enough, so you can lower their damage by a ton. You can also put out over -100% ToHit (I think maybe even -150%), and even with an AV's resists, that still makes a huge dent in their accuracy. Add in Fade's Defense bonuses, and you can easily face an AV with floored ToHit chances, doing half damage, with a strong Heal ready to use. It's not a build that really worries about a PA drop. Against non AVs, it can't put out such great -ToHit in an area, but it can put out over 70%, plus softcapped Defenses, so... again, you're not really worried about a drop. In the end, /Dark also has nice powers that benefit from a high global Recharge, so you DO want to build for a high Recharge. But it's not such a paramount build constraint that you should drastically weaken in just to get in some more +Recharge.

Dude, quit while you're behind. Frosticus and DSorrow have been pretty polite and helpful despite facing some attitude. If their help doesn't happen to be EXACTLY what you're looking for, then just thank them politely for what they did provide, say that it wasn't exactly what you were looking for, and you might actually get what you seek. But the way you're continuing, I don't see anyone bothering to be any more helpful, if you're going to reply with an attitude that it's all worthless, their time is worthless, their advice is worthless, why even bother? Well, then, why WOULD anyone even bother? Sweetness gets you more flies than vinegar.

I think he means that Char doesn't have a KD (or KB) effect, so why is it knocking the mobs down? I'm only guessing here, but given the low levels, perhaps you slotted the Prestige Enhancement that gives a chance to Knockdown in it? :p

But this would disrupt the at least two-minute routine I have perusing & obtaining the Outbreak P2W vendor's wares every time I roll an alt! Kidding aside, I don't have a problem with an option to remove the NR animation from the benefit for the rare occasion I make a non-ninja character. Do you really have to make non-ninja characters? I mean, the options are almost infinite: Ninjas Real Ninjas Ninja Wannabes Pirate Ninjas Ninja Pirates Zombie Ninjas Ninja Zombies Space Ninjas Space Corsair Ninjas Wulfen Space Corsair Ninjas Kittens

I would say that a Fire/Storm SHOULD take RoF for use against AVs... but if they don't, it's not a great deal. The reason is that they do far less direct damage that benefits from Containment, than pet damage that does not benefit. You will have 3 Imps, 2 Tornados, and 1.5 Storms out on the average, and that puts out significantly more damage than the Controller's direct attack cycle. Not to mention that all of these powers plus Freezing Rain suck up endurance, and that if you are soloing the AV, you need to run defensive toggles in addition to having some IO set bonuses, since Fire/Storm has no taunting pets. So... due to Endurance problems, I don't think that a max-damage personal attack cycle will be that useful, compared to the much more End-efficient summons. You may still want RoF to help with a bit of damage, and to keep the AV in one spot. Otherwise you have to run Hover to stay away from melee AVs.

Sounds like a player should choose one and not take the other. What are the upsides and downsides of each? Shadow Fall is a stronger DEFENSIVE power. Its defense bonus in combat is stronger, it adds a Resistance bonus, and it affects nearby teammates. Superior Invisibility is a stronger INVISIBILITY power. Not only does it have a stronger Stealth radius so that even mobs that have +Perception still have more trouble in seeing you (with Shadow Fall you still need additional +Stealth in order to be able to fall on top of the Hydra's head and not die), but it also has a strong -Threat buff, lowering your Threat level. This means that you won't be attacked if there is anything else in the area to attack, and as I recall, you can even kill a mob from a spawn and the spawn won't be alerted to your presence. This makes it an interesting soloing power, being able to Deceive mobs, Blind one and kill it, while putting out Phantom Army for more damage, and never get attacked. Be warned, though, it prevents the use of Tar Patch for -Resist, since any mobs debuffed WILL notice you... and it drains a LOT of Endurance. So killing while using it will be tough on the blue bar. However, since you will be killing one Held mob at a time, you don't need to run other defensive toggles, so it does save a bit of Endurance there.

I really like Ice/Rad statistically. Mobs are not controlled, but they are greatly nerfed... their attacks: 1: about 50% of the non-boss attacks will be directed at their allies 2: they attack at about a quarter of their usual rate 3: when they do attack, they miss a lot. 4: when they do hit, they hit for less damage. 5: you have a Heal to heal the damage. That's without Ice Slick or single-target Holds, just from the Ice and Rad toggles, so they're up every spawn starting at low levels. While it doesn't shut down mob activity, it makes it very very ineffective. And the -Def from RI helps you do damage with the Veteran Reward powers. But you have poor AoE damage (though, getting 50% of the damage from enemy LTs and minions pushes it up from "terrible" to merely "bad").

Two problems here. 1: Terrify does Fear as a primary effect, and Damage as a secondary. Fearsome Stare does Fear/-ToHit. If we do get a -ToHit in Terrify, it would make sense that it would be a lot weaker than Fearsome Stare, otherwise Dark Control players will rightfully request for a buff to Fearsome Stare, which is an excellent power already. So... expect a weak -ToHit, at best. I would suggest that it may be more practical to get a decent -ToHit debuff from it but only if the targets are already affected by either a Hold or a Sleep from Mind Control. 2: Do you realize that you just asked for Mass Hypnosis to become a Hold? With a no-aggro effect and no Accuracy penalty? And with the best Duration vs Recharge in the game? This would become the best or second-best AoE control power in the game, maybe even better than Seeds of Confusion. Giving the mobs a debuff after being woken up is one thing, but this is a buff that takes the power from "weak" to "best in class by a country mile".

How many powers are entirely without sets? Not many. Powers that provide +Recharge and/or +Damage (but not +ToHit), I think. So... Haten', Siphon Power, Fulcrum Shift, and all of the Quick Reflexes copies. BTW, I agree that using memes may be funny and cute at times, but it can't be taken as a serious response, much less a real argument. If you're posting /jranger as a joke, heh. If you're posting it as an argument, it's really weak. I don't think that it's reasonable to argue that a power shouldn't have access to IO sets just because it doesn't have IO sets. That's a circular argument. A better argument, however, would be to ask: an IO set combines multiple effects into single IOs. So, what effects would be combined into a single IO? Frankly, thinking about it, I could really see having a few GENERIC IO sets made available to all powers: Two IO sets for powers that need To-Hit, and would enhance Accuracy, Recharge, and Endurance. Probably a 4-IO set. One IO set for powers that are auto-hit, enhancing Recharge and Endurance. 3-IO set since there is only one combination: R, E, and R/E IOs.

To note, this is probably less of a question of melee vs ranged Dominator, than a question about sets with good vs bad attacks, and with good vs bad ranged alternatives. Fire Assault has Blaze and Blazing Bolt, with excellent DPAs, and Fire Blast with a good DPA that is comparable to Incinerate. Yes, Incinerate is a good attack, but with 3 comparable ranged attacks in the set, it makes sense to stay at range. Ice Assault has Ice Blast which is close to as good as the Ice Sword attacks, and Bitter Ice Blast, which is better. With only 2 ranged attacks that are better, it could benefit from melee, but not enough to make it worth the time to move in unless you're already in PBAoE range for powers from your primary. Psionic Assault should have Mind Probe mentioned, not TK Thrust. TkT is a pretty weak DPA attack, while Mind Probe is the best single-target attack for Psy other than Psy Lance. So if it wants to do solid single-target damage, Psi Assault wants to be in melee range since both Subdue and Mind Blast are pretty slow animations for their damage. Energy Assault doesn't really have a good DPA attack other than the snipe, they're all clustered together, so it makes sense to take and slot up a ranged blast to fill in a ranged attack cycle rather than taking Bonesmasher and wasting the time to move in. In general, I see that there are some sets where an all-ranged style fits, because they have a good set of ranged attacks and/or a weak set of melee attacks. But other sets have good melee attacks and will do more damage leveraging them. You do have to balance around the fact that mixing cones and melee attacks will cause you to delay as you move closer and further, but in many cases you can just go PBAoE if you're using melee attacks. I think there are builds that will benefit from playing at range, but I don't think that it's a general Dominator rule that playing at range is always better.