normalperson

It's hard for me to live without a heal, but /Shield is still pretty fun, so I knew when I began I would need to take a pool to get a heal power. So I'm choosing between two options. 1 - Medicine Pool. Plan is that later on I will take Ghost Widow Patron and get Shadow Meld which will give me temporary very high defense, to save me from getting interrupted. 2 - Presence Pool. If I go this route then instead of Ghost Widow, I'll take the Ice Ancillary because the Jack Frost has high defense, and I want to stack that with Grant Cover and see how that plays out. Right now I am not considering Willpower Pool because I am already using that on a Shield/Fire tank and I want to have a variety of builds. Otherwise I am pretty sure that would be the best choice. A distant third choice is not to take any pool heals at all, but later on go with Mako as my patron to get Hibernate. But it is a pretty distant third.

I'm at a three way crossroads again. At L18 I can take A- Crushing field. Group immobilize that inflicts 7.5 smashing (at level 18) 8 Second Rech B - Gravity Distortion Field Group hold that inflicts 0 points damage of any kind and makes foes immune to knock 4 Min Rech C - Wall of Force Cone AOE with 33% chance of .67 knock, inflicts 16 points smash/psionic 10 Second Rech I am leaning toward Crushing Field

Do you find that Gravity Distortion Field gets in the way of your KB/KD effects? I skipped it because I didn't want to make enemies immune to my Lift and Propel. So now at L17 I'm finding it pretty hard to keep anyone locked down, although when facing an individual boss I've got them on the ground for the whole fight. Lift being Maginitude 7.99 unmodified, and Propel being 2.66 even very tough bosses fall down. But if there is a group........... Edit: I just realized Crushing field doesn't make them immune to KB. , And gravitiy Distortion is a hold anyway........... now nevermind this is kind of a dumb question. I thought I would make them immune to KB if I took the group immobilize, and now I've been suffering 5 or more levels of pain trying to lock down groups..............

SS doesn't stack with those? It would be kind of fun to create an absolute speed monster.

JJDraken - That is an interesting build. I'm curious : how well is Evasive Maneuvers working out for you? I tried taking it on a Mastermind character, but I found that needing to wait through 10 seconds of inaction before that defense effect kicks in, I was already dead before it started protecting me. So I turned it off to save End, and ended up not really using it. I'm probably going to respec it out soon. Thanks for talking me out of it! I had planned the build before even trying a Dom, with medicine in mind, but then when I got to level 10 and took the Aid Other power, in preparation, I had an odd feeling of impending doom, and thought maybe I should ask some other people who had actually run Doms. What you are saying confirms that dread was real. I used my free level 10 respec to get rid of Aid Other. I can't seem to get Mids to give me an image, perhaps because I have only planned the build up to level 14 so far. But here is the data chunk. My pools are Concealment, Flight, and Teleportation, and now Force of Will. I'm not going to fight it anymore!!!!! |MBD;7927;603;804;BASE64;| |G/YeQCwK7FgGTowOBtXQKHo7qLWV+mZk5ATVlJ0v7ZtQbkt92aahbKjwoCB/JktXX+u| |wgHQ15yTlz7yLM8OXrjtYIUtCmjIm/v+/V7MEAh6Dh5q8lbGG7nmTjbMTKKdAPRWYgN| |h9gy21oJ+6lGfFHxResSyj/2FWRE2KngGPjADuvNZvJopJBMT3AN2XlyuAGVIMwITTA| |M4Bq1FXnP3yMwfDCEmdHxvIdgCGfG1uJdvLs+bOlC4BiMURJmj1D60AK0PbhJCpYBD2| |FczaiW4+6M/C8WiIy9jBWnDZlbPx1CluyOSUTbSU+EvxtWYuWtc4gLZ85CoymZJTuWM| |nOZ77VMoWE3PZMgsuqvnU5Et9tGIO2XMB39r8NFV9OM4I83pnoDTEf40i4b5JghqL4W| |gT20A3GBILg3Di7y8htPhGXvqYKi3imHI/A7ohu5m0OtRr2aKx8jr2CWTsw0IQaghAS| |GtD5kY4CuNsZMHNndk6I3jNC/9tjfzQkS/d9xQjJ1u2SiiCCyqQ4pPaudrFCQoohbDl| |02GaHvTdIhS71g0s4mQq+dQRr6UG0qb4UlB7xDMiP3WnaG3ty5zmi4XYwJML08DaJx2| |Id4R4c2Fxwk2ehQ2IObpq85YJD0SYe37yugxOnrva5GkXSVpzbAupiVnR1xcBxEUxG4| |Ud5owQ5DniC31S83E8TBI7twwqhcr+6h2qRZEWNyV+9XTDfFFw9UT+nAosumwunBEr+| |qqKxJ/K8nDeByr+yD93tjjK/BU+Xk+pYtp5KaMY1UPaV09rHmQeK/7pc6cxb1saU18D|

Just taking the opportunity to ask, since I'm running a Fire/Kinetic : What is the best way to compensate for accuracy if your primary/secondary powers don't have good +Acc or +Def? I'm considering going with the Experimentation pool to get Corrosive Vial and Adrenaline Booster. Maybe even taking the Scorpion Patron to get the +ACC power it gives you. Any other, perhaps less costly, options?

I have actually reached the point where I have to make my choice. Level 12 and I'm fresh out of powers to choose that don't affect healing. -If I go Medicine, I'm going to go ahead and skip Power Up or wait until much later. Instead I'll go Stealth-Grant Invis - Phase Shift, so I can call "time out" and heal myself. Downside? Interruptible without Phasing (or later on using Personal Force Field with Scorpion Patron) Upside? Faster Recharge, and I can aid teammates if I'm on a team with Aid Other. - If I go Unleash Potential, I'll take Project Will and Weaken Resolve (and definitely yes take Power Up) I don't need the travel power because I'm already flying. Gives me lots of single target attacks at 80 foot range, which lets me pick off a few minions before the bosses get close and I have to engage them. Downside? Takes 10 minutes to recharge, which I can only probably get down to like 4 or 5 minutes at the lowest. Phase Shift can fire every 2 minutes. Upside? I can keep right on fighting. - Unrelenting is still on the table. Doesn't add defense but it's still a decent heal, and gives +Rech and +Damage. Downside? Takes 10 minutes to recharge. Upside? Both the powers I have to pick to get it are useful. Pacify is near guaranteed non aggression from the boss, and Intimidate is 15 seconds of additional mezz. Next time I log on I have to pick........................

Looking at it in terms of recharging to permahold, I guess having Lift, Propel, and then Project Will - all three are powers you can slot the +Recharge KB proc onto. But this also raises the question of whether to try taking the Experimentation power set? The description for Adrenal Booster says that you get a 27.6% boost to secondary effects, which lasts 60 seconds. Experimental injection grants +regen. The Singularity pet can't be healed. Can it be Regen boosted?

No. You are right. I'd rather go Stealth instead of SS. My big reservation about going with "Unleash Potential" is that I've already got a full set of ranged single target ranged powers. Burst, Lift, and Propel pretty much keep me not needing to wait for powers to recharge in battle. To get Unleash, I'll need to take either one or two additional single target ranged powers. But if I get Recharge slowed, maybe then I'll be glad to have one or two more attacks while I wait. Trouble with going First Aid instead, is then my character is really a serious glass cannon. I'll eventually get personal force field when I choose my patron, and that will let me call "time out" and Aid Self up to full health sometimes. But the rest of the time my outlook is pretty bleak. There is no perfect answer. That's why this character is so fun. I can plot for days what I'll do next time I level.

I'm looking at having Jump (Mighty Leap) and Fly. Stealth really helps with quick missions, and Super Speed is a stealth. That gets me to three. Might as well add teleport for the sake of it. Maybe combat teleport and slot +toHit IO's to it.

I didn't know Hasten was so helpful for Doms (This is my first dom since discovering Homecoming) . I'm considering maybe using Super Speed as my stealth power (instead of Concealment) and then having all four Travel types. Flight/Super Speed/Mighty Leap/Teleport. It's kind of ridiculous, but if I put Zephyr on all 4 (6 total after second picks) that's 8.5% ranged/AOE defense right there. As things stand my pools are : Flight, Concealment, Teleport, and whichever of the three healing options I end up using. Teleport is optional, but I definitely want flight and some kind of stealth power to skip to end bosses. This discussion might finally motivate me to learn how to post builds.

I like that scrap parry is just as strong as Tanker parry, and multiple applications seem to stack. I have a sword/shield and even though I haven't done my IO's yet (still level 19) I still see my melee defense hitting 48+% all the time. For a /WP I guess that would be about where your lethal defense gets to. If you've got Rise to the Challenge running, that should keep you alive with lots of mobs gathered around, hopefully using melee attacks because they're next to you - and the more of them there are the faster you are healing. (Even with no bonus to melee defense from WP, parry alone will get you to 30% once it starts stacking.) Also parry recharges really fast, so you're never standing around waiting for an attack to become available (although running out of End at level 19 is kind of worrisome...)

Certain elements of some power sets are stronger on Brute than they are even on Tanker. I've noticed that most cases where an aura inflicts -toHit on enemies, the Brute actually inflicts more -toHit than the Tanker set does. Example: Tanker Radiation Armor power : Beta Decay inflicts -5.25 toHit, but Brute Radiation Armor power: Beta Decay inflicts -5.62 toHit It is a very very small difference, but if it brings you some satisfaction to know one or more of your powers became stronger despite the fact you are using it on an archtype that is supposed to be weaker, then enjoying yourself is ultimately what gaming is all about!

I'm curious why you are taking both Stealth and Infiltration? And why you are taking Aid other, but not Aid self? The rest of the build makes sense. My character has to take fly for thematic reasons, so I will choose some power to sacrifice for it. Perhaps I'll even take both fly and Mighty Leap, despite the redundancy. Also I've noticed both the above builds have Combat Jumping in them? Is that to add speed to Mighty Leap, or does the immunity to immobilize help you in battle enough to make it worth taking the power for that reason? I figure it's not for the the 2.15% defense.

I wonder how good Worm Hole, and Trip Mine go together? Like could you set the mine and then throw all the mobs onto it? Seems like it would be worth building one of these just to find out.