MoonSheep

i’ll ask @Mezmera for this thoughts - our resident energy fanboy

hey - i used to main a mind/fire on live and have had it as my main on HC for the last 4.5 years too. it's 1 of the 2 alts i play. it's completed all ouro arcs, TFs, trials, lots of fun on speed runs, 4 star content and all sorts some thoughts if helpful: - you're correct that it's almost entirely ranged which is helpful. incincerate is worth picking up for the lower levels and has reasonable damage - i don't build for defense as it's not needed and reduces its potential. i find i'm not getting much aggro if staying at range and if i am, i can lock things down. i primarily team. i'm also a big fan of insps and regularly stock up - you may find at the start it can feel a bit inert, but it'll build over time. once you're level 30 and have blazing bolt and blaze it really takes off - you'll enjoy confusing enemies which give out debuffs, in order to instead debuff the mobs, and discovering enemies which usually buff their team mates and now buff you. my record is getting 13 stacks of accelerate metabolism from rikti guardians - compared to a controller, playing a dom is like being on a controller and a blaster at the same time. in some teams or battles you'll be primarily a damage dealer if peoples health is staying high and things are manageable - no point firing off controls if it's not needed. in other situations, things will be quite hairy and you'll be looking to lock down the most disruptive enemies before wiping them out. fire has incredible ST damage, i focus mostly on bosses as the rest of the team will quickly remove the minions and luts - any mastery is fine, i wouldn't lose sleep over it. pick whichever you find the most fun - mezmerize slotted for damage is a useful ST psi attack, it's good for things like the minotaurs on ITFs which pop invul - an AoE sleep is more useful than you think. sometimes you want a mob to not get aggroed whilst the team focus on the current battle, or if you've pulled something accidentally you can reduce the aggro - blazing bolt and blaze are two incredible attacks - high damage, short animation times. i'd probably include a second damage proc in blazing bolt if i was going to refresh my build - for incarnate alpha i went with intuition radial paragon. it's a great blend of +dmg, hold duration and range. the latter is especially useful given almost all our powers are ranged - as personal preference, i find having combat jumping is a must. i like being able to move around quickly during battle and it's a handy LoTG +rech mule - the new telekinesis is good for bunching mobs but is a learning curve. i've found using it for around 1 second at a time works best, it groups them up but doesn't push them around everywhere - consider taking vengeance. you can put a LoTG +rech in veng and manuvers. it's fun sometimes to take part in a chaotic battle until someone dies, pop veng, pop an AoE control and then it's smooth sailing - fiery orb is terrible but looks pretty - that's its only use overall it's an incredible combo. one of the top 2 most powerful doms other than plant/energy. i have not been able to play another damage dealer as everything else feels like a downgrade compared to the dom. when i play a blaster i really see the value of being able to lock down enemies, when i play a scrapper it feels like life in slow motion i'll see if i have a mids build, but have put a screenie below for now. it achieves perma dom without always needing to click hasten, which is nice if you want to idle for a bit with domination on autofire

you never know, perhaps they’re still on the character creator trying to create the perfect wizard

a poison/fire defender and a fire/kin corrupter would get my vote for most powerful duo. a bit sketchy and fragile at times, but huge potential

here’s some semi- incoherent rambles about kin if helpful. in summary: put a few acc and recharge into your kin powers and use them frequently, do what you want with your secondary and just enjoy blasting when you have the opportunity i play my defender heavily as support and find i don’t have a huge amount of time for secondary blasts. kin is also such an effective set that the build isn’t overly important - paying attention to the team and leaning into the kin goodness leads to a more effective outcome

i wouldn’t worry too much mate. i think almost all of us in this thread have either had stuff removed, argued with each other or been told to stay on topic over the years hope to see you back soon

i believe it has been imported from another CoH community that exists, rather than Homecoming creating a new shard. it was announced a while ago out of interest, what server do you play on diatane? exelcsior has a huge population if you want more instant TFs, trials etc

where’s taunt in the build? being able to stay alive is different to being a team tank and managing aggro i would definitely include it early on if you play any lower level content, it makes a real difference on things like Posi 1 and 2 to keep squishies alive

i 100% agree with your point about frost making you need to jump in and out of the mobs, it definitely turns you into quite a hopper - combat jumping is pretty much mandatory frost is a good attack with respectable damage but you’re right that it has to be positioned properly

i’d disagree with this - the cone is one of the 3 defining powers of ice melee. frost, freezing touch and chilly footstomp are what makes the set i’d perhaps choose to play the set on a tank for wider AoEs or on a stalker to gain assassins strike ontop of what is a baseline strong attack set you’ll be fine with ice/shield anything regardless, it’s a good all rounder with respectable damage. i wouldn’t worry much about the build until you’re in the higher levels, put some LoTG +Rechs in when your def powers become available and a miracle/numinas in health for the time being. put the two +def IOs in the +HP power for a bit of extra sturdiness

get a load of this guy who’s only vet level 99 if i’m forming a Master Of run i’d definitely prefer to invite Xx FLAMING DINGUS xX from AE with 488 vet levels and no travel powers - i like to play things safe. more number bigger = more betterer 😛

i agree with that, anything is a melee set if you’re not a wuss. dominate is most effective when casted at 1ft from their face - talk to the hand

i think it’s the other way around - the game was put out of sync in terms of difficulty by the IO system, any AT is every AT thesedays i welcome these adjustments to enemy difficulty

that sounds a fun challenge - will check it out later.

i’ve always gone for around ~65%+, set bonuses help once you’re fully slotted too

none of them as fearsome as the legendary BOSS_NAME

i’d say fire, energy and earth stand out with their impactful burst damage. i focus mostly on bosses when playing my dom - mez them and remove them from combat, the luts/minions tend to dissolve from the rest of the team i’ve never been a fan of fire mastery, i think it’s a one trick pony of a set. if you want more AoE it’s fine, but i prefer to try other things

i was joking that if he had got to know us then he would have definitely put us last 😄

i think you’ve missed the joke in the last line of the post

read my post again 😛

i have to say, i’m disappointed to see that CoH is several spots from the bottom it shows that the reviewer hasn’t really done much research - if they had spent time on the forums, got to know some of us and looked a bunch of the everyday discussions on here i’m confident that we could have easily pipped that last place position

happy christmas everyone. had some nice ITF and MLTF runs earlier on excelsior - people in good spirits

i main a mind/fire for the last 5.5 years (and for a few years on live) which isn't too dissimilar to plant/fire - both are primarily almost completely ranged based which gives you a lot of survival potential. not being in the middle of combat means you'll take far less damage if i was to build this combo it would look very similar to @Caimie's build, i can't see much i'd majorly change given you want the experimentation pool so i'm not going to list any IO changes i'd prefer to have as it's personal preference. the only change i'd make is to take the ST immob rather than AoE immob to keep your team mates happy, an AoE immob is rarely appreciated thesedays the build isn't too different to how i run my mind/fire either - a primary focus on recharge and damage. i wouldn't place much thought on building for defense as it's not needed when you have permadom and playing at range - a mezzed enemy deals no damage plant is one of the strongest dom control sets out there and fire assault is the most damaging secondary (sorry @Mezmera! - i think the low activation times and fiery embrace give it an edge over our mutual friend energy assault) so you'll be in for a great ride - i personally wouldn't use the pet much as i don't like to be tied down, but it'll be handy to have it at times - go for any epic set you like, they're all reasonably average thesedays to be honest. i recently respecced mine to have mace mastery, i slotted the achilles heel -res proc in poisonous ray and it fires quite reliably and turns it into quite a strong -res debuff against AVs. i placed LoTG mules in scorpion shield and personal force field like how Caimie has done with psi mastery - once you've played the alt a while, you'll find on some teams you'll be focusing heavily on control and keeping the chaos low, on other teams things will be well handled by the tank and you'll be mostly a damage dealer. a dom like this is 2 characters in one - a blaster and controller - stay tuned into what will help the situation. as a spoiler: seeds of confusion is usually the answer! i'd reccomend levelling it organically and becoming familiar with it - it's one of the most powerful alts you'll play and will be great for any content hope you enjoy it

perhaps true, but as someone who’s enjoyed playing Trimps and other incrementals before i’d say there is definitely a community to people who like to ‘master’ complex game dynamics

i would say; 1. that colour theme in the export is genuinely the worst i've ever seen on the forum 2. i wouldn't 6 slot Boggle with the purple confuse set in order to get the ranged def, i'd 2 or 3 slot it and use the extra 3 slots elsewhere 3. stalker's guile ATO is much better placed in AS and is the 'default' location for the set 4. i'd 5 slot greater psi blade with hecatomb and another damage proc for additional damage output 5. i'd put shield wall +5% res in one of your def powers using 1 of 3 slots freed up from boggle 6. i'd put in a miracle +recovery in health with number 2 of the extra slots 7. i see that you're 4 slotting stamina with efficacy adaptor for the +regen, i would just 2 slot it with end IOs, this frees up 2 more slots meaning we have 3 left 8. i'd remove 1 slot from psi blade as you've built for positional defense, so the extra elemental def isn't going to be much use 9. if you 2 slot dark blast with apocalypse this gives you +16% regen rather than the 10% from efficacy adaptor, if you 3 slot it you'll get 3% +HP rather than 1.13%. i'd then just 5 slot it which will give us back the +10% rech we took away in boggle, gives you a handy +4% dmg buff too edit: 10. you have 6 LoTG +7.5% rech, you can only have 5, one of them isn't giving you any buffs 11. the panacea sets are also giving +10% regen, you have 7 set bonuses in total for this, meaning 2 of them aren't effective, consider slotting something else edit 2: 12. Hide and Stealth give higher defense numbers before you're discovered, your 'actual' melee defense figure is probably closer to around 33% rather than the 43% shown by mids. the P2W defense amplifier will give you an additional 5% def if you want to purchase some of that every few hours overall though i wouldn't choose a regen anything yet alone a regen stalker to do +4 content. i'm skeptical whether psi melee would be able to take down a GM or AV solo having played it before as psi isn't very fluid. it's a very enjoyable melee set and not too bad with its damage output, but it's not top tier. regen has needed a buff for many years and unfortunately there are no stalker secondaries worse than it. if i was making something to solo AVs and GMs etc i'd make energy/energy. in team play it would be absolutely fine unless you intend to be the team tank and take the alpha aggro on each mob. a min/max build on mids is irrelevant if you're teaming lots and enjoying it. the person behind the keyboard and mouse is also a considerable factor in the alt's success, so ultimately if you like the combination and want to play it - go for it you may be aware of all this however and wanting a challenge, so if that's the case - goodluck and enjoy it