Cutter

Thanks, those sound like some solid strategic tips. I had just assumed +rech everywhere would be the default - makes sense to crank it up for those long recharge powers too (I don't think I realized how slow base Creepers is!). I haven't even started looking at epics yet, but I'll make sure Ice is on the list when I get there.

Added to the after-work comparison pile, thank you!

Thanks for commenting! I do like your ATO split thoughts. And yeah KCombat does seem like it would work to fit some of my secondary build goals. Don't spose you would mind posting a build export instead of just the data chunk? For whatever reason Mid's doesn't want to update for me, and your chunk came from a newer version than I can open.

I've recently started a Plant/Savage dominator, got her up to 25, and actually enjoying it more than I expected to like a squishy (obligatory disclaimer: I'm most at home playing tanks & brutes). So with that, I figured now would be a good time to check in and pick up some advice for further leveling. In terms of priorities, recharge is expected, and beyond that I'm thinking M/S/L def? (so far she seems to play in melee quite a bit). It seems like the lowered levels for taking powers in the 20s is causing a huge slot shortage. And given that this is a new AT to me, the drive to take all those shiny powers as soon as possible is only making things worse. With that in mind, the main quandaries I'm running into are (1) what do I take when it unlocks & what can be pushed back, (2) what gets those precious extra slots, and (3) what do I put in them? Spoilered is (more or less) where I am slotted at 25, with a build/empty slot plan up to L30. She has a mishmash of stuff I've been able to buy on the cheap plus random things I had lying around the base. (I'm actually still running the starter prestige dam/rech enhancements in the assault powers, but Mids doesn't have those.) Up to this point I'm only kinda sorta mostly lost; beyond that I'm totally out of my element. I'm working on buying up the rest of my Ascendancy ATOs, and of course the generally-recommended uniques. I don't know what else should go in the powers I've got and planned for, never mind what else to take later on. And more importantly, as mentioned above, I don't know if I've got the pick order and slot priority right at all. I'm not used to so many powers running 3-4 slots! Please help a newbie dom out and let me know what I can do to get back on the track I've no doubt veered off from?

Rolled up Dominator Barbie (Plant/Savage) on Excel the other day (costumes and bio on the costume design thread). And added a Peacebringer to my bovine supergroup on Everlasting tonight: Eeny Meeny Miney Moo!

Just in time for Christmas, it's Dominator Barbie!

Decepti-who-now?

Going super simple with my newest alt, Radioaxive (Rad/Axe tanker). Just a couple colour pops on the stock "Alpha" costume option, plus one flaming axe, and *poof*. (as an aside, I sure wish we had a triple palette option - I'd love to green up the flares on the gloves & boots and leave the rest in the purple and grey)

Good conversation, thanks gang! I suspect I will try out a bunch of things as I level and then respec into a proper attack chain once I have the IOs and recharge sorted out. (I did skip Beheader at creation.) And yeah I do usually proc out the 2 AOEs in RA.

Hey, me too! Any thoughts on what to skip in /Axe? I like to think I have a decent grasp on Rad Armour, but never played Axe on live or HC. And especially with it being reworked, everything looks to have an appeal. Needing to find room for 3 powers out of the teleport pool (and I hate TP for travel, so there's an extra tax I'm dealing with) feels like it would make for a very tight build with some potentially significant sacrifices.

Also seeing this browser check on Firefox, but it doesn't hang on me at least.

Just hopped onto the new-and-improved Battle Axe train myself last night, with a Rad/Axe tanker named... ... ...Radioaxive

I'm a huge Savage/Rad fan - far and away my favourite. I wouldn't say it's an OP secret ultra combo necessarily, but holy poop is it fun.

The confuse does sound entertaining. But I wanted to add the +immob proc to stack with my enhancement procs, to better my odds of triggering the +stun proc from my hybrid. Adding a 4th control didn't seem as good an idea as supporting the existing 3 (and also, Spectral is spooky and has an aesthetic with my screaming CoF faces).

To add a little more on some of the incarnate interactions, I pair Cloak/Invoke/OG with Control Radial hybrid and Spectral Core interface. Cloak & Invoke get the Unspeakable Terror +stun proc, and OG has the Razzle Dazzle +immob proc. This setup effectively means fears, immobs and stuns are stacking on everything everywhere. Combined with Vigor Radial alpha increasing fear duration (as well as helping with end and acc) the net result is a large swath of enemies under some kind of soft control pretty much from go.

I've used these two (plus the Vig power) on a Dark/Elec tanker, leaning into the control aspect with incarnates. Been a good while since I dusted him off but yeah if memory serves it does result in a decent number of cowering bad guys. (As far as the endurance and accuracy issues go, I run Vigor Alpha to address both.)

/Dark is the "classic" answer thanks to its end recovery tools. /Savage is apparently a good option because of its passive, likewise /Staff with its endredux stance. /Energy lets you stack stuns with Oppressive Gloom. Plenty of good choices.

The more I test, the less pleased I get with Vulnerability. Mainly I don't like taking time out of my attack flow to click it. And frankly I don't think it does enough as a single target debuff. I've shared some of that feedback on the beta forum thread. I'm posting here instead of the FF thread cause I'm about to make a (prolly bad) suggestion: change Vulnerability to give the Sentinel some actual value in a team setting, while still letting it do the same (but better!) thing while solo. And I'll even keep it as a clicky (because control over when it happens does, in the end, win out over taking time out my attack rotation). So, keeping the meter build time, effects, and duration the same: When you click Vulnerability, the next attack you make applies Vulnerability to all targets (hit or miss). In addition, your teammates briefly benefit from your superior vision, gaining an increased perception range and resistance to perception & to-hit debuffs for the duration. Multiple instances of Vulnerability on a target stack at 50% effectiveness. Sentinel AoE target caps keep it from getting too out of hand, and adding a little something for the team doesn't feel grossly overpowered (given that the effects are a counter to a small amount of content, unless you like running nothing but Arachnos cave radios, you sicko).

I commented this in the Sentinel rework thread but will add here as well: my 50 DP/Fire saw ~180 HP increase from consume, with no change to my slotting from live. It looks easy enough to make permanent, and doing the frankenslot thing for both heal and end would seem to be a good idea. I can't say I would complain about it.

Little more testing, this time on a fresh 50 (no incarnates) DP/Fire, Council radios, +0/x8. No changes to the build from live. Bonus: getting to test some of the /Fiery Aura changes as well. I did notice things seemed to die get arrested a little faster, hard targets notwithstanding (seriously Warwolves are a pain in the rear). I will admit it's hard for me to tell for sure if I'm knocking things down with fewer attacks or not because I'm running a dot-heavy primary, but it felt like it. Crunching the numbers I see the scalar's 15% damage increase almost right on the nose. (The October 12 patch notes indicate it should be 15.8%, but I rounded my numbers so that's within the margin there.) The faster activation on Healing Flames was nice when I needed it but not necessarily game-changing. The +HP increase from Consume gives me an extra ~180 HP (from 1382.5 to 1563.2) with no heal slotted, which I can't complain about. I have minimal recharge in Consume on my live build, so I don't have that buff up full-time (2 minutes up vs 2min 22s recharge), but that looks like it should be super easy to make permanent if I wanted. I didn't see much difference out of using Burn, but there's a lot of bouncing around which makes it hard for me to get a sense of it. Looking back, I had a few instances where I could have tried the new Phoenix Rising, but that's a big enough usage change that it's not in my brain yet. I'll have to remember to move it to a power tray I use more so I have a better chance to see that it's available. As far as Vulnerability goes, the more I use it the more torn I am on it. I like that I get to control when I use it, and with a full bar being able to drop it on 2 bosses in a spawn at practically the same time is a neat usage. Loading in with a full bar is a nice little extra for an AT with no Build Up, and especially on a pairing with no Aim. But I find it really breaks my flow when I use it. Zero activation time or not, there's still keypress time which means I'm replacing an attack, which doesn't feel good to me on an AT that only brings attacks to the table. I want every button push to hurt someone right now. Like other testers I also noticed myself only using it when the red ring is showing; it wasn't til near the end of one of the radios that I remembered it's not fully drained on one use, which is when I decided to try tagging 2 bosses with it. An indication more noticeable than "the button isn't greyed out" would be a nice reminder that it can be used back to back if I want to. The "I like cruise control" old man part of me says I'd be happier with a passive of some sort. (If I was pressed to pull an idea out of my butt right on the spot, I'd suggest something like a scaling chance to apply Vulnerability with all attacks, similar in application to Corrupter scourge. Not really controllable, but it gets there on hard targets without me having to do something special.) Gonna need more time with the clicky implementation to determine whether it's something I can get used to. Council still doesn't let me see any benefit to the perception changes, so I will take the word of more robust testers that it has value against other content.

Did a really quick set of tests on my 37 Fire/Bio sent: Bricks radio, council, +0/x2. Might as well be the one to look at barely above baseline. Anywho. I can't say I noticed much of a difference between live and beta. I suspect the damage buff numbers really only become noticeable at higher team sizes and/or +values? Feedback-wise, I will say that I appreciate having control of Vulnerability vs wasting it on a minion (which I inadvertently did on live, on the spawn right before the boss too). Not having to watch for power rings and feeling like I have to forgo using my T1/T2 in order to get maximum value from it is nice. Having Vulnerability as another button is a little awkward tho - I lose my cursor a lot, especially in heated combats, so I place all my attacks in tray 1 so I can just hit a key rather than have to find my mouse to click on a tray icon (and forget about Alt+ or Ctrl+, I do not have the coordination or muscle memory for that). Maybe need to test more, but right off the hop I feel like I'd want to have Vulnerability in the same bar simply for speedier flow. In many cases my tray 1 is full, which means moving things around to place Vulnerability there. Not a huge issue (just means some amount of shuffling depending on what else is in my other trays) but I mention it in case it might be relevant. I didn't get into any scenarios where the slightly buffed perception range and debuff protection proved relevant. I don't recall seeing anyone mention it here - is that bonus 10% actually meaningful? Cause if it's not, why bother? (Maybe it could be a shared-with-the-team thing, and let it stack?)

These are outstanding.

Thanks, that's high praise! I only have the name on Everlasting, so check the other servers. (And also, "Cowhide" was an available option on Ev -- I erred on the side of splitting the words to really bludgeon home the terribleness of the wordplay.)

Just added a stalker to my bovine supergroup. His name is Cow Hide.