Mezmera

First I'll say again the enemy doesn't need to be stunned to activate the mechanic, it seems far too complex of coding for a power to read what status an enemy is in than just giving a percent chance upon activating each internal power. I know this as my Mind dom has no stuns and before I had Total Focus my blasts would eventually trigger the effect. Not many controls have a stun in them so I don't think the dev team would want to lock people out from consistently making the most out of this mechanic over something so arbitrary as the target needs to be stunned in order to activate, why not held or slept or feared then? However you activate the mechanic the icon for that power does show up on your status bar for exactly 10 seconds indicating that you are locked out from activating the mechanic again until that power icon disappears from your bar. Sometimes I do have my Energy Release effect still active after that icon may have disappeared from my bar so the effect likely does last for 15 seconds before it goes away. The janky bit hasn't anything to do with recharging of your powers. My TF recharges quite nice and yet that's not what seems to lose its hold on the Energy Release. I've lost the mechanic on times by just getting it with TF then moving and all of a sudden it disappears even before my TF recharged again. There's no rhyme or reason why you lose this mechanic out of the blue sometimes things just suck. Yeah like you said it is an annoyance to just lose the mechanic for no reason at times but mostly you're having too much fun with it to let the negativity bother you when playing this.

Well maybe Bone Smasher is a magic unicorn then. Any power set with a combo mechanic has their combo builder powers and combo release powers. Lots of coding I'd think it would take to have one of those powers feed off of itself. I'll leave you to your Bone Smasher then, I'll take the 100% chance.

The powers are either a release or a builder. Bone Smasher can't release AND also build up the mechanic.

I spec'd out of Bone Smasher long ago but as I recall to give you the cool new Energy Release mechanic to unload in the early levels they gave BS the ability to release. I think the intent was to give you one at the early levels, the mid levels with Whirling Hands and then late with Power Burst. When I did have it the power had an orange ring around it like WH and Burst signifying you have the mechanic available to use through those powers. From the description it looks like it does something special debuffing the target of some of their effects for a short while when you use up the Energy Release mechanic.

Yeah I only have Snipe as my other non-release attack in my chain which I tend to follow up with after a TF so I don't ever see those other icons but yeah makes sense it locks you out for 10s just like Savage does when you expend the blood stacks and it leaves the icon on your bar for 10s. When I first leveled my Energy dom back with the revamp the t1 and a few of the other regular blasts I had before I'd get TF would occasionally kick in the Energy Release mechanic and I have no stuns in my primary on Mind control. Aside from TF the only way to build Energy Release would be through blasts with no stuns. Bone Smasher is a release power so you can only release for more damage on that you don't build it with that one. BS, WH and Burst are the release powers, all the other attacks have a 20% chance to build the mechanic with TF being 100%. Again, stuns have no sway on it.

Yeah the 100% damage increase isn't a straight doubling of damage. It's more like what you're getting at is that your damage on all of your attacks are being increased by about 30-45% more damage to the affected targets as opposed to the loss of resistance IS increasing your damage by that 19.5%. Plus there's all that extra damage you're contributing just from this one attack to eliminating that mob. Mobs tend not to last too long nowadays anyways with all the OP toons running around. With nuking blasters on your team Soul Drain will contribute good damage in place of the -res debuff in eliminating that mob then it powers you on through to the next mobs where now you're hitting the next ones for 30-45% more damage when you'd be doing 19.5%. Yes it's not powering the whole team with that debuff but mobs aren't built that strong that it's all that necessary even with a halfway decent team. The only real moments where -resist, -regen and -hp debuffs come into play are in those AV fights and those tend to be solo targets and Weaken Resolve is just as effective.

Oh no I understand you're saying the aoe debuff is a nice power. It does nothing beyond debuff enemies and the most significant thing is the -19.5% resistance debuff. There's no damage you do with it. Soul Drain hits 10 level 54 targets for 190 points of damage then because it has a longer recharge it has a great chance to fire any procs in it which I specifically slot the purple pbaoe one. Then if you have the double hit Hybrid you have a good chance to proc even more damage. There's also the side effects it gives you. 100% damage and 35% tohitt boosted on all of your attacks for 30 seconds that follows you around wherever you go is quite the bit better than a -19.5% resistance debuff in a specific location where your target might have already fled from. Then there's all that extra damage it pumps out. Yeah sleet doesn't get the time of day with me when I look at Soul Drain.

Energy Assault Power Boost is now Power Up. (90s recharge, +34% damage, +75% str to other effects for 10 seconds.) Total Focus: Cast time shortened from 3.30 to 2.50 seconds. Power Burst: Cast time shortened from 2.00 to 1.67 seconds. New special mechanic. Most single target attacks have a 20% chance of granting Energy Focus mode. Hitting a foe with Total Focus will always grant Energy Focus mode. While in this mode, Whirling Hands will inflict a large amount of bonus damage. Power Burst will do some bonus damage. The mode will be removed if a power with bonus is used.

Don't know where you get that an easy to identify internal mechanic would be dependent on an external status that your powers would have to identify to flag the mechanic to build. Identifying a target is stunned and then basing a percent chance on Energy Release being built sounds overly complex than just giving each of your non-release attacks a percent chance to build it on their own with TF being 100%. Stuns have no say in building the mechanic. Honestly I'd rather have the Soul patron and everything that comes in it compared to what Ice can get you since the best thing in that pool is attainable in a power you can get at level 4 which is just as effective for those AV fights. Even with no slotting but for the achilles Weaken Resolve recharges in enough time that it's easy to maintain that resistance debuff.

If you hadn't noticed on your status bar the Total Focus icon appears once you use TF to build the Energy Release. It signifies you built it that way and it locks you out from building Energy Release with TF for 10s until it disappears from your bar. That's the great thing about the Energy Release it powers your AoE damage greatly but can also power your ST damage when you need that versatility. With Energy Release affecting Burst for say single target AV fights it sets the damage quite above Blaze. I'm not saying that it doesn't even out over the time of the fight nor that Blaze isn't a great attack but Burst to me is better overall both in burst outputs and sustained fights. Fire doesn't have that third attack that can match everything TF nets you nor does it have the AoE potential. Sleet isn't a bad power per se but you can go with the Soul Mastery pool and also have a Weaken Resolve which'll net you -7% resist then add an achilles that'll fire 90% of the time for -20% resist. So you're getting -27% resist on the target then you can chew away with your damage chain.

I mean it's not like I don't have a fire blaster and can't already see the numbers to see how they perform first hand. My Energy dom's Power Burst hits as hard as a blaster's Blaze using their buffs and all. Then there's the Energy Release mechanic that works on Power Burst to put it over the top. Energy Release nets you 2/3 more damage to Power Burst and doubles the damage output on Whirling Hands. There's just one slightly slower animation in Energy comparably and it makes up for that with an extreme amount of damage and powers the rest of your attacks. I'm not sure where you're getting your theories but there's no Fire dom that's outdamaging my Energy dom. I'd set aside being a Fire homer and give Energy a true play because you seem unknowing about how it performs. Soul Drain's buff nets you those numbers no matter if the baddies are the same level as you or 4 levels above. It also does 190ish damage to a group of +4 baddies not to mention the purple damage proc fires very often. Sleet's percentages lower drastically from level 50 to 54 targets. Sleet is a waste on random mobs since they get chewed up quick anyways so you're really only wanting it for AV fights. You can take Weaken Resolve slot an Achille's Heel and debuff the target for the same effect.

Since they share the snipe and its about as good as they get for ST damage lets use that as the bar. Both snipes act the same and do the same extreme damage. Then there's Power Burst which hits much harder than Blaze for just .33 more animation. Finally there's Total Focus that has been sped up from its original form and still hits for an extreme amount of damage which by the way sets you up for the Energy Release mechanic. Energy has 3 sequential extreme damaging attacks, Fire has one and one superior damage attack. On top of that Fire has nothing to compare with an Energy Released Whirling Hands. The damage and versatility of attacks in the Energy arsenal is far better than anything you can get out of Fire. Fire doesn't necessarily automatically lock you into the Fire APP but you're shorting your overall damage missing out on Fiery Embraced Fire Balls. Then yes you can go with the Ice APP but that debuff scales lower the higher the enemy is to you. Whereas something like Soul Drain that gets you 100% damage and 35% tohitt for 30 seconds every minute and also by the way does real nice aoe damage on activation. Like I was saying the side effects of Power Build Up has more benefit than you realize over just a straight damage boost. Energy's attacks already come with an inherently more damaging boost or with the new mechanic. It can make better use of the side effect boost that can cap your defenses and lock down enemies much longer leading to much better sustained damage over time along with their already insane burst damage. There's nothing slow about Energy and with the benefits you can get from this set you can snuggle up nice and close to enemies and not worry an ounce about having to flee for your life. Fire had it's day, now's the time of Energy.

Yeah the Fortunata has Mind Link, she has pretty nice psi damage and tends to range for a bit then runs into melee. It's a nice additional source of bonus damage that you can just fire and forget every 4 minutes. You're correct in some of your assessment that the Patron pets are pretty squishy but there are ways to mitigate that through things like Barrier and some other team buffs. Outside of maybe getting one shot by Mynx or something it's more in your control how well these pets survive.

The Mu pet doesn't rush into anything. He sits back and blasts and pocket heals you. The Fortunata has great damage. Both are fantastic pets. Aside from say a fire farm they have tons of upside. What would be awesome is if you had some way to control the battlefield so that these pets can do their work without fret...

To add on to this Laser Beam Eyes in any adaptation when you see a super flash those red eyes it's the "Oh shiz get outta the way" power. It should do so much damage that you get to see targets actually get cut in half. On top of that I'd also like it to have the dual function that it can act as a heal where you can target teammates and cauterize their wounds. Just for fun.

With the +recovery from Unleash active for you half the time it'll push off your reliance on Dark Consumption so that when you do need the endurance it'll always be available for you. You should have no problem swapping in Barrier.

Well yes endurance runs hot on this dom which I found was the Achilles heel of my build but I typically only team so never found a reason to optimize it in case I solo at first. Unleash Potential gives you +recovery when in use so I'm not gasping when that's active. I found when I do run hot it's typically when Unleash isn't active and domination is still a ways off from recharging so I can refill my bar that way. What I did to fix my endurance was to drop Vengeance and take Dark Consumption which standing close with just 2 bad guys it refills my bar when I need it along with domination. It's worked out quite well, I only have 2 slots in it with the Efficacy Adaptor's chasing end mod/recharge/accuracy. Also my Alpha is Agility so I'm getting nice end mod/recharge already along with the defense to boost all of my defense powers.

A few things here. There's only one slow animation in Energy in your attack chain and that'd be Total Focus and it has been sped up from what it used to be. It still hits real hard and sets you up automatically for the Energy Release mechanic. The overlooked benefit Energy has over Fire is the Power Boost ability. On top of the +dmg added it allows you to control much better than Fire and it also boosts things like defense. So if you build your dom right you can powerboost Unleash Potential which mine gets me 31% defense to all to pair with all of my other defenses as opposed to it netting you 21% on a Fire dom. Then I have Barrier to cycle in once Unleash wears off then after a minute Barrier's best bonuses wear down and back comes Unleash. At almost all time I'm running around with 56+ positional defenses along with 50+ elemental defenses paired with high resists. Energy caps my defenses Fire does not so it's far less "scary" than you think.

Well my Mind/Nrg would like to have a word. Total Focus, Power Burst and Snipe out ST damage anything /Fire can get you. Then there's the Energy Release mechanic which doubles the damage on Whirling Hands, which'll make it the hardest hitting pbaoe power a dom can use, far better than any aoe powers in Fire's arsenal. Additionally as a /Fire dom you're kind of locked into taking the Fire APP for Fire Ball to get the most out of your Fiery Embrace. Whereas /Nrg doesn't lock you into that so you could get great use out of something like the Soul Patron pool and take Soul Drain which ups all of your damage 100% along with doing fabulous damage on use, then there's 2 other aoe powers in that pool to take on top of that.

I just made one of these. I got my resists pretty meaty and my defenses to elemental and melee capped. The only hole I have is the psi hole which is what it is. I'll give you a quick rundown of what I did with mine. I took every power in Invuln except for the first auto resist physical damage. You'll be about capped already without it so no need for it. All of my resist power and tough I slotted to 4 with Unbreakable guards for the melee defense bonus. I have Unstoppable and just slotted the two defense uniques into that one. Dull Pain I slotted a 6 set of preventative medicine. Then on hide I 3 slotted with reactive defenses with the unique. I 2 slotted the two defense powers in invuln with gamblers defense and def/rech IOs. Then I slotted weave with 3 Gamblers. I ended up going with the Force of Will pool and took Unleash Potential and slotted 4 Shield Walls with the unique and a gambler +recharge. I also went with Body Mastery as my epic pool for Focused Accuracy (6 slotted Gaussians) and Physical Perfection. As for my Savage attacks I skipped the t1 and placate, everything else I 6 slotted but for AS which has a set of 5 of the stalkers set with the chance for hide. The other stalker ATO set of 6 I put in the first attack. Then with the 3 pbaoe powers I put in one set of 6 of Superior Avalanche, Armageddon and Obliteration. Then I put in a 6 set of Hecatomb into Hemorrhage and lastly BU I 2 slotted. I didn't outrageously proc my attacks as I don't tend to do that most times anyways since I typically like to aim for a sets 5th bonus with the proc from that set and maybe add another proc with my 6th slot or the meaty 6th bonus of usually the purple sets.

Well Energy Assault is on par with fire for the highest damage assault, especially with the new mechanic. You have to venture into melee though yes to get the most out of your pbaoe melee power. You won't be doing too much aoe damage until you do get those Epic pool powers but the Dominator epic powers round out the AT nicely.

First, a couple of things. You probably fizzle out because the best attacking abilities doms get bloom from 28-40. The early levels are all about getting your controls situated. Controlling the battefield can get a bit boring if you don't have the ability to set them up then knock them down. I'd recommend Energy Assault. It's extremely fun when you get the mechanic down but still it's a late bloomer so you'll want to stick it out until at least 40 before you see how you really like it. As for what control I'm always a big fan of Mind control, the power activations are all so seamless. There's a lot of good control sets though I think your enjoyment will be dictated more by the assault set that suits you.

I'd have to say the Gravity pet is probably the best overall. Very durable and controls for you while you can focus on damage. Dark would be the way to go if you're looking for more damage. Also, don't sleep on the Patron pets, they're very good. Coupled with your Primary pet and Lore pets you'll be a mini MM.

Ice/Nrg/Soul. Tons of pbaoe goodness. Take Jack tho even for him occupying some aggro.

Honestly I almost like SR as it currently is. It's cheap on the required slotting to cap all of your positionals and it's great how much +recharge you can get out of it. I like how the passives are in theory with the resists scaling into play the more health you lose but it only is really a significant boost when you're down to 2/3 health and like you say there's no real way in it's toolkit to get you back out of danger. One or two lucky big shots and you're roadkill. Now if you can boost your resists to where you can take those big shots and get use out of the passive scaling resists then you're doing well but that means you are pretty much locked into taking Sorcery. I'd like to see the passive's resists adjusted to where it's significant enough at full health even if it doesn't scale as high at 10% health. I can make due without the heal since that is it's known weakness anyways. I'd totally advocate for Elude to be reworked since most SR builds are already defense capped by when you get it settled.