Mezmera

Well you're in luck. With the new buff Energy Assault got it's so good I made two new ones. My attack chain doesn't venture far from Total Focus, Whirling Hands, Snipe, Burst and repeat. Any other attack from Energy you may have is obsolete in comparison and would do more good for you to pick up the Force of Will pool for that defense you're looking for. If you click Power Up before Unleash Potential you'll get additional defense. My dom runs +50 situational and all elemental defense. I have Soul Mastery as well, took the shield, Soul Drain (dropped Armageddon set into it) and consumption. In all I have less than 10 extra slots invested but still get maximum affect, love Soul! Welcome back to your new toy.

The best thing in Mu Mastery is the pet. It heals you big time every 30 seconds if you need it. I'd usually slot that with the 3 purple pet IO's with the recharge and 2 50+5 heal IOs. I'd also take Power Surge for the emergency but like was said it's rarely used. I go Soul and take Dark Consumption, pretty much the same as Power Sink. I don't have many slots to spare and I wholly take it for the endurance boost. I slot it with 2 Efficacy Adapters with end mod/rech/acc. My alpha slot is also End Mod/Recharge so it does fill the hole a bit on some so I get away with minimal slotting on some powers. If you're going theme Mu is understandable and viable. If not there's better epic pools.

Tex you really need to get out more!

Gather Shadows has a rainbow color to signify that it has a special effect that boosts things like your controls, defenses, heals and other things. Aim has a yellowish tint to it when you activate it, Build Up a redish one, Powers that enhance special things get the rainbow. I much prefer a bunch of colors to one bland one.

Wouldn't wait until 47 to take Total Focus. It's the mechanic that automatically doubles the damage on Whirling Hands so I'd take that at 28 when it's available. Also Power Burst is the best ST attack in Energy Assault, it hits as hard as Total Focus with a faster animation. This build seems to have too many attacks and not even the best ones.

Yes you'll have to forgive my misunderstanding. Any time I make a dom by level 25-30 I set it up with IO's and have perma along with a bunch of those defense powers I listed since they also take gamblers. Unleash Potential is a mini godmode. My assertion is that you're just throwing your hands up in the air saying doms suck when in fact it's you. Yes doms are more slot hungry and take a bit to get going because lots of their best attacks bloom late, that's just the nature of the beast. Throughout leveling you'll take a few of the better controls and attacks then build up those defenses so you can slot those easy gamblers. Not that hard to understand really.

If we're giving a wish list for ATO's I'll add to the dominator convo. Ascendancy is great as is, fantastic bonuses and the +dmg is a nice boon, all in all just right as is. The other set however is lackluster, the bonuses are unappealing and the proc is junk, this whole set needs a look into. As for what's my favorite ATO's it HAS to be the stalker sets. Both procs are great abilities and the bonuses are spot on as well. These sets are the bar, the other ATO's that get reworked should aim to be trans-formative like the stalker ones but if they fall short that's quite alright as long as there's genuine improvement made. Don't think there needs to be any new ATOs added but it would be neat to see a defense and resist ATO set available for all AT's, but that might be a little too OP so I get why not as well.

You said you have very little to protect you as a dominator. I offered many solutions to build up that defense and resistance to pair up with fantastic control. Just because you refuse to see it doesn't mean it's not there.

Stealth, Phase, Combat Jumping, Hover, Tough, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, Unleash Potential, Rune of Protection, Epic Shields, Melee Hybrid, Barrier. On top of that there's all kinds of easily attainable bonuses.

I can get you one I have a nasty Mind/Energy. Only thing is I don't use Primal outside of on a /Dark dom. Energy has melee covered well so I go Soul Mastery for Soul Drain which just really amps up your dps.

I'll echo that you're off to a bad start not IOing your dom to the max. If there's any reason to get familiar with IOs it's to build a nasty dom. I'd find a range only dom boring for how much more you can potentially be. Yes you should lock down groups with your AoE controls then go to town with the best powers in your arsenal, typically those are pbaoe and melee attacks. I will say to go with Energy Assault. Not because it's perceived to be melee-centric, but because it has a vicious mix of melee and ranged attacks, plus Power Up only makes your controls better giving you more time to grind out the damage once you have enemies locked down.

Sometimes if I'm feeling frisky I'll jump into a mob without them being controlled first. But then I run +55 range/melee/aoe along with all damage type defense. I also run perma dom and any other goodies I can pull from sets. I do reserve my best assets for my doms though.

This is great! I'll echo about some of the shoulder pads being asymmetric. Other than that I know you've had your hands full with this but for the next round could you guys also see about adding some more costume pieces from the more updated areas of the game? Sister Solaris' robe for one among other things. Anyways thanks for this little unexpected tidbit.

Mass Confusion is the substitute for the lack of a pet so it's kind of hard to compare a t9 to those ones if you take the intention of the powersets as a whole into context. You kind of have to look at this power in terms of what makes it as good as a pet. Almost all instances I'd rather have this hard AoE control that'll speed up the time spent on that mob compared to a pet that does almost no damage in comparison. Soloing AVs is about the only time I'd rather have the pet other then that I have all contingencies covered with another hard AoE control. Mass Confusion available every mob would be dumb, it'd be much easier to take the crutch away from a few of those other powersets like Seeds or Bonfire users. Or give Mind a new mechanic not unlike Momentum.

Well seeds is a little too good for what else you can do with plant imo. That ones recharge could be raised a smidge. You're telling me you want both of Mind's aoe hard controls to recharge so that they'll be available for every mob? As is alternating the two every mob is almost a bit too good, with that change the AI will have no chance. You'll have a bunch of new OP Mind doms running around just accidentally being good, the Titan Weapons of doms. Sure there's a few small subtle tweaks that could be made to make Mind control more mainstream friendly but also some rebalancing could be justified for the newer control sets also. With that time I'd rather just see a new dom assault set or some new endgame content added.

Not saying that other control sets might not be better but in terms of control Mind's got everything covered and then some. Some of the newer powers are balanced better like plant and dark for more damage and such but I don't see Mind needing any major revamp. To reduce recharge on Mass Confusion it would just be massively OP if it was in constant use. One thing I'd do maybe would be to swap the ST hold up so it would be selectable right off the bat like all the other powersets, other than that Mind is just fine.

Like I said don't take my word for it. Seeing is believing, make something on Excelsior and I'll PL you a bit in PI or DA if you like. A Mind dom is an amazing creature with someone that knows how to play it.

Soul Drain is a complimentary power was using it more as a point to show that you can get -tohitt from other things on top of getting massive damage and tohit. Terrify is way better, the cone is massive and it does damage. On a Mind dom you do actually have lots more AoE control than any other control set so who cares that the recharge is longer? It holds the targets much longer so that they are actually dead before the hold should wear off which kind of nullifies your -tohitt argument, then the next mob you can use Mass Confusion, or Terrify or Mass Hypnosis then the next mob your hold is recharged again. The bonuses of Dark are that it gets its ST hold in the first selectable powers, haunt and the pet add to your dps (but then so does mass confuse) and yeah when fighting an AV the -tohitt a few of those powers would be nice but nothing earth shattering better than what you can also do with Mind control.

Yeah I'd rather have all the targets permanently held and give myself 120% more damage and 40% more tohit. Darks hold has one small bonus everything else is better in Minds AOE hold and has NOTHING on Soul Drain sorry!

Well things like Soul Drain also give the badguys -tohitt and your defenses should be tip top anyways to anticipate those rogues that somehow miss out getting held.

That's cool rookies aren't really gonna do well with Mind anyways. Yeah I'll give you that the -tohitt is nice but what does it really matter since Mind's hold is immediate (in domination mind you or with the mag proc) as well and the group will be held much longer and dead well before that -tohitt will have an effect. You're welcome to come scope out my Mind/Energy to see how it's played in an experts hands. I'm on excelsior if you'd like to some time.

Dark has better controls than Mind? That's news to me! Mind is the all being control power set if anything. You substitute a pet for a mass control that also gives you 16 pets, you substitute haunt for a massive cone of aoe soft control, then there's the aoe hold as opposed to a clunky target location hold, there's the mass sleep that causes no aggro and lastly should you need any more control you have a toggle that holds another small groups. I mean nothing has the control toolkit that Mind has but yeah. To the OP I'd say Mind/Fire if you're looking for range damage but should you feel a bit brave I'd recommend something that'll give you a better variety of damage with a great mix of range and melee. All your targets should be held mostly anyways so why ever would you feel so scared that you want to stay at range? Give /energy or /earth a try. But yeah mostly doms damage are late bloomers from mid 20's to 40's.

There's no real one way to play Mind control honestly. Plus I find "range" powersets to be just much more adaptable as opposed to meleecentric ones like the ones with offensive pbaoe toggles like Arctic Air. That's why I like Mind control so much because you can play it any way you like. Energy's two strongest attacks (not counting whirling hands) are ranged and outgun anything any other dom can get even in a ranged set like say /fire. Plus building up defenses on the side is not giving anything up, the mix of great melee and ranged powers in Energy Assault maximizes your potential. With the various ways to get hard control from Mind the mob of bad guys will be dead way before a domination power boosted aoe hold wears off.

Have you looked at the revamp notes? Energy Assault is stupid good damage now, especially when you use the new mechanics correctly. I'd venture to say it's the best dps atm on a dom especially when you have a melee playstyle. You can be in melee and use the aoe mind controls to just the same affect as you would at range. Yes there's terrify but you can switch that out for a better power more suitable to fit energy.

I've had just about every variation of Mind dom there is. A Mind control Dominator is fantastic while Electric Assault is underwhelming. For someone just starting out it's kind of good to cut your teeth on an underperforming power like say an Electric Assault so if you play something like a Mind/Energy dom you'll see how night and day power combinations can effect the AT you've chosen to play.