Mezmera

With all the internal recharge doms build for your damage chain won't vary much outside of ET, Moonbeam, Life Drain and a single target hold or damage slotted Mesmerize. You'll mix in the aoe controls and engulfing darkness as you'll need it but you will be a vicious boss killer.

My main is a Mind/Dark. Very fun combo and great survive-ability. Life Drain has fantastic synergy with the Primal Epic pool. Energy Transfer on a dom just hits stupid hard, best ST attack on the game, up there with the best stalker attacks. Only draw back is the health loss from it makes most reluctant to use it but with Life Drain you can spam ET all day. ET and Moonbeam is a ferocious 1+2. I'd drop Levitate, Smite, Midnight Grasp, Gloom and one or two of the AoE controls. Here's what I've taken for my powers: Mesmerize, Dominate, Confuse, Total Domination, Mass Confusion, Mass Hypnosis (no extra slotting) Blast, Gather Shadows, Engulfing Darkness, Life Drain, Moon Beam Energy Transfer, Shield, (maybe conserve power if you need it) Hasten, Maneuvers, Tactics, Vengeance, Punch, Tough, Weave, Mystic Flight, Ally buff, Rune of Protection You could also sub out the Sorcery Pool for Force of Will, they're both great pools. Anyways good luck!

I haven't gone so far as look at it with a microscope but Whirling Hands hits for a ton for me. I have the double damage incarnate and it seems to fire on the base damage when it does, not the energy release portion. Powered with an extreme amount of damage boost with Soul Drain along with Obliteration, Energy Release and Double Hit procs it's the power I most look forward to using seemingly melting groups of targets.

No they weren't in the game at the end of live. Sorcery was being tested at the time while the other new pools were only outlined so much more work would need to be done to have those come to life. The original devs wanted to create a new pool for each origin be it natural, technology, etc and you were locked into having access only to that pool which corresponded with the origin but the homecoming devs decided against locking these into specific origins. The team here got their hands on the code which had everything current in game plus whatever was being tested up until the last moment so there was tons of shiny stuff to bring forth with a little know how.

Don't really need to. I've got so much experience with all these IO's that I've got it memorized and filtered down to what I feel is most beneficial in terms of bonuses. There's not really any intent to refuse to use it, just don't feel the need to download/upload something that I have no technical experience with nor feel the need to make use of. I also feel that the planner isn't quite up to date with the current state of the game, plus it doesn't take into effect ones playstyle. This is just a general outline of what I aim to achieve in a dominator build that'll allow this person to adjust based on their playstlye preference.

Superior Ascendancy of the Dominator gives 5% ranged defense/10% recharge Some other hold set gives 3.25% ranged defense/7.5% recharge Ranged blast set Thunderstrike gives 3.75% ranged defense Mako's gives 3.75% ranged defense Obliteration gives 3.5% melee defense/5% recharge Gaussian gives 2.5% ranged/melee/aoe defense Sting of Manticore gives 2.5% ranged defense/7.5% recharge Confuse sets are great for defense/recharge Take defense and resist powers and slot the defense uniques and luck of gamblers. Slot some purple sets. If you use Power Up then use Unleash Potential you get 30% defense to everything for a minute every other minute, which then I'll use barrier to fill in for that other minute. Every little power and bonus adds up. I don't aim for perma hasten but I do aim for 90% additional recharge which will give me plenty of time for perma domination. Then I aim to cap all the defenses I can.

Yeah I'm assuming with the achilles proc'ing which will be a very solid 90% chance of firing. Then sure throw in whatever other procs or slotting into it you may want, the resistance debuff in itself is huge and only amplified in teams. It was 11% base but I believe with the newer patch they lowered the base to 8%, still being able to slot the achilles that'll proc an additional 20% debuff almost certainly is the draw. I don't even slot weaken resolve beyond dropping the achilles into it. That debuff alone is huge anything else you can slot into it is minor and those additional slots are better served on other powers to enhance your build.

The invisibility trick with SS and stealth IO is nice but wholly overrated. You can skip by mobs without this trick no matter especially easy with the potential of perma domination and capped defenses. If a group DOES become bothersome well you have controls to make them stop bothering you. The power pool ranged attack weaken resolve is actually a debuff which will debuff a target of your choosing of 30% resistance to your damage. So when fighting some tough boss your attacks are about 1/3 stronger along with everyone else in your team. Quite significant. Also building the energy effect is easy, Total Focus gives 100% chance of building it so just use that to build it, no need to "hope" a blast will. Lastly you can get the same IO bonuses from Unleash Potential that you can from Combat Jumping. The caveat is that you will have 30% defense to all attack type along with a recovery buff whereas Combat Jump will get you what, 4% defense to everything? Frankenslotting IO procs all throughout your abilities is a very short sighted approach to doms. Force of Will pool and the accumulation of IO bonuses are where it's at. Good luck with your build!

Actually from a slotting standpoint I've got a lot to add for you to think about. I have a lot of similar powers in my doms so I'll give you the slotting I have. Energy: Power Bolt - Nothing, don't use this power Power Up - 1 50+5 recharge IO Whirling Hands - 6 Obliteration Total Focus - 6 Mako's Snipe - 5 Sting of Manticore Power Burst - 5 Apocalypse Soul: Soul Drain - 5 Armageddon (this procs decent with the longerish recharge but still recharges well with all your internal recharge) Tactics - 6 Gaussians

Looks good! If you have the want to do so I'd drop Super Speed, Power Blast and Combat Jumping. Then I'd take the Force of Will pool, Mighty Leap, Weaken Resolve and Unleash Potential, far better option all 3 powers.

Slacking off at work eh! The Energy Assault revamp was real nice, so nice in fact that I rolled two new ones after. I wouldn't trust mids on this one since it's probably outdated and doesn't know to factor in the new Energy Release mechanic. If you're keen on doms I'd recommend giving Energy a whirl, everything from Power Up and after is just nasty.

I know it's a ranged attack I used it quite frequently in RV back on Live. You do realize that Mids might not be attuned to the current state of the game eh? I just logged on and tried to respec my /energy dom. Power Push has a dpa at level 50 of 78.76 Power Burst has a dpa at level 50 of 169.63 This is before enhancements mind you so the potential you can pull out of Power Burst compared to Push just multiplies. Power Burst has statistically the best dpa of all the powers in Energy Assault not accounting for Whirling Hands. On top of that it also benefits from Energy Release if you have it built which is good for those AV fights. Whereas Power Push does not, so yes all around Power Burst trumps it in every way. Get off Mids and log into the game for some real time stats I would suggest.

Yeah you can definitely drop bone smasher. It's a nice attack I keep until 30 then I respec it out since it becomes obsolete in comparison to the damage chain you can access 20-38. I don't really think Power Push is advisable over Power Burst. It's a neat little extra control but I'm pretty certain the t9 burst behaves like it should now in terms of raw damage with a chance of knockback. When picking powers you can just click to show the statistics of each power you're looking at and scale it to 50 to get an idea of what it'll do. After the Energy revamp I did this with all those powers and Power Burst's dpa in game showed up stupid good in comparison to all the other attacks in the power set and its a ranged blast. That's not to say all of the energy attacks aren't good because they definitely got a lot of love, bone smasher, power blast and power push would be great attacks on other power sets. I'd say from what's suggested for Dark is to keep the fear, heart of darkness and living shadows and probably drop shadow field. As for Energy I'll say the only powers you'll need to take from that are Bolt, Power Up, Whirling Hands, Total Focus, Snipe and Power Burst. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what you can trim out to fit in some other beneficial shields and such.

Well for starters do not skip power burst. It's just far too good of an attack to skip, you'd much rather wait on this and have it in your build than power blast. My damage chain goes Soul Drain, Total Focus, Whirling Hands then Power Burst and Snipe to finish any stragglers. Blasting groups of targets alternating two meaty finishers like snipe and power burst without even leaving where you're standing is great. Honestly you look to have way more control powers than you'll find necessary. Dark Grasp, Possess, Haunt and Umbra Beast are must take. Then I'd probably go with Shadow Field and maybe Heart of Darkness. Don't have playtime with Dark so not sure how these powers are in action, I don't really like that the hold is a target location power nor do I like stuns as a control to rely on. Also, if fearsome stare has a cone as good as Mind Controls Terrify I'd probably take that but I doubt it does since it's such an early aoe control. Fear powers are not a hard control power since the targets still tend to fire back from time to time. So you can see why I say I see Dark as having more leaning towards damage since I have more questions about the nature of its controls than I would on most other regular dom primaries and especially in comparison to my Mind doms. There's definitely room to trim your primary and secondary powers down a bit to fit in another pool like leadership, sorcery or force of will.

Generally I'd dabble in a few must take powers here and there in your primary and secondary and use the pools and epics to build myself up with the defenses that I want which also allow for slotting of the necessary recharge you'll need for perma dom so you're killing two birds with one stone. I'll give you a bare bones of what I aim to take starting with the pools then I fit my primary and secondary into the rest. For the pools I always go with Speed, Fighting, Leadership and one of the new pools usually now Force of Will but Sorcery isn't too shabby either if you have room for resistance more so than defense. So for speed I just go with Hasten, best pool power there is. Fighting I go punch, tough and weave. Leadership I at least go with maneuvers and tactics, gambler mule and tactics just makes everything you do much more accurate which is big for your controls. Lastly I go with mighty leap, weaken resolve and unleash potential on the Force of Will pool. That's 9 powers you'll take. Then I reserve 3 powers from the Epic pools since they are usually quite good and feed into your build quite nice. As an example I'd go with soul drain, the shield and either the pet (which are quite good on doms) or that end drain, I've found room for all 4 on some characters. So in all you'll have 12 powers reserved with the pools leaving you with 12 powers from your primary and secondary to take. Taking more than 6 powers in your primary or secondary tends to end up quite wasteful. So as you can see with that reasoning you're right on schedule for a build you'll do well with. Then as you get to play it you'll tweak it a bit maybe dropping a control you never get to use for maybe another pool power more beneficial to you, or you'll want a bit more control and a little less damage. This way there's room for adjustment no matter what power combos you've chosen. For me I try to narrow things down to efficiency. I'll drop a control I "may" use and never do but really only have for sentimental reasons for a power that'll benefit me much more like adding the end drain in the Soul Mastery pool to fix a shortcoming that I can do something about.

Yeah the power pools and IOs get you there. For powers I run my maneuvers, tough/weave, soul mastery shield and unleash potential from the new Force of Will pool. I believe /Ice has a powerboost effect power so you should be able to maximize the effect you get from unleash potential by clicking the power boost right before clicking unleash. As for IOs I aim for what MTeague says above generally. First I aim for 80-90 more recharge from IO bonuses along with having hasten. That's a few gamblers here and there and 5 purple sets, easy as pie if you have the investment for it. After that I aim for set bonuses that'll get me ranged, melee and aoe defense priority in that order. So say a 6 set of Gaussian's into tactics or a full set of Ascendancy of the Dominator. Also, don't forget to pick up the unique's like the steadfast, gladiators armor and the resist uniques if you have room. All in all my doms typically have better defense capabilities than a SR scrapper paired with the ability to control the battlefield like no other along with quasi-blaster-ish damage. Makes for a very fun night of play. Good luck with your dom!

Yeah target something in the mob with a TF then follow up with the Energy Focused Whirling Hands. The revamp to Energy Assault substantially raised the potential dps to where I can't say it couldn't be the top atm. As for what I was saying earlier about what Epic pool to go with I suggested Soul Mastery, not Psi. Soul Mastery has Soul Drain which amps your damage greatly, a real good resist shield and it also has an end drain to help fix your endurance issues. Highly recommend.

I don't have too much familiarity with Dark Control, just seems light on control altogether. But it seems to sacrifice stronger control for more damage with Haunt and Umbra Beast. Energy Assault is just fantastic though, especially the powers from level 20 onward. From the looks of Dark you'll want to take Dark Grasp, Possess, Haunt and Umbra Beast and one of the AoE controls like Shadow Field or Heart of Darkness. On the Energy side you'll then want to take Bolt, Bone Smasher, Power Up, Whirling Hands, Total Focus, Power Burst and Snipe. I'd also recommend Soul Mastery for your epic pool. Hope this helps.

Been gone a while but I'll chime in to help since I have quite a bit of playtime with Energy Assault and Primal Mastery. I do love me some Energy Transfer, it has just the right crunch on a dom, other AT's nowadays not so much. Even with the new animation the damage is off the charts compared to any other ST attack you can muster on a dom. That being said I don't like to take Primal mastery unless I also have a reliable consistent heal to mitigate ET's negative effect. Having ET available to my attack chain but pausing its use to watch my health bar is counter to how I'd like to play. Energy Assault has some real nice attacks so I highly recommend Soul Mastery. Soul Drain is fantastic, it'll amp all of your damage, you get a very nice shield, you can take another end drain power and there's also a nice little pet to get as well. As for Energy Assault I would NOT drop Whirling Hands. Total Focus a target in a mob then drop a Whirling Hands with the orange ring on it right after, it's just fantastic damage. The powers that are a must and make up a fabulous damage chain are Power Up, Total Focus, Whirling Hands, Power Burst and Snipe, sprinkle in a Soul Drain and you'll thirst for more mobs to kill.

Quit giving bad advice baddo. I'm not running a new dom all the way to 50 thanks though for the offer. I already know there's no cookies like me so make of that whatever you will. I'll be on for a bit @Mistress Mezmera

Cookie cutter eh? Because all those cookie cutter doms pull 50+ defense on everything and still maintain tons of aggro control plus high damage. If that's the norm nowadays how come I don't see many doms running around like I do? Not trying to stroke any ego, I know what I can do and some of the people on here telling people what they can and cannot do is just closed minded. I'm on excelsior anytime you want to test who's cookie cutter dom stands up let me know.

I don't get surprise 2-shotted, if I do get surprised by an aggro of lets say 3 groups of 16 enemies I still won't get dropped, I run at least 50+ defense to everything at almost all times so it's rare a hit gets through and if it does I've got plenty of aoe control to handle all that aggro. All this without sacrificing anything in building a well balanced dom. Also, no I don't build my dom to sneak around if I don't want to, my template is enhanced so that I can out tank the tank if I want to (which is all the time) and providing blaster like dps too, sounds pretty diverse to me.

Chirikiti you seem to be giving some bad alternative advice which comes off as very hypocritical. First you talk about focusing on your controls and such but state you only use single target controls mostly, how bad of a teammate you must be to not lock down a group of enemies when that's an ability innate to your AT. Building a good dom is all about variety in your powers and slotting. To me it looks like people are offering a diverse range of input for players to pick and choose from. I've seen you generalizing some of the players offering their advice a lot lately. I'd love to see your dom in action with that minimal AoE control and low defense, my guess would be that you'd get crunched pretty hard in content where there are more than two targets and they are immune to your mezzes. I'd love to duo some of the harder content with you so you can see what a Mind dom can truly be Mr. expert.

There is SOME insinuation that maybe not building defense into your build might not be optimal. You make it a bit murky with what you say at the end. My contention this whole thread is that you can build for everything just about and it behooves you to do so at the cost of say 20-30% recharge that is just overkill.

I have a tank for occasions where I want to play a mind numbing easy to survive character. Built right a dom has so much more potential. If you're aggressive with your controls you have double the aggro control capability to a tank and can contribute blaster-ish damage so why not build in defenses since you easily can without taking away from your potential?