Earth/Fire Dominator Power Picks.

[Crasical]

So, tonight I was leveling my earth/fire dominator, and it was absolute hell. Every little mistake was an instant trip to the hospital. So I packed it in for the night, planning to come back to it with a plan of attack. Whipping up the power combo in the hero planner, I noticed some pretty big holes. (Currently level 20, BTW)

 

 

As you can see, I'm taking MOST powers pretty much the instant that they become available (Near the end, there's a little shuffle where I put off Blazing Bolt to grab Rain of Fire in its place, that's so I can get Fire Shield as soon as it unlocks and put a bandaid on my squishiness.). So, starting off with the powers I DIDN'T take and why:

 

Stone Cages: I played with these and the accuracy is bad, the benefit of the immobilize is marginal, and it seems to have anti-synergy with Earthquake and Quicksand.

 

Salt Crystals: This beings kind of a trend where you're going to hear me say 'I don't like going into melee' a lot. I skipped this because it's PbAoE, because it's a sleep, and because it has negative synergy with a LOT of my other powers that I would want to drop onto a cluster of enemies.

 

Incinerate: I don't like being in melee. Now, sometimes the mobs don't give you a choice, escaping the slow from Quicksand, knockback from earthquake, or not getting caught in my single target immob or hold. However, when that happens, I'd like an immediate solution to the problem. Incinerate is not that, because of its slow-ticking DoT nature that takes 5 seconds to do its damage. OR: I hit them in the face with Fire blast NOW.

 

Combustion: Similar to Incinerate, this one involves walking into a PACK of mobs to set off, and takes a full 7 seconds to do its damage to them.

 

Consume: Solves endurance issues that I'm presently not really having. This might be something I pick up in the future as I get more recharge and start being able to drop the bigger, expensive earth powers every fight, but for right now I don't see the need.

 

Melt Armor: I've heard bad things about this power; namely that the -res is very small and unenhancable, and that the AoE is too narrow to hit a whole spawn.

 

So, here's where I sit; a lot of empty power picks. Have I skipped out on some key components? Am I just going through a slump? What are the power pool picks I could pick up that might help out? I have been considering:

Hasten: Even if Earth Control is one of the sets that benefits from permadom the least, more recharge on the big chunky controls (Stalagmites, Earthquake, Volcanic Gasses) can't be a bad thing.

Arcane Bolt: It's another ranged blast. I actually have this, truth be told, on my live build. It's got a very neat visual but the cast time is very long.

Aid Self: Dominator squishy. It's not usually that I get ground down over repeated encounters and more that I get insta-blatted, but It'd help in 'survived by the skin of my teeth' fights as an alternative to Rest, I guess.

 

All comments and critiques appreciated.

 

[Nightmarer]

Stone Cages: I played with these and the accuracy is bad, the benefit of the immobilize is marginal, and it seems to have anti-synergy with Earthquake and Quicksand.

Indeed, pretty much any aoe immob destroys the effect of powers such as Earthquake or Ice slick / Ice patch and most trigger happy players don't know and don't care about that. Basically, while your enemies are busy falling over and over on their behinds, they won't be shooting at you but if they get immobilized (by you or a teammate) that KD effect ceases and they start shooting everyone. AoE immobs have caused more team wipes than crazy blasters, and that's a lot to say.

 

Salt Crystals: This beings kind of a trend where you're going to hear me say 'I don't like going into melee' a lot. I skipped this because it's PbAoE, because it's a sleep, and because it has negative synergy with a LOT of my other powers that I would want to drop onto a cluster of enemies.

Can't comment, never used this power in any earth control char so I'd say you did the right thing

 

The problem with Fire is that it doesn't offer any additional dmg mitigation so you need all your heavy hitting attacks, melee or not, to get rid of your enemies before they get rid of you. Having said that, Earth is by far the control set that has the most hard control tools so you should be able to mitigate enough dmg to plow through your enemies, earthquake, volcanic gasses AND stalagmites should keep you covered on that front but, if you still feel you need further dmg mitigation, then Fire Mastery is not the epic pool you should be aiming at.

 

I personally think it does not bring anything to the table that you don't pretty much have already so my personal choices would be, on one side Mace Mastery, where you get a good amount of S/L def with Scorpion Shield plus you also get a KB Cone that you can turn into KD with an IO enhancement (can't remember its name) and then personal force field which does wonders when the brown stuff hits the proverbial fan. The other choice would be ice mastery, you also get good s/l def on Forzen Armor which can also be slotted for dmgres sets tehrefore you can allocate +3% def enhancements and improve your mitigation by def, it has a self heal and hibernate which is another good panic button although not as good as PFF plus you also have a good rchg and movement debuffer with ice storm.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[Runewritten]

Weird, I feel like I have the opposite experience with my earth/fire. Earth is so good at locking things down, fire's lack of extra mitigation hasn't been a concern. I feel like we had similar layouts, except I grabbed the melee powers instead of the immobs.

I always skip the immob powers, especially on a knockdown set. However, this patch is supposed to allow knockdowns through immobs, so may as well take them now!

And you're definitely not missing much with combustion I think, it's a bit slow and fire breath really does the heavy lifting in the damage realm.

 

I took Salt Crystals just because I didn't have much else to take, it seemed like a good emergency "uh oh" power, and at the very least it's more -def to stack up. At this point I'm like "I guess I'll take... leadership?" just for lack of clear options. Guess Stone Cages will be worth taking now, though.

 

[Charistoph]

I took Stone Cages over Stone Prison because it is aoe.  While it may have not much use once you get more AOE controls and it's acc is a little lousy, I find it helpful to keep those minions in check while I spank their Lt around with Fossilize in the early levels.  I can always respec out of it later, after all. 

 

I also went with Incinerate.  You may not like being in melee, and if so, Grav and Mind are far better Primaries for that.  Incinerate is going to be your hardest hitting power available to you for some time, and if you're not taking AOE controls right away, you WILL be in melee or moving around a lot for the short bit.  Use it as a finisher if you need to early on, but I do recommend using it.  It's made my Earth/Fire Dom a lot quicker at killing.

[Tater Todd]

Due to the new Immob changes you can review your Earth/Fire build! 

[QuiJon]

Ok where to start. Just an FYI my 50 earth/dom from live days is now back living on homecoming with, as of last week, perma dom. You might say it is not as beneficial but I am sorry it is. Perma dom grants also mez protection and knockback/down protection that alone makes it worth while on a squishie to go for it. but your single target hold one shots a boss. You AOE stun one shots bosses. And with the recharge bonuses that stun aoe is up really often. So now you know where I amcoming from ….

 

Stone cages....might not need it now, and if I recall I didn't take it until late power choices in the 20s left me not a lot of options. However that being said, it is 5 slotted on my build now. Because frankly you can get purple IO sets for immbl pretty cheap in the grand scheme of IO sets. And it is more welcome then you think to have that to go along with that aoe stun of stalagmites that you can pop off all the time. especially for when you have combustion and consume...but we will get to that later.

 

Salt crystals....might have cheap IO sets don't know cause I didn't take them I hate sleeps I hate them on every character I have they are a waste of time cause some spines aoe wanna be melee toon is always gonna run in and ruin it.

 

Incinerate....I kind of feel you on the anti melee thing but as you get mobs totally locked down you get braver. However incinerate is also a power that benefits working to that perma dom and can slot with something cheap like crushing blow (I think I used) which had a 5 percent recharge buff at 5 slots but is like a level 30 IO set so they are pretty cheap to get.

 

Combustion....same thing, I use it now more then I used to because I can so easily lock down an entire spawn and if you have them locked up and drop a rain of fire and a combustion with firey embrace popped it is actually really nice damage. All of fire is damage over time just have to learn to deal with it.

 

Consume... I think I have 2 slots on it for acc and recharge. I don't use it often but from time to tiem a sapper or something gets in a good shot it is nice to have. But it doesn't figure into my standard build as I alpha slotted end reduction because I was having issues prior to IOing everything out.

 

Melt armor good instinct I took it originally I got rid of it. Really didn't notice the difference when I used it.

 

Hasten, get it, 3 slot it recharge. If you do perma dom at top buff level it is only down 4 seconds at a time. Why give up 70 percent recharge for 1 power choice and 2 slots that you seem lost on what to do with anyway.

 

Move the sniper shot down to one of the spaces you have room at earlier since you have nothing to take anyway.

 

Fireball...I had it, it was nice to have, but I got rid of it to achieve easier perma dom. Domintors do not have a lot of access to defense powers. Making it hard to find spots to use one of the best tools out there the Luck of the Gambler unique that gives 7.5 recharge buff for one slot investment. As such I didn't something that on the surface seems dumb, but I took stealth, combat jumping, and hover. All three have a LOTG slotted in them which alone gives me 22 percent recharge bonus.

 

In short I would say add hasten to what you have now. Move up sniper selection. Keep in mind it will be more useful after the next patch when the animation gets shorter plus again spot for IO set bonuses. For epic pools I like fire that is what I took. I have raid of fire, shield and ROTP which like you I took as my last power and it only has the one slot in it.

 

Pretty much everything I have from the primary is 5 slotted but quicksand (only 1) and Earth Quake(4) I might have six slotted VG just to put another duration or recharge into it don't recall. Secondary is 5 slotted but fireyembrace (3) Consume (1 or 2 I forget) because every other power is working on giving me my perma dom and most recharge bonus comes at 5 slots but Dark Watcher despair is 4 which is why I slotted earth quake short.

 

I am running pretty easily in late game with perma dom at +2 4-5 team size solo. Depending on the enemy group I can sometimes handle higher but I have to want ot challenge myself. If you have any questions feel free to message me directly here or in game @QuiJon. More then happy to put in my 2 cents worth take it or not.

 

[Tater Todd]

So, tonight I was leveling my earth/fire dominator, and it was absolute hell. Every little mistake was an instant trip to the hospital. So I packed it in for the night, planning to come back to it with a plan of attack. Whipping up the power combo in the hero planner, I noticed some pretty big holes. (Currently level 20, BTW)

 

 

As you can see, I'm taking MOST powers pretty much the instant that they become available (Near the end, there's a little shuffle where I put off Blazing Bolt to grab Rain of Fire in its place, that's so I can get Fire Shield as soon as it unlocks and put a bandaid on my squishiness.). So, starting off with the powers I DIDN'T take and why:

 

Stone Cages: I played with these and the accuracy is bad, the benefit of the immobilize is marginal, and it seems to have anti-synergy with Earthquake and Quicksand.

 

Salt Crystals: This beings kind of a trend where you're going to hear me say 'I don't like going into melee' a lot. I skipped this because it's PbAoE, because it's a sleep, and because it has negative synergy with a LOT of my other powers that I would want to drop onto a cluster of enemies.

 

Incinerate: I don't like being in melee. Now, sometimes the mobs don't give you a choice, escaping the slow from Quicksand, knockback from earthquake, or not getting caught in my single target immob or hold. However, when that happens, I'd like an immediate solution to the problem. Incinerate is not that, because of its slow-ticking DoT nature that takes 5 seconds to do its damage. OR: I hit them in the face with Fire blast NOW.

 

Combustion: Similar to Incinerate, this one involves walking into a PACK of mobs to set off, and takes a full 7 seconds to do its damage to them.

 

Consume: Solves endurance issues that I'm presently not really having. This might be something I pick up in the future as I get more recharge and start being able to drop the bigger, expensive earth powers every fight, but for right now I don't see the need.

 

Melt Armor: I've heard bad things about this power; namely that the -res is very small and unenhancable, and that the AoE is too narrow to hit a whole spawn.

 

So, here's where I sit; a lot of empty power picks. Have I skipped out on some key components? Am I just going through a slump? What are the power pool picks I could pick up that might help out? I have been considering:

Hasten: Even if Earth Control is one of the sets that benefits from permadom the least, more recharge on the big chunky controls (Stalagmites, Earthquake, Volcanic Gasses) can't be a bad thing.

Arcane Bolt: It's another ranged blast. I actually have this, truth be told, on my live build. It's got a very neat visual but the cast time is very long.

Aid Self: Dominator squishy. It's not usually that I get ground down over repeated encounters and more that I get insta-blatted, but It'd help in 'survived by the skin of my teeth' fights as an alternative to Rest, I guess.

 

All comments and critiques appreciated.

 

I always felt like Earth Control is a late blooming set but once you get gasses it becomes godly. As soon as you get Volcanic Gasses look for a Hold Set called Lockdown and look for the proc name Lockdown: Chance for +2 Mag Hold.  This proc alone will add even more control to gasses.  Also make sure to slot Earthquake with -To Hit Debuffs. Once you get these two powers running will no longer be dangerous.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Stone Cages: I played with these and the accuracy is bad, the benefit of the immobilize is marginal, and it seems to have anti-synergy with Earthquake and Quicksand.

One thing to keep in mind is that Quicksand is an auto-hit AoE Defense debuff. Using Quicksand to initiate a fight greatly improves the accuracy of Stone Cages (and Stalagmites). In fact at low levels I would say Quicksand is a defense debuff that happens to have a speed debuff attached to it. While the slow effect is useful solo it's less useful in teams but the defense debuff is so useful I tend to toss it out just for that, especially at lower levels.