Option Paralysis with Plant/Fire/Fire

[Story Archer]

 

G’day, all. I’ve newly rediscovered CoH (crazy happy to see it alive and well) and I’ve decided to rebuild a character concept I always loved but never really got to level up – Plant/Fire/Fire Dom (The Defoliator!). I’ve been playing around in Mids and what has struck me most is the wide array of options available on which to base your playstyle. Obviously it’s great to have options, but I’m struggling with what to focus on… sure, eventually everything will be slotted to try and take advantage of sets for the collective set bonuses, but as far as what I’m actually going to USE the lion’s share of the time, I’m simply not sure which way to go and thus, how to build for it.

 

FWIW, I’m probably going to play this character solo at least 50% of the time with the rest of his play limited to small groups – Controllers/Dominators have never felt particularly useful on those steam-rolling 8-man power leveling teams, and I have characters much better suited for them anyway. I'm one of those oddballs who tends to enjoy actually playing through content rather than power-leveling, and post-50 play for me is more of a reward than my sole driving motivation.

 

My first thought is to lean heavily into what I consider to be a (the?) jewel of the set, Seeds of Confusion by level 8. Do I take advantage of that, hit Fire Breath and then run in and mix it up with Incinerate and Combustion or sit back with Carrion Creepers, Rain of Fire and Fireball? Should I build Roots for damage and use it as a follow-up to Seeds before the AoE barrage? Is there a time when Seeds starts to become unreliable or impractical?

 

Is Vines really worth it? Sure it stacks with Strangler and locks down groups but it doesn't deal damage, has an incredibly long recharge time and it seems like I'd get just as much benefit out of Seeds, not to mention the clumping effect Confusion tends to get you.

 

Do I spend any time at all building up and buffing Fly Trap with Leadership or is that simply not enough return on investment? What about putting together a strong single-target attack chain with Strangler, Fire Blast, the new-and-improved Bolt and Blaze?

 

How much defense is too much defense? Is Fire Shield adequate for someone who shouldn’t be in the line of fire very often, or do I need to go the Fighting line? If I do, with all those toggles, does Consume become a priority, and if I’m running in to use that, should I reconsider including Combustion & Incinerate as follow-ups?

 

Sure, not every plan works best for every situation, and, like I said, it’s good to have options, but at the moment I’m just not sure what direction to focus my attentions.

 

At the moment I don’t plan on taking Entangle, Spore Burst or Spirit tree, I know that. I’m on the fence between Incinerate and Flares, trying to decide between a ranged attack chain or focusing on melee. Don’t know how badly I’ll need Consume yet and I’m not currently planning on taking a travel power, just (probably) Combat Jumping + a prestige run with the Jetpack as a back-up. As I said, I’m really looking for advice on tactics and play-style, more than any sort of end-game build since I can always respec into that when the time comes.

 

TIA for any insight - I'm really looking forward to trying this character out.
 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Story Archer

[Story Archer]

I'm looking at the Mids tools, trying to figure out the Pet IO sets a little bit:

 

Pet Damage category

• Edict of the Master +Def
• Sovereign Right +Res

Recharge Intensive Pets category

• Expedient Reinforcement +Res
• Call to Arms +Def

 

I assume that these Uniques buff the pet, not the character that summoned it, correct? I'm guessing that's the case since 1) it'd be WOW and 2) none of the numbers move on Mids when I slot them.

[Meknomancer]

On 8/1/2023 at 10:32 PM, Story Archer said:

I'm looking at the Mids tools, trying to figure out the Pet IO sets a little bit:

 

Pet Damage category

• Edict of the Master +Def
• Sovereign Right +Res

Recharge Intensive Pets category

• Expedient Reinforcement +Res
• Call to Arms +Def

 

I assume that these Uniques buff the pet, not the character that summoned it, correct? I'm guessing that's the case since 1) it'd be WOW and 2) none of the numbers move on Mids when I slot them.

 

 

Those pet uniques will only apply to the pets and you'll find them a waste of slots, pets rarely survive tougher content regardless of slotting.

 

Slotting is dependent on playstyle you'll see a lot of different builds, proc heavy 0 defence relying on controls and damage, much tankier builds with 45% ranged/smashing/lethal defence (depending on epic/patron pool), it really depends on how you play the game as we all play it differently.

[Story Archer]

On 8/15/2023 at 9:51 AM, Meknomancer said:

 

 

Those pet uniques will only apply to the pets and you'll find them a waste of slots, pets rarely survive tougher content regardless of slotting.

 

Slotting is dependent on playstyle you'll see a lot of different builds, proc heavy 0 defence relying on controls and damage, much tankier builds with 45% ranged/smashing/lethal defence (depending on epic/patron pool), it really depends on how you play the game as we all play it differently.

I appreciate the reply. I tend to lean more towards less controllery options like Blasters, scrappers and Brutes, and I love a good Defender, but I'm really fascinated with this particular power combination (Plant/Fire Dominator). On the Controller side, Seeds of Confusion has got to be the best power out there - AoE, prevents them from attacking you and tends to cluster them together for AoE attacks plus you get it so early and can use it so often. With that as my base, I just use Strangler (+Vines when necessary) to lock down particularly tough foes and that's it - everything else is glorious fire damage. Toss in Carrion Creepers to just wreck havoc and it doesn't really matter if you have the pet or not. Plus I've found it surprisingly easy to beef up this guy's defenses without having to depend solely on purple IO sets.

 

This is probably the only Dominator I'm ever going to play, but I plan on playing the hell out of him 🙂

[Meknomancer]

 

20 hours ago, Story Archer said:

I appreciate the reply. I tend to lean more towards less controllery options like Blasters, scrappers and Brutes, and I love a good Defender, but I'm really fascinated with this particular power combination (Plant/Fire Dominator). On the Controller side, Seeds of Confusion has got to be the best power out there - AoE, prevents them from attacking you and tends to cluster them together for AoE attacks plus you get it so early and can use it so often. With that as my base, I just use Strangler (+Vines when necessary) to lock down particularly tough foes and that's it - everything else is glorious fire damage. Toss in Carrion Creepers to just wreck havoc and it doesn't really matter if you have the pet or not. Plus I've found it surprisingly easy to beef up this guy's defenses without having to depend solely on purple IO sets.

 

This is probably the only Dominator I'm ever going to play, but I plan on playing the hell out of him 🙂

 

Easy 45% ranged

 

[Onlyasandwich]

I love this combo, and it's probably in my top 3 favorite characters period.

 

My own is in the "rely on controls, maximize damage" camp. Supported by perma-dom, near slow immunity, and a healthy baseline resist, this works out really well! Seeds of Confusion is exactly as strong as you suspect.

 

The main weakness here is severe overaggro scenarios - but what Dom really handles that easily every time? You can even manage there quite nicely if you are very aware and aggressive with your extra controls. This is where Vines does come in handy - it's your emergency "whoops, an extra spawn" button, and mules a great set to boot.

 

Here is is for reference:

Dominator - Plant Control - Fiery Assault mk2.mbd

 

This build is made to play primarily at range, which /fiery is uniquely suited to. Incinerate is mostly a mule, but you can use it when exemping just fine. At range, you won't need flares for a complete ranged attack chain anyhow.

 

Note the slotting for carrion creepers here. Due to the unique way its pet summon mechanic works, the procs here turn it into an absolute damage monster. It looks like @Meknomanceris already on the right track with slotting here for their build as well. : )

 

It's worth noting that Creepers do require accuracy to hit, and the only way to actually get that accuracy to them is with native power slotting, so you want some incorporated into the power itself.

 

I very much dislike tough/weave on my doms in general, as the toggle management is annoying, and the endurance cost is hard to balance with the tools available. I tend to lean on Sorcery/Rune more often if I want extra resist support, as in this build. Sure you don't need the mez protection from Rune most of the time, but sometimes even that aspect is a problem solver (ie after a death/rez, missed dom cycle). It is more of a useful power spike in truly troublesome scenarios to pull you through. This combo doesn't need extra help in the moment to moment mob grind - it obliterates everything in its path. What it does benefit from are extra tools to solve surprises.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Onlyasandwich