Earth/Psi vs Ice Mistral SF - no insp/temps/amps +1x8

[Frosticus]

Final Encounter

Archus AV + wave after wave...after wave of ambushes
Player is set to lvl 40

No Inspirations/temps/amps/click accolades
No deaths

+1x8

 

If you have run this SF you know the final boss is absolute Mayhem at x8. You are at a slight disadvantage at lvl 40 as you will not have access to your final 2 powers and of course, no incarnates.

This is challenging content for most AT's, but is perhaps especially challenging for dominators as it really stresses their ability to control multiple full spawns AND have a dangerous AV biting at their heels the whole time.

 

I'd be impressed to see any other dominator do it, so if you feel your build is up to the challenge I encourage you to try.

 

There are two unique challenges in this SF to overcome:

 

1 - at 75/50/25% health he summons ambushes. Each consists of 3? waves of spawns. They are time based so if you move slowly you might have a LOT of enemies present. If you allow yourself to be overrun by Succubi and Death mages you will probably fail as those are both problematic enemy types for most builds.

 

2 - Archus is a formidable AV. Dark debuffs, dark attacks and psi attacks. Plus he spams his self heal twilight grasp. He also has healing flames. So bring dps.

 

Keys to success (for me):
-Load up on inspirations…ha j/k, I have them disabled, but that will be the typical solution.
-Being able to control entire spawns from out of line of sight. The sheer volume of enemies means most standard controls will leave you very exposed.

-Earthquake and volcanic gases can consistently affect well over 16 enemies.
-Stalagmites gets out faster than other stuns so less incoming damage taken. It makes a difference compared to a slow stun like flashfire, or a pbaoe stun like dark's where you need to facetank for longer.
-Def debuffs. You will whiff when multiple death mages target you. Huge def debuffs of earth keep you powering thru
-Drain Psyche. Lots of targets means huge regen and recovery. I screw up a couple times and fail to get in the middle to saturate it. But most times it is head and shoulders above what other assault sets can offer.
-AoE damage. Proc'd PSW, proc'd psy nado, world of confusion and enflame make the mobs disappear at a good rate.
-Ability to face down a dark+psi based AV and outpace his heal. All else aside, few doms will pass this part of the test even if they could handle the ambushes.

[carroto]

Only about halfway through the video so far but it's a fun watch.  Two things jumped out at me.  First you took Subdue, which I usually skip due to the low DPSA, but I presume that's because you just wanted another ranged attack.

 

The thing that most stood out to me though was how tanky your pet is.  I'm curious how you pulled that off.  I'd have to go look at my Earth Controller's build but I think I recall that I tried to make the pet pretty tough but I'm pretty sure it would be taking more damage than that in a situation like that, and I'm not sure it would survive at all.  IIRC psi is one of the stone's strongest resistances, so maybe that's just a challenge he's well suited to.

Edited August 7, 2023 by carroto

[Frosticus]

Subdue is for the dom +dam ATO. While not a great attack it boosts everything else I do including enflame. It was either tk Thrust or subdue in the build (or arcane bolt, but it is way too slow for me).

 

Stoney's a beast. He'll happily tank psi/toxic/fire/cold/energy/negative with the 2 res IOs and spirit ward. Spirit Ward is what you mostly see keeping him going here. If I shut that off he'd go down very quickly (this power works wonders when placed on your team tank too) and the fact that as ambushes they target me above all else.

For the most part he's only dealing with the AV, which is of course very useful.

[BitCook]

Have you shared your build on this?  Looks very solid although from the powers you can't have more than 20% ish to most defenses.

 

Edit: You did in the Ice Minstrel thread.  Thanks!

Edited August 10, 2023 by BitCook

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, BitCook said:

Have you shared your build on this?  Looks very solid although from the powers you can't have more than 20% ish to most defenses.

 

Edit: You did in the Ice Minstrel thread.  Thanks!

 

Yes, I've switched out concealment for leadership since that build, but it is more or less the same.

 

IMO defense on a build with no innate defense or ddr is not a productive path. It works when you don't really need it (ie easier content) and fails when you do.

it is too inefficient to get multi-vector defense on a dom and still have a character that does good control and damage. Single vector defense like ranged def builds have giant holes in their protection. It fails at the things I enjoy doing with characters, though it may be satisfactory to others.

 

The def I have is more or less incidental, or in the goal of boosting stoney's defense. He does benefit greatly from any and all defense on top of his huge resistance and absorb when tanking AV's.

[carroto]

On 8/10/2023 at 12:01 PM, Frosticus said:

IMO defense on a build with no innate defense or ddr is not a productive path.

 

For doing specific challenges with no inspirations for example I could see this, but my thinking for more general-purpose builds is quite different.  Having any kind of base of defense means that a single Cold or FF on the team pushes me into the range where it starts becoming meaningful.  Ditto for inspirations.  The more defense I have, the fewer inspirations I need to soft-cap, and therefore the longer my tray will last me.  I always grab the low-hanging fruit, even when not building for defense.

[Frosticus]

32 minutes ago, carroto said:

 

For doing specific challenges with no inspirations for example I could see this, but my thinking for more general-purpose builds is quite different.  Having any kind of base of defense means that a single Cold or FF on the team pushes me into the range where it starts becoming meaningful.  Ditto for inspirations.  The more defense I have, the fewer inspirations I need to soft-cap, and therefore the longer my tray will last me.  I always grab the low-hanging fruit, even when not building for defense.

That's true enough. I won't pretend that I play the same as most. I rarely team, generally just solo tf's with my own self-imposed restrictions (I hate lore pets so much haha), and only join for the bigger stuff.

I usually find on most late game teams the defense buffs are aplenty whereas resistance buffs are more rare outside of whatever residual barrier is going.

 

So for something like dominators, who have a good modifier on the App shields I strive toward a solid resistance base.

This is my earth/psi with melee core. I alternate rune and melee hybrid, so usually have good resistance going.

One thing most players don't know is that cardiac boosts the resistance of melee core (and barrier), pushing its base resistance up to 19.3% with no targets in range.

In the case of /psi chip (or steady) damage is nicely covered by the regen, whereas spike damage (defense based) can still see you faceplanted very quickly. But that's just my experience.

[carroto]

Hey just want to say again thanks for sharing your build ideas.  It inspired me to re-roll my old Earth/Sonic Controller on my current server.  It was always a lot of fun and stoney was pretty tanky with the sonic shields, but still took more damage than I'd like in some situations and just wasn't all that I'd hoped he could be.  I remember an EB that took him down twice in a row while leveling, greatly disappointing me.  I looked at his stats before deciding on the combo and figured his innate resistances along with sonic shields should make a solid performer.  As I said, I was pretty happy overall but it wasn't quite what I was hoping for in the planning stages...

 

For some reason I'd never even considered Spirit Ward.  Just got into a rut with my builds I guess.  Now at level 26 with stoney, Spirit Ward, and the shields barely slotted he's already doing pretty well.  I think that was the missing ingredient I needed to make it work the way I'd always hoped for.

 

Thanks.

[Frosticus]

You should be able to eventually cap your stoney to every damage type with /sonic. 

 

My stoney is only capped to psi/toxic and he can very easily tank lvl 54 psi AVs with spirit ward. 

 

Yours will be extremely resilient. You'll wish he could aoe taunt!

[Snokle]

I will add to what carroto has said. It made me want to roll an earth/ Dom, and man earth is quite impressive.

 

I went out of using melee and focus on range with an earth/fire Dom but Stoney is just a tank for so much. I followed some of you ideas especially with spirit ward and the guy was tanking mobs at +4/5 relatively easy.

 

I am excited to see how this goes against AVs.

[Thraxen]

I’m not a big solo challenge person by any means, but gotta try this on my ice/psi sometime. Not built for solo stuff but sounds neat. 

[Frosticus]

On 10/15/2023 at 3:31 AM, Thraxen said:

I’m not a big solo challenge person by any means, but gotta try this on my ice/psi sometime. Not built for solo stuff but sounds neat. 

Ya for sure, but I don't think I've ever been on a team that was actively seeking to do the Ice Mistral SF. I "think" I did it once on live, but the unique feature of the final encounter was unfamiliar to me. Maybe on some of the higher pop shards?

 

A lot of content in this game is untouched unless you drag a team to it. So if I can solo it when a team does want to run it, I can ensure a positive outcome.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Frosticus

[Thraxen]

I tried it once. I think I could likely do it if I was built to have perma dom at that level. Mine is a 50 build so performs a lot differently at 45. 

[Frosticus]

Ya for sure, mine's of course a lvl 50 build too . I run the same build for everything with this dom, although there are definitely times I'm tempted to respec to the content. A respec ends up eating up an entire play session, so I can't be bothered.

 

Exemp'ing certainly adds to the difficulty, even just losing 2 powers and incarnates. That said, purples, ATO's and pvp IO's all exemp down to lvl 1? so a lvl 50 build can pretty easily have perma dom in 35+ content. It seems weird not to tbh simply as a byproduct of chasing perma dom, but I realize not everyone arrives at their destination by taking the same route. 

 

[Snokle]

Yeah from what I have seen Purp, PVP, ATO, and possible Winter IOs exemplar down to at least lvl 10 set bonuses. So usually 30-35 is easy to be perma dom 20+ is more of a chore. It is kind of doable but respecing for low content on Dom is usually rough as you said losing just a few powers does hurt the damage chain.

 

I usually have my dom builds work from 35-50 as that is when they can excel the most with perma dom and access to pets and most crucial damage powers. If I am running lower it usually can handle stuff cause of proc attacks, and the prestige powers but you loose some gause without the bonus mag on control powers.

[Frosticus]

Ya perma dom in the mid 30s while leveling requires a lot of effort, but on a 50 build it just is. 

 

That particular build is still perma in lvl 25 content, which did require some conscious thought in power ordering, but no noteworthy concessions.

[Snokle]

So do you feel with the Primary and Secondary level requirement lowered helped get you to be perma around 25, and not having to sacrifice a lot of natural power?

[Frosticus]

100%. The combination of having access to powers 5 lvls above AND lowering level requirements to unlock.. the game has never been easier to be strong.

 

I mean I'm using my t9 secondary power in lvl 25 content now. So just having access to that is huge, but also benefiting from the sets I put in those powers is potentially very strong. 

 

And as significant as it is for doms, think about a corrupter now having access to transference+fulcrum OR sleet+heatloss on the Penelope yin TF. That  is nuts.

[TinyJuggs]

I've only a dark/dark Dom till 20. But this sounds very interesting! I'm usually a stalker (ice/rad). I've been slowly peaking into the Dom forums and I've been seeing these hard versions and to me it sounds like fun. I'll be trying a few out like this build. How does plant/psi hold up in a similar environment?

Edited January 30 by TinyJuggs

[Frosticus]

19 minutes ago, TinyJuggs said:

I've only a dark/dark Dom till 20. But this sounds very interesting! I'm usually a stalker (ice/rad). I've been slowly peaking into the Dom forums and I've been seeing these hard versions and to me it sounds like fun. I'll be trying a few out like this build. How does plant/psi hold up in a similar environment?

 Every dom has varying answers to how they handle the x8 side of the equation. Plant/psi absolutely demolishes spawns. Faster than my earth/psi to be sure, but faster than most doms and most builds in the game too.

 

How would it do in this encounter?

Potentially fine, potentially falter.

The ambushes don't spawn tight, so hitting them all with seeds is hard. The deathmages and succubi will drop you very quickly if you don't have them controlled. Figure that part out and plant/psi can do what it does best. Huge spawns with recently defeated bodies - - creepers!

Quick footed movement (ie don't take fly) and situational awareness will probably get your through the ambushes.

 

But the bigger issue is what about Archus AV?

It's level 40, so you can't ride the coat-tail of your lore pet.

You won't face tank him with just the regen of drain psyche, so assume you do what most other doms do and build for ranged softcap.

He spams mesmerize (which only checks psi def) and twilight grasp (aoe/neg) which heals him, so you need to put out good dps.

 

So you'll likely need ranged softcap and psi softcap (perma indom will) and enough dps to outpace twilight grasp (and healing flames). For reference I couldn't outpace his healing at +2.

It's a tall order and I think the odds are stacked against you, but half the fun of this stuff is figuring it out.