Arsenal Control vs +4x8 ITF

[Frosticus]

 

ITF +4x8

Restrictions in place:
No Inspirations, Amplifiers, Temporary Powers, Click Accolades

No Lore Pets
No Deaths

*not for the faint of heart - It took me about 3.5hrs of playing

 

Mission 1:
Pretty straightforward. Only two potential failure points. The intersection holding Sybils 4-6 and the Minotaur fight at the end. As long as you don’t trigger the nictus ambush it is a pretty easy mission. Cloaking device means you only have to clear the target spawns as you can stealth between.

 

Mission 2:
You are more than welcome to trigger the ambushes. Arsenal doesn’t have any issue clearing them, but it will slow you down on what is already a lengthy mission. I just use the strategy of leaving each one with a sliver and then defeating all 10 in one blitz. Once again cloaking device makes this so much easier (any full invis can work) because the ambushes can’t find you.

Just don’t bite off more than you can chew because the build has minimal negative resistance, so don’t leave the nictus unchecked.

 

 

Mission 3:
This is where the wheat starts to separate from the chaff. Up until this point most any dominator has the tools to cope. That changes in mission 3 and it isn’t just because of the AV’s, although that is a major roadblock. The all-minotaur/cyclops group (must be defeated) requires more control/strategy than most builds afford and the frequent ambushes mean you need to rapidly deploy strong aoe controls. Last but not least, the computer’s final wave spawns a full group of boss robots outside of aoe control range. Meaning you either put down multiple aoe controls, or you fall back and try to wrangle them into a clump. In my experience the computer is the achilles heel of this mission. You get lulled by how slowly it dies and then the pack of robots punish you.

 

Both AVs are dangerous. They typically bring friends and you either have the tools to deal with them or you don’t. For most dominator primaries the reality is they don’t have the tools to consistently handle the AVs.

 

 

Mission 4:
I personally find mission 3 to be more challenging, but this one certainly takes a long time. I wont go into a ton of detail regarding strategy because every dom (that makes it this far) will have a different approach. For example my earth dom does better “pausing” the fight by immobing Romy and dealing with each ambush as they come. A single target confuse dom will use that while their lore pets carry them. But my Arsenal dom can handle way bigger ambushes, while also lacking said pause button (could do this strategy with tranq tho). So it is better to drag Romy off and deal with the huge wave of delayed ambushes.

 

The nictus are easy and a snooze fest. Plant tricannon in the middle and slowly whittle them down. 

*Do you need to separate Romy from the Nictus?
Probably not, but you definitely don’t want all of them + ambushes.

Edit: yes you will need to separate them. I can't do enough dps, but Tricannon tanks like a champ

Spoiler

 

 

I dunno, it was my first go at the ITF with arsenal (badge at end) and  for the purposes of this challenge you end up playing more conservatively the further you go in the TF (or at least I do)

 

Do yourself a favour and skip part 2, It is ultra boring

Spoiler

 

 

And there you have it. A +4x8 ITF featuring a dominator that actually fights and is not reliant upon lore pets to defeat hard targets. 
 

Edited July 24, 2024 by Frosticus

[Frosticus]

The build I'm running now

Dominator (Arsenal Control - Savage Assault energy.mbd

[MirrorDarkly]

Very impressive!

 

Is savage significantly better to pair with arsenal or do you feel like most secondary's would be able to perform at a similar level?

[Frosticus]

10 hours ago, MirrorDarkly said:

Very impressive!

 

Is savage significantly better to pair with arsenal or do you feel like most secondary's would be able to perform at a similar level?

Sav has always been my favorite assault set, but it doesn't do anything particularily special that sets it apart from others imo.

 

It's main advantages are:

-Untethered/unconditional healing (life drain, siphon, and drain psyche all have hoops to jump thru). With insp disabled you likely need some way of recovering hp.

-very endurance efficient damage. Very.

 

But beyond that I've had good results from arse/rad (I just don't like /rad tho) and I've played enough /psi to know it  can do great things too.

[Tsuko]

Back in the day, i tried such a run with my Dark control / psi... and all i remember is pain in my very personnal part of anatomy

 

Grats to you !

[Naturallymorbid]

So i recently dusted off my "old" Arse/Sav Dom after seeing your build, gonna give a shot when i have the time

Would you mind explaining the incarnate powers choice? for example, the melee got me a little confused, regen is nice but wount the others fit better?

[EnjoyTheJourney]

On 7/26/2024 at 10:25 AM, Frosticus said:

Sav has always been my favorite assault set, but it doesn't do anything particularily special that sets it apart from others imo.

 

It's main advantages are:

-Untethered/unconditional healing (life drain, siphon, and drain psyche all have hoops to jump thru). With insp disabled you likely need some way of recovering hp.

-very endurance efficient damage. Very.

 

But beyond that I've had good results from arse/rad (I just don't like /rad tho) and I've played enough /psi to know it  can do great things too.

One of the key advantages of savage assault over other assault sets is feral charge. 

When proc'd up feral charge has similar DPA to a proc'd up maiming slash. Essentially, feral charge fits comfortably into the savage assault single target attack chain. But, feral charge hits up to 5 targets, instead of just 1 for maiming slash; it's usually mechanically better to use feral charge whenever both maiming slash and feral charge are available. Beyond hitting more targets, though, feral charge also teleports to the intended target. This cuts down on travel time to switch between targets, which increases total damage done. Also, recharge time for feral charge can be closer to 3.5 than to 4 seconds with a decent amount of global recharge. So, it's frequently available, which offers users of savage assault noticeably better AOE damage than many would probably expect. And if all those benefits weren't enough, feral charge accepts the force feedback +recharge proc IO. When using feral charge as a regular part of the attack chain, and without any local recharge in it, on average you'll get several +recharge procs per minute. Beyond the mechanical benefits, though, it's a lot of fun to be Nightcrawler, teleporting all over battlefields nearly at will. 

Savage assault pairs particularly well with ice control. Instead of taking ranged fire while moving into a new spawn and then taking even more attacks after your ice / savage dom arrives, just teleport into new spawns for more rapid application of arctic air to enemies. Also, teleporting around within a spawn with arctic air slowing enemies down means they are less likely to catch up to your ice / savage dom and hit them with their melee attacks. 

Edited Monday at 09:45 AM by EnjoyTheJourney

[Frosticus]

On 4/18/2025 at 11:54 PM, Naturallymorbid said:

So i recently dusted off my "old" Arse/Sav Dom after seeing your build, gonna give a shot when i have the time

Would you mind explaining the incarnate powers choice? for example, the melee got me a little confused, regen is nice but wount the others fit better?

Melee gives strong resistance +some regen. 

I if course have assault radial as well for easier stuff and/or teaming, but for the purposes of a challenge mode like this, melee core can be cycled with rune of protection for a big increase in tankiness. 

 

 

[Naturallymorbid]

Fair enough.

though i found the Cardiac alpha gave me that res i needed + the end reduction is really nice, strangely enough i dont feel like assault is needed on this build the damage is pretty damn decent already. i did move some of the slotting around to be a little more defensive but the build works great able to solo pretty much anything so far (except for carnies, illusion masters are a pain)