Looking for advice Ice/Fire or Grav/Fire

[SporkieDoom]

Hey folks, just recently returned to the game after a friend told me Homecoming existed. I've been tooling around with other characters but had a clear concept, but for this one I've been struggling a little. Either Ice/ or Grav/ would work for my concept, but not sure which I like better and I'm struggling to find much run down on either set.

 

If anyone has advice or thoughts on the sets, I'd very appreciate it.

 

Thanks!

[Snokle]

Just for clarification, do you mean you are looking for specific about Ice/Fire or Grav/Fire or details about Ice/ and details about Grav/?

 

I know I have talked a bit in the past with Ice, as Ice is my love for Domination. I can run a bit of a run down later, if you are interested, but I have some posts for some Ice/ threads here talking about it.

 

Also I find @EnjoyTheJourney has been recently running grav dom recently and he would be a great person to ask for advice about. For what I have played with /Fire being more ranged focused. I would slide more Grav/Fire, as Ice/ is more melee focused. Again it is stacking the effects you want.

 

Fire would compliment Grav I feel more with the holds, slows, crushing effects and hard controls than ice's soft controls.

[SporkieDoom]

Actually @Snokle you did sorta give me the answers I was looking for in terms of more what Ice or Grav control kinda do, ie the harder and soft controls. Also thanks for mentioning your posts, I think I just missed them but read thru the Ice dom stuff at least since I've been leaning more towards that as I read about it. Has some fun sounding powers, heh.

 

I may be rethinking /fire anyways, was playing around with it on another toon and I dunno, it's not quite having the vibe I want. May swap to /Sonic or something, looking at what works for concept. Thanks for the answer tho, and any further advice on Ice I'd appreciate!

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Gravity doms tend to feel a bit light on AOE controls. Wormhole activates slowly and it's only available a little over every 20 seconds, while the AOE hold is available even less often. So, a secondary that offers some soft or hard control tends to pair well with gravity control. Fiery assault is good for damage. But, it doesn't help with control at all. I tend to prefer fiery assault with control sets that offer strong control on their own, without any help from the secondary. 

Below is a sample build for a gravity / earth / fire dom. Replacing hurl boulder with lift makes for an easy-to-manage and smooth single target attack chain. With three AOEs and an AOE damage aura, and the extra soft control from knockdowns and from mud pots, this build can put to good use the ability of wormhole to pack mobs tightly into a specific location. Also, stacking hold magnitude from seismic smash and singularity works very well on hard targets, even AVs. Finally, unleash potential helps to hold the build together; it substantially increases defense totals when power up is cast shortly beforehand and the added recovery from power up + unleash potential helps for managing the high end drain of earth assault. 

Gravity control and earth assault are basically peanut butter and jelly, in terms of mechanics, as well as being thematically a really good match. 

Regarding ice control, savage assault pairs very well with it. Feral charge allows for teleporting into the middle of packs, which works well with arctic air. The Nightcrawler vibe from having a rapidly recharging teleport-to-target attack can be a lot of fun, as well. 

Best of luck with your dom, however you decide to move forward.

 

 

Dominator (Gravity Control - Earth Assault - Fire Mastery),v2.mbd

Edited May 10 by EnjoyTheJourney

[SporkieDoom]

Holy wow that was a thorough rundown of how those two run together. Thank you so much!

 

Amusingly enough, I ended up going Ice/Earth, crystals painted dark purple worked well enough for like 'hardened essence of the void' for my concept. I liked the concept of arctic air + various knockdowns to keep soft control while mixing it up in melee. I may have to roll up a Grav/Earth as well since I didn't play it much yet just to see which vibes more play-wise. And a big, huge thank you on the power pool stuff, I hadn't even thought much about them, but the points about force of will is great.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

In case it helps for providing some ideas, I had an ice / earth / fire build already done. 

To make the single target attack chain fairly smooth, use stone mallet after every two other single target attacks that you use (heavy mallet, hurl boulder, and seismic smash). 

One adjustment was to drop mud pots for this build to make endurance management easier. Stacked slows make life very difficult for most mobs, though, so it might be worth trying out mud pots to see if endurance management is still manageable with both mud pots and arctic air running. 

 

Dominator (Ice Control - Earth Assault - Fire Mastery),v3.mbd

 

Edited May 10 by EnjoyTheJourney

[SporkieDoom]

I was wondering what endurance would be like later on with the ice/earth. I definitely liked the idea of both mud and arctic going, but I'm already.. Well, I won't say struggling, but I'm already having to pay attention than others I've played. But I do like the idea anyway, we'll see. I've played both an ice/earth and grav/earth up to the same level at this point. They're both fun, tho I think grav is winning slightly just because I like his name more than the ice, heh. I do miss having Arctic tho, that provided a surprising amount of mitigation and utility from the get-go.

[Snokle]

For Ice/Earth I would suggest only running one of the auras as both have a huge endurance cost.

 

My preference would be towards Artic Air, as it gets massive bonuses with Domination, and you can but the ATO into it if you want to drop the endurance down, and the Purp IO for extra procs.

 

Mud Pots is good, but AA will give enough slot and confusion they will not be gone long enough. And with all the knock back you will have with your attacks they will constantly be confused.

 

I would recommend just getting a recovery like frome Force set, when domination is not going to keep up the blue bar.

[Snokle]

So from what @EnjoyTheJourney posted in the Ice/earth stuff. That is very much the bread and butter of Ice Control.

 

Ice Control has a lot of soft control effects and one AOE hard control, a lot of it needs to be run in melee to really take full effect, so having a set to help compliment or take advantage of the debuffs you bring, -slow, -rech, knockdown, confuse are crucial. I like Psi it was my go to; earth, and savage have been noted on the forms as other great accelerants. I have not tested it but Energy could be viable.

 

Powers:

 

Block of Ice: Standard single target hold, 4-6 sloting for recharge bonus or procing.

 

Frostbite - AOE immobilize, 2 slots of Winter AOE, getting that -slow res which is crucial for Dom's.

 

Artic Air - the staple power for Ice Control. This is the six alot power. Either out the DOM ATO in this, or purple confuse IO. It all counts on your alpha you are using. The +Dam procs nicely in this, and the contagion proc is great too with the pulses.

 

Cold Snap - Skip, we are pretty much having most people at max slow, and it does not add much for us. Not worth the power alot.

 

Ice Slick - Staple power #2 and it only needs one slot. While it does damage, it is minimal and the focus of the power is not that. With one recharge, it will be up enough for each encounter.

 

Flash Freeze - Situational at best. It is a proc friendly power and if you want to use it for that will need ACC. If not procing base slot as it is auto it. Power slotting is tight so this is usually cut to make room for everything else.

 

Glacier - You hard PBAOE hold, 4-5 slot for recharge bonus.

 

Jack Frost - While some people do not like Jack, and he is not usually the best he can be helpful for you at times, and you will be happy to have him with the extra slow and his little bit of hold bonus. Toss in 4 slots for recharge bonus, extra slot for damage proc if possible.

 

Alpha Alot - This is up to you and your preference, but I recommend looking at the Vigor Alpha for Ice Control. While health is not going to help you out a lot, the ACC is nice for more procing, endurance reduction is nice with Artic Air, and the enhanced confusion.

 

I hope this helps.

[SporkieDoom]

Helps a ton, thank you everyone for the advice, builds and support. I did end up leveling the Grav/Earth more, just because I liked the name I came up with for him, and throwing things around is fun as heck too, but I liked how Ice felt a lot too, so definitely an alt once I come up with a better name. And probably not earth again. @Snokle mentioned has the Ice/Psi thing, which sounds like it could be very entertaining too with the extra soft control stuff.

 

Thanks again everyone that responded and helped me out!