Which powersets and builds provide more resists and defenses?

[Zodai]

I've made two Dominator's so far, but so far I'm noticing that I'm dying really easily when in fights.  What sorts of powersets and builds work for counterbalancing that and giving dominators the ability to take more hits?

[Waypoint]

Dominators look for active defense, aka shutting down your opponent before they hurt you. Doing a hold power on a boss frees you up to spam attacks on minions. Once you're getting higher in level, you get more abilities to shut more enemies down at a time. Mass holds, pulse sleep from elec Control, mass confuse from mind control. Tons of methods.

 

That said, anything with defense helps a little at the cost of your endurance. Combat jumping is fantastic, as is stealth or maneuvers for higher consumption. 

 

Taking multiple defense powers like those also allows you to slot a luck of the Gambler proc, which increases your global recharge by 7.5%. Increasing your recharge for permanent hasten and domination is ideal. 

[oedipus_tex]

If you're soloing a lot it can help to have an AoE mezz that doesn't alert enemies. Gravity, Mind, and Electric all have a variation of this in one or more AoEs, while Darkness has it in a single target power.

 

None of the Dominator sets ever adds much outright defense, although Darkness adds -ToHit which is similar in effect. And of course mezzing things so they can't respond provides its own version of defense.

 

 

 

 

 

[RayeGunn]

though what Waypoint said is true, that you are more after active defense, , and you will always be subject to faceplanting to ambushes or other unexpected adds, which is just the life of a squishy, as I just mentioned in another thread, Dark/Dark provides tohit debuffs. Shadow Field alone is a 20% tohit debuff, so even if the hold component is a little unreliable they are still debuffed, especialyl if you used some attacks on them as well.  And if you pair that with some defense abilities (Maneuvers, Stealth, Link Minds etc.) you can get some damn fine defense going, a little bit of defense gets a lot more effective if they enemies have their tohit debuffed. It also has a heal for when things go wrong. You will never be as sturdy as a tanker, but it does help some. Once you get your shield from your ancillary pool that will help too, at least vs the damage types it protects against. (smashing/lethal plus one other depending on the set, except Ice which is defense)

Edited September 1, 2019 by RayeGunn

[tjknight]

I teamed with an electric/electric Dominator who was awesome. He endurance drained mobs, leaving them no energy to attack. This was on Cap du Diable Strike force. So we weren't high level.

[Coyote]

Earthquake from Earth Control also adds -ToHit, enhanceable, and also can be improved with Power Up. Even if it's only for Power Up's duration, that's over -20% ToHit at the start of a fight. As noted, Dark Control also puts out -ToHit, and if you pair it with Power Up, combining Fearsome Stare with Living Shadows is -37% or so.

[Waypoint]

I forgot I posted in here!

But yes, while active defense is good, you might also want something that has some debuff elements. Earth with Earthquake, Dark with all of the -To Hit, or Ice with all of the Slow.