DarkCurrent

So you were the one sending all those blind invites!

I'm going to give a shout out for Primal Forces Mastery. Fire/Earth will be in melee range almost exclusively. PFM has ET - single best melee attack for doms. You can also get two ranged AoE blasts, which you'll have little of from your assault set, so it gives you the option when you can't close to melee. Fire Cages has -kb, so no need to worry about mobs flying away even if you use the AoE blasts in melee range. The shield is SL only, but you could supplement with Tough and some IO set bonuses to really be an anti-SL build.

For incarnate, I think you'll have endurance problems even if you're a permadom. So look at Cardiac. End/Res/Range would be a good benefit to you. I know one of the newer incarnate alphas also brings endurance redux to the table, but I don't remember it off-hand.

For Judgement, Void would fit the melee well. Pyronic and Ionic are excellent choices also because you can use in melee or at range without a problem.

Interface has a few good choices and will require you analyzing your needs by the time you hit 50. If you want pure damage, then look at Reactive. If you need some more defense, then you have things like Gravitic.

Lore pets are all over the place for flavor and utility. Again, if you want more dmg then something like Warworks would be solid. If you want some heals/defense, then check out the various buff pet options. I think you'll want to avoid the Storm Elementals as they have hurricane and would knock your melee targets away from you.

And 'fixing' it for controllers only, which are now a premium AT, rather than taking dominators (F2P AT) into greater consideration is even worse.

I pray they're doing something about that waste of code called Dimension Shift.

Please blow that cottage to hell and back.

Apparently you haven't listened to the Arachnos motivational speech in GV.

Lord Recluse ftw!

Maybe this means redside will finally get some new unique content and full complement of strikeforces.

Are you planning to proc him out? You can put lots of dmg procs all over the place. And don't forget the Achilles Heel -resistance.

As someone who's pvpd a lot with grav doms let me say thAt dim shift is as meh as any other control after all the durations were standardized back with i13. Phasing a few targets for 4 seconds isn't doing anything other than tossing a possum in front of a tractor trailer. You go "hey what was that?" and keep on trucking. And it prevents teammates from attacking multiple targets. And you have no control over who actually gets hit by it.

So if the best reason to keep dim shift as is is pvp, then the good arbiter is clueless and there's no hope the set will ever get the love it really needs.

Energy armor.

Patience is a virtue.

This is a 2 stage build in my opinion.

Stage 1: ranged
Lvl 1-24

You have minimal ranged attacks and controls, and the ones you do have are underslotted. Go with a ranged chain of gravity distortion, lift, psi dart, mental blast, psychic scream, crushing field proc'd for dmg.

If you like the feel of this, you can stay ranged the rest of your career and pick up crush, subdue, and psi lance, plus whatever APP/PPP ranged attacks there are.

Stage 2: melee
Lvl 25-50

Melee starts in the mid-20s because that's when you first get Drain Psyche and have it 5 slotted. Until then, stay out of melee because all you have is mind probe. At 26, you get worm hole. This will allow you to telestun mobs into a corner where you'll then hit them with crushing field and drain psyche repeatedly. Back out to fire psy scream occasionally. Just keep layering the ST stuff on top of that.

Melee really starts when you get PSW at 38. However, please note that the tier 1/2 of the APP/PPP are now available at lvl 35. Fire mastery gives you Rain of Fire and Fireball to choose from. Ice Mastery gives you Sleet. I recommend either. You'll get some much needed AoE and the rains work quite nicely in melee on mobs that are stunned from wormhole and immob'd from crushing field. Alternatively, primal forces mastery provides Energy Transfer for a massive ST melee shot. It does self-damage, but DP regen should moderate that. Also, you could get Leviathan as it has Water Spout and Bile Spray at the 35 position. This PPP would be best for your ranged build though.

In summary, ranged attacks and controls are picked first:

gravity distortion
lift
psi dart
mental blast
crushing field
gravity distortion field
psi scream

Melee attacks and additional controls come later:
drain psyche
worm hole
singularity
mind probe
psi shockwave
subdue

Add a APP/PPP for additional AoE:
Fire and Ice would be tops
Primal is nice, as would be Leviathan
The others are good in their own ways, but they don't bring the early aoe attack the above sets do.

I agree about getting these sets not because dominators were due something, but because controllers were getting yet another set so they might as well toss a bone doms way.

I'm reserving judgement on whether or not this is the 'special' set we were told to be patient for until I see specific powers' numbers and animations.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take another new set and play it. But don't expect me to swallow the party line that we had to wait for dark control and dark assault because they required extra 'special' effort and time. We'll see if I'm wrong in the next couple months.

So you're not feeling 'special'?

I'll agree with you to the extent I'm not convinced dark control is the something 'special' for doms. New animations should be cool, but the concept isn't anything OMG at this point. That's not to say I'm expecting something else will be announced, because I'm not. I think in the Devs mind, this is the special treat. I disagree.

I'm also still miffed that it took this long to get dark assault proliferated. All it is is a cobbled set, so what was the hold up?

Plus, there's no Illusion port AGAIN. If there's a plan to revamp illusion or whatever, then say so and people will quit asking about it.

If whips and chains is released, then I'd be ecstatic. But dark... most folks are looking at that like 'yeah, should've been in the game already' and not as something 'special' that you had to wait for it.

Sad thing is both sets could be 'fixed' with a couple minor tweaks.

For ice, they could put some -dmg debuff in the controls like Shiver. Take the dmg out of flash freeze, so it doesn't interrupt any other sleep effect and prevent you from stacking. Put -kb in flash freeze so you can sleep mobs and not wake them up by them falling down on ice slick. Remove the -kb from the immobs so ice slick starts them flopping and the immobs keep them there. Jack could stand to be tougher. Maybe increase his defense numbers, or give him an ice patch power like blasters get.