EricHough

The bruiser AI is a LOT better these days. He opens up with hurl, then closes to use his melee attacks pretty consistently. I only have problems with him and my arsonist when the current foes scatter a lot and they follow the one they are agroed on out of range of my buffs. The flying longbow minions are really bad about that and frequently force me to pull everyone back together and then focus on individual targets, slipping out of BG mode.

I can see how you would want to keep things at range with mercs but with my thugs I close up on foe groups a lot more and rely on poison trap, seeker drones or caltrops (in a pinch) to soften the alpha - thus keeping my arsonist and bruiser in buff range more often.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have to take issue with this, to some extent. Soloing on some Defenders is downright awful.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Soloing on *your* Defenders is downright awful. I was part of that thread where it came to light that you neither know how to play a Defender nor do you know how to build a defender to solo.

I suggest we not derail this thread with your incredibly skewed perceptions of the Defender AT.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, while do remember Ultimo's thread way back when and tend to agree that his defender build was about the worst for soloing I also tend to find just about ANY defender to be bad at soloing. I have nothing but admiration for those who CAN solo defenders but also consider them to be something of a masochist when I compare the solo experience of even the best defender to my blasters, scrappers, brutes or stalkers or even some controllers (illusion/anything or mind/anything - both of which solo incredibly well compared to a defender).

And before folks point out once again that defenders are not meant to solo I don't really care - I mostly solo and so an archetype that sucks at soloing is one I am never going to play. With some AT's thats not a big deal, as I can translate my character concepts into another AT that I feel solo's well - tanks vs scrappers or brutes for instance. Any melee character I dream up I can play as a scrapper, brute or stalker - all of which I enjoy soloing. However, there are some concepts I come up with that will pretty much only play as a defender or corruptor and that is a problem.

So my vote goes to any changes to vigilance that will improve the solo experience of a defender. I may never get it but one can always hope.

[ QUOTE ]

Personally, I find that Masterminds have Mastermind henchmen controls for a reason. While it's technically possible to run around in Bodyguard mode and support, I find that to be an inferior tactic for at least some situations. Control of the henchmen is vital, in my eyes, both to keep them from running of gaining extra aggro, dropping off cliffs, following runners and so forth, as well as to ensure you keep your henchmen inside the radius of whatever buffs/debuffs you've laid down. Can't count on how many times I've had to force my henchmen on passive and back over the DAMN Triage Beacon and next to the Acid Mortar.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you know, I pretty much do this as well - my previous comment was in response to a specific issue and I didn't feel like I should go into a long, multi paragraph description about how I play my MM's. While there are certainly tricks I haven't come across yet (which is why I read the forums) I am willing to use anything that works and definitely won't stick with things that don't work - like standing around in BG mode when a demolitionist lays a burn patch on your pets (well, I still haven't come up with a really good way to deal with demolitionist since they can pretty much drop burn patches at will - although I have found that running up to melee range before they aggro sometimes causes them to skip the firebombs and go into melee).

I may need to stop making comments in this thread - everything I say seems to be to easily taken out of context and I don't want to have to spend forever explaining what I really meant.

Sidenote: An interesting thing I just recently discovered about acid mortar is that while it has a long range it will only fire at mobs reasonably close to you - so if you have an enemy that it isn't currently hitting, moving up to the target helps.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The biggest problem I have with a lot of the primaries is the pre/post 32 issue. I don't like a set that is either meh or under performing for 32 levels and then awesome after that - its one of the reason I don't play many controller sets (other than illusion and mind). I tend to get bored with most of my characters in the high 30's/low 40's anyways so having to put up with suckitude for 5/6 of the life of my character just doesn't go over with me.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's really not a fair assessment for ANY Mastermind, really. I won't deny that some powersets are better than others, but I've played most of them and NONE can be said to suck. The whole AT is overpowered. You couldn't suck if you bit on a jet engine. When an AT has damage, survivability, support and often control all neatly wrapped together in one package and can often FORGET it has a secondary, you're never going to suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very true, but in the end whether or not I can play a set really boils down to perception, a lot of which has as much to do with the way the set compares to other sets in the same AT as it does to other AT's in the game. Any MM may solo faster than a corruptor or dominator but compared to my thugs MM's my robots feel slow - so I would rather play thugs.

ultimately my dissatisfaction with robots boils down to how they compare to the other primaries. With thugs and mercs you have fairly fast recharging attacks (3/6 second recharge) and in the case of thugs they fire fairly quickly as well. Merc attacks have a slower activation but the dot nature of thier attacks makes it feel like you get more out of the attack. With robots you get slow attacks (4/8 second recharge) with fairly slow activations (2 seconds for laser burst, 3.33 seconds for heavy laser burst). Both the slower recharge and attack activation make them FEEL less powerful and slow compared to thugs or mercs, even if they really aren't. Perhaps once you get more bots at 12 things will get better but so far I haven't been able to get myself to slog through to that point.

I would normally agree with you on this, especially with MM's as ANY MM pretty much plows through early content but for some reason bots feels glacial to me. It may totally be a perception issue - I suspect they are a little slower than my favorite sets and the fact that I don't really see things speeding up until L26 at best, L32 at the worst, lowers my willingness to plow on through.

Does kill speed go up once you get the protector bots? Every thing i have read about them so far makes them appear as a mostly defensive pet, which is part of what turns me off the set early on.

The way I play if I know that something cool is going to come up in the next couple of levels I can tolerate the rougher, less cool levels - but I have to get something nice every few levels. The cool stuff can come in the primary OR secondary so that may be part of the problem - curently I am not in the mood to replay any secondaries for which I already have a character and the last secondary i tried with bots (/TA) is kinda slow and boring until you get to level 20 and get acid arrow.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, first of all, Assbot comes a lot earlier.

I found myself kinda underimpressed by my Bots until I got my third bot. After that, the set was a blast. I really had the feeling of getting a -lot- more efficient each time I gained another power. The trend continued til Lvl 49.

One thing that changed my perception of the set was when I switched from a "let the pets do the work" to a more agressive, tankerminding, style. Depending on secondary and playing style, YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea - you get the assbot at L26 but every post about it I have seen also mentions that all the crazy good AE comes with the second pet buff at L32.

As for active - I do nothing BUT active MM'ing. I firmly believe in staying in bodyguard mode as long as possible and pretty much only play secondaries that let me keep attention on myself. Storm and traps are my favorite so far - I like dark as well but find it TOO easy, I like things to be somewhat challenging. I have a necro/pain at L30 on whom I took provoke and use that and my veteran attack to pull and keep aggro as long as possible.

So far I have tried bots/traps and a bots/TA. The bots/traps was actually my first mastermind ever - way back at the CoV release. My initial experience was so bad it was like another year before I even tried another mastermind. Now I freely admit that back then I knew nothing about playing MM's and recognize that the experience was probably quite different 7-8 issue ago, which is why I recently tried a bots/TA since /TA is the only secondary I haven't tried seriously yet and I do love my /TA controllers. She is currently languishing at L10 because the tier 1 bots feel like they take forever to do anything. I solo perfectly safely with her at difficulty 2 - between glue arrow and entangling arrow I can keep most mobs at range and let the bots kill them but compared to my thugs and mercs at that level the bots feel glacial.

As a comparsin here are the MM combo's I have played and liked:

Thugs/Dark: got to L25 or so, decided it was too easy, rerolled
Thugs/Traps: Currently my primary MM, L34 - she is a blast to play.
Thugs/Storm: First storm attempt, L20, liked them but decided i didn't need another thugs
Mercs/Dark: L32, enjoyed it but again too easy. Still have the character and may pick up again at some point.
Mercs/Storm: L22, second attempt at /storm, enjoying it a lot.
Necro/Pain: L30, Fun when I am more of a micromanaging mood. Doesn't feel as tough as the mercs or as destructive as thugs (or as tough as my softcapped thugs/traps) but zombie puke is th3 w1n.

I have tried /poison and found it way to single target focused for my taste. I haven't tried /FF but I have no interest in it whatsoever.

Hmm, I don't see it folks. Maybe I am playing more single target focused, maybe I just am satisfied with a slightly slower kill speed (although the reason i haven't seriously played dominators up till now was because I couldn't stand thier kill speed) but I don't see the end problems most of you are complaining about. I do frankenslot but I don't spend a lot on it.

The two dominators I am seriously working on are a plant/fire and a mind/electric. I run my plant/fire at diffuclty Level 2 and will move her up to level 4 when I get enough global accuracy to handle the +2 mobs. My mind/electric runs on difficulty level 3 as she is still mostly single target focused and has enough attacks I could focus more on accuracy then on recharge. I am zooming through missions at a speed that keeps me quite happy - and to put that in perspective up till now the only things that soloed fast enough to keep me happy where brutes, scrappers, masterminds and stalkers after the last changes. Oh - and illusion controllers. I can't stand defenders or tanks (way to slow) and corruptors are about 50/50 with me - I can play some but not others. Both are L29 - here are data chunks if folks want to look at my builds:

Astral Sylph - L29 Mind/electric dominator

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1147;554;1108;HEX;|
|78DAA5924B6B13511886CF6492A6C9249DA4B16D5A7B4953B B50316B2F682D49844|
|20395222D5A0CD374680E8C3321735AEC4A372E84AE54DCF9 47742B22E2D65F202A|
|A2B876377E97938490EE3C90E73DF3CEFB5D02D3785CCB08F 1744D1876D573C2B05|
|90B1E49DF514137D1700E654B2485108B7DB3590D7CD50DBC 4A43FA07BD874B83D7|
|EB61E81C79AA52F7DC96EACA965427CD86E3CBCE91E72819F 8F90DBFED765D5F557|
|A97F45600EDB63BAE7B90A1EB1DA97C370C2D7EF0E4615BE5 E9BEE11FCB50EE4B0F|
|9A96EA1DD9AA0CE66EBAC7D2516DC78769A172BB274558FB2 2FC6E9A429F282E5E8|
|014C5C43392DC29C9F4139657245F6323F1D84B923807D21C CF3C27B905DD0D1D37|
|CE8A8FBFE63857AD419CF78962E6BE41CBEC91E47649BEC1F 884EE97E07E63DC6F6|
|CA89FDEE236344B72DC48FEA60E937F48CA60A7F88D485D06 591009B02C832DEB0A|
|5929B0B23A95FD4BD60FD8C0D62D6D2E9C64494238AFEBF31 7C81A07ABC056AC502|
|2EBDC90581098D203A656C85A879D67F45F9C794FCB163FB0 7C24598EE068D6203C|
|CB6173F69381F5739F59BE902C52EC272C7D5EF7248D9B62D E1C564E32AB26D6F25|
|A0BE4D4C159D28396C8298DF03B4C29EBAA3239BFC059D5CE 2A39D119673EDEFFA6|
|0405C4E688B315EF7F48C220A73CC8FCD7799BE9F549DD4D0 3B711F7103B885DC47|
|DC403C41EE221A28988DEF5ABEDABB8D035C475C40DC42986 9216C042641059C404|
|C246E41005C434620EF10611FD03688A24D1|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

Argent Rose - L29 plant/fire dominator


<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1289;612;1224;HEX;|
|78DAA593CD6BD3601CC79F34E9D23669D3AE5B6DB7CE6A756 E631076F4E520B2395|
|F58A56388E2C412B6D0066A5A9A0CF4E645449C9729DEFC03 443CE851FF0FFD0FF4|
|A2E2459C8AC4DFCBD3AED8A3A1FD7C93EFF37B7B9AA7B53B2 BA610F7CE0AC55A6E3|
|B41D058E9DCF67C27ECF4E235A7E96D095D085119988DE58E 1FF63A6DBBDE76FCB0|
|FF34B47E2E089C9D7668AF7A6EEF6EFF2977C96FB93DD70FE DFE4DAADE81221B5DD|
|7DD36E976D50B7D37080C7E687BCD5668D1FD9AEB6CBBBDA0 E5754BE7BBDE967DD0|
|AAB6D3A83941087D8A30E3027C2FA8425E912A9A8A103362E 2434C889228BC27296|
|F2A28DF6383B8B8D803298AD843962724DA5392EC3392B908 2E71118A2B9C1453EE|
|2BB830FE80658FE40754E501224D7DC1755E918CBD6679499 2784352855F36CEE12|
|29E03D1547119F2755942FF4C55135F4952DF583E9264BF90 EC43C7A40C4FF23E4C|
|DE87C9FBC8F03E32BC8F38943614EE68E4B96312BCB49C22B D4F613FA1AAC59662C|
|9C10A527508CFC912B9147B09F0F2ECC5F263EC4D483D4A3F 9D011193B2C9649257|
|7E419743727652F08AAA54319C7D9C5853F1CDF13B2BC969A 6FED1B2CC3F4C19CCD|
|FD0679A5E5CA44D8BE1F5E1EACC711D8F0CCF3943CE15A858 9127AA42CE9111E621|
|AB2A63AAE41C1BE11F9862564E3F4BCE8911CE0D7117FACEC B9AF3E42C8CF031C42|
|CCA6917C979048ECD7B1536399FE0CFBD246396C8296B83B3 0F1F74D6469CBA3638|
|EA4221A77A10F35FD75BB35F27B98EC767037115710D711D7 103B189B889B885682|
|0A277836CEB240E740A711A7106B18B41BA01301026228DC8 202C44169147141053|
|88E788E82FB1246120|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

For both characters any powers/slots that don't actually have enhancments are not yet taken (planning for the future). I don't have any good IO sets in any of them yet although perplex actually gives Argent a couple of decent bonuses, but I slotted it mainly for the enhancment. As you can see I have about 20% end discount in most attacks and and about 20% recharge. I have fairly solid attack chains on Astral since 2 of her controls (mesmerize and levitate) are also good attacks however even Argent attacks fast enough to plow through missions at a decent rate. As I noted in a previous post Astral sylph barely dents her end bar unless I have to use hasten - which is only when I run into an unexpected boss and domination isn't up. Argent does burn a bit more end as she uses a lot of area control (and uses hasten in every mission to push up the recharge on carrion creepers - love that power) but even then I don't have any more end problems than my fire/dark corruptor does and she kills almost as fast - and a lot more safely.

So either I have way lower expectations or I am missing something here.

The biggest problem I have with a lot of the primaries is the pre/post 32 issue. I don't like a set that is either meh or under performing for 32 levels and then awesome after that - its one of the reason I don't play many controller sets (other than illusion and mind). I tend to get bored with most of my characters in the high 30's/low 40's anyways so having to put up with suckitude for 5/6 of the life of my character just doesn't go over with me.

I find thugs and merc's fun all the way up to 32 and beyond so far and wouldn't actually rate one over the other despite the AE advantage of thugs. I can stand necromancy - if only because its so cool to watch your zombies puke on everything. So far ninja have been to squishy for me to even try so I can't say how they fit on the pre/post 32 scale. As for robots - I REALLY want to love them but around L10 or so I just get bored to tears - there is no way I can stomach another 22 levels of that boredom just to get a cool AE spewing assault bot.

I hope the new set coming in going rogue is a lot more even over all levels like thugs and mercs - if it is I will have another set I love to play.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, to be on a different take on this, somewhat, my experience pre-i15's Dom buff was shaky except with my Plant/Psi. I'm not sure pre-i15 if I just wasn't skilled enough in my attempts to really understand Dominator's capabilities.

That being said, my Plant/Psi was a ton of fun, got her to level 26. However, I've only pulled her out a few times now and the increase on the recharge of the psi powers makes me sad. I enjoyed the shorter recharge times of the psi powers compared to the other power sets. Since the recharge times have increased, I've found myself at a somewhat loss with her. I'm happy to have an overall damage boost to the AT, but when I triggered Domination, it felt great. Quick attacks with higher damage and harder controls? She was a blast! Now, I just feel somewhat blah'd by the whole thing and wonder if I'll be able to get back into her. Might just take me time to get back to that spot.

So yes, happy in the overall spectrum of things, just saddened by the higher recharge values for Psi Assault.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but now Domination can be saved to be used for what it's meant.... to hold the hard targets.

Before it was used when available by myself because I couldn't stand the pew-pew low damage.

Now I actually feel like I can contend in DPS without needing to pop Domination and get tons of IO global rech.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find I need domination to pop asap for the endurance now. I'm not convinced that is so much better than needing it for the extra damage before.

Neither dominator state has provided an environment where I felt encouraged, or even able, to use domination for its main purpose - increased control.

Also recharge is just as important as before. In some cases more important.

[/ QUOTE ]

With what level characters are you finding you need domination for endurance? Pre-stamina I do certainly end up using it that way although in the high teens after I have my attacks slotted up with a reasonable amount of damage I can pace things out so that I can combine the end boost with the domination effect for the boss at the end of a mission. However I don't have any MORE end problems then most of the brutes I have levelled up through the teens and less in many cases - on the low level stamina usage I would grade the dom's I have tried so far as about equal to my stalkers, better than my brutes but not as good as my masterminds (except for my /storm MM - he used a LOT of end pre stamina).

Post stamina, however, I find I hardly ever need it - my L29 mind/electric dom almost NEVER touches her blue bar and my L29 plant/fire dom does dip down a bit - but she has consume now and that tends to take care of end problems. I expect once I get terrify and static discharge slotted up a bit more so I can use them more freqenly my mind/elec will actually dent her blue bar a bit but right now I don't even notice it. I do frankenslot all my attacks to get a reasonable amount of end reduction - but at this level I generally have only 20%-36% depending on exact slotting.

Blaster: dark melee
Scrapper: energy melee
Controller: Dark Miasma
Defender: Fire Blast
Brute: Broadsword
Stalker: Fire melee
Dominator: Illusion
Mastermind: Sonic

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thugs can easily pass hit and pass the def softcap which is a big deal since the last 5% of defense really do make a big difference.


[/ QUOTE ]

Gang War can take the new Pet unique? Damn.. "LoL Ninjas..."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup - my thugs/traps has had softcapped pets since she got manuevers at L30. FFG + manuevers (unslotted even)plus the two +def uniques and a single def IO in enforcers was all it took.

[ QUOTE ]
yes thats y u just make a def bind so they go to BG mode but will still atk.

like fighting an AV i tell them to atk AV only.. then shift to def they still only atk AV but are in BG no pause in fire.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually thats exactly what I was warning about- if I issue a petcom_all attack command, then issue a petcom_all follow defensive command they will stop attacking and not respond for 8-10 seconds, which can be ugly if you have incoming fire. If you are using anything other than follow, goto or stay in defensive mode you don't actually get BG mode benefits.

I used to think that you could use petcom_all attack defensive to put them in attack mode temporarily and then have them shift back to BG mode when the current target was finished but I found out recently that that only works if the target was the last one currently aggroed, until then you stay in attack mode rather than follow mode and you don't get BG until the pets shift back to follow mode. You can see this if you put the pet window into advanced mode, which shows pets current status for each command type (attack/follow/stay and offensive/defensive/passive). When you isue the follow defensive command the pet icons go to defensive and follow, when you issue the attack defensive command the the follow icon switches to attack mode which means you are NOT in BG mode and it only switches back when all targets you have currently aggroed are finished off.

FYI - to the OP, make sure you put your pet window into advanced mode - that way you will always know what mode your pets are in. Open the options menu in the pet window to do this, in this mode you get two icons to show the pet status:

Icon 1 indicates status: Passive, defensive aggresive
Icon 2 indicates current orders: attack my target, goto, follow and stay.

I know that you are in BG mode if the icons are in defensive, follow. I have had people say that defensive goto and defensive stay also works although I know you have to pay some attention to distance between you and your pets (BG mode only works on pets who aren't to far from you but I don't remember the range) but I have also had some posters claim only defensive follow puts you in BG mode. I haven't actually seen proof one way or the other about that (i.e in game numbers).

As for fighting in bg mode - generally the method i have found best is to put your pets into defensive follow, then attack/debuff the targets to draw fire to yourself. They will counter attack with the primary drawback being that you can't direct their fire. You can keep attacking/debuffing to draw aggro to yourself but eventually it shifts mostly to the pets at which point I start directing thier fire and abandon BG mode. For sets that don't have a lot of debuffs (pain dom/FF) taking provoke is a nice way to pull aggro but it isn't anough on its own to keep it.

[ QUOTE ]
I usually make a macro:
/macro "BG" "petcom_all def follow"

You could just as easily bind it to a key:
/bind &lt;key&gt; /petcom_all def follow

I've never liked the default pet control icons that get put on the tray; I'd rather have at least an abbreviation ("BG", "Pass", etc.) so I'm not sure if you can edit them, but it just takes a right-click to find out.

There's also a whole series of binds that people seem to like to use, but they involve the number pad keys which I use for movement (and it wouldn't make sense to use those binds with other keys; the layout of the number pad is perfect for them). That may be helpful to you as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

When using defensive follow (the first macro on the list) there is a delay of 8-10 seconds or so before pets will actually respond to fire. You do get shifted into BG mode immediately but if you are actively taking fire your pets won't respond for a while. This threw me off when I first began using bodyguard mode because it never seemed to work right.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The biggest plus to click mez protection is that it can't be forced off due to end drain or stacked mez.

Course... most toggles don't drop anymore when mezzed, so the click mez protections lost out on that move.

[/ QUOTE ]

Although, Toggles do suppress. Click powers do not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mez protections in toggles do not suppress.

I tend to delay my travel power until 26/28 so I can fit in stamina around 22 depending on the secondary/primary choices. I make do with the temp travel powers (zero-g pack and flight pack) until then. Generally I pick up powers in the following order:

Level 1: Hide + Attack 1 (generally biggest attack available at that level)
Level 2: Attack 2
Level 4: First defensive power (Ninja Reflexes, Reconstruction, Kinetic Shield, etc)
Level 6: AS
Level 8: Build up
Level 10: Second defensive power, third attack or swift/hurdle
Level 12: Placate
Level 14: Second defensive power, third attack or swift/hurdle
Level 16: Third defensive power, usually mez protection unless that was avaible at L10 (Kuji-in Rin, Integration, etc)
Level 18: Third attack or swift/hurdle/health
Level 20: Health or stamina
Level 22: Stamina or defensive power
Level 24: Movement Pre-req
Level 26: Movement power or attack
Level 28: MOvement power or attack

This is pretty much my build pattern for all stalkers. My most common secondary is Ninjitsu and I get stamina by 22 on all those builds, putting off my movement power until 26 or 28 (depending on whether the level 26 attack power is worth taking right off). About the only secondary I can see fitting in stamina AND a travel power by 22 is regen - because you can get by with just reconstruction and integration until L24, when I take dull pain. Then I go with air superiority as a third attack at L10 and can take swift/health/stamina at L14,18 and 20, fly at 22. All the other secondaries really need at least 3 powers to give you full protection, generally 2 defensive toggles of some kind and a status protection power (toggle or click).

My theory is that a flight pack+ GvE jump jets = max fly speed between missions and the zero-g pack lets you get around quickly when the GvE bonus power is down but if you run low on stamina you have to stop playing (to rest or just stand around) or suck down inspirations, so I would rather have stamina first. Plus I like to scrap a lot after the initial AS.

If you want something different you could try a mind/TA. At first it seems like mind/ta might suffer from the same problem as mind/storm, since TA's primary debuff (acid arrow) also has a dot in it. However acid arrow has a smaller radius and is up more often so I find it compliments minds single target focus much better than storm. With standard LT+Minion spawns my favorite tactic is to confuse the minion, hold the LT and wait for the minion to run up to the LT, then drop acid arrow on both of them, entangle the minion and finish them both off either with dominate+levitate+mezmerize or move up and use the sands of mu vet power (if you have it) since acid arrow will have debuffed thier def. Since acid arrow is up every spawn (if not multiple times in a fight with a little recharge) it is very flexible, a lot more so than freezing rain which takes a lot of recharge to be up every spawn. With glue arrow for an AE slow, which is great for taking on EB's that you can't lock down, disruption arrow for some more AE debuff and ice arrow to stack with domination for instant hold on bosses you have a lot of tools at your disposal. After 35 you can alternate oil slick arrow with total domination and mass confusion and do some awesome AE damage to groups.

I have played a mind/kin up to the late 20's and found it to be just to clicky and far to dependant on hitting things. Siphon speed isn't to bad but I find siphon power to almost be a waste of time - in the time it takes you to get a 20% damage buf you could have thrown out an extra mesmerize or levitate and done a lot more damage. In a group siphon power is awesome because it buffs everyone around you but solo you are probably just as well off with assault for the 15% buff that doesn't require a to hit roll. I also don't think you really see serous benefits until you get fulcrum shift at L38 and while mind is certainly good enough to carry you to 38 solo I hate waiting that long for the good stuff. Storm feels the same way - except for freezing rain, which I do love, it feels like you have to wait for 35 and 38 for the goodness that is storm (tornado/lightning storm). Most of this is because all the other nice powers that storm offers (snowstorm, hurricane, etc) are not needed for a mind controller as you are pretty much going to lock everything down anyway.

Mind/Rad would also make a good soloing build. Rad is one of the few secondaries that does nearly as much solo as it does for a team - I find its biggest problem solo is the time to set up all the toggle debuffs as RI takes forever to activate. With mind however you don't really need RI most of the time since you are going to lock everything down and can probably get by with EF (for the damage boost) and AM + Hasten.

Have you done the L5-9 and L10-14 bank protection missions? The temp travel powers you get in those missions go a long way to letting you skip a travel power at 14, especially the zero-g pack (essentially free super jump). If you have the jump jet temp power from the GvE pack you can use that with the jet pack to get capped flight speed for 30 seconds - great for travelling between mission doors.

I much prefer relying on the temp powers for travel, especially on secondaries with tight builds like shield defense and SR. They are good for 2 hours of USE each and as long as you don't leave them on while you are shopping or standing around they can easily last you into the mid 20's, although I usually squeeze in a real travel power by L22/24.

As previously noted, ultimately almost anything will work well with mind. The best synergy is probably from sets with more of a single target focus - energy and electric are going to give you your best single target damage, with electric winning on burst damage (due to build up) and energy on sustained damage as it has a large number of high damage attacks. I am not sure that the set's with DoT's are as bad as they would initially sound, at least for single target attacks. The primary controls in mind are really dominate + confuse, with the sleeps as backup or area controls so if you focus on single target damage a dot is not going to break those controls - its AE where DoT's will mostly mess up mind as your AE controls are either on long timers (Mass confusion and total domination) or are easily broken (mass hypnosis and terrify).

Pro's of each set

Electric: Mostly energy damage, build up, early on you can choose to focus on ranged or melee and have a good attack chain
Energy: Lots of high damage attacks, good extra control (stuns + KB and power boost), can be either melee or ranged focus as well but takes longer than electric
Fiery assault: Unresisted damage type, good utility (fiery embrace for damage + consume for end), fast high damage ranged attack chain once you get blaze, best AE in secondaries
Icy: Slows + power boost
Psi: Slows + good utility (drain psyche is pretty awesome), second best AE in secondaries (just after fire) and could be considered best due to fast activation on PSW.
Thorny assault: -def on all attacks

Con's of each set:

Electric: No good tier 3 blast (you get a questionable pet instead), tier 3 melee (thunderstrike) only matches energy with build up, limited AE
Energy: Even less AE than electric, also very slot expensive compared to electric as you have to take and slot up more attacks to compensate for not having build up.
Fiery: DoT's will interfere with AE control, ranged attack chain incomplete until L38
Icy: not spectacular in any one area (ok single target, ok AE, no real cool tricks other than slows), ranged attack chain incomplete until 38
Psionic: Late game enemies are not only frequently resistant to psionic damage but many also have DEF to psionic, which makes having all psi damage questionable.
Thorny Assault: To many dot's plus far to many slow activating attacks, a lot of AE but overall AE damage it not at the top, utility powers (thorntrops) are going to break a lot of minds AE controls.



One note - Fiery Embrace vs Build up. Its easy to dismiss fiery embrace due to the long recharge - however if you look at the actual boost it gives and uptime vs downtime it is probably the best native damage boost that dominators get. Build up is nice - but it is up for 10 seconds out of 45 (22% uptime) with fully slotted recharge reduction and it only gives a 68% damage boost. FE can be up for 30 seconds out of 90 with fully slotted recharge reduction (33% of the time) and gives an 85% damage boost to fire attacks. Now the to hit boost in build up tends to balance them out but if you are looking for pure damage FE is a great power, much better for dom's than it is for melee builds as they get it in a defensive set and will only get the max boost from it if they take fire melee as their offensive set.

EDIT: Correction - FE gives an 85% damage boost to fire powers, not 80%, misremembered the value.

I can't really say - i have only done MA on a scrapper and my electric/ninja stalker is only L30 at the moment and doesn't even have thunderstrike yet (slotting/attack chain issue - will respec in a level or two to fit it in the build). I am enjoying my stalker but that's because of the energy damage and the fact that chain induction is really cool to watch, plus the electric melee AS is one of the better animations.

MA should do better single target damage even on a scrapper but electric will certainly beat it on AE (not hard of course).

[ QUOTE ]
How do you figure? When I do my combos nearly hit the defense cap itself, with the help of any form of defense I do hit it

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if I pull up your build in Mids and turn of Kuji-In retsu and Shadow Meld you have 45% melee, 51.9% ranged and 90% AE def showing. However, thats with hide included and Mids uses the full, unsupressed hide values which means those number are only good until you attack. Suppressed hide only gives you only 1.875% to all positions - which would be 2.71% with the slotting you have there. That means that your actual def values when hide is suppressed would be:

Melee: 36.8 + 2.71 = 39.51
Ranged: 43.7 + 2.71 = 46.41
AoE: 33 + 2.71 = 35.71

So you are capped on ranged but about 5.5 points short on melee and way short on AE when hide is suppressed - which is the state during most combat and thus the numbers you should use.

Edit: Typo fixed

Well, here is a pretty generic build - I haven't even filled in the slots, just picked powers and slotted them up:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 37 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Shadow Punch -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(7), Empty(9)
Level 1: Hide -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Smite -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(7), Empty(9), Empty(27)
Level 4: Ninja Reflexes -- Empty(A), Empty(15), Empty(15)
Level 6: Assassin's Eclipse -- Empty(A), Empty(11), Empty(11), Empty(13), Empty(13)
Level 8: Build Up -- Empty(A), Empty(19)
Level 10: Danger Sense -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(17)
Level 12: Placate -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Kuji-In Rin -- Empty(A), Empty(19)
Level 18: Siphon Life -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21), Empty(23), Empty(23), Empty(25)
Level 20: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(25), Empty(27)
Level 24: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A), Empty(36)
Level 26: Super Jump -- Empty(A), Empty(36)
Level 28: Kuji-In Sha -- Empty(A), Empty(29), Empty(29)
Level 30: Shadow Maul -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(31), Empty(31), Empty(34), Empty(34)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(34)
Level 35: Blinding Powder -- Empty(A)
Level 38: Kuji-In Retsu -- Empty(A)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Assassination
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]

Depending on how much cash you have you could do the following:

1) Just slot SO's in the powers (lowest cost option). Slotting would vary depending on how high level enemies you expect to face - 1 ACC is enough for +1's, you need 2 Acc if you want to do up to +2. Slot damage/recharge/end red as needed. In this case you should probably swap out Shadow Maul for acrobatics for the -KB unless you can afford an IO.

2) If you can slot generic IO's/Cheap set IO's then frankenslot your attacks to get at least 60% Acc, capped damage and a mix of end reduction/recharge. For example, 3x Acc/dam, 1 x Dam/End and 1 x Dam/rech at L30 will get you 65% accuracy, 95% damage, 22% end and recharge. you can swap out an Acc/Dam/Recharge triple for one of the acc/dam IO's if you need more recharge. You can pretty much use whatever set IO's you can get your hands on here - you are going for enhancement bonus not set bonus.

3) If you have enough cash to go for some sets I would look at putting a full touch of death set in at least one attack, if not two - either smite or shadow punch is a good choice (I left Smite 6 slotted just for this but you could move the spare slot to shadow punch or move the 6th slot from siphon life). If you can't afford ToD sets you could look into crushing impact sets - 5 of them give really good general global bonuses (+7% accuracy, +5% recharge and +1.13% HP boost) and you can mix and match them for good enhancment bonuses. Slot a karma -KB in hide, blessing of the zephyr sets in combat jumping/super jump for ranged def (if you can get the -KB from this set go for it, but its REALLY expensive where the other two are either dirt cheap or relatively (1-3million inf) cheap. Stick a steadfast prot +3% def unique in kuji-in sha (they are much cheaper these days).

Cheap(somewhat) ways to get +Def:

- Blessing of Zephyr sets (not the -KB piece, just the other two for ranged def)
- Touch of death sets (all 6 for melee)
- Red fortune (6 sets for ranged def)
- blinding powder can take cloud senses (6 pieces for ranged def) or siphon insight (6 pieces for AoE and some melee)
- steadfast prot +3% def unique.

Ultimately a build like the one Kioshi posted is probably what you would aim at - but that is a L50 final build which clearly relies on dark blast from the soul master Epic pool to fill out its attack chain, the one I posted above is a leveling build to which you can add some sets to push up your def but will probably not softcap until much later, if not until L50. I am not sure if you CAN softcap a ninjitsu stalker early on without a lot of strange slotting - I have only softcapped an SR scrapper before 40.

Another reason that electric melee is considered so good for stalkers is because the crit damage is all energy - which is frequently un-resisted or even something to which many targets are vulnerable. My Elec/Ninjitsu stalker eats spectral daemons for breakfast (lunch AND dinner) - that and all the AE in an archetype that rarely has any is what makes electric melee the premier PvE team set for stalkers (with spines being a close second - not that I have any experience - can't stand the current animations although that should change with i15 since I DO like the thorns animations).

I still think it will be a good set for scrappers, providing a nice, non-lethal AE option in place of spines or claws, but it won't win any firsts I suspect, just be a strong contender.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Plus in Mid's, even with the DoT, T-Strike shows more damage than FSC (I compared Brutes since they're the only ones with the sets).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if Mid's shows it, but only your targeted opponent receives the full damage from Thunderstrike. The AoE, which hits other enemies near your target, only does a portion of the damage.

Hope this helps.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it does full damage to all targets. You're confusing it with Blaster and Dominator T-Strike. Brute and Stalker T-Strike is a 'true' AoE, and is weaker at ST damage than the Blaster version.

[/ QUOTE ] Oh wow, I had no idea. That is awesome news for my lowbie Stalker. My only thunderstrike experience so far is my blaster and dominator. I assumed it was the same for everybody. You know what they say when you assume...

[/ QUOTE ]

While I think the brute/stalker TS does more AoE damage than the dominator/blaster version it still doesn't do full damage. I have a L15 elec/wp brute right now and the real numbers in game shows that TS does 18.5 smashing and 17.70 energy damage. I have no damage enhancments in it (accuracy, end reduction and recharge only) and started a quick AE mission to run a test - with little to no fury up I saw the following in the combat log:

-----------------------------
HIT Bloodthirsty Ghoul! Your Thunder Strike power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 19.84.
HIT Bloodthirsty Ghoul! Your Thunder Strike power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 86.73.
HIT Bloodthirsty Ghoul! Your Thunder Strike power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 52.55.
Your Thunder Strike deals 18.49 points of smashing Damage to Bloodthirsty Ghoul.
You disorient Bloodthirsty Ghoul with your Thunder Strike!
Your Thunder Strike drains some endurance from Bloodthirsty Ghoul!
Your Thunder Strike deals 17.75 points of energy Damage to Bloodthirsty Ghoul and drains some of their endurance.
You have knocked Bloodthirsty Ghoul off their feet with your Thunder Strike!
Your Thunder Strike drains some endurance from Bloodthirsty Ghoul!
Your Thunder Strike deals 17.75 points of energy Damage to Bloodthirsty Ghoul and drains some of their endurance.
You have knocked Bloodthirsty Ghoul off their feet with your Thunder Strike!
Your Thunder Strike drains some endurance from Bloodthirsty Ghoul!
Your Thunder Strike deals 17.75 points of energy Damage to Bloodthirsty Ghoul and drains some of their endurance.
You have knocked Bloodthirsty Ghoul off their feet with your Thunder Strike!
-------------------------------

So it looks like only the energy damage is AE - the smashing damage is only to the primary targets. The blaster/dominator attacks probably behave the same way the difference being that they do more smashing than energy - and a quick check of RedTomax shows that a L50 blaster thunderstrike does 142 smashing and only 23 energy, which explains why the AE is so small. The stalker version shows the same split as the brute - 55 smashing/53 energy.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm already think of ways to approximate my desire for a dark theme dom with. I wonder if Mind or Gravity will be customizable, so you can tint the g-fx with a dark/purple kind of color. Might be interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

You would want to go with dark purple or dark red - black effects tend to be transparent - for an example of that do shield character with the elemental energy shield and color it black - you can barely see it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Looking forward to Thorntrops, but then I tend to like DoT slows (Rain of Fire, Freezing Rain).

[/ QUOTE ]There's an illustrious comparison that is also going to be somewhat disappointing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Talen is right - thorntrops is the exact same power as caltrops with a different animation. It's maximum damage potential is high but it's spread over 45 seconds where the rain powers only take 15 seconds.

I still think both of them are neat powers as they can be constantly up with no extra slotting and my /devices blasters use them as a melee denial tool with great effect (throw them at your feet, enemies get at MOST 1 shot with melee before turning and fleeing - if they close with you at all) which would work even better with a dominator, I just wouldn't waste any slots on them.