Frosticus

For those of us that have no issues keeping a full team buffed because it isn't difficult or particularly time consuming in the least, doing it for your pets while solo'ing is just 1 less target than in a full team.

If we accept that there are some builds that absolutely require stamina (and I do as I've played some of them like a fire/storm controller heh) we have to then determine if that is a negative thing.

Is it any different than an illusion controller or dominator requiring hasten if they want to have PA or domination up more consistently?
Is it any different than an MM that wants to tank requiring provoke?
Is it any different than a stone armor requiring teleport (or a ton of IO's) if they want to move at a reasonable rate?
Is it any different than a large number of builds that require weave (or manuevers) to hit softcap?

Having something be required to make it work isn't necessarily a bad thing. If everyone required stamina it would be, but they really don't. Nearly every build I make requires stamina, but I tend to solo a fair amount and I accept that environment has different build needs than when teaming.

I disagree with this statement as I could just as easily say that every build requires softcap defense to have fun, or every build requires perma hasten to be fun.

Stamina certainly unlocks a level of comfort that many can enjoy, but I'd argue that softcap def unlocks a bigger door to enjoyment.

To answer your question, most builds posted on the forums are based on solo'ing. If they were team based builds they would all "require" leadership.

Being impervious to endurance concerns is a unique ability found in limited sets, just like mez protection, or recharge protection, or outgoing mez effects, or damage boosting abilities, etc, etc. The game is designed so that a team can fill in for your individual weaknesses and make the sum of the whole greater than the individual parts. Right or wrong, they have decided endurance should be one of those factors. I'm personally glad that endurance is so easily overcome even from a solo perspective for the vast majority of builds, the same can't be said for mez protection, or recharge protection, to name a few examples.

Maybe ethically, but financially it is a great idea.

I don't plan to share it, but there is absolutely nothing they can do if I email it to someone as it was placed on a public host. And I mean that literally, not figuratively

It's like if you uploaded nude pics of yourself onto imageshack, rethought it and pulled them down shortly after. You can ask nicely that the people who grabbed them while they were up don't share them, but there is absolutely nothing other than good will preventing it.

The "best" no. Heck I don't even think it is the absolute best w/ purples, if I ever get around to testing the bane pets I'll let you know. Though it is certainly right up there.

But if you aim for a cheaper perma dom build it isn't very hard to run a st chain that just adds a single, or at most two, uses of flares. Or just slot char for damage, it isn't like you really need more st control than that.

Even a SO'd out fire/fire deals a lot of damage by any standard, it just responds very nicely to recharge.

Regarding Soulbound BU proc, I know there was issues with it not working because the imps are lvl 49. It didn't work when I tried it on my fire/storm troller 6 or so months ago. I don't know if that has been resolved. Hopefully though. PA on the other hand cons as 50.

There are certainly things they could do to lower the burden of endurance in the early game. Another thread proposed a zero (or near zero) recharge on rest. I think that would be great. It would allow endurance to remain a constraint to combat, but not a major set back between fights.

I'm not convinced more is warranted, stamina really is an optional power if you are teaming. It is very nice, like hasten at that point, but it only really becomes "necessary" if you are solo'ing. And again, imo I don't think a team focused MMO should be actively encouraging solo'ing on par with teaming. Endurance is just one of those things that a team can really help facilitate, but is still quite easily built to be overcome while solo with one powerpool and slotting options.

No prob. Rereading I looked like I was being defensive, sorry about that, I didn't mean to be.

I very much agree that we often lose sight of what "solo" means. It sure as heck doesn't mean everyone should be killing AV's, or soloing 8 man spawns, or creaming the wall in Cim. But I can certainly understand how one can get a bit jealous when they hear about toons doing it. The thing we seem to often overlook is the investment that went in to that particular toon. There are only a few corner cases that can really do such activities without decent IO investment and even fewer still that can do all three examples and more even when built up. But almost anyone can if an emp hits them with fortitude+adrenaline boost.

Lucky for you there are hundreds of possible combinations that excel at solo'ing.

Don't misread what I said, I have no issue with people solo'ing or toons being designed to do it. I specifically said that I believe it is flawed to design this game so that every toon excels at solo'ing. Unfortunately, the devs seem to crumble to people that want their emp defender to be as competent as their scrapper while those same people fail to take in to account that said emp brings way more to a team.

Based on your last two comments in this thread I suggest you look up the word exploit. Failing that you can refer to the quote from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, in my sig for another definition to explore.

Looks pretty beastly. I'd drop blazing bolt for firebreath. The only time BB is useful is if you've let domination expire and don't want to fight to regain it. And while FB might not fit your solo playstyle it often gets great mileage in teams where it may not be as safe for you to sit in melee all the time. The resulting loss of 1.25% global rech is no big deal.

Regarding SD vs P-ray: if you hit about 6 targets with it you should be ahead of P-ray while it is up. Recall that the -res also benefits your pets, which are a large factor in your damage, whereas SD is just for you. From an aoe perspective SD is way better obviously.

If achilies procs in P-ray though you probably won't kill things faster even with a saturated SD.

I also like Obliteration is SD, it has the same bonuses as adjusted targeting, but will let SD do decent damage and while slotting it for acc isn't hugely important when you have crazy high global acc, it can help in some situations where you want it to like if you are sitting amongst a couple nerva demons.

Haven't actually played traps have you? Nearly every thing you just said is incorrect.

Yes and no. Most corrs have powerful damage boosting powers like freezing rain or enervating field. Most corrs have aim to assist with dealing more burst damage, which is especially important with how the game is structured around the design of burst aoe and then clean up. And as mentioned all corrs gain a decent damage over time boost from scourge.

So some doms can start ahead and stay ahead of a corr, some doms don't. There is a world of difference between a fire/kin and a dark/pain corruptor, just as there is a similarly large difference between a fire/fire and a mind/psi dominator.

As for doing as much damage as a blaster or scrapper there is only one dominator assault set that can roll with them and that is /fire. It offers the highest damage and the best damage boosting available to doms. So while a set like /nrg could probably be up there too after it was redesigned the lack of damage boosting ability (via aim/bu/defiance/crits) makes it fall far behind. Elec assault would have been up there, but during the revamp it was scaled down quite a bit to be a faster more dps based set rather than a burst monster (that could have been a dps monster with a good build).