Lazarillo

I'm going to give a big no to Fire Cages. Knockdown is a major part of both the stylistic appeal and the mitigation factor in Earth Assault, and Fire Cages is a high-cost, low-damage power that negates that fairly severely. About the only potential use I could see for it is for keeping enemies inside the radius of Hot Feet, but the slow on said power itself is generally enough to do that unless you're fighting Wolves or Arachnoids. Slow-resistant enemies aren't prevalent enough to devote spend on the power or on slotting the power, though, to my mind.

As for Seismic Smash, I frankenslotted it a bit and have been pleased with my results. I have four Crushing Impacts, a Focused Smite (I forget which ones exactly, I'll look 'em up and post 'em here when I can), and one from Lockdown and it works extremely nicely, keeping the hold portion just a little bit better than permanent without sacrificing any other aspect. If you have the money to burn and are going for a Perma-Dom, you could maybe go with the Basilisk's Gaze late in your career, but especially early on, I wouldn't recommend it.

EDIT/ADDITION: I checked my build, it uses the three triples + the Dam/End from Crushing Impact, the Acc/Dam/Rech from Focused Smite, and the End/Rech/Hold from Lockdown. Minus the Lockdown, I use this same slotting for all my melee attacks. If you're less concerned about End consumption, you can fit a little more recharge in there, but I never really find myself lacking in attacks and Seismic Smash, as mentioned, is still nice and permanent this way.

I had this happen to a level 50 the other day, too, so I doubt it has to deal with level. I assumed it was either flagged as invalid or got banhammered for some reason but was still accessible from the mission list. For the life of me, I can't remember the name or number of the arc, since I just gave up and moved on, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't pay a bit more attention.

I'm getting close to the end of the road on a Fire/Earth Dominator and one of the things I've fallen in love with on said character is all the delicious knockdown that /Earth Assault provides. It's quite an addicting feeling, and I'm looking to create a new alt that can quench my thirst for enemies on their backsides. Battle Axe seems like it could do the job nicely, but I do have a concern I want to run by those more experienced with the set:

Style is important to me. It's very important, in fact, but I also like to be effective at what I do. To this end, the reason I've never bothered with Axe or Mace is that I find it disheartening that two of the attacks have almost the same animation. So all this rambling leads to: is it possible to skip either Gash or Swoop without cutting horribly into said effectiveness? Most of my Brute experience has involved a fast-attacking playstyle and I am aware that Axe is sort of a slow and heavy set, so I'm not sure if it becomes important to really have all the set's attacks at my disposal or I can get by skipping one. For what it's worth, I am currently planning to pair it with Electric Armor and will at least be getting some increased speed via Lightning Reflexes.

Hopefully that wasn't too drawn out of a question. Any opinions?

I'm going to go out on a limb (or perhaps just an equivalent long stick) here and suggest Archery as a blast set that could complement a Storm Summoner if you want to go strictly "wind", building on the idea on using winds in addition to the bow in order to propel arrows. I've personally used that concept for an Archery/Ice Blaster, and thought it worked pretty well conceptually, to the point that I'm actually a little shocked no one else has suggested the Archery set yet.

Personally, I'm fond of both, but if I were forced to choose, I'd also take Quicksand over Snow Storm, for many of the reasons Mental Maiden already mentioned, but really, there's probably better choices for powers to skip.

I, for example, don't have a lot of love for Thunderclap; the stacking sounds nice in theory, but to my mind, you have enough other options that getting to stun bosses just really isn't worth the extra power, and the fact that you have to drop into melee range to use it can just result in getting extra battered by those un-stunned bosses while you're trying to pull it off.

Yes, Suppressive Fire can be slotted for Hold Duration. Like the stun, it's mag 3, and has an unslotted duration equal to the stun if you're using standard rounds. Enhancing the duration of the stun won't have an effect on the hold, though, and vice-versa.

Hopefully, it's something a little more interesting than just a method for buffing damage. That seems like it's been the solution for pretty much every AT revamp thusfar. That said, I'm interested in seeing how it plays out, either way.

No, Chain Induction used to "steal" XP when the charge jumped, but this was fixed a good while back. Its other major bug was with Procs affecting the chance for the attack to jump, but that has likewise been fixed as far as I know. Chain Induction is a superb power these days, and I can't think of a single reason anyone using Electric Melee wouldn't want to take it.

It should be:
Standard = Knockback + -Def
Incendiary = DoT
Cryo = -Speed
Chemical = -Damage

Are you sure you have the right ammo type toggled?

I'm not much for the idea of Defense-spec'ing an /Electric Brute, so I can't really say one thing or the other there, but just looking at your build, I've noticed a couple things:

1. I'd take a slot or two off of Stamina and add it to Power Sink. With even half decent slotting there, you'll be doing even better with Endurance, and draining enemies at the same time, making it more worth the investment.

2. I could justifiably see taking Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch, but if you're only going to go for one or the other, Charged Brawl is actually a slightly better attack.

3. As was mentioned above, having the various procs in Energize isn't helping you as much; you're better off slotting a Doctored Wounds set and maximizing the recharge you get along with the healing. Getting back to my first point, the Miracle +Recovery is probably more than you'll need as well. Regardless, you're better off moving the procs to Health.

4. Along similar lines to the previous point, you've wasted a lot of slots on Grounded, which really doesn't need them, and the best Enhancement in your build to stick in it, the +3% defense, is in Power Surge, which would probably be happier with a Recharge. Stick the Steadfast(s) in Grounded, and drop the other slots.

5. Take all those above-mentioned slots I advised dropping in several powers, and use them to boost up Boxing (you'll likely need it to fill in the occasional gaps in your attacks, so you might as well have it well), Power Sink (as mentioned above, this is a great power both offensively and defensively), and maybe add a couple extra recharges into Power Surge (for increased amounts of Happy-Funtime!).

Overall, he's definitely viable, but considering the money and effort it seems you want to put into twinking him out, there's still a bit of room for improvement.

I realize I'm a little late to the game, but I'm surprised to see discussion of /Ice and no props for Frozen Aura? It's not particularly useful on a team, but if you're playing solo, can be a huge help. It'll keep minions permanently asleep right out of the box, leaving you considerable breathing room to pick enemies off in a single target build.

I'm generally looking forward to it overall. I have several "retired" 50s that I enjoy playing, but who don't have much new to do, so that'll be a plus. My only real hope is that whatever new end game content comes up will be along the lines of the current non-end game content: friendly both to soloing and to teams. I'm not opposed to teaming per se, but just about all of what little end game content currently exists at least requires putting together a team of eight, and there are times when I just don't have the drive for something like that.