Best dominator secondaries?

[Supermax]

I didn't play doms too much, although I played a ton of controllers. With doms, I only had a mind/psi and a earth/fire, neither of which got very high because for some reason I didn't really enjoy the playstyle. But if CoH comes back, I want to give doms another try.

For the primary I'm pretty set on Plant Control. What secondary do you think would go best with Plant? I'm looking for a good mix of ST and AoE damage, but all the sets seem to be lacking in either one or the other....or have too much reliance on melee attacks. The ones that stand out the most to me are /dark, /psi, and /earth.

Anybody here have extensive experience with different dom combos? Which of those 3 would have the best synergy with Plant?

[DarkCurrent]

Plant is a ranged control set, so it pairs best with ranged damage.  Of the three you listed, /psi fits the bill.  /earth is mainly a melee set, so it would go well with melee control sets like fire/ and ice/.  With /dark assault you have a 50/50 set.

Other ranged assault sets to look at are /nrg and /fire.  /nrg is mostly ST while /fire gives better AoE.

Of equal and possibly greater consideration is your choice of ancillary set.  You'll want something with a couple more ranged attacks.  Fire, ice and primal forces each have 2 additional ranged AoEs.

[Ankhammon]

I've played a couple doms over the years and I can tell you about /psi and /earth from my experience. I had a Elec/Earth and a Plant/Psi dom

/Earth is all about melee and would actually be an interesting choice here because of seeds of confusion. With that power your confused  enemies will tend to clump together leaving them tightly bound together for your three aoe powers. You can also slot several Kin Combat +rech procs into your powers giving you a huuuuuge boost to your overall recharge... as in Hasten might give you too much recharge... is that possible?
The bad part of this combo is that you will negate one of /Earths better aspects, knockdown. With your creepers up all the time they will immob your enemy and leave them kb resistant. Also since you are melee mostly, you will have issues with hard targets that you can't confuse (not an AV solo set until you really build up the defenses).
selecting Ice Mastery goes incredibly well with /Earth as it gives you the kind of defense you want, a nice debuff aoe, a good rain damage power, an HP/heal buff and even an oh crud power in hibernate.

With /Psi you will be able to generate ridiculous amounts of regeneration (possible regen cap with drain psyche and spirit tree up) and feel like you cannot be killed. You will need build high recharge to get this perma though. /Psi also gives you a better group of secondary effects with -rech, -regen and -recovery which will be very useful for hard targets. And you don't have any end worries while under drain psyche.
The bad parts of /psi are that the -rech in many of the powers will kind of temper your confuse (bad guys attach each other less often). You also run into mobs that are very resistant to psi damage which is annoying.
Overall I thought plant/psi was almost cheating by the time I was in my mid 20s.

Hope that helps.

[Microcosm]

The other two gave good info. I felt /psi was a little weaker in single target damage, though that may have been helped with snipe changes. I always liked /earth, though it was weaker in aoe and lacked build up. I think Ank is right, you can leverage plant with a melee set too, just depends on what you want, and since I think doms' melee modifier was actually higher than ranged, you might get more damage that way. Check out the new martial set if you're ok with some melee combat.

[Supermax]

Thank you for the great advice!

As far as the epic pool, to be honest, the only one I was considering was Ice, all because of Sleet. In my experience, -res was one of the most powerful things in the game. It also seems like hoarfrost would be awesome on a dom, with the other powers being icing on the cake.

/nrg seems too ST focused with only one relatively weak AoE. My problem with /fire was that you have to wait until 38 to have a serious ST attack chain....that's a long time (granted no PL).

/psi seems great because of drain psyche, but it doesn't have any heavy hitting ST attacks. Would you say that was ever a problem? And what about endurance issues with /earth?

P.S. Doms do have the highest melee modifier in the game, so melee is not a bad idea, especially with the safety that seeds provides.

[Ankhammon]

Thank you for the great advice!

As far as the epic pool, to be honest, the only one I was considering was Ice, all because of Sleet. In my experience, -res was one of the most powerful things in the game. It also seems like hoarfrost would be awesome on a dom, with the other powers being icing on the cake.

/nrg seems too ST focused with only one relatively weak AoE. My problem with /fire was that you have to wait until 38 to have a serious ST attack chain....that's a long time (granted no PL).

/psi seems great because of drain psyche, but it doesn't have any heavy hitting ST attacks. Would you say that was ever a problem? And what about endurance issues with /earth?

P.S. Doms do have the highest melee modifier in the game, so melee is not a bad idea, especially with the safety that seeds provides.

Hoarfrost is only really good before you get your IOs in place. Doms can come really close to capping their HP without it.

I haven't played /Nrg but it looks like it might be pretty good if paired with the right primary. Personally, I would pair it with Dark/ for the stun madness and lengthy hold. Plus the Dark Doggie uses some aoe effects that look pretty good.

for the /psi, the attack chain is a bit light. But remember that you get a big -regen and -recovery debuff in drain psyche that allows you to take down hard targets (EB and above) faster than some other sets who look like they have better single target damage. the bigger problem is still the -rech that you can accumulate.
If you go this route, just remember to give the confused mobs a sec to do some damage on their own or seeds will act like a hold with clumping. Better effective dps if you do a pause or run in for DP loving before attacking with your ranged cone.

for /Earth, you can get yourself in endurance trouble with the set. I went Elec/Earth (a blast to play) and I still had some endurance issues (I took mud pots). and I only had two kin combats on him.
from experience with a Rad/nrg defender. If you give a full amount of kin combat procs to all of your powers you will get yourself into trouble. It would take me less than 30 seconds to drain my rad/nrg dry with AM + Hasten +kin combats working. AM was fully slotted with end and I still had it perma (only set IO's I had in that char was those procs).
Completely unrelated rad/nrg was a fairly good approximation of Wasp.

[Ankhammon]

The other two gave good info. I felt /psi was a little weaker in single target damage, though that may have been helped with snipe changes. I always liked /earth, though it was weaker in aoe and lacked build up. I think Ank is right, you can leverage plant with a melee set too, just depends on what you want, and since I think doms' melee modifier was actually higher than ranged, you might get more damage that way. Check out the new martial set if you're ok with some melee combat.

I really want to try out that Martial set. Looks really nice.

[kiario]

Wasn't a fire / fire dominator truly awsome damage wise?

[houtex]

While it was a struggle sometimes, a Mind/Psi, when on Dominate, was a thing of beauty to behold.  Cerise Dawn, when I popped Dominate, was damn near unstoppable. 

For me... well, when I popped Dominate on that character, she basically went into Scrapperlock.  Teams were told "Keep up" as I decimated the map... oh, they'd try, the lot of 'em, but eventually they ran out of end or got themselves defeated, but Cerise just kept on slogging through until the Dominate wore off.

Glorious, those times of Domination, I tell ya.  A weak-ass in defense/hp character that mows down the bad guys. Fun.

Before the easier times.  Before the Fren.  When teams were harder to get, for a pure villain, when I finally capped her off.  Yup.

[Waffles]

Plant/fire permadoms were among the most powerful things in the game.

[DarkCurrent]

Plant/fire permadoms were among the most powerful things in the game.

With fire mastery for gory aoe goodness.

[Waffles]

With fire mastery for gory aoe goodness.

You were essentially a god of death.

Infact, Carrion Creepers bypassed the target cap, So if you planted yourself by a door in a mayhem mission set for x8, you'd basically just kill everything before they could react.

[JanessaVR]

For doms, either Psi/Psi/Psi or Fire/Fire/Fire are the only ways to go. 

[Waffles]

For doms, either Psi/Psi/Psi or Fire/Fire/Fire are the only ways to go. 

When the game comes back and I get my permadom back, I challenge you to a farm-off.

[JanessaVR]

When the game comes back and I get my permadom back, I challenge you to a farm-off.

Ugh.  Farms are boring.  If I'm going to grind, it's Incarnate Trials only.

[Waffles]

Ugh.  Farms are boring.  If I'm going to grind, it's Incarnate Trials only.

I challenge you to a grind off-

No, wait, that doesn't sound right.

[Ankhammon]

I will be making a Wind/Martial Dom.

Cuz, well our new insect lords will be able to create animations for the wind set and then bring it live in time for the restart... I have faith in these people who we don't know...

But the wind set looks awesome on paper anyway.


Maybe I should just make a Wind/Earth character and give him fire epic... Are there platform shoes in the character creator?

[HEATSTROKE]

Doms are the only way to go. 

you made a mistake in your post.. I fixed it for you..

[HEATSTROKE]

Supermax Here


http://guidescroll.com/2011/07/city-of-heroes-dominator-powers-guide/


Read and have fun..

[Winter Fable]

I teamed with a plant/psi/fire epic Dom once running against devouring earth and they were killing them before I could attack more than twice.I just watched them run from mob to mob while I could only watch.Not sire what they had slotted but I want one if the game comes back.

[JanessaVR]

Having carefully crafted what I think is a decent Seer costume (or as close as I can get), I'm seriously looking at making my new alpha character a Mind Control / Psionic Assault / Psionic Mastery Dominator.  I just wish I could get that "telepathic whispering" as a personal sound effect.

[Supermax]

Supermax Here
http://guidescroll.com/2011/07/city-of-heroes-dominator-powers-guide/
Read and have fun..

Wow, that's a really great guide, thanks.

The problem is I still don't know what I'd make. Too many good choices 

[Eoraptor]

that's a great read. I always found that Psi as a good secondary, it gives a good mix of control and ranged damage to what can otherwise become a squishy character.

but then I always tended to play mid-road characters like combat healers and tanking stalkers, so I might be a bit biased

[Ankhammon]

that's a great read. I always found that Psi as a good secondary, it gives a good mix of control and ranged damage to what can otherwise become a squishy character.

but then I always tended to play mid-road characters like combat healers and tanking stalkers, so I might be a bit biased

I always preferred the across purpose characters myself. A Time/Ice tankfender, or TA/Sonic ConBlasFender or Dark/Ice Tanktroller were always good times to play.

This kind of thing can be done with many combos, and that might have been one of the single greatest things about CoH.

Trinity? I am my own trinity.

Now someone let me roll a Nature Affinity/Earth Assault character.

[HEATSTROKE]

I have played /Psi, /Fire, /Thorns, /Elec..

I never look at a power by the primary or secondary alone. Its hard for me to do that. I have to see how the powerset works together..

When the game returns I am going to make a Grav/Dark and a Mind/Elec