Draeth Darkstar

My only problem with Keyes (Bot/Force) is Antimatter deciding to ruin my pets randomly.
Lambda I still feel pretty useless for on the warehouse/lab and Marauder phases, however. Pets just aren't conductive to running around like headless chickens with a bunch of loose enemies agroing everywhere.

I've already been through this once in another thread today, but

Force Bolt - Limited use as a single-target positioning tool, but most targets that you'd actually care to position single-target are the ones that are resistant to KB anyway. Maybe if it had an infrigidate-level debuff it'd be a good first power.

Personal FF - This falls on the 'extremely situational' end of the spectrum I mentioned. It's a good power when you need it, but... really, I main a Force Fielder and if I use this power once a play session it's having a good day.

Detention Field - I may be willing to concede on an area phase being useful with some mechanical alterations, but a single target one, in my opinion, would need to either be capable of locking down an EB in one go or having a substantially shorter recharge time than Detention Field's insane full minute baseline for me to even be willing to call it situationally useful. The ability to lock down one minion or lieutenant is horribly mediocre considering that a problematic one is just as easily killed in mere seconds. I would personally like to see it turned into a toggled single-target hold. That would be an interesting and useful power.

Repulsion Field - This power is so situational it's hardly a thought to skip over in a set that doesn't have Force Bubble. It suffers from Propel syndrome - it's a much worse version of a tool the set already has. Basically irredeemable.

Repulsion Bomb - At a whopping 40% chance for mag 2 stun, this power isn't a reliable crowd control, even on minions, it's damage is subpar, and it's recharge is long even for a targetted AoE.The only useful feature of this power is it's knockdown, and, again, in my opinion - that isn't enough of a redeeming quality to make it worth a power slot. It could be saved with some severe number tweaks.

Force Bubble - Like PFF, when you need it it's nice to have, but... you really don't need it very often. At all. I actually have this one in my build, but I only ever use it on phase 2 BAF. That's pretty insanely situational.

I personally like Gravity too, I just don't feel it's what it should be, and honestly, the only way I could see it being overall improved to the level of the other Controls is if something were to be fundamentally changed - almost certainly Propel. Being the only Control set with four single target abilities is plain and simply a disadvantage at least in the PVE game.
You're right, Lift is acceptable. Dimension Shift could be fixed with existing tech and numbers tweaks (I actually have wished for a long time that Phase powers worked like that in PVE, but I also think they should inherently be mag 4, given their innately more limited nature). What is Propel ever going to offer the set that Lift doesn't already do better without being fundamentally changed? It's redundant any way you cut it. A control set does not need two single target knockback/up/down/sideways/insideout/topsyturby powers. Propel is a strong case for Cottage Rule not being totally infallible, and that's all I was arguing. A rule that is automatically absolute denies the possibility of it ever being wrong, and that is nothing short of foolish.

You are technically correct when you say that Lift and Propel are soft controls, but can you sincerely argue that they're on par with what the other control sets have at their disposal for soft control? They're both single target, and as you said yourself, Propel also takes forever and a day to use, where as other sets have area knockdowns or sleeps or confuses to mitigate an entire crowd's output. It's just not as competitive as most of the other Control sets. And yes, Illusion is something of an anomaly in that it's pets do a lot of the work that other sets have soft CC for... but they do it pretty well, which is why it's considered strong.

Edit:

It depends on what you're playing, what your build goals are, and how tight your build is for slots.

Like someone else commented I'm leaving mine six'd with Red Fortune for the ranged defense, but my Force Fielder is a Mastermind, so I'm not exactly hurting for slots or set bonuses.

The only thing in Force Field I ever miss when playing Cold is Dispersion Bubble.
Personal Force Field is the only other power in the set (aside the shields, obviously) that I even use once per play session.
Force Bolt? Terrible.
Force Bubble? Extremely situational.
Repulsion Bomb? Even Masterminds get a better AoE in their primaries.
Repulsion Field? An even less useful Force Bubble.
Detention Field? The recharge is too long to make it useful for dangerous bosses, and dangerous minions and lieutenants... well, they're minions and lieutenants, you'd may as well just kill it.

Meanwhile, Cold has...
Infrigidate, an extremely potent slow with a huge -def debuff on it, great out of box.
Snow Storm, a huge AoE soft control.
Frostwork, one of the only +max hp targeted buffs in the game.
Arctic Fog, a team stealth, small def buff, with some resistances too.
Benumb, one of the most potent single target debuffs in the game.
Sleet, a crowd melter, AoE -Def -Res, plus soft CC and some minor damage
and Heat Loss, because your team can never have enough free full endurance bars, and the -res on it stacks with Sleet and is also pretty significant.

There really isn't much of a contest unfortunately.

Honestly, why play a Force Fielder? ...Because Masterminds don't get Cold Dom. That's the best reason I can give you. My *main* is a Bot/Force and I would NEVER make a Force Field character that wasn't a Mastermind. It's an absolutely inferior choice for the other support archetypes, because they have the option of having their cake and eating it too with Cold.

Thanks for the responses everyone, I very much appreciate the information.

Regarding this bit:

If you want to play on absolute top end graphics settings with full performance, expect to pay around $1000 and be able to put the parts together yourself.

I forgot about the Mac Special Edition. I use the Valkyrie gloves, belt, and boots all the time, and the Mission Teleporter can be quite handy.

Something you may want to consider for the Beast Pack is that, sure, it has a large number of items in it, but, they're not the kind of items that you're probably going to mix and match with a lot unless you play a *lot* of anthropomorphic animal characters, because it really amounts to a couple animal heads/tails and a whole bunch of animal patterned tights textures for the different body parts.

I use the Origin Pack capes, Magic Pack cloak and the Martial Arts pack helmet pieces more than any other purchased goodies, I think.
I also use the Cyborg shoulders and the Science masks with decent frequency, to be fair, though.
The mutant pack stuff I haven't found a lot of uses outside of the full thematic costume for, with the exception of the organic armor gloves, which I have some sort of temporary obsession with.

One of the artists, Tunnel Rat, I think, commented that they were looking into the ability to allow a path and normal aura at the same time, but that it would require significant time if it were even approved, because its effect on server performance and such has to be tested, and also it requires programming and UI development time to implement if they find that it doesn't negatively impact the game.

A few of my RL friends have started playing City of recently, and they all, of course, have a ton of questions. I've been able to give or look up answers to most things, but there's some stuff I haven't had much luck finding, and a lot that I need brushing up on to be able to give them current information, so I'm hoping that the forums can make quick work of what I can't.

So, without further ado...

What happens when a unique IO like Steadfast: Res/Def or KB protection is slotted into a targeted buff like Thermal Shield?
I'm assuming you, as the slotter, receive the effect of the IO as normal and it has no effect on the target?

What happens when Performance Shifter's proc is slotted into an offensive power? I recall there being a bug back when where it would give endurance to enemies instead of you. Is that still the case? In a power like Consume, which is both hostile and friendly? Transferrence, which works via a pseudopet? Short Circuit, an attack?

How are the sets:
-Martial Arts, Kinetic Melee, Battle Axe, War Mace
-Dark Armor, Electric Armor, Energy Aura
-Assault Rifle, Radiation Blast, Electric Blast
-Ninjas, Mercenaries
(for any valid archetype) in the current state of the game?
I seem to recall these all being sets (except for Kinetic Melee, which I simply don't know anything about) that were weaker or had mechanical problems in the past, and I'm not sure how else to get a perspective on their current relative power other than by simply asking.

When you slot a proc into a pet such as Touch of Lady Grey's (def debuff, chance for negative energy damage) or Explosive Strike's, (knockback, chance for smashing damage), can the proc fire on all of the pet's attacks, or only those with the appropriate condition that qualified the pet to be slotted with that set?

Are there any wildly set-crippling bugs, like the old ones that used to plague several Electric Melee powers when slotted with procs, that stand out as things that should be mentioned to new players picking powersets?

Thanks in advance for the time and answers everyone, I know some of these are a little esoteric, so any help is appreciated.

As Agge mentioned, Fortitude was a ridiculous example to use because of its role as a single target exclusive buff as opposed to a full team up time buff. You twisted my words to mean something they clearly did not and that is an unfortunate tactic to take in a debate.

So, rather than even bother with any kind of back-and-forth about this, I'll just reiterate my point: If the developers feel that Power Boosted Force Fields are too powerful, they will change that interaction directly. I personally do not and have not even noticed a marked performance increase in Leagues that I could attribute to better defense - most league members are still being hit as often as not because there are such magnitudes of defense debuffs available to league mobs. Frankly speaking, Force Fields is something of a relic of a set anymore anyway and I don't see any reason to invalidate the one and only advantage it brings to the table over Cold, which has several amazing debuffs available to it as well as Frostwork.

As for scaling endurance costs - why? What purpose does it serve? Consider that when you're talking about game design. Is this a valid opportunity-cost issue or is it really just going to make something that shouldn't be a prominent element of gameplay stand out more, by being more time consuming to recover from and thus more frustrating once again?

The answer to that question is the latter. The buffs will still be cast, it only serves to make the buffer's gameplay worse by blowing their entire endurance bar because they're on a league. Heals are not scaled in cost per target. Attacks are not scaled in cost per target. Controls are not scaled in cost per target. Buffs should be no different. The developers finally, just realized that increasing the endurance costs of the Mastermind upgrades was a mistake. You're really barking up the wrong tree.

To give you something anecdotal, I have a DP/Rad Corruptor who I absolutely love playing. Radiation is a very versatile set, it has an extremely good buff (which, with a high recharge build, can be perma'd and makes it that much easier to perma hasten as well if you're into that), some of the best debuffing potential in the game (being able to debuff damage, resistance, tohit, defense, speed, recharge, and regeneration all the time), a passable heal, some great situational powers in Mutation, Fallout, and Choking Cloud, and a great emergency tool in EM Pulse.

As Justaris said, if all you care about is HURTIN STUFFZ, Kinetic is without question the most powerful choice, but I feel it lacks a certain versatility that I enjoy having in a character. More than one Kin is usually overkill, more than one Rad isn't quite so redundant.