Local_Man

Other than the Cold set being available as a secondary, not much has changed. Controllers are still the best AT in the game . . .

The only new sets that have been annouced for Going Rogue are Demon Summoning for Masterminds and Dual Pistols for Blaster/Defender/Dom/Corr. Nothing announced for Controllers. But lots of people are hoping for Traps as a secondary, just to make a Grav/Traps.

Personally, I won't play a tank without Taunt eventually in his build. I may take it as late as 30, but I always take it. There are too many situations where I need Taunt to do my job, even with a strong aggro aura -- In fact, my four highest tanks all have strong auras: Invul/Axe and Stone/Fire at 50, Ice/EM and Shield/SS getting there -- all have Taunt. I love to slot the damage proc in it, since it is autohit in PvE -- I have seen Paragon Protectors in MoG, otherwise virtually unhittable, get killed off with the damage proc in Taunt.

Wow - - 5 sets of 5 or 6 purples. Either this is a speculative build, or you have Influence to burn. You actually have more Recharge than you need. You can take out one of the LotG Recharges and drop a set that gives 5% Recharge, and you still have perma PA quite easily. There is no reason for you to have Group Invis as a LotG mule -- you could take some of those slots out of Hover, drop GI and pick up Flash.

I still prefer a different APP set than Earth, but with that much recharge and that many purples, you should be doing pretty well.

My favorite Blaster abbrieviation:

HMBAWT -- Hold My Beer And Watch This . . .

The Protection from Knockback from Steadfast, Karma and Zephyr, and from a few sets here and there, work even if the power is not being used. So, if you put one in Hover, it will work all the time even if you are not using Hover.

Therefore, if you can find one more slot from somewhere, you could put that Karma in Hover, add a slot to Superior Invis and put the LotG Recharge and 5 Red Fortunes in SI, to get an extra 5% Recharge.

One way to do this? There is a program out there called CityBinder. It is out of date, as the author is no longer in game. There is also an update to the program that someone else made, that almost brings it up to date -- it is only missing the last couple of proliferated powersets. Built into CityBinder are the "Speed-On-Demand" ("SoD") binds. These binds will allow you to avoid slotting Hover for Flight Speed. You can press one key to go into fly mode, putting you into Hover. The binds will automatically put you into Fly anytime you push a direction key, and then drop back into Hover when you let go of the direction key. It also works for Sprint, turning it on whenever a direction key is pressed. You can find links to download CityBinder and its update in the second and seventh posts in this thread.

One note about the SoD binds . . . every now and then, especially after zoning, you may get stuck in a perma-run mode, where you have to hit the backwards key to stay in place and not run forward. Just hit CTRL-R to reset the system. Some people consider this a major problem, but I think that it is a minor inconvenience compared to the benefits of the SoD binds. However, you don't have to use the SoD binds and can use the many other great aspects of the program.

I use Citybinder on all of my many characters, but it takes some work to learn the details of how it works. It isn't all that user-friendly. But it has many wonderful binds built into the system, and allows you to save groups of binds to make it easy to set up a standard set of binds for all of your characters, adjusted for each powerset. It has built in tray-swaping binds for Kheldians. It has buffer binds for Kins, FF, Sonic, Thermal, to make applying SB or Shields easier. It has a ton of Mastermind binds to allow you to control your Henchmen more easily, including an easy way to Bodyguard mode with a single keypress and a built-in command to attack while in Bodyguard mode. The author took many of the best bind systems that existed when he wrote the program and incorporated them in an easy system involving a lot of drop-down menues.

I like to bind a lot of controls to my 9-button mouse, so I don't have to search my tray for lesser used powers. My mouse Button4 is always a heal. Button5 is usually a toggle that I may need to turn on and off, like Superior Invis.

But of course, if you are happy with your build, there is no need to bother.

I suggest you take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide, linked in my sig, for tons of information about your Rad powers and some good information about Confuse, with strategies. Illusion's Deceive is the same as Mind's Confuse.

There are some really good special things about Mind Controllers -- If you take the first four powers early, you get a really effective single target attack chain of Dominate-Mesmirize-Levitate plus the awesome power of Confuse. Using this attack chain will virtually guarantee that you have Containment before Levitate, your biggest hitter. For a standard group of three foes (when soloing), you can take the group down in complete safety by confusing two without drawing aggro, and then using Dom-Mez-Lev to take down the unconfused foe. Refresh Confuse on one, then take down the other.

Make sure you slot Mez as a damage attack! I like to balance Dominate between Hold and Damage.

Early on, Mind Control is very strong on single target controls but weak on AoE, with only Mass Hypnosis, a sleep, for AoE control. Later, you get Terrify, Total Domination and Mass Confusion for AoE control. Telekinesis is a situational power which is nice to have but skippable. (Telekinesis and Choking Cloud are the only two toggle hold powers in the game, but they have huge endurance costs and have quirks about how to use them.)

On your Rad side, I suggest you plan to skip Choking Cloud, Fallout and Mutation. Mutation is nice to have for a team build, but also skippable.

Don't expect to kill stuff fast. Once you know your powers, you can expect to kill stuff in relative safety, but not fast. Take your time and be more strategic than you would be with your blaster.

If Traps ever gets ported into Controllers, there will be a HUGE surge of Grav/Traps characters. The image of Wormhole into a "Pit of Hell" is just too tempting.

I have a Robots/Traps at 40 and a Traps/Rad Defender at 23. Traps will never be popular with the "rolling through missions" crowd. I mostly solo with mine, which isn't easy with the Defender. My Traps Defender seems to work best on a team with a Blaster and a Tank/Scrapper, and that's about it.

Linked in my sig is my Earth/Rad guide. A lot of the information in that guide may help you. Every now and then, I'm going back into the guide to update the info on IO sets, as I have a lot more experience with IO sets than I did when I first wrote the guide. I haven't finished that yet, but I think I have a lot of the Earth powers done. A lot of the strategy in the guide may help you, too.

I, too, am not a big fan of Super Jump on Controllers. Super Speed gives you the stealth component, which can be very, very helpful, especially combined with a Stealth IO. Plus, you Hasten is your pre-req, which is always good to have on a Controller. Fly gives you the ability to go far above the range of foes, getting to survey the area and find things you are looking for, and Hover can let you stay out of melee and gives a kind of knockback protection -- The downside to Hover/Fly is that you need to be on the ground for Stalagmites, but that's easy enough to handle.

Super Jump doesn't really have any secondary benefits for a controller.

I don't have a lot of experience with Thermal, so I'm happy to defer to Oedipus Tex on that. I kind of view it as a combination of parts of Radiation and Empathy and Sonic. I just haven't worked on a Thermal character very far yet. I find it hard to break away from Rad and Storm. (My 7 level 50 controllers include 4 Rads and 2 Storms, with TA for the last one. I have two more Stormies in the 40's to even things up.)

Ketch makes a lot of good points.

It appears that you are trying to be more Therm than Earth. In fact, your primary can probably do more for your team than your secondary. Earth has three key ranged AoE controls: Stalagmites + Stone Cages, Earthquake and Volcanic Gasses. For all three of these, you should be throwing Quicksand underneath -- for the 25% Defense Debuff as well as a slow to catch any foes who escape the AoEs. Fossilize is for catching bosses and single targets where the AoE is not needed.

I suggest you take Stalagmites at 12, take Earthquake as soon after Stamina as you can and keep Volcanic Gasses at 26. Stalagmites should get 6 slots -- the Stupify set with a Recharge in place of the proc. Earthquake only needs 2-3 Recharge leveling up, but you can add other stuff only if you have room. Volcanic Gasses also desearves 6 slots -- max your Recharge and Hold first, then procs, due to the unique nature of the multiple pseudopets, tend to hit a lot.

Stone Cages? The Positron set is mostly wasted. It needs a minimum of 2 Accuracy and 1 EndRdx. Then procs. The damage with SC is so low that procs add up to more damage than slotting the power for damage. But if you can get it, the purple Gravitational Anchor Chance for Hold proc is great in Cages.

I like to Slot Fossilize equally for Acc/Hold/Rech, but then fit in a little damage. It is another power that deserves 5-6 slots. I like 2 Recharge in Qucksand because I use it constantly.

I prefer a more ranged APP set than Earth. Fissure has a very short range. The Earth primary works great from range, which can save your tail. Consider the Ice or Fire APP sets. (You have a self-heal, so you don't need Earth's Embrace that much.) Ice has two AoE damage powers, Ice Storm and Frost Breath. Hibernate works great as a "panic button" power, and the Ice Shield is defense based, so it can take a LotG Recharge.

I suspect that the OP doesn't entirely understand the economy. I'm not saying I understand all of it, but the questions asked suggest a lack of understanding.

Players create Infl by playing, defeating foes and completing missions. Also, drops can be sold to vendors. The Mission Architect system also generates a lot of Infl and tickets . . . and those Tickets can be used to add new stuff to the markets. A lesser used way is to turn in your enhancments during a Respec. The amount of Infl a level 50 character can generate from these ways is pretty substantial. One friend of mine was telling me last night that he can generate about 9 mil per hour easily, not including what he can make by selling the drops. A lot of players have a lot of Infl banked in Infl itself, bids on recipes and hard assets (things that can be sold to vendors).

It is the veterans who generate the majority of the Infl used on the market. They are the ones who want to maximize their characters, so they need more Infl. They are the ones with the farming characters. The more casual players are more likely to come and go, but the Vets who stick around even when there are no events going on, generating Infl, drops and Merits to improve their characters. And it is mostly the kinds of recipes and Salvage that Min-Max players want that are higher priced in the markets.

And when things quiet down in the game, many of the vets will spend that time to spend their Infl and try crafting and improving characters. The 10% Influence sink from the markets is minor in the overall economy, when you can make back any loss so quickly.

I would say that the market is used, not so much to protect safe transactions, but because of the time and convenience, and because it is cross-server. The market provides a central place for transactions, where you can put up your goods for sale, and then leave -- to actually play the game or log off -- knowing that the sale will take place without you. If you need something, you can put in a bid and let it sit, waiting for a seller willing to accept your bid. That service is easily worth 10%.

Imagine having to run around to each zone, broadcasting that you have XX for sale . . . Ugh. Even for the high cost items, the market makes sense. There are only a very few very high cost items that sell for more than the 2 Bill cap where people go "off market," and even these are limited by server transfers (after this month when server transfers are no longer free).

For the most part, I like your build -- with only a few exceptions, you have the same powers that I do in my Fire/Rad. I went with Bonfire instead of Fallout, Psi Tornado over World of Confusion, and at 49, I picked Super Speed (with a Stealth proc for full Invis) over Smoke. I took Hot Feet at 8 and Flashfire at 12, moved Swift to 16 and moved Cinders, Ling Rad and Hasten back with Bonfire at 35 instead of Fallout.

Can I make a few suggestions on slotting? Just things for you to consider.

Char is a significant source of damage. Move that Unbreakable Constraint set to Cinders. (The main benefit of the Lockdown set is Defense, and you aren't going for a Defense build.) There are a lot of ways to slot Char. If you want some more Recharge, you can go with either 4 Basilisk and add some damage, or 5 Decimation and add a Hold. Or if you want to focus more on the power itself, my slotting is with 4 Hami-Os: 1 Acc/Dam, 2 Dam/Mez, 1 Acc/Mez, 2 common Recharge IOs. That maxes both Hold and Damage with good Accuracy and very good Recharge.

In AM, I have the Efficacy Adaptor set, with the Acc/EndMod replaced by a common Recharge. With enough Global Recharge, you can add back in that Acc/EndMod.

In Fire Cages, a damage proc adds up. You can get the slot for that from . . .

Enervating Field only needs 2 EndRdx. That last one is only reducing the endurance cost by .03 -- not enough to merit using a slot. And you can easily replace that lost End by changing . . .

Ling Rad. You have enough Recharge that it is perma even with less recharge. Replace two of the Recharge IOs with Tempered Readiness Acc/Slow and Slow/EndRdx/Rech for 1.5% Recovery. You still get it to recharge in less than 30 Sec.

Remember that Unbreakable Constraint set? Put the proc in Cinders and pull out the EndRdx/Hold. Put that in Choking Cloud. Then Replace the common EndRdx and Holds with EndRdx/Hold from sets. You want to cap both EndRdx and Hold. Capping Hold in CC makes a BIG difference, as the hold will last through 3 pulses instead of just two, increasing your chance of extending the hold. (I actually have the Chance for Smashing Damage in this power, too, in addition to the Lockdown proc and capped Hold and EndRdx. But I don't have the full Unbreakable Constraint set, either. The question is whether the Smashing Damage in CC is worth losing 10% Recharge. Since I rely heavily on CC, it is for me.)

Hot Feet: I don't have the expensive purples. I went with Dam/End and Acc/Dam/End from Scirocco, Dam/Slow and Slow/EndRdx/Rech from Tempered Readiness, a Acc/Dam Hami-O and a common EndRdx. That caps Damage and EndRdx, OK accuracy and a little Slow, which I find makes a difference in keeping foes in range of CC. Yours has more damage with the Expensive proc, though.

Fire Imps: Consider going for Recharge over the Defense or Resistance -- I find that Fire Imps run around too much, often out of range of those procs. With High Recharge, I can just re-cast when they die. I have 4 from the Expediant Reinforcement, Dam/Rech and Chance for Build Up from Soulbound.

My suggestions for a Fire/Rad are shown in this common IO build. With IO sets, of course, this build is substantially better, but it is pretty good with common IOs.

I'm not a big fan of Smoke -- had it and respec'ed out. I still have it on my Fire/Kin, but really don't find it all that useful. I prefer using Super Speed+Stealth Proc for stealth. I'm also not a big fan of Leadership unless you are on a team where several people have it. Stacked, Leadership is very good, but a single controller has other powers that will provide more benefit.

I like having Bonfire -- Sure it is situational, but with some creative thinking, those situations can come up quite often.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Fred the FRad: Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Fire Control
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Char -- Acc-I(A), Hold-I(3), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(27), Acc-I(36), Dmg-I(43)
Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(43), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 2: Fire Cages -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(3), EndRdx-I(11), EndRdx-I(31)
Level 4: Accelerate Metabolism -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(5), RechRdx-I(5), EndMod-I(36), EndMod-I(40), EndMod-I(46)
Level 6: Radiation Infection -- ToHitDeb-I(A), ToHitDeb-I(7), EndRdx-I(7), ToHitDeb-I(27)
Level 8: Hot Feet -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(9), Dmg-I(9), Acc-I(19), EndRdx-I(19), Dmg-I(23)
Level 10: Air Superiority -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(11), Dmg-I(46)
Level 12: Flashfire -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(13), Dsrnt-I(13), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(17), Dsrnt-I(17)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A)
Level 16: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(23)
Level 24: Cinders -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(25), Hold-I(25), RechRdx-I(40), Hold-I(46)
Level 26: Lingering Radiation -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx-I(37), Acc-I(40)
Level 28: Choking Cloud -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(29), EndRdx-I(29), Hold-I(34), Hold-I(34), Hold-I(36)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 32: Fire Imps -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), Acc-I(34), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 35: Bonfire -- Dmg-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 38: EM Pulse -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), Hold-I(39), Acc-I(39)
Level 41: Indomitable Will -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 44: Mind Over Body -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(45), EndRdx-I(45)
Level 47: Psionic Tornado -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Acc-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Super Speed -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Containment