Oedipus_Tex

IMO the way things are now the best option would be to admit defeat and roll Defenders/Corruptors together and make the only difference between them the power order. Give each the others benefits (which means Defenders with Corruptor damage and Scourge and Corruptors with Defender buffs). Drop the ridiculous Defender "Vigilance" ability altogether as it would no longer be needed, and barely is now in any case.

As for Controllers, my nerf-sense has been going off for months. I'm not sure where it will come from or what it will be but it's pretty much gauranteed to happen if the game lasts long enough. Containment is the root of it, really. If it were me I'd be looking at making Containment damage like Scourge (I think?) or a proc, which is to say, resistable but does not benefit from damage buffs. The math on Kinetics reveals Controllers are getting an absolutely insane damage bonus because Containment doubles the base bonus while dodging the ED cap. That *might* be ok on a Scrapper because their double damage ability isn't reliable, but less so on a Controller.

Well this is the kind of question that gets into personal opinions about power.

But to answer the basic question as an IMO: there really isn't a reason to mess around with Defenders, which is why I stopped playing them. They're stuck with a "blast" secondary that is nearly outdone (in some cases completely outdone) by Controller damage even with the recent buff, and which has never been able to provide a measurable amount of survivability in any case (case in point: why is the Defender AT stuck with crashing nukes, of all powers? Is there another AT so actively encouraged to skip its level 38 power?)

There are a couple of Defender builds that work okay (Traps, mainly because Controllers don't have it, and Sonic Blast due to huge debuffs) but overall the AT is outshined on all sides. They would be somewhat better if their powers were much more measurably powerful than other ATs (specifically, if they had wider buff debuff AoEs and range on buffs--think Dispersion Bubble at 35 ft radius--and faster base recharge on long recharge powers) but barring that they're pretty meh. Which is why I pretty much don't play my Defender toons at all.

Nice build. My only concern is the lack of slotting on the ally shields. If you never team it won't matter but the way they are slotted now the only thing you're getting out of Force Field is the big bubble. The damage from Repulsion Bomb is attrocious (no containment) for its cast time, and Force Bolt is pretty weak in practical use... especially with the short range Earth APP. IMO you've traded one of the best features of Force Field (a nearly invincible team) to over protect yourself. I would see if I could build it with the shields at least in the green, even if it meant losing some defense.

Fire's single target damage is pretty awful so I doubt if Fire is the best DPS against an AV. Out of the box Fire only out damages Ice on average by about 3 points of damage per single target power. Fire's reputation as a damage dealer rests almost entirely on Hot Feet and the pets. Bonfire also adds a little extra damage, but not enough to carry it to the top of the list IMO.

Overall the best DPS versus "an AV" is pretty much incalculable because it depends on the AV. On its own merits Mind Control puts out the best single target numbers but lacks containment--Mind/Trick Arrow fixes this but lacks -Regen to keep the enemy from healing back. Fire might do ok if it could find some way to avoid having the pets get obliterated, but any fight with an AV that has AoE is probably going to put Fire in the lowest echelon of damage. In the end the consistent winner is probably Illusion just based on the way AV fights tend to go (i.e. stand in one place and mash buttons until they die) but this is extremely difficult to quantify.

I'm wondering if there are any powers in PVE you can tag a phased enemy with.

Reason I ask is because if so I have a suggestion: add Intangibility/OES/Phase protection and resistance to Force Bolt and Sonic Siphon so that you can knock an enemy out of your intan-cages and move these powers into a position of being more useful. It would also give these powers a use against some very annoying enemies.

This isn't quite a suggestion, yet, because I want to know what the actual mechanics are and whether the system would support this.

[EDIT: Clarified first sentence.]

The answer is, it depends on what variables you allow.

Fire/Kin is way up near the top for Controllers, as long as three things are true:
1) The Fire/Kin can avoid getting mezzed
2) The Fire/Kin can survive the incoming damage
3) The Fire/Kin can get containment

Any Controller who can't get Containment is going to have pretty awful DPS. The game changes in particular for Controllers who have +Damage or -Resistance, since without Containment they actually lose twice the effect of their buff or debuff. This is especially true of any /kin Controller.

(The reason /Kin is so high damage, FYI, is due in large part to this Containment issue. Essentially even though you are damage capped at +300%, when things are Contained you're really getting twice the value of the buff, while simultaneously dodging ED caps. The net result is actually something like +800% Damage if you were to roll it back to compare to what another AT like Defenders or Corruptors get. If you then factor in the fact that because you're damage capped you can replace damage IOs with damage procs for even more damage you effectively have a toggle nuke, hence the popularity of Fire/Kin farmers.)

Once you get to around 40 go to Ouroborus and look for an arc called Crossing Over. Complete it and you get a Sword temporary power that lasts two days of game time. I forget the exact level the mission is do-able at, but its pretty easy to solo if I remember right. I could be wrong about the exact level frame though.

On a team, a Radiation / Fire Blaster.

Lift is a bit of a mystery. Like Local Man said it does less damage than Mind Control's Levitate power--but only on Controllers. The Dominator version was buffed to do more damage about a year ago, but for some reason the devs declined to adjust the Controller version. The reason was never provided but suffice it to say Lift is a power you are probably better off without. Especially since unlike Mind Control, you can't even use it to throw enemies around while stacking your mezz on them, since Gravity Distortion prevents them from being thrown even if the hold mag doesn't affect them, nor does it offer a different damage type than the rest of your powers (all smashing).

My favorite character is a Mind/Cold. In part that's because I simply like the concept, but the sets do compliment each other nicely.

The first main advantage is the Stealth from Arctic Fog. You can use it to stack with Super Speed or a Stealth IO to go invisible to most enemies. An invisibile Mind Controller is at a huge advantage, due to having three aggro-less mezzes that let you set up the battle field in near total safety prior to launching the fight. Unlike many other sources of Stealth, Arctic Fog also never suppresses, so you will permanently have a 35ft stealth radius to help keep you out of trouble.

Second, both Mind and Cold benefit tremendously from Recharge IOs. And it just so happens Cold Dom offers three powers you can slot Luck of the Gambler +7.5% global recharge in.

Now, for the headaches (kind of). Firstly, one of Cold's main strengths is elite boss and AV fighting. Mind Control, however, sucks at dealing with AVs worse than almost any other set due to lack of Containment and no pet to hide behind. For dealing with AVs you pretty much have to team. Not that this is so bad, because once the team gets in front of you, you end up being a huge asset. And since AV fighting makes up a much smaller portion of the game than fighting huge spawns it evens out rather nicely.

The second frustration comes from lack of AoE Containment for dealing damage solo. You can put enemies to sleep with Mass Hypnosis, but Sleet (your best debuff) will wake them up. This prevented me from soloing much with my Mind/Cold up until he was pretty well IO'ed...

...but then I finally got there, and OMG am I glad I did. While certainly not a farmer, the can of butt whipping Mind Control can unleash is pretty amazing when you consider how much sheer control it offers on a team. My "secret" (not really) is to go with the Primal APP Pool and take Power Boost. I run 0x8 missions (of nearly any enemy type) and approach it like this:

[before the enemies are aware]

- If there are straggler enemies, confuse them first, they will probably run toward the larger group. Same applies to any enemy simply too dangerous to risk breaking out of mezzes, like Sappers or Master Illusionists
- Power Boost
- Mass Confusion
- Total Domination (AoE hold which when PBed will last 48 seconds... do you see where I'm headed here?)

[the enemies become aware of you after TD; although one alternative is to cast Mass Hypnosis first so anything missed is still sleeping and anything hit is held, at least until Sleet likely wakes them up]

- Sleet, which is slotted with 4 damage procs and a -resist proc
- Terrify, which is slotted with 1 damage proc and a knockdown proc in case some enemy got missed by both MC and TD
- Energy Torrent, which has a 60% chance for knockdown on the offchance some enemy is STILL active. This is also slotted with a damage proc and the +recharge proc
- Mass Hypnosis toward the back of the crowd, just because. And I plan to reslot this soon with a chance to heal proc

Now as you can imagine this isn't the fastest process ever because the recharge on TD and MC is about 60 seconds. But for a build that supposedly has low damage it definitely puts out a lot more destruction than a lot of people give credit for, IMO. Just as long as there are no Avs or elite bosses, for which I am happy to bring some friends.

I agree that Repel doesn't get enough respect. It's really not that bad a power, considering that it:
1) Is auto hit
2) Does not cause movement suppression (much bigger deal for Force Field than Kin, however, since Siphon Speed also doesn't suppress)

The trick to using it is understanding that just because its a toggle doesnt mean you should leave it on 24/7. That usage is guaranteed to disappoint. The second thing to remember is that to really make it work you have to be pretty aggressive. For example if a boss is giving you trouble you don't wait for him to run to you, you toggle on and run at the boss full speed so you catch him first. If you wait for enemies to run to you their attacks will hit you, but if you run at them the attack isn't queued and they fly back before they can get one off. This is especially useful if you punt > Decieve > punt Decieve to stack mezzes safely. It's not an every fight tactic but does work well on certain enemies. Repel is also hilariously fantastic against Night Widows if I recall (haven't done it in a while).

Well. The thing is Empathy supports the Mastermind as a Tanker-mind. If the Mastermind has Provoke, and you Fortify him/her and his or her sturdiest pet, and Regen Aura the group you effectively have one of the strongest tanks possible. The Regen Aura is 5 to 7 times more effective than on a "real" Tanker because its hitting more targets, and net gain in Regen is FAR higher than it would be on a single character, for the same endurance cost and cast time. The only powers that are less useful, potentially, are Recovery Aura and Adrenaline Boost, depending on the MM's secondary. A Storm, Traps, Trick Arrow, Dark, Poison, or Thermal MM would benefit rather significantly from AB due to the huge Recharge boost speeding up power availability. Force Field not so much, but I can't think of the last time I saw a FF Mastermind, and in that case you could simply place the buff on the best pet. The thought of a big Bot with massive Recharge is kind of frightening, actually.

[EDIT: Strike that, forget pets are no longer affected by Recharge buffs. But, everything else should still be true.]

Unfortunately I still can't open the build. I've been unable to install the newer versions of Mids on my computer, so the only way I can review a build closely is if you paste a data chunk (which maybe doesn't work with the online version)?

Anyway, I built a very quick build showing only powers in the order I'd probably select them. I didn't do any slotting; this is just a quicker way for me to show how I'd probably approach this combo. Some specifics:

- Dropped the Medicine pool. It's not a terrible choice, but you have so many other options.
- Added Thunderclap back. You want this because it establishes constant containment, which Mind is otherwise typically lacking. It's minion-only (unless stacked) but if you think of it as essentially doubling your damage against minions I think you'll see why it's great for Mind/Storm
- Moved Stamina to 20
- Pushed back travel powers. If you don't have Ninja Run you may want to adjust this.
- If you take Hasten you really need to 3-slot it (or 2-slot if you have a very high recharge build)
- No more than 1 slot in Health unless you are going to put procs in it
- I would not take Tactics on this build. I'm not sure if this can happen but I suspect it may increase the perception of your Tornado, which may cause it run off and aggro enemies from far away. Even if it doesn't do that, Tactics doesn't have a lot of use for you.
- Manuevers costs a lot of endurance compared to Combat Jumping. In any case you don't have a lot of base Defense to work with so neither is particularly critical. Altho Combat Jumping is one of my favorite powers because of its Immobilize protection.
- Mass Hypnosis is awesome due to its very fast recharge rate and the fact that it doesnt aggro enemies.
- IMO Snow Storm is better on a Cold Dom vs a Stormie. The endurance hit is just too much for Storm to handle.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 48 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Mind Control
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Ice Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Levitate -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gale -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Dominate -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Mesmerize -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Confuse -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Mass Hypnosis -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Hasten -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Freezing Rain -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Total Domination -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Steamy Mist -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Hurricane -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Terrify -- Empty(A)
Level 28: Super Speed -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Thunder Clap -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Mass Confusion -- Empty(A)
Level 35: Tornado -- Empty(A)
Level 38: Lightning Storm -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Ice Blast -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- Empty(A)
Level 47: Frost Breath -- Empty(A)
Level 49: Hibernate -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 4: Ninja Run

Mind posting the data chunk please? I'm unable to open the build in Mid's.

Thanks.

What's weird is that there are Blaster attacks with 100ft range. Assault Rifle's Slug (tier 2 blast) power for example. And Burst is 90ft. I would have thought at least a couple of Blaster Psy's powers would keep their signature range.

[EDIT: Nevermind, I see that was addressed. I guess the issue is they fear people hovering out of range and blasting, since 160+ft is out of range of any immobs to keep enemies in place anyway.]

Kinetic Crash in Levitate is actually not quite as oddball as it may seem at first. Slotting +KB in Levitate results in an increased Knock Up magnitude that makes the duration of the toss last longer, keeping the enemy out of the fight. With enough knock up and recharge it becomes possible to chain Levitate on itself to keep an enemy permanently occupied. It also lets you toss enemies that tend to resist knockup (e.g. those giant Malta tanks). 6-slotting Kin Crash increases the Knock Up mag of Levitate from 12-ish to around 36.

The second motivation is price. You can get the Kin Crash set (and thus +7.5% recharge) at a pittance compared to other sets; I think when I had it slotted I paid less than what I would have for comparable SOs. It's a great set to pick up for ultra cheap builds (particularly on teaming characters who need the mitigation and extra recharge more than the damage). I do usually replace it once the toon is better established or if I decide to solo often, though.

Not looking to start a scuffle about this, but I only recently noticed that all of the blasts in Defender Psi Blast tend to have around 100ft range (about 20 ft longer than any other blast set). That's a nice perk. Has anything ever been said about why it's missing from the Blaster version? Did it used to be believed it would be overpowered in PVP or something?

I recommend Plant Control for a first Controller. It gets its good powers early, does decent damage, and is pretty much smack in the middle of all the control sets in terms of damage/mitigation.

IMO Fire Control is one of the harder control sets to pick up unless you are only going to be duoing. Fire Control has great damage but very little flexibility. It tends to either be great or asbolutely terrible, depending on the circumstances. For one thing, it is the only control set in which all of you controls can be canceled by a single power (Dispersion Bubble, Sonic Dispersion or Force Field Generator, which protect from stun, hold, and immobilize). On top of that delivering damage is largely dependant on your melee survial skills. In my experience the other control sets have less variability in performance. Though don't let me discourage you; you may still enjoy it.

For a secondary, you pretty much can't go wrong with Radiation, with any primary.

I disagree with the previous poster. Any secondary will work.

The only reason to avoid Mind/Empathy, potentially, would be that you don't have a pet to heal or buff. That's a big deal to some people. To me, buffs are only as good as the pet you're actually placing them on, so Mind/Empathy is just fine.

Whether your teammate has a heal or not is really not relevant overall.

IMO if you still want to play Mind Control and want something that meshes well with your buddy, I'd recommend Mind/Radiation. /Kin anything is just fine, but IMO more difficult to play well.

I agree some kind of Mastermind would work well.

On the Controller side, I'd say something like an Earth/Storm Controller, but only after level 32 where it starts to get some damage. Before that its really nice to have a team (I would say almost required to level efficiently... but as soon as I do someone will show up to say they soloed their Emp/Elec Defender with nothing but pool powers and no vet attacks and enjoyed every minute of it.)

IMO you still want the Psi pool.. but for the mezz protection, not the WoC stacking.

I didn't do the whole mock up, but here is my Fire/Kin troller, Swede of Light.

Bio: In response to an international rise in high speed superheroes, the Swedish government began a search for a representative of their own. They found it in Oskar Flink, a youth from the remote country side with the ability to manipulate light in fascinating--and destructive ways.