Oedipus_Tex

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To clarify: a critter is not 20% confused or 70% asleep; it either is or is not subject to the controlling effect at any given time.

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What you are calling "controls" I'd be more apt to call "status effects." Immobilization is a status effect but IMO inferior to -Recharge or sustained Knockdown for reducing incoming damage (made apparant in the hierarchy of Ice Control powers). We could argue that Ice Control is generally more of a "debuff" power set than a "control" one, but again I think we risk overspecializing the definition. I don't think individual powers or powers sets can be definitively slotted into "control" and "not control" categories. I also think that any definition of "control" that leads us to conclude that Controller sets themselves are not control sets is impractical. About the best we can say is that some Defender sets resemble Controller sets quite closely and by virtue of that can be considered more "control" oriented.

I'm surprised that Terrify doesn't receive higher marks. I've never used it but the stats seem really impressive. What am I missing?

Terrify (from Mids v1.41):
- 30.6 Psionic damage
- 60ft Range (10ft less than fearsome stare)
- 90 degree cone (45 degrees more than fearsome stare)
- Mag 3 Fear, 20.9 seconds (51.2 seconds w/ 2 lvl 50 Fear IOs)
- 40 second recharge (21.8 seconds w/ 2 lvl 50 Recharge IOs)
- 67.5% Accuracy (123% w/ 2 lvl 50 Accuracy IOs)

It looks like a power I'd kill to have on another Controller.

To stay on topic: I agree that Mass Confusion is generally less powerful than Seeds of Confusion. But like some others who have posted, my impression has always been that Plant and Mind are overall about at the same levels of power, and that both are generally a bit more effective than Ice and much more effective than Gravity.

Well if we have to talk about herding and pulling, we have to bring up people who have heard that herding and pulling suck and insist on charging headfirst into every mob regardless of circumstances. Tanking can be hard, especially at low levels, and a certain number of KO's are acceptable but sometimes you have to wonder if some players arent aware they can view other team members health and endurance bars.

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Yeah, try reading all the guides that are about Trick Arrow and all the guides that have Sonic in them. It's really silly to only look for guides for a SPECIFIC COMBINATION. You know how many guides would have to be written for this game if we did that???

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Maybe that's why the OP asked for either "a decent guide or mids breakdown or just...advice on its synergy."

Unfortunately altho I know a little about Trick Arrow I can't say anything about Sonic Blast except that I hear it's good. Really good. I would guess that Trick Arrow/Sonic would do absurd damage similar to Sonic/Sonic because of the stacking of Disruption Arrow with the resistance debuffs from the blasts. The main difference is the overall clickiness of TA/Sonic versus Sonic/Sonic, and the trading of bubbles for debuffs.

Edit: changed italics to quotes.

Me again. I have another one.

I PUG a lot. I think working with a variety of players adds to the game experience. I'm generally pretty tolerant of other players and try not to take things too seriously. I don't mind teaming with players who aren't very good; bullies are something else altogether tho. Case in point:

One day I was playing as a level 10-or-so Controller and joined a radio group in Kings Row. On this particular afternoon, there was a character on the Broadcast channel who had decided to take on the world. Basically from 12:00 to around 4:00 the character argued over the public channel that "heals are totally useless" and "debuffs are always better than heals." Whatever the merits of his argument, what was intriguing was that as our radio group zoned in and out of missions this character always had something to announce over Broadcast as we were running to the next mission, like he was standing in the zone yelling back and forth at people for hours and hours.

After a few hours of teaming, my group dissolved and I started looking around for a new one. I quickly got an invite to a team of 5 or so, including an Empathy Defender. As the group was about to push off, horror of horrors, the player who had been shouting on Broadcast got an invite to the team. I decided to hold my tongue and give the player a chance.

It turned out the new team member was a Trick Arrow Defender. The first thing he announced was that "if we asked him for a heal, he would shoot us" or some such. Whatever. We all get started with the mission.

We got to the first spawn. Trick Arrow announces that no one can proceed until he shoots them with Flash Arrow. He shot them, and while the rest of us get started on the fight, he stands there not moving for a little while. It becomes clear a few seconds later that he's taken a break to examine the Empathy Defender's power choices.

As we stand around waiting for him to Flash Arrow the next group, Trick Arrow announces in team chat: "Empathy you are useless you should go reroll." Empathy ignores him. Someone reminded Trick Arrow to do his Flash thing and we move on.

In the next batch, things are a little bit of a struggle. Trick Arrow announces "I can't believe how much extra weight I have to pull with this Empath in the group. If he had actual debuffs, like me, we would be making it through this mission." Someone said they were glad to have a healer in the group. Trick Arrow says "well no wonder this group is so lame."

After about ten minutes of this, with Trick Arrow shooting Flash Arrow at mobs and then mostly standing around yelling at the Empath and anyone who came to his defense, we encounter a group of mobs that can mezz. A bunch of us die. As we're reviving, Trick Arrow says: "If the Empath had Clear Mind instead of heals we all would have lived. Buffs > heals."

At this point the team leader said "Trick Arrow you have one more chance. Shut it or leave the group." Trick Arrow is quiet for the next spawn or two. Then:

"Empathy, you suck so bad. If you had a blast instead of a heal we'd be clearing these mobs a lot faster."

/kick. And thank god.

Maybe this is a question of terminology. If we're interpreting the question as "which Defender sets play the most like a Controller set," Trick Arrow and Dark come out near the top, with Storm very close to the top.

The trouble is defining what a Control set looks like. Here's a rundown, for example, of what the Ice Control consists of:

- Chillblain -- single target immobilize
- Block of Ice -- single target hold
- Frostbite -- multi target immobilize
- Arctic Air -- aura of slow, -recharge, afraid, occasionally confusion
- Shiver -- cone of -recharge, slow
- Ice Slick -- knockdown zone
- Flash Freeze - multi target sleep
- Glacier -- multi target hold
- Jack Frost -- pet

In practice on a team, an Ice Controller is mostly going to be relying on slow, -recharge, and knockdown to survive. Shiver only provides -recharge and slow, with no other effects. Ice Slick provides only knockdown, with no other effects. Glacier is only available intermitently. The only major outlier power is Arctic Air, which brings afraid and confusion effects, but also a huge dose of slow and -recharge.

I think any discussion that leads us to say that Ice Control isn't a control set is kind of counterproductive. If slow, -recharge and knockdown aren't controls, then Ice Control isn't a control set. It just doesn't follow.

I have a confession.

I was once a contributor to an all-star failure of a team.

I was new, recruited to the game by a friend. His character at the time was a Kinetics Defender whose most-used power was Repel. I was a Earth/Thermal Controller without the thermal shields, because I had been advised that they were terrible.

My friend convinced me to go into the Hollows, where we could get "levels fast." We get invited to some mission way on the other side of the zone, across a huge hole in the ground.

Now, my character doesn't have Flight yet. But wait, my friend and I can Hover! So he and I sloooowly Hovered from one side of the map to the other. This is before Hover got a speed buff, so I'm guessing this took around 8 minutes.

Anyway, we finally get in the mission. And of course, disaster. On the first spawn my friend charges in with Repel active and sends everything flying. I start spamming Cages, aggroing mobs all over the place. 6 out of 8 team members die. Someone rezzes my friend, then me.

What happens next is hard to describe. Without waiting for the other party members to revive, my friend takes off down the hall and bumps into a group of demons. They get repeled backwards right on top of the rest of us. Instinctively, out come my Cages, which again overshoots and aggroes the group next to us. The team wipes, and everyone quits.

You might be surprised to hear I'm still friends with this person.

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-Speed and -Recharge are debuffs. The developers are on record stating that they're debuffs. They're debuffs. Period.

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If Castle tells me that he considers KB/KU a control, then I'll call it a control.

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Interesting then that -Recharge, -Speed, and Knockdown are half the bulk an Ice Controller brings to the table.

Just almost got killed by my Jack Frost.

I thought this bug was fixed... or is it only on the test server?

I would consider a build that skips Thermal and Plasma Shield to be a bit on the fringe. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think Thermal's best feature is the ability to have both heals and shields. The heals go a *lot* further when the team is taking 20% less damage. Thermal lacks the big bubbles of Sonic and FF and the +Recovery of Empathy, making up for it by offering both shields and heals in one package. Neither the shield or heal alone is all that great, but together they are quite powerful. Your mileage may vary, however.

The reason I advise skipping the rez instead is that it is the single most endurance heavy power available to a Controller (it costs a staggering 49.5 endurance and has a base 300 second recharge). The "nuke" aspect of the power is kind of neat, but rarely practical, and almost never worth 1/2 your endurance. Empaths simply seem to do rezz better; which is fine, because there are a lot of other great powers available to a Thermal.

An Earth/Thermal build I might use is posted below. Powers skipped are Stone Prison, Salt Crystals, and Power of the Phoenix (cute trick but WAY endurance heavy and 5 minute recharge). The key here is to get Stalagmites and Earthquake as early as possible. Plasma Shield, unfortunately, is delayed until 22 with this build, but you will hopefully make up for that with more reliable controls.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Fossilize -- (A)
Level 1: Warmth -- (A)
Level 2: Thermal Shield -- (A)
Level 4: Stone Cages -- (A)
Level 6: Quicksand -- (A)
Level 8: Swift OR Hurdle -- (A)
Level 10: (Travel Prereq) -- (A)
Level 12: Stalagmites -- (A)
Level 14: (Travel Power) -- (A)
Level 16: Health -- (A)
Level 18: Earthquake -- (A)
Level 20: Stamina -- (A)
Level 22: Plasma Shield -- (A)
Level 24: Thaw -- (A)
Level 26: Volcanic Gasses -- (A)
Level 28: Forge -- (A)
Level 30: Cauterize -- (A)
Level 32: Animate Stone -- (A)
Level 35: Heat Exhaustion -- (A)
Level 38: Melt Armor -- (A)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------

Ice Control is very hard to describe. I've aired some dissatisfaction with it in the past, but over time have come to accept it as it is.

Unlike most Control sets, Ice is centered around the idea that you will lower but not eliminate incoming damage. The -Recharge available in many powers is a primary, not secondary, ability. By flooring the recharge of enemies, in theory you can reduce their rate of fire down to 1/4th its normal value. I say "in theory" because the first round of attacks is not affected by -Recharge at all, so the only time you see any effect is if a creature actually lives long enough to use one of its powers a second time.

The good news about Ice is Arctic Air. This is hands down the best power in the set, if not outright the best control power in the entire game. Unlike other "slow patch" style powers, Arctic Air has a fear component to it that makes foes sloooowly run away from you, all the while forced to make defense rolls against Confusion. This may sound a lot like Hot Feet but in practice its nothing like it all. For example, it draws aggro much less frequently, and since it is a control power rather than a damage power, greatly lowers risk even when you do get attacked. That said, the single biggest risk to an Ice controller is getting stunned, slept, or held and dropping Arctic Air. Having the power suddenly drop can turn what seemed like an easy fight into a near-instant death.

Ice/Storm specifically can do very well but there are some areas I can see that might be troublesome. Foremost is the fact that for most Ice Controllers, a great deal of priority is put on keeping things close to you, where Storm tends to knock them away. The second potential issue is both the lack of a self-heal (unlike Empathy, Thermal, Radiation) and lack of reliable self-protection from mezzes (unlike Sonic, Force Field). Surviving solo will require developing a strategy that lowers incoming damage considerably; luckily Storm has powers like Freezing Rain to alternate with Ice Slick.

I had to do a mock build to get an idea for which powers I'd end up skipping for this character. For me, the powers I skipped were Flash Arrow, Smoke, and Ring of Fire. I think Acid, Poison Gas, and Ice are all worth keeping. Here's the layout:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Char -- (A)
Level 1: Entangling Arrow -- (A)
Level 2: Fire Cages -- (A)
Level 4: Glue Arrow -- (A)
Level 6: (travel prereq) -- (A)
Level 8: Hurdle OR Swift -- (A)
Level 10: Ice Arrow -- (A)
Level 12: Flashfire -- (A)
Level 14: Travel Power -- (A)
Level 16: Poison Gas Arrow -- (A)
Level 18: Health -- (A)
Level 20: Stamina -- (A)
Level 22: Hot Feet -- (A)
Level 24: Acid Arrow -- (A)
Level 26: Cinders -- (A)
Level 28: Disruption Arrow -- (A)
Level 30: Bonfire OR Any power of your choosing -- (A)
Level 32: Fire Imps -- (A)
Level 35: Oil Slick Arrow -- (A)
Level 38: EMP Arrow -- (A)

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Flashfire 2.37s, Stalagmites 2.1s. So only a little faster (0.27s nominal, 0.264s ArcanaTime).

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I think that Flashfire notifies of the attack prior to triggering the stun, while Stalagmites doesn't. I could be wrong about this but its what seems to happen with my Controllers. Could just be that my Earth/Storm always has Steamy Mists up, tho.

Earth/Trick Arrow probably gets you the closest. I assume by lockdown you mean "stunned, held, confused or feared." Sleep is another factor in lockdown and can vary in usefulness tremendously.

If I had to rank the primaries purely on lockdown:

1) Earth
2) Mind (but relies on sleep, has no AoE immobilize)
3) Plant
4) Ice (but hard to rate, because -Recharge provides controls of its own, Arctic Air stops a lot of incoming damage, and the pet is a Controller himself instead of a Tanker like Earth has, making him somewhat more useful on teams)
5) Fire
6) Gravity (would score higher but for the fact that one of its mezzes, Dimension Shift, makes foes unkillable while they are mezzed)
7) Illusion

And the secondaries:

1) Trick Arrow
2) Storm, mostly via Freezing Rain and Thunder Clap. Lots and lots of knockback that is often useful solo but not so much on a team.
3) Radiation (becomes a more viable lockdown set when mixed with certain primaries, especially Ice or Fire)
4) Sonic (has a knockdown zone power, but the single target mezz suffers from same problem as Dimension Shift)
5) Force Field (arguable, lockdown is via knockback/knockdown)

None of the other secondaries provide lockdown to speak of.

Another option is to make a Controller, especially one with a pet. It's definitely not soloable until later levels, but once you get there the heals and buffs are useful for the pet. Any Controller primary except Mind or Gravity would do, Illusion maybe less so than others. Plant/Empathy for some reason seems to me like it might be really effective, but I may be missing something there.

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Fire/Kins were powerful pre Containment. My point was if you want to nerf containment, then controllers (non- Ill/rad, fire/kin, etc) would be relegated to the "must have team" types that they used to be.

Imagine a pre Containment Ice/FF.

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Again it's probably moot because I think changes to Containment are unlikely. However I wasn't suggesting a return to pre-containment levels. My only 50 is Ice/Thermal and doesn't have any AoE attacks except Frostbite. He is able to solo decently just mitigating the damage with controls and relying on the single target blasts and the pet. He's not the most amazing solo character ever, but then I didn't pick Ice or Thermal (or Force Field) under the illusion that I'd be a fantastic solo character.

There are 2 things I'd like to see. One for Energy Blast, and one for knockback in general.

1) Lower all KB in energy blast to knockdown levels. Then modify Power Push so that for 10 seconds after its used, your KB capacity for all powers is greatly increased.

2) For knockback in general: change it so that a target who falls from a great height while suffering from knockback (the game must know they are being kb'ed because there is a specific animation that plays) take double or triple damage when they hit the ground. I would LOVE this so much it makes me giddy to think about. If you think this is too cheesy, call the damage they suffer "stun damage," and have it heal back 20 seconds after so that people can't just stand at the top of a building and keep knocking things off in complete safety. If this is done, damage from falling should probably also take into account Smashing resistance (it might already, but I haven't noticed it).

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Did you play a controller pre-Containment? A man build with brawl only outdamaged controllers pre Containment. We gave up a lot control wise for containment (in a round about sort of way), but it did allow for controllers as a whole to be viable soloers. Not the fastest but at least possible.

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I didn't. But it doesn't matter because Fire/Kinetics has already left the port, so it's doubtful it would ever be changed now anyway.

Is Mind really that bad off? I have limited experience with it, but whenever I've teamed with a Mind Controller, I've always felt really, really safe. Mind just seems to offer so many powers that are consistently useful for keeping stuff from shooting back.

Pets can be useful solo, but on large teams I find them much less so. I often find myself wishing I had "just one more control" I could throw at the crowd. Instead I often have a dim witted pet that runs off and pulls aggro, dies, and gets me killed instantly.

I also think the problem might be less that Mind lacks Containment, and more that Containment itself becomes overpowered at high levels. I'm going to be murdered for saying this, but I've long thought that Containment should only apply to single-target attacks and not AoEs. Which would be rough on us, but the fact that we regularly outdamage Defenders, who have a Blast set as a Secondary, has long puzzled me.

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As an Ill/Sonic who solos a fair bit, I'd like to point out that Disruption Field can also be slapped on Phantom Army (have your pet window out for ease of targetting a Decoy), and this works a treat. Hit a hard target with a 45% resistance debuff and watch it melt to the wrath of PA.

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Really? That's great news. I didn't know the PA could be buffed at all. That hugely raises my opinion of Illusion/Sonic. I'm assuming any extra damage the PA does also doesn't heal back. Add Sonic Siphon on top of that and... wow. I bet its impressive.

I need to add one more thing. Illusion/Sonic is a particularly challenging combination to solo with because one of Sonic's best powers, Disruption Field, requires a teammate or pet as an anchor. On teams this is no big deal because you can put it on the tank or a Scrapper.

Illusion does have a creature that can have the anchor (the Phantasm). However, Phantasms rarely enter melee, and also have knockback powers that tend to knock things out of range of the power.

Again this is only an issue when solo. On teams you will still be very, very effective (basically bringing an off-tank in the form of Phantom Army, a boatload of extra damage from Disruption Field and Sonic Siphon, protection from the most annoying mezzes, and excellent resistance to most attacks.) Just keep this in mind as you decide where to go with the character.

One thing I'm not sure about is how often you plan to team. Sonic is pretty team-heavy, so I'm assuming you plan to group up fairly often. I think your build works well. If it were me playing it, the changes I'd consider are:

- Moving Disruption Field until after Stamina. As nice as this power is, it sucks your endurance away fast.

- Moving Teleport to level 14. It's your choice if you want to ignore this and put a different power here, just know that if you are running task forces that exemp you down your teammates may get tired of waiting for you. I'd also recommend placing a slot or 2 in teleport for endurance reduction.

- Moving Sonic Haven much earlier in the build. This power is fantastic right out of the gate. You will definitely want it for teaming up against enemy groups like Hellions who only do elemental damage.

- Swapping Spectral Wounds and Deceive. You can think of Deceive as a second hold power. Although I assume you've already leveled up past where its useful to make this distinction.

// edit //
// I also skipped Flash. I personally just hate this power on an Illusionist. Perhaps you will like it more than me. If I had to thread it back in, the power I'd drop is Clarity, since your Sonic Dispersion protects against the big 3 mezzes already (hold-stun-immob). The only common mezz protection you lack is Sleep. Confuse and Fear are very rare, and +perception is situational, mainly useful against certain Arachnos enemies.

Here's the resulting build, with Fire selected as the epic power pool.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Magiciannie suggest: Level 48 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Illusion Control
Secondary Power Set: Sonic Resonance
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Fire Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Blind -- (A)
Level 1: Sonic Siphon -- (A)
Level 2: Deceive -- (A)
Level 4: Spectral Wounds -- (A)
Level 6: Sonic Barrier -- (A)
Level 8: Superior Invisibility -- (A)
Level 10: Sonic Haven -- (A)
Level 12: Recall Friend -- (A)
Level 14: Teleport -- (A)
Level 16: Hurdle -- (A)
Level 18: Health -- (A)
Level 20: Stamina -- (A)
Level 22: Phantom Army -- (A)
Level 24: Sonic Dispersion -- (A)
Level 26: Disruption Field -- (A)
Level 28: Spectral Terror -- (A)
Level 30: Hasten -- (A)
Level 32: Phantasm -- (A)
Level 35: Clarity -- (A)
Level 38: Liquefy -- (A)
Level 41: Fire Blast -- (A)
Level 44: Fire Shield -- (A)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- (A)
Level 49: Consume -- (A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 1: Containment


As for your epic power pools, I would recommend you consider either Fire or Primal. My reasoning is that both of these sets offer armor powers that provide +Resistance that stacks with your Sonic Dispersion. I'm not an expert on the numbers, but it looks like Fire Armor in particular will greatly increase your survivability. Before slotting, Sonic Dispersion + Fire Armor = 38% resistance to Slashing and Lethal, 31% resistance to Fire, 21% resistance to Cold, and 11% resistance to everything else (edit: except Psionic). Enhancing your bubble and the armor makes these numbers even better and (again I'm not an expert on the numbers here) I think can soft cap your resistances (edit: when combined with +resistance from set bonuses).

Psionic also provides this, but Psionic's Indomitable Will won't net you nearly as much effect as it would a Controller who didn't already have access to -Stun, -Hold, and -Immob. You *could* take it anyway and become more or less totally immune to these effects, but it really feels like overkill to me. Indom Will also provides protection to Sleep. The Fear and Confuse protection are ok but pretty much not needed because almost nothing in PvE causes these effects.

If you choose Primal Forces, I'd probably skip Power Boost. You only have 2 powers that it strongly benefits. This power, IMO, is best on a character who can inflict lots of status effects (the Mind Control set in particular benefits from this power).

Ok finally figured it out. The way the word "Pets" is positioned I thought it was just a label and not something you were supposed to click. I was clicking the circular toggle button next to it, which just caused the team menu to lock to the chat window.

I've spent forever looking for how to do this.

For some reason turning the Option on doesn't give me the option of a pet bar in the Team menu (or I am just not seeing it).

I have seen the pet bar open before, but only in the AE when a MM pet is set to an ally. That showed me the MM pet (which I could dictate orders to just as if I was a MM, a bit weird) and my pet. When I left that mission, the pet bar went away and I've never been able to reopen it.

Thoughts?