Oedipus_Tex

This really depends on what type of Controller you are.

In general, most damage is going to be coming from the Mag 3 hold that all controllers get. For many sets, its best to use it after establishing containment with a "cage" power.

Illusion, Mind, and Gravity all get single target attacks that do decent-ish damage.

Fire has an inherent damage advantage.

Plant, Mind and Illusion all get a Confuse power by level 8.

Ice and Earth are the two trickiest early on. For these sets, plan on picking a melee attack as a pre-req for your travel power (Air Superiority, Flurry, or Jump Kick).

I think the Defender inherent should increase the drop rate and/or effectiveness of inspirations for all team members.

Endurance issues between levels 10 and 20 are an albatross for this game. Levels 14-19 are the worst. I've had Tanker characters in these level ranges where literally all I could do after throwing 5 or 6 punches was stand in melee and twiddle my thumbs. I've had Scrappers stuck doing the same. It's silly.

I don't see any point in locking certain sets to an archetype. It doesn't promote uniqueness to restrict them, because a character doesn't have access to all of the possible powers available to their archetype anyway. If I'm playing a Storm Defender it makes me not at all more unique that villains can't use Empathy, because I can't either.

Count me among the people confused about why Pain Manipulation and Poison aren't conceptual fits for heroes, but Radiation, Fire, and Battle Axes are. The rules seem arbitrary.

Empathy for villains also is a very easy fit for me. All it take to be an empathic villain is to empathize with a villianous cause and/or villainous people. Empathy is NOT, in and of itself, a postive or negative trait. There is a reason for the expression "sympathy for the devil."

What makes a person a hero or villain is *motive* not the nature of their powers. There are plenty of heroes with terrifying powers that they choose to use for good, and plenty of villains with seemingly innocuous powers that use them for evil. The whole thing smacks of early vesions of Dungeons and Dragons and the "Bards can't be lawful!" silliness.

There is one way to do it, but it's roundabout. Change the enemy faction from "Enemy" to "Ally". That way the player can never succeed at rescuing the ally, so they stay in their afraid position.

The only problem with this is now you have a group of enemies that players cant attack and who will kill any other creatures that come near. There may be a way for you to work this into your story.

I actually wondered whether the OP was trolling.

Kudos to the posters who managed to link CoX customer service to a massive left wing conspiracy working to strip away your rights.

One thing I rarely see mentioned about Fly and Hover is that you do not suffer knockback while flying. You get knocked for a loop, but the recovery from it is faster than if you hit the ground, bounce, and have to stand back up. There is also no risk of getting blown backward into another group of enemies.

Teleport's sometime-advantage is that there is nothing that can cancel it, unlike the other travel powers. It's possible to teleport out of quicksand, ice slick, earthquake, etc, but not jump or fly. I think you can also teleport while immobilized (or at least enemies can).

My advice to all new Defenders, Controllers, and Blasters is always to start the character with Fly, and then to branch from there once they feel comfortable. Fly has such huge advantages for a squishy character in enabling them to get off the ground away from melee. The benefits of being able to get a clear view of the battlefield can't be overstressed either.

You are correct that Thermal is a great, if rare, set. The thing about Thermal, though, is that most of its power comes from versatility rather than from a particular standout power. It's a good set to pick if you plan to invest heavily in your secondary.

Gravity is weak on AoE controls that are effective with teams, so Trick Arrow would be a good one to consider. Trick Arrow has a slow, a single target immobilize, and a mass hold that would seem very beneficial to Gravity if you want to be a strong Controller type.

Radiation is good with anything.

I think I might be the kind of player the devs hope to attract to PVP. I appreciate all the effort that went into the changes that were made, but I do have to say that, unfortunately, they are not likely to draw me into the PVP world at this time.

The reason is that just looking at these changes, I feel completely overwhelmed. The rules look so contrary to what my PVE experience has been. Suddenly, escape tactics won't work. As a Controller, I need to go toe to toe with melee characters who should be able to rip me apart (I guess?)

The rules on healing seem very strange to me as well. Diminishing returns? So in other words, if I use a heal I need to always make sure it's my targeted one and not my area-effect, because if I use my weak heal at all I actually hurt myself?

I don't know what the solution for PVP is. Hopefully you guys will come up with something to make it really enjoyable. But right now I feel like PVP is an arcane system with more rules than a tax form. Thanks again for your hard work, we appreciate that you want to make the game better, even if we don't always agree on what "better" is.

Gravity is a lot of fun but I agree some improvements are in order.

I'm not sure I agree that more knock-up is the solution tho, because knock is cancelled by other Controllers spamming cage powers. This is already a source of irritation for Ice and Earth trollers, sets that luckily have other powers to rely on. Gravity does not, and having your main source of controls constantly zeroed out by other players setting up containment would be really frustrating. I know some will say you can just ask other players not to to do spam cages, but that basically means that bringing a Gravity controller forces your team to hold back, and you would have been better off with a different Controller altogether.

Now, if the knockup powers included a chance for a stun or hold, I'd be much more inclined to like them.

I think shortening the recharge on the area effect hold is the way to go. Changing Dimension Shift from an intangibile to a.... well <i>anything</i> but intangibility power would vastly improve it as well. As long as it isn't Sleep.

A set I'd like to see is Draining Touch. It would be a type of melee where instead of punching people, you touch them and drain their energy. There are a lot of characters I think this would fit, and it would make a nice visual departure from the current melee sets. Plus, probably not terribly hard to animate with existing animations.

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Cloning or multiplication as a melee offensive or mastermind set.

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Seconded, but I was thinking of this as a tanker set.

Like other have said the issue with the Ritki comm officers is that they provide way more XP than a typical minion (between 2500-3500 XP per kill in a recent run for my level 48). The XP is set that way because the officer is supposed to be able to summon in help. Teams get around this by using AoE to mezz/knockout the group before the portal opens. Bug abuse? I wouldn't call it that, but I think it needs to go away.

At 8:00 tonight I created a new Defender.

At 8:30 that character was level 16. If I had kept playing, he would have been over level 20 before 9:00. The character leveled from level 5 to level 16 within one (incredibly repetitive, dull) mission.

This game only goes up to level 50.

It is a universal rule that players like easy xp. But only at first.

The goal of an experience-based game is to align the gameplay objectives with xp rewards. Right now there is a (presumably unintended) perverse motive that encourages players to slog through unenjoyable content just to level. No one is running Rikti communications officer farms because they find it "thrilling" (tho they might--for a few weeks--be "thrilled" that their character is leveling quickly).

What people mean when they say want "story" is rarely background about the archvillian's childhood. Rather, what they mean is that they want stuff to *happen.* Specifically, what they want is fun missions to be the best way to earn XP, so that the way that the way the game wants you to play is in line with the objectives of having sustained fun.

Farms are fun because they level you quickly. But it isn't sustained long.

I love the AE. I hate the AE. In the first days it existed, I got to try some pretty cool missions. Now I just play farms, because that's the gameplay the game encourages.