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I should clarify that the defense only affects your pets and not pets in general. I'm not sure if it even affects all pets or only the one in which it is slotted. You may be able to find that answer on the mastermind boards.

There is a radius of 40 feet for both of those IO's and they will only affect pets.

As for the Soulbound Allegiance proc, my understanding is that it is set to check with each attack. At one point, it didn't affect Imps because they spawn at level 49 rather than level 50. I'm unsure if this is still the case though.

Yes, the imps will be affected by Dispersion Bubble and Maneuvers as long as they are within their radius, that's 25 ft and 60 ft respectively. Speaking from experience, they will go beyond the radius of Dispersion Bubble quite often.

Anyway, let's add it up. This is with the ally shields and using generic level 50 defense IO's.

16.8% from Deflection/Insulation Shield
3.93% from Maneuvers
11.2% from Dispersion Bubble
10% from Edict of the Master and Call to Arms

41.93% total defense as long as they are within the boundaries of Dispersion Bubble.

There are two things I would suggest to go along with this. The first is to avoid Tactics; generally, it's a great power to have, but it also tends to cause the imps to flake out because it increase their perception. When I ran it on my fire/ff, I found the imps tended to over-aggro pretty often. The second is to take Smoke. Its -5% tohit debuff will essentially softcap the imps with that much defense. It also helps to keep the imps from aggro'ing entire mobs when they smack one guy and run back to you.

I've had the pleasure of being part of an sg in which the senior members crafted generic IO's for anyone at level 35. Then again at level 50. I don't think I've gone back to regular SO's myself, and have started crafting IO's for the sg whenever I have the salvage.

For me, the inconvenience of making IO's is far, far smaller than updating SO's. There was nothing worse than having most of your SO's go red in the middle of a mission. If the effectiveness kept degrading it wouldn't have been bad, but the sudden drop to 0% hurt. Reslotting everything every 3-4 levels to keep up the performance of a power was a pain too if I could afford to do so.

I like ID for one thing that it can hold over Clear Mind/Clarity: knockback protection. Long before I can get my hands on those precious -knockback IO's it's nice to have ID for things like the Council.

Really, when you rule out the effects that don't occur often in the PVE game the difference between CM and ID really comes down to Sleep Protection v. Knockback protection. (CM also offers confuse and fear protection; ID offers repel and tp protection as well.) So why do you hear more praise for CM?

So there's two things to consider then. First, there are sources for constant knockback protection in sets. Secondly, despite how much you'll hear folks complain about how much the hate knockback, it doesn't knock your toggles off. Sleeps tend to shut down some important things like rad toggles, Hot Feet, and Arctic Air.

Not really. You've built something for a niche role that not many people bother tackling. Ergo, there are few people to give advice on the matter. I haven't built a controller for this specific goal but there is one thing I will point out.

The slotting on Lingering Radiation is pretty bad. Slow enhancements only affect the movement speed portion of slows and not the actual recharge slow. Replace the acc/slow from Tempered Readiness with acc/end, and replace the acc/dam/slow with an acc/end from Pacing of the Turtle. You'll keep the recovery bonus from the set, lose the slow bonus (which is largely useless), and reduce the endurance cost of LR by 73%.

Just noticed another slotting problem. Replace the end/acc and end/recharge in Stamina with generic IO's and you'll gain 2% more recovery.

Two additional points: the cost for running all your toggles is quiet high. Even dropping off the resistance toggles, you're eating endurance fairly quickly. Secondly, while you've got ranged defense covered, you may find it difficult to get close enough to use Consume. A PBAoE could hit you very easily when you do. You're also quite vulnerable to targetted AoE's. Generally, I would suggest keeping your AoE defense near the same level as your Ranged defense.

But have you got an Kinoshita Hideyoshi?

City of Data reports Flash Arrow as Unresistable. Smoke, however, isn't flagged the same. This could be an error or not. I haven't used either power extensively to be sure.

Word. I gots to get my magical girl on.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Purple_Patch
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics

The site you linked is accurate in its description of the attack mechanics. The part that you're missing is the effectiveness of tohit debuffs due to level scaling. You'll find that described in the wiki's entry on the Purple Patch. Essentially, the debuff is resisted before that number even goes into the attack formula.

There are generally two approaches with IO's.

One is to frankenslot, or grab IO's with multiple values essential to a power. For example, there are a number of set IO's that contain acc/hold/recharge that you could use for your holds. You can use these to obtain higher bonuses in a power than by using SO's or generic IO's. This is generally an easily obtainable route to go and you can avoid expensive pieces.

The other approach to slotting is to acquire set bonuses. As you may know, slotting multiple enhancements from a single set in a power grants you an additional bonus. For example, four pieces of Basilisk's Gaze will grant you 1.25% ranged defense, 2% recovery, and 7.5% recharge globally. Generally, people will select a single aspect and use as many sets as possible that grant a bonus to that aspect. However, due to the highly desirable nature of some bonuses, certain sets may be much more expensive than others. A better bonus usually means a higher price at the market.

Two of the most popular bonuses to chase after are defense and recharge. For most controllers, pursuing recharge bonuses is very handy. It will allow you to get your AoE controls, debuffs, and other useful powers like Creepers and Lightning Storm up more often. It is even possible to stack enough recharge to make Hasten recharge faster than its duration. Defense is also a popular if you can reach the soft-cap*. Generally, reaching the soft-cap for smashing/lethal and it great increases your survivability against most mobs.

*At 45% defense, minions up to +5 will only have a %5 chance to hit you. This is the lowest chance possible. The most common damage type and therefore sought after defense is usually smashing/lethal.

If you are a PC user, then I highly recommend downloading the Mid's Hero Designer. It will let you lay out powers and sets so you can have a goal in mind before you start slotting.

Also, bear in mind that some builds are long term goals. You won't be able to pick up everything you want on a casual play through to 50. However, if it is a character you enjoy and will play often after hitting 50 then set bonuses are an additional goal that can be fun to shoot for.

It's really dependent on what you're fighting. If you choose to fight at -1/x8 then you'll find smoke fairs very well. However, fighting at +5/x1 the debuff of Smoke will only be 30% as effective due to level scaling. Stealth's defense bonus will remain the same effectiveness until facing +6 enemies where they gain an additional +5% tohit. As for team effectiveness, if you faced off against +4 enemies an unslotted smoke would yield similar results as an unslotted maneuvers, albeit with a much smaller endurance cost.

On some Fire builds I could see taking Smoke for its defensive capabilities and tactical options, fire/kins tend to roll over things though and find less time to use it. It's a good power, but perhaps overshadowed by the combination of fire control and kinetics.

Let's forget that happened.

Come back when you have Dual Pistols!

Come back when you have Duel Pistols.

A few things...

Fireball won't generate near the amount of aggro that you're probably expecting. Really, it's just another drop in the pail. You may find a surprising amount of aggro coming from Stone Cages with its debuff and DoT. In any case, a controller should be locking things down enough to survive a little additional aggro.

I can understand your hesitation towards Hasten coming from other AT's. If you can build a solid attack chain without Hasten then you're fine there, but that's not the case with controllers. There are powers that you want up ASAP. Take Volcanic Gases as an example. It's base recharge is 240 seconds, reduced to 130 seconds with two level 50 generic IO's. With Hasten, you drop that down to 94 seconds while Hasten is active. More recharge means more control means more survivability. Even having the single target up a second early can mean the difference between locking down a boss or eating their 500 hp heavy hitter. There's just no denying how important recharge is to controllers.

Oh Victory, why can't you be more like Virtue? Blueside Hami raids used to happen 2 times a night Monday and Wednesday. Now the zone is filling an hour before launch and there had sometimes been a 3rd round of raiding.

I was buying spices for 5 influence last night, but someone price jacked sugar to 500,000.

Baka to Test is surprisingly amusing. When I read the premise I blew it off, but I did give the first episode a go and found myself laughing out load. Voyeur is the greatest.

My understanding of the tohit mechanics, and I may be wrong, is that tohit and defense were essentially opposites and so a -25% tohit debuff on the attacker and -25% defense debuff on the target would essentially negate one another. You could speed up the mobs defeating themselves by slotting for more defense debuff than tohit debuff. You could also utilize the Achilles' Heel proc for a chance of increased damage. Also, while EV does nothing to increase confused mobs' kill speed it does increase your own.

Kin may slow the speed of confused mobs but will increase your own killing speed with Roots, Creepers, and your epic AoE.

Some folks work the other way. Find a powerset that is fun and effective and develop a theme. I assume that's the OP's method of operating as he mentions the mechanical functions of the sets rather than any conceptual trouble he's encountering.