Area Man

1. Not sure -- I usually slot a couple of Recharge in Earthquake and that's it. Too many other places for my slots. I don't think the effect is significant. 2. Rocky (or "Poo Man") is one of the better Controller pets -- I'd rank him #2 (snicker) after Grav's Singularity. Most important is survivability. If you slot him with both Resistance Procs, he becomes very hard to kill, and makes a great tank/aggro magnet. One of my favorite tricks is to use full invisibility to run to the far side of a group of foes. When Rocky plows in, the foes gather around him, and are sitting ducks for AoE control powers. 3. The most skippable power is Salt Crystals, a PB AoE Sleep. On teams, it is worthless, as teammates will wake them up immediately. Solo, it usually misses a few, and they come after YOU -- but you can't use any AoE power or you'll wake up the others. BUT -- it looks cool. Only useful for a Dominator. Personally, I usually take the single target Immob and slot it as a single target attack. It allows you to easily stack immob on a boss or someone missed by your AoE while doing damage. Since Earth is so lacking in Damage, that single target damage (plus Fossilize) become your main source of damage until you get your pet. 4. Depends on how you play and your secondary. If you sit in the back ranks of a team and only use AoE controlls when they come up, then no. If you play aggressively, using Stone Prison and Fossilize as single target damage and lots of damage procs in Stone Cages for damage, YES it will use up your endurance.

Back on the Live forums, I wrote a detailed Earth/Rad guide. There are a few things out of date, but not much. You can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904193426/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121712 Earth is the best AoE control set. Rad goes with EVERYTHING, so it is a great combo -- although low damage until you get your pet.. I wrote that guide before some of the newer sets were around, like Cold, Dark, Nature, etc. But Earth/Rad is still an excellent combo. Earth/Storm is probably my first choice, but Earth/Dark will be a very potent combo. I disagree that Quicksand is a waste -- Slow plus -Defense that stacks with the -Defense in other powers. I throw down quicksand constantly, as it substantially reduces your misses. It is especially effective before Stalagmites and/or Stone Cages, as it helps you hit more foes. PLUS, I think the value of Slows are underrated. for example, Quicksand will prevent foes from running out of the effect of "rain" powers as fast, so they take more damage but they still aren't attacking while trying to run. Look at the effect of the Slow in powers like Hot Feet and Arctic Air, and you'll see what I mean -- they try to run out of the Area of Effect, but can't do it very fast. Furthermore, the -Defense becomes more useful as you battle higher level foes. So you may not need it much against even level, but it really helps against reds and purples.

Just a few comments for you to think about: My set bonus goal with any Illusion Controller is to get as much Recharge as possible to get as close to perma-PA as I can WITHOUT sacrificing the effectiveness of the character. Your single target damage is pretty important. I build my Illusion characters for an attack chain of Blind-SW-APP Blast-SW. The goal is to kill foes before the Illusory Damage in SW heals back. You have no damage enhancement in Blind. My slotting for Blind is 4 Baz Gaze, the Acc/Dam and Dam/Mez Hami-O's. If you aren't using the Unbreakable Constraint set in Blind, put 5 into Flash. This makes the power usable. Wtth full invisibility, you can run into the middle of a crowd of foes to Flash. You skipped Deceive -- I LOVE Deceive. It is a control power that draws NO AGGRO, so you can step into the middle of a crowd, using full invisibility, and take out problem foes before they become a problem. You can even STACK Deceive to confuse Bosses, without drawing aggro. Deceive healers, and they will heal YOU. Deceive all kinds of foes with debuffs, and those debuffs are applied to the other side. 5 slot it with the Coercive Persuasion set for 10% Recharge, and the proc turns a single-target confuse into an occasional multi-target confuse. I have even used Deceive to take out a problem group. Once I was the only survivor of a team wipe. While I waited for the team to come back from the Hospital, I used Deceive to wipe out the entire group that had wiped out my team, without drawing ANY aggro, just by making them fight each other. While I love Sup Invis on other Illusion builds, here you can get full invis with Steamy Mist + Super Speed or a Stealth Proc. Plus Steamy Mist does a lot of other things, benefits the team and can take a -Knockdown proc if you want -- or my slotting is Luck of the Gambler Recharge, plus 5 Red Fortune. Personally, I like Steamy Mist + Super Speed since it allows me to use Hurricane for herding, by running around the outside of groups and pushing then towards the rest of the team into the "kill zone." A Jet Pack lets me fly when I need to. You have to go into the Speed Pool for Hasten anyway. Instead of Hover, consider Combat Jumping -- great mule for Luck of the Gambler Recharge, plus it has - Immobilize and better jumping for almost no endurance. I'm not a fan of the Fighting Pool on Controllers -- I feel my job is to control foes, not be a tank. If I build correctly, the PA will be drawing aggro, not me. Thus, I don't take the Fighting Pool and I feel it is more important to build for Recharge, not Defense. (Sure, I may faceplant every now and then, but it is pretty rare. I can usually run away before faceplanting.) As a result, I often do not 6-slot when the 6th slot is a defense bonus. That saves slots for other powers. Without the Fighting Pool, you can take O2 Boost, which is handy to heal up Phantasm as well as teammates. It also has some other benefits, and can be slotted with Doctored Wounds (5% Recharge for 5), or (8.75% Recharge for 6) Preventative Medicine. Freezing Rain does very little damage -- I think you get more damage by slotting up a bunch of procs than slotting for damage. The Achilles Heel Chance for Resistance Debuff is most important, then a Recharge and up to 4 Damage procs. For Phantom Army, the top priority is Recharge, so I use 4 Expedient Reinforcement (Acc/Dam, plus the 3 with Recharge), then a generic Recharge -- that caps Recharge AND gives a Recharge bonus. If you want to cap Damage, add a generic Damage, Damage from Blood Mandate, or best -- an Acc/Dam Hami-O. Spectral Terror can get by with 5 rather than 6. On an Ill/Storm, I skip Thunderclap -- it is a mag 2 PBAoE, not all that useful unless you have another Stun (like Fire, Dark and Earth) for stacking mag. Phantasm can go for 4 Expedient Reinforcement, too, plus a Dam and Chance for Build Up from Soulbound That Knockback to Knockdown proc makes Tornado a damage machine. Slot up for Recharge bonus after that proc. For Lightning Storm, 5 Decimation give 6.25% Recharge. As for the APP set, I prefer Fire or Ice, as they have fast recharging blasts making them perfect for an attack chain of Blind-SW-Blast-SW. Since your other damage is Psi (which is resisted by Robots), I like a different damage type. Fire has a Resistance shield, while Ice has a Defense Shield. Fire does a little more damage, and has FIREBALL to help your AoE damage. Again, slot for Recharge. If you were taking Hover to combine with Teleport, why not go with Mystic Flight, with a built-in Teleport? That's lets you free up a power choice.

Fire/Kin is good but expect a lot of deaths if you solo, until upper levels. Fire/Kin has lots of offense, but Kinetics has no defensive powers other than the heal. Fire/Storm is fun, chaotic, and expect to run out of endurance a lot. Fire/Rad has some unique synergies which make it very strong. Fire Control can (and should) be played in melee much of the time. This is mainly due to Hot Feet, which is Damage/Slow/Afraid. Combine that with Rad's Choking Cloud, which is one of the rare toggle holds. With a Fire/Rad, if a Foe is held by Choking Cloud, the Foe is also being slowly burned while held. The Slow in Hot Feet also prevents foes from running out of Choking Cloud very fast, making both powers more effective. Rad has not only heal and a great buff in AM, but also great toggle debuffs in EF and RI, plus the great -Regen debuff of LingRad. Your Flashfire/Fire Cages combo is improved with RI, which is a strong ToHit and Defense Debuff -- when the foes recover from the Stun, they still will have trouble hitting you, but you can hit them more easily. EF is a Resistance Debuff which helps you and your imps kill faster. Plus, EM Pulse is one of the strongest PB AoE holds in the game, to supplement your own Fire PB AoE hold. Because you have two, you can use them more because you have a back-up. Rad is great solo, but can also be great in teams. Two ally-only powers are easily skippable, making builds easy. Want something amazing? Join a full team of Fire/Rads -- everything just melts.

Sadly, someone grabbed my "Local Man" global name, so I have to go by @Area Man. But thanks. Back on live, I wrote 3 Controller guides, but the Ill/Rad one was the most popular by far. I was active enough on the forums that the Devs asked me to take over the Controllers "Guide to Guides" at one point, so I reviewed all guides posted and indexed them to be easily found. Not long after Homecoming came out, my old desktop computer died, leaving me only with my office laptop -- which can't be a game machine. But a couple of months ago, one of my sons got my old desktop working again, so I'm up and running. However, I don't have as much time to play. So far, my only 50 is Area Man (an Ill/Rad, of course) on Excelsior.

For anyone looking, this was my Illusion Radiation Guide on the old forums. Most of the information is still good. The Rad debuffs now last a little while after the anchor is defeated, and this might change one's strategy on choosing an Anchor. Most of the other strategy tips are still good, Obviously, since there are some new IO sets, the builds can change. My philosophy with my Ill/Rad (and controllers in general) is to maximize them as Controllers, not try to make them tanks. I want to maximize CONTROL, not defense or resistance. An Ill/Rad is ideal for maximizing Recharge for Perma-PA, then using Stealth and misdirection as protection instead of Defense. That might mean an occasional face-plant, but I'm OK with that since I find it to be more fun (and challenging). https://web.archive.org/web/20120905042613/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225

Back in the "Old Days," I was one of the more vocal Controller supporters -- I wrote an Earth/Rad guide (and several others) on the forums. You can find it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20120904193426/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121712 As a secondary, Radiation works well with ALL Controller primaries, it is easy to play with an AoE heal, a single AoE team buff and two of the three Debuff powers are persistent Anchor-based -- apply once and it stays in the Area around that foe until the anchor foe is dead. Conceptually and practically, it meshes well with Earth, too. There are lots of synergies between the sets. For example, combine Stone Cages with Radiation Infection's Accuracy Debuff, and you have foes who can't move around and have trouble hitting you -- almost another AoE control that is available early in the build. Earth/Rad is a fantastic AoE controller. Earth Control doesn't have a lot of damage, but Rad boosts that damage a little bit. If you have never played Radiation Secondary, then an Earth/Rad is a great choice. Earth/Storm is another great choice, and was one of my favorite AoE controllers -- Storm has a couple of powers that add a lot of damage. Good synergy, too; Quicksand's Slow and Defense Debuff makes Freezing Rain more effective. I never tried them but I bet Earth/Time and Earth/Dark are good combos, too. I was never a fan of the buffing-type secondaries like Emp, Sonic, FF, and others. However, Earth/Sonic is a good paring both by theme (Earthquakes) and synergy (-Defense + -Resistance). As for Trick Arrow, I think the best primary for Trick Arrow is Illusion. My Ill/TA controller was "Beau Jester" an entertainer and stage magician for the French Foreign Legion. Phantom Army provided great aggro control so I could use TA's AoE debuffs without drawing a bunch of aggro, and the debuffs made Phantom Army more effective. Plus, Oil Slick Arrow + Fireball added something that Illusion badly needed -- some AoE damage.