oedipus_tex

Perhaps try /Storm as a secondary. Gravity/Storm, Fire/Storm, and Plant/Storm all offer significant opportunities for soloing. Each plays a bit differently. Fire probably takes longest to blossom. Gravity will make you want to invest in procs very early (-kb to kd procs make a huge difference because Gravity can't cancel knockback with its aoe immobilize) but all three are solid choices. Force Field wouldn't be my first choice for a soloist. Gravity/FF strictly speaking wouldn't be a bad combo (at least Gravity offers decent single target damage). Force Bolt is an extremely low damage power that I would probably not both with on a Gravity Control character since you'll get tons of knockback/down/up already in Propel and Lift, both of which do much better damage.

It's hard for me to hide my dislike of Sonic Resonance. It has the foundation for a good set, but its endurance hungry beyond reasonableness and too many powers don't accept IOs. At least with Force Field you've got 4 opportunities for Luck of the Gambler. That said, I'm rolling a Sonic Res character right now, because even not great sets are still fun to toy with.

I think the solution for Intangibles is to add Intangible IO sets to the game. It is one of the only mezz effects that has a standard enhancement but no IO set. If the procs and set bonuses for Intangible powers were made substantial, most of the problem with Intangible powers on all sets would be addressed. The powers being situational on top of having terrible slot options is what kills them dead.

I'm not an expert in number crunching, but I'd guess Ice (maybe better on a Corruptor), Water, Beam Rifle, or Dual Pistols all would be good options because they can slot many potential procs.

Defense is usually better (edited to add: on squishies) because Defense, in addition to preventing damage, also prevents secondary effects like -recharge, -tohit, -endurance, etc. Armor sets that have a lot of resistance typically also offer resistance to secondary effects to compensate for being hit more often.

I suppose that's an option. Is it really any better at this than Sonic or Dark, both of which have powers with guaranteed knockback (which Energy Blast does not, for some reason)? I just hate to see so much potential from Power Boost go to waste. FWIW I just clocked Blackstar with two -ToHit debuffs combined with Power Boost at -79% ToHit for 20 seconds, which is outrageous. (Hilariously, the same technique on a Defender yields an astounding -155% ToHit).

Nice build. I wonder if for some users, going with a Resistance shield instead of a Defense one would be more attractive in the long run. On a Defender you can achieve absurd Slash/Lethal resist. In particular, Soul Mastery looks tempting for Power Boost, in order to get absurdly powerful shields. A quick glance at Mids puts Power Boosted Insulation Shield at +37.21 Defense assuming two Defense IOs in the power. This far exceeds anything Cold Domination could ever bring to the game (you can't Power Boost Cold Dom shields). It used to be considered overkill, but with iTrials being a thing that's one Force Fielder I'd want on my league!

LOL. Reading comprehension. 😄

Oddly enough, someone just posted it in another thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20120905153152/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=235533

I had completely forgotten about that thread, and that Electric Control character. Electric/Force Field, which I took all the way to 50. I still don't know why, probably the lowest damage thing I ever rolled. But I had a different tolerance for such things back then. 🙂

Putting knockback to knockdown IOs in Energy Blast's AoEs tames its scatter considerably and makes Energy Blast relatively safe to play. I don't think much of the Energy Secondary. It's functional. Honestly doesn't have a ton of synergy with the Energy primary (it works better with sets lots of cones and secondary/mezz effects like Dark Blast, Psi, and Sonic. Matter of fact, maybe I need a Dark/Energy Blaster now. 🙂 )

What's interesting is that back then Ice Control had possibly the easiest time running the Fire Farm in order to self-power-level. The trick was that Arctic Air and Ice Slick dont have a true target cap, so you can handle many hundreds of enemies at once without dying. This was before the days of kb to kd IOs in Bonfire. Unfortunately in the resurrected game, Ice Control is in a far different and less enviable position. Hoping on some adjustments to it in the future. I always loved Arctic Air and wish it could get some love (for example, like the Blaster secondary toggles, it should no longer detoggle when you are mezzed).

LOL those old Ice / Rad videos. Talk about a build that struggled! But yes, as you can see, it is technically possible even for one of the lowest damage, hardest to moderate endurance builds to still succeed at +0x8. Note that that build wasn't actually customized for farming, hence the /Psi ancillary pool. That was the general mission build (with Psi to keep Indom Will from dropping and detoggling Arctic Air.) I suspect if I had built for actual damage, perhaps with Ice/rad/Fire I could do a lot better. Also, the new proc rules would have helped this build a lot.

Not true. The target cap for incarnate Judgement blasts caps at 40. The cap of 16 is an arbitrary number decided around the time that the AoE Holds were nerfed. There is no reason they couldn't affect 255 targets, if we wanted them to. Moving the target cap on these powers would be a deliberate attempt to position them in a game where in an 8 man party all 8 party members can be expected to have nukes that hit 40 targets.

I believe you are correct that the Alpha slot does impact proc chances, since the Alpha slot is like adding a 'free' enhancement slot to a power. It therefor functions like adding a Recharge directly in the power. Global recharge does not affect proc chances.

I've been thinking about this topic more, and now think possibly part of what should happen is not just an decrease in Recharge, but also an increase in area of effect and max targets hit. This would be a fair trade off I think and really put the 'control' in this powers without turning this into a 'city of statues' situation by just increasing durations. So, perhaps these changes would make these powers attractive: GLACIER/CINDERS: Radius: 32ft (up from 25ft) Max targets: 32 (up from 16) Recharge: 160 seconds (down from 240) GRAV DISTORTION FIELD/MASS DOMINATON/VINES/PARALYZING BLAST: Radius: 25ft (up from 20ft) Max targets: 32 (up from 16) Recharge: 160 seconds (down from 240) I think giving Mass Confusion the same treatment would do lots to bring Mind Control up to par with other sets.

Gravity on a Controller solos smoothly from level 1, unlike most Controllers. Plant picks up fairly early due to Seeds of Confusion. Fire Control is a real chore (to me) until the pets at level 32. Dominators don't have any real trouble soloing with any set, because they are a damage AT. As for Singularity vs Bonfire, they are different powers with their own strengths. Singularity's advantage is that unlike Bonfire, any enemies that land on it will also likely attack it. Combined with the fact that Wormhole doesn't alert enemies, the combination makes Gravity incredibly safe to solo with. The tactic does die off somewhat on ultra optimized builds, but only at the very highest levels of play.

Gravity has an incredibly easy time soloing. It's probably the steadiest soloer of the Controller sets post i25 (it didn't used to be--lots of fixes were made to it). For Gravity, look to invest in a kb to kd IO to make life much easier. (Get the one that can be put in non-damage powers, not the unique set one). Put one IO in Singularity and one in Wormhole. Now you can Wormhole enemies right on top of Singularity and you have a mobile version of Bonfire that can hold aggro. Fire or Plant are also good choices altho each will bloom later than Gravity, which should be able to solo from level 1. They do more AoE damage tho.

I have a theory that Water/Mind/Fire makes for an incredible farmer, but have not taken any actual steps toward proving it. The pieces are all there though. You'd want to focus on adding Force Feedback procs and -Resist procs where applicable, and get enough Recharge to get Drain Psyche to minimum downtime.

I was thinking about the question more terms of the possibility of lost utility. Hurricane and several others powers are technically skippable, but they are also decent enough powers that I can imagine a scenario where you might not have them and wish you did.

I think this is true, but then we are responding to a somewhat arbitrary question: 'What is the most ranged Defender?' The question doesn't really have a direct answer. It depends a lot on what yu choose to call 'most ranged.' Storm is complicated because: - Hurricane is a PBAoE - Hurricane causes Repel and Knockback I suppose thats an argument for it being both a PBAoE set and a ranged set in one package. Given the question though, I would still consider Empathy, Thermal, etc 'more ranged' than Storm, to the degree that such a thing is measurable.

Do people really skip Fearsome Stare? I guess this serves as an example of sharp difference in how various players view priorities. I would call Fearsome Stare one of the key powers in Dark. It's one of the few Defender mezzes on par to a Controller mezz (so much so that for Controllers it is moved out of the Buff set and into the Control set) and although it causes Fear rather than a hard mezz, it also comes loaded with -18.75% -ToHit.

If we are talking about iTrials, Force Field with Power Boost because that powerset directly fixes the two main things that can cause an iTrial to fail: inadequate defenses on people leveling up their alts, and lack of league-wide mezz protection. For 8 man task forces like the ITF I would probably choose Cold Domination. Traps would be in the running except for AVs with death auras who tend to run around a lot. Cold lacks a heal, though, so Thermal is a very strong secondary option.

This is a little hard to answer because there are multiple contenders depending on what you are looking for. I'd basically break it down like this: PRIMARIES No PBAoEs/all ranged: Water Beam Rifle Ice Archery Assault Rifle (NOTE: Many powers are cones) Only PBAoE is the Nuke Psi (NOTE: All powers in this set also have +20ft extra range) Fire Energy (1 cone, 1 sphere) Sonic (all cones except PBAoE nuke) Dual Pistols Heavily Shortchanged if not played PBAoE Radiation (technically can be played at range, but those blasts are sloooow) Mix Electric - Has a PBAoE endurance crash power but a ranged nuke SECONDARIES No range restrictions due to no enemy affecting powers Empathy Only restriction is distance to enemies Thermal Force Field Sonic Resonance Pain Mostly ranged, but relies on cones which require positioning Dark Miasma Mostly ranged, but has powers which can function up close Storm (Hurricane, a PBAOE repel/-tohit power) Has some optional powers/skippable that are effective at close range but this doesnt make or break the set Time Radiation Poison Nature (NOTE: An unusual situation where the heal power is a cone, which benefits from standing back) Somewhat shortchanged at far range Cold Domination (mainly on high recharge builds, to missing benefits of Heat Loss when not up close) Crippled at far range Kinetics Impossible to classify Traps

I have no idea if it would be difficult or easy. I just know they've changed the level of other powers in the game in the past with seemingly little impact, and also that there are sets with multiple powers that unlock at the same level (e.g. Dual Pistols).