roleki

Can't speak for anyone else, but if I have the opportunity to grab two ST holds, I'm taking them both and slotting them to the gills. That's a guaranteed 6 Mag hold on any target you hit, and, depending on slotting/hybrid choice, that can scale to a potential 16 Mag in two clicks. That's not too shabby.

More like an accelerated hop, really.

Can't say I have ever felt useless or that I wasn't contributing when running one of my support ATs, but if I ever had that feeling, I am not sure where I would go with it. The very nature of a support AT is implied by the word 'support' - as in, our contribution, no matter how critical or trivial, is going to be more nuanced than the dude with the comically-giant broadsword or claws for hands. While it sucks to suspect that the team would do just fine without you, keep in mind it can and will do just fine without the scrapper, without the tank, without the sentinel, and so on.

While it's a nice thing to shoot for, an Ill/* controller really doesn't need to race for capped defenses; for one, they've got the whole "three invincible tanks" thing going for them, but then they can also drop one of the most underrated soft controls in the game in Spectral Terror, which nets them 15% -ToHit right out of the box and can be ramped up to -25% with some slot shenanigans. -ToHit is resistable, but it comes off the same side of the equation as +Defense so even a 50% resist leaves you at a soft +7.5 Def if all you do is slot ST with a Recharge IO and forget it, which you shouldn't because Spectral Terror is worth spinning to 5 slots, six if you're throwing procs into the mix as well. As for which Destiny slot to take... Ill/Kin is a weird bird because unlike most other /Kin, there's really no compelling reason to wander into Melee range to bathe in your AoE buffs; it's not like you're going to Deceive mobs harder (?) and your Phantasm will wander out of range like that's it's job.... so unless you didn't get to Perma-PA through slotting + Hasten + set Bonuses + Alpha, not a huge reason to take Ageless. So, if it's down to Barrier or Clarion, personally I would lean Clarion. Way I figure, I've never forgotten to fire off Barrier & noticed it, but I have *often* forgotten to fire off Clarion and regretted it. But the OP's case is special, since it's a duo... why not one of you take Clarion, the other Barrier, and cover ALL the bases?

I hate leading teams, but weirdly enough found myself leading leagues throughout the Mender event earlier this spring. And when they ended, I haven't led a team since.

This right here. I understand people's obsession with games about Wizards and Trolls and all that crap, but I was a comic book kid first and foremost, and no game before or since CoX has even come close to scratching that itch. Not CO, not DCUO, not the Arkham series, not even the PS4 Spider-Man game. I'm especially thankful that HC has been here amidst all the 2020 that's going on out there. If I weren't able to log into my En/En blaster, hop over to AP and punch a minion halfway across the map, I don't know what I'd do.

Nerf regen.

I can't afford to pay handsomely, but, I would pay looking-goodly for any resource that fleshed-out and updated Red Tomax's Power Quantification pages, ESPECIALLY if that resource split open the pseudopets and made them reveal their secrets. It's been 15+ years, I need to know what "Summon Sticky Arrow" actually DOES! ETA: Of course, if you didn't lift another finger on this project of yours, it's still an awesome effort and much appreciated!

So far I've preferred my Dark/EA over my Fire/EA; both are workable, but the Imps have a tendency to split up and go wherever they want, which makes keeping them upright more of a chore than it is on Dark/. I could see where Elec/EA would be a good combo, as well. Keep in mind, since EA has Faraday Cage, you can go ahead and get Destiny Ageless when the time comes, and whatever endurance issues you have should go away.

It might be helpful to know what you've tried before, and how far you got with them. Would hate to write a 6000-word essay on Ill/Traps or whatever, only to find out you did that and didn't like it.

I'm at about 2 hours 15 minutes on my Rad/Fires, and that's with just 4 attacks (one of which is Radiation Siphon) and going the Focused Accuracy/Physical Perfection route. I could probably shave several minutes off by swapping out Consume or whatever for another attack, dropping RSiphon for RSmash or Proton Sweep, and getting an AoE from an epic/patron, but I've not been inclined to do so, figuring 2:15 is pretty decent on its own. But, since I have two of them, I could probably try it on one and see if it makes a huge difference.

No, the EA available to squishlikes - Electrical Affinity. Big old bubble that lasts four minutes, recharges in 4 seconds, and has Immob/Hold/Stun/Sleep/TP/Knock/Repel protection along with +Res to everything but Toxic. You fire it, and go about your business until you move again. No toggles to drop, no chewing through endurance, frees you up so you can take an actual USEFUL Destiny power like Ageless instead of a panic button.

EA anything.

They're even more fun when you bake Mez protection into the build 🙂

Ill/Dark is an extremely adept soloer AND good on teams AND good on Leagues. It's just... really, really good. If you're looking for a controller you can take anywhere and do anything, Ill/Dark is that. Another super-soloer is Ill/Traps; its capabilities aren't as comprehensive as Ill/Dark, but it will plow through just about any content you throw at it. A seriously underrated build with layered synergy across both power sets. Setting traps while your PA takes the heat is just one part of it; the -ToHit from Spectral Terror and Seeker Drones combines with the +Def from Force Field Generator to make you darn near unhittable if anything survives long enough to notice you. And if you don't intend to solo ITFs/AVs or whatever, Mind/Poison is sneaky-effective in just about everything else you'd want to try, and a decent poster boy for the concept that Mez means more than just Holds and Immobilize.

Way I figure it, if a support character is already packing mitigation, the Fighting pool is a bit of gravy to throw on after Hasten, Maneuvers and Tactics. On support characters that lack consistent mitigation, Fighting moves closer to a necessity. For instance, I could not and did not need to fit Fighting into my Rad/Rad Defender build, but I couldn't take my EA/Sonic Defender out of the garage without it. It would be easier to lean into Fighting on support characters if it didn't have the dead weight of Kick/Boxing, but, it SHOULD be a little painful to get access to extra Def & Resists.

What kind of mime theater are you hanging out in?

Grav/Storm may not be able to solo an AV, but it'll melt anything else you throw at it, and a hell of a lot faster than Earth/Storm, especially these days. Put KB:KD in all the right places, and you can just rain hell in a little 20' section of the map that nothing can survive in for long.

Wholeheartedly agree with the post quoted above. I love TA... as a Controller secondary. You need to put the lid on several mobs at once? /TA is the way. Want to debuff one mob thirty different ways? Roll a /TA. But even as someone who grew to love the set on Live, on HC I was like 15 alts deep before I got around to recreating my beloved Ice/TA, simply because I knew that by the time I hit 37 or so, my entire contribution to a team could be replaced by a pair of Inspirations. I'd really like to see what the average TA character is leveled to, within ATs and as a whole compared to other support sets. I am willing to bet that an outsized percentage of TAs are collecting dust somewhere after slotting OSA. It just doesn't DO a whole lot with higher-level mobs, and I think that's the biggest drawback of the set. I don't mind that I have to light my own Oil Slick, even though I have to first find an ignition source somewhere else in the game, then waste an attack cycle to get MY slick to do what other damage slicks do automatically; that's just the price to pay for having a Slick that can do nuke-level damage to everything in a 25' radius. I don't mind that EMP Arrow carried over the end/recovery crash from EM Pulse, even though thematically it makes absolutely zero sense that firing one arrow would wipe me out whereas another doesn't; that's just the price to pay for having a second, ranged AoE hold. I don't mind that the Recharge of key powers is so dang long; I can't think of a reason it has to be that way, but maybe it's the price to pay for a secondary that can do everything from range. I don't mind that /TA doesn't buff the team; it was conceived and delivered as a dedicated debuffing set, and that's all it should be. I *DO* mind that the game's dedicated debuffing set is miserable at the most important debuff in the game: -Regen; it should have one of the (I'd argue THE) best -Regen effects, full stop. Otherwise, as a TA you're just a useful stand-in until a Cold/Dark/Rad shows up to REALLY help the team. In terms of 'fixing' TA, I would rather not see powers swapped out or changed wholesale, or team buffs introduced. Get it some compelling -Regen, increase the target caps and AoE radii as @Luminarasuggests, and I think it would be just right for those players that know what TA does and still decide to ride it out. As for attracting new people to the set in the first place... I don't know. If they had it to do over again, I would like to have seen TA delivered with some of the same mechanics that Dual Blades brought, where executing A and B followed by C applied an AoE debuff on top of whatever the individual powers did themselves, or, maybe have it amp the duration or lower the recharge time or proc a build-up effect, or some other gimmick. Nothing excessive, but, you know, something to keep the kids pressing the buttons.

A lot do, but I don't know if it's 'most' or just 'a lot.' I don't have trouble moving your standard Radio Mission dudes around when I solo, and that's pretty much the only time things are going slow enough that I feel the need to aggregate mobs and whatnot.

Since the people in that thread have no love for the Force Field secondary, thought I'd go counterpoint and describe in detail one of my favorite builds of all time, the mighty Fire/FF. Wait, come back! Fire/FF *is* mighty! It's mighty fun! It's mighty fast! It's mighty quick to obliterate mobs AND endurance bars! Picture this: you step into a PI Radio Mission and for some reason, it's not a cave or a sewer. Just as you go to say 'yay!' you notice it's Carnival of Shadows. Stupid radio! But then you remember, you're a Fire/FF, what do YOU care about some Carnival jerks? Fire off your Imps, hit Power Boost and drop the Shields of Immortality on them, which also offer resistance to Toxic and -End effects, thank you very much. While PB is still fresh, you drop a Smoke on the mob to lower their ToHit even more. Now you have a choice... how do you want to knock them on their ass first? Repulsion Bomb is a good choice, followed by a Bonfire; look at that - recharge just shot up to 263%! Flashfire and Cages stupefy the lightweights as you approach the edge of the mob with Energy Torrent cued up. Blorp, another stack of +Rech. By now, the Imps are on them like 3 cheap kimonos; minions and lt's are slumping to the floor and farting blue coronas all over the place. Beset by AoE damage ripping through them, the twin Master Illusionists are spamming pets in desperation.... which is awesome, because that gives you more targets for your +Rech procs to hit. Speaking of which, has it been 12s already? Time to drop another Bonfire! And you're sure the Illusionists would like to have done something to you, but they're too busy trying to sort out which KD effect is pinning them to the floor to even look at you. And just like that, there's no more Carnival at the door. Now, if it were allowed, the sequence described above would have been replaced by an embedded video to more adequately illustrate the actual scenario, but hopefully I got the point across... Fire/FF just knocks stuff silly and will do so for as long as you have the endurance to pay for it. It's not an AV killer (or even an AV tickler), it's not a Pylon specialist, and yeah, it will melt through a Fake Nemesis in no time flat only to get cut to cheese by a group of Jaegers (Jaegers!) but for a good time on a team or a league or just killing a few minutes in a solo mission, I highly recommend Fire/FF! This is my main Fire/FF (I have two, but could only justify investing like this on one of them). Behold now the exposed guts of Tootboy! The point here was to churn out Bonfire and Flashfire as often as possible, and I think I've got that covered. Bonfire recharges at a naked 13s, or 12s when Ageless is up/+Rech proc has hit. Flashfire is at 24 and 20 under similar circumstances. I run around with 8 toggles going (Hot Feet, Dispersion Bubble, Repulsion Field, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, Tactics, Temp Invulnerability, and Speed of Sound) at a combined drain of -2.08/s, so I had to dedicate 7 slots and two Incarnates to endurance mitigation. The great thing is, it exemps down just fine, as most of the toggles are just 'nice to have' and not 'necessary components that will result in death if I don't have them.' It's got 5 ways of keeping stuff knocked down, and plenty of procs/effects that make powers like Repulsion Bomb worth clicking. All in all, it's just a fun build to run around with. And that's all I got to say about that.

Absolutely, at least I can on characters where WH isn't just a party trick. Take my Grav/Storm for example; WH has a 1.0 base accuracy, which I have slotted for .74 Acc Enh and have an additional .54 Global Acc Bonus... that puts WH at 2.24 Accuracy. Against a White Con, my base ToHit is .75. Assuming no buffs/debuffs, my Hit Chance on that White Con with WH is 1.68 (2.24 * .75) - well above the .95 'Clamp.' Throw a +3 boss at me, and my base ToHit drops to 30%. Again, assuming no other factors, my chance to hit against that +3 Boss is capped at .672. BUT! Say I have the Kismet +6 Acc slotted in CJ. My Base ToHit vs that White Con is now 81%, leaving me at 1.81 chance to hit them. Against a +3 Boss, my Base ToHit would be .36, leaving me at .80 chance of hitting THEM. BUT! Say instead of Kismet, I took Tactics and slotted it to +14 ToHit. My Base ToHit vs White Con is now .89; now my chance to hit that White Con is 1.99. Against a +3 Boss, my Base ToHit is 44%; that would leave WH a .985 chance of hitting that +3 Boss. BUT! In reality, I have Kismet AND Tactics. White Con is 2.24 * .95, or 2.128 chance of hitting that guy. And against a +3 Boss, I have a 1.12 chance of hitting, comfortably above the .95 clamp. Again, everything is clamped to a maximum chance to hit of .95, and I'm not always operating in an environment of no debuffs (or buffs, for that matter). TL;DR: yes, I can reliably move +3 bosses around a map.

I'm a big fan of FF in certain circumstances... not entirely sure that THIS is one of them. /FF will give you plenty of places to dump LotG and FF +Rech, so you'll have no trouble reaching Perma-PA (which is the foremost goal of an Ill controller!) but other than that, there's not a whole lot that FF does for Ill. So far, my favorite Ill/ pairing has been Ill/Dark, but Ill/Traps is growing on me.

Something something Blasters.

This. Wormhole a purple boss into Singularity, and not take a single tick of damage? Yes, please.