vibal

Players like that debuff fun around them aggressively anyhow. Being stuck in an I3 mindset 20 years later. Better that they put themselves out there and make themselves easy to avoid.

Mobs are an endangered species and missions are a limited resource! In seriousness though the time lost tracking mobs is a debuff to fun. Grab a fresh mission and lets roll. Also mission complete is a bonus. Lets try to hit as many of those as we can.

I do realize, and certainly wouldn't trade the utility of capped stealth for a ST sleep.

But illusion plays consistently and contributes without PA. Tagging it as a late bloomer undermines what illusion is capable of sans PA, particularly in the case of a duo. I struggle to think of a controller that's going to bring more impact to the scenario described. There's a lot more to the set despite it being flagged as a one trick pony.

This is incorrect. Illusion gets the bulk of it's kit **very** early. Phantom Army is what pushes it into hilarious levels, but this levelling scheme: Blind, Radiant Aura, Spectral Wounds, Deceive, Accelerate Metabolism, Superior Invis Gives you access to illusions ability to solo endlessly. PA accelerates that immensely and turns the danger button to "Off", but by level 8 you have everything you need. Including an aoe/self heal and a solid +recov/+recharge buff. The OP isn't going to be kitting the toon out, but illusion starts very good and moves into supreme tier with investment. Also note that a no-aggro confuse is a life saver and provides 100% mitigation from trouble mobs. This is especially relevant in a small spawn setting which I assume is what a duo is going to be seeing. Accelerate metabolism (even w/downtime) is also an immense help to early melee characters. To the OP -- I would say give Illusion/Radiation a serious look for what you want.

hot feet, choking cloud, conductive aura....

The challenge I see is the metric for "good" on controllers is much more varied than other AT's. And the gap between performers is much wider. Illusion has been soloing Lusca since live and fire/kin was the blue side farmer pre-going rogue and AE and neither has seen downgrades in performance. Those are going to feel a whole lot different than say.... ice/force field. A class adjustment isn't going to close that gap even if it makes the underperformers feel more playable. Calls for a buff of that nature are going to be met with "lol I just soloed the RSF again". I'd certainly agree that underperforming sets need to be brought to a better standard. The class also needs some role at higher level play as many of the late game enemies simply eliminate your primary (rularuu, cim's, any +star content, etc.). I can't say I know a fix, but lowering the recharge on a power type that has no effect at late game wouldn't be it. As re: dom vs. controller I'd say just really think about how often you see dominators out in the wild in your PuG's. Now subtract plant dominators from that number. Dom's aren't out here dunking on controllers for general utility/playability.

Ah! Now it's a reasoned and level headed post. Maybe just communicate, and then play in an environment you enjoy.

Just responding to your general stance. You have full control over how you spend your time in game. If you're frustrated at mob 1, mission 1, you are fully capable and able to just.... leave. Form a group if you want to do a sweep through. Advertise it as such. They fill all day everyday. Should the lead have advertised speed? Sure. I suppose. Doesn't sound like you communicated what you wanted either and they filled. You still get xp while downed and presumably you didn't donate the merits to charity. I always click the comps in that room because its hilarious and I play toons that can handle it >shrug< The only time it's gotten weepy is from players on the floor. Can't say i recall a time that I failed that tf because it's stone easy. The lead is no more obligated to turn a 15 minute tf into an hour long slog than you are obligated to stay. It can even be >gasp< polite. Instead you took your rage fingers to the forums to post this screed.

Random player joins random group and random activities ensue. Meanwhile in other news players get mad about other people enjoying things they don't. Tune in for more.

Given that list Fortunata is the pretty clear answer. All of your buffs (which are fantastic) affect yourself, 100% psy, ranged, mez protection (rare for ranged characters), and you get access to optional controls that play into the psychic theme as well. SoA's were doing sentinel stuff on live.... they also have bananas buffs. For some reason they're rare in game because the world is weird.

Yomo's spot on. You have to find the right balance of mitigation, damage, and sustain. For any content/any level/any difficulty the answer for me is still ill/rad. I've tried a lot of the recommendations in the thread which all run fine right until the moment they don't. A ton of toons feel great in the best case scenario write up, but catastrophically worse in the opposite. Illusion has all the solo bits directly in the kit, and rad brings debuff/sustain/and an underrated buff. Some swear by cold for it's superior debuff but solo you're sacrificing the self heal which is a tool that doesn't matter until it's literally the only button that will solve your problem. Dark gets more interesting tools, but it's heal is tied to a hit check and it lacks +recharge. The gap controllers need to fill is damage and illusion is admittedly poor at utilizing containment. MM's feel great until some x8 longbow drop 4-5 autohit -res grenades directly onto your pets who are currently being blasted by 5-6 flamethrower AoE's. You can keybind, position, set up, babysit, etc. etc... but the juice just never felt like it was worth the squeeze. Willpower (or insert your favorite here) is a great secondary for melee until you soak 2 mask of vitiation's or miss a sapper and get 115-0'd on your blue in a matter of moments. Or two master illusionists summon x3 illusionists and 9 flashes go off in ~2 seconds. Exotic resists are present in sets like dark and electric, but then you're sacrificing mitigation in other areas. Electric doesn't want to play with 3 +4 toxic tarantula's and dark certainly isn't going to enjoy a bunch of carnie non positional psi damage. There's ways around a lot of the hurdles in game though. Envenomed dagger gives everyone access to -regen and isn't all that pricey. The p2w boosters are also underutilized, but give significant bumps to survivability.

Pretty sure you have vengeance ticked for your character stat output.

Procs have the ability to push some sets into playability that they couldn't achieve w/o them. They are also pretty economical with purples and winter's (winter's also lacking damage which is the procs most people lean on) being at the top end in the 20-25 million range. Also obtainable with merits for those who refuse to market. Most of them sit in the 2-4 million range. That is a negligible cost for someone looking to finish a build on a level 50. Proc slotting jolting chain moved electric control from an unplayable tickle stick to the most fun character in my stable. I guess you could argue that the set is undertuned if the solution is outside of the powers themselves.... or you could argue that the game system allows for fixing what feels like a gap in the powerset. The controls are great, the powers are flashy, the utility is mostly on point, the damage is literally non-existent. Plug one little gap and now I'm cooking w/gas. Procs also add something combat is sorely lacking w/o them (outside scrappers): variance. If brawl does 40 (-resist) damage. It *always* does 40 (-resist) damage. It can make combat feel static and rote. Firing off and seeing procs delete some health, or really needing them to fire and getting stung adds a layer that the static combat lacks. I love them and if people are corner shooting builds to maximize them... who cares?

If you're looking to stress test level 50 paper/radio missions give you access to some of the boogeyman types. Arachnos, carnies, and malta all show up. Longbow are another good stress test autohit -res grenades ahoy! Depends on the build & goal though. If you need AV's Tina McIntyre starts with Infernal right? Or you could just hop over to RWZ and poke a pylon.

Not sure who's not allowed to respond, but I figured I'd try to clarify with actual intent at civility. Take (for example) Citadel. Baseline it's a pretty boring TF. It's a lot of council, in a lot of the same maps, and with a hefty helping of "kill all". That's not the most engaging gameplay. Why do I speed it? Not to hurt anyone's feelings or put a crimp in anyone else's fun hose, but because it's fun. Gonzo pulls with splits and races to the last room are engaging for the kind of characters I enjoy playing. It's perfectly okay to say that's not your wheelhouse. It doesn't make you wrong, stupid, ignorant, or even a dumbshite -- all adjectives used in this thread to describe that* type of player. I don't need a rez, don't need buffs, just need a bit of space to have... fun. Why invite others? Because believe it or not, other people have fun too. It's chatty, engaging, zippy gameplay. We also all get a nice shiny reward at the end. It's the same argument, just pointed in the other direction. Not sure if that clarifies it though. My fun <> your fun and that's a-ok.

Except literally everyone in the thread. Also, if anyone touches any of my stuff, and i'll kill ya' 😄

"Bad Habits" "Stupid" "Ignorant" "Grandstanding" "Guilty" I mean... are you guys reading your own thread? Could someone link the inverse of this thread where the speed community is calling you stupid, ignorant, and incapable? I run fast teams and always clearly advertise them as such. My anecdotal experience is that I rarely see a fast player lambasting someone for not keeping up. The reverse is not true. Too often I've had players join my advertised speed teams and get bent out of shape that I'm playing wrong. That's obviously biased by confirmation. I run fast so that's the conflict I'll see most often, but the bad juju isn't generated by people implying that someone is too slow. 54 KM ITF's are fine by the community and being overtuned there never seems to cause static. It's just a farm with a pretty AV at the end, but okay. Maybe ease up on the tension a bit yeah? If someone joins your sweep and is ruining the feng shui -- clarify or boot. If you join a team that's a surprise speed you can quit. Apparently you weren't required anyhow >shrug<. The difference between the attitudes is I haven't seen a fast player in the thread, or frankly game, come around to imply that you're playing "wrong" if you prefer to spawn -> spawn sweep. Fun is subjective. Nobody is breaking any rules. Nor is anyone here (myself included) an arbiter of those nonexistent rules. Maybe have your fun and don't associate with people having a different version of fun. Maybe they aren't stupid, ignorant, or guilty of anything.

A control set that opens with two sleeps.... eeesh.

Literally compared them to VEATs, and only the ranged versions (crab/fort), not blasters as the similarities are relevent (range + mitigation). Also not sure if that's a lingering issue but I personally have never spoken in forum about sentinels for good or bad. But I'm happy to walk away from the convo.

Defender -> Corrupter would only be a valid comparison if corrupter's did more damage, had higher support numbers, and also had a third element defenders 100% do not have in their toolkit. That's the comparison being made with VEATs to Sentinels. If that were true, as it is in the case of VEATs:Sent, I would certainly recommend that you roll a corrupter instead of a defender. You'll prioritize support or damage currently to decide between corrupter and defender. Your initial case was for ranged damage + mitigation. VEATs offer that, offer more of both, in addition get team buffs, and a pick'em of pets or control. Flavor trumps everything and if you loathe crab legs or can't stand psi blasts Sent is an awesome spot to land. Personally, I love rad blast. I couldn't care less that it's a lower mid set in terms of numbers. When I nuke, I want an actual nuclear bomb animation. That's not the question in the thread though. You started by saying that range > melee. Okay, I'm game, but why would you choose less damage, less mitigation, and zero utility when there's another range + mitigation AT right over here doing that better? I'm not 100% sure where you're going with the rest of the statement. If you personally are setting the bar at sentinel performance being the baseline then I suppose almost every set in each AT is overperforming and becomes an outlier. But if everything is an outlier except the one little AT - is it maybe possible that sentinels are underperforming? Or maybe that the role they fill is niche at best?

I'm not sure what the disagreement is? But sure, sentinels are hella simple as well. Range > Taunt aura or Taunt aura < Range seems like a flavor pick assuming that's the only deciding factor. I also made a specific call to a character that fit the bill outside of the general statement. Sent range + mitigation combo comes at a price that's a bit too steep imo (range + mitigation - damage - utility = fun??). Brute, Tanker, Scrap (situationally) are going to do more damage and have more mitigation giving a new player a much wider target to land on. TBH if I were going put that much weight on range I'd still recommend a VEAT over a sentinel. A VEAT is still going to quietly buff the team and give at least the same levels of mitigation. The question also wasn't "what's a good introduction" as I would point squarely to a utility character -> particularly one with a force multiplier in that case. The question was "easy". Brutes are going to be the easiest you get with the lowest downside (again -- in my opinion). Also, sentinels really do not make it up in other ways late game or in teams. Your dealing dominator levels of damage without a control primary. You'll outdamage a non-procced defender, but you know.... support primary. Everyone should play what they enjoy. If you love the sets and combo's have at it. I don't see the utility in looking at sentinel numbers being a community issue though.

Melee tend to be much simpler toggle up and go, and also more forgiving as you can take a punch. Positional awareness boils down to "is it close enough to punch?" To the OP I would strongly suggest a brute. You get a taunt aura to keep baddies from deciding "nah, no thanks" and just walking away along with survivability and a smooth early damage curve. Dark melee/Electric Armor would be a solid pick. Siphon Life hits like a truck and gives you sustain in your rotation and electric starts okay and gets better with investment. Notably you get access to conditional resists that are near unique in the resist to -recov AND -end. Electric also has a damage aura which are consistently underrated damage boosts. Energize works fine for what it is and you can freely skip the tier 9. Dark melee suffers a bit in the AoE department, but this can be supplements late game through patrons/APP picks. Scrappers have a lower hp pool, but get to roll the crit dice if you like the RNG. They do have a couple sets w/a taunt aura as well (willpower/shield/and....?).

Nice. I don't doubt you see proc #'s on your AoE's. HT in particular is still on a 60s recharge I suspect you'd see more procs over 60s in the immob. >shrug< fun is fun though.

Imps do benefit from maneuvers. They're also targetable and affected by Cold's shields. Bonfire quietly became one of the best soft controls with the addition of the kb -> kd IO's. Grab one and enjoy it. Cold levels well as early on the shield are great. Around the time the utility falls off you'll get access to sleet/heat loss which are late game powerhouses. On the downside: fire really wants a self heal. Hot feel is going to put you in the mix and Cold doesn't offer much in the way of getting back what you lose.