Omega Force

The 32 pet is just okay. Phantom Army is the real cornerstone of Illusion, which is very different than other control sets. Consider yourself... a prototype mastermind with invincible yet unbuffable pets. You wander through the chaos of battle tossing controls and debuffs to support your minions while they do their thing. Until they vanish and everyone they aggroed notice squishy little YOU.

Take both, obviously. Unless you can get 75% SL resistance without it.

I thought only offensive toggles drop when mezzed.

Spiritually he is correct, those other two *are* terrible, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that someone might not know they exist.

Thermal is almost all buffs, which can do nothing to improve Phantom Army. Poison, Storm, and Trick Arrow should work. Cold and Dark are about half buffs and half debuffs, plus Ill/Cold gives you an excuse to dress like Loki.

Mu has the SLE resist. Like Dread Shinobi said, Mace only provides false hope.

It has minimal FX, gives +21% SL resistance, and the tier 1 makes a good mule for a Luck of the Gambler. It's not used as often because you can get +19% SL and Fire or Energy with other pools. Mu Mastery for villains gives SLE and doesn't even have a prerequisite power. Also, many builds chase typed defenses instead of just ranged defense and solid resistance.

Here's a basic build. Good defense and resistance, two +recharge procs, a little team support, a ranged attack for runners. Put a Sudden Acceleration KD IO in Lightning Clap, for some reason Mids choked on it when I put it in.

Ooh, can you post the data chunk? I'd love to take a look at it, and I can't get the link to open correctly.

Defender chassis is pretty solid. Here's an armored build for you to play with.

Masterminds. Your pets can run around helping while you sort of follow along throwing the occasional heal or buff.

Here's one built to fire farm without completely neglecting regular content.

The purple says "Dark" powers in soul noir, and the outfit doesn't scream melee. Double dark controller or defender?

Good catch, thanks! Let me amend my earlier post, "Invulnerability is the toughest of the three powersets the OC is deciding between."

To build off of Screwloose's excellent guidance, for basic Invention Origins the classic ratio was 1 each of ACC, EndRedux, and Recharge, and 3 Damage for attacks; 1 EndRedux and 2-3 Defense/Resistance for toggles. Hasten and auto powers don't need more than 2 slots. When transitioning to sets, start with the endurance boosting procs for Health to ease leveling. Archetype sets should be next, since you can slot them as early as 10th. Set pieces that alter behavior should be selected before pieces that duplicate basic IOs. For instance, Lockdown: +2 mag Hold is more of a game changer than Lockdown: Acc/Rech; Luck of the Gambler: Def/+7.5 global recharge before Luck of the Gambler: Def/End. You make more money at 50, so there's nothing wrong using plain IOs on the way up before you start branching to sets.

As far as powers go, Liquefy and Sonics Cage/Repulsion are pretty skippable. Cage protects an enemy from your team, Repulsion is a knock field energy hog that allows enemies to bounce away from your melee allies. Liquefy does great things, but it takes a week and a half to recharge. Does it work on enemies that enter the zone afterward? For Beam Rifle you can skip Charged Shot and Piercing Beam. They aren't bad powers, but at high levels you'll have enough ST attacks that you can respec out of Charged. Piercing is a narrow cone that lowers enemy resistance by 20 for 10 sec., but you're a Sonic defender and could do that from level 1 better with Sonic Siphon (-30 for 30 sec.).

Here's an end-game armored hover-blaster build. Ranged softcap, hard capped SLE resistance. You give your team +30% resistance to all non-psionic damage, +50% if they stay near you. You buff their defenses, damage, and accuracy through the Leadership pool. Throw a resistance debuff aura on a melee friend and just shoot lasers for the rest of the day, or until you have to yell at a team mate to provide Clarity.

Invulnerability is toughest, Shield is right behind with more damage. Willpower is the friendliest to your blue bar (which makes it easier to level) and has no animation times to force redraw. Shield is better on scrappers than brutes, because it adds damage and has less resistance for a brute to leverage. Concept wise, I would go tanker, so you can control the field like you were directing traffic. Shield/WM scrapper. Shield/Dark tank, so you can see what kind of resistance they can get for a defense set. Elec/WM tanker for comparison. Maybe he was raised in the wild by Tasers or whatever.

There are two others: Champions Online, and DC Universe Online. Both are legal and free to play, and DCUO has steadily ongoing development.

Tried not to mess with your powers too much. This build is different, probably not better. I threw away half your regen and recharge for +10 SLE resistance and 36% ranged defense (a small purple away from the softcap.) Hrmph. I never realized how defensively shit Regeneration is, and the sentinel version is supposedly the best. Maybe you can find a useful idea inside.

Psy pierces the T9 effects of the giants and minotaurs.

Two concepts I had were: Yancy Street, Thugs/Sonic. An unscrupulous developer is partially successful in demolishing a well beloved apartment complex, resulting in a zeitgeist merging with the ruins and a pair of blue shorts to create a roaring orange stone elemental to help the residents protect their home. When they hear it, they know what time it is. Guerilla Gorilla, Thugs/Archery. This P.C.U. Adjunct Professor was unpleasant to be around even before she was exposed to Shivan radiation and the Will of the Earth. Now she is a radical ecoterrorist with the power to shapeshift into a super-simian form. She took refuge in the Etoile Isles after she publicly executed a weakened superhero as a message from the Hamidon. She still lectures from the Cap au Diable campus, but now her course syllabus includes Arson, Gang Warfare, and 21st Century Revolutions. She often takes her most promising students on field trips for extra credit.

Good thing the build I posted didn't. Ranged defense is 45.4x with Vengeance toggled off.

Quick fix is drop two slots from Hasten and move them to Maneuvers (doesn't lose perma), drop the recharge IO from Time Stop in favor of Superior Entomb AHE, and swap Cardiac Alpha for Musculature or Intuition. You have a recharge heavy build, but I normally go defensive first. This is a slower, more defensive build. I tweaked the power order to focus on AT powers over pools, but otherwise only changed slotting and sets. Traded perma-Hasten for ranged defense.

For Alpha I'd get Intuition Radial: damage, debuff, and range. Ion Core Judgement for another chain attack, or Pyronic Core for faster casting. Robotic Drone Lore pets, to hoverblast right beside you. Assault Hybrid and Degenerative/Reactive Interface. Destiny has more options. If you lack a heal, go Rebirth. If you're happy with your healing, and you team, go Barrier to throw out a rez and buff resistance. Armor sets should make Clarion superfluous, so if you don't need the other two, go Ageless for more blue, or at least more recharge.