Riverdusk

There's always BAF, even my Masterminds feel useful on that. Controllers definitely as well. Anyway, /Dark on a controller is definitely the best version of /dark support, much more powerful than the defender/corruptor/MM versions. It can make your whole team incredibly tanky, still helps damage with tar patch, and has a great +recovery buff so also solves any endurance issues. If nothing else, I'd say a dark/dark controller should be able keep almost any PUG alive pretty much single handily in most "regular" TF's. So the downside is you wouldn't be able to post one of your infamous PUG stories while playing it...maybe...

There's also the confuse protection. It may be rare, but the last thing I want is for my own pets to turn against me, and I've had it happen. I think only mercs and /storm have built in ways to protect against that. If you're choosy about what you fight against of course it could never be an issue, but I like to be able to handle the full range of enemy types. Between the +tohit, the +perc, and the confuse protection, tactics is a good power in many ways.

Pretty sure alpha can also boost destiny powers, or can in at least one case I remember. That being alpha vigor seemed to impact destiny rebirth's regen rate last time I tried it. It is just not many people take that combo (one of my super reflexes characters was the one who tried it and it worked pretty well).

Never understood the big sapper fear myself. They were already nerfed to where no more than 1 can appear in any single group so they aren't really a big deal anymore. If you have energy defense they almost always miss. Most resistance armor sets have built in endurance drain resistance. My controllers just hold or even more fun, confuse them. Even most corruptors, defenders, or blasters have some kind of stun or hold and you only need the one. On my MM's one of my pets usually gets hit, not me, so that's no big deal. There are a lot of easy ways to deal with them really. I think people just remember the rare times they do get thwacked with it and that memory sticks. 😄 When it comes to drainers, I actually usually have more issues with freakshow super stunners since their drain is auto hit. Especially if melee, as then sometimes it is not so easy getting away in time.

I do believe stats were run a long time ago and confront was solidly among the least picked powers in the entire game (seem to remember it was something like 5% of scrappers actually took it). I think that speaks for itself. Not sure about making it inherent, but yes, I'd be among those that'd like to see something done with it.

Add in paragon protectors can't MOG. I was pleased when I realized how much less annoying it was fighting Crey on my electric blast sentinel.

I'm very glad, the stealth procs in particular, do shut off immediately. I'd hate to have to wait for 120 seconds every time for it to wear off before I could escort a hostage through a map.

Can only assume their take, but can give my own issue with it. That is that it just makes the game boring sometimes. Especially for those of us that like to play something like a controller, or a MM, or even a scrapper. We end up feeling more like a spectator than a participant. It becomes more of an issue when there are more than a few that have nukes and as mentioned once everyone has judgement incarnate nukes to go along with it. Incarnate nukes I agree, are the bigger issue and I think the "easier" thing to "adjust" as it'd affect everyone equally. With the prevalence of people asking to tag along as "sitters" on farms, obviously a lot of people don't mind that kind of playstyle, but it isn't what I find fun personally. And, no I don't find the hard star content much of a solution as I find them too "fiddly". Just feels like that sweet middle ground spot is more elusive now. I mean, it isn't terrible and I still join teams at high level, but often by end game I find soloing more fun and that's definitely part of the reason.

It'd be nice if some of the bigger ones were just made a bit smaller. Or a mod that really goes all in and makes them like 1/10th size. I'd be all for that (and I love MM's).

Sorry to bring up a slight tangent, but anytime nukes come up and how powerful they are, it is a really sore point to me because I always compare them to controller/dom AoE holds and how weak they are. Controller/dom AoE holds take 4 minutes to recharge to maybe hold things for 15 seconds. Nukes in the game that can just delete things instead recharge in much less time. Oh, and to rub salt in the wound, controller aoe holds have a huge accuracy penalty, whereas nukes have a huge accuracy BONUS. Pretty sure I remember aoe holds were nerfed at one point because holding everything for a brief period of time more than once every 4 minutes base recharge and without a huge accuracy penalty was considered OP, but just flat out destroying them in like half the recharge was determined at some point to be just fine and dandy. 🤔 I'd be much less annoyed by how powerful nukes were made to be, if they'd finally do something about how weak aoe holds were made. By the way, if controller AoE holds need to be all swapped to tier 9 in order to get the same kind of recharge and accuracy bonuses that nukes get, I'd be fine with that. 😁

It has enough defense to also keep phantasm alive and blasting too (which is no easy feat typically). It is a decent pairing and far from the worst even if only looking at PA thanks to tar patch alone. It has good -regen so still works well as an AV killer which is why a lot of people even roll illusion. Dark gives enough defense/res/healing so you don't have to sweat if you have a few seconds of PA downtime. Dark servant is always nice for some extra control thrown in as well, which can be helpful for illusion. After all that though, I still ended up liking my old illusion/rad better, so I get your point.

Honestly I think the set is very good and seems underrated if anything now as so many seem to consider it slow and outdated. The casting time for Radiation Infection was the biggest issue I had and that was already reduced and 'fixed' a while ago (which I find a lot of people still don't even realize). I find RI so much more useful now thanks to that simple buff alone. Side note: Please give the same animation reduction time to Nature's spore cloud. My next biggest wish at this point is to increase the radius of Radiation infection and enervating field. 15 feet seems a bit small, especially when I can't help but compare it to tar patch and darkest night's 25 feet radius which just feel massive in comparison. Some other comparisons, disruption arrow is also 25 feet, freezing rain and sleet are 20. Melt armor 20 feet.

MM's pet endurance usage could use a balance pass overall. I find it very much depends on the pet. My necros for instance seem to never run out of endurance, on the other hand my bots tend to chew through it like crazy (after 2nd upgrade power is applied to them anyway). The others are in different places between those two. And it doesn't seem to have anything to do with 'balance'. It just seems random which are bad with endurance and which aren't.

Yep, never run on an all leadership team in particular. But I have a long time ago run on an all rad emission team. Stacking AM being the big key, huge damage bonus, huge recharge bonus, huge recovery bonus, even a huge movespeed bonus. Enough stacking mez resistance so that even if you do get hit with a mez it only lasts for a fraction of a second before you shake it off. Pretty sure a lot were running leadership toggles on top of that. That is also of course if anything moves at all, which rarely happened thanks to stacking choking clouds. Was quite crazy good.

Good default for controllers is intuition. Helps your holds, slows, and still gives boost to damage as well. I could see an argument for spiritual too as that helps wormhole's stun, all of nature's heals, and your recharge. Gravity/nature has a lot of long recharging powers. It can hurt your procs though of course. I'd probably go one of those since endurance shouldn't be an issue with that combo.

Honestly I can solo Posi 1 with pretty much any character faster than most teams I join do it. There's no AV and the worst you face is a one clone of yourself and that is usually handled by eating a few purple inspirations. Side note: We're in trouble if they ever decide to give inspirations to those clones to use. So, I'm just there for the fun of doing it in a team, and I'm with @Ghost, I just roll with whatever. Usually if a team is bad I just consider it an extra challenge. If I'm on a support character it actually tends to make me feel more useful. Edit: Want to be a real hero of that TF, roll with a plant dom. Can confuse a lot of the door waves. Time domination right and you can confuse most if not all of the clones before the fight even starts and laugh as they fight each other as you wipe them all out without getting touched.

To go a slightly different way, the best character I've tried that has a lot of psi powers is a fortunata. I can understand that AT can be harder to work with if you have some specific character ideas in mind, although if you are creative enough I've found there is usually a way to make almost anything fit. They can certainly do well both solo and in teams.

Hey, I can argue the other side too 😊 I think it comes down to when solo they get the damage buff that makes their damage about equal (not including scourge). Combine that with a tendency for defenders to have either greater -resistance debuffs or greater +damage buffs. So, many times, especially solo, they actually can be more damaging than a corruptor. In teams when defenders don't have that extra +30% damage, oftentimes it is more a wash or even leans more corruptor though, which is why you'll often hear people say Corruptors do better damage in teams. To throw another wrinkle in, proc damage is AT independent (and doesn't scourge) so that's another way defenders can help close the damage gap. Anyway, any number crunching would have to take many different things into account, comparing multiple difference scenarios and comparing multiple different powersets and builds against multiple different types and ranks of enemies. Anything that just says defenders>corruptors or vice versa on an AT wide basis I wouldn't put much faith in.

In most cases yes, I believe you are correct, but there are always exceptions, which was my point. I can only assume the 'number crunching' you looked at was generalized. There are definitely at least a few cases where corruptors clearly outdo defenders (like my examples given among others). It depends on specific powersets and the situation. I also won't even get into that support is useless. Not worth the bother. 😄 Let's just say I agree to disagree.

Pretty much this. I think the main advantage of doms version is just that I can still easily control (confuse) nemesis when I'm on my dom. Pesky nemesis are confuse resistant but dominated seeds overcomes it. Advantage for controller of course is the usual great buffs and debuffs and oftentimes more survivability in other ways beyond control. OP mentioned plant/rad and for that one for example I'd lean on choking cloud as my backup control for the confuse resistant mobs. Luckily confuse resistant things are very rare and few.

I think your gut is a good one. Don't know if it is the best or not, but I know I heard time/dp defender as one of the better proc masters. Probably because you can easily get nice defense/survivability with defender version of time, as well as a nice +tohit buff with farsight (so less need for accuracy slotting and more room for procs). Add in tactics as well if needed. For damage procs don't care your AT (unless they decide to do that with the very long rumored 'proc nerf' that has so far not materialized), so it is a good way to get a defender with good damage.

"Mechanically superior in every way" is definitely flat out untrue. Perfect and most obvious big mechanical advantage corruptors have is a higher damage cap. Especially plays into if you decide to go with kinetics. They also tend to wipe out AV's (and even bosses) faster as that's when scourge can really kick in and make a huge difference.

Yep, good power now for my controllers where I almost always try to fit it in. I do wish a more natural or tech origin pool had something as good. I can make almost anything work RP wise, but it is still a stretch making arcane bolt fit theme wise when I take something like /traps as my secondary.

Energy Aura would be my favorite among those. Similar to SR in a lot of ways, but I think it is more survivable than SR in more situations. You face anything with significant +tohit and SR can crumble pretty fast. Non-positional psi can wreck SR as well, although that is pretty rare (I do remember running into Malaise and getting badly surprised). Energy has extra heal, regen, and resistance to fall back on. It also has two endurance tools. No real psi defense outside of tier 9, but it does have a base of psi resistance now and further psi resistance is actually fairly easy to build up (although it does cost some slots for all those +psi resist IO's). The tier 9 is more powerful than most and worth considering, since you have those endurance tools to help recover from the crash. Also a huge difference, scrapper Energy has a taunt aura, SR does not. If you hate chasing after runners, energy wins by a mile. Willpower can be good if you want a truly non-clicky play and it does alright. I can usually build it so that it still soft caps most defenses as well as having its great regen. You just have to be careful as its defense debuff resistance is pitifully low. It does have a taunt aura. Just for fun, it has one of the very few self rezzes I'd actually consider taking. It has some nice buffs so if you do get killed you can have fun with hitting it and yelling, "You've only made me stronger!" 😄

Yeah, I'm not usually one for telling people what powers to take or not, but no wormhole? Some powers really are signature powers for a set and wormhole is the one for gravity.