Riverdusk

As to illusion, having played both a lot now, I wouldn't say one is a lot better than the other, more just different. If I had to pick one I'd say the dom version is actually just a bit better imo. Dom gets an aoe stun, a single target immobilize, and a phantom army that doesn't taunt, but that does do secondary effects instead. Between just getting normal aggro for being there and the amount of knockdowns and CC that Dom phantom army does, I rarely miss or even notice the lack of taunt (mostly just occasionally in an AV fight). Dom has that extra aoe stun and I also actually very much like the immobilize for those AV fights which makes me miss the taunt less even in AV situations. You can get the immobilize on a controller too, but you have to go traps or trick arrow. Dom version definitely feels a lot more "controllery" than the controller version. Between phantom army and spectral terror it is definitely one of the safer doms I've ever tried too. Probably helps that I went /dark secondary to stack even more tohit debuffs and have a heal. I also love my illusion controllers, but it is nice on the dom to just be able to one shot snipe things and have some aoe damage before epic pool levels.

I've seen that too actually, although once again it is a rare sight. Multiples of a combination of energy blast and storm works wonders.

I've learned to roll with it. Only really annoying thing about kb to me is when things get knocked and stuck into walls and you can't always get them. I find that happens way too often on 'kill all missions'. If I run a kb heavy character I find it is almost a requirement to take teleport target so that I can yank them out (or have an untargetted aoe attack, although that can sometimes be slow). As to quick and dirty advice on what to tell people. More passive way would be probably something like, "No thanks, but I'll try to be careful with it". Some more aggressive versions have already been mentioned. If helps if you are the team leader as the worst they can do is quit the team. I doubt any kb justification speech is going to change people's minds, they'd have to see you do well in actual practice I think. You could even try recruiting and include the message something like "Knockback friendly team looking for more". I've actually seen that, although rarely.

No problem, the mods will move and combine them if they feel the need.

I've never heard of that and it wasn't my experience, so I double checked several control powers. The AoE controls of doms and controllers are the same radius in all the powers I checked in game (things like flashfire, stalagmites, seeds of confusion, mass hyp, total dom, flashbang). All equal radius between the two, Going to need some example of otherwise. The two are also almost always identical in control power choices, so they have the same amount of aoe control. In fact, Illusion dominators have an extra AoE control that controllers don't have, and that is one of the rare differences in any of the control set power choices between the two. Edit: OP posted same question in several different spots. My thoughts on original questions are here:

The one with the strongest CC is definitely dominator. You can eventually get domination so that it is up very often or even to the point where it is always on. It doubles the strength and lengthens the duration of all your CC, as well as making you immune to almost all enemy CC. Hasten from the speed power pool helps a lot. As to mind and illusion. Mind is more about direct control. Illusion is kind of a mix between control and pet summoner. Personally I love illusion and it is my favorite, but if you don't want to deal with pets, then I'd go mind if you are choosing between those two. As to which to join a team, either can work great and it depends on the team. Controllers are probably a bit more of the team class since they do have the support secondary. You didn't ask, but honestly either can solo as well, the game is very solo friendly, but controllers are generally going to be a bit slower there. As to a first time play character I'd probably suggest a scrapper, brute, or sentinel over either. Both controllers and doms have a bit more going on for a first timer. But if you know you love to play control type characters, then nothing wrong with going for it and this game isn't that hard to figure out. Specifically as mentioned, plant control is a good suggestion as one of the easier starters. They get a frankly some have called overpowered ability they can take as early as level 8 called Seeds of confusion that can just confuse a whole group and for quite a long time. You can then just attack them in safety and as long as you do a decent part of the damage you'll get most of the xp even if they hurt each other. As I also mentioned, personally illusion is one of my favorites as it has good damage on its own and has some pets mixed in which I enjoy. My favorite dominator is an illusion/dark. You have 1,000 slots per server though and part of the allure of this game is making a lot of different characters to try different powersets, so don't be afraid to go ahead and try both, then try 100 other combinations.

My first thought was bots/storm, but just a gut feeling. Necro/storm would be a good one as well with the buffs it has gotten and there sheer amount of pets you can get. As others have said though there are a lot of variables that can affect things, but either of those should certainly rip through things.

A plant dom with domination up, or anyone with a single target confuse. He's pretty easy when his own imps are attacking him for you while he's wiping out the rest of his own crew.

Howling Twilight, of course more impressive the more teammates you rez with it at once. Also my favorite for sound fx.

Some other way to get the zero-G pack would be fine and could be fun. Not sure I understand about the endurance issue of things like ninja/athletic run though. Turn them on to move inside a mission and turn them off once you find a mob to start combat? When mob defeated, turn it back on if the next mob is far enough away that it'll make a difference. They don't have any animation time, so it is literally a quick click or button press. It is literally how I use them anyway.

Well, it does say it has a 6 minute recharge, so that'd be the only limit beyond being stuck to villain side. Even switching sides briefly I think would reset the 7 day timer before you could get it back. Personally I wouldn't like to be tied to villain side only and with a +recharge SG base buff I have enough global recharge that I never have to build up my dom more than once every 90 minutes anyway even if I forget to click hasten or go afk. It is still definitely handy though if you want a villain only character and for when you exemp down and maybe lose too much recharge.

Might still be redundant and unneeded to have both, but not seeing on City of Data that impale is affected by dom. Maybe it is, but I know first hand not all control effects of assault sets are. My experience is with dark assault's midnight grasp which is definitely not affected by dom and it made me sad. Subdue from psi assault does benefit from it, so it seems inconsistent. Something I wish they'd clean up and make consistent.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Alignment_Powers The villain alignment power. You can use it to autofill domination. Only drawback is you have to stay villain to keep it.

You can also just drag a merit from your salvage into the attachment box. It'll auto fill your global. 100% worry free. Can drag the merit back out if you don't want to send it or want to send something else. I always just end up sending influence and 1 merit when I trade inf between characters.

They've also added an annoying cool down now to using /search. Maybe bots were abusing it somehow? A shame regardless.

I'm all for this as an Option. It also comes down to accessibility as some people have trouble keeping track of their own character if it becomes too translucent. As to it confusing other players, we already have a power that causes that kind of confusion that has been unaddressed forever. Controller's Dark Affinity Fade power. A power that gives the entire team (whether they like it or not) a 'fake stealth' effect that gives no actual stealth. I've seen people hit with that and run into a mob thinking they were invisible. Surprise. I'd say players following other stealthed characters when they themselves don't have a stealth power is much less an issue. That is just a case of knowing your own powers.

Combining two powers into one does have precedent, so it isn't an unrealistic request. That would be Invulnerability. Invuln Stalkers get environmental resistance which combines resist elements and resist energies into one. Personally Bo Ryaku is the one I miss the most on the stalker Ninja armor set, more than the endurance power. Having that 7.5% resistance to all is a good base to build on that gives breathing room for when your defense fails you. The built in kb protection doesn't hurt either.

I like an AoE immobilize to keep everything from running off. Also handy for AV's that like to run. My electric blast sent really appreciates it as things that get their endurance drained especially like to run off and scatter. Someone else mentioned rain of fire, another case of having an aoe immob being very nice. The AoE immob tends to be the only thing I take from them though.

Ice/thorn does sound fun. For how much +recharge you need, all depends on how you want to play it. If you are really good at always keeping both hasten and domination going, you only need about +70% (not including hasten itself). Someone ran the math a long time ago (and I'm assuming it is correct): https://web.archive.org/web/20090705110540/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Board=faq&Number=8925064 If you are at the other extreme and don't want to ever worry about hitting hasten in time or taking hasten at all, you need about +125%. There is also the option to use the START vendor offensive buff to give you +15% for up to 8 hours at a time (although expensive) and a SG base buff for an extra +20% for up to 90 mins at a time (cheap). I tend to aim for +110% global recharge personally as that gives me perma hasten, perma dom, and even perma dom without hasten needed if I use one of the temp buffs. For 90 mins at a time I don't even have to stress about it and can even go afk without having to worry about rebuilding the dom bar very often.

The name policy has never been implemented. The warning signs are just a 'test', so far anyway. Also, as said, those warnings aren't for actual deletion, it is just for their names being 'freed up'. Someone would have to try and take that name. If it does get implemented the only way to make sure you keep the name is to get the character to level 50. If they do decide on some special exceptions, it hasn't been made clear to this point.

Definitely use RI, I think the other poster is still going off of old information. Radiation infection's animation time was shortened, quite a long time ago now. It went from over 3 seconds down to 1.5 seconds, exactly the same as enervating field. So if either leave you in a 'precarious position', then both do equally. Personally I find RI makes things a lot safer than EV does, so I'd suggest the exact opposite, RI, then EV. Only exception would be if the team is really just steamrolling, hitting easily, and not in any real danger, then the extra damage that EV provides through its -res may be all you need. I know this was an old thread, but I still see quite a few people stuck in the mindset of "RI is so slow and takes forever to animate". I think the buff to RI flew under most people's radar.

Perfectly reasonable. It took me a very long time to find a dom I really liked and with a playstyle I liked. I pretty much have homecoming to thank for finally finding one that really clicked , as it is an illusion dom and they didn't even exist until fairly recently. Illusion/dark to be exact. And yes, I play mine mostly at ranged and ended up dropping the one melee attack in a respec as I found it wasn't worth the time and sometimes danger trying to use it. I did keep the PBAoE though.

Yeah, I wouldn't call bottom to top a 'dumb layout'. I think it is more just whatever you are used to. Most of the games I can think of that I play for things like that (Skyrim pops to mind), do go from bottom to top, so for me it is the layout that made perfect sense. So, I didn't even think twice about it.

Usually when I hear people with this complaint it is because they are joining a high level team doing +4/x8 while they are still leveling up their MM. This causes a lot of issues and more so than any other AT. When you join a higher level team you are -1 to the team so +4's are often +5's or even +6 to you. That means your henchmen are fighting up to +7 or +8 enemies. At those level differences it is virtually impossible for them to do anything against except die....quickly. When I play a MM while leveling up I avoid teams higher level than me unless they state up front that they aren't doing things at +4. Because at that point you are really only good for your secondary. Things are very different once you get you and your henchmen to 50 or even better 50+1, and of course also finish out your build (and add in all those special pet IO's.) None of my level 50 MM's have henchmen that die often at all. My latest (merc/dark) just rolls through most things. But until 50, you will have a much less aggravating time sticking to teams more your own level. You can correct me if I'm wrong about your specific situation.

Good to know, that's interesting. Thanks. And yes, when I said I 'attune' most everything, I actually meant buy.