Riverdusk

Controllers can be very tanky depending on the powers. My illusion/dark hardly ever gets touched with all its pets plus even has decent defense and resistances as well as a bunch of -tohit debuffs flying around. Also has near perma status protection with the psi epic pool mez protection power. /Time is almost like having an armor secondary. /Traps is another amazing one, good defense and status protection. That is on top of the ability to lock things down that the control side has. I've never had surviving issues with controllers, it is more about it just being a bit slow on the killing side (especially some sets). Blasters yeah, I find them a bit challenging as well, although of course much better than they used to be.

It is in their in-game power info. All their attacks have some version of the highlighted.

Thanks. That sounds interesting as well. I think losing the taunt wouldn't be too bad, especially if the PA's did get their own control power added. I do find it funny though that he considers getting to perma PA as "easy". 400% total recharge for perma takes heavy IO investment (and I know there is debate on whether or not the game should even be balanced around IO's, but that's another debate), and tends to make you sacrifice a lot of other options. It is already hard to build up the recharge you need as a dom for perma dom without sacrificing a lot of potential for self defense and/or damage. Illusion takes even a bit more.

If you mean like lower their damage, but give them some controlling type attacks? Have to say that is actually an interesting idea.

This is what I was thinking maybe is some of the misunderstanding. If you are thinking the dom damage scaler would affect phantom army, I don't believe it would. Pets don't tend to be affected by that. Haunts for example in dark control (probably the closest to temp pets like phantom army) do the same exact damage for controllers as they do for doms. All the tier 9 pets do exactly the same damage on both AT's. In all likelihood phantom army's damage would be exactly the same for dom as it is for controller. Add in without as easy a time to buff it with -res secondary power and in practice dom phantom army would often being doing less damage than the controller version. The only power (along with making sure spectral terror dominates in some way) I think would need to be tweaked is spectral wounds as that doesn't get full containment damage for a controller. So, the dom damage scaler would make it significantly better of a power than the controller version. If the devs are really the ones afraid it'd be too much dps, they really need to take a look at plant and fire, or even gravity. Anyway, if that is really how they've responded, it doesn't give me much confidence they aren't going to completely gut it if they ever do port it over. That's a shame.

How? And how would it be any more powerful vs. another controller set vs. dominator set? I could make the same argument for many sets that a dom is "more powerful" than a controller of the same sets. Try soloing an earth or ice controller vs. a dom. The disparity is huge, I'd argue moreso than illusion would be. Others have brought up mind control, by the same logic that one shouldn't have been ported to doms either without a nerf. That also brings up a big factor I forgot to even mention in my other post on how it really isn't. A great deal of controller secondary sets have significant -res powers. That hugely improves the damage output of phantom army (and spectral wounds, phantasm, etc.). Something dominators would not have access to beyond a specific power in a specific epic pool (which I'd argue that specific power being in that pool as it stands is more the issue), or a few procs (which in most or even more cases controllers can also use). Phantom army doesn't care about containment, so that isn't even an issue. Then there is the extra +recharge a lot of controller secondaries have which makes perma phantom army much easier to achieve. I actually think a lot of people would surprisingly find an illusion dom a bit underwhelming compared to illusion controllers if it was a direct port. An illusion dom might be fun to try and I'd probably end up trying one, but still not convinced they'd be better at all. My current favorite is illusion/dark and I certainly think I would have an easier time handling AV/GM's as well as doing +4/x8 content on that than on any illusion dom I can think of. As to some of your specific suggestions, I think I can safely say adding a bunch of sleep powers would not be a popular way to go. 😄

Not a big fan of the idea of doing that for merits either without some changes to some of the TF's out there. Quite a few TF's it doesn't take a whole lot longer to do them at +4/x8 than it does to do them at +0 as you can stealth/speed through half or more of the missions. I think It'd encourage speed/stealth runs even more than they exist already. People would want to do everything at +4/x8 (and even with a bunch of challenges for extra bonuses if that was also added) for maximum merits, but speed through for the least amount of actual fighting. Everything would become a max difficulty speed run especially at the scaling you suggested which was pretty extreme. I'd actually be more for that idea if the TF's that have a lot of just "click glowie" or "defeat boss" were reworked to have more kill all missions (or just cut some of the speed missions and lower rewards accordingly), but people would probably kill me for those kind of suggestions. Adding a few more badges I wouldn't really care about one way or another though.

Personally I'd have to say no, as I feel PA is the defining power of the set. It would be like porting gravity without wormhole or plant without seeds. As to that being a roadblock (because it is overpowered?), I'd have to see numbers that show it would be. It may or may not put illusion dom in first place for single target damage potential? Not sure on that. It'd still definitely lag way behind in aoe compared to say plant or fire (and probably others). Other sets would still definitely "outcontrol" it as well, imo, so it wouldn't be best there either. Three phantom decoys can only taunt so much, so it isn't like it'd make you some invulnerable powerhouse on +4/x8 compared to what many other powersets can already do (some doms included). You'd likely still get smushed unless you also had some good personal defense built up. In those cases phantasm (especially on a dom) would die in about 2 seconds so there goes another good part of your damage. A controller would still be able to handle a solo AV or GM better in most cases with their support secondary (and likely a powerful -regen), so it still wouldn't be some ultimate AV/GM killer either. Would still take an illusion/cold, illusion/rad, or illusion/traps controller as best in class for that. So yeah, some may see it as a roadblock, but I'm sure not seeing it.

That is true, and Azura (or one of her followup contacts) will introduce you to one of those three when you hit the right level. Or a detective will when you "save" a bank, or another 10-14 contact will once you get "friendly" enough with them. Edit: Sorry, Azuria is correct spelling.

Any origin can get the spelunker badge mission the "normal" way. You can talk to whatever origin contact you want in city hall and start on their path, no matter what your starting origin. Just go up and talk to Azura in City Hall at level 1 and follow her introductions and boom, you are on the magic origin contacts path that leads to spelunker. I typically talk to all 5 in City Hall on every new hero character I start to get them all started. You can then later talk to any of them to get introduced to the next contact of their origin. Alternatively you can also do usually 1 mission from the various 10-14 contacts and they'll offer to introduce you to someone else, repeat until you get the "magic" origin contact. Or just keep doing bank missions and get introduced eventually that way as well.

Not sure how that works out with a plant controller though that tend to confuse the entire mob. 😁 But honestly I have no issue with that. The buffs confused mobs give (if any) tend to be insignificant to most teams. I'm more interested when confusing things like force field gens or tsoo sorcs is just to make sure people can hit them. Or things like sappers that so many melees are so darn scared of, can't hurt anyone.

You could probably honestly just tweak spectral terror to something that would apply domination (if it can't as it currently stands) and it'd be good to go imo.

I don't know about you but I don't tend to up the difficulty much until much higher levels. That would turn the lower level game into a complete slog for a lot of people. Not sure actually encouraging even more people to farm/power level is a good idea. That is assuming by rewards you also mean xp. If you mean just inf/drops then it'd just encourage me to play the market more instead (and still probably encourage farming even more).

Psi also a great pool for illusion/dark. It has both a resistance shield and a defense power (if you need another spot for a LoTG). That defense power also is a mez protection power and I found I still got mezzed enough otherwise against certain enemies to be annoying even with all the safety ill/dark has. With it, no need for destiny clarion and I can definitely freely go with ageless instead (more +recharge for an illusion controller, yes thank you) The AoE attack isn't as good as fireball, but it gets the job done and actually has a bigger radius and faster recharge than most of the epic aoe attacks. Probably the biggest downside is just that it is yet more psi damage so phantasm and arcane bolt (and incarnates) is my only real source of non-psi damage when fighting the 10 million robots the high level game likes to throw at you.

Most I've seen put their camera overlay on top of chat, or a logo, or whatever. Basically hiding chat with an overlay of some sort or another rather than closing it.

Traps also a very good solo set. Kind of made for it.

Yeah, I tend to take both T1 and T2 on my characters, so maybe I'm the exception. In this case I'm directly looking at stone melee as a comparison. Stone fists is MUCH better than frozen fists and stone mallet is actually a tiny fraction better than ice sword (DPA wise). I'd love to see frozen fists get the same animation as stone fists (but icy of course).

Which is why I'll only play ice melee on a stalker. Bye bye GiS, hello assassin strike in its place. Yes, GiS needs a bit of love. Frozen fists also being terrible doesn't help either.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Confuse_(Status_Effect) As others have stated it is a sliding scale (see the chart in the link, pink line). It is very much worth it. Especially since there is always another mob in this game 50 feet away, it isn't like the spawn rates are so low that teams spend any significant amount of time hunting for things to kill. Confuse generally speeds up kill rate enough to more than offset any minor xp/reward penalty. Confuse doesn't take away the carrot, it makes it slightly smaller, but also much faster to eat and you get more carrots quicker.

Can't be sure it is a bug, but it seems Indomitable Will in Controller's Psi Epic pool can't be clicked while mezzed (have tried many times). As far as I know, every other mez protection click in the game can be used to break free of mez (rune of protection, practiced brawler, active defense, Kuji-In Rin, incarnate clarion, incarnate hybrid melee, and of course even breakfree inspirations). Not sure if I'm missing any. So, oversight? For consistency sake it seems odd (and definitely weakens the power). Just wanted to bring it to attention and hopefully have it considered on whether it was done as an exception on purpose or by accident.

To be fair, hurricane does BOTH knockback and repel. It will still repel true, but many have found the kb to kd IO still makes it more controllable than otherwise.

I wouldn't say "better in every way" as it really is just better in recharge, but it is a LOT better in recharge. Mass confusion is a ranged aoe vs. a cone and ranged aoe are usually considered "better". Mass confuse also doesn't notify mobs on use (much safer for those you miss or the bosses you don't overpower). So, mass confuse does have advantages over seeds. But I agree those slight advantages don't make up for the big disparity in recharge. I'd say it should be on a 90 second to 2 min recharge. I also think all the mass aoe hold powers in every set should also be reduced to 2 mins (including minds of course). Mind would then have multiple big aoe controls it could routinely rotate. It isn't like big aoe holds/controls are really even that game changing when people can just nuke everything every 2 mins (or less) as it is.

I remember uptime being worse on the live game than it has been on HC so far. Been pretty impressive.

Certain sets, my whole point was about the resistance cap if you read the other posts in the discussion. At resistance cap a brute is taking 10 damage per 100 vs. a scrapper taking 25. 10 x 2.5 = 25. Not even including the extra hps. Several brutes/scrappers can hit resistance caps to some of the most common damage types decently easily. Yeah, SR (which I know is your laser focus) not so much, sorry. Probably I'm getting off topic though, but I'm just bringing up things in response to those shooting down any suggestion of any scrapper changes unless "brutes get something too". And it seems a lot of that actually stems from the tank buff, and has nothing to do with scrappers in reality.

Brutes only need to get to around 50 fury or 100% damage bonus to get around the same damage of a scrapper (assuming an attack is slotted for the usual 95% damage enhancement). That lines up with the 1.5x base damage scrappers have. Yes, that doesn't include crits, but it is actually pretty easy in my experience for brutes to get to 80 fury which is 160% damage bonus. That puts them ahead, not including crits. I trust most of the numbers people have run that say scrappers are still ahead once you account for crits AND account for the scrapper ATO's that add to the crit chances. But scrappers are no where near 250% better in damage. I'm betting they aren't even 50% better. I've heard some numbers tossed around that it is more like 10-20%? There is some accounting to be made that damage is more important generally than survivability unless you are really pushing boundaries. But a brute doing 10-20% less damage but getting 250%+of the survivability still seems imbalanced to me for certain sets. But all that aside, I generally don't disagree with you, I think things are generally fine the way they are. Scrapper sets that really need taunt auras have them, those that don't typically don't. I don't really think brutes need nerfing and never said as much. I have long advocated for scrappers resistance cap being raised to 80% though. Edit: Oh, and as I said before, making "confront" more useful for those that do want to go that route. I believe right now it is one of the least picked powers in the game on a % basis.