Riverdusk

Exactly. Perfect set to load up on the P2W temp attacks, most of which are very cheap. The biggest drawbacks of them really are the base accuracy which you of course can't enhance, and that most of them have knockback. Earth control can mitigate both of those issues. My favorite one really is plasmatic taser, which basically gives you an energy torrent clone for virtually free.

Are you trying to fight +4's or something? That would severely cut down on the duration of the confuse effect. You also won't notice it of course if the rest of your team is wiping things out in a few seconds. That's unfortunately one of the drawbacks is that it takes a few seconds to "get started". My own experience is I definitely regularly notice confused enemies from it, even at a low level. Heck, I was on a DFB not too long ago that had an ice controller on it while I was on my plant controller. Some people credited me for all the confused mobs while we were doing it assuming I was using seeds. I had to tell them I didn't even have access to that power on the beginning of a DFB, it was all the ice controller's doing.

As noted in the wiki for this mission, Atta is almost always in the same spot, so once you know where that is there is not really any "finding" needed. Speeds that mission up a lot if you just stealth to him. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Talshak_the_Mystic#Defeat_Trolls.27_leader.2C_Atta

Infiltration (which is missing from the poll). The only travel power you can slot a LoTG in. Throw in one more slot for a universal travel +run/+jump speed and my level 35 character with it is sitting at about 78mph run/jump speed. Plenty fast.

Yep, FF could use some changes, but the everyone is at soft cap is definitely overblown as well. Especially for those of us that level up "normally" and don't power level there in an hour and then have a billion ready to throw at the build. Just for another anecdote to throw out there, I've been watching some people streaming the game and you can see their builds when they go to level up. Have seen some crazy things, and it is very rare to see anyone even close to "min-maxing". I think they are more the average than you see on the forums.

Always been a group for me that is definitely harder for my melee characters rather than my ranged ones. My ranged characters can pick them off pretty easy as the zombies move so slow, even if you don't have any knockback or slows. Melee kind of has to get in there and they can hurt close up. Of course as mentioned you can take them out pretty easy regardless with good use of temp powers.

Mace has good aoe I'd say, although it comes late, so be aware of that if you want an exemping character. The really good aoe is at 32. I know a lot of people that love bio and seem to make it work. Personally it always felt a little too squishy for my taste, even after a decent amount of IO's. Maybe at end game when it is really all maxed with IO's and incarnate it works out. I feel like I have a much sturdier character on the way up (since I don't power level or farm) with a lot of other secondary's. Have to say energy aura is my new favorite secondary. I have both a dm/energy and a war mace/energy at 50 and both are great. The only knock I usually see about energy aura is just the cosmetic one that its stealth cloak hides your character (when not attacking). So, you kind of end up looking like a stalker. 🙂 Be aware if that is an issue for you.

Unless you choose one of the 5 out of 13 scrapper secondary's that do have a taunt aura.

I entered a +4/x8 radio mission solo two days ago and got 2 purples from the very first group I fought, within seconds of each other. Yesterday I got two more on one mission. So, I'd also say the opposite. Purples are (usually) rare enough that you'll just end up going on streaks of not getting them I think.

Have to say my latest, a dark melee/energy aura scrapper was easy sailing from early level all the way through 50+. It gets both good single target and aoe early (especially now with the touch of fear change). It gets a heal early and its tohit debuffs synergize well with a powerful defense set. Even early on bosses were whiffing after I hit them a couple of times or put a touch of fear on them. Even the psi hole isn't as bad thanks to the extra healing and tohit debuffs. It doesn't get endurance help until level 28 might be the only early issue. But I do have to say I always make use of the P2W buffs at least through level 30 or so, and typically also pick up the SG +recovery base buff, so that wasn't a real big issue either. Neither buff are expensive at lower levels even for newbies, just more that someone has to let them know they exist.

By tagging along you can get the badge for doing it and unlock them before you are high enough to pick the powers. Not sure if there is a bare minimum level, but you can definitely do it early, then have it ready to go for you when you hit 35, which is very nice.

Also look at some of the P2W temp attack powers. Most are very cheap. They auto scale for damage. Tend to really shine early on while you still have "beginners luck" and potentially DFB bonuses going, but the right IO bonuses can help later. Thematically they seem especially well suited to thug builds as you can get a baseball bat and a hammer to smack things with. My latest thug MM went a LOT faster leveling up when solo from jumping in and using them.

Big pros of storm/dark: Having a self heal without having to go into medicine pool and having an aoe immobilize (to keep things from running away from your storm powers and easier "herdicaning" if that is your thing) without having to dip into a specific epic pool. There is also as you mentioned the stun stacking possibility (although thunderclap and tornado already do that to an extent). Always thought it was one of the best storm combo's. Honestly the slightly lower damage of dark blast isn't that much of a concern with how much damage storm brings to the table. As for endurance, I've always thought Victory Rush is underrated if you can't find a way to solve endurance in other ways. Since you already have two leadership powers in both builds it'd be an easy pickup. Using it even on a lieutenant level mob gives you +30% recovery (enhanceable) and a 15% endurance discount for 2 mins at a time. That is better than having a second stamina for both you and your team. Edit: My bad, forgot its recharge time can't be reduced. Still not a bad uptime even so.

Yep, the people who say it is so great because "you can stack it for great regen!" must be playing a very different game than me. And I'm not even talking about steamroller teams, but even most "normal" teams aren't going to be sticking around the same 40 foot radius for more than 50-60 seconds at a time it'd take to get two of these planted even with lots of recharge, outside the rare AV battle. Heck, a lot of times even AV's don't last more than 60 seconds. I'd be for making it mobile, or at the least halving its base recharge (and also halving duration if needed for "balance"). While they are at it, they could cut the animation time (which is also really bad on both beacon and spirit tree and yet another drawback).

Good memories, I totally forgot the epic pool came first. So, probably was just a design philosophy shift, but an old one where Idom Will got left behind. Even if you do go hard core enough for the recharge to get it perma, the way it is now, you have to remember to click it every time of course, since you are forced to use it proactively. Myself, I forget often enough that even with it perma or near perma I still need to carry some break frees. What I ended up realizing I needed to do on my 50 illusion controller who has it within a few seconds of perma. So basically, in my case anyways, it just reduces the number of break frees I need by a few rather than eliminating the need for them. Break frees themselves being another example of something you can click while already mezzed. 🙂

<Principal's voice> Sorry, this is going to have to go on your permanent record. The worst is picking up one of those "stop <x> from escaping" missions when the person escaping will literally cheat and go through walls sometimes (saw it happen once but luckily still managed to stop him that time). If you really care about the failed stat make sure to autocomplete or abandon those missions.

Yep, brought this up in the bug forum even. It is the only mez click I know of in the game that can't be activated while mezzed. In addition to your examples, incarnate melee hybrid can also be clicked while mezzed, all the melee armor mez protect clicks can be as well (practiced brawler, active defense, etc.). Makes me wonder if when the power was ported over from the willpower armor sets and turned from a toggle into a click, if it wasn't just overlooked.

There is also one buff power (outside incarnate) that can add DDR to the whole team and that is controller's dark affinity Fade power. Not sure there are any others. Edited out other part as just noticed Doomguide covered that.

Exactly this. I actually tend to find controllers easier to solo than defender/corrupter just because they are so much safer. As to damage, a number of controllers have direct attacks that with containment rival defender/corrupter blasts (illusion, mind, gravity) and now a days the improved arcane bolt is there for the taking. Even just arcane bolt, the ST immob, and the hold is typically enough to get through mobs at a decent pace. Lead off with the immob to set up containment. Of course, I also look at maximizing all the temp powers that are cheaply available now a days too. There are the usual nem staff, blackwand, and sands of mu. Then at the P2W there is the baseball bat and hammer which are amazingly cheap and hit hard. For AoE, controllers with an aoe immob can freely use plasmatic taser and grenade temps for cheap good aoe damage without even worrying about the knockback they do, if that is a concern. All of those are only 5,000 inf for each set of charges. Biggest drawback of the temps are the unenhanceable accuracy, but lower level characters get "beginners luck", you can also get a nice +tohit from running DFB once, and there is the P2W buff which is cheap at low levels. A lot of controller primary/secondaries then also get +tohit or -defense powers. A lot of controllers also tend to pick up tactics eventually. All these take you pretty easily through to at least 32, when you get your pet, which tends to add a lot. I do low level MM's the same way as I find them really slow early on. It goes a lot faster when you lead the charge with a good whack of a baseball bat.

Main drawback of a lot of knockback to me is things getting stuck in walls, and that isn't really the knockbackers fault. I think I'd make sure I have a way to kill stuck enemies (or take teleport target) if I was to make a heavy knockback themed toon. Something I do want to try someday.

Add dark to that in my experience. Howling Twilight also has a "fear effect" in its power info and I definitely have noticed it causing AV's to take off. One of the most useful points of the power is its huge -regen to use on AV's and yet it also tends to make them run which can lower dps enough to completely negate the whole point of using it. They ignore most of tar patch's slow so that doesn't help and them also running out of the tar due to the fear issue just hurts even more. I ended up shelving my beast/dark MM due to the issue after watching the AV's in Citadel and Manticore running all over the place, something they don't do on most of my other characters. It was especially hard on melee pets as most of the time their dps was 0 from doing nothing but running around after them. Yes I could have taken an epic immobilize and combined with dark servant's immobilize it probably would have been enough, but that's later game and I like my characters to exemp well. I also have an illusion/dark controller and don't really have any issues with that one. Phantom army's taunt really does work pretty well. Unfortunately as has been mentioned these aren't bugs though. Better for the suggestion forum.

You definitely want procs in creepers regardless, it adds a lot to its damage. I usually squeeze three in (posi, bombardment, explosive strike) and use the other 3 slots for 2x accuracy/damage/recharge and 1 damage/recharge. Boosted at 50 that gives them 53 accuracy and 84.5 damage and recharge. Of all the other ones you mentioned they'd probably all work well, roots probably least since it is a huge radius and fairly quick recharge, but it can still be okay too. I know that is a common one to stick the controller ATO orb proc into. Not real familiar with enflame so can't say much on that one.

Maybe it was a level 50 librarian who went with alpha musculature for his incarnate.

When you find whole AT's "annoying" to deal with, that is the only real advice to offer at the moment. If you had actual constructive ideas on how others could deal with your complaints (other than telling people don't use pets which is a huge part of their character), or suggestions for the devs on how to deal with your issues, that MAY have been helpful and we're all ears. Your post comes across as a rant with no useful ideas beyond telling other people the way they enjoy playing the game is annoying. You never even asked for suggestions on how to deal with your "annoyances", so not sure what the point of it was.

Demons are actually easy to shut up when idle. There are a lot of emote stances you can put them in that will quiet them as long as you are standing in one spot for a while. I'd always set up a quick macro for just that purpose. Something like /macro Eat "petsay_all <em eat>" I find the noisiest ones now a days for just standing around outside combat are beasts (and the dark control dog) and those you can't emote to quiet them unfortunately.