Riverdusk

As other people have warned, just make sure to create a 'throwaway' character with the same name on the server you leave. Otherwise when you do want to come back you might find the name taken.

Pot, kettle. Accusing others of not understanding mechanics when you don't seem to understand how confusion powers and xp work? Again, there is no "loss' over time as has been proven by tests conducted by several people. Where is your evidence that in "normal" game play there is any loss? If people are complaining about confusion powers 'losing' experience they need to be educated on how it works, not catered to and have powers changed due to their own misunderstanding. Also nice circular argument in your last sentence. You are getting such negative responses because your basic premise is incorrect. There doesn't need to be a 'solution' because there is no problem.

Yeah, that is strange as it works for me when I did it (but it was a while ago). how mine looks in Steam:

Sounds like a lot of work for little payoff to me. I also take issue with your premise as it has been shown by several people testing it that it is not only not a huge loss, usually it is a net GAIN of xp over time as it stands now. I also have not noticed any "tensions" in the community about it. I think in all my years of playing this game people have brought it up in teams maybe a handful of times, and without fail several other members of the team always chime in (and this is in pick up groups) that exact fact, that is a scaling xp loss and that over time it actually usually improves xp gain. It is pretty well known how it works in this community I think and it is extremely rare people have an issue with it. So, basically this seems like a 'solution' in search of a problem.

I like 'reapplying' sleeps and it does some other things so have no problem with the actual power and would most likely take it myself. I just don't want to have to take it level 1. And tranquilizer looks terrible, so I'd have to take the 45 second power at level 1 as things stand now. And on that one, Tranq should at least do as much damage as the ST immobilizes do from the other sets as it kind of fills in for them, imo. Even if you have to up its recharge to 6 seconds like mesmerize, would make it more worthwhile.

MM pets were are all made 'pushable', so that be a rare situation now a days. Something I wish they'd do for all pets in game. Controller/dom pets still aren't movable last I checked and even more likely to get in the way since you can't command them.

As others said, anything can work. Honestly though for MOST team friendly I'd say mercs for primary. All ranged so less likely to get in the way or run forward as much and potentially getting unwanted aggro, "normal" sized so don't really block things visually, and low on the obnoxious sound quotient. Thugs can also be good and hit a lot of those marks although the arsonist likes to throw burn patches that tend to scatter things a bit sometimes, so I like to have a way to deal with that (a good slow or immobilize in secondary or epic pool). For secondaries, probably only storm has a somewhat bad reputation among some people and you need to be careful on how you use it. Anything else I can't imagine isn't appreciated. My current main MM is a mercs/dark and absolutely love it.

Close to the same idea, Bot/FF mastermind is another classic for that. Some will say MM's actually require a lot of micromanagement, but that's really only if you crank up the difficulty very high and against a few certain enemies or maps. Keep things 'reasonable' and you can completely chill with them and pretty much just watch the show.

Soothing aura on a MM does give +regen (+200% base) even in PvE. For some reason they changed it from healing tics to regen for MM's specifically. Edit: And they renamed it to suppress pain, forgot that part.

Also have to realize some will just find it dumb and juvenile? I'm more of that camp, but not enough to really care all that much about it.

Yep, as mentioned, F key. It can be used on enemies or friends actually. Can quickly reset camera by pressing PageDown key (changeable in keymapping options) or scrolling into first person view and back out. That should fix the 'side profile' issue.

Was my first reaction as well. Forced to choose between two sleeps as your only level 1 power choices? One with a 45 second recharge? Like, what? At the least swap the regular ST hold so that it is a level 1 option (like almost all other control sets). It is almost like they knew a lot of people would want to skip the sleeps (as usual) and are trying to force us to take one. 😁 Edit: Just double checked. The longest recharge of any other level 1 control power choices is 9 seconds (blind). Throwing a 45 second recharge power in as a level 1 power choice option is a definite newb trap. I can just see a new controller player coming in, choosing that (and not realizing about P2W attack options) and having only brawl and a heal and this power they can only use once every 45 seconds. I think I'd quit and never look back.

Unless you are using it in say a farm. Considering farmers don't move much, if at all, they'd have to cast it twice as often for the same end result. And the cast time is a pretty harsh 3 seconds or so. They'd probably consider it a nerf. If more concessions were needed, I'd also be perfectly fine with making it not stackable from the same caster, period. That'd also actually be a nerf according to a lot of people in this thread. Anyway, all depends on some of the finer details on how it is done. All I can say as it stands now I end up skipping it most of the time. If I have room I'll try to fit spirit tree in specifically just because I think it looks cool. Once in a long while I'll actually bother casting it, but usually to little effect beyond looking pretty. Maybe they could just work on making triage beacon also look cooler. 😄

With an equally shorter duration. But whatever you say. If that is a 'buff' then yes, I'd like to see it.

It does, just scroll down, at least for each primary/secondary individually. You can combine the least of each and be pretty safe. For instance sonic/ninja was probably the least played blaster combo. As mentioned though, it is very old at this point, and some things have gotten buffed or gotten more or less popular since.

Also might look at illusion/empathy controller. You get the best invisibility power in the game so if you really want you can heal from the shadows. Also allows you to tank (with your phantom army pets) in a pinch. Was actually my first 50 on live.

Just calculated it for myself and actually even with max recharge slotted and enough global recharge for perma hasten it is about 53 second recharge. A more 'average' build and you're probably looking at more like 75 seconds. A team doesn't need to be 'devouring' anything to go through one group of mobs in a lot less than those times. I think I could roll up a 1st level controller solo to take out a group a lot faster than that. Anyway, as stated by someone near the beginning of this thread, their farmer was the one most benefiting from the way it currently is. I'd say that isn't ideal for a power either. Technically I'm not even asking for a 'boost' as I'd say keep the uptime and downtime ratio the same, just shorten both so it is a bit faster to 'reposition it' basically, nothing more.

People always talk about double stacking with these and have to say I don't get it. Maybe outside of farming or the rare AV fight when are you staying put for the 40+ seconds to double stack it? To me those are edge cases, not common. Even by mid levels mobs are disintegrated a lot faster than 40 seconds usually and the team is moving on and it is left behind. Regardless, solution to me has always been to half the recharge AND half the duration. Makes it more likely to be available every fight and if the fight drags on long enough you'd still be able to double stack for a bit. Biggest downside of that would probably be the cast time would become more of an issue, so speed that up a bit too.

I had someone in game email me for this exact thing a while back. I wasn't really using the name anymore and gave it up for him. Definitely worth a try.

Yes, I found illusion/dark kind of overkill defensively honestly. Not that it is bad and I had fun with it, but I realized I like other illusion combos better that are still plenty safe and have a wider array of buffs/debuffs. Still think the classic illusion/rad is my favorite. Despite what I said above, if you want to be a 'tank' as a controller, illusion/dark is probably the closest you can get. Super safe along with decent damage (at least once you get phantom army and decent recharge bonuses). Ice/Dark should also be very safe, but damage might feel low, especially after fire/TA. Of course that isn't so much an issue if you mostly team. If you do solo I'd suggest picking up sorcery pool for arcane bolt and load up on some temp attacks, at least until you get your pet Jack. Of course I actually suggest that for any controller. I never start any controller without at least blackwand, nemesis staff, and constant max charges of plasmatic taser from the P2W vendor.

Play a mastermind and bring your own team. Honestly though you can solo with pretty much anything in this game if you put the effort into it (and don't go crazy cranking up the difficulty).

Yes, several stealth powers don't suppress when attacking (arctic fog, steamy mist, shadowfall, superior invisibility and a few others I think). What in means in practical terms is that members of the same 'group' will still all see you if you attack any one of them, but if there is another separate group close by, they will not unless you hit them as well or get close enough. Superior invisibility is the most impressive as it's stealth is powerful enough that you can literally stand in one group and attack a different group at range and the group you are standing in won't react. Note that clicking a glowie will still suppress all of them completely though. You can see this for yourself if you go to combat attributes and monitor "stealth radius pve". Yes, you retain all of Arctic fog's defense even while attacking. Arctic fog + a celerity stealth IO is the way to go imo (as they do stack). Stealth has a better stealth radius, but arctic fog's defense is better, it has several damage resistance values, slow resistance, and it is aoe.

That maybe true in the earlier levels or if you don't IO them out, but once you invest into them I rarely have to resummon mine and honestly rarely have to direct them much (especially if you go with a ranged MM set). There are a few tricky mobs or maps though where it does become necessary. Overall however, I think you are close to it when you mention plant control. I'd probably suggest plant/traps as closest to fitting your criteria. A build that has also definitely benefited now that you can skip web grenade which was always a waste of a pick with plant in the past. Honestly a lot of sets can fit what you seem to want though, if you are willing to fill the 'holes' with incarnate powers or P2W buffs/temps.

Not sure on that. Bought a steam controller in their discontinued sale for like $5, but still have yet to actually ever try it out. 😁