Riverdusk

Okay, not to pick on just you as others have made this point, but this argument I find kind of silly. Does this mean that since break frees exist that melee AT's don't need mez protection either? Defense inspirations also exist, so maybe we should get rid of all defensive powers too? Healing inspirations exist so I guess we don't need any healing or regen powers in the game? Etc. etc. As to the original idea I'd be for it or something similar, as that rubicon has already been breached. At this point it is just a matter of if you have the influence to spend to get comprehensive mez protection (through P2W vendor) or being forced to pick clarion as your incarnate. Something even more on point, Controllers already have something close to this very suggestion (Indomitable Will in psi epic pool). So why not give at least one similar option to at least one of the epic pools to defenders, corrupters, and blasters? Why do only controllers get it?

I think perhaps you just need to keep trying different sets. I think more than most AT's, control sets are more varied in playstyle. Personally I'm not a big fan of mind, electric, or gravity either. On the other hand I very much like illusion and plant control. Fire and earth are also not bad at all. Plant is probably the earliest blooming (sorry pun) as you can pretty reliably shut down an entire mob with seeds of confusion by level 8 and it is easily up every single spawn with its recharge even with minimal slotting. Yes, often even bosses (between domination or control crit or (much later) contagious confusion proc). Plant also does good damage between its double damage roots (compared to other controllers aoe immobilizes) and carrion creepers. Add a plant controller to a low level team that is struggling and watch things instantly become 10 times easier. Fire and earth can pretty much shut things down by level 26 or 18 with flashfire/bonfire or earthquake/stalagmite. Most bosses tend to not have any extra knockdown protection. Fire of course also has very good damage. Illusion is a whole different beast and plays more like a mastermind but with unkillable pets and also good damage.

Also seen this as people talk up caltrops as a "proc bomb". My own experiences of trying that I found very disappointing. For the results I've seen, I can usually find a much more useful place to use those slots. I gave up and ended up only 2 slotting it on my illusion/traps with two damage/slows.

I like a lot of the ones already mentioned. One of my favorites I haven't seen mentioned yet though is Howling Twilight. That one has one of the coolest feelings/sounds to it. Even beyond the cool sound it has, it also makes you feel pretty powerful the rare times when you rez several people at once with it.

I'd actually save the ice/invuln for when you want to give a stalker a try. Ice melee is best on a stalker as assassin strike is better than greater ice sword that it replaces and ice is a set that doesn't give up any AoE compared to the scrapper version. Invuln is actually quite nice on a stalker as well and makes them pretty tanky for a stalker.

The only control sets that use sleep to any real degree in my experience are mind and electric. Not sure what you mean by sleep being the main control mechanism as sleep is skipped entirely on most sets by most people. If you are looking for damage there are good options that can generally rival and sometimes beat a corrupter (gravity or illusion for ST, plant or fire for AoE). Having support as a secondary set on a controller is usually about the same buff/debuff numbers as you get on a corrupter and can definitely be powerful. Now, if you get on a team that is just steamrolling through everything, then yes, controls aren't the most useful. Control comes in more useful if a team is struggling a bit and you can single handily turn the entire team around many times in those situations. On my controllers on some teams I feel like I'm not doing much, other times I feel like I'm saving the whole team, so it is probably a more swingy AT than most in how much I feel I contribute, in my experience.

Umm, stalkers very much have ice melee, in fact a better version of it compared to any other AT. If you want to play ice, stalker is by far the way to go. Will add not to come across as too harsh, there are other reasons you might want to play it on another AT, but just comparing it strictly based on ice melee vs ice melee stalker version wins because AS>Greater ice sword.

Yep, having -regen helps, but AV's can also be taken down with enough dps and/or -resistance and MM's are usually good enough. Force field might be the only secondary that might struggle a bit since it really offers no extra dps, -res, or -regen in any way (bots overcome that with their own -regen so that combo is still popular). Giant monsters on the other hand can be quite a bit harder, but I don't think there is a single TF that has a mandatory GM to kill. The one in Numina isn't a full strength one so it doesn't count. As said you can also just use daggers to help or incarnate interface. You can also use the incarnate Longbow Lore pet that has -regen. A MM is particularly suited to make use of Lore pets since they tend to help them with survivability that a lot of other AT's can't. Of course the incarnate stuff is only good for TF's level 45+.

Demon/thermal sounds like what you want honestly. It has buffs, it has heals, it has the -regen to take out AV for the TF soloing you said you want, it is thematic and from all reports one of the most effective combos out there.

Have heard of a lot of people having respec fails due to this issue. Or at least it fails, they train up and try again and then works. Could be just a coincidence, but I figure better safe than sorry. I always make sure I'm fully trained up before I do my respecs. Not sure why there'd be any particular reason you wouldn't want to fully train before a respec anyway.

When playing as tank I learned to jump to the opposite side of the mob so enemy cone attacks won't blast the rest of the team. 😉

Hah, had that same exact feeling going to beast/dark after playing my necro/sonic for 50 levels. It felt kind of weird not having to buff, buff, put disruption field toggle on a pet every time I zone into a mission. I zone in and am ready to go. Necro/sonic was a pretty amazing combo, but /dark is kind of a nice change. Definitely appreciate having that stealth field as well so I don't get ganked as I zone in if the door is hot.

Yep, some of these changes seem to be concentrating a lot on certain ideas strictly based on numbers or mechanical theories and "fun" is getting lost. And I don't mean powers have to be OP to be fun. More that taking away a rare fun different way to travel in game or being encouraged to spam the same power over and over again (the new touch of fear) is just mechanically not fun. I'm a little surprised it was even acknowledge it was meant to be "spammy", which speaks to my point. The shinobi change with regard to ninja run is just one of those changes that make the whole set much "less fun" and for no real reason. It isn't like it is really affecting game balance in any significant way. Ninja leaping around combined with shinobi is probably 90% of the reason I ever picked the Ninjitsu set on any of my characters. Now with it not stacking it ends up being about the same as the P2W power anyone can get for free instead of being something better and cooler and more fun? Really disappointing. It isn't like Ninjitsu set was even close to "most powerful" with it, and now it is just much less "fun" without it, so I kind of lose any interest in the whole set with this change. Back to touch of fear, I was originally excited by the change, but more and more I'm agreeing with @summers , no matter how "effective" or not the power is now, it is a spammy power that just isn't fun. Even if less effective I agree with some of the others here that I'd rather just take an epic aoe attack as the extra attack on my dark melee. I'll be sticking with energy torrent instead. I'm also looking at the new energy melee enviously anyway.

If you ever peek at the combat logs it'll actually say it there so you'll see "streakbreaker forced your attack to hit" or some such on occasion.

Willpower I think would be better as it doesn't otherwise have a heal, just regen, so it could come in handy sometimes. It also has some defense to work with.

Ended up going beast/dark on mine and can attest that is also a very good combo. Their personal defenses combined with all the dark tohit debuffs make them tough to hit and shadowfall adds in some resistances they are missing (gets them into the 50-60% res range to all but fire and toxic once you also add in the pet IO's and assuming they don't run off of course). I hardly use fortify (and not sure they are really any safer when I do as then they take longer to kill things). Only bothered slotting it with a LoTG and called it a day. Beasts do work pretty well with almost anything with the natural defense and resistances they have. Considering they are almost always in melee, appropriate that they should naturally be tougher than most sets from the get go. Kind of the same reason I think necro grave knights should get some base s/l resistance.

A hellion spawning inside city hall I've seen many many times even on live build. So, probably something to be posted in the bug forum as it isn't specific to the changes on test. Speculation I've seen is that it has something to do with one of the early contact missions spawning it inside the hall. Not anyone trying to grief.

Nevermind, think I'm done arguing the targetted thing. Spinning strike is 16 second recharge, I could see touch moving closer to that, maybe even 12 seconds so as to not get it too out of whack for those that want to still use it more as a debuff.

I could see that. I'd also vote for a bit longer recharge and appropriate damage scale.

As usual, an amazing update! Don't agree with every single change (that'd be an almost impossibility for anyone I think), but overall love it! Great job. 👏

To me (and I think to Vanden) it is simple and very objective. If it benefits from range enhancements it should be TAoE. If it doesn't it should be PBAoE. By the way I argued the same back when the stalker version of Frost didn't take range enhancements (before it was fixed). I literally posted that if it didn't take range, it should be changed to take PBAoE and not TAoE. Otherwise they needed to fix it to be affected by range enhancement. They fixed it and now it makes sense to be TAoE.

That it can actually use the range enhancements as part of its slotting literally makes it different. I can do the same. No.

Yes, it works great on my dm/sr and has saved me many times. And not a very good single target attack? It has a base 60 dpa, that isn't bad at all. I love siphon life.

Just pointing out that makes it completely different imho, and that one makes sense to be TAoE as it benefits from the range that TAoE sets offer.

Frost has a 10 foot range and benefits from range enhancements. (which then turns it into an amazing power by the way).