Coyote

Illusion is very hard to play with Containment. Your only good choices are Traps and Poison, as both provide a fast-recharge AoE Hold. Otherwise, Storm has a minion-level Stun, and TA has a minion-level Sleep. I personally would skip the idea of Containment in most cases, and go for non-Containment damage... Storm, Traps, TA, and Poison are the best options here, with procs in the AoE Holds for the latter two. Storm and Traps have direct damage powers, and Fold Space to bring mobs into them. I always like Group Invisibility because it's a Defense buff that can stack with other Concealment powers, but if you don't have any Concealment powers, then Superior Invisibility isn't exclusive and it gives a large decrease in your Threat Level. Sometimes I'd take both to make sure that I am up to using 5 LotGs because Illusion is so recharge-hungry. For soloing, you Deceive a buffing/debuffing LT if one is available, and if not, stack Deceive on the Boss. Summon PA into the spawn, or use the Invisibilities to go past the spawn to pull PA into absorbing the alpha strike if it's not ready to recast. If going past the spawn is too dangerous because other spawns can see through Stealth powers, I stack Deceive on a Boss and use Spectral Terror to minimize the alpha. After that, it's usually time to start with the secondary, as Illusion really doesn't provide AoE options after Spooky and PA. Blind and SW are used to finish off low-damage mobs so they don't heal back from PA's damage, but that's a lower priority than AoE damage from the secondary or Epics. For teaming, it's similar except that generally I wouldn't take the time to Deceive a Boss, and all AoEs from the secondary have a higher priority than Blind/SW. Illusion isn't a strong teaming primary, so there isn't much to do. And often I'd skip Spectral Terror, as without an AoE Immobilize it can make the spawn scatter a bit, and the debuff/Terrorize effect is not worth it if the team is rolling easily.

I think it's yOU in its nature. It WilL can't really help bE itself. It really wants cONsuM3d to be friendly AnD and cuddly, but eAteN doesn't know how.

That sounds more believable... I didn't see it looking like it was hitting a 25' radius on my MM. Actually, I'm happy with an 8' damage radius, makes it less of an AoE and more of a mini-AoE/ST attack, which on a MM with poor attacks isn't a bad thing. Or on a Controller. Just not on a Defender/Corruptor.

Getting comparable damage out of a 25' radius power that also does some debuffing compared to a 15' radius Fireball that only does direct damage kind of leaves me wanting to spam it (AA, not Fireball). It also depends on your AT... Defenders/Corruptors may have better attacks, Controllers often don't, and MMs certainly don't have enough good AoE attacks to skip this. It also helps that the End cost is pretty low for a Fireball equivalent, especially on a MM that is normally penalized on the Endurance cost of direct damage attacks.

Counterproductive to what? Gaining Exp and Inf? If the goal of the game is to score higher Exp and Inf, then there are far better ways than fighting AVs, as a team or solo. Like Radio Missions, or DA repeatable missions. If the goal of the game is to face and defeat challenges, fighting AVs is a lot better than fighting poor Council in Radio Missions.

Yes, and you put in an Achilles Heel in Infrigidate (and also maybe up to 3 damage procs), and then Infrigidate becomes another source of -Res.

LOL. QFST (quoted for sad truth). Leave the poor low-damage ATs their damage procs unless you're willing to first nerf the Defense set bonuses in order to create a need for control, buff, and debuff.

I would say Ice is better on a Dominator. You can proc out the Sleep for some damage and run it at Mag6, so it shuts down the spawn including Bosses. You can then run in, wait a few ticks for Arctic Air to turn some to your side, and then begin the combat. And you get mez protection to keep AA active, and you get more damage to help with a low-damage primary. Earth also works well, although having a secondary to buff Animate Stone so it can tank AVs is something to consider. But only for AV soloing. Otherwise, on a Dom you can Stun everyone, then run in and begin the damage. Works nicely with /Dark as you can stack Earthquake with other -ToHit debuffs once Stalagmites wears off, works nicely with Earth Assault as you can run Force Feedback in both Fissure and Tremor and get Stalagmites and Volcanic Gasses up faster. It's a good Controller set also, so I don't know if I'd put it as better. I think Electric is clearly more damage than the above two due to a better AoE Confuse, so I think it's fine as Controller. But it's quite good for a Dominator, as it gives you back Endurance... and Doms are pretty Endurance hungry. It makes Earth Assault feel a bit less mean to the blue bar than it really is.

Interesting thing is that /Rad is better at soloing AVs/GMs at lower level. At level 50, they suffer about 15% of the normal debuff from a power... at 35, they suffer 30%. That means that Lingering Radiation can completely shut down Regen at level 35, while it only does -75% Regen at level 50... against an AV you can probably still beat its regen, but against a GM's higher Regen you really want the -150% Regen debuff. Same with Radiation Infection... against a 50 it's like a 6% ToHit debuff, against a 35 it's about -12%, which on a high-D build can make a big difference. Enervating Field is not affected, though, as AVs have no special resistance to -Resist or -Damage so they're equally affected at all levels.

Huh. Interesting. I thought that procs in Poison Gas Trap would be good, and also in Trip Mine. They're also fine in Acid Mortar. They're terrible in Caltrops, true, but that's about all. Actually, I'm not sure about Seeker Drones, how well they work there. Without looking at the power specs, I would think that they should work well since the Seeker Drone self-destruct is a click, not a toggle, and should probably have a long activation time. So putting damage procs in those should also work. And I'll second that about Acid Mortar, it's an excellent power.

I like that idea.

I think this is more of a Level 32 issue... when you give them the 2nd upgrade, the Prot Bots and the Ass Bot get more AoEs that suck up Endurance more. This isn't really a problem in the 26-31 range.

Mind on Doms is actually a good powerset. Getting double Mag on mezzes and not having to worry about Containment for damage are two huge improvements. Mind on Controllers is pretty bad. It doesn't set up Containment very well, several useful DoTs from the secondaries put out debuffs but break Sleep, and you may have a buffing secondary and no pet to buff if soloing.

Well, if that's what you mean, then there are some basics: Panacea and Numina's IOs into Health (unless you're 6-slotting Numina into your Sustain power for the Ranged D bonus, in which case the Numina IO goes there) Unique IOs from Steadfast Protection, Gladiator's Armor, and Unbreakable Guard into Tough. Unique resist IOs from Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses into some defense power that you'll always be running. Combat Jumping is good, but Weave is an option, and you might also run either Stealth or Maneuvers. Both of the Blaster ATO sets give Ranged Defense as a bonus. And if you can spare one ranged AoE to mule, the Frozen set for it gives 2 AoE Defense bonuses. The full Gaussian set into your Build Up or Aim gives 2.5% Defense to Melee/Ranged/AoE, so unless you're going for S/L Defense, it's a pretty good option.

I would, but only with /Storm or /Traps. The ability to turn small-radius AoEs from the secondary to reliably hitting all 5 targets that they can, or to turn 2xTrip Mine plus Poison Gas Trap into a 800+ damage nuke every spawn by combining them with Wormhole is a huge benefit. In both cases, it's really Gravity leveraging the secondary, rather than Gravity Control itself being top, but sometimes that's how really good builds work. You still end up with good AoE, good ST, and team support... it's just not really burst damage. Well, other than 2 Trip Mines and Poison Gas Trap going off counting as "burst", but the setup time is so long that it's a different type of burst damage.

Titan Weapons is bringing the challenge for second place. Because Stone Melee is in first 😛

Just to note with running a Fire/Psy (End hungry due to running Hot Feet)... the only reason to bunch up mobs is for the Regeneration bonus. Hitting 2 is enough to conver Endurance for basically anything, and hitting just 1 target pretty much solves Endurance issues (pushes it to over 4 EPS without any accolades and with only 1 slot in Stamina... if I add 1-2 slots and got some Accolades, it may break 5 EPPs, and that's also with Drain Psyche slotted with a full Heal set). Regeneration helps, but honestly, as a Dom you're in charge and not taking much damage, or you aggroed another spawn without having an AoE mez ready, got him with defense debuffs, and died too fast for Regeneration to help. The argument about "Psy ranged ST damage sucks" is a good one, though, cause it does.

No, that's not what it does. What it does is that a PPM proc with a 3 PPM slotted in a power that can be cycled 6 times in a minute, will have a 50% chance to proc. So you'll AVERAGE 3 proc activations per minute, but there is no cap. And, the calculation only counts the Recharge slotted into the power to determine its cycle time (activation time plus recharge time). So if you have high Global Recharge, or get Recharge buffs, you can activate that power 8 or 10 or 12 times in a minute, actually averaging 4-6 proc activations in that minute, rather than the expected 3. The activation chance is also capped at 90%, and there is a floor... I think 5%. But the main concept is that it's based only on percentage chance to activate, not with any kind of cap being tracked.

Controllers also have access to better position-based secondaries, so throwing down mobs into a kill zone with Wormhole is a lot better than just clumping them up like a Dominator would. Double Trip Mines, Poison Gas Trap, Caltrops, Seeker Drones, and Acid Mortar make for a much hotter landing for the mobs than just a set of AoE attacks from a Dominator secondary. Storm also benefits greatly from bunching mobs up for Tornado/Lightning Storm.

Almost everything in Stone Melee or Earth Assault. It hits hard, shakes your screen, and puts a low-grade subsonic rumble in your video card. Spring Attack has a nice animation and crunchy landing. Too bad the damage is so bad, although I think that may be due to some bugs.

Even if nothing else, putting more slots into the Protector Bots allows you to slot Defense enhancements into them, and the bubbles are the biggest source of defense for the other bots. Each ProtBot puts out a bubble on the other Bots worth 10% base defense.. the bubbles you put out are 11.25%, but the non-Protector Bots get double-bubbled, once from each Protector, so their base Defense from both shields is 20% (and the Prot Bots each get 10%). Increase that to about 14% with two Defense SOs, and it's a big increase to each henchman. As for affording, if you're not using IOs, what are you doing with all of the recipes and salvage that you've gotten? If you create an IO with every recipe that you've gotten by 28, and used Converters that you gain from Reward Merits, you should easily have enough money by that level to afford the 4 base pet Resist/Defense IOs.

I would put more slots into the pets, and get the Defense and Resist IOs. Adding +10 Defense and +20 Resist to everything is nice. Even better if you can afford the more expensive MM ATOs with 10% AoE Defense and 10 more Resist. The non-ATO ones are usually obtainable for 2 million or less each, so for 8 million you can get a huge improvement in the character's abilities. Also... I would be slotting IOs at level 27, as they are better than SOs, and it's cheaper to buy them once than to upgrade every few levels. The pet upgrade powers need Endurance Reduction, not Recharge. I would take out the End Reduction out of the FF ally shields, as they're not too expensive and you're not casting them that often. I would take out some of the slots from PFF, it has a very high value base, so one Defense IO (or SO) is quite enough. Use those slots to 6-slot the pets so you can put the uniques into them. Change the Fly slots to Flight Speed. You won't be leaving that on in missions, you'll be using Group Flight. Ironically, it has a lower End cost. But you'll want your Bots off the ground to keep them out of melee. I don't think I'd slot Boxing up unless I were using IO sets for bonuses. Cross Punch might be worth slotting up, but not Boxing. I'd switch both slots to Air Superiority since it's an actually good power.

I think there are three ways to slot Imps, depending on your build 1) 6x Expedient Reinforcement, gives you Recharge, and is the slotting for a Ranged Defense build 2) 4x ExpR, for Recharge. Gives decent set bonuses on the cheap for when you're not looking to max out their effect and aren't going for Defense. 3) 4x ExpR, Soulbound proc, Overwhelming Force Knockdown. Recharge bonus, extra damage from the Build-Up, and occasional knockdowns on their targets to help them survive. There are some other options, but I'm not crazy about them: going with Hami-Os... if money is of no interest and you want to squeeze out some extra damage, okay, but I don't think Imps are worth the investment. It does allow you to max them out in 3 slots, but that's all. 4x ExpR, and 2 more Defense or Resist IOs. I don't like this, I think Imps are better treated as expendable. The majority of the time that they die, extra D or R wouldn't have helped, because they chased a runner into a new spawn and took the alpha that would have killed 3 of them instead of just the one suicidal flame monkey. 1 Hami-O, Soulbound Damage. Especially if you have other sources of +Accuracy for them, or -Def on the mobs. It's not bad slotting, gets good results out of minimal slotting, and is useful for high-difficulty builds where often the Imps get squished fast so it's not worth it to invest too much in pets who don't live long.

Fire if you want to stay ranged. Add Earth and Energy if you are willing to enter melee (both have a good melee attack with a mez that allows you to "wake" mobs up with a Hold or a Stun). Psy is pretty good also if you're willing to take melee attacks (it sucks at range) and Drain Psyche is always great... but you'll have to use a KB converter in TK Thrust if it's going to be part of a chain rather than as a push back power.

The sets that kept most or all of their AoEs, I would say probably. The sets that traded some AoE for more ST damage, I would say probably not.