Coyote

Wow, that is a lot of work. Kudos to you.

Remember that Stalagmites (and other powers with the foot stomping animation) requires you to be on the ground to activate it. So Hover/Fly may allow you to use the power only if you're right next to the ground, so... I'm not sure that's a very practical option. It is your main defensive power, after all. However, it shouldn't matter much... with Stone Cages (and all of the -Def making them more likely to hit), it seems likely that you shouldn't have to worry about mobs reaching you.

That IS default. Or should be 😜

Just to note, Sleet's DEBUFF lasts for 30 seconds, but the Sleet patch lasts for 15 seconds. So if you have an Immobilized foe like an AV, you're getting 45 seconds of debuffing out of it.

I've done damage calculations for anti-AV attack cycles, and Fire does more damage than Energy. But not by much, actually... and Energy has better mezzing and the ability to use Force Feedback procs. It's not fair to say "Fire has nothing to match Whirling Hands with Energy Release" because in order to get Energy Release you need another power to hit first... so it's really a case of TF -> WH versus two AoEs for Fire. The real advantage isn't in damage numbers as much as in the fact that TF and WH are both melee-range so you don't have to bunny-hop from cone to PBAoE. So I consider Energy > Fire for AoE, but not greatly so. Overall, IMO, Energy is a LOT better than Fire, with weaker but comparable single-target, better but comparable AoE, and incomparably better "extra" advantages (mezzing and FF procs, versus Fire doing its single-target damage at range).

Ill/Storm is my primary, and it solos well from 2 to 50+, including AVs. Missions are a breeze, it's probably the best combo in the game in the low-mid levels for not caring about any kind of bad 2 +2 Bosses combo at the end of a mission, EBs, etc. Between Deceive and PA, end Bosses are easy, and for fighting your way to them it does very well. It doesn't clear large spawns very well, not like Plant or Fire, but it does very well against smaller groups of tougher mobs. Endurance will be an issue, you'll have to plan to try to mitigate that.

You have it right, though it's normal to add boosters and end up with 2x 50(+5) IOs

Well, at least it's not Trolls posting from Skyway City

The most fun Assault sets IMO are Savage and Energy, and both play well also. Psy is powerful, but feels boring. Earth is also pretty good, and it's fun to knock down mobs over and over again. For control, I like Plant because it frees you to spend most of your time smashing. Earth is a lot of fun, and I like Electric's constant knockdowns. Dark is strong, but has less of a visual impact. Pick some combination of the above... I played Plant/Savage, Dark/Savage, and Ele/Earth, and all seemed both fun and impactful.

EBs, Bosses, LTs, you can survive aggro without a great build. AVs will kill you if you don't have a great defensive build. Some will kill you even with a great defensive build. However, Animate Stone is a very tough pet... 40% is his lowest resistance, which goes up to 60% with pet IOs (and that's only to Smashing... Lethal is 70%, and everything else is 80% or higher). That's before adding in some Resist buffs from Pain, Thermal, Plant or Sonic, which generally put him over 80%... 85% with Barrier. That's seriously tough. Add in healing from those sets (Medicine Pool is needed for Sonic), and Stoney can stand in front of an AV. Cold has different stats, but can also work well enough to keep Stoney alive. I don't know if Singularity can do that, because you cannot heal it. Yes, it will take little damage per hit, but it will eventually go down to an AV. However, the real reason why Earth handles AVs if you can buff Stoney, while Gravity cannot, is very simple: Animate Stone has Taunt effect on all of its attacks, so it can hold the AV's aggro. Singularity does not, so you will pull aggro from it to you, in which case see the part above where the AV kills you. BTW, because AVs resist most debuffs strongly and are pretty hard to control, having great AoE debuffs and controls doesn't mean that much against them. It's all about Stoney tanking the AV, while other permanent pets cannot. Earthquake and Volcanic Gases are great powers, but for normal spawns, not for AV fights.

The shortest and simplest thing to say is that Ghost Widow's set isn't that great for set bonuses. And your main single-target damage comes from your single-target Hold, slotted with procs. Put one Acc/Mez HO in it, and then 5 damage procs including both purples. This one move won't lose you much in set bonuses, and it will almost double the power's damage, and it's immediate damage rather than DoT. The second thing is that Living Shadows doesnt' do that much damage base, but does get good damage from procs. I'd 6- slot it, using all 5 available damage procs, and an Acc/Dam IO. You do lose the bonuses from a nice set, but you still improve its power a lot. That sacrifices only two powers worth of set bonuses, and gets you a lot of extra damage.

No. I mean, I'm willing to go into it for a big benefit. Energy Assault gets its only AoE there, and uses Total Focus to almost double that. Earth Assault has three melee- range (one slightly more) AoE plus some great melee attacks. Savage Assault just doesn't have enough ranged attacks to stay at range. So there are reasons to go into melee with some characters. But it's a lot easier to build for capped Ranged Defense, solid AoE Def, and back it up with a resist shield, than to try to also get Melee Defense high (or depend on Melee Defense and let Ranged/AoE slip, when many mobs will happily stay away and shoot). So there are a good amount of drawbacks to making a character who depends on melee range for a lot of its damage, and I want to see some serious damage, like Seismic Smash, if I'm going in there. Dark Assault has solid ranged attacks, and while its melee attacks are a bit better, I don't think they're good enough to build the character to survive in melee plus spending the time to move from target to target.

Don't worry about it... if you take Earth with the plan to have Stoney tank an AV, you need a secondary that can debuff the AV or buff Stoney, and Storm is too offensive. You want Cold or Thermal as best options, with Pain, Nature, Dark, and Empathy also useful for that. And Grav/Storm is an excellent mix, using Wormhole to bunch mobs up so that Tornado and Lightning Storm's little 5' radius "AoE" effects hit multiple targets reliably.

Correct. As EmperorSteele pointed out, it's hard to slot a Hold power with damage procs and add anything else, much less worry about Recharge. However, Time's Hold doesn't do damage, so it doesn't have access to as many damage procs. 4 from the Hold set, and that leaves you with two slots for Accuracy/Hold which is decent. Blind could take as many as 6 procs, but if you're putting the purple Hold IO into Time's hold power, then you only have 5 procs available. That leaves you with one slot... you could treat it fully as a damage power and slot an Acc/Dam, or between set bonuses and its base Accuracy bonus, go with a Damage/Mez Hami-O. In any case, with two Holds, you don't need to worry too much about slotting them for Hold. You have those two plus Deceive, that allows you to take care of two Bosses pretty easily: one gets double-Held and the other gets Deceive stacked upon it. Then, with the -ToHit from Spectral Terror and Time's Juncture, the lesser mobs aren't going to do much to you even on the rare occasions when they do hit. Basically, slot for damage primarily with damage procs, follow up with damage slotting, and only stick Hold enhancement where you can't put anything else, because you have so much single-target control already that you really don't need it, while damage is always useful.

Dark Assault is also pretty strong defensively. You can get a strong regen-like effect with Lifedrain, and it can also help with Endurance management, and the -ToHit helps add to effective Defense. It's just kinda poor offensively 😞

FF is a set that focuses very much on defense. Controllers have an entire primary that also focuses on defense. It's superfluous, and Controllers do better with a secondary that helps with damage output.... leave FF for an AT whose primary doesn't defend it well, like Corruptors, or for MMs who always have a "team" to protect. I mean, if you're looking for efficiency. If the character concept just grabs you, then concept and fun win over other considerations.

Time is very strong, but defense-oriented. Since you ran an Empath, I assume that a secondary that doesn't do much for offense is fine with you, and Time will help get perma-PA more easily. All Controller pet summons are permanent now, but also not stackable, so Imps are always 3, Gremlins are always 2, and others are always 1. Illusion Controllers solo fine... their damage is on the low side over all ATs but good for Controllers, but on the other hand they have no problem with any mobs whatsoever. Between a Confuse power and PA, tough double-boss end spawns are a joke. The only thing they don't do well is clear-all missions when set to a large player count (which is why I run +4/x4 rather than /x8). 4: Influence is pretty easy to get... you can buy crafted IOs (not set IOs) and use them until the mid-20s. All it takes is one orange salvage drop to fund a lot of crafted IOs, and it's very rare to hit level 15 and not have had one fall. Just sell salvage, craft any recipes that you get, and use Enhancement Converters to convert low-value IOs that you craft into high-value IOs. Converters are obtained by trading in Merits that you gain from running story arcs (or TFs), or you can just buy them once you have a bit of money, and after that the selling of the IOs will fund new Converters as needed. Set IOs can be expensive, but you can wait until 30 or so to look for them, and by then you should have gained easily 20-30 recipes. After converting them to "valuable" IOs (anything that sells for 2 million+), you should have easily over 50 million even after the cost of Converters and fees, and that will fund a decent build at 30. After that, doing the same plan should fund you to 50, where you may stall out for a bit (as the final build may end up quite expensive). But you can still have a solid build at that point, and as you level up through Veteran levels you can start upgrading sets to purples and such.

AV: Illusion or Earth (Stoney can tank AVs with some secondaries, and unlike Illusion it can Immobilize them). It depends on whether the team needs a tank replacement or not. Non-AV: Primary generally doesn't matter much as mobs melt fast, so a bit of damage doesn't hurt... Plant or Fire. Solo: Illusion, Plant, Dark, Fire (with a defensive secondary). Secondaries: Storm for soloing as offensive option, Dark as defensive option (works great as Fire/Dark). Maybe Time if you really want to focus defensively, but IMO a Controller with its defensive primary doesn't need Time's focus on defense with almost no offensive boost, leave that for MMs or Corruptors. Cold or Poison for teaming (Poison if defensive needs are taken care of). Maybe TA also as it has two -Res powers, again if defensive needs are handled.

And sometimes the free mints are disappointing 😉

Tsoo are one of the best enemy options to fight with a Confuse power. Sorcerers are really annoying when they are against you, and great when they're on your side. That generally means Dominators and Controllers, though you can also get a Confuse out of Fortunatas and from Psy Melee if you want a melee character.

It's true, I have nice Dom builds that are softcapped to two range bands, with some resists behind that, and with easy perma-Dom even before Force Feedback, and with a couple of attacks procced for damage. But to achieve that, fat really gets trimmed, and a lot of default powers and build options are used, leaving little wiggle room in the builds for fun powers, interesting slotting options, etc. It's possible to min-max Doms pretty well, but other ATs often can min-max while having more utility powers, or fun powers. And the ATO is a solid IO for low-difficulty play. It's a mixture of damage via DoT and a bit of mezzing and a bit of aggro pull... for Doms without a good build who play at lower difficulty levels, it makes a big difference. That's because its damage is more noticeable if your damage isn't that high, and if your damage isn't that high, mobs survive longer to take more of the DoT, and if you're not at high difficulty, then the Orb survives longer. But at higher difficulty settings, it does a couple of weak ticks of damage, then gets clobbered either by a couple of single-target attacks (at least it absorbed those), or by some AoEs. You don't get its full damage, or mezzing ability, and if you're playing at higher difficulties then probably your personal tanking ability is so much higher than the Orb's that anything that is a threat treats it kind of like an origami speed bump. It's not a bad ATO for weak builds that can use it to help, but as the rest of the build gets better, it gets less and less effective. I usually do slot it early, but also usually get rid of it in the 30s or 40s. Improving it in some way (and distinguishing it from the Controller version) wouldn't be a bad idea... maybe turning it into a PBAoE debuffer with -Dam/-ToHit, or +Def aura, or a DoT healing aura.

I've soloed AVs and GMs with my Dominators. I think that the blanket statement that they are a melee archetype is wrong (nobody considers Blasters a melee archetype, yet some of their hardest hitting attacks are melee), and that they can't melee with the main targets follows from that. This may be more of a problem, issue, or discussion that is relevant to particular builds. I'm not sure that actually counts, as other ATs also have builds that have problems with AVs... but if we are going to say that the AT has a problem because it gets squished too often against AVs, maybe it's more of a question of saying WHICH combinations have problems with AVs. I agree that there is a bit of a general argument that any AT that uses melee attacks quite a bit SHOULD have some defenses, even if they only come in the form of a HP boost. And therefore, that Doms should get some boost in base non-active survivability, as Blasters did twice (HP increase, Sustain powers). But I think that there is some difference between agreeing that they are slightly below where they should be defensively, versus saying that they're a melee AT that can't survive in melee.

One thing to note is that it's actually possible to pull the non-teleporting Duray away from their spawn spot, and if you pull him a good distance and leave the other one alone, it's possible to fight him alone. I'm not sure this will matter for a team that can handle the incoming damage and has outgoing damage issues, but it may help. Note that if you do this, he re-animates as an Elite Boss and keeps coming back for you, but at least he's an EB and not an AV.

That's because you didn't. You did.

I kinda figured that some characters would be so "mighty" that when they fake punch in the direction of the ground, the ground quivers and shakes from fear. Actually HITTING it would be much too powerful to use on an inhabited planet.