Coyote

RYuSerious?

If your Endurance management is holding up, I'd start Maneuvers. It holds an LotG, and it stacks with your other +Defense powers nicely. If End management is tight, I'd take Glacier or Frostwork. I'd skip Snow Storm in any case, I think Ice/Cold has enough -Recharge to floor the Recharge of mobs anyhow, so the only use is for -Fly.

Tactics isn't needed since Phantom Army can't be buffed, and Radiation Infection will generally mean that mobs are going to be easy to hit anyhow. It's a good mule for Gaussian's which is a nice set, but it is one power and 5 slots, so dropping it would allow other powers to get slotted more. Like, getting Energy Torrent with 5xRagnarok (or Positron) and 1xForce Feedback, to help with Recharge. Defense for an Illusion controller is less useful than for other sets, but I do like ot have some of it... the pets can't hold all the aggro unless you never use AoE attacks, and sometimes ambushes will attack you and kill you before you can duck behind a corner and let the pets take aggro, if you don't have SOME defense to slow down incoming suprises. I would definitely get Enervating Field earlier in the build, Flash isn't that useful early when you don't have much Accuracy or Recharge for it, while Enervating Field is quite useful with just 2 slots.

Jack's messing with your mind 😉

To note, Savage is a very high damage set, because it's among the top damage sets in ST AND in AoE. However, I like to say that it has "negative mitigation"... unlike other sets that lower incoming damage, Savage actually lets mobs do MORE damage than they should, because they get an extra second or two before the DoT kills them... or else you spend another attack to finish them off, in which case it's no longer that great for damage. It really works best with a very strong defensive build that can handle the extra incoming attacks, and leverage the high damage output. Note, though, that high AoE damage IS damage mitigation, so that makes up for the extra attacks done during the DoT period.

As Steele said, you can lower an AV's damage enough that you should be able to tank its damage especially with Transfusion spammed. So you don't really need to worry much about taking a primary that will help defensively, so what you will need is one that does two things: 1: damage 2: not much activation time used to do the damage, because Kinetics will keep you busy. To my mind, this makes Fire the best option. You do free damage with Hot Feet, it has an Immobilize to set up Containment (pushing it ahead of Illusion), and its Immob and Hold both activate faster and do a bit more damage than Dark, which is the other set that can put out multiple pets besides Fire and Illusion (and Electric, but Electric is low single-target damage). So Fire is ahead of Illusion and ahead of Dark, and those are the only real competitors... Gravity does good damage but it has a busy attack cycle to do it, so it's not very compatible with Kinetics. So, go Fire/Kin/Stone so that you also get Seismic Smash (because nothing says "I'm pretending to be a damage dealer" like a Fulcrum Shifted Seismic Smash with 5 or so damage procs on a Contained target 😄 ), and you'll be able to solo AVs reasonably well. You won't be a top AV hunter who can handle almost any AV, but you'll still be pretty good at it.

Some Lore pets do -Regen so they help a lot, and also Transfusion is pretty weak -Regen but does stack.

I absolutely expect a TA defender to be buffing my tank, and healing, too. Or else they're not playing a Defender correctly.

Most AVs don't run from Ill/Storm's effects, because the Taunt from PA is strong enough to overcome the Fear effect. But when PA drops, they will usually start moving, and you hope that the next PA grabs hold of them and drags them screaming back to die. Which is usually the case, but sometimes you fight a flying AV (Macomber, Reichsman), and it's "chase the fox" time.

That's because they're no dummies... 😛

Day's not over yet.

I like the Abyssal Gaze slotting. I would put 5xPositron in Tenebrous Tentacles, because I like Range enhancement in it so it goes closer to the other cones, and because it's a DoT, so getting 1 (or better, two) damage procs in it would add more up-front damage. When you use procs, you are lowering your damage if you add Recharge to the power. So for Psychic Scream change out the Damage/Recharge for a Damage/End, and put a damage proc in the last slot, and see the damage go up. And I'd try to take it earlier, it makes a nice 3-cone cycle with the others. Also, going back to putting Positron's in Tenebrous, you might then put the purple AoE in Psychic Scream (it already has a nice range)... 5 slot it only (avoid the Damage/Recharge), and then put the Positron damage proc in the 6th slot. Drain Psyche's accuracy is a bit lacking, though I also like 6 slotting Numina's in it. You can get more Accuracy by finding a slot to 4-slot LotG in Weave for a bit of Accuracy bonus. World of Confusion is pretty underwhelming, put a single Coercive Persuasion proc IO in it, and otherwise take the slots, take another slot from Concentration, and 5-slot Soul Tentacles with Positron's just like Tenebrous.

CO had a good "action style"... combat movement, attacks and how they're activated, etc. Everything else wasn't close to CoH, especially the stories.

My version, softcapped to Range with Barrier.

OMG, I SO agree.... only thing I hate about my Fire/Psy is how he THINKS mobs to death. I want MOAR SMASH!!!. Earth, on the other hand, is just awesome and really feels powerful.

Overall comment: I think that you are chasing Recharge bonuses too much, and not building for enough Defense. Chasing Recharge exclusively should be reserved for certain builds that have a special reason (like a special power that they want to make permanent)... perma-PA, perma-Fortify Pack, perma-Domination, etc. Blasters have so many attacks, especially Water Blast with all of its AoEs, that you should pull back a bit on Recharge bonuses and go for some Defense bonuses. 1: Metabolic Acceleration is a Recovery/Regeneration power, but you really want to slot it up for Regeneration. Put 6xNumina in it for Defense, or if you want Recharge, here is a good spot for a Preventive Medicine set. 2: The Panacea proc should always go into Health, IMO. Dehydrate should be slotted as follows: 1xTheft of Essence proc (for +Endurance, this will really mean no Endurance problems even after you change the Metabolic Acceleration slotting), 1xAchilles Heel to add -Resist, and then 4xIOs to get damage in. I go with 1xDamage proc and 3xThunderstrike (because Thunderstrike has 3 IOs without Recharge, and if you put procs in a power you don't want to slot Recharge in it), but 2xDamage procs and 2xDevastation is also an option. 3: Super Speed should have 2-3 Breath of the Zephyr, this will give you a bit of Defense and also Knockback protection so you're free to change the Combat Jumping IO to a LotG for more Recharge. On that note, BTW, I would 4-slot Combat Jumping: LotG, the two Defense IOs that give Resist, and Kismet. 4: Ionize and Tidal Forces are overslotted, getting 5% Recharge isn't worth it. Pick one power between these and Tactics, and 6-slot it with Gaussian. The others should get 1-2 Recharge IOs or ToHitBuff/Endurance IOs and be done. 5: I personally would pick at least one of your two starting attacks to 6-slot with Thunderstrike, or else 3-slot both with Thunderstrike... you get a bit of Defense, and you're not left without any slotted attacks if you exemplar to a low level. This may not matter as much if you really don't plan to exemplar that far down, but also remember that Blasters get to use these two attacks even if mezzed... so it would help to have them a bit slotted so you can fight back a bit if mezzed. 6: I would slot up Aqua Bolt with damage procs, use NO recharge in it, and let the "enhanced water jet" ability recharge it sometimes. It's not such a great attack that I want it up all the time, but I do want it hitting harder when it IS up. Here is my Water/Plant build as an example... of course you'll do things differently, but it will show how I like to build Blasters...

There is a "Target Closest Enemy" button, I think it's Shift-Tab by default. I always use that to start my tabbing from the closest enemy and go outwards. It pretty much solves this issue completely. Heh. My main is Illusion/Storm. You haven't seen "flying for the hills" until you have 2 Tornadoes, 3 Storms, a Rain, and a Spectral Terror, and Enflame, all with a Fear effect... and three poor overworked Decoys trying to wrangle them all to sit still and participate in the discussion.

The best AV/GM soloer WILL be Ill/Traps, not /Storm. Storm is a compromise between enough damage for normal missions and enough DoT damage to act as -Regen against AVs, but it will still struggle with some AVs that have ridiculous Resists so you can't out-DPS their Regeneration. Traps doesn't have that problem, since AVs don't get to regenerate (except, I hear, the Crimson Prototype?).

My frowny face is off cooldown, I'm ready to go 😄

Absolutely, especially for /Dark who has a lot of defensive ability from the secondary. Also, with the inherent accuracy bonus in single-target Holds, 1 Accuracy is usually good enough.

Illusion/Storm for single-target. Plant/Storm for AoE. Fire/Storm for a mix of both. /Kinetics is also a very good choice for Plant, since if you're looking for that you're probably looking for AoE, so you're probably playing with large mob sizes. Grav is also a good contender, and Grav/Storm handles both single-target and AoE well (since it uses Wormhole to leverage Tornado and Lightning Storm's small-radius AoEs into actually being... AoE). Grav/Traps is also solid in both AoE and ST, with Grav's single-target damage backed up by Wormholing spawns into Trip Mine/Poison Gas Trap/Caltrops/Acid Mortar/little green elves 😉 . When Wormhole is up, it's great, with the downside being that you're really depending on teleporting mobs into the kill area, so it's dependent upon Wormhole's 90-second recharge.

Spawns melt real fast, but the bosses remain a bit longer. Let the others worry about AoE damage, and start with your non-AS heavy hitter on a boss, follow up with fast AS, then an AoE (to fish for instant recharge on Build-up), then back to single-target boss killing. I actually have no problem, but that's because I have either Feral Charge or Lightning Rod to help open the festivities. But I do have a Staff/Rad, and while he's not high enough, I expect that his opener on teams would be Ground Zero with multiple damage procs (400+ damage) rather than a "heavy hitter", then follow with AS and single target on the boss. Staff/DA can open up with a decent amount of AoE via Dark Regeneration slotted with procs followed by the spinning attack... but it's a bit slow, and you may not get to actually do much damage with it before the spawn gets AoEbliterated(tm).

So.... you can't buzz the tower with it? You have to use a Tomcat?

Earth, Savage, and Martial are the most melee secondaries. Martial not for single-target, but for its two melee AoEs. You might also put Thorns in there, it does have two melee AoEs plus a short-ranged drop AoE. Ice, Electric, and Fire are the primaries with PBAoE auras, and Plant is a "seed'em and mow'em" primary that leaves you most free to facesmash. But I'm not sure that Fire is strong enough defensively to fight in melee consistently, and I'm also not sure about Ice, though with a good defense layering "you didn't hit me" with "you can't attack again for a while" could work. But it might be a late-game build with mature defenses, while Plant and Electric are good to go into melee range from the teens. I'm running Ele/Earth, and it's pretty much all melee although it has ranged attacks, because shutting mobs down with PBAoE drain is just too useful. Note, that this character or any other who has a power boost can get a few seconds of improved Defense at the beginning of the fight, which can make a big difference for someone wanting to charge into melee, so going /Earth has an additional defensive advantage, not only the attacks.

How do you get Fulcrum Shift to rhyme with light? 😄 😛