Coyote

Description of Ice/Rad

Just from Traps, and PGT is short of Poison Gas Trap. I'm not sure if that's the name for the Poison version, though. If you ran Bots/Traps then combining the Assault Bot with Poison Trap (or PGT) should floor the Regen of just about any AV or GM.

AVs generally have 100% Regen, and regenerate a lot based on a large HP value not based on a high Regeneration value. At level 50, AVs regenerate about 95 HP/sec. It goes up a bit if you're going against 54s. (Power Analyzer will show the exact value). Most AVs do not have an unusual Regeneration value, the only one I can think off is Madame of Mystery, who regenerates at about double the usual rate and has 65% resists to most everything, making her a serious PITA even at even-level, to say nothing of being higher level. Ugh. I believe that the Regen floor is 25%, so getting -75% against an AV is the best you can do effectively (you can debuff more, but it won't have an effect). At this floor, AVs regenerate at 1/4 the usual rate, so about 24 HP/sec. Poison Trap from Traps should create a -65% debuff against a 54 AV, but I think that you can put out more than one PGT given that its debuff lasts for 30 seconds, so Traps can floor any AV's Regen for periods of time, and lower them to about 35% rather than 25% for the rest of the time.

You can solo anything short of a GM, maybe, and probably even that with the Envenomed Dagger ;). /Dark is about as good against AVs as /Rad once you get Fluffy.

Sleet and Tar Patch have comparable -Resist with comparable duration... but Sleet has a 60 second recharge while Tar Patch has 90. When you're in an AV fight where you get to stack -Res fields, being able to summon an additional -Resist field earlier adds up to a lot more damage in the long run. Also, with Cold, you can proc Infrigidate and have a 90% chance to apply Achilles Heel, for an additional average -18% debuff. So you probably end up around 30% more -Resist on the average, leading to about 30% more DPS. Note that if I ran Ill/Dark, I would take Weaken Resolve, which puts out about -30% Resist... but eats up a lot more of your attack chain. Lastly, Cold applies its -Regen once in a while, while Dark has to spam Twilight Grasp in order to match -Regen values. Even if you proc out TG it will still remain a low-damage attack with just two damage procs, so your -Regen debuff is eating up a lot more of your attack chain, while Ill/Cold has more free time to throw out Spectral Wounds or Arcane Bolt. In the end, you can come close with /Dark if you take Weaken Resolve, but you're still using about half your attack cycle on Weaken Resolve and Twilight Grasp, which aren't adding much to the actual damage, just applying important debuffs. So I don't see how /Dark would completely match up to /Cold on the offense side.

The rest of it not so much, but Infrigidate works awesomely with procs. Achilles Heel and 3x Damage procs in it turn it from a weak power into an excellent 190 damage attack with just over a second animation, 18% -Res, and some other nice debuffs.

Heh, me three. If I were forced to play Mind Control as a Controller I'm pretty sure I'd try it with TA, but it's SO much better as a Dominator, and I also prefer it with Fire Assault.

Dark/Dark, or Illusion/Storm.

If you solo a lot, Ill/Dark is way better. If you team, then Ill/Dark is still better but it's a lot closer. Dark is very much a debuffer, other than Fade even its team buffs and heals are oriented on draining from the enemies. Thermal has more normal out-of-combat buffs, so if you prefer to buff it may suit you better. Thermal generally works better with sets that have good pets... that need protection. Earth is my main choice for /Thermal, but Fire also appreciates making the Imps less squishy.

Grav/Storm. Grav is great single-target damage. Storm is good single-target damage, and "mini-AoE". But the AoE radius is small. Enter Wormhole so that you pack all of the mobs into the small area of Tornado and Lighting Storm, and even with a 5 target max for them, you're still doing good AoE damage. Good AoE and single target from a Controller, what more do you want? Ill/Traps. Illusion is great single-target damage, but lacks AoE and a source of Containment. Enter Poison Gas Trap for Containment and AoE damage, and add Trip Mine for more AoE. As above... great single-target, great AoE... and it's like a cheat code against AVs with the primary shutting down their offense and the secondary shutting down their regeneration. Earth/Cold. Animate Stone will tank an AV just like PA... except that unlike PA, the AV will squish it. Add in the Defense buffs from Cold, and the combination of -Damage and strong -Resist that improves the -Damage, and the Medicine Pool... and you have a tank that can hold up against pretty much all AVs, and without having to build for a ridiculously high Recharge like a perma-PA build. With the strong -Resist and -Regen you have enough damage output. It's great on teams, and soloing it's still solid since you can use Infrigidate as an extra attack, and all of the -Def makes your veteran powers accurate enough to use. Just remember that you can solo at high level difficulty, but not at high body count. Ice/Time. Ice is a solid set AFTER you survive the alpha. If you do. Combine it with Time to mitigate the alpha strike and heal back the damage, and it's very strong defensively. Offensively it's weak, but Distortion Field helps with that a bit. Fire/Dark. Fire is the best all around offensive set, and Dark is probably the best defensive set. Combine the two, and with Soul Absorption to fuel Endurance for Hot Feet and spamming Fire Cages, and you can do basically everything. Dark/Poison. Dark is so strong defensively that it can support any secondary on the defensive side. Poison is weak defensively, but pretty strong on offense and puts out AoE damage with Poison Trap... it's PBAoE so it combines well with slotting up Heart of Darkness as a PBAoE and opening up with TWO mini-nukes every single fight. Dark has good single-target damage, so now you have single-target and AoE damage. Mind/Trick Arrow. Mind is kind of weak on a Controller, Trick Arrow is kind of weak. Both are playable, but don't seem to bring much strength. Mind is good single-target damage, and Trick Arrow brings some AoE to help. But the trick here is that you now have THREE AoE shutdown controls: Total Domination, Mass Confusion, and EMP Arrow. With just two, it's hard to rotate them to have one every spawn if you're moving fast. But with three, yay, it's "shut down every spawn" which is something pretty unusual. You could try this with /Rad also, and Accelerate Metabolism would help the timing even more... TA brings AoE damage and Rad doesn't, but I can see the argument for going Mind/Rad. But I like Rad with Electric (especially since Rad works well if you fight inside the toggle debuff area, where Electric wants to be, while Mind likes to be all ranged... just like TA). Electric/Rad. Electric brings a suprising amount of damage both single-target and AoE if you proc up the attacks (especially Jolting Chain). It doesn't push it to the top performers, but it it's nowhere near as bad as most players think that it is. Rad is great, but can sometimes be a bit of an End hog... Electric helps with this. And all of Electric's powers are pretty good, while Rad has several throw-aways, so it's a good match that allows you to take some pool powers. Plant/Kinetics. Pretty obvious... Kinetics sucks defensively, and is only offensively strong late. It works best paired with a powerset that is strong early (unless you powerlevel to 40 or so), which IMO are Dark, Plant, and Electric. Well, Plant gets very strong defensively very early with Seeds of Confusion, so that covers up Kinetics' defensive weakness. While all Controllers benefit from +Recharge, Plant is especially helped since it really wants to run perma-Creepers and since it has only one good AoE control so it wants it up very quickly after opening with it, so it has a response to adds and ambushes. And the damage boost from Kinetics works well with a high-damage AoE Immobilize.

I made a Kat/Regen build that looked quite solid, alternating IH, MoG and Shadow Meld to be either at softcapped defenses or regenerating about 130 HPS and using Parry to softcap Melee while in the IH period. Basically, the plan is to run a "defense power chain" similar to an attack chain. But it really only gets working in the 40s when you have more +Recharge bonuses to make it work and Shadow Meld to fill in defense gaps.

Rad and Time do quite well without Tactics. Perhaps Pain also. Storm and Cold's -Defense powers are harder to use. But Rad, Time, and possibly Pain, can do pretty well without Tactics. The argument that Leadership is good for MMs more because they have more throw-away powers than because it's a great set is not a bad argument. But it does only cover most MMs rather than all. Just as a note, I think that Necro, Beast, and Demon MMs have pretty good personal attacks and should be taking 2-3 of them. So my Necro/Rad has no room for Leadership, while Robots/FF would certainly have room for it, with crappy personal attacks and several throw-away powers in the secondary.

If you're feeling low on damage, do the following things as your first option: 1) slot up Tesla Cage for damage. You can put 5(!) damage procs in it and still have an Accuracy/Hold in there (do NOT slot Recharge into attacks if you're going to put Procs in them, since Recharge will lower the chance of the Procs activating). At level 50, I think it does about 300 damage with one purple proc, 4 regular damage procs, and Containment 2) slot up Jolting Chain for damage. You can put 3 damage procs in it (including a purple Ranged Damage one which is only available at 50). Because of the lower base damage and lower procs, it only ends up at about 200 damage at level 50, but that's still respectable. As a bonus, the procs have about a third the chance to activate on the succeeding jolts, so you're still getting some damage out of them... I think it's about 100 damage as an AoE, which is actually pretty good for an AoE with 8 second recharge and 100% knockdown. Also, I would put Force Feedback: +Recharge in it, since the normal damage enhancing is boosting pretty low base damage. Then, your next option is to take either Force of Will or Sorcery. Force of Will gives you a single-target attack that can be slotted up to about 180 or so damage with procs and Containment... not impressive, but okay as your 3 option. However, Weaken Resolve should be able to take 3 damage procs (right now it can only take 2, but I expect that's a bug) plus Achilles Heel, making it a 4th ranged attack along with a nice -Resist debuff of about 30%. So while the single-target attack isn't that great, you do get a 4th attack with a nice debuff, and AoE damage out of it. If you take Sorcery instead, you get a better single-target attack (I think Arcane Bolt is about 200 damage at 50), but you don't get a 4th attack, and the AoE isn't as good. Both sets have a decent self-buff power available, though I prefer the Force of Will one since it can be used as a LotG mule in addition to being a useful power. With Tesla Cage at 300, Jolting Chain at 200, and a pool attack around 180-190 damage, you're reasonably well set for single-target damage. You still have an Immobilize if you need a 4th attack. For AoE, you have the AoE Immob (only about 55 damage slotted up, even for 8 second recharge that's pretty poor), Jolting Chain (100 with 8 seconds, pretty good), and you can take Wall of Force (about 90 with 10 second recharge if you go for Recharge and slot it up with 5 Positron plus Force Feedback, or about 130 if you slot it up for damage with damage procs). That's decent AoE damage for a Controller.

As a note, Fluffy will usually have 2 stacks of Twilight Grasp on the AV, and you should be able to manage 3-4 stacks, and each stack is -50%. It's stackable and it lasts for 20 seconds, so you can manage about -300% Regen just from Twilight Grasp stacked. Then, Howling Twilight has an uptime of about 50%, and when it's up you're at 667% -Regen (you're at higher, actually, but the AV is floored at 667% unless it's higher in level, in which case the higher values actually help more). So the AVERAGE -Regen, assuming 50% HT uptime, is just under 500%. This makes it about as strong at -Regen as the other good -Regen sets (Ice and Rad, but still not as good as Traps), and it puts out much higher -Dam and -ToHit (over 100% -ToHit, which even an AV will notice). IMO, the top 3 AV soloing debuff sets are Traps, Ice, and Dark, with Rad being in 4th place. Although I'd drop Ice to 4th unless paired with Earth or Illusion, since it's not as good with personal defense and it really wants to be paired with a good tanking pet or partner.

1: If you're going to build for a Mind Link-based Defense build, then you should go for more Recharge bonuses. Even if perma-Dom isn't the goal, you should achieve it on the way to high uptime on Mind Link. 1.1: I don't see a point to 5-slotting Mako's. I'd rather go to 6 slots with either Mako or Touch of Death for the Defense bonuses, or use Crushing Impact... the increases in Mind Link uptime should help. 1.2: Why stop at 4 slots of Coercive Persuasion, where a 5th is worth 10% Recharge? 1.3: One major advantage of a melee-based Martial Assault character is the ability to slot Force Feedback's Recharge in several powers. You could probably have the Recharge bonus up over 50% of the time while fighting, again leading to better defenses by having higher ML uptime. 2: 1-slotted Health and Stamina, with no uniques? These are some of the best effects for a single IO slot, especially on Dominators who otherwise have low Regeneration and no heals. 3: Indomitable Will really should just have 1 slot as a LotG mule... with Domination there are plenty of times when it's superfluous. 4: Again, if going for a high Mind Link uptime, give up some of the set bonuses of LotG and frankenslot more Defense/Recharge IOs in there. 5: You have Stealth with no LotG but only have 4 slotted, put a 5th in there. Doms love Recharge.

I'm not really sure I agree with this. With all of the set bonuses that you can stack onto a character nowadays, you can make a really strong character, with good Recharge and great Defense, who solos at, say, +2/x4-6... a lot of Controller pets, depending on the secondary, may not be very relevant in this scenario. I can tell you that my Ill/Storm's Phantasm makes a career out of faceplanting. Pets are REALLY great at lower difficulty levels, where their statistics are more balanced, but as the character's personal defenses improve so that the character can fight tougher (and more) opponents, and hit them, and do reasonable damage with proc-based builds... pets don't improve at the same rate. They go from a great power in the set to anywhere from "good but not great" to "meh". That basically puts them about on a par with Mass Confusion, which is definitely not great, but it's probably better than "meh". I think it's a good power, which is where most Tier 9 pets are now. My real problem with Mind Control is the REST of the set. Lacking a good way to set up Containment in every fight is a bigger problem than having MC over a pet. Lacking an Immob or other good way to keep mobs from getting to you other than with shutdown powers like Confuses and Holds, so that you can't leverage a Ranged Defense build as well, is another problem. Consider if instead of Telekinesis, the set had Living Shadows, an AoE Immob with a good secondary effect that can be slotted for acceptable damage and set up Containment. And nobody will say that Living Shadows is any kind of great power. But having it would make a bigger change in Mind Control. Or changing it to a Stun with standard stats. Basically, give the set: 1) a way to set up Containment regularly (and not for one attack, like Mass Hypnosis) 2) an AoE damage power, even low damage like an AoE Immob. 65 damage with 8 second recharge is only a bit worse than 130 with 16, and 130 damage with a 16 second recharge is about where Fireball would be on a Controller's damage scale with some procs. 3) some kind of useful debuff effect on the powers. Other sets get -Recharge, -Defense, -ToHit... Mind Control has to shut down the mobs, and since the Devs didn't like City of Statues (reasonably so), it's pretty hard to completely shut down +2/x4 spawns. For example, why doesn't Terrify have some kind of debuff in it? -Damage, -ToHit, and -Recharge would all seem useful. Mass Hypnosis could use a -Damage for a while so that you could use it as an opener to set up one shot with Containment, and then still get some defensive boost from it. I agree that Mind Control is lacking on Controllers, but IMO it's not the pets. It's the lack of anything other than strong shutdown control, which is better leveraged by Dominators. No debuffing, very little Containment, very little AoE damage... these are problems that could be addressed to more effectively fix the set's performance.

Another option is a Dark/Sonic Defender. -Damage debuffs are affected by the AV's Resistance to damage... so if you debuff the AV's Resistance, you actually improve your own -Damage debuffs. Dark puts out a lot of -Damage (I think 60% from just Darkest Night and Fluffy, not counting Twilight Grasp), so if you add in Sonic's -Resists to that, you can put better than -100% Damage, which will help a Brute stand up to just about any AV. And the -Resist will also help it to do more damage.

Fire/Dark is a good answer. So is Fire/Rad. For duoing with a Brute, /Ice is also a good secondary for fighting AVs, though the good powers come pretty late.

True. I've soloed AVs with a Mind/Fire and a Fire/Rad while levelling, but.. I wouldn't call it a normal occurence. And in any case it's true that with regards to soloing AVs Doms seem to be the most set-specific AT (other than, maybe, MMs?). If you have a fast Hold you can perma-Hold AVs. But if you don't, then you have to try to fight at range, where some sets aren't that good. And there are fewer combinations that can shore up holes in your defenses, unlike Controllers. Yeah, they are not an AT where you are unskilled because you can't solo an AV with some sets... there are just some sets where it's really difficult. To be fair, though... the same probably applies to Defenders/Corruptors. A defensive buff set like FF or Empathy is probably not soloing AVs without extreme difficulty, while Sonic/Dark Miasma probably has few problems.

I'm sure that a /Psy Dominator with Hover could solo many GMs. A lot of them are low on ranged DPS, so if you stay out of melee range you don't take that much damage. And you can build for solid Ranged Defense, enough that you can carry a few Lucks and remain at the soft cap. And most GMs don't have debuffs, so you don't have to worry about -Def powers. Lastly, while normally the Regen of GMs is tough to beat, Drain Psyche almost shuts it down completely.

And ironically, today's patch does something to fix this: " Fixed an issue with the particles generated by certain powers taking much more processing power than they should. Stone Cages was the worst offender. "

I always said that if you want to melt graphics cards, roll an Earth/Storm, run Hurricane 24/7, and spam Stone Cages 😛

Elec/Storm, since Elec's endurance recovery works well to support the End problems that Storm usually suffers from. Elec/Time for safety in PBAoE.

Dark is stronger defensively, Gravity is stronger offensively in single-target damage. I'm pretty sure that Dark can manage more AoE damage on its own (Living Shadows is a decent AoE Immob for procs, and Heart of Darkness can be a PBAoE attack with the right slotting), but Gravity can position opponents for AoE damage. So Gravity works better if you're taking an AoE-capable secondary like Storm or Traps. If you're not, I think Dark is overall better. Dark/Dark is an awesome combo, amazingly strong defensively. Offensively it's not great, but it's still pretty good for a Controller. Gravity/Storm is an excellent offensive combo for a Controller. Defensively it alternates between very good and not so great, since you don't have a good secondary control option after Wormhole, and Storm handles adds and ambushes well when they're with melee-oriented mobs, and poorly when it's ranged mobs that are being added. Perhaps you can leverage Dimension Shift for a kind of anti-range force field and fight inside it when ambushes come, so you can have protection against ranged adds.

Mind/Fire, also.