Coyote

I'll buy this as a possibility, but I'm not sold on the certainty... debuffs draw a lot of aggro, especially when multiplied by dealing damage, so a Stormie can pull a ton of aggro with a mixture of debuffs and damage. A Dominator would be putting out more damage (but not all that much more, as Tornado/LS are a lot), but with fewer debuffs and without the really annoying Fear effect that really gets mobs angry when they're not busy running. With pretty much just damage output, a Dominator may find it harder to pull aggro from PA. Now, to be honest, that's just quibbling... I think that when you give extra tools to a character, and those tools overlap in function, the character may not gain as much. For example, PA's Taunt effect is superfluous if you're perma-Confusing (or perma-Holding, this should be possible for most AVs) an AV. So the main benefit of perma-PA... is almost irrelevant to a perma-Dom with Illusion Control. The second benefit of PA is damage... and this is a bigger benefit to the lower-damage AT of Controller, than to a Dominator. So, I agree with the argument that Illusion Control wouldn't be especially broken on a Dominator compared to a Controller... they have less use for the Taunt effect, and do more damage otherwise.

I believe that for Energy Assault, all of your KB powers are single-target, and that's usually not considered a problem... you HOld a target, then you start hammering it, who cares if it gets knocked back, it's your dragon to kill at that point. The only thing to avoid is knocking back the mob in the center of the pack that someone is using as an AoE target... but that's easily avoided by picking on the closest targets and knocking them back towards the rest of the mobs. Your AoE is a PBAoE with a Disorient, so that's not a problem.

Rad is great with Ice. Dark Affinity is also great, probably better (it's a better all-around set... although Rad works very well with Ice, Dark is just better overall). But you don't need to switch from Rad to Dark, it's not a great difference. For Rad, you want: Radiation Infection, Enervating Field, Accelerate Metabolism, and Lingering Radiation. The healing aura is also good though not as necessary, but it's a required pick for a Controller. Choking Cloud and EMP are also good powers, though they are skippable. Especially CC on an Ice (or Fire) Controller since they're already running high-cost toggles. For Ice, you want the single-target Hold and Immobilize, Arctic Air, and Ice Slick, and of course Jack Frost when you get to it. If soloing you might have a use for the Sleep power but not on a team. The AoE Immob is not a bad power either, but it could be skipped. It's pretty useful, but also a high Endurance cost on a character running 3 expensive toggles (Arctic Air, Rad Infection, Enervating Field), so it can be skipped. Shiver is not a bad power generally, but superfluous with Lingering Radiation available. Like most other AoE Holds, Glacier has uses, but is mostly skippable.

Some comments about the OP's experiences: 1: Mind/Fire is a VERY strong build in my experience. But it really shines, even before perma-Dom, by being able to initiate combat. When you don't have to worry about being mezzed or knocked down by enemy bosses because said bosses are Confused and fighting for you, the fight is completely different. When the spawn is insta-aggroed on you, whether from ToT or from mission ambushes, things become far tougher. 2: Like other Dominators, you're dependent on hitting. You don't have many click self-buffs or even toggle buffs, so unlike even Blasters, you don't have any way of mitigating incoming damage if you can't hit. So being mezzed or suffering -ToHit debuffs is a really big problem. Now, there are some ways to handle these problems even in ToT situations: 1: Hover will protect you from knockback-heavy mobs, and will keep you out of melee range when you are having problems mezzing a Boss 2: Mesmerize is a one-shot mez on a Boss, even without Domination. Slot it for Accuracy since you really don't want to miss with it, but it will give you a chance to put a Boss to sleep, then Confuse him twice, and then wake him up with damage and let him fight for you, even in a ToT or ambush situation 3: Levitate will take a Boss out of a fight for some seconds, so you can go Dominate-Levitate-Dominate, and limit incoming attacks from the Boss. Long as you don't miss. Or you could go Dominate-Mesmerize-Dominate, for the same effect. 4: Because missing is a huge problem, get the Kismet: +Accuracy IO early. 5: If you don't want to invest in Hover to protect against Knockback, remember that you can get Knockback protection from Travel power IOs, also. This is NOT a teaming-only character. My Mind/Fire soloed very successfully through Praetoria and has soloed an AV. However, it IS a character that is overpowered when it gets to dictate the engagement, versus quite weak when the engagement dictates itself. Since /Fire doesn't really have any mitigation, and it's hard to kill mobs fast enough in an ambush, you have to use the Mind Control options. You do get a Mass Sleep at that level that can help... frankly, for survival in your situation, Sleeps (AoE and single) may be a great tool.

Weaken Resolve is very good on a Controller, it will be at 90% chance to proc on Achilles and with its own -Resist it will give about -30% Resist for 10 seconds. With good Recharge you can fire it off probably every 10-12 seconds. Masterminds will get more benefit out of it since they're not cutting into DPS as much by spamming it, but it's still good. As @biostem has said, Project Will is weaker than Arcane Bolt, though it still has the same uses: extra damage and FF proc. Wall of Force is great for a Controller. Pretty good AoE damage with procs... I think each proc gives 36 damage, so if you put 3 in you end up around 150 with Containment. For a Controller's ranged AoE that's realy nice, and you can add in a FF proc in there, making it even better. This power is the main reason to go into this pool.

It is also available at Level 7, well before you can try to look at set bonuses to help with End recovery, or Accolades, or many later powers like Power Sink or Conserve Power. It is the first IO that I buy for any new alt, and slot it immediately. It's better, even, than the Sliced Bread Assault Set.

Yup, true enough.

Twilight Grasp, Disruption Arrow, Heat Loss. I think maybe Howling Twilight. Do you care about pet pseudo-pet (heh :p) powers like Incendiary Swarm Missiles? Enflame. Voltaic Sentinel, Tornado, Lightning Storm.

I think it's pretty easy, because I don't think it's handled via code. I think it's in the powers database, saying that this power must have 2 of (A, B, C, or D) as a pre-requisite. So it should be possible to do it just by database editing rather than by changing code. This isn't to say that I support the idea... just that I think it wouldn't be that hard to change.

As Zepp says, I use Group Invisibility not for the Invisibility but for the LotG slot plus a bit of team defense that doesn't detoggle. Thunderclap is not that bad, since Tornado puts out a bit of Stun which will stack with it to mez a Boss, and the Energy Font IO can be slotted in either Spectral Terror or Thunderclap in order to give another source of Stun stacking. Also, Illusion has a lot of single- target control for LTs and Bosses, but with a low amount of AoE shutdown ability, having a minion-only mez is not as bad for it as it would be for another set that doesn't have multiple single-target mezzes. You Thunderclap for the minions, rotate Blind/Deceive for the LTs and bosses, and shut down the entire spawn. And use Spectral Terror for -ToHit and to keep the Stunned minions from wandering too far. Spectral Wounds is an excellent 2nd attack, but I couldn't fit it since I wanted Arcane Bolt for the Force Feedback proc since I'm chasing Recharge to limit PA downtime. But if you're not doing that, then it makes sense to drop Arcane Bolt and use Spectral Wounds, since it's a better attack if you don't care about a FF proc.

Actually, yes, I realized this... but I am considering it a very niche situation. I mean, making a character who specializes in soloing AVs is a very small part of the characters on the server. Then, making one who solos Task Forces is even rarer. Then, we're looking at the situation where certain Task Forces have special aggro mechanisms that make it really hard to just fight one AV at a time. I understand exactly what you're saying and I agree with it, but my point was that 99.x % of the time spent and experience earned on the server by theoretical Illusion Doms would be in OTHER situations, and in those situations Illusion doesn't seem over-powered. As for the damage, frankly, I run an Ill/Storm, so I get enough damage from my secondary that I don't worry as much about focus-firing down mobs that were damaged by PA in order to minimize heal-back. But while I see what you're saying, my opinion on this matter is that a Dom would have an offensive secondary which will do damage directly, and also help PA do more effective damage by minimizing heal-back... but that's the point of having an offensive secondary, compared to a defensive secondary like Dark Affinity or Time, which won't help much with damage but will make the character and the team far safer. I'm okay with an Illusion Dom doing more damage than an Illusion Controller, since that's the benefit that they gain, by not having a secondary that can help them survive ambushes, over-aggro, etc. Basically, I see your points, but I don't think that the result is an overpowered character. Yes, it does more damage than an Illusion Controller but an Illusion Controller is hardly such high damage that doing more damage makes a character OP. Yes, its unique aggro-control mechanisms allow it to handle a limited number of situations that are very rare in the game. But on the other hand its AoE damage from the primary is non-existent, and its AoE control is quite weak, and far more of the game is played in an AoE situation than against special AVs. And while its damage is significantly higher than Controllers, its defense is significantly lower. This, to me, seems like a balanced trade-off.

Well, I have to argue against this... you see, an Illusion Dominator who had perma-PA.... could perma-Hold an AV anyhow. Mind/x can do it. So, with Mind/Psy being able to perma-Hold the AV while putting out damage at it, and the ability to start the fight with perma-Confuse and transition into a perma-Hold... it seems like the idea that you can solo AVs very effectively as a Dom is already in the game. Granted, Illusion would allow you to go higher in AV level, since it may be impossible to perma-Hold an AV at +3 or +4 (though perma-Confuse should be doable)... but this is a relatively niche benefit. The above arguments all point out why Illusion Control is good, but... isn't it too good a set for Controllers, then? And I don't see that argument being made. In return for great single-target control that works on AVs, Illusion has pretty weak team AoE control, which is considered at least as important for most of the players in most of the game. So, if the set isn't broken for Controllers, what makes it broken for Dominators? Controllers have other tools to handle AVs in many of their secondary sets, but Dominators have other tools to handle AVs in many of their powerset combinations (Fire and Mind can perma-Hold AVs, and several other sets can do it if you match them with Power Up from the secondary).

Also, something to note: Dominators usually will solo AVs by perma-Holding them, but this is available to only some powerset combinations since you need a fast-activating Hold, or a medium-activating Hold plus Power Up. However, it is possible to solo some AVs like Protean by taking the single-target Immobilize or by taking Hover. If you can force them to fight at a particular range that's out of their melee attack range or away from their special abilities like PBAoE attacks, you have a chance. You can mitigate a lot of incoming damage with a mixture of Ranged Defense and Lucks, but some will get through. You can survive a decent amount of incoming DPS with a mixture of Regeneration set bonuses, Panacea proc, and Entropic Chaos/Heal in your ranged attacks. So you do have options, but they may require some build changes. For example, an Electric/Earth will generally not have use for Hover, or do enough damage if you buy a Jetpack for the fight. So you might have to respec into the single-target Hold just for AV fights. Note that it's definitely possible to solo AVs with low ranged damage as a Dominator without trying to mez them, but you do have to build for it: Immobilize or Hover, good Ranged defense, and a way to increase your normal HP regeneration... set bonuses, +Regen IOs, Panacea, Entropic Chaos.

This is what I'm running now, but I do plan on changing it once the Force of Will power pool goes live.

Just to add a note: It would be possible to set Bruising up to be partially stackable and partially unstackable. 10% unstackable and 10% stackable, for example. Or 15/5, or whatever you like.

And that's just for damage. Resistance doesn't mitigate incoming mezzes or debuffs at all.

I think that -Recovery has a 25% floor, which means that it takes 4x as long between ticks of gaining Endurance as normal. So if a tick is every 4 seconds, a mob with its Recovery floored would get a tick every 16 seconds.

Dark/Dark is a very strong combination. Due to how strong it is defensively, you should slot aggressively for damage in the Hold and Immobilize powers, probably in Fearsome Stare, and in Heart of Darkness.

I think this may be useful to a Gravity/Traps, Storm, or Poison Controller, who can "bottle up" some strong DoT AoE effect in there (Poison traps with Procs, Tornado, etc) and then step away from retaliation.

As a note, because of its long Recharge, Spring Attack should proc 90% on damage procs. Thus, it gets to hit pretty decent damage for a low-damage AT... I think Controllers are about 300-350 damage from it, which is decent for a mini-nuke that you get out of a pool power. More for someone like a /Kin Controller, who can max out its base damage and still leave room for a lot of procs in it. I wouldn't be surprised if a /Kin could squeeze out about 500 damage from it after a Fulcrum Shift. For its base stats it's pretty poor, but it works very well with damage procs. For example, a Dark/Kin Controller can hit Heart of Darkness and Spring Attack every fight... for 800-900 damage with AoE Stun and Knockdown, on about a 30 second recharge. For a Controller, that's serious AoE damage. It's one of those powers that can be leveraged to become decent, and extra-leveraged to become quite good, in a few combinations. Most builds won't benefit from it, but that's fine, for being a pool power... it still has decent enough stats that it can be made worthwhile for builds that are either starved for AoE damage... or, conversely, want to add it to an AoE burst to really finish off mobs. For example, an Elec/Shield Stalker hitting with 3 teleport AoEs to start every fight can wipe minions out of the way before concentrating on bosses.

I would actually think that they should do pretty well for a Brute, because a Brute already is going to have a lot of +Damage running. Adding a +30% enhancement on top of 300% may not add as much damage as adding a proc, whereas for a Scrapper with its higher base damage, adding +30% on top of 200% will be more noticeable. IO Procs work better on ATs with lower BASE damage multipliers, which means that of the melee ATs, they're best on Tankers, and then on Brutes. And they don't benefit from crits, which are for Stalkers & Scrappers, which hurts them more for Scrappers and Stalkers also (although Stalkers, with their ability to refresh Build Up, can underslot the Accuracy of some attacks and thus have more slots free to max out damage enhancing and then turn to damage procs).

At Incarnate levels, it is common enough for players to be able to play at +2/x3, or higher. So if you put 3-4 of these characters together, you reach maximum spawn size. Depending on the mission holder, you may be at maximum spawn level. So.... add in another character, and the team gets more powerful. Do the spawns get more powerful? No, because they're already maxed. The ability to max out difficulty at the size of half a team means that any additional characters are not bringing any more difficulty, and thus need not bring any defense. Just offense (damage, or fast-animating -Resist). For this reason, at max level and large teams, damage is more important than anything else. The idea that teams won't notice if you're gone, when you're a Blaster, is not really true... even if they don't actually NOTICE, it's definite that kill speed will be less. A Controller will also increase kill speed, but not by nearly as much. This is not an AT issue. This is a game difficulty issue, and if it were to be fixed, it would be fixed by weakening characters across the board (lowering the +Recharge and +Def bonuses from IO sets), or strengthening mobs (AoE buffs and debuffs for them).

I think that Illusion Control would be a very strong set on Dominators, it's just that it wouldn't really be that strong VIA DOMINATION. If you're not being attacked, then the mez protection doesn't matter that much. Your main AoE controls (PA and Spectral Terror) don't benefit from Domination. And against Bosses, PA is probably your main control also. So in the end, I think it would be a very powerful character, but wouldn't play like other Dominators. Personally... I don't think that's a bad thing. Giving different playstyle options for the same AT is not a bad thing. But perhaps the Devs didn't feel like risking trying to balance such a different playstyle.

I think that Ice Control works well but only when paired with secondary sets that have -ToHit in the set. The reason is that if you go, for example, Ice/Rad... 1: the mobs are rarely attacking due to -Recharge and falling down 2: half the attacks for LTs and minions are going at their own side 3: when they do attack your team, they face hefty ToHit debuffs 4: if they do hit, they are doing less damage than normal 5: you have an AoE heal to fix the little damage that comes through 1-4 Now, in NONE of those abilities, does it say that mobs are mezzed and don't attack. Ice Controllers play the opposite of most Controllers... instead of City of Statues, they like City of Really Weak and Slowly Moving Bad Guys. They let everyone attack all the time... but at hefty debuffs. So if you go away from the mindset of "shut them down" and switch to "let them attack but very weakly", they do fine. But if you're not using a secondary that weakens incoming damage to stack with the -Recharge and Knockdown, then the incoming damage could be pretty high. Storm and Poison help with damage, but unless you're at Incarnate levels where mitigating damage is not useful (and in that case, why plan for an Ice Controller to play there when other ATs are far better), you need Defense more than damage. I would suggest Ice/Rad, Ice/Dark, Ice/Time, and Ice/Plant. Maybe Ice/Traps.

To complicate this topic: PA takes 3.3 seconds to cast. So its cycle time is actually 63.3 seconds, not 60. PA decoys are summoned 1,2, and 3 seconds after casting. So, the last decoy fades 62 seconds after the first appears. Thus, the on-board presence of the decoys is actually 62 seconds. The main purpose of caring about PA permanence is to keep an AV attacking them permanently... but when the first decoy appears is NOT when the AV is taunted by it. It has to attack the AV first, which takes a random time for it to aggro on the AV, perform the attack, and have the attack's Taunt pull the AV's aggro to the decoy. Which probably takes about 1.5-2 seconds. So... you probably have about 60 seconds of aggro pull from the decoys although they're on the board for 62 seconds. The cycle time is about 63 seconds. And, lastly, just to REALLY toss sand into the engine... even with pure perma-PA, say a 55 second recharge... you may still not have 100% uptime on the aggro, because when you summon a a new set, the old set dies. This releases the AV's aggro, and you still have that 1.5-2 second gap until your first decoy grabs the aggro again. So even with "permanent" PA, there will still be a small gap when the aggro changes hands from the old set to the new set. Note that the AV may not have an attack ready in this period, or may be in the middle of an attack activation on the old set, so just having an aggro gap doesn't actually mean that you'll get attacked.