Coyote

Dark Control is VERY strong defensively. In general, you will not need much defense out of your secondary, and you should take one that boosts the offense. For that reason, for Controllers I like: Kinetics, Cold Domination, Poison, Storm, Trick Arrows. Dark is thematic and not that bad since it has a good -Res power. For Dominators, sets with -Def or high damage sets probably work best: Rad, Thorns, Fire. Another option would be a PBAoE set that can stack Stuns with Heart of Darkness, which is Earth or Energy.

A long, long time ago, once upon a dark and stormy night... Cliche lived happily ever after?

Happened to me the FIRST time I ever used it. I walked away with the impression that it changed you into a random minion. I was a bit disappointed to find out that most of the time it was just a minor buff... I was hoping to explore all of the different powers that became available in many different forms 😄 And then later I learned not to use it near mobs when depending on a Stealth power or IO, because... that fart doesn't recharge fast enough to keep angry mobs away from you. Apparently, no one likes a random Rikti Monkey wandering around their lairs. I guess they're worse than cockroaches for property values.

In Outer Space, no one can hear an alien scream, "It's a trap!!!"

One FF: +Recharge proc activation per minute will give an 8.33% average boost. If you place them in a power like Tornado that has a 90% chance to activate, it averages 7.5% bonus. But that's per activation, so if you activate Tornado 3x, you get 22.5% average over the minute. Add in 15% from 2x Lightning Storm, and you're at 37.5% average boost for the minute from the 2 procs. Not 100% like it would show in Mid's, but still quite high for 2 slots.

Put a Force Feedback: +Recharge in Bonfire, also.

Earthquake from Earth Control also adds -ToHit, enhanceable, and also can be improved with Power Up. Even if it's only for Power Up's duration, that's over -20% ToHit at the start of a fight. As noted, Dark Control also puts out -ToHit, and if you pair it with Power Up, combining Fearsome Stare with Living Shadows is -37% or so.

Note that some mobs will not leave bodies, such as ghosts. For these, the field will detoggle like in the old style, as soon as the anchor is defeated.

What I don't like about using Dark (or, actually, TA) is the lack of good Force Feedback options. Storm has Lightning Storm and Tornado, and each of them averages 7.5% +Recharge boost PER ACTIVATION. In a minute, you should fire Tornado about 3x and LS about 2x, for a total boost of almost 40%. That's about as good as Rad, which is known for helping to get perma-PA, and while it's very End-intensive, they're powers that you were going to spam in combat anyhow. Traps has Trip Mine, which also procs FF well. Spamming this is more difficult although you can actually get it out more, since it takes more activation time. But in AV fights, it's actually possible to just put down Trip Mines in a spot several times during the life of PA, again getting a good +Recharge bonus that helps PA become permanent. Dark is great defensively, though... and with all the buffs and debuffs, you can survive a PA gap much more easily than with Storm or Traps (though Traps has FFG to help).

Given how much -Def is put out by the combination of the Earth and the Storm powers, I would personally run Thunderclap rather than Tactics. It works well with Fissure and Stalagmites, basically perma-Stunning everything around you while the STorm powers wear them down. For more Stun effect, put the Orb ATO in Thunderclap, it activates a lot when you fire Thunderclap with multiple mobs around you. Personally I'd put it in Stone Cages, but it does work well in Thunderclap.

Rad and Time help with +Recharge so that it gets Phantom Army out sooner. Storm and Traps help with AoE damage while Illusion does single-target. Traps and Trick Arrow have an Immobilize so that AVs don't run around like chickens.

Dark is very strong defensively, and can also be slotted up pretty nicely for damage. It has a Confuse power which helps avoid trouble with those "wow, those mobs are really annoying" situations. In fact, I'm running a Dark/Dark and kind of regretting the choice, just because they're both so strong defensively that I feel unbalanced with too much defense ability. /Storm will bring damage, which is nice. /Time is also good, it's more of a defensive set so like /Dark, I worry about having too much "nobody is hitting me, I can raise the difficulty level... but then it will take longer to clear kill-all missions", like I'm seeing with Dark/Dark. /Time works with everything so it can work with Gravity, but /Storm pairs up very well with Gravity, because Storm's small-radius AoEs love it when you Wormhole mobs into a small space and then Immobilize them there so that Tornado and Lightning Storm can really chew them up. So my suggestions would be Dark/Storm or Gravity/Storm. Gravity/Storm will be better with damage, and Dark/Storm will be better defensively.

Sure, I agree completely, Mesmerize is best used as a damage power. HOWEVER, the build will have Dominate, Levitate, and Ice Arrow as your attack cycle. You can fill it in with Mesmerize, and without it you actually don't have a complete attack cycle. However, leaving the gap in there leaves room for Confuse (and generally a Confused Lt will do more damage than several Mesmerizes as well as helping with reducing incoming damage and debuffing), and for other TA shots. Now, if you were running Mind/Rad, or Mind/FF, or another secondary where you weren't looking to eat up animation time with regular uses of the secondary in the middle of combat, I would totally agree that 6-slotting Mesmerize as a damage power that is part of your attack cycle makes sense. But what is likely to happen is that it will be a 6-slotted attack power that's not as good as Levitate, and doesn't have as good a secondary effect as Dominate (assuming that damage is the main purpose for Dominate in your attack cycle), and doesn't do as good DPA as Ice Arrow (or as good a secondary effect), so it's your 4th favorite attack to use. With how busy TA is, I don't think that in a slot-hungry built, it is worth the slots for a power that will often be ready for use... but skipped because the mobs are grouped up nicely for Acid Arrow (slotted with procs). Or for Disruption Arrow. And so on. Yes, it's a damage power, and it's not a bad damage power, but it's just good enough to MAYBE make it off the bench once in a while. Some builds can spare the slots for a backup power, but this one looks, as you say, to be too tight on slots for that.

I like Mesmerize, but I don't see it as useful enough to 6-slot along with Levitate. For one-shot Boss mez, all it needs is an Acc/Sleep, and for damage it puts you at 4 single-target attacks (including Ice Arrow), and NOT including Confuse, which would likely be part of the rotation. Given that TA is also busy, I don't think that there will be time in a fight to throw Mesmerize for damage. So this should save some slots.

Perma-Fortify Pack is a very high amount of Defense, so I would stay away from Defense-oriented secondaries as you may have too much Defense (although having some to spare against Defense debuffs isn't useless). But I would still consider them most effective when paired with a Resist/Regen or a debuff secondary. Pain, Nature, and Thermal would all seem to work well defensively.

Thanks. Everything DID seem a bit off recently, but since I'm Ill/Storm, constant chaos isn't unusual. There just seemed to be a bit more chaos, and this explains it. I guess for a while I'm an Illusion/Storm Blaster 😄

To be honest, I think that you are making a great argument FOR aggro caps. You see, there are several posts lamenting that at high level, Tanks and Controllers, who are specialized at defending the team, are not very useful. Partly because even the squishies can handle their own defenses solidly, and partly because a single Tank can hold aggro for enough mobs to reach the AoE target caps for most AoE powers. So is more than one Tank or more than one Controller at all useful for a team? But when you get into situations where the team can aggro more mobs than one Tank can manage, then you start to see a need for multiple Tanks or more Controllers. IMO, this is a GOOD THING... at the high levels, damage and damage boosting (mostly through -Resist) are abilities that are so much more useful than team defense, that a feature of the game that rewards team defense ability is good. It gives defense-oriented ATs a useful role on the team.

Plant, Earth, and Dark are all good at AoE controls.

Fire Control if you're soloing, because Dark Affinity is so strong defensively that it can cover for a primary that's more damage oriented. Dark Control is so strong defensively that it probably benefits more from an offense-oriented secondary like Storm, Cold, or Poison.

Dark puts out a lot more -Regen than people realize. Twilight Grasp may be only -50%, but it can be stacked 3-4 times, plus another stack from the Dark Servant, for a permanent -200 or -250%. When HT is up, the AV should have its Regen floored, and when it's not, it should suffer about a -30% penalty. But some AVs just like to run. A lot. You may need to invest into an Immobilize power to keep them in place. Dark Servant will help stack it with occasional uses of Tenebrous Tentacles, but you still have to do most of the Immobilization. And in cases where you're not high enough level to get an Immobilize... I don't know. Chasing all over the map may be needed.

Only thematically. I think a nice strength of Earth Control is that there are no PBAoE powers, and three drop powers that can be placed out of LOS. But Earth Assault wants to be in melee, so you're losing the all-ranged benefits of Earth Control. Dark Control has a nice PBAoE Stun that can pair nicely with Fissure and add more damage if you put procs in it. Ice Control has a PBAoE aura. Electric Control has PBAoE aura. Fire Control has PBAoE damage aura. Plant Control also likes to be in melee since Carrion Creepers follow you, and its AoE Confuse bunches mobs up. Gravity, Earth, and Mind are all ranged.

Stone Cages have a nice "smash" feel to them, and if you add the Controller ATO to them they even have a purpose. I would drop Acrobatics and just put a KB protection IO in Super Jump. Air Superiority is a pretty generic animation that may fit with every character and guaranteed knockdown powers are fun. I think at 20 you get Heavy Mallet if you liked Stone Mallet. Stoney smash always looks fun to me.

Electric and Ice also. Both work better in melee range due to PBAoE auras, and Earth Assault generally plays at melee range.

You've made a terrible mistake. I can't think of anything worse to do than to be Level 17. 😛 Because... at 18 you get Earthquake, and that's a great benefit. The mobs will be falling down, a lot. Their ToHit will be debuffed, pretty noticeably. And their Defense will be debuffed, so your controls and attacks will hit more. In short, it's a big boost to the character's abilities. 4 slots of Dark Watcher's for the 5% Recharge bonus, and a 5th for the Force Feedback +Recharge. Don't delay, buy now 😛

Poison is a strong set. And Poison is a weak set. What you have to realize is that Poison is mostly a HIGH DAMAGE set, with LOW DEFENSE. If you put procs in Paralytic Poison, it becomes a good single-target attack. If you put procs in Poison Trap, it becomes an awesome light nuke. With two sources of -Res, you can both deal damage directly, and also buff the damage done, by a lot. Now, defensively, the powers are generally weak statistically and bad in other ways (animation time, recharge, AoE). The only place where they are actually strong is because -Res boosts your -Damage debuffing, thus you can throw a lot of -Res at a target, then hit it with -Damage, and that -Damage is amplified. But you're generally not going to get much value out of that except against Bosses and up. This leaves it as a decent set, but ONLY in limited situations, which IMO are: 1) when fighting small groups of enemies. So raise the difficulty level but NOT the size of the team. You can fight bosses pretty well with stacking debuffs on them, but if fighting lots of minions, those small AoEs for your defensive powers hurt a lot. 2) when paired with a strong defensive set. To me, this screams Controller, because if you pair Poison with Earth, Dark, or Plant Control, then you have a lot of damage mitigation and can afford to use a damage-oriented secondary. But on a MM where you're trying to keep pets alive... maybe use it with a Primary that is strong defensively. Try Robots, or Nature with high Recharge slotting that tries for a perma-Fortify Pack build. Maybe Necro/Poison, again with low spawn sizes, because then you end up getting the -ToHit debuffs from the undead stacking onto just a few targets. Single-target Glooms don't help much against 10-mob spawns, but do help a lot against spawns with just a Boss and 1 or 2 other mobs. In the end, you can do well with Poison, but NOT like a true generalist character who can fight lots of mobs, or few tough mobs... fighting lots of mobs as a MM can get hectic anyhow, doing it with a secondary that really doesn't protect well against large spawn sizes is very iffy. I would seriously consider going Necro/Poison, using Zombies as a slot mule for all of the defensive IOs and only summoning them as a speed bump on occasion. Slot up the personal attacks since you actually get 3 of them so you have a good attack cycle with Paralytic Poison added (use damage Procs to bypass the low base MM damage). Generally run just the Knights and Lich so you have fewer targets to heal with your single-target heal. Keep the Lich by you in Bodyguard, and send the Knights up front... it concentrates the damage, but also concentrates mobs together and gives you only two targets to heal. And keep the difficulty high but the spawn size small, this way you get all of the debuffs onto just a few targets and they become noticeable. Put Achilles Heel in the Knights, this also works better with fewer targets of higher-difficulty. With all this, it should play quite well against higher level but smaller spawns. On teams, this build's lack of AoE may not matter that much since there is usually a lot of AoE damage, so you can focus on sending the Knights at the bosses and debuffing the bosses/AVs. So it should also be acceptable on teams. Not a great overall build, but I think you can squeeze some lemonade as long as you realize what the set's strengths are.