Coyote

Right about the Recharge with Storm. I don't think Plant/Storm should beat either Ill/Storm or Grav/Storm in theory, but in practice different players may be better or worse at DPS management, or one may have a better build, and Plant isn't so far behind Illusion or Storm (or Fire) that it can't put up DPS that's close enough to them. I would expect Ill, Grav, Fire, and maybe Dark to beat out Plant with the same player and level of build, but a good player and a good build can make a difference when it's not the same player using the same kind of build for both characters.

Rad Assault is very good, because Dominator defensive abilities are generally predicated upon hitting the targets. Getting a secondary with -Def is a nice improvement to the chances of your Controls to hit. It also has a self heal. So, defensively it's pretty good. Offensively it's also good, as -Def helps you hit more often, and it has a decent set of attacks. It looks as if you can also slot up Achilles Heel procs in multiple attacks, making it more likely that it will be active on the target if you're hitting a tough target. For primaries, avoid Ice. It mitigates incoming damage over an entire fight, rather than just at the beginning, and so I like it only with /Dark Assault. Pairing Ice and Dark gives you constant damage mitigation, but also means that damage is constantly coming in. Earth is a good primary set, but it also puts out -Def as its secondary effect, and between Earth and Rad you'll probably start wasting a lot of debuffing since you can't get a chance to hit over 95%. So... this leaves Fire as an excellent fit, and it also works nicely thematically.

I started an Ill/Storm as my main, for several reasons: 1: AoE (small area, though) damage 2: Recharge build for PA also helps with stacking Freezing Rain, Tornado, and Lightning Storm 3: Ability to fight by placing powers and staying out of the fight so you don't worry about eating AoEs. But, as a side note, on this server /Traps is available to Controllers, and that's a very high AoE secondary, with great radius on its AoEs (Caltrops and Trip Mine). And Trip Mine is available for every spawn for about 400 damage at 50. If AoE is your thing, Plant/Traps... thematically it doesn't fit that well, but I also like the idea of stacking or alternating the +Regen summons.

Yup, I'm not surprised... Storm > Cold when you're fighting AVs at +0 at least up to +2. Probably +3, maybe +4. Well, at least in DPS output. Pre-incarnate, with Storm not having a great +Recovery power like Cold, maintaining a constant attack cycle is hard due to End management when you have to constantly put up high-End powers like Tornado, LS, and Freezing Rain. In my charts, Controllers were by far the highest DPS against AVs. Wait, not by far... the highest, but MMs and Defenders weren't all that far behind. The "damage ATs", however, were far behind. The reason is that DoT and stackable -Res powers helps more in longer fights, while the up-front damage of Blasters helps more in a 10-second spawn beatdown. For sustained DPS, Controllers are great... for burst DPS, they're terrible. Blasters are great in burst DPS, but only average in sustained DPS. For sustained DPS by a damage character, I would expect Stalkers to be ahead of Blasters and Scrappers.

Perma-PA means that you can summon the next set before the first expires, which causes the first set to drop out of existence. It does not cause the first set to have their duration extended. You only have 3 decoys, and while each of them Taunts with its attacks, that Taunt lasts for a limited time.. if you have 6 mobs, then the decoys have to spread their attacks around efficiently to maintain aggro. If an enemy mob gets lucky and no decoy attacks it for some time, the Taunt effect from the last hit fades, and at this point it's likely that any AoE debuffs that you have put up will cause it to look at you for its next target. The more mobs there are, the more likely this is to happen. PA is a very useful alpha-strike absorbing power, and it can hold aggro on smaller mobs, but its control abilities do not scale well with spawn size.

That exists, but you also have the option to raise a single hand at the target and fire fire from a single palm.

Flares has a shorter animation. You have a gap after Fireball, but it's short enough that you can fill it with Flares, thus getting you to the high-DPS attacks sooner than if you filled it with Fire Blast.

I'd view Force Feedback +recharge procs in Tornado/Lightning Storm as effectively mandatory on a Storm Summoning build. Between the two of them, you're probably looking at 50% or more extra global recharge over time. Agreed. And if you're teaming, putting one in Gale is also useful, since it only needs to proc once on the entire spawn to get the buff.

I did DPS calculations for soloing AVs back on Live, and, counting -Regen as equivalent to DPS, it seemed that the highest DPS characters were a Storm/Sonic Defender and a Demons/Storm MM, both times because Tornado/LS do more than 100 DPS once you stack them. This beats a permanent Regen shutdown... but when you combine them with the -Res from Sonic or the Corruption attacks from Demons, that 100+ DPS goes well over 200+. So, statistically, a /Storm will average better than a /Cold. However, as AV level goes up, they "resist" damage just as they "resist" debuffing due to the level difference. You're doing 60% debuffing or 60% damage... except that the AVs also resist -Res debuffs in the same way. So you're only getting 60% of your usual -Res debuffing, lowering the multiplier on Tornado/LS's damage. So what happens is that /Storm > /Cold on +0 AVs (where I did my calculations). As you increase the levels, your -Regen debuffs are lowered by about 10% per level difference. But your DPS from Tornado/LS are lowered by 10%, PLUS their bonus damage is lowered by another 10%. You're definitely putting out a good amount of -Resist from Freezing Rain, regardless of whether you have a primary that does -Res or not, so you're losing more DPS as a Stormie than as a Cold. I'm not sure where the breakpoint lies, it may even be higher than +4, but it's certain that Storm starts out a lot stronger than Cold against +0 AVs, but drops faster as the AV level goes up. In addition, /Cold is better against GMs since their Regen rate is much higher. As a note, though, /Storm is better against Mako or other AVs with very high defenses since Tornado is auto-hit and it's a large chunk of your "-Regen equivalent".

You can also put a FF +Recharge IO in there for extra Recharge boosts. This works best for a melee Controller, since they often have nice control powers on long timers.

Most AVs and GMs can be Immobilized. Most will only run away when they are in a damage patch. Use damage patches together with Immobilizes. Without seeing the exact powers used by the team in the fight I can't be sure what the situation is, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's causing the running.

I am playing a Fire/Fire in the 20s, and it is ROUGH (and it was rough since the early teens). Damage mitigation is really low until you get Bonfire at 26, you don't have the slots to stack up defense-oriented set bonuses, and many of the powers are slow-activating (Flashfire, Combustion, and Fire Breath are all slow... so will Bonfire be, also). Once the character makes 26, things will improve a lot, but right now it's my weakest character by far. It is also a late-blooming set, with its best control power at 26, its second best (Flashfire) with a pretty slow activation, not enough Endurance to leverage its damage potential with Hot Feet until maybe Consume is available at 28, and its best two single-target attacks are Blaze and Blazing Bolt, at 35/38. Imps will help, but they're also in the 30s. So... for solo leveling, it's a pretty late bloomer, the first 25 levels will be pretty hard. After that, the damage starts piling up in the 30s, and in the 40s it should be a high damage character with reasonable defenses. But until then... ouch.

Thank you very much, everyone. This part about dmg is exactly what I was wondering about. To clarify, when Dominators have Domination active, their controls will last longer than those of Controllers, as well as gain double Magnitude. I think the Domination boost is an additional mez effect, with the same Mag as the normal power, and 1.5x its duration. So instead of having a 0.8 duration multiplier vs Controllers, their Domination effect has a 1.6 duration multiplier as well as having double mag for the 0.8 portion of it. So, when Domination is active, Dominators put out more Magnitude and longer duration than Controllers. When it's inactive, Controllers put out more Mag and Duration.

You are generally correct, although to be specific, the chance to proc is capped at 90%

Yes, Newspapers are still in the game. When you go to a new villain zone, you get the zone's Broker as a contact. I think you just have to talk to one of them once to unlock Newspapers as an active contact. But there is also a Find Contact button that will teleport you to any contact within your level range that you have not yet unlocked, and the contacts will talk to you and give you missions, so you don't have to do Newspapers unless you want to do 3 of them so you can unlock a Mayhem Mission. Merits are awarded after finishing any story arc, including Task Forces, Trials, etc. You also get 5 Merits for getting all of the Exploration badges in a zone.

The problem with Brawl is it's really the weakest. On a level 35 MM I tested, 4 slotted (1ACC 3Dmg SOs) Boxing and Kick were 5.42 and 5.96 times the strength of unslotted brawl against an even level Crey Infiltrator. Cross Punch was 9.02 times better than unslotted Brawl. Shouldn't slotted attacks be better than unslotted ones? How do they compare to slotted brawl? Slotted Brawl would be almost 2x its base damage, so you can approximately halve those numbers. In other words, since Box/Kick recharge so fast, you can use them and do about 2.5 - 3x as much damage as slotted Brawl... so the only reason to slot Brawl is to have 4 slots for Kinetic Combat if you're going for S/L defense.

That would be AWESOME!!!

Always, for every single Controller set that has pets, take the pets when they become available (Level 32, and also level 18 for Dark and Illusion), period. They are your highest damage from a single power, and they also may add control, debuff, and/or tanking effects, depending on the pet. And now, direct comments on the powers: Fire Cages: never slot Immobs for Controllers for Immobilize duration. They last a long time, slot them for Damage and maybe with the Controller ATO that summons an Orb so that you have lots of chances to summon a temporary pet that Stuns. Make sure you get in End Mod in there, they are expensive powers to spam, and don't worry about Recharge, their Recharge is low. Rad Infection: Don't spend slots on -Def debuffing, you don't usually need it increased. Put in 4x Dark Watcher's Despair for a Recharge benefit, and maybe an Achilles Heel proc if you have slots to spare. Accelerate Metabolism: 6 slot this, to max out End Mod and Recharge. If you can get it done in 5 slots, that's also good. This is a major power, and you want to get it permanent, and with a high Recovery enhancement. Smoke is auto-hit, hehe. I think it only needs Accuracy for PvP. Put a -ToHit IO in here and it's good. Hot Feet: This is a DAMAGE aura, not a SLOW aura. Mobs won't be moving if you're using Bonfire and Fire Cages, so slowing them down is irrelevant. And it has a high End cost, so you want that lowered. Use a mix of sets to get high Accuracy, Damage, and End Mod. Accuracy is NOT as important as the other two, since you will be using Radiation Infection to hit more. I start with 3xEradication for a small Ranged Def bonus, and then mix sets to get more Damage/End Reduction. Flashfire: looks fine. Other sets also work here, as long as you slot it heavily for Acc/Stun/Recharge Lingering Radiation: Same issue as Hot Feet, you don't need to enhance the -Slow of this power. It does 3 things: slows mob movement down, and you don't need to enhance that... slows mob Recharge down, and you CAN'T enhance that (Slow enhancements only work on movement speed, not on Recharge debuffing), and a strong Regen debuff. The Regen debuff is a great effect for fighting AVs, but it's also not enhanceable, so for this power you want: Accuracy (about 50%), Recharge (90%), and End Mod (whatever you can spare)... you should be able to hit solid numbers in 4 slots. SuperSpeed: You don't need the End Reduction IO here. When out of combat you don't have End issues, and I never like running it in combat... when your movement is being suppressed by attacking, it does nothing... and the jolt in speed when movement suppression ends can send you going into the next spawn by mistake. Use Sprint in combat. Combat Jumping, Stealth, Grant Invisibility: I would go with a single LotG: Global Recharge in each of these, and Kismet in one of them. Their Defense is not worth slotting up, and while Red Fortune has decent bonuses, you can get comparable bonuses from sets in other powers, while getting more useful enhancement values. Maneuvers: add a slot for an LotG: Global Recharge Take the Steadfast slot from Surge of Power and move it to the armor shield, so that you get the +3% Defense IO two levels earlier. Take Fire Imps and Ring of Fire (this is a damaging attack, and you need it both to Immobilize AVs and Bosses quickly, and for damage). Slot up RoF with 6xThunderstrike. Imps can be slotted multiple ways, one cheap and effective is 6xBlood Mandate for defense, or else Frankenslot with about 4 slots for Accuracy/Damage (no need for Recharge or Endurance). Char is a major defensive power, and needs more slots. At a minimum, 4 slot with Basilisk's Gaze, but 6xLockdown for more Defense can also work.

Mind can use Confuse to add an ally for more damage (Veres summons a Grave Knight who would make an excellent conscript), but it can't set up Containment dependably. If you're thinking of using Confuse, I would go with Dark Control, which has both an Immob and Possess. /Poison should work better as a MM, so that you get to use Alkaloid to heal whichever Henchman is being targeted. Its debuffs would matter more at this level than at higher levels, but without a self-heal, I don't think the -ToHit/-Dam is strong enough to tank the AV. Of course, seeing that a /Storm can do it, perhaps I'm mistaken... but I'm sure it'll be easier as a MM than as a Controller with /Poison.

Skip the following powers: Salt Crystals: You will be using Freezing Rain and Earthquake, and they will wake up sleeping mobs. This is more of a tool against adds, and I think that Hurricane is very useful against adds while also being useful in other situations. Quicksand and Snow Storm: You don't need movement debuffs, with Freezing Rain and Earthquake to knock down mobs, and Stone Cages to Immobiliize them. Quicksand's -Def is useful, but not enough to take it since both FR and Eq also put out a lot of -Def. delay O2 boost until you're close to getting Animate Stone. On a team, you're too busy with debuffs and controls if things go poorly to have time for single-target healing, and it's not useful if the team is rolling. It's only useful to help someone tank an AV, so getting it late is quite acceptable. Other than that, pretty much everything is useful. Gale not so much since you have two AoE knockdown patches plus Tornado and Lightning Storm, but it can be useful for a Force Feedback proc... and you can't skip it, anyhow. Thunderclap is great for stacking with Stalagmites, or you use Stalags to open and Stun the LTs, then you Hold the LTs while Stalag is active, and then use Thunderclap to extend the Stun on the minions, allowing you to perma-control a pretty large spawn other than the bosses.

I like it, and I like Steampunkette's version also. Going with Whip attacks all as close melee (20' or so) and using Fire Blast attacks for the ranged attacks works. Going with Whip attacks as short ranged attacks (40' or so) and using Fire Sword attacks for melee also works. I like the switch to a patch DoT for the Summon Hellfire animation, it's a very good idea. I think that a Whip/Blasts version would PLAY better, but a Whip/Sword version would be visually more impressive, and I would prefer to play the latter.

FYI, I think that a /Dark Controller can put out over 100% ToHit Debuff against an AV. Add in the debuffs from the primary (including Haunt and Umbra Beast), and I think that topping 150% is doable. Even resisted, that's like 17% ToHit Debuff against an AV, more than a small Inspiration.

To note, this is kind of a non-starter issue for any new Assault sets incorporating Whips, for a simple reason: There are only 4 whip-using animations, and one of them is a bit problematic (the Summon Hellfire animation) since it would be hard to extend it to medium range, and I'm not sure how it would work as a mob runs away around a corner. So any suggestion that takes out one of the few usable whip-based attack animations really is going against the whole idea of making a usable set that adds the Whip animations into the game as an option other than the personal attacks in Demons. In short: use all of the whip animations.

Grav/Dark is a good thought, I forgot about Grav for some reason. I'm surprised a Fire/Storm can do it, though... without a self-heal, and with Hurricane coming after the Skulls AVs are done, what are you using for survival?

Take Tactics and 6-slot it with ToHit enhancements (overslotted, but necessary... they have a higher Buff modifier than Blasters, so you may be able to get it with fewer than 6 slots). Get the Kismet +Accuracy IO and slot it into a power that takes +Defense enhancements. That should get you the needed ToHit.