Ghostpilot

A bit late at this point, but I wanted to throw in some more support for Gravity's pet, Singularity. It has 3 of the higher damage ST controls available (Crush, Life, and Gravity Distortion), and is further aided by being able trigger the extra damage from Gravity's Impact! mechanic by itself (which adds 25% to the damage of Lift when it is used during the effects of Crush or Gravity Distortion). It has 50% resistance to Smash, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative; with 90% resistance to Psychic and Toxic. It's immune to every status effect except for Fear and Confuse. It can Fly. It has the Repel effect from Kinetics on permanently along with a unique vacuum effect that draws enemies towards it. The above Repel effect can be converted from Knockback to Knockdown via the Sudden Acceleration set, turning the Singularity itself it a potent control effect itself. Could summon it into a spawn to soak alphas, use it to cut off chokepoints, etc. Damage procs from Will of the Controller and Explosive Strike can be slotted in to further increase its already pretty good damage. Sudden Acceleration's KB to KD is completely transformative to how Singularity can be used and I would highly recommend accounting for it when slotting the power. And it has to be this one, as Overwhelming Force's will only convert the knockback to knockdown for something that deals damage. As the Repel portion of Singularity doesn't deal damage, this conversion doesn't occur. Speaking of the Overwhelming Force enhancement, it does add a chance for Knockdown in anything that deals damage; including Phantom Army. May be asking why you'd want this in PA which has a built-in taunt: it adds an additional layer of control to the power, this preventing enemies from using buffs, AoE's, and other things that while PA may ignore, may otherwise be a factor. Anyway, I digress. I believe Singularity is and incredible pet (for my money, the best capstone Control pet), and wanted to give it its due credit.

Despite the power indicating otherwise, Fear sets are unable to be slotted into Dark Control's capstone power, Umbra Beast.

I've been messing around with Gravity and Dark on the test server, and it's a very potent combination. it'll take some time to get going, and Gravity is extremely rough between levels 8 and 26, because Gravity Distortion Field and Dimension Shift aren't great powers (especially the latter). After that it'll smooth out, though. The core of your controls are going to come from Wormhole and Howling Twilight, which is an -extremely- potent combo. Both powers are AoE stuns, with the latter being an auto-hit stun that also has -500% regeneration tacked onto it. Once you get into the endgame, especially with Power Boost from Primal Forces Mastery more that doubling the duration of each Stun (on on top of what you get from enhancements, you will be able to keep an entire group of +4's locked down permanently. Dark Servant has eccentricities that you can take advantage of when building. First off, it's not considered a pet nor a damage power, despite acting like both. You can heal and buff it like a pet, but curiously it's considered a "Special Range Debuff." So, with that in mind, something you'll want to do with Dark Servant is slot it with every damage proc you can find. Regardless of what kind of damage proc it is, it will have a chance to trigger of the Dark Servant does anything (e.g. the damage procs from the Hold enhancement sets can trigger even when the Dark Servant does a heal). This can turn Dark Servant into a potent damage power in addition to the support and control it provides. This is doubly important because... Singularity is the best end-cap Control set pet out there. It's smart, durable, flies; tough, enhances your ability to control, and can put out a surprising amount of damage (especially when Soulbound Allegiance: Chance for Build-Up is slotted). It can easily solo bosses by itself. Moreover, when paired up with Dark Servant's debuffs, holds, and damage, they become a pair that supports each other and can layer holds very quickly while putting out excellent damage. Additionally, with Sudden Acceleration's: Knockback to Knockdown slotted into it, you can turn it into an additional form of AoE control. However, it's not like Fire or Illusion where their game very much centers around the pets, your controls and debuffs are very much the stars of the show. Also, furthermore, Power Boost + Fade is an enormous defense boost. Out of the box, with no slots, the combo is +21% to all defenses. Once you get going, you'll be able to hit of soft-cap defenses very easily, and with all of the -To-hit on top of that, you're not going to be touched. Your personal damage will be pretty good as well, when slotting Gravity Distortion, Lift, and Propel with damage procs and making use of the Impact mechanic. If you want more -Regen, you can get it from the Diamagnetic Interface. About the only thing that Gravity / Dark doesn't boost is accuracy, but you can short that up with Kismet's +6% to-hit, Leadership, and other bonuses. Of all the combinations I've dabbled with on Test, Gravity / Dark is the one I'm most interested in taking over to the proper servers. You won't be disappointed!

You're in for a treat! I've just finished (or am at least satisfied enough) with my Illusion / Time, and after leveling Illusion 4-5 times between Live and Homecoming, I've got to put Time on an equal level with Radiation Emission. Rad can do some things that Time can't, and vice versa. While it's an old guide, Local_Man's guide into Illusion is a fantastically thorough deep dive into the powerset. https://web.archive.org/web/20120905042613/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225 Sadly, there doesn't seem to be one I've run across for Time as it's a comparatively new set. I did make a post on Reddit that you may find useful. Hope it helps guide you some! PS: As an aside, Time Stop lets you do fun things like slotting every available damage proc into it. Here's my Time Stop with all the damage procs slotted into it on a minion my level with no buffs / debuffs: https://gyazo.com/184d42cc997f320bff63bb1bede50b76

I don't want to comment on powersets I don't know anything about, so I'll stick to what I know. But first some blanket changes that could help. Controllers / Dominators. Tier 1 Immobilizes: Their damage rating is rather misleading because the DoT's are over a long period of time (9 seconds), so the damage ends up being far lower than what's listed in real world applications. The damage takes so long to apply, the skill could be cast two additional times before the first DoT finished. Keeping simply changing lowering the time of the DoT's from 9 seconds to the usual 5 seconds would help the early game and would make the single target immobilizes (that are generally skipped) more appealing in general. AoE Controls received a blanket nerf to their Accuracy, Duration and Cooldowns long ago. With the -20% to base accuracy and 4 minute cooldowns, this makes most of them - ironically - some of the more skippable powers in a Controllers arsenal and a real letdown when picked up. Given how the game has changed since the early days when this nerf took place, I think that the affected AoE controls being brought back to 1.00x accuracy and perhaps a 3 minute cooldown would go a long way to letting Controllers and Dominators do what they're designed to do. Pet Melee Bug: There were mentions of it on the Live forums back in the day. It was a problem the devs knew about and had on the table to be fixed, but never was before the game went down. Ranged pets will run into melee even when they didn't have any melee attacks. This caused many pets to die prematurely. This being corrected would help several under-performing powers. Now, that aside, here are some things I'd like to see with some power sets that I have experience with. Some are QoL changes, others are suggestions to bringing up some underperforming sets. Quality of Life: Gravity Control: The changes to the knockback protection on Immobilizes helped this set a good bit, especially with regards to its Impact mechanic which previously. However, Singularity's controls still apply the knockback protection that gets in the way of this. I suspect this might be the case for some other pets as well (e.g. Fly Trap, Umbra Beast). Levitate (Mind Control) and Lift (Gravity Control): These powers have a 2-second delay before applying their damage that was intended to line up with the time that the enemy landed. However, this was before ragdoll physics were implemented. Now, the damage applies well after the enemy hits the ground. This delay often causes the user (as well as pets / party members) to waste additional attacks on enemies that would have been defeated by the damage from Levitate / Lift that hadn't applied yet. The fix for this would simply to have the damage apply at the start of the knockup. Illusion Control: While certainly not a weak set (aside for Flash, as per the AoE controls mentioned earlier), it would be nice if the Phantom Army could fly in the way Phantasm does so that they may better keep up with the Illusionist (especially those with Jumps / Flys). This minor, however. Electric Control: A decent set overall; it would benefit from having the damage of its Single Target Immobilize (Electric Fence) being up-front damage (to match its AoE Immobilize) instead of a DoT. Static Field is a pulsing Sleep power which will be disrupted by a Damage Over Time power, especially as Static Field is a core power of the set. Undertuned Powers / Powersets: Overpower: A Controller inherent 20% chance for +1 Mag on some forms of control makes this an inherent that cannot be relied upon as it has an 80% chance to do nothing. Additionally, it triggering on minions, LT's and pets is the same as it not triggering at all. As such, it is only really meaningful on Bosses on up. Gravity Control: Gravity is one of the two control sets (the other being Mind) that lacks a secondary effect that Earth (-Def), Ice (slow, -Rec), and other sets have. While it does have the Impact mechanic that added some damage, prior to the knockback protection changes, meant that Gravity had to sacrifice damage for control (or vice versa), and only applied to a few powers. It would be nice if the Gravity Distortion Field set up Impact the same way that the single target Gravity Distortion does (likewise with Singularity's Gravity Distortion) and that Crushing Field took advantage of Impact the same way that Crush does. Dimension Shift is a power that - even in ideal situations - is of marginal use and ends up leading the party yelling at you. This was a power that's had it's functionality changed at least once in the past. That said, I don't know how to correct this short of replacing it entirely. There has been the wish of players since Live for Gravity to have a Mass Lift (i.e. Reverse Gravity). Though this idea might be somewhat redundant with Wormhole. Mind Control: Mind Control was perhaps the set hit hardest by the blanket nerfs to AoE controls in Live. The flavor text of the set says that it is very accurate, but a third of the set has accuracy penalties. This is combined with a lack of a secondary effect, long cooldowns, no pet, and a power as awkward and expensive as it is unique: Telekinesis (which used to hit 16 targets; now hits 5). Also, as two of the powers are Sleeps, they end up being virtually useless in group scenarios. It all adds up to a Control powerset that's not terribly effective at controlling and sacrifices a secondary effect and a pet with nothing to show for it. Even its level 32 power is surpassed in virtually every way by a power Plant receives at level 8, and Electric Control's Synaptic Overload at 26. Electric Control also has a far better AoE sleep in the form of Static Field. The one unique aspect of Mind Control is that it is the set that can best make use of Controller's Overpower / Containment and Dominator's Domination in 8 of its 9 powers. Sadly, this doesn't save the set. Now this is a hail Mary, but to borrow from an idea I'd posted elsewhere on the forums a month ago: as Telekinesis and Total Domination largely overlap as being AoE Holds, it would be interesting for Total Domination to allow the permanent control of an enemy LT or lower, giving it the same equivalent stats of a typical Control set pet. I am unsure if such a thing is mechanically possible, but it would be a unique capstone ability. Also, Mind could benefit from a secondary effect that (most) other Control primaries have. I'm just unsure of what it might be. Storm Summoning: A strange, unfocused set that would make more sense as a Controller primary than as a Defender Primary. The #1 Powerset to frustrate a group; Storm Summoning even has effects that don't synergize with the power they're attached to (e.g. Tornado and Lightning Storm knocking enemies out of their own areas of effect) as well as scattering them from the other powers in the set (the areas of Freezing Rain, or away from Thunderclap). Speaking of Thunderclap - for as beautiful as it is - is among the worst powers in the game. It's a relatively small PBAoE stun with a long animation, a -20% accuracy penalty, and is only a mag 2 (meaning it will only stun Minions). And it is in a set that doesn't have any means of getting the user in position to use it. The closest power to facilitate it's use would be Hurricane, however the repel of which would push the enemies out of radius of Thunderclap. My idea for it would be to remove the accuracy penalty, make it mag 3, and enable Location-type targeting ala Tornado (something I would give to Lightning Storm as well). The set is lacks any buffs, the debuffs are behind that of most other sets, a mediocre heal; no means of applying -Regen, all while being one of the most endurance-intensive sets (Lightning Storm is among the most expensive powers in the game). I struggle to think of anything meaningful it could contribute to most raids, especially Hamidon. Thankfully, Sudden Acceleration's (and Overwhelming Force's) Knockback to Knockdown greatly enhances the usability of this set (as do some accompanying Controller Primaries) to help keep it from working against itself (or a group). I would venture to say they are borderline essential to the sets usability and viability. Fallout: This power, from Radiation Emission, is simply unusable in most situations as it not only requires a dead teammate, but for enemies to be in range of that teammate. Anyway, thanks if you've ready this far!

The capstone power of Martial Assault, Explosive Shuriken, only applies the primary damage to a single target and the secondary minor DoT effect in an AoE, despite the power itself indicating that it's an AoE.

City of Data: Telekinesis Telekinesis suffers from what amounts to a TRIPLE WHAMMY put on it by Cryptic/Paragon Studios when they implemented the Control NERF that included putting caps on aggro. Whereas before the nerf, Telekinesis could affect an unlimited number of $Targets within the 10ft radius Sphere around your anchor target, which is when Telekinesis REALLY started to shine ... after the nerf Telekinesis could only affect a maximum of five $Targets. FIVE. This meant that although Total Domination (and other "mass" control powers like it) had a max target cap of 16 ... Telekinesis was nerfed into the ground with a max target cap of only FIVE targets affected, maximum. FIVE. That meant you couldn't do THIS anymore ... (yes, I was playing at 640x480 resolution back in those days) ... I count TEN Skyraiders being held/repelled by Telekinesis in that image. Not five ... TEN. Needless to say, all efforts to correct this massively unfair (and totally unnecessary) "fix" to Telekinesis fell on deaf ears at Cryptic/Paragon Studios ... even though the actual solution to this specific problem involved changing a SINGLE parameter for the power. Step 1: delete "5" from max targets table cell Step 2: replace with "16" in the max targets table cell Step 3: DONE Good catch! I hadn't known this about Telekinesis (or at least hadn't recalled it). Yeah, even in ideal scenarios, it doesn't feel great in it's current state (especially as enemies tire of being controlled and eventually just walk out of it). I'd considered that, but I figured it was a risk worth talking as it'd be a real bummer for a mission get messed up because of a power. Again, that portion was offered as a solution to a potential problem. There may well be a more elegant mechanical solution that may not involve that (which I'm all for). I think something to keep in mind is that the same powerset in the hands of two different AT's can be vastly different. The damage of Mind Control on a Dominator feels okay because Dominator has inherently good damaging scaling. Dominator has substantially better damage scaling than Controllers out of the box, and is supported by an offensive secondary. Containment was created with the notion of making Controller's damage competitive, but this is often not the case because setting up Containment isn't an easy thing to do, and only effects a few powers out of each set. Containment only effects targets that are Held, Slept, Disoriented, and Immobilized. This doesn't apply to Knockdowns/ups/backs, Confuses, Slows, or Terrifies. And the Containment damage has to come directly from the Controller, not pets or pseudo pets. So it ends up being an archetype mechanic that the archetype it's designed for can't use much of the time. It's why those who want damaging Controllers tend to steer towards pet / pseudo-pet-centric sets like Illusion, Fire, Plant, and Darkness: not only is it easier, the scaling is better, and the pets are a force multiplier. Once Permadom is introduced, it makes Dominators significantly better controllers than Controllers since it doubles magnitude, boosts their durations, and while providing the Dominator with status protections. Goodness, I'm almost talking myself out of ever making a Controller again. But I digress, going back to Mind, as soon as DoTs or AoEs come down, 1/3rd of the Mind Controller's powerset (Mesmerize, Mass Hypnosis, and Terrify) is rendered irrelevant as they break on damage (though this is slightly less of an issue on Terrify). Which doubly impacts Controllers because of the lack of Containment. Further, 1/3rd of the powerset has an accuracy penalty (Total Domination and Mass Confusion has a -20% accuracy penalty, while Terrify has a -10% accuracy penalty). With both Total Domination and Mass Confusion both having long cooldowns (4 minutes), a Controller feels the need to have either skip these powers entirely or 4-6 slot them with Accuracy and Recharge SO's before they can get any use from them. Enhancement Diversification isn't really a thing that exists for a lot of AoE controls because they require so much investment for the powers to become usable. I can understand the cooldowns needing to be somewhat lengthy because of the effect, but the accuracy should be at least baseline 1.00X. One should slot a power make it better - not to make it usable. Being excited about a new power only to use it, see a string of "Misses" over a bunch of enemies and for the power to go into 4 minute cooldown while the enemies turn to mow you down causes a little part of you to die inside. Huge, blaring sirens on this. In re-acquainting myself with Mind and Gravity again the past week, this would be a very welcomed QoL change. I can't tell you how many wasted cooldowns and endurance myself and allies have wasted on enemies I've hit with Mind's Levitate and Gravity's Lift because of these power's 2-second delay in dealing its damage. In addition, as more a general change, it would be a nice change if the DoT damage from the single target immobilizes that are the starter powers for most Controller sets (Shadowy Binds, Stone Prison, Crush, etc.) dealt its damage over 5 seconds instead of the current 9.2 seconds. Presently, with no enhancements, it is possible to cycle these powers 3 times before the damage from the first one completes. As such, it makes the damage rating for them rather misleading because it's dealt so slowly. These powers are often skipped anyway, and I thought this would make them a little more appealing.

Thanks for the reply! With regard to the repel portion of Telekinesis, it'd be interesting if it pushed the enemy back if you moved forward. That way you'd have the best of both: holds the enemy at bay when you're standing still and pushes them away (for herding) if you move towards them. That way, it'll expand the situations in which Telekinesis can be used while still keeping some of its current functionality.

While I don't have an issue with the characters being imported - everyone is going to hit 50 / Incarnate before long anyway and it's not a competition. However, I think the potential for a greater issue is the impact on economy in the massive influx of influence and / or the enhancements that would come along with them. Granted, this wouldn't be an issue for most folks, but all it'd take is for a few unscrupulous folks to put a stranglehold on the market. Of course, I'd really like to believe that it wouldn't happen - the potential alone would be enough to give me pause.

GM ArachnosPhobia helpfully recommended that I post this here, so here we go! Mind Control is the sole control set without a pet. The original thought back in the day was that Mind Control's capstone power: Mass Confusion, was kind of like having multiple pets. However, back when the blanket changes were made to AoE controls, Mass Confusion was heavily impacted by this. On top of this, it carries a stigma because of how XP is calculated, as confused enemies who hit each other reduce the amount of potential XP. Compounding the issue further, Plant Control came along with Seeds of Confusion, which is a level 8 power that is substantially better than Mind Control's Mass Confusion which is gained at level 32. To compare the two powers. While I feel that Seeds of Confusion is at a good place and would like for it to remain as it is, Mass Confusion could use some love. One option would be to boost Mass Confusion's figures, but I would like to propose a different, more unique, solution. But first, some housekeeping. Mind Control has two AoE hold powers: Telekinesis and Total Domination. Telekinesis is a unique power, but its extreme endurance cost and built-in repel makes it both difficult to control and very situational. A quick fix would be to lessen or remove the repel effect and potentially lessen the endurance cost, thus broadening its ability to be used while keeping its unique feel. Total Domination is the typical AoE hold with nothing special about it. Possibly even undertuned compared to other holds as Mind Control lacks a rider effect (such as the -Defense in Earth, -Movement in Ice, etc). It's also somewhat redundant with Telekinesis (especially if it were to be changed). As such, I propose that Mass Confusion takes its place in the set. And in the top spot vacated by the old Mass Confusion, we have the new Total Domination! Your mental fortitude overwhelms the enemy's mind: causing your will to become their own. When used upon a minion, lieutenant, or boss enemy, that enemy is defeated and becomes your pet. The entity can be healed and buffed like any teammate. The effect is permanent until it is defeated, at which point, another must found to take its place. Only one entity can be controlled at a time. Attempting to use this when a pet is controlled shall cause the first pet to be replaced. Very Long. A Dominated enemy would scale to the level of the user (as per other Controller pets). Also (somewhat) normalizing Minion / LTs / Bosses to make them all viable. This power wouldn't be usable on Giant Monsters, Elite Bosses, nor Arch Villains as their wills are too strong. The reason for the enemy being instantly defeated when used would be to prevent any potential issue with mission completions that require a particular enemy to be defeated. While this may seem strong on the surface, there are some points to consider: The Mind Controller would have to first find an enemy to dominate (as opposed to other controllers who can summon their pets at will). It would open up Powersets / individual powers normally not appealing to a Mind Controller who may want to solo (presently, powers that target allies are unusable to a solo Mind Controller). It would also cause the Mind Control user to have to adapt to the situation as they'd have to use what's available. Adding some variety to combat. And some Mind Control users may venture out to various places if there's a particular enemy they'd like to make a pet and bring along with them. I think that covers about everything. I'm not sure how readily the CoH engine could support an idea like this, but I did want to put the idea out into the universe and see what came of it. At the very least, I hope it would lead to a second look to Mind Control and some of the other, lesser-used powersets out there. Thanks for reading, and for bringing CoH back to life!

What is being achieved here is simply incredible and I personally can't thank you all enough for everything that you're doing!