Replacement

@Katharos Many immobilize powers now have their own inherent means of converting KB>KD instead, and my understanding is it just hasn't been fully prorogated, especially with Epics. Add Sentinel > Fire Mastery > Fire Cages to the list of "makes immune instead of converting."

See if this is still occurring after full client reset @Wavicle. I've recently found some info like this stores occasionally when character changing in the same session.

Neat idea but your numbers are way high. T2 is two full resist toggles of power budget. T3 would be fine without the psi resist. T4 is fine in a bubble, but should probably be skewed towards fewer allies - e.g. 3.5% defense/tohit +1% per ally. I'm not a fan of the design paradigm of being op at 50 and fully kitted out but you "paid for it" by door sitting a few hours at the AE. Once perma, this set as currently written provides more defense than SR.

Fun Fact Tangent Time: Kinetic Assault's direct powers are missing from the game files, but not the Temporary Powers used for status tracking or the redirects. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.dominator_kineticassault_snipe.kinetic_lance_normal https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.kinetic_assault_impulse

I do, you just have to chase the slots down the line. And you would want an aoe of the same if you can. I mean, you would scale them down or up depending on what you're replacing. Say you replace the Holds with a Fear and a really strong secondary effect. Strong enough to justify the aoe having that 4 minute timer. Well now you need to make sure you have 2 different other moderate strength mez powers, such as a recurring sleep patch and a pbaoe Disorient. So it works, but you're kind of tying your hands because those other mez options are so good for the daily drivers, which never see mez redundancy.

Some example Control Set mappings: Earth Control Power Short Description Classification Stone Prison Ranged, Moderate DoT(Smash), Foe Immobilize, -DEF(All), -Fly Core Mez Fossilize Ranged, Moderate DMG(Smash), Foe Hold, -DEF(All) Core Mez Stone Cages Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Smash), Foe Immobilize, -DEF(All), -Fly Core Mez Quicksand Ranged (Location AoE), Foe -DEF(All), -Fly, -Jump, -SPD De/Buff Salt Crystals PBAoE, Foe Sleep, -DEF(All) Party Mez Stalagmites Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Lethal), Foe Disorient, -DEF(All) Daily Driver Earthquake Ranged (Location AoE), Foe Knockdown, –To-Hit, -DEF(All) Daily Driver Volcanic Gasses Ranged (Location AoE), Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Hold, Special Core Mez Animate Stone Summon Golem: Melee, Heavy DMG(Smash) Pet Ice Control Power Short Description Classification Chilblain Ranged, Moderate DoT(Cold), Foe Immobilize, -Recharge, -SPD Core Mez Block of Ice Ranged, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Hold, -Recharge, -SPD Core Mez Frostbite Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DoT(Cold), Foe Immobilize, -Recharge, -SPD Core Mez Arctic Air Toggle: PBAoE, Foe Confuse(Special), -Stealth, -Recharge, -SPD Daily Driver, Probably Shiver Ranged (Cone), Foe -Recharge, -SPD De/Buff Ice Slick Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Knockdown, -SPD Daily Driver Flash Freeze Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe Sleep Party Mez Glacier PBAoE, Foe Hold, -Recharge, -SPD Core Mez Jack Frost Summon Jack Frost: Melee, Moderate DMG(Cold) Pet

This feels a bit presumptuous to put in the "Guide" section but I feel it's the best home for the topic. I have been wanting to put this together for the past year, and I think it's time I finally get down to it. What this is: a schema (or blueprint, or set of "best practice" patterns) for understanding Control sets. I put this together when I started to feel like I could almost see equivalencies between the Control sets. It's just not as straightforward as, say, Blast sets. This is designed to help you find the apples and oranges within sets to compare against each other. In short, it's my version of "Doe is to Buck as Hen is to Rooster." Who is this for: primarily for people wanting to design new Control sets, but I also feel it is pertinent for balance discussions regarding the existing Control sets. For example, before laying out this schema, I hadn't realized how much Salt Crystals (aoe sleep) was never expected to compete with the likes of Static Field (recurring Sleep patch), because it's intended to fill the same gap as Smoke (enemy -Perception). I feel this could function as a great checklist "starting point" for folks like @Tyrannical or even (wishfully) the @Captain Powerhouse. What this is not: LAW. Rules are made to be broken. But if you're going to build a better race car engine, you should probably understand how motors work. Just about every set has a deviation from the patterns I'm going to lay out, but I'm hoping if your brain is wired like mine, this little game of Match will help you understand why they thought they could get away with it. In analyzing all the existing control sets, I have noticed the more a set deviates from these patterns, the more it tends to come up in conversation as UP/OP, or just hard as hell to balance content against. I do not think this is a coincidence. The Checklist and TL;DR The closer your Control set hits these marks, the less balance tuning it should require: Core Mez ST+AOE minor mez (immobs usually) ST+AOE major mez (holds) 2 Daily Drivers 2 different aoe mez effects with reasonable availability 2 oddballs pulled from the following categories a different ST mez an aoe mez with little in-combat benefit (e.g. -Perception bomb or Sleep) A limited duration pet A de/buff The pet Starting with the most obvious and working my way towards the more interesting, here are the various components and subcomponents of a standard Control set: A Pet It's the t9 pet(s). Core Mez These are intentionally nearly standardized across Control sets. They are a baseline. Creativity in this space is mostly limited to secondary effects and targeting types (Dark Control has a Cone immob and a Location aoe Hold, for example). Core mez types are "Burned up." If your set swaps the Immobs out for Knocks, you shouldn't have Knocks outside these 2 powers. Standard format: ST and AoE Immobilize Can also be viewed as ST and AoE version of the same minor mez. ST and AoE Hold Can also be viewed as ST and AoE version of the same major mez. AOE Hold's recharge is intentionally impossible to have ready every fight. Two Daily Drivers Each Control set has 2 powers that are, to my estimation, the intended primary methods your chosen set will control fights. These have the following qualities, and every quality is equally important: AOE in nature Can reasonably be expected to be ready every fight on Single Origin Enhancements (Note: this assumes SO kill times as well) Never the same type of mez between the two (e.g. sets would not have 2x aoe disorients at Daily Driver Recharge values) Never the same type of mez as the Core Mez These are always "Moderate" mezzes - those with at least some small chance of an affected enemy responding (even if that response is a slow-walk away). These are things like disorients, fears, and recurring versions of shorter-lived mezzes like Earthquake's constant Knocks. These also tend to not be "created equal" -- most sets have one with a cooldown around the 40s region and another in the 90s zone. Getting into the weird stuff This leaves 2 power slots, and each is plucked from the following classifications: Bonus Mez - An additional low cooldown (usually ST) mez, which should be of a type not represented elsewhere in the set. De/Buff - Typically a movepeed debuff, but any debuff or party buff that feels more in-line with a Support power. Party Mez - An ALWAYS AOE (be it party or enemy) "Mez" effect that only works with the party's cooperation. I also called it a Party Mez because it's essentially forcing your allies into inaction as well. This is one-and-done Sleeps, -Perception bombs, and team Stealths. TL;DR: Powers which do almost nothing while your party is being violent. Limited Pet - A pet power with finite duration. Balancing the books It doesn't take a genius to recognize a limited pet is better than most party mez effects like a one-off sleep. As with all sets for all ATs, the final form obviously needs tuned by looking at the overall picture, including secondary effects. This means it doesn't make sense to add a strong, CC-using t8 pet in a set that already has incredible mez or double damage on one of its attacks. Replacements (hi) Some example calculated swaps made in existing sets, for better and for worse: Ice Control - If you consider Arctic Air (25' aura with 30% confuse chance) to be a daily driver, as I do, it works out to a little less mez potential than other sets. This works out though, because the set's secondary effects (including AA's own slow) provide constant increasing soft-locking. Fire Control - Arguably, Hot Feet is a daily driver and Bonfire is a bonus mez. Or was, until KB>KD existed. Regardless, Hot Feet's panic+slow gives the set a strong 2nd layer of defense, but it lacks in what people think of when they imagine a Controller locking a whole spawn. For Imp and Bonfire reasons, this is on-brand and works well. Mind Control - Is a treasure trove of replacements, and devs going just a little too far off the deep end to create an unmanageable mess. Core Mez: Sleeps replace Immobs. Though sleeps are a bit weaker, this should work as they both essentially require the party to play differently to make the most of them. Pet: standard pet replaced with Mass Confusion. Cool. I still think the XP penalty needs another rework but this is sound (in theory). Bonus Mez: Confuse. ST Confuse being the same type as the t9 confuse.** Daily Driver: Telekinesis has a Hold component, creating a 3rd Hold source.** **I believe both of these facts (over-access to mez-duplication) is a large part of why Mind Control was otherwise tuned so low. They have some of the best mez-stacking in the game, and it bears a large opportunity cost on the rest of the set's design. Illusion Control - This set is off the reservation. It's almost impossible to match up to the blueprint, and so I find it no coincidence this single set is the most difficult to balance against the rest.

Pretty sure this one's canon.

I don't know if the engine knows the owner of a given buff, let alone if the UI has the required visibility to filter by it, but we do know such a mechanism exists (the thing that lets an ally double up one of your buffs, while your own only replaces your previous cast). But if possible, it would be a fantastic QoL option for the too-often unsung support heroes.

I like the set and the idea of it, @Blackfeather, but I have some critiques you're free to ignore. 1 - the Illuminated trait increasing magnitude is pretty far outside of precedent. Something like a large bonus to mez duration is more likely to see the light of day. In fact, you could mostly replace the effects with a straight mez resist (all) debuff, but that would affect all mez (including that of your friends). 2 - too many powers have aoe mez. This is tempered very heavily with the % chances, but it's still a bit too much. The first thing I would do is remove the Disorient chance from Incandescent Eruption. It doesn't need it anyway with that cooldown. From there, I would consider increasing the cooldown on Prismatic Field and making it the aoe Hold power for the set. This would let you set up Blinding Halo as a Disorient instead, with a much higher % activation chance on Prismatic. I say this because Holds tend to have an additional layer of rules on Control sets. Essentially, you are expected to always be able to pull out a "moderate" mez (Disorient, Fear, recurring knock like ice patch), but the aoe Hold is designed as your ace in the hole. (Yes, Nature Affinity is unfair). If you keep the Hold on the toggle, I would expect realistically to lose even more aoe from the other powers. Likely Luminous distortion would trade out for a clone of group invisibility. You might consider that Mag 1 with self-stacking could work for the toggle too.

Jolting Chain could be really interesting. Especially with the doubled cooldown epics (inconsistently) get to keep it fair. That's my vote. @oedipus_tex bless you for bringing visibility to this.

Pretty sure this is too powerful, at least at t1. Static Field is extremely good CC. The best comparison point would be the Earth mastery's aoe disorient. I wonder if Short circuit could fit here instead, or if that would be too much damage?

To this part, anyway, this has happened to me intermittently as far back as on Retail. My friend actually had a single character that would have this happen literally every time he zoned to all his Peacebringer macros (which is basically a large "give up on this character" sign for a PB). For me it's more like you are describing though - sometimes on first making a macro, or returning to a character, the macro just drops everything past the first $$. You have a lot of other info in your post I don't want lost in the shuffle, but wanted to call out that particular detail.

Isn't this a bit stacked for Shield Defense? A defense/resist toggle and an HP/resist auto. Also I think one with the shield. I mean, you did already explicitly state the set would be unique, just weird how well that set is primed for this.

I recently found Electric Armor to actually be a fantastic stand-in for powered armor/robotics. Particularly if you accept some occasional power discharge into your concept. It even provides psi resist. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to this theoretical new set. Ideally even if it's geared towards tech, it would at least leave the door open for other origins. Obligatory mention: Dr Doom. Magical power armor can absolutely be cool.

I'm not opposed to some buffs to Sonic Attack. But I would not be for lessening the -res amounts, and on the other side of the equation, I would implore a lot of care in buffing the set. The effects of -res are multiplicative with additional damage streams, most notably party members, but also your secondary. Before going too gung-ho on a lot of direct buffs to Sonic, I'd like to see how it compares for certain blapper builds. Off the top of my head, I feel like Dark and Water would likely be the most comparable from a mitigation standpoint, so seeing how a water/ninja compares to a sonic/ninja, for example, would probably be an interesting test. And of course, Defender numbers play to the set's strengths already. I'm really not sure about Corruptor and Sentinel is its own thing (but probably worse than usual, since they don't have much outside of their primary to ever see the -res payoff). Things I would like to see: Some minor animation trims Addition of -res to siren's song I'm not really interested in making siren's song have a different mez or anything like that - generalized Sleep improvements are a systemic thing, and really shouldn't be buffed as much as most people seem to think (example: Salt Crystals is in competition with Smoke - NOT Static Field or Ice Slick).

It seems to me like bringing the arc to 45 is good for other reasons (or at least 40 to avoid Rikti weirdness) but this explanation makes it sound like you could put a level requirement of 45 on the contact (and thus the TF), but 35 on the arc.

I'm not a fan of giving it the Dynamo treatment. I would rather see Dark Consumption moved around and turned into the Sustain.

Astute! What we decide is part of the Scrapper fiction is mutable, following the expectations of our little pocket of culture. Consider page 4: we noticed that Tankers in comics domineer the battlefield, but here they hit like wet noodles that did little more than open enemies up to slightly improved attacks by our friends. The Homecoming team took charge of that opportunity and gave tankers an inherent identity they thought fit better. I think "the duelist" works for a scrapper, which is why I rather like the idea of something ridiculous like a mag 10 taunt. But considering it's been about 20 issues since Scrapper "tanks" were anything approaching reasonable (and were certainly entered status by the time of Going Rogue), I think it's a similar opportunity to update their theme. I again emphasize my personal preference as "anything that makes them more distinctive from the other melee ATs.". And for me, "lesser version of Taunt" is the opposite of that. For the specifics of theme inclusion, my arguments matter less but are simply: there's a large difference in theme between combat teleport and a leap attack with a broadsword (and combat jumping would be, to me, an increase in combat mobility but I wouldn't classify it as a gap-closer). Meanwhile, Confront and Provoke already have the exact identical fiction. So there is no loss, thematically, to the pivot. tl;dr: My main contention above was the circular logic of "Scrappers must have an ST taunt as part of their theme, because they have an ST taunt." Since Scrapper aggro control hasn't been part of the zeitgeist since Hami 1.0, I'll stand my ground against any argument that it's definitive of the AT as a whole. About the scrapper power level- I agree here as well that Scrappers don't really "need" anything that improves performance (just identity). See my first sentence from my first post in this thread. But remember that right now, part of that incredible performance leans into the idea of only needing (at most) 8 primary selections. It's not perfect, but I do take some solace in the idea that if Confront was cottage burnt, it would require a power selection (and thus giving up something else that likely gives better sustained performance) to get the new toy. It would, in most instances, trade power for utility. For the builds that don't envision their Scrappers as "zippy," they change nothing (statistically speaking). For the very very few people who use Confront for pulling - they can get better results for free from the p2w. For the people who like actually like a taunt on a scrapper - maybe we can finally start breaking the taboo on pool powers by making Provoke auto-hit, or including a range debuff when used my a melee AT. @Tyrannical I'd love to get more of your take - really anything to let your thread move beyond my uncanny ability to kill a thread. My take on your Confront buffs is that it's too much control for a Scrapper, even if the recharge was nerfed down to a minute - though maybe I just value mag 2 minion locks more than most. What about a pbaoe move speed slow on activation (in addition to normal effects)? That would keep you "sticky" but allow the mobs to still try to kill your tanker or brute friend instead of you.

I would love to add a sewer entrance in there that pops out in pocket D. Though Red deserves an equivalent and Gold deserves... A lot more. @Devs - For the record, even though I don't like the Pocket D changes, I'm not going to flip tables over it. So much opposition to change comes across as "raising hell" so it feels important to go out of my way to say: you're still appreciated and I'll still love the work you do.

@Bionic_Flea try again. Supposedly Tequila manifest has been updated.

With the exception of the RP crowd, all the rest of what you listed is exactly why I wouldn't want it connected. AP has enough going for it. The game has enough incentives to stay there. AE letting you get to 50 isn't my issue -- it's just yet another thing you can do without ever leaving. Maybe this is just because I'm more of a "small crowd" person. The only thing that makes me more nervous than 200 people is running into just 1 person.

Uh, sorry to be that guy but I'm actually explicitly against connecting the starting zones to Pocket D. I like the LRTP changes because they added qol and a reward to taking an extra moment while zipping through zones. This is the opposite - removing reasons to ever break out of the AE to 50 pipeline.

Love the Gold inclusion. I think it says a lot that even I, lover of change for the sake of itself, do not want to see this change to the other zones. I have no context for redside, but I strongly dislike the Founders->Atlas change.

This... Would be hilarious for those weird low-mid level parties where everyone's a controller or a blaster and then there's you on Scrapper with no taunt aura and the trollers keep panic immobilizing everything in Paragon City. I can't be the only person who finds themselves in this party at least once/year.