Wimbochismo

No problem! Even if I'm giving advice I always suggest to do your own testing to see how the build translates in-game. You may not have as many endurance issues as expected so you can always change that later. Especially with Domination giving end when its up and Conserve Power in your back pocket. Proccing Dark Grasp is totally viable, and you've already met most of your other goals anyway. Maybe adjust the Aegis set in Tough? The set bonus isn't amazing but YMMV. Otherwise the build should do everything you need it to! Looks great!

It looks like you're going for a perma Dom with some ranged defense for survivability. While a lot of the procs you have are increasing your dmg, I think you need to shore up a few other areas first. For instance, you could probably push ranged defense even further with a few small changes. I don't remember the exact number but I think perma Dom requires around ~7s? off of perma Hasten. Don't forget to +5 the recharges in Hasten by pressing + on numpad when hovering over them. I don't like to overly rely on Forcefeedback procs for perma Dom and they come late in your build, so toggle them off in this instance. If you make these changes you'll see that you're at 133/120s recharge on Hasten. You could probably also make a few small changes to boost recharge even further. When analyzing a build I turn off all Incarnates etc at the bottom as those may be coming late in a build. Looking at your base build and the toggle's you're running, your endurance management is actually very low. A few slots should be focused on this as well. At low levels we rarely have a lot of slots to dedicate to toggles. Lower level content is also usually a bit easier. For those reason's you should probably reorganize your power selections so that your Primary and Secondary powers come asap. Shove Boxing/Tough/Weave/Vengeance/etc to the end of a build when you have the endurance management to run them. Proccing Dark Grasp is usually something I do on a Controller. I suppose if you were going with all ranged attacks it isn't a bad idea. But Dominator's usually have at least a decent selection of dmg powers instead. I don't know if Mids proc calculations are correct, but Dark Grasp procced is giving 161.1 dpa. Dropping Power Bolt for Bone Smasher and fitting it with the full Crushing Impact set is giving 145 dpa but also adds utility with a stun and decreases enemies secondary effects. The set bonus is also better and combo's with the rest of the powerset. I'll try to give some advice on things you can do to get more efficiency out of the build: The Superior Dominating Grasp set in Living Shadows isn't worth it. Switch to the Superior Ascendency of the Dominator - it's far better and increases recharge and ranged defense. Drop 1 proc out of Whirling Hands, Total Focus, Sniper Blast, Explosive Blast. Remove 1 slot from Tough. Add 1 slot to Stamina for a flat 50+5 Endurance Modification. Add 1 slot to Health for Miracle +rec. Add 1 slot to Fly for another Blessing of the Zephyr. Add 1 slot to Maneuver's, you're missing a LotG. Add 1 slot to Weave. Consider changing the slotting in Maneuver's/Weave to a LotG, def/end, def/end/rech for maximum endurance discount. Heart of Darkness needs more accuracy. Drop the Absolute Amazement proc for an Obliteration acc/rech. Consider picking up Bone Smasher and switching the slots from Dark Grasp to it. Temp Invulnerability gives more +res than Tough does. Switch slotting in Temp Inuln to Steadfast res/def, kb protection. Then do 3 slots Reactive Armor res, res/end, end. This squeezes out more ranged defense and the best end reduction. Switch slotting in Tough to Gladiator's Armor unique and the 3 Reactive Armor. Those changes should maximize your recharge, end management, and ranged defense.

I think this build could use some refinement. There's a bunch of disparate things you're chasing after that aren't adding up to a cohesive whole. In terms of survivability, the stats that are going to make you "invincible" are typically defense>resistances>hp or something thereabouts. Defense is going to make you avoid getting hit at all, resistances will reduce the dmg of anything that gets through, hp gives you a survival buffer. Right now you're at about 30.5 defense to all, 34.2 with Agility Core. Part of Stealth's defense is suppressed in combat. Ideally you want to push this or choose one positional to take to 45 defense before you start working on max hp. You're also missing the 2 resistance uniques Reactive Defenses/Shield Wall which increases survivability. Once you get around 45 defense and 50+ s/l/etc res, then you can really start working in max hp. But honestly with 2 oh crap buttons, trying to push max hp is probably less needed than you think. You've chosen to proc many of your powers. I think this is detracting from your build overall. Maybe the Gaussian's Build Up in Tactic's was making you think your accuracy was higher than it was? Your chance to hit vs +3's in most of your powers is incredibly low, you need accuracy slotting badly. Powers also need native slotted accuracy enhancements outside of global accuracy, in order for procs to hit. Taking Agility Core acts like slotting recharge into powers, this will also lower your proc chances. I'll try to break down a few options you could take that might get you going in a better direction: I'm not sure that Electric Shackles is doing much for you besides being a proc bomb. You could actually use a bit more aoe potential outside of Force Bomb and Dreadful Wail. I would switch it for Howl, which is the only cone that does -res and is pretty spammable. Don't forget that Force Bomb does -15 res. Weaken Resolve only does -10 res. With that consideration you can either stack them or switch out Weaken Resolve for Hasten or something else. Gaussian's proc should really go in Amplify. It's very sporadic in Tactic's and you can't control when it goes off like you can with Amplify, to take advantage of the nuke Dreadful Wail for instance. You should really only 2 or 3 slot Fly with Winter's Gift or Blessing of the Zephyr. Hover is also more of a defensive toggle and should be taking a defense set. Dispersion Bubble is the one toggle that effects you as well, for massive defensive boosts. It's around 10 defense base and ~15 defense slotted, it could really use 6 slots. Pull back on procs and add some accuracy.

Making Mids builds is taking game theory-crafting and using Mids to translate it into workable action in-game. The best analogy I can make for learning to make builds is that it's a science of a particular discipline like lets say, Chemistry. For some people, learning Chemistry is easy. They read the content and it gets injected right into their brains and boom a Chemist is born. A Biologist on the other hand only needs to learn enough Chemistry to work at their own discipline but they still have a good working knowledge. And then some people just aren't going to be able to learn Chemistry no matter how hard they try. Even then, a lot of learning Chemistry is just rote memorization. So once you "get it" then it's just practicing making builds over and over. Then jumping in-game and going through multiple iterations and refinement until you perfect a build. I think this is why you see a discrepancy of people saying building is either "easy" or "impossible" and some people just want to dip their toe into building long enough to keep playing the game. Other "Scientists" will be able to look at builds like it's a no-brainer while people who aren't Scientists will think you're speaking a different language. The other issue is that this game is a "build your own game." You build your own costume, power sets, attack chains, defenses, but even more than that - you build your own content, difficulty level etc. This means you have people playing on SO's only, all the way to people with full purple sets and Incarnates. Also people playing from solo -1 to Teaming +4 content. That means that their build goals and breakpoints could be totally different from the next person's. All of these factors together combine to make creating a "guide for building" very difficult. The goalposts keep moving. It's like looking at a long and complicated equation and at the end the only solution you need is a functional character. There's a million ways to solve that equation. I will say that a general "meta build" is a good base to shoot for. Something like 45 of a defense, 75+ s/l/? resists, perma Hasten, good endurance management, accuracy to hit +3's, most of the unique enhancements, and powers slotted appropriately. Are you going to be able to hit those metrics on every powerset combo? No. But these are some of the goals you want to try to hit for general gameplay. It cover's most of your bases that you'll encounter in-game if you tackle a large cross section of content. Do you have to try to hit those goals? Again, no. It's just that if you deviate from the above baseline, you should try to do so logically. If I wanted to I could make a Controller build that specifically reaches the Controller hp cap. But, should I? What do I gain from that? If I do, does my accuracy vs +3 go down? Does my cc potential go down? I often see people post builds that try to do one thing, but then totally overlook another aspect that they're affecting. This is also why it's so important to define build parameters when asking for advice. Other than some advice like whoa wait, that powerset combo is way better on a different AT - I try to work within what a person's vision is. I also encourage people to post builds on the forums and ask for help. It can be incredibly difficult to post a build that you've worked on for weeks and then take criticism's on it and have us change it within 10 minutes. But that's really how you learn to make builds. Practice practice practice! And ask for advice when you're stumped!

What you've put together is looking really solid! I don't think you're missing much with that small recharge bonus in VG so the hami is a good alternative.

I checked the build out and sat with it a bit. It's not a bad build, it just needs some shift in focus. There's a couple of pitfalls that you fell into like Twilight Grasp needing accuracy and not the full Prev Med set. So long as you keep up with Soul Absorption your end management is actually way overshot and you could move some end management slots. You're also missing out on lots of the procs that help elevate Controller damage. While reviewing it I had to make a ton of small changes to shift slots around. It's a bit too much to break down everything I did, so I'll attach the edited build at the end. The build is largely the same, I'd just encourage you to look at the before/after side-by-side. I also reorganized some powers just so that you have the impactful powers earlier. Kick/Tough/Weave I usually save at the end of a build etc. It feels dirty but I left Hasten 3 slotted to take you from 121.7s recharge - 119.2s perma to smooth it out. I'll give a quick breakdown on changes you needed: Twilight Grasp needs accuracy. Confounding Chant needs tons of accuracy, even with what I put together it's still around 85% vs +3 mobs. You need a Kismet +acc. If you want to do decent single target dmg you need to proc Hymn of Dissonance and Impassioned Serenade with ideally no recharge added. Coming in slightly under 45% melee def won't make or break your build. You could lose an Unbreakable Guard 4 set. Symph/DA is also more of a ranged power combination. Frozen Armor isn't much more than a LotG mule and some resists for this build. This build should have all of the tools you need to solo AV's. It may not be super fast but it should get the job done well enough. One thing that will make your life easier is having a full single target attack chain. For general purpose grouping here I would consider Ice Blast as the dmg is immediate and impactful. If you want to solo AV's I would consider Melodic Binding instead as a way to help set up immobilize containment. The dmg just comes in as a dot so it's not as great for groups. SYMPH DA Controller edit.mbd

I've got an Earth/Poison Controller and Beam/Poison Corruptor. Something about Venomous Gas draws agro like a moth to a flame, even with a tank occasionally. Probably the safest I've experienced is high ranged def on the Corruptor and Hovering just above enemies heads. Melee attacks are 7ft, melee auras are 8ft, Venomous is 15ft. You can juuuust be at "ranged" and still hit a surprisingly large number of mobs, then you just have to worry about some aoe. You've got plenty of powers to make yourself safe here like Thunder Strike, Water Burst, Poison Trap etc. Just figured I'd throw it out as an option seeing as you've got some surprisingly high ranged defense going on. Kiting and managing cc is something I've done on the Controller. I don't think that endurance is going to be a huge issue with what you've put together here. For Defender's, the Vigilance inherent also pulls some weight on Teams. Technically your accuracy vs +3 (which is the metric I usually use assuming an easy Alpha Incarnate) is solid for the most part. You could just use the Kismet +acc in Maneuvers or CJ. This means you don't need to run Tactic's all the time and it puts your end in a decent spot. Also switch the tohit/rech piece in VG to the rech/end piece, it's a difference of like 1 tohit for much better end. I'll give a build breakdown so you can maximize what you have a bit better: Paralytic Poison isn't really needed and you could use those slots elsewhere. Drop it for Vengeance as a LotG mule. Remove the chance to heal from Stamina. It's nice to have but Dehydrate should be fairly solid. Especially if you slot it with some healing in some of my next advice. Give a slot to Thunder Strike for a kb-kd slot if you'd like. Hydro Blast has a higher dpa than Aqua. If you want you can switch it. Add 2 slots to this power. Split the Superior Vigilant Assault in 2 between Hydro Blast and Dehydrate. This gives stronger recharge and more end. Place 3 Thunderstrike in Hydro. Place 3 Prev Med in Dehydrate for heal, heal/end, and proc. Unless you really want that aoe def in which case switch Sup Vig Assault full set to Hydro Blast and 3 Thunderstrike 3 Prev Med to Dehydrate. Add a slot to Maneuvers or CJ for Kismet. Poison Trap needs accuracy. Switch some procs for +acc pieces and maybe get some 2 piece bonuses. In Hasten +5 your recharges by pressing + on numpad when hovering over. That should put you in a solid spot and you can choose to toggle on/off Tactic's. You could also add a slot to VG for -def as it is also pretty good. Maybe even remove a slot from Power Sink if you end up feeling your end is good.

I've got a Storm/Energy and I vastly prefer Storm on Sent's. It's already mentioned a lot, but to break it down - Storm has setup time with Storm Cell (2.24s arcanacast) and/or Cat5 (2.64s arcanacast). Then there is the fishing for procs by utilizing mostly Storm powers. That turns into 5-6.5 seconds before your aoe truly comes online. Other Blast nukes hit in 2-3s. Ideally if possible you want to be out in front of a team so that you can start setting up. In terms of action economy and survivability, for those reason's I believe Storm is ideal on Sentinels. I don't mean to say it isn't great on Blaster/Def/Cor, there's just too many other things to dip into. A Blaster will probably be taking utility and higher dpa single target and aoe attacks from their secondary. This slightly detracts from Storm's need to be mostly using Storm powers to generate aoe. The support side for Def/Cor means you'll be buffing/debuffing/healing which will delay your aoe coming online by an additional 1.5-however many seconds. By that point if your team is high dps, most things will be dead. The Armor power's also typically make you natively sturdy and enhance recharge and recovery which allows for even more proc slotting in attacks. For example, you can make a single target attack rotation from Hailstone - Lightning - Cloudburst. Hailstone is lower dpa than the others but it has an 8s recharge and can take 3 dmg procs to elevate it. A couple things to note about Stone Armor, though. If you go for the typical 45 in every defense + perma Hasten, it has a fire/cold defense hole to work around. If you utilize Winter sets then it can be covered up, they just lack dmg procs and recharge bonuses. Even with the hole, the solid f/c resistance and high max hp should carry you with inspirations in a pinch.

Yup! Nice, you're nearly at perma Hasten as well! Only thing to worry about is your single target attack chain. If you're doing Disorienting - Ignite - Disorienting - Slug repeat. Disorienting + Slug + Disorienting arcana cast time is 1.05+1.58+1.05= 3.68s which means you need to get Ignite to ~3.68s recharge. Best I can see is if you switch Superior Opportunity Strikes from M30 to Ignite as a 5 piece - excluding the Acc/Dmg piece. Gives you a slot for a dmg proc or to move. That pushes down Ignite to 3.85s recharge and with lag/human error that should be almost seamless. Could do something like 2 piece Sup Frozen Blast in M30 for more slow res and procs instead.

It's a solid build overall. I can see that you've maxed what you could get for DDR, added even more def past 45 for extra cushion, great +hp, great recovery, and a layer of resistances. The exclusion of Hasten actually helps your end management even further. I just feel that, especially for a ranged and teaming Sent, that you could pull back the defense a bit and realign a few things towards dmg. You could drop either Maneuver's or Weave entirely and be just fine. I don't think endurance should be a problem for you. Standard end procs + Enduring should be solving all your end problems. Almost all your attacks have end reduction. It's difficult to parse other peoples end consumption - I aim for 1.9/s net gain without travel toggles running. And my playstyle philosophy is to never stop using powers until all enemies are dead, if I'm idle I'm usually eating dirt. Right now you're sitting at 2.25/s net, around 1.8/s with Fly. To me that seems solid. The mechanic of SR is to kick up resistances as your hp drops, right now you have no additional cushion or heal. I highly advise switching Practiced Brawler for Master Brawler. Master Brawler is a massive absorb shield that is easily perma-able. Taking Master will modify Focused Senses and Fighting to provide your status protection. The only downside could be that this changes status protection from click to toggle. Assault Rifle has long cooldowns, without Hasten I'm seeing some wonky recharge times and attack chains. Ignite is the highest dpa single target attack and has a little aoe splash, it needs way more love. It's just difficult to fit into attack chains with a 14s recharge. Disorienting Shot is higher dpa than both Slug and Burst. Right now you wouldn't even be able to pull off a Burst - Ignite - Burst - Slug attack chain. It's also almost always a good idea to try and pick up an Epic melee punch on a Sent as a higher dpa alternative to add into an attack chain when possible. Here's some things you could try that might help you free up some slotting: Buckshot doesn't need kb-kd from what I remember in my AR. The 2 Synapses Shock in Stamina should be unneeded. Enduring is auto and only gives Psi Def and DDR. Drop the Reactive Defenses set to 1 or 2 flat 50+5 defense IO's. Add some slots to Ignite. Switch Practiced Brawler for Master Brawler. Possibly go with a Prev Med set or frankenslot. Maybe drop Maneuver's or Weave completely and just add a LotG mule slot somewhere. Switch one of them for an Epic punch? Consider switching out Fly for Hasten.

Oh, nice! Missed that it has a cone immobilize. I don't deep dive Fluffy too often, gives a few more options. Ironically I don't even have /Dark on a Controller yet. This thread is giving me inspiration for another alt. I need to farm more $$ for all the alt builds I keep making. 😭

No problem! Thanks for posting some of your findings. I'm usually better at theory and don't test everything 100% if someone else has posted sufficient evidence. This kind of data is very valuable. I usually only go for the Patron pets if I already have a full attack chain. Mainly for the passive dps and easy 4 slot recharge. I can imagine they might not be providing as much value in this type of environment. If your fights are lasting 2-4 mins, with current slotting Soul Consumption recharges in 274s which is 4.5 mins. Yea, I'd just go with 1 acc since you're only getting 1 application per fight anyway. I'm not 100% what mag you have to overcome for immob since it isn't debuffed by AV's purple patch. If this wasn't Illusion and was a set with the tier 1 Immobilize (mag 4) or aoe (mag 3), that + Midnight Grasp (mag 3) would probably be amazing for setting up perma containment on AV's. With MG alone you'd have to extend that duration and maybe even boost the recharge to hit it more often. It's maxxed for dmg and with current bonuses its 8.5s recharge 40s duration. Gravitational Anchor immob/rech will get it to 7.87/48. Or a flat 50+5 immob will get it to 54s duration.

Nice! That's also a very solid build you've put together for Dark Mastery. It looks like Soul Consumption also does 60% -regen which could stack up nicely with your other sources. Those findings for Water Spout seem spot on. Unfortunately Illusion doesn't have a great source of easy aoe control to double dip for Containment. That's what usually makes Ball Lightning a solid aoe attack. Decimation is only a 1ppm, unless it's in super long recharge power you may get more mileage out of a dmg proc in a 9s recharging power. Gotta test that one.

You can't completely trust mids number's. Pretty sure it's doing a strange non-relevant calculation. When cursored over it's showing 61x11.35 over 30s which is absurd unless the target/pet doesn't move. City of data is another resource we check but it's showing 4.448 dmg every .5s etc. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.water_spout.water_spout&at=minion_pets You'll have decent-ish chances of that Achille's Heel proc going off on an AV/single target at 3.5ppm even in a pseudopet. I don't think it will do nearly as much dmg for aoe as the tooltip indicates, though. YMMV. Again, testing is needed for the nitty gritty in this instance.

The Arcane Bolt was actually a typo. I meant Spectral Wounds and you're correct that it's a stronger power. Just had a different powerset on the brain at the time lol. Panacea and the other "usual" Health procs should really always go in a toggle or auto like Health. Even if you're spamming TG, if you have to stop using it for other powers, you're still getting health+end procs at all times. I have no idea what the exact numbers are, but I think the end procs in Panacea are giving around the same/better end as the +rec Miracle over time. If you want a slightly more hands-off approach and some passive dps, the Patron Pets are pretty decent. Like you say, your buffs will cover all your pets nicely. Mu could be nice with the Guardian and Ball Lightning is pretty strong. As other alternatives, Dark Mastery has Murky Cloud with no s/l res but you have some from Tough and Fade. There's also another single target attack in Dark Blast for a full attack chain, a cone, and Soul Consumption does -maxhp but I've never tested how good it is vs AV's. Phantasm honestly normally dies too much on any of my characters that take it for any knockback to be annoying. It might live longer for you, in which case I just abhor knockback in groups. But vs an AV I don't think knockback is an issue. I'm also pretty sure the Degen Interface is one of the strongest for AV's. I think the build you've got together is pretty solid! From here I think it's down to fine tuning which you've already begun to look at.

Couple things before I throw bullet points at you. I'm not sure Water Spout is doing too much for you. I suppose if you want an aoe attack it will work well enough, you just have a general focus on AV's and Water Spout also does an annoying fear etc. Slotting recharge directly in powers lowers their proc chances, this includes Spiritual Core Alpha which acts like slotted recharge. I would go for something like Musculature. I think your overall focus on some defensive sets are slightly misplaced. With close to perma PA and the addition of Darkest Night, you shouldn't be getting hit too often. Dark Servant is also providing meaningful support. If anything you could even re-jiggle some things for more recharge. Here are some ways you could tighten up your slotting without changing things too much: Weave and Maneuvers are overslotted. You can drop 1-2 slots of Shield Wall, those particular bonuses aren't super needed here. Dark Servant's hold isn't amazing even if it's stacking with your own. Everything it does has -tohit though. A 4 slotted Cloud Senses and maybe something like a +5 heal IO to boost his aoe heal could be beneficial. Twilight Grasp should be slotted more like a heal. While it does -tohit, it's not great. Slotting the power for recharge also really reduces chances on the dmg proc. My favorite slotting for it is 5 piece Panacea and 1 +5 accuracy. For Blind, the Superior Will of the Controller dmg proc also reduces recharge. Even with it being another purple, this will reduce overall proc chances in the power. If mid's numbers are close to correct, switching it for the Gladiator's Javelin proc will increase DPA by 143 to 190. Panacea proc in Health is more valuable than the Miracle +rec. You're correct that Prev Med absorb proc doesn't need to go in a toggle. Hibernate is a good mule for it. If you make these changes, you should have some slots leftover. Switch the Reactive Defenses unique from Fade to Weave. Add 2 slots to Fade and give it 1 LotG and 5 Red Fortune. This should now have you at perma Hasten with minimal changes to your build. If you'd like, you could also pick up Arcane Bolt as another attack. It would lower your defense slightly, but this would require: Drop Combat Jumping for Vengeance as a LotG mule. Drop Hibernate for Arcane Bolt. Drop 1 slot from Dark Servant (from the +5 heal I mentioned above). A slot from Tough. Any leftover slots from Weave or Maneuvers. Put 5 slots into Arcane Bolt for Apocalypse set. This should put you at 117/120s for Hasten and at 62.5 for PA. Outside of that I have minimal advice for soloing AV's. I would only suggest testing if the -regen from Twilight Grasp is significant enough to spam it over another attack or something, though.

I agree with @Uun. With the stats you're currently sitting at and overall bonuses it seems good to keep it. Maybe switch the slow proc for rech/end if you run it often. Your endurance management may be sliiightly off even without Darkest Night running. Since you're already over perma Hasten at 117.8/120, the recharge from the Panacea 5 set in Twilight Grasp we were talking about is probably overkill. Keep the Theft 5 set for endurance proc or the Nictus 5 set for dmg proc. Drop the 6th accuracy slot and move it to Health for the Numina's +regen/recovery. My personal preference is to toggle on all of my "in battle" powers sans Evasive/Fly/Sprint/Darkest Night bc I toggle them on and off between enemy packs. I try to get around 1.80-1.90/s net gain. Right now you're at 1.65 and the above should bump you to 1.84. Switch the Annihilation acc/dmg/end in Rain of Fire to acc/dmg/rech to push it further. Overall with the 40 s/l def and 31.5 ranged, that should mitigate most incoming dmg before debuffs are applied. If you start getting hit from a rando you could pop a purple inspiration which should get you close to ranged cap and then you can maintain range for a hot minute. Looks really solid!

Yup, if you pick up Annihilation for the proc. The 3 piece set isn't anything amazing unless you need more res. All the purple and pvp sets you can go with orange equivalents - Apocalypse for Decimation (without the proc), Armageddon for Obliteration. It saves money till you can afford em. I'll also say I do have a bias for ranged defense. It's something easy to build towards that new players can cut their teeth on and is forgiving in gameplay. But you definitely have wiggle room in terms of building out a character here. I don't know how the -tohit debuffs stack up on AV's vs Bosses vs Lieut vs Minion, but theoretically whatever -tohit you apply from Fearsome Stare and Darkest Night is like giving yourself +def. You have to be diligent in applying them and have good battlefield awareness for what isn't debuffed, though. You can then drop defense and build out other tools like slow resistance. This will give you more build flexibility to try other things, but I'd categorize this approach more under "advanced building and gameplay interactions."

I'm running on melatonin but I'll try to give a quick response. Don't put the Panacea endurance proc in a click power, it's best in an always on power like Health. Decimation proc is almost never a good idea, especially in a power with a 4s recharge like Fire Blast. It just doesn't work out great. Yup the 3 Annihilations could be good, you could drop it to 2 - that proc is usually pretty valuable even in a pseudopet. It's more about stacking and accumulating the extra %'s of ranged def if you wanted to go that route. The 1.25 from Thunder, but then add 1 slot to Fearsome Stare for 3.75 from Cloud and you went from 30 to 35 ranged def total. Shadow Fall is giving 15% energy/neg/psi resist, slotted its going 20+ that's pretty huge. Especially because they are "rare" resists, something like s/l is easy to get with Tough. The defense it gives is good enough to be slotted for as well.

Since you're learning I'll try to explain as much as I can so you can fiddle with it. The first thing I'll note is that it's entirely possible to increase ranged def even more without modifying other totals too much. Ranged is a bit stronger than s/l. Or you could instead increase slow resistance by picking 2 or 3 slots out for Winter sets. Hoarfrost isn't going to be perma even if you fight for it. That makes the +hp portion variable in uptime. It's best use is as an emergency heal. For those reason's I don't feel it deserves a whole set, more like 1 or 2 slots for heal and recharge. Honestly with Twilight Grasp you could even drop it for Evasive Maneuvers and an easy LotG - you currently have 4 so you're missing 1. Build Up only needs 1 recharge slot. It may have niche uses but I don't think I've ever intentionally picked up the increased perception unique. Proccing out Howling Twilight is more of an - if you have the slots to spare kinda deal. Right now some of your attacks are underslotted so you need em elsewhere. You also want HT up more often both as a rez and -regen debuff. I usually run with 1 recharge. Take 1 slot out of Fly, it's kind of overkill unless you're going after aoe def. Darkest Night I usually just run with 1 end reduction. I mainly want it for the -dmg on particularly damaging targets. You can kinda view -dmg debuff as a +res party buff which cannot be modified. Fearsome Stare is my go-to -tohit debuff. But you can also keep the slotting and stack the -tohit together. This should free you up to make some changes: Switch Touch of the Nictus set in Twilight Grasp for Panacea 5 set and an accuracy IO. Same slots better bonuses. If you +5 your IO's by pressing + on numpad when selecting the IO, you are currently at perma Hasten. Shadow Fall needs a full 6 slots. I usually do 3 LotG for defense and 3 of a resist set. Fire Blast could use 3 more slots. Could do Thunderstrike for ranged or a winter set. Possibly similar with Rain of Fire and Artillery. Place the Kismet accuracy unique in Hover. Might want to switch some the of the flat def LotG's in toggles to def/end. If you're willing to give up some procs, you could finish some of the Cloud Senses or Expedient Reinforcement sets for easy big ranged def. That should give you some wiggle room to try out a few different things.

Yup, it's coming together! And 8 kb prot is more than enough. That heal proc has a very low chance of going off in Fire Blast with an 8s recharge + being slotted for recharge. May as well switch Apocalypse over there. One way to increase survivability is the Prev Med absorb proc. It has an increased chance of proccing the lower your hp, it's a lifesaver. Could switch Snow Storm for Frostwork just as a free slot for it. I forgot that with the way Stealth works on yourself now, I don't believe the def from Cloaking Device will stack with Arctic Fog's def. AF's defense is stronger so it will take precedent. Make sure you're subtracting CD's defense values. I did a quick optimization pass and tightened things up. Modified when powers are taken to have more impact earlier. Controller (Arsenal Control - Cold Domination) Edit.mbd

So this is kind of a confluence of playstyle choice, what powers you have available, and how you end up building out your character. It is 100% possible to be just fine on the ground as a "ranged" character. Others have mentioned playstyle - some just love to use Hover and others need to be on the ground, and right in the melee. But then what do you do if you're in melee but have no defense, little resists, no cc powers, and you get cc'd and 2-shot. It's probably easiest to build out a Defender for 45 ranged def and just take Hover. Really you don't even need 45 of a defense, if you do something like take Rune of Protection for status protection and cycle it with Melee Core at the high end. There's even more options. Getting 45 s/l defense through an epic shield is a good start. Bumping up s/l resists with Tough and/or a different epic shield. As an Emp Defender you've got heals n stuff. Radiation has some cc. Even if you just build out a character with 45 ranged def but take Combat Jumping instead, it's not hard to play keep away with enemies. Get a feel for when they begin to use a melee attack. If they run up on you, Radiation has Electron Haze you can slot as kb-kd and Atomic Blast pbaoe mag 3 Hold. Probably worst case scenario is if you're working with ranged def without Hover and get swarmed with no safe place to walk. You can always keep one of those Jetpacks on your bar.

I'll do a quick breakdown and hope that @Uun isn't hiding around the corner 🤣 Take the 2 res slots out of Ice Shield. It's kinda nice but arguably not all that useful to boost f/c res when you want the def. Take a slot out of Experimental Injection and switch to a Prev Medicine absorb proc in the slot. Prev Med absorb proc saves lives (yours.) Ideally you want Hasten 2 slotted with recharge as your last pick. It'll get your powers up faster and synergize with Adrenal Booster. You don't really need Focused Accuracy. As a Defender your team buffs are more beefy so I'd switch it for Tactic's. You could run it with 1 or 2 end reductions and be fine. Move those slots elsewhere to powers like Storm Cell. 5 piece Sting of the Manticore is usually my standard for snipes. I haven't noticed huge issues with Cat5 knocking enemies about. Could probably remove the kb-kd slot. You could take 2 slots out of Scorpion Shield and still have the same functionality. Use the slots gained from the advice above to fill out Storm Cell, Jet Stream, and Hailstones. Maybe an extra slot or 2 for Maneuvers. Edit: Forgot about Sleet. You could/should drop Tactic's entirely if you want to keep with your current build. I was sitting with it so I made the changes I suggested and cleaned the build up a bit. clillingdoom.-Defender (Cold Domination - Storm Blast).mbd

To add to what @twozerofoxtrot said. In Thermal, from a building perspective, you're also losing precious slots that aren't giving you much benefit. More than likely you'll want to dedicate slots to the res shields because res is typically pretty valuable. Probably 2-4 slots each. That means you're getting minimal set bonus benefit's while "losing" 4-8 slots. I wouldn't even toss the Steadfast Protection unique in one because the +res enhancement portion is better in your own Tough or an epic res shield. World of Pain is also cool to toss a Gaussian's if you lack an Aim like Dark Blast. I'm also partial to Pain cause I have a Pain/Sonic. It's my catgirl yowling in the night.

You've got all your uniques slotted and made some very clear design choices. It looks like you're focusing on getting perma Hasten and high ranged defense. Couple things that stand out: Switch all those SO's to IO's and then +5 them by pressing + on numpad. When you do this you will find that you're 9s away from perma Hasten without Agility Core. Snow Storm can arguably be skipped. The -spd -rech isn't very valuable at an end game perspective. Sleep Grenade could be more worthwhile. Your end management is low without Heat Loss and it could use some slots to reduce its recharge. Remove Pacing of the Turtle set in Snow Storm for Preemptive Optimization set in Heat Loss. Higher ranged defense + recharge. Arctic Fog has good resistances, if possible I like to split its slotting with 3 LotG and 3 of a res set like Reactive Armor. Cloaking Device is overslotted for defense unless you reeeaally need that 8.75 recharge bonus. Tri Cannon slotting isn't doing anything for your build goals. Switch it to Expedient Reinforcement set. From what I remember of Power Boost, it does not affect or boost Cold's shields! I remember hearing it is because they contain a +res component. But it should be affecting some of your offensive debuffs etc.