Pyriold

Both are only accurate most of the time. Quite often you get debuffed and depending on you having debuff resistance, extra numbers can be very critical. For example my fortunata has pretty nice defenses, but no debuff resistance... So even when she is softcapped, if she gets a quicksand under her feet (big defense debuff), she suddenly is pretty squishy again.

If any player wants to play their toon in a less than optimal way, for RP reasons or just for giggles, that's obviously fine. Some of those guys make up for it by being funny in chat or they really want to prove their ideas. I like it. But sometimes suboptimal behaviour is not due to these reasons. Sometimes it's just a noob who doesnt know anything. Why should i take that status protection toggle on my tanker? So, when i see things like that, i offer advice. What's wrong with that?

my elec/elec tank drains quite well. And opposite to the other recommendations, she can actually stand inside mobs all the time without getting slaughtered to actually drain end to rock bottom.

Simply use a Sentinel. That's your blaster with shields. Of course sentinels won't blast as well, but that's to be expected.

So... instead of playing CoH and having fun leveling you restrict yourself to beginner powers for hours and hours? I understand doing DfB or farming until you are like level 20 or so, not a big deal and pretty fast. Then you already have decent powers and can do all the fun mission arcs. I guess for you the fun only starts at level 50? For me it's the journey. Grinding AE farms all the way to 50 is so mindnumbingly boring... i am playing a game here, i am not at work!

That is very situational and dependend on your build, obviously. Especially survival potential is very much a function of play style. It's true that tanks have the best survival potential, but a controller who just confuses every spawn wont make much xp, but will be totally safe. A similar thing goes on for damage. While blasters generally do great damage, they also die very easy. So this really only applies to good teams, since a dead blaster wont do any damage. And while corruptors (for example) have a lot less raw damage, they do have access to resistance debuffs which will increase not only their own damage but the whole team damage. Inside of ATs there are huge differences as well. While an earth controller does have great control, he/she wont do much damage. A fire, illusion or even plant controller can be a top tier damage dealer on the other hand. I guess you can make a general ranking for tendencies for each archetype, but that won't help you much because it would be too simplistic. Where would you sort stalkers for example? Their single target damage is (situationaly) out of this world, still, they are one of the least played ATs.

Acrobatics from leaping pool has mez protection. But you need 2 powers prior to that...

Try plant. The plant immobilize AE is the most damaging immobilize AE of all controllers, its actually good to slot for damage. The cone confusion is a really great opener. Carrion crawlers at 26 can be made almost permanent and are a constant damage source as well. Plus the fly trap is a very nice pet. Its a really nice complete set for AE damage. As a secondary use something like dark, rad or storm (or maybe poison) so you can debuff enemy resists, further enhancing your damage.

Do Illu/Storm for total chaos and mayhem!

Since you are discussing power sets here, ill throw in my 2 cents: Primaries: As you mentioned, gravity is king of single target damage. Wind Mind and illusion have direct attacks as well, but illusion lacks any roots... still illusion is a good damaging primary due to its pets which actually also do AE damage. AE damage is pretty weak in all primaries, i think plant actually has the strongest AE root. Plant generally is a good damaging set since it has the usual level 32 pet, but also level 26 carrion creepers that do quite a lot of damage. Mind control has the most damaging AE (Terrify), but it lacks a pet and Terrify has a long recharge. For AEs i need to mention fire control of course, but it's best AE (Bonfire) is a dot that repels mobs and makes them avoid it. You can work around that. And fire has a really nice combination with Trick Arrow secondary. An ignited oil slick is the best AE that you can get with any controller and even blasters would struggle to match that. That's late game though, oil slick arrow is level 35. The 2 controllers that i play at the moment are electric/time and grav/dark. Electric i play out of curiosity (never saw gremlins) and the grav controller is pretty nice at soloing of course. Tar patch from dark is a great addition and you get it early.

Both plant control and nature affinity seem to be pretty solid choices. In CoH, unlike other games, there is no definitive build for any combination. It's all down to your personal preferences. The two end powers of nature control are really nice, carrion creepers is surprisingly good as far as i remember. Spore burst is really great as well, but you need to add your own damage on top in order to not lose to much xp for kills. The fastest leveling will always be in teams, so if you want to team you would need a different build then if you want to mainly solo. There is a happy medium of course. Just try out a build, you can /respec every 10 levels i think and on top of that there are respec missions.

So you are considering playing a controller. Everybody will tell you that controllers only really work in groups, but that is quite wrong. They excel in groups, but can function in solo mode quite well. This little guide will not be exhaustive, just some tipps from somebody who loves the archetype. 1) Containment. From the paragon wiki : "Controllers do extra damage to any target that is already Held, Immobilized, Slept, or Disoriented" And that is not just "some" extra damage, in fact it's just *double* damage. Most controllers get a root and a hold in the first few powers. Those 2 powers usually do moderate damage each (often as a dot). So what you do is you slot those 2 powers for damage, accurracy and maybe recharge. With those you already have a nice attack chain with very decent damage. It's often nice to start a fight with an area effect root and then kill single mobs one at a time. 2) Confuse. A lot of controllers get confuse powers. Some really early, some later. Confused mobs often attack their allies. When a confused mob takes half of the HPs of a target and you do the other half, you still get about 75% of the xp for that mob. So usually it's worth it to confuse some mobs and then do your damage on top. 3) Pets. For most controllers, pets are a late game thing (with the exception of illusionists where the first pets come at level 18). Some pets are absolutely game changing with their damage output (fire comes to mind), but all controller pets are really good damage sources. So for those controllers struggling to solo at first, there is light at the end of the tunnel. 4) Resistance debuffs. Those can come from your secondary power set. Tar patch (dark), enervating field (radiation) or freezing rain (storm) come to mind. Often people don't know that those powers are pretty nice damage boosts! This also applies to team play of course. 5) Direct damage. Some controllers have high damage attacks in their primary set. Gravity has the best one with propel, but some others have decent attacks as well. If you want to kill single targets fast and like the style, try those. Always combine those attacks with containment for double damage. Conclusion: Controller solo isn't the fastest thing. But it's usually pretty safe. Most controllers kill mobs one at a time, AE damage powers are usually very weak (with some exceptions that do somewhat nice AE damage). If played well you will never die though.