Gulbasaur

Controllers are nearer tankers in the attitude you play with - they control the flow of a battle, as I think of it. There's also a playstyle thing: controllers, and especially dominators, can solo a hell of a lot more easily than corruptors or defenders. Dominators can take on elite bosses while those two are still waiting for their endurance to refill. Not everyone exclusively plays tank and spank AoE extraveganzas.

The tanker ATOs are a good place to start. ATO sets vary wildly in usefulness, but the tanker ones are both good, no-frills sets. Tankers also get very high modifiers in some Power Pools. Invulnerability is very good out of the box and doesn't need much building, other than the psi hole and the slightly middling energy/negative. Invulnerability also gets good early - something that can't be said for all sets. Also: don't get hung-up on the soft cap. It's easy to get a bit myopic and forget that you're likely to have teammates topping you up by at least 5-10% defence because so many people pick Maneuvers. Tankers, simply by having a ton of hit points, can weather things that other archetypes would not survive. I've seen people try to sacrifice 5% resists for 1% defence before in builds, which is foolish. Inspirations exist, and so do teammates. Include both concepts in your build planning. Also also: the taunt is worth taking for the -range debuff alone. Bring everyone into hugging distance, partly because Invincibility benefits from enemies being near to you.

I think it's redeemable with the Contagious Confusion proc. Often enough you'll quite suddenly get about half of the enemies around you confused for a few seconds, but then again I enjoy chaos and quite often avoid making myself overpowered because it's not a game if you always win. I agree it is never top-tier. If the proc and the "pulse rate" of WoC were in sync, it's be better, but they're not. I do think it has a place, though. (Also, hello. It seems we like basically the same things in-game but have different ways of approaching builds. Half the time when I post in a thread you will either be there just before or after me.)

I'd disagree. Fortunatas are a sort of midway point between scrappers and dominators. There's no real need to build for defence and no real need to build for recharge so you can focus on damage a lot more. That's not saying that dominators aren't flexible, it's saying that VEATs are more flexible out of the box so you don't have to build for it nearly as much. Fortunatas are messy on paper but work really well in practice.

The lack of a pet is the reason I like Mind Control. I'd love it if Containment applied to the Fear effect, though, as that's Mind's strongest mid-level control. They were, in my opinion, the worst casualties of the Power Creep Wars. The thing that made them special (ranged tankiness) is now the thing that makes most builds average (everyone and their cow is rocking at least 30% defences and 25% resists with a minimal amount of set bonuses). They definitely need something.

Oh definitely. I wish there were more hybrid ATs. Blasters and dominators are the only main ones that really mix melee and range and I find blasters a bit underwhelming. Considering we have four archetypes that mix melee and armour, it's a bit lopsided.

You mean them being too much fun? Seriously, I can't help of think of them as anything other than better scrappers.

I played elec/elec for a bit then swapped onto Mind/Martial because "sixties British spy television series" was the theme I settled on... it makes sense to me. I like plants/whatever on paper, but in practice I think it's just a bit ugly. It's all about the #aesthetic.

I totally understand. Efficiency isn't always fun and fun isn't always efficient. It a game (and rarely a difficult game by the end). I like high-mobility melee characters too - I'm very against "tank and spank" tactics where I can help it as I think that's a bone-grindingly boring way to play the game. Lots of melee players overlook the fact that you can become a ranged attack quite easily, but that would work against the "positioning doesn't matter just stand in the AoE pile" gameplay meta. I play stalkers probably second after my fortunata and they're very single-target focused, so it can certainly be done enjoyably. The "medium damage AoE" fiesta tends to leave bosses standing, which is where a good single-target player can shine.

Hallo aus England! I play at slightly random times of day and find there's always something going on. Of you go on in the morning, there's a nice crossover with SEA and Oceanic players.

You say, "villain", I say "independent contractor". We say red because that's what we're leaving you on.

As a fortunado main, I'm really enjoying mind/martial. It does play slightly similarly to a fortunata but I'm enjoying it. That said, I'm only level 8. Honestly? This is a game where blasters can tank AVs. Play what you find fun.

Debuffs are included in the taunt/threat/aggro calculations - I find the -resist proc is usually enough to tip the scales into keeping aggro on my widow with Provoke (which I take for the same reason). I can reliably pull aggro off brutes (who often don't take taunt), but not tankers. I know you say you like TT:O but you may want to swap the ordering with TT:M as TT:M gives you a more useful buff sooner, especially as you're slotting it so heavily. The chance to actually hit is (your To-Hit - enemy Defence) x Accuracy so it's likely you'd get more mileage out of the extra 17% ToHit (or whatever) from TT:M than the 13% (or whatever) Accuracy from TT:O because you should already have decent Accuracy from enhancements, which means it has a higher base amount to multiply off the higher ToHit. I don't see a reason to not take both, but I would suggest you take TT:M earlier, maybe? You also get the benefit of the slightly broken Build Up proc in it earlier, which can have about 25% uptime on a team with pets. You would lose that tohit debuff resistance for a few levels, though. How do you find playing with that low amount of AoE?

I would love it if Fear and Confuse were added to Containment. If an inherent can count as a power set - it needs a look at. If we compare Containment to the Control Hybrid incarnate power: It's especially irritating, as the system is clearly there. Confuse I can sort of forgive (because it's already very powerful), but I genuinely think Fear effects were left off by accident.

Several Peacebringer primary attacks are way off. The T1 attack is about listed at 26.69 in mids vs 44.36 (from memory) in-game.

The game engine checks for valid costume parts on import and offers to "correct" them. I think it's too clever for tricks.

"CrossFit" it a trademarked term, which may or may not be something you want to consider.

The Preventive Medicine proc is useful as a "start paying attention to your health!" warning system because, well, I don't. Boring but I did learn it the hard way: builds that were good on early live (when I played) are now thoroughly mediocre. IO sets changed the game.

Dark/Dark. Dark melee is a decent workhorse set, the debuffs are good and it has a heal in the attack chain. Dark Armour - when you get the endurance under control - is an absolute beast. The control auras are what do it for me, although it's definitely very sturdy. The Fear aura allows you to creep around the aggro cap a little bit as minions who are standing there shaking aren't attacking anyone.

I'd recommend one of the primaries with a heal in the attack chain if you're going for a strong soloist. Rad and dark are both respectable sets that just keep on going, and both have a heal in the attack chain. If you're going to play with IOs and procs, you can plug in an IO that gives you some endurance back for some outstanding sustain. I like rad armour as well... and dark armour... both are good out of the box. If you're min-maxing for survival, a layered approach like invulnerability might be better, but it's so trivial to build in defence that I think it almost doesn't matter. Bio is still the king for damage. Shield is very good, although it sucks up endurance like you cannot imagine.

I don't really need Human form mez protection because Light Form is nearly perma (I have a t2 Alpha helping with that, but most of my IOs are generics) when solo and usually perma on teams. I sort of agree with this, not because of Light Form but because mezzes are a game mechanic and you shouldn't be able to ignore them so uniformly. I don't really need shapeshift toggle suppression because again Light Form has me Res capped without my toggles. This is a huge playstyle thing - perma Light Form, like permadom and other slightly broken mechanics, is only really achievable through throwing money at a build. It would be nice ot have options for people who don't want to chase recharge above all else. Single target damage could definitely come up. My preference for this would be to make Incandescent Strike shorter in animation time. YES. The hour-long animation is dreadful. But I think the main power that is the culprit for PB underperformance (or PERCEIVED underperformance) is Photon Seekers. I'd respectfully disagree - there are wider issues. PB's have melee options but no real melee attack chain. The forms don't progress, which is another issue, meaning they're powerful when you get them but mediocre within about 15 levels. Nova has a superb attack chain for level 6, but just ends up being a blaster without options by the late teens. Dwarf is about the toughtest tank there is when you get it, but by the mid-30s it's just outpaced. I'm not saying PB's should be the best at everything, but they really do feel like the masters of none in a post-IO world. If you compare them to warshades (very good synergy between forms due to self-buffs), widows and soldiers (strong base powersets without much compromise), peacebringers just feel the most meh. Which is a shame, because they're super fun to play.

Other way round for me, interestingly. I started off trying to farm etc but it's so unnecessary. Early-mid game missions are where the actual challenge lies (before you get too overpowered).

As the conclusion you were all waiting for, I went for Elec/Elec with Mu later down the line. The smooth animations were the clincher. Thanks!

Hmm. I like the sound of that. The crystals design/skin for the effects looks interesting. Worth knowing about the sets. The ATOs are so variable in goodness.

Thanks @Greycat and @Vooded Regarding the "meta"... honestly, this game's high difficulty stuff is such a chaotic swirl of mismatched power that I'm not worried about it too much. Mind is a set I've just played to death. It's good. It's very good solo and due to the poor synergy with Containment (which skips over crits on fear for some reason) it's probably better on a Dominator. Between my /psi defender on live, my mind/ controller on here and my fortunata (which pulls from both) I've just done it before. Also, purely for the reasons of pettiness: the mind and psi animation styles don't match at all and that always annoyed me. Maybe Mind/Shurikens/Psi... That's thematic enough for me. The lack of a natural-ish choice for primaries and ancillaries is a bit annoying. We need a traps or devices equivalent control set. Plants/thorns seems a bit pet-heavy... am I right to think that? I do like Dark - the secondary effect makes it very solo-friendly. Likewise Ice, from what I gather. Fire has the added bonus that Fiery Orb is fiery, so it wouldn't be a thematic issue. What would you say is the most melee-friendly secondary is?