Why is MIND CONTROL so weak?

[Blackfeather]

3 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

You're comparing apples to oranges.

 

Flashfire/Stalagmite/Wormhole are disorients, not confuses.

 

Seeds of Confusion has a 37.25s base duration.

Synaptic has a 27.94s duration.

MC has a 37.25s base duration.

 

These are all longer than the base duration of Stuns, this is not a fair comparison, and it shouldn't be used to set precedents for powers that are completely different in effect. You don't balance the recharge of Holds around their duration relative to the duration to Stuns.

 

By this logic, all of the confuses should all have their recharges at 145s, but that's clearly not the case. 

 

The answer here lies with the fact that Mind needs its T9 on a lower more sustainable and reasonable recharge. 120s or 90s is not a stretch by any means, especially in comparison to Plant, having the same duration, still being a 60s recharge base. Sure, Mind doesn't draw aggro which is debate-ably useful but definitely not enough to warrant a much longer CD like the ones you are describing. 

Both you and Oedipus want Mass Confusion to have a shorter cooldown time - I don't think there's a conflict here?

[Zeraphia]

Just now, Blackfeather said:

Both you and Oedipus want Mass Confusion to have a shorter cooldown time - I don't think there's a conflict here?

90s-120s is a lot different than 145s. 

[SaddestGhost]

4 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

Single target Confuses have a ~80% proc rate. Synaptic Overload doesn't make particularly good use of Contagious Confusion due to the peculiarities of its mechanics. However, it is inherently 'contagious' in that it can bounce back to previously Confused targets and self-stack

I'm fairly certain that this is not the case.  If I recall correctly, back on Live, some of us questioned if this could happen and the devs stated the chaining powers flag an enemy after they've been hit to prevent the chain from looping back.  It should be fairly easy to demonstrate if you find an isolated group of two enemies, the chain should never jump back to the first.

[Hjarki]

39 minutes ago, SaddestGhost said:

I'm fairly certain that this is not the case.  If I recall correctly, back on Live, some of us questioned if this could happen and the devs stated the chaining powers flag an enemy after they've been hit to prevent the chain from looping back.  It should be fairly easy to demonstrate if you find an isolated group of two enemies, the chain should never jump back to the first.

For Electric Control chain effects, they are a series of pseudo-pet summons at delays. Whenever the power takes effect on the target, it locks out the bounces for 5 secs. However, the powers themselves take a lot longer than 5 sec to resolve. So while your two enemy example won't work, a 10-enemy spawn will almost certainly have targets that are double-stacked (unfortunately, you can't control which targets other than the first).

[Peacemoon]

I had the coercive persuasion proc in mass confuse on live and it was was really good. Probably even better now because the PPM mechanic on a 4 min recharge would guarantee a lot more procs of it. It is really powerful.

 

Its just there is very little reason to not immediately jump in and attack after you use mass confuse. If anything you want to get some  damage in quick or you lose too much xp from confuse damage. 
 

 

Containment should really apply to all mezz powers, fear and confuse. I feel like it’s only thematically based on the wording that it doesn’t (because mobs aren’t so... “physically contained”?).
But the principle feel, thematically and gameplay is that controllers are more lethal when attacking mobs that are controlled, so I think that absolutely should stretch to fear and confuse as well. Too much emphasis is put on ‘physically contained’ and not enough on ‘mentally contained’ in my view! And for a set like Mind, the distinction is massively important. 

 

The less we tweak the better to be honest. You want maximum effect for as little change as possible.
 

If I had a free hand to be super radical I would probably swap TK and Mass Confuse around, giving Mind better control earlier and then using TK to empower other Mind powers for better effects and more damage. Most controller sets see a damage jump at 32, so this could be in line with the power jump experienced by other sets, and being the 32 power would give you more potential to do something dramatic. Of course what you would do with TK, and how it interacts with other powers is a massive question. I just brainstormed some ideas and it got difficult quickly. An AoE hold toggle on a short cooldown would be overpowered. Also levitate turning into an AoE would not be straightforward because of the short cooldown (I think I had it down to like 2 seconds on live!). It would have to be a minor AoE at best, no 15 yard radius 16 mob cap type effect!

 

Other more radical ideas would be to note that psychic blast has ‘Scramble Thoughts’ which is a single target stun. Mind control could easily do that on a larger scale, but it would probably mean sacrificing TK and it’s uniqueness.

 

Which takes me back to where I began, where less is more! I swear this set is mind controlling me sometimes...

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

90s-120s is a lot different than 145s. 

 

 

90 seconds is probably too fast a recharge for a ranged non-notify power with 37.5 second duration.

 

Seeds of Confusion, a contender for best control in the game, has a 60 second recharge, 37.5 duration, but notifies and is a cone. 

 

Flashfire, Wormhole, Stalagmites, and Heart of Darkness are the "every spawn" Stuns, each with 90 second recharge, but just 18.6 second duration. 

 

That's how I came up with a 145 second Recharge for Mass Confusion. I could live with 120. The difference between 120 and 145 is minimal after slotting and especially after IOs, roughly just 5-10 seconds depending on build. 

 

IMO 90 is too short for the duration combined with the effect though. 90 seconds puts it at around 50 second recharge with 2 recharge IOs and around 35-30 seconds on a high end build. The power is reliable (unlike Synaptic) and virtually risk free (unlike Seeds) and has a 37 second base duration (unlike any 90 second stun) so in order to not make it totally overtake those powers I think it needs 120 second recharge at minimum. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[SaddestGhost]

55 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

For Electric Control chain effects, they are a series of pseudo-pet summons at delays. Whenever the power takes effect on the target, it locks out the bounces for 5 secs. However, the powers themselves take a lot longer than 5 sec to resolve. So while your two enemy example won't work, a 10-enemy spawn will almost certainly have targets that are double-stacked (unfortunately, you can't control which targets other than the first).

Well, color me pleasantly surprised.  I jumped into AE to test this myself and you are quite correct.  It took a few attempts before I could see it occur on a specific mob with the power analyzer but it did stack mag 6 confuse.

 

27 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Containment should really apply to all mezz powers, fear and confuse. I feel like it’s only thematically based on the wording that it doesn’t (because mobs aren’t so... “physically contained”?).

But the principle feel, thematically and gameplay is that controllers are more lethal when attacking mobs that are controlled, so I think that absolutely should stretch to fear and confuse as well. Too much emphasis is put on ‘physically contained’ and not enough on ‘mentally contained’ in my view! And for a set like Mind, the distinction is massively important.

Absolutely.  The in game description of Containment even makes mention of the controller's will.  That certainly applies to the mental aspect as well as physical.

Edited April 11, 2020 by SaddestGhost

[Peacemoon]

17 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

90 seconds is probably too fast a recharge for a ranged non-notify power with 37.5 second duration.

 

Seeds of Confusion, a contender for best control in the game, has a 60 second recharge, 37.5 duration, but notifies and is a cone. 

 

Flashfire, Wormhole, Stalagmites, and Heart of Darkness are the "every spawn" Stuns, each with 90 second recharge, but just 18.6 second duration. 

 

That's how I came up with a 145 second Recharge for Mass Confusion. I could live with 120. The difference between 120 and 145 is minimal after slotting and especially after IOs, roughly just 5-10 seconds depending on build. 

 

IMO 90 is too short for the duration combined with the effect though. 90 seconds puts it at around 50 second recharge with 2 recharge IOs and around 35-30 seconds on a high end build. The power is reliable (unlike Synaptic) and virtually risk free (unlike Seeds) and has a 37 second base duration (unlike any 90 second stun) so in order to not make it totally overtake those powers I think it needs 120 second recharge at minimum. 

120 seconds would be a fine recharge for mass confuse, it doesn’t need to be lower. Its much better than a stun also.

 

Plus lets just admit, Seeds is overpowered and in a purely objective world it would be nerfed. But Seeds has been what it is for so long I think it’s best just to ignore it and mark it up as an outlier. Honestly, comparing Mass Confusion to Seeds is rarely helpful other than to ascertain that on the most basic level, Mass Confusion could be buffed a bit.

[The_Cheeseman]

2 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I have a Mind/Psi, Mind/Fire, Mind/Energy, I'm not "new" or "inexperienced" with them...

I didn’t mean you, specifically (I honestly didn’t even pay attention to who wrote that) it just seemed to me that a lot of this discussion is looking at the numerical values on paper, and not taking into account incomparable qualities, like non-aggro. I apologize if it seemed aggressive, it was not my intention.

 

2 hours ago, Hjarki said:

So I'd argue that the value you're seeing is largely confined to Heros/Villains who:

• Have weak defenses
• Have limited offense
• And who are solo

Even then, I'm having trouble seeing why you'd choose Mind over Plant or Electric.

This is a fair point. What I personally enjoy about it is in a solo context, where it’s just crazy effective, to the point where I will usually try to break-off from the main team in order to clear other nearby spawns. This leverages the extra damage very effectively to improve overall clear speed. I do acknowledge, however, that my experience with Mind Control is on a Dom, who can more effectively exploit the features of Mass Confusion.

 

As I said earlier, I definitely think Mind Control is as amazing on Dom as it is disappointing on a Controller. However, it’s highly likely that any improvements made to Mind will also affect the Dom version of the set, and has strong potential to result in Dom Mind Control becoming overtuned.

1 hour ago, Peacemoon said:

Its just there is very little reason to not immediately jump in and attack after you use mass confuse. If anything you want to get some  damage in quick or you lose too much xp from confuse damage.

The important factor, though, is that while it is usually a good idea to jump right in and attack (I often just toss a fireball into the spawn and then move on to another) you have the option to not engage if you prefer not to. You can see whether the confuse missed a dangerous target, for example, or if a portion of the spawn was outside the radius. As a Controller, you also have the ability to stack your single-target confuse on bosses to take them out of the fight, as well.
 

3 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

So, yes this is correct, although I could sincerely SWEAR that it drew aggro (I remember GW hitting me in MLTF despite my confuse not drawing aggro/stealth capped). I guess there was something going on or maybe it was a specific interface I used/bug? Not entirely sure honestly, I was standing a far distance from her as well... oh well.

I experienced this same behavior when I soloed the LRSF. From what I observed, my hypothesis is that certain AVs, after entering combat for the first time, are scripted to periodically check a radius around them and automatically aggro any player characters in range, regardless of perception. If you watch them Idling, every few seconds they will enter combat stance for a second, and I’ve noticed that, even with very high stealth and obstructed line-of-sight, if you are close enough at that moment, they come after you.

 

3 hours ago, Hjarki said:

However, Seeds of Confusion can perma-Confuse spawns while Seeds of Confusion cannot.

I assume you meant Mass Confusion for one of those? Even if that is the case, it’s entirely possible to get Mass Confusion’s duration longer than its recharge time. My Dom’s MC recharges in 62 seconds, and its duration is about 80 seconds, so you can definitely perma-confuse a spawn (though, even during solo shenanigans, I’ve never had reason to do that).

[Peacemoon]

Just now, The_Cheeseman said:

The important factor, though, is that while it is usually a good idea to jump right in and attack (I often just toss a fireball into the spawn and then move on to another) you have the option to not engage if you prefer not to. You can see whether the confuse missed a dangerous target, for example, or if a portion of the spawn was outside the radius. As a Controller, you also have the ability to stack your single-target confuse on bosses to take them out of the fight, as well.

This is completely true, but at the same time lets not get too hung up on it because as discussed its not a huge advantage, its just a niche benefit. If all we're doing is reducing the recharge to 120 seconds then whether it aggros or not is not really relevant. Confuse already has enough other penalties, such as reducing xp and requiring some player contribution to get rewards, that there is no need to layer any other penalties on top.

 

With the Mind Control for Controllers vs Doms - one of the benefits of simply focusing on [Containment] damage is that it has no impact on Dominator's Mind Control, without even having to get into the ugly territory of potential divergence. 

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I remember GW hitting me in MLTF despite my confuse not drawing aggro/stealth capped

 

That's probably completely separate... I think that the AVs in some of these Task Forces have some special aggro activation, where they'll activate and aggro on you even when you're completely Stealthed and not actually drawing aggro. At least, I've had the same issue with Battle Maiden when soloing that TF, and a couple of other AVs. So you're probably right about GW aggroing on you, but it's probably due to a mission trigger rather than normal aggro rules.

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

90 seconds is probably too fast a recharge for a ranged non-notify power with 37.5 second duration.

 

Just my 2 cents, is that Mass Confusion is actually crippled by its long duration. I mean, who cares if the duration were halved if that got us a 90 second recharge? Heck, even 120 second recharge, with half the duration, would turn it into an awesome power. Right now you can make it permanent, so if you halved both it would remain permanent, and what more do we really need? Personally, I'm willing to drop the duration as much as necessary in order to get the recharge down... heck, even if it means lowering the duration:recharge ratio.

 

If it were like Seeds but at half the duration of Seeds because it's non-aggro... that would seem both fair and a great power. Well worth a Tier 9 set defining power. The amount of damage or control you could put out in half the duration of Seeds should be quite enough to solve any issues.

[Obitus]

Though I admire the desire to be fair in comparing Mass Confusion to analogous powers, I don't think it's warranted in this case.  As the two sets stand now, you could reduce Mass Confusion's recharge to 10 seconds, double its duration, quadruple its area of effect, and Plant would still perform better than Mind, in 99% of the game's content. 

 

Seeds is a fantastic power, arguably the best control power in the game, and so it naturally invites singular comparison - but Seeds is just one part of a spectacularly strong set.  In the wildest fever dreams of the posters in this thread, Mind will never be buffed to match Plant's overall performance profile - top-tier hard control and top-tier damage, which can be improved to truly monstrous levels through proc slotting.

 

Even Elec would still have a marked advantage relative to Mind if Mass Confusion were buffed into the sky.  Yes, Synaptic Overload is all-or-nothing (if it misses the first target, it hits nothing), and yes, Elec can't match Plant's damage potential, but Elec has anti-scatter lockdown (AoE Immobilize), a dose of extra soft control (End drain), pets, some solid proc opportunities, and even a tiny amount of End management for the caster.  (If you commit to end slotting on an Elec Controller, you can even build a Storm character that can function comfortably without Conserve Power, Cardiac, or Ageless, which is a pretty impressive feat.)

 

I agree with Hjarki's comment that any buffs to Mind Control are unlikely, a wholesale redesign even more so.  We have a volunteer development team, after all.  So, when we're discussing the simplest fixes, the adjustments that have the best, albeit small, chance of happening, let us not be consumed by an excess of caution.

 

Two minutes seems like a fair number for Mass Confusion.  Without significant changes elsewhere to the set, 90 seconds wouldn't even be grotesquely out of whack.  I think a lot of us forumites, myself included, are a little too quick to assume high-end IO bonuses in these discussions; worth remembering that even powers like Flashfire aren't usable on an every-spawn basis (a 20-30s cycle time) for the average player, certainly not the average player who's below the level cap.  A power like Mass Confusion, on the other hand, with its four minute base recharge, is hardly relevant at all, with average-player slotting habits. 

 

A 120-second base recharge timer would give you a ~30s cycle time at 400% total recharge, which is basically the upper bound for IO builds without outside buffs.  It'd give you a 60s cycle time at 200% recharge, which is about all you can expect of the average player.  (That 60s would become ~45s when Hasten is up, if the player took Hasten, but without IO bonuses Hasten will only be available sporadically.)  Giving Mind access to that sort of consistent control won't break the game.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Obitus

[oedipus_tex]

If I got to vote on it I'd personally prefer to keep the 37 second duration on Mass Confusion. The "open with and kill at your luxury" aspect of the power is part of Mind Control's identity in my opinion. The 90 second recharge powers have a different feel. I'd rather have a 145 or 120 second recharge 37 second duration and keep that flavor.

[Coyote]

5 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

If I got to vote on it I'd personally prefer to keep the 37 second duration on Mass Confusion. The "open with and kill at your luxury" aspect of the power is part of Mind Control's identity in my opinion. The 90 second recharge powers have a different feel. I'd rather have a 145 or 120 second recharge 37 second duration and keep that flavor.

 

But if you lowered the recharge to 120 seconds, a high recharge build will have it up in 30 seconds or so.

So, a 20 second base duration, enhanced, will push that to over 30 seconds.

So 120/20 would be easily permanent on +1, maybe +2s at the high end. 37 is easily boosted to over 60 seconds, which is just all kinds of overkill.

I think we'd be better off if we're willing to trade off some duration, with regards to persuading Devs to lower the Recharge of MC. So there's my vote: trade down as much Duration as is necessary to get it to 120 seconds, and if they're willing to drop it down to 90 seconds (or, Gods of Balance forbid, 60 seconds), then keep trading. At that point, we'll be using it every spawn, which is beyond awesome even if it's only enhanced to 30 seconds or so. It would have to be a pretty low damage build to not kill off all the Minions by then even against +3s, and have the Bosses permanently Confused in any case.

 

Still, to be honest, while it would be lovely to get a set-capper like a fast-recharge Mass Confusion out there... Dominators are fine. Fixes to MindMasters should probably look at Telekinesis, fast-recharge Mass Hypnosis, or other ways to set up Containment more regularly.

[oedipus_tex]

I hear you. However I think with Seeds having 37 second duration/60 second recharge that 37 seconds is the right number, unless Seeds is also reduced--a battle I don't want to fight, even if I believe Seeds is overpowered. 

 

Right now I'm still leaning more toward 145 seconds. At 90 seconds, even if the mezz duration was reduced to 18 seconds to match the Flashfire genre of powers, the power would be many times better than those powers because it is a non-notify Confuse, and it would make Mind Control eclipse the 90 second stun control sets a bit too much, minus its Containment problems, which I also hope we can fix. 

 

At 120 seconds the difference in top end builds isn't too huge versus 90 (5 seconds or so). That's why 145 sounds about right to me. It does mean Mass Confusion wouldn't quite be an "every spawn" power, but I'm not convinced it needs to be to make Mind Control relevant. I'd rather it be a 1 1/2 spawn power with a long mezz duration in the spirit of how it was designed. I actually like its current effect, providing you a very safe way to fight. I just think the lag between casts is too long. I think it should remain a different sort of power than the more frantic 90 second recharge powers.

Edited April 11, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

BTW one thing I'd be totally down for would be reducing the cooldown on Mass Hypnosis from 45 seconds to 8, the same Recharge as an AoE immobilize. The powers already cost the same Endurance (15-ish). Mass Hyp's 2 second animation time is a hinderance to being able to truly spam it without exchanging DPS. 

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

I think we'd be better off if we're willing to trade off some duration, with regards to persuading Devs to lower the Recharge of MC. So there's my vote: trade down as much Duration as is necessary to get it to 120 seconds

Since the recharge of 240 is approximately 6.5x the duration ... if you wanted to lockstep proportionally move the recharge and duration of Mass Confusion you'd wind up wtih 120s recharge when duration drops to 18.625s where you cut both recharge and duration both in half.

 

A compromise alternative would be to reduce recharge and duration by 1/3 each ... to 160s recharge and 24.83s duration.

 

Moving to a 145s recharge would proportionately move the duration to 22.5s ... which is a pretty good (sweet spot?) compromise too.

 

 

 

Coming at it from the other direction ... how long of a duration on Mass Confusion is "useful" before it becomes superfluous?

I would argue that a duration of 20s (or slightly longer) would suffice for most purposes and result in a slightly "sweeter" spot than other alternatives (not too long, not too short).

 

20 / 37.25 = 0.53691275

240 * 0.53691275 = 128.859s

 

Round it off to 130s of recharge and you wind up with:

 

130 / 240 = 0.5416667

37.25 * 0.5416667 = 20.177s

 

If it gets us a Mass Confusion we can USE more often, I'd be all in favor of 130s base recharge for a 20s base duration.

 

 

 

At the very least, it would seem that the "sweet spots" to choose from amount to 130/20 or 145/22.5 or 160/25 as the recharge to duration ratios to move to without making any other changes to Mass Confusion.  All that would be required is the editing of TWO fields in the power ... and that's it for the Mind Control Controller version.  The change could even be proliferated to Dominators at minimal risk to overall game balance (so that's another 2 fields to edit).

 

I'm thinking most of us could implement those changes in about 3 minutes (including search time to find the 4 fields to edit on 2 versions of the power).

 

 

 

S imple

E asy

E ffective

 

... not being done ...

... yet ...

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

BTW one thing I'd be totally down for would be reducing the cooldown on Mass Hypnosis from 45 seconds to 8, the same Recharge as an AoE immobilize. The powers already cost the same Endurance (15-ish). Mass Hyp's 2 second animation time is a hinderance to being able to truly spam it without exchanging DPS. 

I'd be quite happy with a 2/3rds reduction in recharge (from 45s to 15s) and a 1/3rd reduction in duration (from 22.35s to 14.9s) so that Mass Hypnosis is very nearly "perma out of the box" again (but still fragile just like always!), like it was before the global AoE control nerf that whacked Mind Control way too hard relative to other powersets.  With slotting, you'd be able to double stack Mass Hypnosis relatively easily using the stock and standard Acc/Rech/Sleep mix (add Endurance Reduction if you want to spam it rapidly).  Split the difference on the endurance cost, so modify the endurance cost down by 2/3 (from 15.6 to 5.2) which would be the same cost as Mesmerize (but without the damage or the 55.88s duration in exchange for the AoE factor) so as to make it possible to spam Mass Hypnosis when (not if, WHEN) it gets broken.

 

Makes the power a little more "click happy" but also more flexible than Static Field, so there are tradeoffs in the comparison.

[AngriestGhost]

8 hours ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

@SaddestGhost Is that a wild Ketch I see?

Yes, that is me, and this is me (posting from my phone).

 

I like the change in focus we have in this thread, adjusting what we have rather than reinventing the wheel.  Buffing Mass Confusion is one of the key changes I think most of us will agree should be done though finding the sweet spot for those changes may take real testing on top of their crafting.  I think 120-145 seconds is a solid solution if it retains its current duration.

 

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

BTW one thing I'd be totally down for would be reducing the cooldown on Mass Hypnosis from 45 seconds to 8, the same Recharge as an AoE immobilize. The powers already cost the same Endurance (15-ish). Mass Hyp's 2 second animation time is a hinderance to being able to truly spam it without exchanging DPS. 

If a change were in there works for Terrify, what would you recommend?  I floated a few ideas up thread that I think would be worthwhile.   I think that's the one place where we could addresses Mind's damage issue without altering the function of any power.

Edited April 12, 2020 by AngriestGhost

[oedipus_tex]

3 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Coming at it from the other direction ... how long of a duration on Mass Confusion is "useful" before it becomes superfluous?

 

 

 

I think this is an excellent question.

 

Eliminating the outliers like /Kinetics Controllers, I think the answer is most solo Controllers or Dominators fighting large stacks of mobs above their level would have a lot of trouble clearing the mob before Mass Confusion wears off. 37 seconds becomes 68 seconds of Confusion when slotted with Confuse IOs, but then against +3 enemies (assuming a level shift) the purple patch reduces that down to 44 seconds. A 44 second clear against x8+4 enemies, based on most of my Dominator experience, would be very high performance. Blasters and Brutes can often pull that off, but Dominators not usually. Since it just takes one boss breaking its mezz and punching you twice to die, the security of that long duration is very welcome.

 

One of the reasons Seeds of Confusion is so useful is once you see the purple confuse dots you know that enemy won't bother you again for a long time. IMO the duration is a "signature" aspect of Mind Control too, the relative calm you feel as you clear the spawn. In fact, I like to combine Mind Control on Dominators who have a form of Power Boost to make the safety even more explicit. Just wish the power didn't take 240 seconds to recharge. 🙂 About 200 of those seconds feel superflous.

Edited April 12, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

47 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Since it just takes one boss breaking its mezz and punching you twice to die, the security of that long duration is very welcome.

 

Although it is a Tier 9 power, I don't have any problems with requiring the character to add more mezzes to the Bosses, whether Holds, more Confuse, or Sleeps (it's not like the set doesn't have enough), in order to guarantee safety. A single power that can provide enough safety to clear a +4x8 spawn without having to worry much about Defense or other powers seems overpowered. If you give the character 25-30 seconds of safety, that's long enough to clear the minions, Confuse the LTs with single-target Confuses that will then have them fighting for you, and Hold 1-2 Bosses. If there are 2 Bosses, you may have to Confuse them instead of the LTs, which is also doable by using Terrify to keep the Lts inactive. I think that Mind Control would still easily have enough tools to be safe while clearing a spawn, but it doesn't all have to come from a single power that, because it's so good, then makes the rest of the set's control superfluous.

 

Remember, while Plant has damage but not much backup control, Mind is loaded with controls to back up an every-spawn Mass Confuse even if the confusion doesn't last long enough to clear the spawn. Especially since it's loaded with single-target controls, and you're likely down to the Bosses by the time that the confusion wears off.

 

Lastly, I'm not sure that you can't clear a spawn fast... I remember fighting Vahzilok with a Plant Dominator... and some spawns, depending on how they aggroed on each other, literally fell to pieces in 5-6 seconds. Granted, that's because Vahz do ridiculous damage at short range so they kill each other FAST, so other mobs won't kill themselves off so quickly. But this isn't a question of doing enough damage to clear a spawn in 30 seconds by yourself... the mobs are going to be helping you do the clearing. Heck, sometimes you'll need to rush to do damage so you get credit for everyone before the two Bosses fire AoEs and erase the minions for you. I'm really not expecting much of an issue with having a large portion of a spawn survive to the 30 second mark.

 

Post-lastly, if we're talking +4x8, my opinion is that this would be a highly tuned build, and may well have capped Defenses, solid Resists, and probably if it's having problems clearing a spawn in time, an Alpha slot that boosts the Confuse duration by about another 5 seconds.

[The_Cheeseman]

Well, I’m not going to continue arguing against buffs to my favorite set, so I guess go ahead and make Mass Confusion even better!

 

I still think the easiest change would be to turn Telekinesis into an AoE immobilize. It would help Controllers setup Containment while having little effect on Doms, other than to provide access to immobilize (which Mind obviously doesn’t currently have).

[r0y]

On 4/11/2020 at 8:34 PM, The_Cheeseman said:

Well, I’m not going to continue arguing against buffs to my favorite set, so I guess go ahead and make Mass Confusion even better!

 

I still think the easiest change would be to turn Telekinesis into an AoE immobilize. It would help Controllers setup Containment while having little effect on Doms, other than to provide access to immobilize (which Mind obviously doesn’t currently have).

Yeah, but might mean a possible moving around of the powers... if left in it's current tier, it should get something a bit better than a typical Tier 3 AoE immob (from other sets).  That'd be cool; also make it thematically correct for the set (duh!).

[Redlynne]

On 4/11/2020 at 10:34 PM, The_Cheeseman said:

I still think the easiest change would be to turn Telekinesis into an AoE immobilize.