Mind/Poison - The Master of Confusion

[Gentoo]

Here is my new passion: Mind/Poison

 

It is based around confusing enemies and having them kill each other quickly and efficiently as I waltz through missions without getting my hands dirty.

 

Mind powers let me sleep or otherwise control the enemies while confusing them. Why not illusion or Plant or Darkness control? Too much direct damage. The goal here is to do this without using pets or any attack powers. If I could anti-enhance dominate and mesmerize I would do so. In giving up all that damage, I get better control. With mind control, I can keep everything chill except who I specifically want fighting each other.

 

The key problem to getting these guys to kill each other quickly and efficiently, as anyone who has used confuse extensively knows, is that they miss each other far too often. They miss and miss and miss... unless you help them. But how to help them? Other powers from controller secondaries that do -def usually come with -acc as well. You want the former, but not the latter. So what to do?

 

The answer is poison. It comes with Envenom, a strong single target -def with splash -def to surrounding enemies. Set your confused guys fighting each other and splash them with this. And you can get this power at level 2, and confuse at level 6... so your key tools come really really early. Weaken is the next power in the poison set and its extremely useful for fighting EBs and AVs. It nerfs the hell out of stuff.

 

The next challenge is that the last confused guy left will just stand there doing nothing. He won't follow you to the next group of bad guys. So you'll either have to kill him.... or.... mind power has Telekinesis. You can use that to push him into the next group and keep your hands clean. Just make sure you turn off the power (it is a toggle) before he floats into them and aggros them. Get him into range to attack them and let him go at them.

 

Get TP Foe as well, for added movement of your pawns. The goal here is to clear maps and limiting your direct damage needed as much as possible. It is perversely satisfying to clear a whole map and win the mission with only using a single strike attack (say one shot of blackwand) right at the end.

 

This play style won't be for everyone, but is completely changes how the game plays and I am loving it. Most bad guy groups have some sort of specialty enemy (like the forcefields, tsoo sorcs, avalanche mages, etc) and with gameplay build around confuse you will get to exerpience them all working for you. Its like going from mission to mission changing a party member. When fighting Skyraiders I have a FF defender on my side. When fighting Tsoo I have a storm defender on my side.

 

I took down Captain Castillo (Sky Raider EB in Faultline) by confusing a Lt to attack him, debuffing the hell out of the EB's health regen and defence and damage resist, and standing untouchable because I had 2 forcefield generators at my service that I'd brought forward along into the mission. I didn't even have to try to hold him. No need. He couldn't touch me :) He then summoned his own FF generator, so now I had 3. Fun!

 

This whole thing is less workable in teams than solo of course, but you can still use it to bring along a captured useful enemy, like forcefield generators, tsoo sorcs, etc, if you can convince your team not to kill them. Moving along at a good team's pace, you can usually bring 1 captured guy along while capturing another during a fight, so you'll reliably have 2 tsoo sorcs healing your party, or 2 malta sappers terrorizing the bad guys, etc. if you play well. You'll also want to not confuse much else when on a team, because people will complain that it steals XP (not something I care at all about when solo).

 

Loving this unique sort of playstyle. Anybody else doing it? I remember trying it way back in the day before poison was a secondary for controllers and giving up on the idea because the confused guys missed so much, but now they hit reliably.

 

The Key Powers:

 

Mezmerize (level 1): Sleeps individual bad guys for quite some time. They wake up if hit. You can sleep many boss level enemies with this. And you can use rest as a healing power as they sleep.

Envenom (level 2): This is the power that floors their Defence, as well as well as their damage resistance. It makes the mind control fights much faster and more entertaining.

Dominate (level 4): Single target hold. Usefull for locking stuff down when teaming. Solo, it also can hold enemies, but not for as long as sleep, and it does do damage (so does sleep)

Confuse (level 6): This is your key power. Its the only one you'll want to slot the hell out of.

Weaken (level 8): Your EB/AV killer

Hasten (any level): Makes everything recharge faster; key for your confusing.

TP Foe (any level): Utility power to move stuff around

Telekinesis: Float stuff around

Group Sleep: For control

Mass Confusion: Just for added fun

 

That's all you really need. Other powers, like the group hold, neurotoxic breath, etc can be useful when teaming, but you've got everything locked down and you really don't want to be debuffing recharge or damage of your enemies as you get them to kill each other.

 

 

[Gentoo]

No other Mind Control confusion enthusiasts out there?

[JusticeBowler]

No other Mind Control confusion enthusiasts out there?

 

This post made me happy. I don't know how you'll get much XP (confuse does up net xp per minute, but that's assuming a team around you doing damage you get credit for). But it looks fun.

 

I'm wondering if there is another secondary... Rad? that can sub in for envenom... that's really useful pull from the poison set though.

[Gentoo]

You can level just fine when you team, or if you decide to use some attacks. The attacks from the p2w lady hit reliably if you use envenom first. And on teams, you won't want to confuse everything, and only focus on the key enemies who do status effects etc, hitting them with envenom first to make sure everything they do against their own team hits.

 

But really, this isn't about gaining XP, so much as it is about playing with the enemy powers. I've discovered that there are a bunch of powers they have that aren't available to players. The council archon guy buffed me with a bubble that is totally different from the FF or Sonic ones. Tsoo sorcs regularly heal me. Sappers are fun to have working for you. Oh and the absolute most fun I have had with this was with the witches in croatoa, getting hit with their own lightning storms, etc. CoT Avalance mages of course are fun, but so are the Dark Mages, who summon pets, who immediately turn on them.

 

This all even backfired on me in a hilarious way once. I was doing a mission in the First Ward, where after beating down the boss, he and all of his minions switch sides. I had a minion confused, and that minion immediately attacked me and I had no way to fight back, because he was an ally. Its like seeing this from the mobs' point of view.

 

Confuse centric build is the most versatile build I've ever played, as what confuse winds up doing changes constantly. And it also flips the game on its head, as the enemy groups most fear most are my favourites. Whenever I play any other toon, I look at enemies who do various effects and I immediately wish I was able to confuse them :)

 

Rad's toggles do NOT work as well as poison because the -def comes with -acc, so the confused enemies still miss a lot. Maybe max slotting for -def would outbalance that a bit and make it more feasible? Need to try that. Sadly, most defender sets don't have -def without -acc.

 

I do wish I could TP enemies from in a mission outside of it and into other missions though. I want to bring confused enemies along to fight other enemy groups.

[TrishaTwilight]

Mind is my favorite. I'll have to give this a shot. 

 

My favorite is mind/trick arrow, but I'm rolling up a mind/storm and a mind/traps. So, This'll just be another!