Dot_Communist

It's one of the two most powerful AoE holds in the game (along with EMP from Radiation Emission, which is basically identical). And it doesn't fully drain your endurance, although the end cost is fairly high on it, it just kills your end recovery for a short period when you use it. Long recharge has been standard on AoE holds for years - EMP/Arrow has a base recharge 60 seconds higher than the standard Controller/Dominator AoE holds.

The proc still only has one chance to go off once per target every ten seconds, though.

Nope, and nope. Proc damage scales with your level, not the level of the enhancer; a level 21 Lady Grey proc does the same damage as a level 50.

Also nice slotting, yeah. Matter of personal taste, really - prioritizing proc damage vs. completely and utterly flooring the Def of anything in the area. I'm fond of the moments when a Paragon Protector pops MoG and nobody notices

Slot Freezing Rain for recharge first, Def debuff second, and a proc or two once you're near the ED cap on those. I'm partial to 5 Undermined Defenses and an Achilles' Heel or Lady Grey proc.

Disruption Field makes a big difference in speed, since you're effectively giving PA a 22.5% damage boost (throw Sonic Siphon on the boss/EB and it's up to a 45% effective damage boost, less purple patch).

I have an Ill/Sonic in the high 30s I only keep around for RP, I've essentially given up running missions with her. Powerful, sure. Solos like a champ. Incredibly boring to play, though. Basic tactic is Superior Invisibility up to spawn, drop Confuse/Spectral Terror, drop Phantom Army, toggle Disruption Field on a decoy, go fix a cup of coffee, come back to computer, move to next spawn, begin reading book, glance up to see if the spawn's dead yet, refresh PA/Disruption Field as necessary, complete mission, rinse, lather, repeat.

Soloing Nosferatu as a +2 EB at around level 45, late in Maxwell Christopher's arc. Stacking the extra -TH kept me alive (that and a purple to start the fight so I could stay ahead of him on the -TH curve).

That aside, I think there's a useful distinction to be made between a power that is just flat awful - pick your favourite - and a power that you don't have much use for in a specific build or on a specific character. On my DM/Regen scrapper, for example, once I started getting some decent recharge I was really only using Reconstruction for the toxic res buff - Siphon Life was keeping my health up just fine. For a more extreme you did WHAT? example, my Mind/Kin skipped Speed Boost, since it's a wasted slot on a petless soloist. This doesn't make Reconstruction and SB awful powers.

Wormhole has enough mag to teleport AVs. Never actually tried it on a GM, although I should some day just for gits and shiggles.

Plus it's always fun to drop crowds of Hellions inside the Atlas tram station, or under the statue....

As far as the vote goes, one more for Mind/Cold, just because it's a combo I've been thinking about trying myself.

Except that in the specific case of Touch of Fear the unslotted To-Hit debuff is twice what you get from any other power in the set (plus it stacks with the smaller debuffs you're piling up from your attacks); slotted for it, ToF puts out three times the debuff your other powers do. An extra 16% -TH is not to be sneered at in most cases.

With lots of recharge (And Endoplasms later on). You can make it a perma-hold/perma-stun with just even-level SOs, but to get the best mileage out of this one you're going to have to Frankenslot - off the top of my head, something like 2 Endos, 1 generic Rech, Devastation proc, Lockdown Acc/Rech, Lockdown proc. This gives you plenty of Acc, the mez lasts 16 seconds regardless of ammo type, the power recharges in 12, stacks two chances for an extra Mag 2 hold (for a potential mag 7 hold using non-lethal ammo, if the RNG loves you that day), and gives your damage output an iron supplement as lagniappe.

Very much so - it's your second-most damaging attack, behind your nuke. For comparison, if you already have Bitter Ice Blast, Ice Storm does about 10% more damage, but to an AoE. If you always stack Ice Storm with Freezing Rain (for the Def debuff) you can skip Acc entirely - Ice Storm has a really high base - and slot 3 Dam/3 Rech.

If I had to pick one of the two, I'd go with Ice Storm, but some of this is down to playstyle. If Test weren't currently closed, I'd suggest copying over there, playing with both, and seeing which you prefer.

They're completely different powers - Ice Storm is an attack, and a quite good one*, Freezing Rain is a debuff/control, and an amazing one. The two play *very* nicely together - the debuffs and knockdown from Freezing Rain can make Ice Storm really shine.

* for a Corruptor with strong AoE slow effects in their secondary, since that means you can extract all of its damage potential, rather than having it go to waste when mobs run out of the area of effect. Same principle applies to Rain of Fire.

9.5 second mez, 20 second recharge. Same recharge as Bean Bag/Screech/Stunning Shot but 2 seconds less duration.

Don't think anybody in beta wrote a 'guide' per se, although if you look in the feedback forum you'll see lots of number-crunching if you're looking for data on how the powers work. "Looks better than it plays" is pretty much the DP motto - if anything it gets more noticeable the higher you get (the nuke, in particular).

Carnies and Rikti, anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if Malta Gunslinger holds/Operations Officer stun grenades had an S/L component, especially the latter. And anyway, if mez is really worrying you, go ././Psi.

Black Scorpion gives you 13% (enhanceable to about 20) S/L/E defense, plus some Toxic resist.

Sounds about right, yeah. And at the end of the day I usually go with what suits my concept/seems fun/has pretty animations/I haven't played before over what works better mechanically anyway

Check the open beta forum for a list of powers. DP is good at looking pretty, having delightful animations, and flexibility (its CC power can be a hold or a stun, you can change the damage type of 30% of your damage, and you can change the very minor secondary effects of your attacks) in exchange for average to below-average ST and AoE damage output and really long animations.

No offense, but I don't think anybody's made that claim; lots have suggested /Storm over /Pain for somebody who predominantly solos, which isn't quite the same thing. /Storm offers its big AoE debuff (Freezing Rain) at level 16 compared to Anguishing Cry at 35, and it also offers a meatier -res debuff, slows, knocks down, recharges in half the time, and works at range. Hurricane and Steamy Mist combine to give pretty reasonable +Def/-To-Hit/Stealth, compared to the minor +res and heal from Soothing Aura/World of Pain, and again are available earlier. /Storm also offers some decent AoE damage in Tornado/Lightning Storm, which helps bump up DP's rather anemic damage output.

In a nutshell, for a soloist /Storm offers superior mitigation, debuffs, and damage output, and it offers them sooner. For somebody who teams 80% of the time, /Pain's really solid collection of ally buffs makes it a much more attractive choice.

I'll be going /Dark myself, but for somebody who's 80% solo, the choice between /Storm and /Pain is pretty much a no-brainer in favour of /Storm.