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Actually, you can do it for a lot cheaper than that . . . The only purples in my Perma PA Ill/Rad are 5 Confuse (fairly cheap) and 2 Pet (even cheaper), and the pet ones are optional. The most expensive items are 3 Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Recharge, but you can earn those with Hero Merits pretty easily. My build is posted in the Thread of my Illusion/Radiation Guide.

Well . . . lots of soft control means low damage in the opinion of the Devs, as there isn't a whole bunch of damage in the Electric set. The Gremlins have mediocre damage because they were designed that way. Sure, you can do a few things to add extra procs and slot for as much damage as you can, but Electric is always going to be on the low side for damage among controllers. I wouldn't want every set to be high damage, but since the OP was talking about wanting to solo while experiencing the Electric Control set, choosing a Dominator is a better choice in my opinion.

You CAN solo it, certainly. You can solo any controller. It just depends on how patient you are and how much you are willing to spend and sacrifice for procs. I would say that Ice Control has the lowest damage of all, but I am able to solo my Ice/Storm at a decent rate -- but he still does better on teams.

The other powers you need to understand to "get" Electric Control are:

Chain Fences: pretty much a standard AoE Immobilize, but with some exceptions. (1) Like Gravity's Crushing Field, Chain Fences does NOT have -knockback. That's a good thing because of Jolting Chain. (2) The damage from Chain Fences is all up front -- no Damage over Time. That's a good thing because DoT would interfere with the sleep in Static Field. (3) The secondary effect is more endurance drain.

Jolting Chain -- a chaining knockdown power. As long as you hit the first foe, the rest of the group will almost automatically be knocked down in sequence. It provides short-term mitigation with a little damage. But it is fun! You zap one foe, and it quickly chains to other foes in the group as they do a nice knockdown in sequence. At first, I didn't think it was very useful, but it really is. It recharges pretty quickly. Since Chain Fences doesn't prevent knockdown, the combination of Chain Fences and Jolting Chain makes a nice form of partial control -- it won't stop all attacks but it will definitely substantially reduce them. If you want to stop them, you should use . . .

Static Field -- A location-targetted AoE pulsing Sleep patch that is by far the best Sleep power in the game. Most Sleep powers are quite skippable, but this one isn't as it is one of your main control powers. Think of it as kind of like Earthquake or Ice Slick that uses Sleep instead of knockdown. You throw it into a group of foes, and they pretty much all go to sleep. If you do something to disturb them, like Jolting Chain or Chain Fences, and they wake up for a second or so and then go back to sleep. It recharges quickly enough to easily make it permanent with some Recharge slotting. AND even better -- if you stand in the field, you will get some Recovery of endurance for each foe in the Field. ALSO, your team will, too. As a result, teams almost never have to worry about endurance if you are using Static Field on every group. Static Field works with Conductive Aura to allow you to drain foes of endurance while you stay pretty safe. You can slowly do some AoE damage with Jolting and Fences, or you can focus on taking down one foe at a time.

Synaptic Overload -- another unique power. It is a chaining Confuse power that does not draw aggro. It takes a little bit of time to do its chaining. I find its best use is to take out most of the next group while your team is working on "this" group.

As for the pet -- you get two Gremlins. They also have Jolting Chain, too. The damage on the Gremlins seems a bit low, and they are definitely on the squishy side.

I have found the set to be a lot of fun. Not very damaging, but overall fun.

Fallout is only useful if the teammate faceplants in the middle of a group of foes. Mutation can rez teammates inside or outside of the battle, and they can immediately run into battle again. Plus, Fallout needs slots for damage while Mutation can get by with a single Recharge in the default slot. I'm not suggesting that Fallout is useless . . . only that I get more use out of Mutation and I feel that overall, it provides more benefit to the team.

Besides, Fallout doesn't feel very "heroic."

If he is using a damage proc from the Hold sets (Ghost Widow and Neuronic Shutdown both have Chance for Psi Damage), then it will only affect the single foe who is subject to the Hold. It will not affect the pseudopet that causes the sleep, nor will it wake up the rare foe who is slept. Neither the hold nor the damage from Blind get extended to any foes hit by the sleep. Will it work for the Gamestop proc? I don't know since I haven't tried it, but I doubt it.

Frankly, the AoE for the sleep is so small, it is not even worth considering. The Sleep only hits when foes are very, very close. I think the AoE is only about 2 feet.

However, you will get more overall damage from slotting Blind for Damage than a damage proc, unless you have already reached the ED cap. The exception is the Chance for Smashing from the purple Unbreakable Constraint set, where the higher chance results in more damage.

(And if you are asking stuff about a powerset like Illusion, you might want to ask the question in the Controller forum since Illusion is exclusively a Controller set. Not that putting the question here is wrong, but the folks who know more about Illusion tend to hang out more there.)

I admit I missed that . . . and I wouldn't try to mostly solo an Electric controller. I have soloed mine on occasion and I soloed a couple on Test . . . and even after you get the Gremlins, it is not fast. Before the Gremlins, the huge majority of my damage had to come from my Vet powers. If you really want to solo the Electric Control set . . . go with a Dominator. I'm working on an Elec/Earth.

I'm the last person who should be talking about PvP, but I recall the reason Superior Invis was considered Superior in PvP because it was fairly easy for players to get +perception. Tactics, the +Perception IO and a few other ways made the cap meaningless. SI is so far above the cap that it was still effective while GI and the other forms of invisibility were not.

I have no idea if that still works.

Going with an Unbounded Leap means that you add another .295 for running Sprint to the endurance cost. That means that Super Speed + Sprint is costing .7475, or almost 3/4 of the cost of SI for a less effective invisibility . . . and one you can't have until you get a travel power you may not want and an expensive IO (even the Unbounded Leap isn't cheap). And finding low-level stealth IOs is pretty hard -- I recently added one to my Elec/Rad using a couple of Hero Merits -- there weren't any for sale. You can have SI at level 8. If the endurance cost gets too high in a battle, just turn SI off (one toggle instead of two).

As for the slots . . . . I get 12.5% recharge out of SI by six-slotting it with a LotG Recharge and 5 Red Fortunes. I get some Defense and capped endRdx such that I have no problems at all running SI virutally all the time. And it certainly seems to me that I get seen a lot less often with SI than any other form of invisibility.

I haven't tested the mechanisms of Drones or Rularuu or Knives. My experience is that I can get closer to them with SI than Steamy + SS Shadowfall + SS or SS+Stealth IO or Steamy + Stealth IO (I have used all four.) Maybe I'm wrong. But SI seems to work better than any of them, is easier to use and with decent slotting, the endurance cost is managable.

It is only a 5% chance, but I use Spectral Wounds a LOT -- twice in my attack chain. (That's why I put it in SW rather than Fire Blast.) By six-slotting the power, I can have capped Damage in SW anyway, so I'm not really giving up much for the proc. Plus, all of the powers in my attack chain are pretty quick, so the Build Up lasts almost two cycles -- a nice damage bonus.

I'd have to look back at Hero Stats to see exactly how much, but I thought it was worth while.

Worst? Not even close. Yes, you can get full PvE invisibility with Super Speed and a very expensive Celerity Stealth IO -- I have it on many of my characters, and the last time I looked, the Celerity Stealth was selling for about 160 mil. I also use Shadow Fall or Steamy Mist + Super Speed or a Stealth IO. But Superior Invis is pure invisibility with some defense on an easy-to-use toggle. It is not difficult to take the endurance cost into effect on an Illusion build. It can be slotted with IOs for 12.5% Recharge and some decent defense. And it even keeps you hard to see by +perception foes until you get really close. It has allowed me to fly past Rikti Drones in caves without being seen if I go by fast enough.

And, I hate to tell you, but a lot of people don't like Super Speed for travel -- they have trouble controling a super-speeding character and dislike the lack of verticle. (I personally like it, but I have seen reasons why others don't.) Stealth, from the stealth pool, not only uses an unneeded power pool, but also has a run speed reduction -- rather frustrating.

On my Ill/Storm, I skipped SI and GI to take Super Speed + Steamy Mist for invisibility, and it works fine most of the time. But every now and then, something that would not have seen me through SI will see me with SS+SM. The invisibility is not as good. The only thing that makes SI a tough choice is the endurance cost, but with good slotting, that can be handled. It is available at level 8, allows you to walk right up to a foe and Deceive him to take him out of the fight -- without having to buy very expensive IOs. It does not have to be re-cast every few minutes and doesn't force you to run around at high speed or low speed. SI is easy and simple and, well, "superior."

The combo of SI and Deceive and Phantom Army is perfect for anyone wanting to be the team spy. SI gets you there, Deceive can distract any foes near a glowie, and PA can pull the attention of a group. Not even a Stalker has that set of tools.