Local_Man

It seems to me almost more like a Spectral Terror . . . . the foes are controlled until you hit them with something, then they can hit back until the next sleep pulse when they go back under. Compare that to a Fear aura, where the foes cower unless they are hit with something, and then they can take one shot at you before going back into a cower.

I plan to roll up an Elec/Rad as a new combo that can take advantage of Choking Cloud. An Elec/Rad seems to have a lot of similarities to an Ice/Rad, with EndDrain replacing the Slow and -Recharge.

Arguments aside, Warshades are amazingly fun . . . you can run into tough foes, but it really is nothing to worry about, as there are ways to handle them. I have a level 50 Warshade . . . and a level 35 Warshade . . . and a level 27 Warshade, all on different servers. I love playing a Warshade on a big team . . . lots of dead bodies everywhere.

However, Warshades are complex compared to many other characters. To play a Warshade well, you generally need a good understanding of how the game works and how "binds" work. Binds are important to make changing forms and the resultant tray switching easier. Therefore, if you are new to the game, you might not want to start with a Warshade. Try some other characters first to learn some basics, and try to learn about binds. Once you have a decent idea of how you like to play characters and how binds can be used, they try a Warshade.

I was just on my second Fire/Rad last night . . . with Indomidible Will used for mez protection. (My first one sits at 50 on another server, but I wanted this one to join with my usual group of buddies when we want a full team of Fire/Rads -- the second one just hit 43.) I didn't bother with Combat Jumping or Acro, as I use both Air Sup/Fly and Hasten/Super Speed on this character. (I don't need both, but I love having both. Hasten is needed, and SS with a stealth IO gives full invisibility. Air Sup gives me a nice single target melee attack with knockdown, and Fly is just handy.)

I find that I don't have Immobilize problems very often, and even if I do get Immobilized, anything in melee will die pretty quickly. Anything attacking me from range can be held with Char, and then the Fire Imps usually find them.

As for the limited hold protection in Acro -- it does so little. Either IW works or it doesn't. I have knockback protection with a Zephyr in Fly, so I don't really need Acro.

I believe the OP intended it to be actually taking things in the surrounding area to be the propelled items . . . kind of like a Jedi using "mind fling." However, even if it was limited to items in the surrounding map . . . there are some maps with no items. What are you going to throw if you are in a cave map populated by DE? No "stuff" around at all. The only thing to throw might be boulders . . . in which case, the power might as well be "Hurl Boulder."

It certainly is not worth the Devs spending time on it in any case.

The problem is that in order to be effective, you have to completely drain foes for endurance drain to work as a mitigation/control power. It takes two shots of Short Circuit to drain minions. A Kin/Elec can easily drain a single target quickly with Transference+Short Circuit, but it is a bit tougher to drain a group. Once you get into the APP powers, Power Boost + Short Circuit will do it. Power Boost + Thunderous Blast will kill a bunch and drain anybody left standing. However, you need to pop a blue, run in, hit Transference (to refill your blue bar) and then hit Short Circuit to keep the foes drained for any period of time.

However, you might want to wait and see the effect of Electric Control.

With only a few exceptions, Stamina is virtually required on all characters. The exceptions are characters that may have another way to recover endurance (such as Kinetic Defenders with Transference, or Warshades with Stygian Circle), or characters who have lower endurance usage and are built with lots and lots of Endurance reduction and recovery bonuses. (An Archery Blaster can be made without Stamina.) There are a small number of people who pride themselves on avoiding Stamina, but the vast majority of players find it indispensible.

Dropping Combat Jumping and Super Jump would make more sense if you want Fly. You can either take Air Superiority (a nice melee attack that flips foes and knocks down fliers) or Hover, to get to Fly. A Plant Controller is somewhat lacking in single target damage, so Air Superiority might be a good choice for you.

And by the way, it would generally be better to take Hurdle rather than Swift if you are going to use Super Jump for travel. Hurdle+Combat Jumping is good enough to get you around short distances, so that you don't even have to turn on Super Jump, and Hurdle makes Super Jump better. Hurdle is also better with Super Speed. Swift is fine if you go with Fly.

As for your power choices: you did a pretty nice job. I personally would probably go with Air Sup/Fly over CJ/SJ, but that is a matter of taste. You took all the key Plant powers when you needed to (I might have moved Roots up a slot, but no big thing). The only powerchoice that some people might question is Rise of the Phoenix . . . rez powers are nice to have but fairly optional, since there are quite a few other ways to rez people. But especially on some types of teams, like Pick-Up Groups, having a Rez power is nice. Your last two powerchoices are entirely optional -- some folks might choose differently, but the two you picked are reasonable.

At least you got Seeds of Confusion at level 8 . . . I teamed with a Plant/Rad this weekend who was in the mid 30's and did not have Seeds. I tried to nicely explain that it is a key power of the set, and he/she made it clear that he/she does not like confuse powers and won't take them. I let the issue drop, but I don't really see the purpose of a Plant Controller without Seeds of Confusion.

I seriously doubt that the current game engine would allow that. As it is, each person sees a different item being thrown. The item is created on your computer, not in game.

Which ones are you stuck on? A lot depends on your playstyle. Teams or solo? Aggressive or more support?

For the most part, Dimension Shift should be skipped. If the build is tight, then you may want to choose Propel for solo or small teams, or Lift for larger teams. If you have room, take both. Everything else in Grav is worth taking.

From Kinetics, the most commonly skipped powers are Repel and, if you have a different travel power, Inertial Reduction. Speed Boost and Increase Density are ally-only powers, useless solo but especially SB is very valuable on teams (but a minority of people seem to dislike it). Some people skip Siphon Power once they have Fulcrum Shift, but Siphon Power is nice when up against a single tough foe (like an AV). Some people skip Increase Density due to its short duration, but it is nice as a way to break stuns and other mez or prevent knockback on teammates. (It is also a nice place to put a Steadfast -Knockback IO.)

Earth is an obvious choice. Seismic Smash adds that single target damage that Plant lacks, and the short-range AoE of Fissure is less of a problem when your Seed+Roots combo has them all held. But, yeah, the armor is butt-ugly. And you don't need the heal as much as other builds. But I would say that Earth is better for a more solo-oriented or melee-oriented build. (Good for a Plant/Kin, for example -- that's what I have on mine.)

Ice is a nice choice. You get a good single target blast, TWO AoE damage powers, a nice defense-based shield and a great panic button power in Hibernate, which lets you recover both health and endurance. On a team-based character, Ice might be a better choice since you will have teammates handling the single target damage. (This is what I have on my Plant/Rad.)

If you have having a lot of problems getting mezzed while leveling up, then I would go with Psi with Indomidible Will. Otherwise, it is probably not the best choice, but if you need that mez protection, it is definitely worth it.

The one thing that make primal attractive is Power Boost. Boosted Seeds of Confusion will last a long time. On a decent team, however, everything should be dead pretty quickly. Conserve Power is nice, but the only AoE damage is a cone.

Fire has more damage in its blast, and Fireball has good front-loaded AoE damage. It has the only self-rez available to Controllers, if that is something you want.

Just seeing a data chunk and a "please look at my build" message often does not make me want to load up Mids, copy the data chunk into it, just so I can spend 20 min critiquing your build. I suggest you post the build itself (some of us don't have access to Mids 24/7) and give a little bit of explanation about your play style and what you are hoping to achieve.

Take a look at my Illusion/Radiation guide. It has several builds, including several Perma-PA builds. Near the end of the thread, you will see my current perma-PA build. That should give you most of the help you need.

I wrote the guide so that I didn't have to keep saying the same thing over and over and over again. It is a heck of a lot easier to say, "read my guide," than to explain the nature of specral damage for the 15th time.

I can't help it if it is so darn popular. I'm not really all that bad . . .

Am I?

Take a look at my Illusion/Radiation guide. The link to it is in my signature below. Near the end of the thread, you'll find my current Perma-PA build. I avoided using many of the most expensive sets, trying to keep the price reasonable without sacrificing performance at all.

Welcome back. That guide should give you all the information you need.

Nothing wrong with wanting your characters to be, well, "characters." I generally decide on a powerset I want to play, then come up with a name. I love puns in my character names, so if I can come up with a good pun, that makes the character more appealing to me. But there are plenty of people who are more interested in the fun of characters than the mechanics of the game. (I was just on my Dual Pistols Blaster, "Pepe LePewPew.")

In fact, you may prefer Virtue as a server. That is known as the "role-play" server. And finding teams on Virtue is just about as easy as Freedom.

Did you take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide? I have recommended builds for leveling. I hope you took Deceive . . . use it a lot in low levels. I suggest you skip Flash until later in the build . . . in low levels, it is not all that useful. In low levels, you almost act more as a defender, using your debuffs and blast powers. But once you get Phantom Army at 18, things change.

As for the team saying "Just heal"? That is not a team you want to be on. Unfortunately, you run into teams like that, mostly on Freedom.

There is nothing wrong with Gravity as a damage dealing controller . . . it is more single-target focused, but it probably does more single target damage than any other controller. With Containment, the combo of GD-Crush-Propel does a huge amount of damage. Some of that damage is Damage over Time (DoT), so you need to learn that when a foe has a sliver of health left, that there are times that you can let the DoT finish him off. It is not fast, but it all adds up. When you start to add the Sonic Resistance Debuffs, the amount of damage done by a Grav/Sonic will add up to a ton.

As for survivability, a Grav/Sonic will have some challenges but not too difficult ones. Sonic is really one of the team-focused secondaries with ally-only shields and some other ally-only powers. So, being on a team leveling up is probably a good idea. But it has the big bubble (I forget its name) that provides mez protection. It also has buffs to resistance to make its pet, Singularity, virtually unkillable by making its already high Resistance go to the cap. Once he gets Singularity, the pet can tank and draw aggro better than any other pet (other than maybe Animate Stone). There are no heals in the set, so it may be worth considering the Medicine Pool for Aid Other and Aid Self, but it is certainly not too tough to get by without heals. Secondaries without a self-heal are Storm, Trick Arrow, Sonic and Force Field, and they all do fine, especially if they buff up their Regen.

And that list of Controllers provided is very limited to those focused on AoE damage. I would put an Illusion or Mind above any of them for survivability, since they have Confuse powers that do not draw aggro. It is easy to take foes out of the fight before it begins. My low level Illusion controllers can go through battles using Deceive and not take a single hit.

Agree. And if at all possible, be the team leader. That's the only way you get to read all the content from the contacts. (Tell the team that it may take you a little bit longer because you are reading stuff.)

I don't have nearly as much experience Red side, but I really like the Wretch story arc you get in the 20's -- I got it from contact Willie Wheeler. I thought it was one of the best written stories in the game.