Paralux

Probably the only tank to avoid there is Willpower whose PBAoE taunt won't hold the enemies on them. But for what you want to do, I'm going to suggest Dark/Super Strength or Dark/Electric. (Either work, as does Dark/Stone). You get Mag 8 worth of taunt auras (as indeed you do with ice), and there's actually a use for those near pointless handclap powers - they now stun bosses. Plus with stealth you can pop up right in the middle of bad guys. (Dark suffers a little against AVs).

And as for tanking Lts, I think I've got a controller somewhere that can manage that. (And not my Ill/Rad).

If you're actually after all that recharge, you've missed a huge trick. Proc Force Feedback, chance for Recharge in Thunderstrike.

Just about everything appears to beat Havoc Punch in EM - even Jacob's Ladder is almost entirely competative as a single target attack in all ways and allows you to 6-slot obliteration. If you can get more than one target that's simply a bonus to offset the lower end drain. Also there's no good reason to buy the Damage IO for a Purple if you're five slotting as you have repeatedly. You're already over the ED limits - buy the proc instead.

There was a bug in Carrion Creepers when I wrote that guide - I'd slot it differently now.

As for the rest, I'll agree Tal 'N Smoke's guide looks good. It fills in a lot of the details I left out. But I've more or less retired from CoX these days (I'm back for the double XP and free rejoin and may be back again for Going Rogue). So there won't be a v2 of the guide. (As for Plant/Storm vs Nemesis, my approach in the end was to play a slightly weakened Storm defender with a few plant tricks. It was a learning curve and I'd need to get back into the game to remember how I did it). Thanks for the feedback

Why not go for a humanform (or human and lobster if you're playing with battlearmour) Peacebringer? Blasty, tougher than most blasters, and some nasty melee abilities. And that's before you switch all the armour's power to the shields and go dwarf.

I'd disagree - you probably want her to be very distinct from you. And a blaster may appear to overshadow her at taking everything down.

For a duo a scrapper with Confront can tank pretty effectively. And with the knockback, your greater experience won't feel as if it's overwhelming her. I'd recommend DB/WP for the taunt aura, knockdown and debuffs, and general coolness.

Either that or a /elec defender yourself. Remember: Buffs will make her feel cooler. So I'd suggest Kin, Rad, or Dark (you need a heal).

And IMNSHO, /Sonic defenders >> Sonic blasters - the blaster only does 13% res debuff to the defender's 20%.

Looks solid for Dark/Elec. I find I only need to slot IOs once and they provide better bonusses than SOs - but others prefer SOs. Also Elec only really shines when you've got a second source of electrical damage - otherwise you aren't going to be flattening your target's end (and end drain on mobs is pretty much all or nothing) and doesn't contain a high damage single target attack, making it weak unless backed up with more electricity.

In short, if for thematic reasons you want a Dark/Electrical defender using SOs that's not a bad way of doing it. But /Electric is IMO a bad plan. If you want to solo and prevent the foes hitting back, your best bet is probably /Ice (/Psi isn't bad either) whereas for AoE foe can't hit back goodness, your best is probably /dark (and stack the tohit debuffs).

Huh. I thought the reason Swift didn't accept travel powers was as a hack to fix the problems with stealth IOs that couldn't be turned off. And that universal would then go in.

Mea culpa again.

Can't see small things (like Boxing and Tough). Mea Culpa.

But Universal Travel can be slotted into any travel power (apparently with the exception of Sprint) - Swift, Combat Jumping, and Superjump will all take it. I hadn't realised it was unique.

How do you get even something so simple as Top Dog with SS? (The one on top of the globe in Atlas Park)

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Hi Larac,

I've not put a build into Mids but personally I'd be going for :
+ Recharge
+ End
and then Ranged Defence in that order.

+ Recharge to keep the window between Dark Regen as small as possible - if the mobs can't kill you before the next DR then they cant kill you - End permitting.

+ End to cover the DR

Ranged Def - OP and stacked stuns will cover melee so most damage should be coming from range.

In your post you're stressing the importance of +regen - this would have been the last thing I'd look for in a set with DR.

Just wondering

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Recharge, I get. I'd argue that without a god mode on Dark you have a law of diminishing returns. End I get - Dark tanks aren't as end-heavy as their rep (as long as they avoid the cloak of fear anyway), but they are pretty bad.

But why ranged defence? Taunt inflicts a 75% range penalty, drawing non-snipers into close combat. Being shot at is not much of an issue unless facing an entire gunline - and there is so much -def from shooting anyway that the 30% you can get won't save you. I'd go +Res and even get rescued in melee. Or failing that +Regen to soak whatever's coming through.

And scanning the build, two crucial things are missing. The first is toughness - the extra 15% (plus slotting) smashing/lethal resistance (taking you to almost 70% S/L total slotted) really helps any Res-based tank. The second is Winter's Gift - 20% slow resistance. Dark Armour has no slow resistance, so grab 2 - one for swift and one for sprint.

Yay. That makes slotting the Nova (and Dwarf) much easier, thanks.

Do Khelds keep their set bonusses when in dwarf or squid form? And if the dwarf or the squid has a set bonus does this remain in human form? (I'm looking at a minimal slotting for a squiddie to see how effective it is).

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That's interesting. It means that if the team is coping well then the empath stays safer due to healing so much less but in times of crisis gets a crosshair painted on them. In future I shall avoid mass healing in order to save my own skin.

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So in times when we're rolling you're as useless as a chocolate hammer because you don't need to use most of your primary, and in times of crisis you're as useless as a chocolate hammer because you won't use most of your primary while the other squishies are going down around you?

Right.

How does Creepers work? That's a complicated one.

When you summon Creepers you summon a Carrion Creeper patch. Directly the patch causes movement slow and is untargetable (pulling aggro onto you). It's only enhancable with slow (any acc and damage enhancements go to waste - we think this is a bug but it may be for balance reasons*). The patch itself also summons two separate pets.

The first is what are actually called Carrion Creepers. Whenever a mob dies actually in the creeper patch then creepers explode from the corpse, damaging and immobilising the still cooling corpse (Freakshow hate this as the damage at this point remains after their self-res I think) and anything within an 8 foot radius of them when they died. So with the low single target but high AoE damage nature of plant, it's even faster to kill multiple densely packed minions or LTs than it is to kill one. This is why when you've got a plant controller on the team the corpses often appear to be wrapped with vines (I think Jaegers look really cute this way - but maybe it's my bitterness about the Nemesis confuse resistance) and there are still numbers ticking after everything is dead.

But after this comes the part most people associate with the creepers - the vines. Each mob standing in the creeper patch gives the patch a 50% chance of summoning a vine every 10 seconds (max 10 mobs being checked). These vines last 15 seconds, are independently targetable (thus drawing aggro, although not a lot because they aren't that high damage), and hurt, slow, and annoy any mobs stupid enough to be in reach or range. Single target per vine - but if the target goes away the vines are free to find another one (meaning the excess damage from what is effectively an AoE attack isn't wasted).

* If I had an account on the test server I'd check whether this included acc and damage in slow sets which I think in theory work. But for all you can slot them, normal acc and damage enhancers don't - neither do most of the sets you can slot.

If I have a Stealth IO in Unbounded Leap (or Group Fly) does it just affect me, or everyone I affect with that power? Likewise if I have a Stealth IO in Recall Friend and summon someone, who gets the stealth?

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They do indeed rock, but you have also got to remember the ungodly amount of endurence drain that dark has and the amount of slotting needed to counter the drain.

Within the set there is almost enough endurence cost to completly negate stamina and then you got your attacks to worry about on top of that.

Defencively Dark set is sound, but if you plan to do some attacking higher level your better with another set.

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Only true if you take Cloak of Fear. I much prefer the other PBAoE that does Mag 2 stun for trivial end and trivial health (and needing almost no slotting unlike the Cloak of Fear). If you take that cloak then the endurance drain is comparable to any other tank set (except WP, natch). And if you then combine it with Super strength, stone melee, or energy melee then you can dish out Mag 5 stuns to any bosses stupid enough to be in melee range.

One more possible controller set if it's mind alteration: the psychotropic chemicals in Plant. L8 cone confuse on a relatively fast recharge. Arguably also Ice controllers (arctic fog).

And if disorient gets you in, a Warshade with Inky Aspect (Aura stun), Shadow Cloak, Gravatic Emination (cone stun), and Fluffy (literally taking control of the spirits of the fallen)?

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What I'm saying is what I said from the start - that a /Rad will have more End issues than a /Kin if played the same way.
Rad is a fine set and the majority of my Controllers have been Rad for that reason, however they do consume more End than a Kin due to the toggles - even with AM.
My comments are pased on extensive experience with both sets across a number of primaries, if you've found this not to be the case then I can only imagine that your willing to play more passively than myself.
In order of End consumption from worst to best are - Storm, Rad and then Kin; all have their pros and cons and all are fine sets but in regards to Endurance the above is true.

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I was talking specifically about Ill/Rad. If the enemy is likely to hit me then I probably will have RI running. But the difference may be a slotting one - when I target something I hit it (I'm using IO sets most of the time). And if it's hostile and I'm soloing it's held, it's confused, or it's fighting a Phantom Army (or all of the above). In none of the above cases do I need the tohit debuff.

Plant isn't really a melee set - all the plant powers are either ranged or pseudopets. But given you should have all the non-bosses confused anyway it'll be fine.

As for damage of plant, Entiandromos did some work on the US boards about the highest AoE damage sets. In first (surprising absolutely no one) was Fire/Kin, and in second was Fire/Rad. In IIRC third (may have been fourth, but certainly above Fire/Storm) was Plant/Storm.

And Plant Control control is centred round one absolutely awesome power. Seeds of Confusion - 60 second base recharge, 37.5s base Mag 3 confuse cone in a 60 degree arc with no accuracy penalty. At level 8.

On the other hand, Roots is a real aggro magnet. That's because it does twice the damage of any other troller AoE immobilise (well. 1.8* Fire cages). If the confuse fails (stupid Nemesis) you will be taking masses of aggro and faceplanting a lot (I've pulled aggro both off Stone Tanks running their taunt aura and AoE spamming fire/fire blasters before now).

On the other hand, the synergy between Kin and Plant is low. Yes, it allows you to perma your Carrion Creepers and to speed up your rootspam. But the creeper vines only last 15s so fulcrum shifting into them isn't that rewarding (they love debuffs - hence storm working well with them). And plant has nothing on a PBAoE or that really benefits from being used on a short range. So you have two absolutely superb sets there (Plant and Kin) but the combination is weaker than the sum of the parts.

For comparison, my L50 'Troller made about 30 million inf just between levels 46 and 50. (And only bought ten recipies after that - all purple*). Remember to sell all those common recipies at a vendor!

* He's probably going to spend the 10 million he has in the bank on Posi's Blast for his Psy Tornado. But this is gravy. Note that I haven't played him at all since hitting L50, and he has 10 million in the bank, 2 purple sets (sleep and confuse, admittedly), and every power is IO'd except the one mentioned. (Yes, there's a damage IO in Brawl, and a run one in Sprint from when I got bored). SOs are cheap - and if you're willing to spend the time, L35 common IOs are probably better across the board and cost less Inf. (One advantage of IOs is that they never turn red).

Are you saying that my experience fo my Ill/Rad isn't "real play"? And -tohit for a solo Ill/Rad really isn't that useful as long as the Phantom Army is up - it doesn't matter whether the Phantom Army is hit or not. And for the gaps between the Phantom Army being up, deceive also works well (I miss rarely with any of my attacks other than the Nemesis Staff I sometimes use). When grouping, the RI tends to come out if the rest of the team is having trouble hitting - but it doesn't need to last very long as people keep killing the anchors. (And yes, I anchor the bosses).

Without the Phantom Army I agree I'd need the RI much more than I actually do. But it's there most of the time - and against small spawns I can hold them anyway.

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In order to get the full benefit out of PA an Ill/Rad will need to run RI -Def and EF for -Res as such will have more End issues than a /Kin which is in itself very light on End.

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Half right. There's no real need to run RI for an Ill/Rad most of the time as long as you are using SOs. If you are using SO enhancements, you're going to need 3 recharge enhancements in the Phantom Army leaving either 3 damage or 2 dam and an acc. Here, I agree, RI is very useful. Under i12 IOs, you could use 2 acc/dams and a dam (for an acc bonus over 40% and a dam bonus over 70% assuming you slotted in the mid 20s) and really not need RI for the Phantom Army (or anything else). In i13, you have the fast recharge pet sets - so you really have no need to help your Phantom Army hit more often.

And the EF is expensive, granted, but I've got two EndReds in mine - as I say, I only run into End trouble when I've forgotten to turn SuperSpeed off.

For the record, Ill/Rad has its own source of extra End - Accelerate Metabolism adds more recovery than Stamina when it's up. I rarely have problems on mine except when I've left Superspeed running.

The advantage /kin has (and /storm really doesn't) is more recharge speed, hence less downtime with Phantom Army.

Masterminds are stupid-good. Taking them as a baseline (other than arguably Mercs/TA) is not a good idea.

Controllers are almost all late-starters. Reason is that whereas most archetypes improvements are quantitative (a new power is a harder blast on a longer recharge or the like) the difference between most controller powers is qualitative (we get to mess the enemy up in whole new ways with each power pick for both primary and often an entirely new form of buff or debuff from the secondary). This means that early on controllers are weak and it takes a few levels and types of power before they turn into lockdown-monsters.

And Elec/Elec is a weak damage combo - its main advantage is that it can floor the End of big opponents (an all Elec team is scary to big things but it isn't normally worth it).

For pretty good damage against single targets and a fair amount of lockdown there's the ever-popular Illusionists who get superior invisibility and pets to hide behind (Phantom Army is amazing).

Thanks all.

And purples are dead easy as a troller - most of the purples for sleep and confuse cost less than a million even without waiting for an overnight price.