Peacemoon

Lol, well I wont deny it never happens, however if:

• The enemy are known to be typically difficult to manage, say a +2/x8 spawn on a lowish level team.
• The enemy is pre-emptively slept by the Mind Controller who is staying 1 step ahead of their team and using the no-aggro feature of the power to maximum effect.

Then yes, in my experience 9 times out of 10 team mates will not zealously open fire with "Rain of Fire" or similar, but instead play a little more skilfully and tactfully until "fire at will" status has unofficially arrived.

Even if they did jump in and wake up half the spawn almost instantly, that doesn't mean the sleep hasn't done something. That means you've effectively halved the mobs alpha strike and made a potentially difficult situation more manageable. A skilled Mind Controller will then straight after sleeping a group, cherry pick "nasty" targets to be confused and dominated. It is one of the most effective and reliable stratergies I've seen.

I thought of some more scenarios in which I use Mass Hypnosis. If someone aggroes a group accidently it can be a quick "shutdown" button to stop someone dying or the situation getting out of control, if you see a patrol at the other end of the room you can go and sleep them (without causing aggro), preventing them from walking over and aggroing by proximity, it can also be used to better facilitate ghosting a mission, as by the time they've woken up you'll be long gone. Also it is one of the best ways to click a glowie when its surrounded by a x8 spawn - Mass Hypnotise them, mesmerize any you missed, and then click the glowie without fear of retalliation.

Of course I use steamy mist which is great for getting the most out of the no-aggro powers. I really reccomend any Mind Controller invests in becoming a stealthy, subtle controller as it has huge synergy with the set.

Mass Hypnosis is a very powerful power. Especially at low level.

The no-aggro ability of it means ideally the next enemy group your team fights should be slept before the team reaches them.

In that scenario Mass Hypnosis makes the fight a LOT safer and is great for making enemy alpha strikes more tolerable. I was doing a lowbie TF the other day where I would sleep large groups and the scrappers would charge in and take our the ruin mages 1st before waking up the rest of the spawn.

My experience is that team mates don't usually launch AoE's into a group of slept enemies unless they can handle the retalliation that will come. Again this comes hand in hand with sleeping the group before your team mates arrive at them. If you are sleeping them just as your team arrive, like you would do with other sets sleeps which do cause aggro (i.e spore burst from Plant Control), then of course, you are not giving your team time take into consideration sleeping foes.

Sure, eventually everything will be woken up to be killed anyway, but that isn't a failure of Mass Hypnosis, it has already done its job by that point.

So yes, low level is where you will get the most use out of Mass Hypnosis, but it is useful throughout your career. It is a versatile tool and its role within teams changes depending on the capabilities of that team. Nullify the Alpha Strike, take a group out by systematically waking them up in a gradually, sleep a nearby second group while the first group is being taken out, put an ambush on "pause" until the team is ready to focus on them, sleep a patrol until the team is ready to focus on them, use it as a way to ensure nothing will retaliate from any misses in Total Dominaton..

There are a lot of uses for this power, just get creative with its use and slot it up as soon as you can.

These little bugs really irritate me. Especially the "charge into melee" bug. I remember a time when ranged henchmen would stand by their master and shoot without closing the distance. It was one of the cool things about them.

I quite like soul mastery because of the +damage buff and PBAE damage power.

Option 1 for me. We need to raise to the bar, and as long as you have legacy stuff wandering the streets that bar ain't raised.

Thank you for comitting to making the updated pieces near-identical to the current ones, that will mean a lot to people. :-)

I think this debate can't help but lead to the fact that all Villain AT's really deserved unique APP's and not ported over ones. I guess the devs just ran out of time.

MM's for example should have had APP's that fitted the theme of their primaries. The current ones do not do this game justice really..

Trust me this was suggested, but I don't think Castle had time to do much iteration of them. It was either pretty much full copy/paste job or shelved till later.

I am not disagreeing with you by the way. Mercenaries, Robotics, Thugs, Traps.. all these sets deserve a thematically appropriate APP.

Unfortunately I feel like Munitions for MM's has now been thrown on the pile with all the other APP suggestions they've had over the years. Guess it just isn't a priority for them, which is fair enough I guess, but a big shame nevertheless. :-(

I think because technically a MM can already have 2 weapons with a number of the primaries plus Trick Arrow as a secondary. Munitions brings with it a few weapons as well and I think there was a conflict purely on that basis.

Now we did scream, shout and stomp our feet saying how appropriate a munitions set would be for MM's considering their primary sets. Unfortunately nothing happened. :-(

And just to reply to the OP, I will be picking up telekinesis and snow storm. I'll also be shifting my powers downwards in level where I can. Not sure on a 3rd power yet.

My mistake, I always take Flight as my travel and was going from memory ;-)

Its definitly workable but it probably wont be the most beneficial use of your slots.

I would actually advise you to try Air Superiority as your main go-to punch. Back in the pre-containment days, I regularly used it as an attack on my controllers. It combines good damage with a quick recharge and a guarenteed knockup. One of the best melee attacks available for a Controller. Punch and Kick are pretty similar to each other, but Kick does have a chance for a knockback which might be inconvenient, wheras punch has a low chance for a short stun. Another attack worth mentioning is Jump Kick - its a flashy move with a good chance for knockup, but it has a longer animation.

Looking further afield, Jump Kick can lead to Acrobatics which is a good power for immobilize and hold protection - but does require an additional power from leaping.

Kick and Punch can lead to Tough and Weave, which are great for increasing your characters resistances to smash/lethal and their overall defence.

Air Superiority can lead to fly, so if you are taking it as a travel power anyway that is a good combo to think of. Although Hover does provide space for a Luck of the Gambler.

This isn't my speciality but hope thats given you a starting point to explore some ideas from :-)

I think the term you are looking for is "Scraptroller", its an old concept and has been tried before. You don't see it anymore really.

1-20 will actually be much easier just by the default that people will now pick those shiny powers earlier and not wait till after stamina.

Say hello to ennervating field, steamy mist and all those lovely powers you usually put off till after 20, suddenly making an appearance in the low teens ;-)

By the way, I do not agree with this "We have more power options but no more slots." Plenty of powers are great with just 1 slot. Some powers only need 5 slots not 6. People will adapt.

I wish reporters/reviewers would double check their facts before posting, just shows me that the computer games media still has a lot of growing up to do. Still nice to get a mention though I'll agree.

Well I sat through it all, ow my ears. Sometimes I couldn't hear the devs speak because it was muffled, and turning it up just hurt even more so couldn't win lol.

Was it just me or were they all sat in the dark? I knew our devs were creatures of the night who avoided the sun! Must be all that work they do!

I loved all the news they revealed, exciting stuff, especially i20. So eager to find out what that is but I bet it will be HUGE!

My favourite part: Controllers, Dominators and Scrappers are the most popular classes in Praetoria!! I really hope this translates into some more love for the control sets (Gravity) and the buff/debuff sets. I realise they are much trickier to balance but would be awesome nevertheless to get some adjustments.

Can I just offer the complete opposite point of view?

I hate hate hate the default run speed. It is sooo SLOW. I take swift on all my characters at either 6 or 8, because I cannot stand running around without it. It is painful. I've tried using sprint, but then I feel like I'm moving too fast and it is a bit of an endurance hog. (Yes, hard to please I know.) I would actually take swift even if it wasn't needed for Stamina. I can't stand the early levels without it.

So may I be the first to declare that I would be seriously annoyed if swift was to suddenly disapear from my characters, not to return.

I will agree with them that Dark Miasma has quite a bit of control, but then so does Trick Arrow and Storm Summoning. Personally I don't think Dark Miasma would be overpowered on a Controller at all, but yeah they would need to get creative with a Dark Control set.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who plays without bosses. Though if you have an extra person on the team surely bosses are easy anyway? My Mind/Storm handles +1 x8 easily, but I find bosses inefficient because they take too long to whittle down. My speciality is definitly at mass AoE.