Prime_Nighthawk

Anyone have links to good videos showing off controllers? I've been recording some stuff, but haven't gotten around to putting together a video yet.

My Illusion/Radiation main just hit 50, but I've been rolling up a Mind/FF who is now in the mid-30's. This character has been insanely fun and ridiculously effective. For starters, mind control and force fields are a great RP friendly thematic pairing. Flight (perhaps teleportation) and the psionic epic power pool also fit perfectly for a telepathic/telekinetic character. The strength of mind/ff is grouping. Mind control is one of the best (if not THE best) control sets for locking down groups and has many tools to get the job done in different ways. That makes the mind control set effective but also fun to use. Force Fields is a very useful defensive set that I think matches well with mind control. Some of the newer defender sets such as cold, sonic, and thermal also have nice shields as well as nice buffs and debuffs, but I like that force fields are largely fire and forget. With force fields, you don't have to watch your team's health meters to toss out heals. You don't have to worry about debuffing mobs, which can be tricky with single target and anchor debuffs. You just rebubble the team every 4 minutes either between fights or when the fight well in hand. This lets you focus on locking down mobs with your impressive arsenal of controls, which by the way are all ranged. None of that pesky PBAOE!

One potential down side to mind/ff is that you don't offer much in terms of offense compared to sets that have defense debuffs, resistance debuffs, or damage buffs. This is technically true, however dead teammates don't do any damage. Team members scrambling to stay alive aren't going to be doing much damage. When I'm on my blaster and my health is dropping what do I do? I usually scale back my damage to drop agro, spend time combining and popping health/defensive inspirations, run to the healers or out of the fight, OR I go all out and risk death trying to defeat the group faster. So the adage that the best offense is a good defense can be very true in COH.

Some people are also put off by the lack of a pet. For a long time I didn't even consider mind control for that reason, but now things have changed. Personally, I've "been there, done that" with my Illusion controller. That won't apply to everyone, so if you want to play around with a pet and want solo'ing to be a focus, then there are other control sets. More importantly, grouping is so easy these days with group auto-sidekicking and the difficulty settings. Solo ability is not really a concern unless you want it to be.

Now lets get into some specifics about this pairing. With mind/ff you get access to the best collection of single target controls, bar none. You get a long duration 3.5 mag sleep that can take out bosses in one shot, a good ST hold, a confuse, and an awesome intangibility hold. I absolutely love detention field. It's like 6 or 7 magnitude, super high accuracy, and with 2 SO's you can get the recharge down pretty close to it's duration. You have to use it intelligently, but on the other hand I'm not going to fret if the group has to wait a little bit to finish off a DF'd mob. It's not the end of the world.

You also have the best collection of AOE controls. Sweet! First off you have mass hypnosis. It's the perfect skill for preventing double pulls, i.e. one of the quickest ways to a group wipe. It's also very useful for mezing a group when there are a bunch of mobs spread everywhere. The second AOE skill is telekinesis. It can take a little while to figure it out, but once you do it is very fun and useful. Telekinesis is a toggle that picks up a single target and slowly repels him. It will also pick up mobs that bump into or come close to the anchor mob. But the repel is radial, so if you don't push them into a corner they will spread out as they get pushed back and they can drop off. Mobs are held and cannot act while suspended. It works on bosses, but they can temporarily break out. So it works more like a fear on them. Speaking of fear, mind gets Terrify which is a cone fear with a HUGE range. Total Domination is your targeted AOE hold. And finally, Mass Confusion is an AOE confuse. Awesome power. Works great as a panic button or as a pseudo hold that speeds up killing at the cost of some net experience.


Obviously the strength of Mind/FF is grouping, but Local Man mentioned solo'ing as a mind/ff controller. 99% of the time I have been grouped, but I also had fun putting together a solo build with high personal defense (dispersion bubble, weave, toughness, tactics, etc) and lots of power pool attacks. With a solo mind/fff you have a lot of latitude for taking power pool skills. You only need a couple of mind skills to be able to lock down entire groups. Perma sleep the group with Mass Hypnosis. Dominate one mob while you beat it down with levitate and single target attacks form power pools. Confuse any that get free for extra dps. Force Field wise, you can skip Deflection Shield, Force Bolt, and Insulation Shield without missing a beat. But I haven't even bothered messing with all that because grouping is so fun.

Actually, you could just put it in your OP.

Sort of a yellow pages for the SG directory :P

Apparently you can share Eck's pee in your dual piss stalls.

I know you judges had an impossible job, but I'm just curious what made the synapse winner stand out compared to several earlier entries that have very similar looks. Aside from the action shot, I don't see what this winner has over any of those other Synapses. And if I saw a picture of the original synapse and that one, I'm not sure I would really make a connection between the two.

I'm not trying to hate on Hydro. His fantasy edition was awesome and definitely deserved one of the top spots. I just don't see much originality compared to other entries or homages to the original in his 2010 synapse.

Hmm. I might have to give some thought to going energy for my ill/rad's group build. The knockback might be pretty useful for hitting mobs that are debuff anchors back into a group.

Ice could be very useful for solo'ing until I get perma PA.

Okay, here's an idea for a villain to oppose.


Maximilian Redford aka Matchmaker


Max Red is a genius level intellect. When he was a student at MIT he developed a revolutionary online dating/matchmaking program called Matchmaker. The Matchmaker software was responsible for millions of couples getting together, but his serious work was in the field of robotics. Max developed a cyborg which the government purchased to use in third world peacekeeping missions. However, the US government replaced the clean energy power source that Max originally designed for the robot with a cheaper one designed by their scientists. At the mere age of 22 Max was a multi-billionaire from his Matchmaking program and his robotics business, but with the money and fame he became more and more reclusive. His environmentalist beliefs also became more radical as he stewed over the government's decision to use a dirty engine in his cyborg units.

Secretly, Max began buying up property and influence in the third world country in Africa known as Gamonda. He also began capturing his cyborg units, reprogramming them to do his bidding, and retrofitting them with an updated power unit that not only was clean but increased their power capabilities by 400%. This was all in preparation for the 5th anniversary of the Matchmaking program. Max shipped complimentary bottles of champagne to the over 1.5 million couples who had married or had children through his dating program and bought up a 1 minute time slot on all of the networks. Broadcasting from his lair, Max toasted all the married couples, and drank his glass of champagne. He then went on to explain that champagne contained a chemical which made everyone who had just drank it (including himself) sterile. Most people though it was a joke at first, but as Max continued on his tirade and talked about overpopulation, global warming, and corrupt government people realized the horror of what had just happened. 20% of the 1.5 million had drank the champagne along with Max. Another 10% had previously drank from the bottle along with thousands of others who had shared. All in all, nearly 500,000 people were made sterile in the incident.

The public uproar over the Matchmaker incident was enormous. Eventually, Maximilian Redford's base was discovered and he was captured by the US. However, he (now known as simply the Matchmaker) had caught the interest of several evil organizations who were interested in his robotics technology and knowledge. The security at Matchmaker's trial was extreme, thus causing the three evil organizations to collaborate. They were able to successfully abduct Matchmaker during a recess of his trial. Matchmaker was thankful for being rescued and eventually was able to parlay the three group's distrust of one another over how they would share his technology into a sort of leadership role, though the three groups retained a certain level of autonomy. Although he still considers himself to be an Anarchist and Eco-freedom fighter(eco-terrorist), over the years Matchmaker has expanded his plans to world domination.

I use it all the time, and it's very helpful when you're the leader and LFM. This is especially true when you're having a hard time filling a team and you've randomly messaged a bunch of people from the general pool without success. When you search again, it's a pain figuring out who you may have already asked, and who you haven't.


Being able to flag yourself as looking for members would make things much easier though.

I have some ideas, but like I said I want this to be a collaborative effort. That's why I haven't put out a lot of details.

Very interesting. I'm curious what they say about LOTRO and Warhammer. Do they also review Asheron's Call and Everquest 1?

I was thinking that this could be pretty awesome, so I wanted to gauge interest. We could borrowing elements from various spy themed IP's such as Get Smart, James Bond, Chuck, etc, etc. Obviously there would be some rules as far as powersets go. Dual pistols/energy will be the recommended power sets. Trick arrow or trap defenders with dual pistols or dual pistol/traps blasters would be possibilities too. Maybe the occasional martial arts/will or reflex scrapper. Of course we could so something to open up spots for different characters such as the "one of us, one of them" policy that primatech had on the Heroes tv show where a normal agent was always partnered with a special abilities agent. Not sure about that though.


Anyway, if your interested let me know. Assuming there is enough interest, I want it to be a collaborative thing so I'm looking forward to hearing some ideas

Question: out of the epic APP's which has the best end recovery skill?

Conserve power, hibernate, or or the fire one.

You know what would be very cool? If someone could compile a list of RP SG's categorized by theme. Teen, female, vigilante, spy, psychic, basic coalition, etc.

the -perception is actually really good. It has advantages over most stealth skills. First off, it's a low end skill that hits a huge area and is spamable. So it doesn't drain your end like some of the toggle stealths. And it isn't a pain for tanks like team buffs such as group invis, yet it provides a stealth effect for the whole team. I was on my blaster the other day, and the Illusion controller had hit the tank with group invis. Tank went to a spawn just as a patrol was coming around the corner. He didn't see them, they didn't see him. But they walked right into all the squishies.


And think about it. Smoke offers -5% to hit which is as good as the defense buffs from hover and stealth combined with only 2 extra slots as opposed to 4 used for defense enhancements... but offers it to the whole team.

Similarly, why not go with leadership? That provides offensive and defensive buffs to your whole team (imps included).

Don't think you need 3 slots in health. Why so much focus on defense? That's a lot of powers/slots/toggles for a relatively minor ammount of defense. Meanwhile, you totally skip Smoke which has a 5% to hit debuff AND provides stealth to your team. It's really great when groups are close together and your team mates run the risk of pulling double agro. I'd say you're much more likely to make a difference by smoking a patrol here or there than by stacking defense.

At the very least, drop Stealth and pick up smoke.

You mean I spent $50 for Tetris back in 1988 and now you can play it online for FREE?