Tocharon

Dark Control, while maybe not the #1 control set, is a very good set, plus it has the best Dark graphics among the Dark Sets

Dark Assault, functionally it is a very decent set, where it suffers is that doesn't offer a lot we haven't seen before

I think the OP’s logic is a bit off here,
His argument seems to be that Doms benefit unfairly from set IO’s and Incarnates vs. Doms without, and as a result are over powered.

By implication of his argument, he would be indirectly saying( regardless if he meant to), that other AT’s do not benefit as much by set IO’s and Incarnates.

With regards to set IO’s, every AT benefits, and there are vast differences between builds with and without set IO’s. With some specific sets benefiting more than others, just like with doms. I have any number of alts from different AT's who have soft capped defense

Same with Incarnates, a Blaster w/ the final tier of Barrier has MUCH more survivability than one without.
If the argument is specifically SoC, a couple of questions to the OP here,
1-Is it overpowered when slotted by a build w/o set IO’s or Incarnates?
2-Do you consider Synaptic Overload overpowered? It has pretty close the same Recharge/ Duration.

My predictions
-Steve is a member of the rebel vampires
-the rebal vampires are the ones who dug up Russ
-the rebal vampires are the ones who set up Eric and Bill
-at least one council member is a rebal vampire
-Terry encountered something in his tour, that relates to what is going on, and something is wrong with the sergeant
-the Faries have the real scope on the Lilith
-Fairies are related to Vampires somehow
-I don't know how, but Tara will be some sort of reincarnation of Lilith

I agree with Mental Maiden, on a number of points, some scenes in the series actually worked better than in the books, such as Harrenhal and Qarth.

Other changes didn't make much sense( Rob marries a different girl, granted the same girl next door type)

The only parts I'm mixed on is Winterfall, while it got the essense of Theon's story, as well as Bran's. Cutting out the entire siege Rodrick had going on, it didn't really explain how Theon's twenty men defeated Rodrick's larger force, other than "we caught this one returning from Torrhen's Square "

one thing I would worry about the damage proc in control powers, is its impact on my ST confuse, i.e. would the damage cause agro? Similar question with sleep powers, I would assume it would apply the damage before the sleep effect, but I could see it making stacking sleep with Mass Hypnosis difficult

Just unlocked Hybrid myself on my Dark/Dark/Soul Permadom, haven't made any choices yet.
-both trees are attractive, pseudo-containment on one, and on the other the frear/ immobilize fits my theme, and Fear to Stun mechanic looks attractive when combined with Fearsome Stare
-Assault for the reasons Seldom stated
-Melee to add a bit of survivability
Support has no attraction on my Dom

of the three, control has the least attractive passive effect, if it was status protection maybe, but status resistance?

How does the alpha slot interact with Hybrid?

Overall I think the game is better with IO's/Incarnates. I do think the biggest mistake was the huge gap between ED and the introduction of IO's( not the fault of the current leadership to my knowledge).

Ok I just unlocked the hybrid on the first of my toons,
the first few trials - we actually went to mission complete
the last couple - all I could get was a farming one

With that said,
rather than introducing yet another form of XP, it would've been nicer if completing gave you some sort of badge that unlocked earning Psychic XP towards Hybrid. So complete Magi once, and then do whatever combination of content with Psychic XP( including Magi) to unlock it.

Running the same trial over and over does get old, at this point I'm not sure how much effort I'll give to unlocking it for my other toons, at this point would be tempted just to go with the farm teams.

As for the actual trial
I have no issues with the first three parts( and not sure if anyone else actually does)
its the final part that I can see frustration,
On all the trials where the attempt was made to complete the trial, we succedded, easier on some attempts than others.
The main issue with that final encounter, is that one attack of Tyrants, its seems to be an autohit unresistable wide area( as in the entire freaking crater) attack with enough damage to kill many squishies. Lower the frequency of it, lower the damage, and/or lower the area of the attack. The encounter is capable of being completed, but does lend itself to becoming unfun quick, hence strengthens the temptation to farm( even if they reduced the front end adv.psychic xp)

I wouldn't discount Black Widow too much, in many ways she belongs to the same club as Capt.America and Nick Fury, and as much as Capt is a super soldier, she is a super spy.

-Like Nick and Steve, underwent a process to enhance her abilities, same process slowed her aging process( I'm looking at the Mainsteam Widow)
-of the line up they included in the movie, only Hulk and Thor were actual superhumans, Stark uses armor, Cap is a peak human with a shield, Widow is a peak human, although with Hawkeye, you could argue in the movie he displayed superhuman reflexes and senses

Looks at the requirements here,
-strong enough to carry a movie
-some recognition beyond those of us who read comics
-not strongly associated with a single team (this would exclude Sue Storm, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and the X-babes)
So to me this would mean
1) Black Widow she has already been introduced in the Avengers and Ironman
2) Spider-Woman decent recognition beyond the comic book community and sort of a tie in to Spider-man, it would be a matter of which one, Drew would be the most recognizable, although I think Carpenter would be more interesting, both of their origins are independent of Spider-man.
3) Ms.Marvel the closest Marvel has to Wonder Woman, it would be difficult to explain her origin without explaining Capt.Marvel, unless they give him Abin Sur treatment, which would change her origin.
4) She-Hulk you would still need to bring the Hulk in, in order to explain her, bright side here, the Hulk is better known than Capt.Marvel.

Actually Tywin left Aerys’ service well before Rob Rebellion. Tywin was actually a very good Hand, as time went on, and Aerys’s madness progressed he became more than a bit jealous of Tywin, and through in him lusting after Tywin’s wife. Twrin’s plan A was to marry Cersei to Rhaegar and for Jamie to marry Lysa Tully and eventually succeed him as Lord of Casterly Rock.
Aerys for his part, was aware of these ambitions, combined with his own jealousy and to keep Tywin in his place decided to marry his son off to someone else. Then a combination of Cersei’s and Aerys efforts, got Jamie in the Kingsguard, which nixed Tywin’s plans. That and tired of cleaning up after Aerys’ messes, made him decide to resign and head home.
A short time after that, we had the events that led to Rob’s Rebellion. I think it’s been hinted that had Tywin been there, Brandon and Rickard Stark might have lived.

there are some sets that more easily lend themselves to an offender build than others, but the line isn't so much sets, but actual builds.

I really don't see this divide much anymore but back in the day there was a real divde among defenders.

On one hand you had defenders taking only a couple attacks in their secondary and built their toons around team support. The same group complained how defenders couldn't solo.

On the other hand you had defenders investing in both their primary and secondary like say any of the melee types woulds, and would leverage their primaries in doing damage, this group didn't have any problems soloing( other than maybe lacking mez protection maybe)

From what I have seen
a couple good titles worth following
a few ok titles that are ok
and a large amount of forgetable stuff

I have noticed, a lot of places around here aren't even bothering picking up all of the titles

The other day I think I realized what my problem with the New 52 is, I just can't connect to the majority stuff, it feels like an Elseworlds or Age of A storyline that has lasted too long for me

I also think that is one of the other reasons why I like the scenes in series with Tywin and Arya so much. You can almost see him looking at Arya, and wishing Cersei was more like her (in other words having a brain)

It seems to go in cycles, there was a long time where Marvel couldn't do Live Action very well, it really wasn't until the X-Men franchise that they managed to put out any decent stuff

You want an answer, here's one, regardless if its Live Action or Cartoon, TV or Movie, quality largely depends on the creative forces involved.

Joel Schumacher - whatever his merits as a director, its clear he wasn't familier with the source material, and had little love for it.hence Batman and Robin

Pitof - the French director behind Catwoman, needless to say being French and given how the film turned out, its obvious he had no idea who Catwoman was before he got the job, and seemed to have confused Catwoman with Vixen.

on the other hand you have
Bruce Timm who obviously has a deep love for the DC Universe, hence the DC Animated Universe( which honestly I like better than the New 52)

Greg Weisman you can see that same love as Timm, in Weisman's Young Justice series

Other factors,
-How much support the project has, go find the original Capt. America movie from the 70's or 80's, its painful to watch
or
-How much the higher ups interfer with the project

just wondering, is there a bit of hypocricy here, that is there announcing this, and yet on the other hand they retconed a number of formerly strong female characters into sex dolls, i.e. Starfire.

I'm thinking Kyle Ryner

I've played CoX since launch, and Doms have been my favorite since CoV, so with that said I can really appreciate the changes that have occured with Doms, for the most part Doms are fine as is, with whatever changes occuring on the individual powers or sets.

Myth #1 how many powers benefits from Domination is what makes a set a good set or bad set.
I know this has already been mentioned but Earth and Grav are good counter examples to this. Grav has a lot more powers that benefits from Dom than Earth, and yet Earth is a stronger control set. While domination is a factor in how good a set is, its not the only factor, its also the mix of powers within a set.

Myth #2 Dominations only benefit is its effect on control.
One of the PIA in playing toon at the higher levels if your depending on acro for status protection is amount of mez being thrown around.

Darkness Control - I'd rate mid to upper tier control set, it really does have a nice mix of control powers, what hasn't been mentioned here, is that its AE Hold power despite being a pet power( targeted location), does benefit from Domination.

Dark Assault - Overall its a nice set in terms of utility and punch. The only complaints for the set I have, is they didn't include the same graphics in DC in DA, and that really there isn't much new here, truthfully as is, they could've built the set years ago.

DC's pet, I agree some work needs to be done on its sound effects, but other than that once slotted its actually fairly decent in performance. And as to its appearence, I'm glad its not a dark clone of Electric/Fire's pets or giant ink blot like Dark Miasma's. And actually canine like animals feature strongly in a lot of myths relating somehow to death( Cerberus, Fenris, Anubis, various Native American myths etc)