Wiccania

The -special debuff in benumb is actually strongest on a Controller and is a very rare debuff to have access to. If you are gonna have something rare then best it be as big and bad as possible.

I personally am thinking of making a Elec/Cold Controller come GR since the debuffs are glorious and Heat Loss will make the sapping even more potent.

It seems Mu is the only one without a single target blast for Controllers. That seems counter intuitive since its the only electric themed epic set and they are releasing electric control.

Don't discount Entangle. The single target Immobs for Controllers are fast recharge, long duration, high magnitude and decent damage.

They help make a decent damage single target attack chain when slotted for damage.

The quick recharge and high mag allows you to immob bosses in one shot and lets you immob Archvillians so you can get containment. The AoE immob I find isn't sufficient to immob AVs and is an end hog for single target anyways.

Dump Air Sup for Hover or switch to jumping for CJ. You are taking plenty of attacks already, don't need Air Sup but a little more defense is definately useful and the more powers that can take Luck of the Gambler the easier it is to hit perma dom.

Fire and Cold are easy sets to pick powers for.

Fire Control the must have powers are Char, Fire Cages, Hot Feet and Flashfire. Char is the ST hold which any controller who goes without deserves a permanent Kick Me sign on thier back. Fire Cages for setting up containment. Hot Feet for rocking the damage output. Flashfire is your AoE hard control with a short cooldown, combine with Fire Cages so they can't bumble around and you basicly have an AoE hold.

Cold is also easy. You intend to group and you already have an insanely expensive toggle in Hot Feet so the only power easy to skip is Snow Storm. SS is a nice power but it suffers from being yet another drain on your end when you have Hot Feet going and it is an anchored power which means somebody is always drawn to the "Oooo that one is glowing kill it first!"

Some folks might suggest skipping Frostwork but since you plan on duoing with a Blaster I suggest taking it. Blasters can use all the protective buffing they can get.

If by nerfs you mean the overall increase to all damage that doms do with any attack then yah Psi has been knocked off its perch.

Psi is still a good set but fire is generally higher damage now both in AoE and single target. However fire doesn't have the slowing debuffs that Psi does.

I just hope the sleep isn't considered the set's quick recharge AoE control like Flashfire or Stalagmites.

Nobody can answer your questions about Ill/Rad better than Local_Man. See his guide: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225

Fireball does about 30% more damage than the other two, is only a 1 second animation and has 80ft range. However it has a 32 second cooldown.

Psi Tornado does only a few points less damage than Fissure but its Psi type damage and is a 2.3 second animation. It has 100ft range, does knockup and is a 20 second cooldown.

Fissure does a few points more damage than Psi but its range is very short, basicly melee. It has a 20 second cooldown and a 2.1 second animation. Fissure has a chance to knockdown and a chance for a 2 mag stun.

Don't choose your epic pool by just one power though.

For instance Earth. Fissure is the least desirable of the epic AoE attacks. However Earth also comes with Earth armor which is the only epic armor to offer a defense bonus which is far more useful resist. Earth also comes with the glorious Seismic Smash, easily one of the best attacks in the game.

You pass up a lot of recharge set bonuses for little big gains. Just one more Apoc and you would get 10% recharge global bonus. You can pull a slot from Tar Patch, it will only gain 3 seconds to it recharge leaving it lower than its duration even without the 10% from Apoc. There are many examples of this. Look at all the sets you have slotted that are just one short of a recharge bonus.

Doms have very little reason to take the AoE root. We aren't Controllers relying on Containment for our damage.

It really isn't a horrible slog to 32 for Super Strength. Punch, Haymaker and KO Blow are so damn strong that you plow through groups quite swiftly.

At about half fury KO Blow will one shot Minions and at high Fury Haymaker will do the same. I have also defeated +1 bosses when high Fury with just one shot of each of the 3 attacks.

Plus since you only need 3 powers from your offensive set early on (and you can get all 3 by level 8) that leaves a lot of free room to pick defensive powers and pool powers without feeling like you are putting off getting a great attack.

Phalanx Fighting does not count MM pets. I don't have give cover yet on my Brute and I haven't tested Phalanx with Control set or Patron pets either though.

However if someone can confirm if give cover works for MM pets I will definately pick it up to buff the pets when I team with MMs.

The way I see it, Brute is how Tanker should have been designed in the first place. Tankers are just too damn tough to kill, especially after IOs. They ruin content that should be challenging and contribute little more than thier ability to make massive hordes of enemies attack them for little to no effect. While that isn't a small contribution, it is also a very one dimensional and boring contribution.

Brutes on the other hand are tough but not so tough that they can't be defeated. Supporters actually mean a lot more to a Brute as shield buffs for the Brute or offense debuffs on enemies are far more likely to matter.

A Brute also must earn her agro. A Tanker has an AoE taunt on everything they do, how boring, it trivializes keeping agro. Part of the fun and challenge of being a Tank in other MMOs is that you must work to keep agro off the other players. Brutes have taunt, but its not an AoE built into every attack. From my experience as a Brute I must work for every piece of agro I get and I must prioritize what I am trying to snag the agro of. A much more fun and challenging experience.

The build has FS at a recharge lower than its duration. Why does it need Siphon Power? You don't have a set in SP so you can take that slot and use it somewhere else.

Also tactics eats up a lot of end and some slots for not very much accuracy gain. If you fill out your Hail of Bullets with just 2 more Obliteration you'd be getting nearly as much accuracy without the end cost and finishing Obliteration will even get you more s/l defense and recharge.

4 slots of Basilisks Gaze into supressive fire would get you more energy defense and recharge. Or slot in a full set of Neuronic and get some more set bonus accuracy and a little more s/l.

Folks getting speed boosted would welcome an endmod enhancement over a runspeed. This I assure you.

For the differences between Dom and Controller.

Dom's controls outside Domination are always weaker than a Troller's. They are much lower duration and Troller occasionally gets a critical hold for a couple extra mag. Inside Domination a Dom wins hands down, double mag controls for every attack is beyond awesome.

However with Troller, especially early game, you will spend a lot of time waiting for low damage attacks to recharge and your first attack on anything will always be low damage due to the need to set up containment. Dom right off the bat is doing damage. Even the single target hold has some punch.

If you don't mind a slower solo play and a purely support role in groups then Controller is for you.

If you can adjust to lower duration control powers (which can be very hard if you are used to being a Troller) then it is worth giving Dom a try. Just remember a defeated enemy is better than a Held enemy. Go for the quick kills while holding the most dangerous target.

Fire Breath cone is pretty small I suggest a range enhancement which can thankfully be found in half the IO sets that FB can slot.

Also some tricks when using FB:

When solo target a held enemy when using it. This way you know where the cone is going and can easily line up enemies between you and the target.

In a group target something at the opposite end of the pack from yourself. Activate FB out of range then move forward into range until it fires off to maximize the potential targets.

PSW is no longer absurdly overpowered. However it is still very strong. The devs have stated that it's damage is well above what they would normally give an AoE power with its cost, cooldown, etc.

Stack'em with procs. The Impeded Swiftness proc works on the pulsing Slow as well as the individual creeper vine attacks. Explosive Strike will work with the Creeper melee attacks that do Knockdown. Posi's Proc will work with all the AoEs that the Creeper does.

It adds up quite a bit, especially since if you have perma Dom your likely pretty close to perma creepers as well. Remember the invisible creeper pet follows you around for 2 minutes.

To answer the OP's inquiry about confusion damage and xp drain.

According to the info I've found confused mobs damage only counts for 25% with xp. The other 75% of the damage they do just disappears from the xp tally when the mob falls.

A good example is a 200 HP mob. You do 100 damage and a confused does 100 damage. You get xp like you did 100 damage to a 125 HP mob.

Absolutely and completely different.

Tornado is a pet that follows you around for 30 seconds and just attacks the nearest mob. Its attack has extreme knockback as well as a 2 second mag 2 stun and a defense reduction.

Against regular packs it basicly has 2 uses.

1. Absolutely infuriate your team by scattering the mobs in every direction (by far the most common use for the power seen in pugs).

2. Respectable damage against mobs that have knockback protection from AoE immobs (I still don't use it this way unless I have another controller spamming thier Immob as well).

Against Archvillains Tornado is a great source of damage for you and provides a very useful defense debuff.

I disagree on your guys points about tankers. You seem to be leaving out the point that most tankers I see can walk into a spawn and stand there holding agro with the taunt in thier aura and never die. I saw an Invuln sitting there with 5 master illusionists and only need a heal once every maybe 5 minutes.

Tanker survivability is so extreme that I sometimes wonder if the devs over did it.