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Quite a few. Without a significant amount of defense, it's tough to pull off more than once a fight and there are, for some sets, better options for opening a fight (Kinetic's Burst, for instance, which has a 100% critical rate from Hide or Lightning Rod, which doesn't break Hide, but does draw aggro that can break Hide). I personally went without it on my Kin/Nin, using Hide/Placate for extra AoE via burst or to recharge Build Up with Concentrated Strike. The Assassin's Focus mechanic has changed it from a once-per-mob power to something people will use at almost every opportunity. That alone means sets that were light on end. reduction, which served well if you only used it here and there, may be desirable to switch for more endurance efficient slotting.

But the addition of Assassin's Focus doesn't just affect AS. With a reliable method to get good damage out of AS, many people are considering dropping Placate from their build.

The change to Assassin Strike is enough to warrant people respec'ing into it. It's a pretty major shift for the power.

If I've setup my spreadsheet right (which I'm a bit uncertain about, calculating the average buff from Hasten is a bit difficult) the very, very bottom floor for permadom is 66.5% with 95% enhancement in Hasten. However, I wouldn't call that comfortable in any sense. Domination would recharge in 88.29 seconds. You would just be able to activate it in time, as in Domination-bar-drops-and-shoots-back-up close. A 75% global bonus would let you sit in more comfortable territory with Domination recharging in 84.40 seconds. However, you'll still have to watch Domination and Hasten very closely and you may occasionally have a crash due to debuffs.

I personally find about 85% global recharge with Hasten 2-slotted with level 50 IOs (155% recharge with Hasten active) around the bottom of my tolerance for maintaining Domination and Hasten.

I want to briefly mention another interesting break point; at 110% global recharge you can perma-Hasten with 95% enhancement. Once you've got that there's not much point going beyond unless you really want to dedicate fewer slots to Hasten. With perma-hasten you'd sit at 180% recharge and Domination would recharge in 71.43 seconds.

My mileage does indeed vary. With a 16 target cap and 95% accuracy on common every spawn controls, there are times when controls simply can't contain all the mobs whether due to over-aggro, ambushes, or tightly knit mobs. Running solo at +4/x8, you'll quickly notice how often a single uncontrolled boss can ruin your fun with 2-3 lucky shots. Defense helps provide a buffer against that.

There is no doubt that perma-doms are certainly survivable, but perma-doms with softcapped defenses are markedly more survivable. Also, as noted before there are diminishing returns on recharge buffs.

For a concrete example, let's look at some powers from Mind Control at three different levels of global recharge. We'll assume 66.6% (two SOs worth) of recharge in each power; that's a middling value between what some commonly used sets offer. I've tossed in Stalagmites for an example of a more common every spawn control.

You can see that, after a certain point, even large amounts of recharge make very little difference to quick recharging controls. The best benefits are on the longest recharge powers. Now some people may prefer shooting for extreme recharge and eschewing defense. I, however, seriously question if having your every spawn control up 2-5 seconds faster is worth more than softcapping one of your defenses.

Dark itself is a solid control set so it should pair well with anything really. Ice and FF both pair their defensive buffs well with Dark's -to hit. Shields of any kind could help keep the Haunts up for their duration. Debuffs, of course, are going to help speed up damage and further to hit debuffing potential. The only set I don't see any particular synergies for is Empathy.

Well then... in the spirit of nit picking. Most is not always more than 50%. If we go back to my bag of M&Ms with 50% blue, 25% green, and 25%, blue would be the most common; if sampled randomly, blue would be the most frequently color chosen. In neither case, however, would it exceed 50%.

But re-addressing the original topic, the changes that have been made recently to Dark Affinity have left a better impression of it in my mind than it initially had. Fade has been given resistance in addition to defense and is permable with a significant investment in recharge. My initial attraction to Dark/Time was mostly to pair powerful to hit debuffs with powerful defense buffs courtesy of Power Boost. That may be a bit of overkill. DA's mixture of buffs may prove more potent in the right build.

Sleep clearly breaks on damage. Try sleeping an Elite Boss with Mesmerize outside of Domination. It just isn't possible. Heck, buy a combat analyzer and you can monitor the magnitude of mez on the enemy and you'll see that damage removes any magnitude of sleep.

You're correct. And thank you for stating how stacking works a bit clearer. I should have noted that each mez only stacks with it's on type.

Here's a look at how those procs will work.

Devastation: 15% chance for a mag 2 hold
Lockdown: 15% chance for a mag 2 hold

If you slot one there is, naturally, a 15% chance for it to add an additional 2 magnitude to your hold. (The duration is limited, but I can't find that information off hand.) If you slot both there is 27.75% chance that either will fire on an individual target and a .75% that both will fire on that target.

Just you hold. It might be possible to confuse the green Mitos though. I'm not entirely sure, but you are trying to overcome their hold protection.

Only duration. There are very few powers with variable magnitude (Detention Field and Sonic Cage).

Yes. Holds, sleep, fear, confuse, stuns, and immobilizes all stack. Every mob has some rank based mez protection (EB = 6, Boss = 3, Lts. = 2, Minion = 1, GMs = 75) when you apply a mez it subtracts from that amount. Once a mob's mez protection is below 0 they are held, slept, etc. Be aware also of the purple triangle of doom (referred to as PToD) which grants a mob an extra 50 points of mez protection while active. You'll encounter this with AVs even when they are downgraded to EBs.

You have to look at things in context. Soon the sun will expand and consume the earth. The heat death of the universe is not on the radar.