A wonderful guide Ishtar, and gratz on going 50 levels solo with any character.
I only have a few small nit-picky things to add.
The template lists level 6 as when a Controller gets their first attack power. I just wanted to point out that a Mind Controller can have 4 attack powers at that point (Mez, Dom, Lev, and Confuse). For Mind, there is no need to dip into the power pools to get a combat power.
The Force Fields section of important powers does not list Personal Force Field. This is perhaps the best power of the entire set, and certainly for soloing will play a key role.
Again, gratz on 50, gratz on soloing it all the way, and thank you for a wonderful guide.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
Ishtar, I didn't get a chance to congratulate you on reaching 50 since by the time I noticed it the post was already locked. I've followed your project from the beginning but never posted a comment -- I did send you a PM though. I just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS on going it alone...I think going solo for almost 90% of the time still counts.
I also have a grav/ken Lv 40 and soloed him probably 70% of the time. I'm selecting a different EPP than yours though, I going for the Psionic Mastery since most of the attacks after Lv 40 are psionic...just wanted to share that.
Again, congratulations on making 50 and my hat goes off to you.
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I going for the Psionic Mastery since most of the attacks after Lv 40 are psionic...just wanted to share that.
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Just felt the need to point out that most attacks aren't psi 40+ unless you're going to the shadow shard 100% of the time. The only real psi attacks are certain carnies and the rikti, plus some AVs. The rest are regular, run of the mill damage types.
One more small nit-picky point in regards to Hasten and Stamina.
You don't need Hasten at all on Mind. At level 50 I don't have it and never did. I also dislike having Speed Boost cast on that toon. All my other toons love it, but for my MC it's just not needed. So get Hasten on your MC if you want it, but it's not a must have.
For an MC I would definitly recommend six-slotting Stamina. Perhaps with Hasten it only needs three, but that's an extra power and three extra slots compared to a six-slotted Stamina-only build.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
Post deleted by _Ilr_
Ishtar,
Excellent Guide!!!
Also I wanted to congradulate you on getting to level 50.
As most of the people know in the controller community, you make a ton of excellent posts, recommendations and arguements.
Good job
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No, Ishtar's stating the most important case here and you're missing it. And that's DPE. I know for a Fact that a MindController can NOT solo Bosses without LOTs of CaBs when their Attack Chain lacks Melee powers and Confusing. Mez_Dom_Lev may chainhold the boss with just TO's and do good damage, but it's not an efficient and sustainable Pure-Damage Source and it won't defeat the boss before your endurance hits Zero
As such, I'd also say you're ingraciating the truth here quite a bit about going without Stamina on a MindController.
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I think with a six-slotted Stamina an MC can certainly defeat a Boss without running out of Stamina. And I certainly know I've beaten Bosses without using Confuse or a Power Pool attack.
As to what was said, this is a quote from the guide:
Power pool melee attacks at levels 6 and 8 are also critical as they need to be well slotted to be effective and as such must be taken early.
For a Mind Controller this is simply not true. You don't need Power Pool attacks at 6, at 8, or at any other level ever.
As to Stamina, if you go back and re-read my post you'll see that I recommended 6 slotting it.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
Misread it, my apologies. you are correct that Hasten is unnessesary. But like I said, Mind's own attack chain is too expensive for dedicated soloing.
If an issue persists, or If I come accross new informatation that says otherwise, I'll append it at a later date.
I followed the Solo Controller Project in secret all the way through, and found it fascinating. Great job, and great guide, Ishtar. Here's an addendum I put together from several different sources.
This is a little thumbnail to help you plan your tactics when solo. It's a guide to roughly how many times you have to hit an even-level minion in order to defeat them.
It makes the following assumptions:
Your attacks are five slotted for damage and contain enhancements bought every five levels, starting at level 7. It accounts for the more powerful enhancements you have when you first purchase them, and the weak -1 enhancements you'll have for one level. In order to keep current, you'll need a high-level benefactor. It's been shown that a truly solo character can't quite keep up with expenses, even when scrimping.
All the attacks available to a Controller below level 32 do roughly 1 scale of damage, equal to 2.7778 Brawls. Fire Controllers have two attacks, Fire Cages and Char that do 10% more damage than that, so they can reduce these numbers somewhat if they slot up those two powers.
Boxing is worth 75% of a full hit, and Kick is worth 85%. Flurry is worth 115%. The other pool attacks are all worth exactly 1.
Lieutenants have twice as many hit-points as minions, and Bosses have four times as many. Depending on how fast you can land attacks, the actual number of attacks you'll need to take out Lieuts and Bosses will be further increased by their more powerful regeneration rate and possibly resistances.
The buffs and debuffs you have available are not considered. You'll have to adjust the numbers as you find out how well your buffs and debuffs work.
Without further ado, here are the numbers.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
How many hits to defeat an even level minion.
Lvl #Attacks
1 1.6
2 1.7
3 2.0
4 2.2
5 2.8
6 3.0
7 3.2
8 3.7
9 4.2
10 4.7
11 5.2
12 3.6
13 4.1
14 4.5
15 4.7
16 5.2
17 5.0
18 5.4
19 5.8
20 6.3
21 6.7
22 4.1
23 4.3
24 4.5
25 4.7
26 5.1
27 4.4
28 4.6
29 4.8
30 5.0
31 5.4
</pre><hr />
In the beginning, a controller is a powerhouse! But they quickly become weak as their damage scale ramps down to 55% of Blaster, while enemy Hit Points increase quickly. As soon as you need three hits to defeat a minion, you've crossed a difficulty threshold. At that point, you're looking at over 6 hits to defeat a Lieut, and probably 15 to 20 to defeat a Boss.
The hardest levels, before you get pets, are 9-11, and 13-21. Level 21 would be your nadir, except the acquisition of Stamina around this time relieves some of the pain of needing to land almost seven attacks to down a single minion.
Even the acquisition of SOs can't return you to the glory days of the low levels. Four hits each is still very slow for Lieuts and Bosses.
I find these thumbnails helpful when soloing my controller, because some of my attacks are DoT. If I know I'll need to land four hits to defeat a minion, it potentially saves me from the horror of overkill waste. It also lets me schedule the acquisition of power pool attacks in my build.
Thanks for the GREAT contribution, Space_Goat! Awesome addition 
Indeed. Nice post, Goat!
Thank you for all the helpful advice. I think I am going to go the easy route and try a Blaster for my first character. I think you all convinced me that I do not understand the power's and what to pick at first to make him work correctly. Once I understand more of the game I may come back and give it a go again.
I made a Blaster Energy/Fire and he is quite strong and can handle multiple mobs pretty easily between the root and knock back effect of the Energy blast's.
Thank you again to everyone. This seems like a great community after dealing with Blizzard's idea of an MMO.
A guide for soloing controllers
Part 1: The basics
There is a basic mindset that a soloing controller must attain. Many who play controllers focus strongly upon control and defense. This is only a prt of the equation for a soloing controller. If you wish to go it alone, you must not only be able to control the battlefield around you but you must be able to effectively and efficiently arrest the villains you are fighting against. In order to accomplish this, you must have the ability to deal out sufficient damage to arrest vilains in a timely fashoin. There are a few choices:
Power Pools
Air Superiority this is a primary melee attack. It is far and away my personal favorite for damaging villains while solo. Combined with perm hasten, you will be able to keep one foe off of his feet for the duration provided you do not miss an attack. It also has the advantage of being a short animation, short recharge attack.
Boxing this is another excellent attack. It is very fast animation and recharge combined with reasonable damage. It also has a low chance to disorient for a short duration.
Kick very similar to boxing in terms of damage, animation and recharge, but it has a chance to knock back your foe.
Jump Kick this power has similar properties to Air Superiority, but it has a longer animation time for the same damage, and it does knock back rather than knock down. It is still a good power.
Flurry This is a good damage, very enduranceefficient attack. It cycles nearly in it's own animation time with perma hasten running.
These are the tools that you will use to add damage to your controller for soloing purposes. Some primaries illusion most notably have attack powers built in. They are generally useful, and viable, but they can be endurance inefficient.
Part 2 - The levels:
levels 1-8
These levels are critical. They are far and away the easiest of all of them to solo, but you are also laying the foundation for your controller to be able to solo until they receive their pet summon later in the game. You should carefully think ahead and know what powers you will select for at least the first 22 levels. Before you even make your character.
levels 9-11
These levels start to feel a touch grindy as the mob difficulty ramps up in anticipation of dual origin enhancers. Fortunately they are not terribly tough as by now you should have your attacks chosen and at least partly slotted.
levels 12-14
Dual origin enhancers make these levesl breeze by. Stick to small groups of even to +1 foes and you should move through quickly, exspecially when doing missions.
levels 15-18
These levels are tough. As you pick up more powers and proceed through the first yellow enhancer stage with your controller.
levels 19-22
I call this the pre-SO stretch. You are annoyingly close tyo having several of your powers really start to shine from single origin enhancement, but you are not quite there yet. Stick to missions, work on strategies that work for you and dont give up. This is the first truly trying time during a soloing controller's career.
levels 23-28
I refer to this section of levels as the pre pet golden age. You have SO enhancers, you are moving through mobs at a relatively good clip. Things should proceed smoothly for a soloing controller during these levels. If you are playing exclusively solo, do not forget to move your difficulty up to the rugged setting when you reach level 26. This will prevent you running out of contact missions before reaching level 30.
levels 29-31
things become a real grind especially level 31. Controller damage scaling flattens out almost completely starting around level 19. Do not expect to do higher damage with your attacks after you train level 29 even when you update your enhancers. The only thing that will increase your damage is buffs and additional damage enhancers. For example: Air Superiority continued to do about 50 damage from level 27 through level 34.
levels 32-39
Ahh pets.. finnally you are able to solo efficiently. Some powersets see their final bloom in this level range as well. Level 39 is about the height of a controllers power relative to the foes they face. Mob difficulty ramps up sharply all the way through the 40's.
levels 40-50
A soloing controller during these levels will contiunally be forced to seek assistance more and more due to the preponderance of arch villains and huge numbers of mezzing mobs. Even with the psionic power pool, do not expect any of these levels to be a breeze.
Part 3 - powers:
power pool overview
Concealment
this is a good power pool to use for fast experience. Post level 25 or so, when you have your holds heavily slotted you can set your mission difficulty to the rugged setting for +1 and +2 mobs which will only slightly slow you down but nearly double the experience per mission. This will eliminate a VERY trying time I had from level 29 when I ran out of missions. Stealthing missions is fast, easy and reaps great rewards. Phase shift is also useful as a panic button. I highly recommend this power pool especially after stamina is in your build.
Fighting
This pool has two good fast cycling attacks. This pool is an excellent choice pre-level 22. Post perma hasten I recommend that you drop this pool for concealment.
Fitness
Mandatory 'Nuff Said.
Flight
This pool contains what is in my opinion the very best power pool attack for a soloing controller Air Superiority. Good damage, fast animation and some added control in the form of a highly reliable knockdown. This pool also gives you access to Fly which is nice for vertical movement. Not mandatory as such, but very highly recommended.
Leadership
Good buffs from this pool, if you have the power pool pick free (and you probably won't) I would recommend this as the first optional pool. Maneuvers and tactics are both highly worthwhile and 6 slotters if you can work them into your build.
Leaping
Not a lot to recommend this pool for a soloer. Acrobatics is nice I'm sure with it's KD resistance, and superleap is a fine power for getting around, but jump kick is not better than AS for fighting. This is a viable replacement for the flight pool, but is a style sacrifice. Flight pool is superior in my opinion.
Medicine
This pool would be useful if you have the power pool pick free (and you almost certainly won't) especially for sets that lack a self heal (storm and force fields).
Presence
This pool could add some really nice added control to a control weak set such as gravity. Unfortunately there are too many other pools that will take precedence. It is highly unlikely that this pool can be fit in without some serious sacrifice to the viability of your soloing build.
Speed
Mandatory. 6 slotted hasten is needed for many of your soloing efforts. Perma hasten makes air superiority really shine, it makes your pets come up faster, it makes your primary buff more available.
Teleportation
It would be nice to be able to drag your pets around through elevators. This could be a reasonably late game replacement to the flight pool if you can handle using it (I can't) to get around. This pool can replace flight post 32. Not before in my opinion.
Part 4 - the template
I have generated a generic template that allows you to perform a fill in the blank style of build planning for a solo controller.
level 1: primary power pool control/first power from secondary set
level 2: single target hold
level 4: primary buff
level 6: first melee attack
level 8: second melee attack
level 10: hasten
level 12: hurdle or swift
level 14: superspeed
level 16: primary buff or health
level 18: AOE hold or health
level 20: stamina
level 22: secondary control or secondary buff or AOE hold
level 24: secondary buff or secondary control or optional power pool pick
level 26: buff or pet support or AOE hold
level 28: grant invisibility
level 30: phase shift
level 32: pet power
As you can see there is not a lot of wiggle room for just about any powerset combonation. You will be locked in to what you need in order to solo effectively pretty much all the way to 32. This is why it is important to plan ahead and know exactly what you are going to use. picking up your single target hold by level 4 is critical, better if you can get it at level 2, and if available, your primary buff at level 4 is a real advantage. Power pool melee attacks at levels 6 and 8 are also critical as they need to be well slotted to be effective and as such must be taken early.
Some definitions of important powers by secondary powerset:
Empathy
Healing Aura
Recovery Aura (Primary Buff)
Regeneration Aura
Fortitude (post pet only)
Adrenaline Boost (post pet only)
Force Fields
Dispersion Bubble (Primary Buff)
Detention Bubble
Force Bolt
Deflection Shield (post pet only)
Insulation Shield (post pet only)
Kinetics
Siphon Power
Transference
Fulcrum Shift (Primary Buff)
Transfusion
Speed Boost (post pets only)
Radiation Emission
Radiant Aura
Accelerate Metabolism (Primary Buff)
Radiation Infection
Envenerating Field (post stamina only)
Lingering Radiation (if you need tertiary control only)
Storm Summoning
Steamy Mist
Freezing Rain (Primary Buff)
Tornado (for added damage only)
Lightening Storm
Another important note to mention is that slotting is just as critical to your soloing career as a controller as power picks.
By level 22 you must have:
Your melee attacks 5 or 6 slotted
hasten 6 slotted
stamina 3 slotted
your single target hold at least 4 slotted
your AOE hold (if available) 3 slotteed minimum
your primary buff gets all spares, preferrably 6 slotted.
This will give you maximum effectivepower by the time you reach SO enhancers. This is critical because you will nee every ounce of OOMPH you can muster to make it through the laste 20's and early 30's.
Well, I sure hope that everyone finds this guide to be useful. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!