Katerinae's Guide to Mind/Storm Control
By
Alexandria2000,
Posted on: 2008-12-09 09:00 in Player Guides
Mind/Storm part 2: STORM CONTROL
The Storm set is arguably more at home in the controller arsenal than in any other archetype. The slows are slower, the debuffs are debuffier, and the powers complement many control sets beautifully. I have seen a pair of /storm controllers totally shut down and bully purple mobs in an indoor mission, without even touching their control primaries.
Storm has a bad reputation on AoE focused teams, this is because too many storm characters simply don't know what they're doing. Storm's powerful debuffs should be desperately sought after by every team, so its not a lack of effectiveness. The trouble lies with people not knowing how to use knockback and repel powers to 'help' a team rather than half-hazardly hindering them. I hope to correct both the misconception that storm is undesirable to teams, and the misconceptions that some storm players have regarding how to use their powers best.
And in pvp, storm is truly lovely. You know how annoying it is trying to kill those pesky tsoo sorcerers? You know how the team keeps saying to kill those first because they'll nerf the whole team till they're dead? well in pvp, you *are* the tsoo sorcerer, except you can play smarter than the NPC stormies 
ok, the powers:
Gale - AoE-Cone 'KnockBack' attack. Wait, I just told you how great storm is right? so what gives? Gale?? What's it good for? It does almost no damage. It throws mobs around and scatters them out of an aoe focus area. It never seems to hit the mob you want it to... what's it for??? Well there are 3 answers:
1. In pvp, you can use gale to shove a mele character back, although the animation is painfully slow.
2. at christmas time, you can open 'presents' on rooftops, and when snowmen spawn, you can blast them all over the edge of the building and then laugh at them in the street down below.
3. the rest of Storm is so good, the first and unavoidable power just HAD to suck. If you put Gale in your action bar, put it in the alt or ctrl alternate bar so you don't accidentally use it, you know, without snowmen around.
Ok seriously, if you know the range on it very very well, you can shove a stray mob back into the aoe kill zone with it. but if you're too close you'll mess up the aoe, so beware. Also, If you've got some mobs pinned in a telekinesis lump in a corner, and there are stray mobs between you and the TK lump, you can gale them back into the TK and they'll end up gummed up in it with the rest of the mobs there. This is by far the most useful tactic for Gale that I have found. I can't imagine what other control primaries use it for.
O2 Boost - Single target heal and anti-stun/sleep. This single target heal ability IS useful. In order to be effective you need to slot it up with recharge and heal, and some endurance reduction if you have room to spare. I prefer 5 slotting it with the Doctored Wounds IO set for the 5% global recharge bonus (a controller can never have too much hasten). It does not need accuracy, as it cannot miss. The uses of O2 boost are primarily on small teams, or to use on a tank during a really dire AV fight (ghost widow anyone?). On a smaller team, being able to heal someone for nearly half their health is a real boon to the team. On a larger team, where healing one person becomes a smaller factor to the overall team success, O2 Boost loses its luster. For solo play, skip it entirely as you'll never use it. In pvp it can be nice, but only if your teammate is in range. and in large team play, its definitely a skip-able power. So whether to take it or not really depends on what you wanna do with it. I don't have it in my build. I used to. 5 slotted with doctored wounds its a nice set bonus, and a nice single target heal and anti-stun/sleep medicine. It can prevent sleep & stun for 60 seconds after use, so it's like a very very poor clear mind in a way. and you can un-'zzz' teammates. I dropped it because i found that when i got focused on healing one person, the larger overall team picture suffered because of my lack of keeping my focus on controlling the enemy mobs. Essentially in any situation where a person is getting clobbered, I found that I could do more for them with control powers than I could spamming heal at them. So i dropped it, but I can understand why some would want it. If you duo or trio a lot it could be really indispensable. I was in a fight with ghost widow on statesman's task force, and the tank was getting his mezz protection overpowered and he'd get stunned by her, and we kept wiping because of it. I really kinda wished I'd had O2 Boost right then. But most of the time, I don't miss it too much.
Snow Storm - Targeted-AoE-toggle slow/recharge debuff. Ok, here is a power which is GREATLY unappreciated. For some reason, no one seems to know that this ability POWERFULLY reduces enemy's recharge rates. Its like "Anti-Speed-Boost for people you don't like" except its even more powerful than that. For controllers it does a -62.5% run speed to enemies, [u]AND a -62.5% recharge rate to enemies' attacks![u]. So yeah... its a skip-able power if you *don't* want all of the enemy mobs doing 62% less hurtful things to your team, sure... (facepalm). You can get this power at level 4, and its one of the most powerful abilities in the set. If you can actually manage to train your early level teammates to "Kill my snowstorm anchor last plz" (it may take a significant amount of explaining), then you can run around from level 4 on, making enemies less than half as effective as they normally are. Its godly. Take it. Know what it does. Explain it to people who think its just a slow. get them to clobber everything else first. and enjoy being a POWERFUL debuff character from lvl 4 on. Slotting is easy, it takes 2 end reducers at lvl 50, done. +slow enchancements will only buff the movement reduction, not the anti-hasten effect. if you want a little more mob travel containment, put 2 end reducers and 1 slow in it (or a slow/end IO). This power is AUTO-HIT! so no accuracy slotting needed.
One other interesting thing about snowstorm, it has a very long range once you cast it on a mob. much longer than the casting range. and you do not need to be in line of sight to your snowstorm anchor once it is cast. if you find yourself on a somewhat higher level team than yourself, this is a great way to help out without getting beat up. just cast snowstorm (and perhaps a few other powers) then go hide and maintain that snowstorm for the team.
At late levels, it can sometimes be hard to keep mobs alive long enough to see much benefit from this power. If you run into this problem, raise the difficulty. if they still die to easy, do a task force, if they still die too easy petition the devs to release a 'super-invincible' difficulty setting ultimately, by 50, I could understand someone not taking snowstorm with all the other cool powers they have to pick from, and limited casting time before a fight ends. But that's like saying you have 'too many' godly debuff powers, which is just blasphemy really
Steamy Mist - AoE-toggle stealth resistance & defense. You really need to take this power. It gives anyone near you Stealth. It gives more AoE Defense than maneuvers. And it gives a sizeable AoE resistance to 3 types of damage (fire, cold, & energy, 15% each). Its sort of like what maneuvers would be like if god had maneuvers. Put it off until after stamina. Earlier than that, you'll just end crash and de-toggle a lot. But do get it, and 6 slot it for defense, resistance, and endurance reduction. Its too good of a power not to.
Freezing Rain - Targeted-AoE slow, knockdown, minus recharge debuff, defense debuff, & resistance debuff. Take it. Remember I said earlier that you'd have lvls 14 16 18 and 20 spoken for? well this is the one speaking for lvl 16. The most important things FR does are this -30% defense, and -30% resistance. The first one means that you can hit high level crazy shades of purple mobs because their defense is reduced. It also means that when a tso sorcerer pulls out his hurricane, you can basically nullify that accuracy debuff by debuffing his defense an equal amount. This power is just crazy good. The 30% resistance debuff means that mobs will take 30% more damage from every attack that hits em while they're on your freezing rain. Do NOT let some blaster complain that the mobs scatter to get away from it... that's silly, they're slowed, they're falling all over themselves, which means they're not doing much damage to anyone, particularly with the 40% minus recharge. they're not moving much, and you're making them infinitely easier to hit and making them take more damage. Hit the mobs with snow storm and freezing rain and they will be reduced to the slow cap and the minus recharge cap both. That's 10% of their normal movement rate and attack rate That alone is enough to make mobs into really weak enemies. Add in the -def, & -resist... just wow. Take freezing rain, use it every single battle. period. Initially slot it for recharge, so its available at the start of every conflict. later on, slot it however you'd like. Personally I've 6 slotted it. I put in a 5set of positron's blast (skipped only the Acc/Dmg one), partly for the set bonuses, and partly to make freezing rain hit harder, etc. The 6th slot is a lady gray's 'chance for damage proc'. That's 2 chance for damage procs in freezing rain. Interesting thing about damage procs. they get a 20% chance to hit every target in the aoe. and when slotted into ongoing effects, they get a chance to 'go off' every 10.5 seconds. So with freezing rain, each damage proc gets to roll 20% chance on every mob when you cast it. a 20% chance on every mob after 10.5seconds. and a 20% chance to hit every mob at 21 seconds. In a large spawn, it amounts to about 25-35 chances to proc on average, and about 6-10 hits on average. That's good bang for your damage-proc buck. 2 dmg-proc IO's doubles this, so i'm doing about 12-20 proc hits per freezing rain patch. that's an extra 850-1450 cumulative damage over 21 seconds. plus the rain itself does about double damage with the IO set in it. and all the debuff effects... um yes please! I'd take this power twice if i could.
Hurricane - AoE-toggle repel, knockback, tohit debuff. This is another 'golden' power. And another end hog. Huricane has a -30% to-hit debuff. That's a powerful accuracy nerf to enemies. You can easily slot it for much more tohit debuff. You know how you can never hit those tsoo sorcerers when they have hurricane out? (or hit anything else for that matter if you're near them)... well this is why. The repel effect is a wonderful tool if you use it right. do NOT run into the middle of enemies and push them all over gods creation if you're on an aoe focused team. Instead circle your enemies and use the repel to shove them all back into the aoe kill zone. The tohit debuff lasts for 10 seconds. so you only need to nudge a mob slightly to debuff them for a while. Also, the area of effect for hurricane is *larger* than the animation. Spend some time playing with low level mobs and watching the distance where they start to get pushed, learn that radius. incidentally, its the same radius of effect as your steamy mist, another nice thing to instinctively know the range of. Hurricane will keep you from getting clobbered by mele characters in pvp, and by mele mobs in pve. the repel makes it a slow long haul to approach you, and the random knockback effect can make them start all over. meanwhile they can't hit anything because of the accuracy debuff. Its a good power. really good in the right hands. I'd 4-slot it for endurance reduction and tohit debuff. The repel is more vaulable and controllable than the knockback, the knockback is pretty random, and can throw mobs in unintended directions if you're not careful, i would not slot +KB in this power.
Thunder Clap - PlayerBasedAoE 'stun' power. This is a pretty one. Bit of a slow animation, but it makes a blinding lightning strike right over you. It's very visually appealing. Unforunately, in a mind/storm build, its not very useful. It's stun effect is magnitude 2, which means it will only hold minions, no Lt's or bosses. and you don't have any other stun powers to complement it and stack the magnitude. If you get fissure from the stone mastery epic pool, you 'might' be able to make an argument for using that with thunderclap for yet another control power... but with mag 3 confuse & hold powers already in your set, and aggro-less at that, there's really no call for additional stun control in my opinion. On my Fire/Storm troller, i use Flashfire and Thunderclap together all the time as my main method of control. But on a Mind/Storm, thunderclap just doesn't make much sense. Keep it for thematic or RP purposes if you must. otherwise skip it.
Tornado - Summons a pet tornado, DoT(damage over time), Knockback, KnockUP, Stun. Tornado is overrated, but it IS good. People love to cast it and watch mobs get thrown around and beat on. But it works against many of your own AoE focused powers, and against an aoe focused team. Tornado can be used more effectively by a controller primary which has an aoe imob power, as these usually have a -KB effect, keeping mobs pinned where they are. On an imobilized target, or an un-tossable target (AV, doors, crystals, etc) a tornado can deal a huge amount of damage in rapid dot ticks. If you find yourself on a team which simply is not so much for the AoE game, you can then use tornado whenever, and it'll add to the carnage and madness effectively. In pvp, tornado is more useful. Having a tornado out at all times, means its really hard to pick on you without getting mulched by your little wind demon. Its good protection. Of note... you can 'pin' a target down, in a corner, and use tornado on them. I've experimented with this, and I find that using telekinesis and hurricane with tornado, I can keep a mob pinned in a corner while tornado beats up on them. It works with just hurricane too, but the mob can get away without either telekinesis or snowstorm keeping them put. This can be really effective in pvp, turn on hurricane, put down freezing rain, tornado, and lightning storm in a corner, and then teleport foe into this corner, and throw telekinesis or snowstorm on them right away. they'll be pretty helpless and badly roughed up. Don't use tornado where people are trying to kill mobs in an aoe fasion though. just don't. Because of this situational aspect of tornado, I rate it useful but low priority for a pve player. Its something to get late in the game, and probably just put 2 damage enhancements in it. For PVP playstyle, or if you regularly duo with an NRG blaster, get tornado as soon as you can, and perhaps 4-5 slot it for recharge & damage.
Lightning Storm - Summons lighting storm pet, kb, fear, small aoe energy damage. Lightning storm is a great power. Its the prettiest power in the set. It knocks foes flat on their butt. It hits for good damage. You cast it once and forget about it, it keeps hitting enemies. If enemies are standing close together it will hit 2-3 at a time for double/tripple cumulative damage output. It deliberately targets foes which are rushing you, and flattens them. Its a great power. pvp, pve, small team, solo, large team, av fight, you name it its a good power for it. Also... there is no limit to the number of lightning storms you can cast. The recharge is a bit long though. In a controller build, hasten and recharge reduction should be a top priority though, so its not unusual that you'd be able to keep 2 lightning storms going full time in a prolonged fight. That's a lot of lightning! Also, more recharge affects the storm's attack rate *hint hint*. So yeah, get lightning storm, and 6 slot it. start with recharge, max out your recharge reduction first. then start on damage. after you max damage, then think about a little endurance reduction in it. Personally I put in 1 recharge enhancement, and 5 thunderstrike set IO's (partly for the bonuses, but it also brings the numbers to where i want them, I skip the acc/dmg one, since accuracy is wasted in lightning storm, IT AUTO-HITS!). Tactically, it becomes important to know where to put your storm. it will not move after you cast it. Ideally for aoe work, place the storm high overhead. This will cause the knockback effect to function more as a knock-Down effect. maintaining the aoe integrity. You can also put it on the far side of a doorway, then pull mobs through the doorway so they keep running into the kill zone. lightning storm will only strike if you are nearby (not sure exact distance, something like 60 ft. or so though). but you do not need to be in line of sight to the targets. this makes it really nice in indoor missions with lots of hiding places. Not that you need to hide... your primary set should ensure that they can't even tie their own shoes, and your secondary set should ensure that they try to tie their shoes very very slowly. At halloween time, I set my lightning storms up between doorways at an appartment complex, open a door, kill those guys, then cast another storm between in the next gap between doors, open the next door, but now there are 2 storms running, so you kill them good and fast, then continue, so that you're constantly recycling your lightning storms through 2 battles each, and constantly running 2 storms at a time. You need close together doors for this, like in the appartment compexes. Always at least jump up to cast the storm, the more 'up' it is, the less it shoves mobs all over the place. I use hover/fly to place it pretty high and very precisely.
Other Stuff:
Stamina - You will need this, there is no questioning this. the only question is how you build to it. you can take swift/health/stam or hurdle/health/stam or swift/hurdle/stam. If you have fly, make sure swift is in there. if you have superjump or superspeed, make sure hurdle is in there. Personally I gotta have health in there. more for the exotic IO's you can slot in it after you've been 50 a while. the +regen is 'ok' but its mainly a great place to put numina's & miracle's regen/recovery IO's.
Fly/Hover or Teleport/Hover - I find that using hover in combat is convenient for placing lightning storms carefully, and for avoiding some knockdown and slow effects (caltrops, etc). it also puts you out of mele range to pve mobs whenever you want. Its a good safe place to be. and steamy mist, hurricane, etc. reach down to the ground pretty well. Hover needs speed badly. If you take hover, it will need 3 flyspeed enchancements in it, and 1 flyspeed enhancement in swift. I also add to that about 15% movement speed increase from IO sets. the end result is a very precise moving and quick hover ability. If you take teleport, do consider hover as a suplement to that. it helps avoid the annoying drops.
Stealth... steamy mist provides a stealth for you and your closest friends. But I like the ability to become totally invisible to all mobs except snipers/perception types. This is just good protection in pvp and pve both. The new stealth IO's make it easy to achieve invisibility with steamy mist. I recommend getting a stealth IO for hover if you are fly/teleport based, or a stealth IO for combat jumping if you are superjump based. If you have superspeed, you've acheived stealth right there. although you might find the movement suppression annoying in combat with hurricane, as well as the end hogging.
Also Hurdle + Combat Jumping is a valid travel power. If you 3slot hurdle with jump enhancements. and 2-3 slot combat jumping with the same. suddenly you're cruising along at speeds which are not blazing but are almost as fast as fly. The advantage here is that you can move that fast anytime you can jump, it is not suppressed when you attack. only caltrops or something similar can slow you down. Again, recomend stealth IO in combat jumping for this settup.
Hasten - You will get this as soon as you can before or after lvl 18 (22 is a decent spot for it, or in the single digit levels). You must get this. the recharge times on your best powers are the only thing standing between you being a debuffing control god, and you being a 'hold on a minute guys, my timers are all gray' drag on the team. pvp pve solo duo trio av fight whatever you're doing, you need hasten with mind/storm. And hasten needs 3 slots of recharge in it. no more, no less.
Epic pools... Personally I like Power Boost for its ability to make my control powers that much more powerful. If slotted for recharge, and given good hasten and +recharge IO bonuses, you can have power boost up & ready at the start of every fight on a team. That's a major upgrade.
defense based armor might be of particular interest to someone who uses hurricane a great deal. especially with steamy mist, and either combat jumping or hover, and probably maneuvers too. I mean, if you wanna go that route that is.
Fireball is a really nice damage addition. can help get your solo game over the hump dps-wise.
But there are some new i13 epic pool powers, so I'm withholding judgement on what's really good. I'm looking at probably keeping power boost, and pairing it with the shield and the new energy torrent ability for a little more aoe cone damage. I currently have that set but with power blast. Power blast does figure nicely into my single target attack chain though. I cycle Levitate, Dominate, and Power Blast in a continuous chain for single targets (after i get out storms, debuffs, freezing rain, etc). Its a nice blend of knock up, hold, and knock back, rinse repeat(stack mag).
Other thoughts:
for all the good synergies of these 2 sets, a primary with an aoe stun, and an aoe imob can squeeze a bit more usefulness out of /storm. Thus my second controller is a fire/storm. However, despite these ideal blendings with storm, she is not as powerful at raw controlling as my first troller, the mind/storm. Earth/Storm looks to be a fantastic pairing on paper too, but no aggro-free attacking there. Its just hard to replace the feel of mind/ , mainly the aggro-free attack capabilities. Mind/storm isn't the best solo set. its good, but not the best. my fire/storm does a bit better for soloing, just because she has a bit more damage on tap in the imps. But on a team, mind/storm is really really hard to beat. Only earth/storm has as much control, and it lacks the ability to safely and effortlessly lock down a big spawn of purples with no tank.
Both the primary and secondary in mind/storm are the sorts of power sets which in NPC make people say 'kill the aberant's first!' or 'kill the sorcerers first!', etc. But you're *both* of those sets, and villains don't stand a chance.
I've enjoyed my mind/storm more than any other character, and i've continued to play her a great deal after hitting 50 
I hope you do too.
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
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Very extensive, well-written guide. The explaination of each power is great too. I don't have Mind/Storm, but it gave me some good ideas for my Mind/TA and makes me want to roll a Mind/Storm.
Mind/Storm rawks.
I was recently reminded of how great mind/storm is in the Baby New Year mission, which I solo'd on invincible over and over, while eating dinner, without taking a single point of damage
meanwhile many of my other toons kept dying to snaptooth, and I broke down and joined farm teams to get candy canes for them.
I had another thought on tornado & thunderclap. tornado does have a stun effect so for people who use tornado 'extensively' you could use thunderclap to greater effect in conjunction with it (stacking magnitudes). However tornado is very aoe-unfriendly. but mind/storm is really not just limited to an aoe playstye, you can play storm as a 'controlled chaos' set, and it has good solo & pvp ability. if you solo or pvp a lot, then thunderclap + tornado might make more sense together, particularly with the afforementioned Fissure epic power. But you're still not going to be able to stack magnitude nearly as high and quickly as with the 'hold' and 'confuse' powers IMO, and Dominate + telekinesis is just really cool in pvp, pve solo targets, or small spawns. making 'stun' kinda unneeded. of course by the same logic, snowstorm is redundant as well, and i keep snowstorm around. *shrug*
merry christmas!
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
***note: it appears that telekinesis is a lot less cool in pvp now with i13. That removes a major reason for taking it as a power. I'd have to say that the power still has its uses, but it's lost one of its better ones, and I'm debating keeping it. Its very handy for pinning down a target or targets in a corner while tornado minces them, but it was BEST at doing that to a pvp opponent, and now it doesn't. So I'd downrate telekinesis to a somewhat marginal choice. It used to be B+ for the solo & small team pve player, and A+ for the pvper, but D for the large team pve player. Now... its F for the PVPer (still B+ for solo/small team pve, and still D for large team pve). If you like pvp, or larger team (4+) pve, i'm thinking telekinesis is not going to shine for you. If you like soloing or playing on small teams (2-3 people) then you may still find it to be of value in your build. The pvp nerf is significant enough that I'm considering other power options, even though I don't pvp much.
still... it is fun to pin someone like snaptooth down in a corner and feed him to your tornado while lightning blasts him and you spam a single target attack chain. and that's not changed. but you can no longer use telekinesis to do that to opponents in pvp. and that's a pretty significant nerf to the power. in pvp it now works like a non-damaging single target temporary hold... which is perfectly useless in a powerset where you can spam Dominate & Levitate and do damage while you incapacitate your target.
[soapbox] Hopefully the i13 pvp changes will be somewhat refined over time, and they'll do something to make telekinesis not be useless in pvp. It is unlikely though, since mind/* dominators are a popular overpowered pvp choice, and they were probably largely trying to nerf dominators when they made this adjustment. Controllers seem to suffer unfairly in nerfs because of their pvp-overpowered villain counterparts. Why they don't just take away perma-domination and be done with it (and stop nerfing controllers!) is beyond me. Every other overpowered ability in the game has had its 'perma' taken away, so there's plenty of precedent.
I'm a bit disheartened about this nerf. I like diversity of playstyle, and the general move in the game, in both powerset proliferation, epic powers, pvp changes, etc. all seems towards making things so that you can have any color of character you want, as long as you choose 'gray'. [/soapbox]
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
Good guide! Very thorough.
I was particularly interested to read what you said about FR w/ damage procs. I'll have to give that some thought.
Also BTW, since it sounds like you're pretty conscious of mob positioning and AoE work, it's worth noting that confuse is a great tool to get individual stragglers to cluster with their much-hurting brethren. If all the mobs but one are, say, pinned with TK or hurricane, confuse will get remainder's attention (though I imagine you'd have to step aside for him if you're running hurricane, which is suboptimal.)
I'm a lot closer to rolling a mind/storm ATM than I was before reading your guide.
Now then, a couple words about your word about confusion.
Though it's at least partly a matter of terminology, it's important to note that confusion (nor damge from confused mobs) can never take XP away-- at all.
For XP to be taken away, it would have to be first earned, at least in some degree, and the situation you're talking about is one where that XP has definitely not been earned. When drones kill something you've damaged and the mob never experiences defeat, hence you lose opportunity on something you've invested time and endurance in damaging, *that* is stolen XP. Damage from confused mobs can defeat mobs. And contrary to the impression the manual gives, you still get the XP you earned based on the damage you did.
Confuses never steal XP.
What they do do, in some sense, is take away a finite amount of XP opportunity. The most important thing to know about this, though, is that the XP opportunity is not finite in the game-- Infinity minus one is still infinity.
The most realistic concern (which is more true of a set like Plant that can have AoE confuses out more than 30% of the time) is with depletion of *nearby* XP opportunity. If you want to worry about it, 50% damage or less is not the key. The key is:
How long would the fight take without any confuses? Multiply that by three. Now multiply it by the fraction of the damage you're actually doing. The question is: can you get to the next group faster than that, or not?
If you can't, then using confuses is slowing down the rate at which you draw XP out of the infinite pool of XP-for-damage.
If you can, confuses are speeding up the rate at which you suck the marrow out of life, rawr, chomp.
In my experience, fights take longer than the moves between fights. So if you're doing astonishingly little damage at 33%, you'll have plenty of time to find the next fight and keep the net effect of confuses on your side.
Finally, sorry about your experiences with nerfs and PvP. Personally I don't see playing PvP until powers perform there and PvE with close equivalency, which at least in the case of confusions, will never happen. Statesman was both totally right and totally wrong when he said, long ago, that CoH would never have PvP because it would be impossible to balance into the game.
Choosing a Controller V2 | Splattrollers | Plant/Rad | Fire/Storm | Mind/Emp & Mind/Rad
Weird Controller Powers | Conf & XP/Time | Controller Damage
Being a Healer | The word Necessary | Natural Concept Characters
This makes me want to pull out my mind/storm that I gave up when I decided "I just can't figure storm out for the life of me, and as a result, I keep getting people killed."
I couldn't figure out HOW the synergy here worked out.
Thank you for a very good overview.
Currently playing:
The Domestic: Broom/WP
Shadowhex: Dark Control/Dark Affinity
Defenestration Lass: Grav/Kin
"See, this is what happens when you have to shove all this stuff into your pockets: it's easy to misplace a suborbital warhead." -Arcanaville, on how crowded our power trays are getting lately
*nods to Enantiodromos* what you say is very true. and very well put, albeit possibly going over a few heads out there
I was more trying to emphasize the other aspect, that a confused mob can do 100 damage to another mob, and you can actually end up getting xp for a large portion of that, depending on what percentage of the mob's health that represents. Over and above the xp you actually 'earn'. So in terms of xp vs. time/effort, getting 75% of the xp for mobs where you only do 50% of the damage is a HUGE bonus to your actual xp/influence earnings.
This aspect of non-1-to-1 xp loss to damage caused by confused mobs, was added after many people complained about what you're calling 'depleting local xp availability'. So with confuse, you and your team can end up doing 5000 damage and getting xp for say 6500 worth of damage. greatly offsetting even any local depletion of available xp
Also, using total domination (with mass hypnosis primer), and mass confusion, alternating every other battle, makes you one of the few controllers out there who can shut down enemy mobs every battle, without taking abusive alpha damage. And control mobs effectively even if your the only controller on the team. and shut them down to such a degree that healer/tank are really only needed for AV's. Its less an issue with more than one controller on the team, but if you're the only one, its important to be able to give mobs an aoe-lobotomy every battle.
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
[ QUOTE ]
Also, using total domination (with mass hypnosis primer), and mass confusion, alternating every other battle, makes you one of the few controllers out there who can shut down enemy mobs every battle, without taking abusive alpha damage. And control mobs effectively even if your the only controller on the team. and shut them down to such a degree that healer/tank are really only needed for AV's. Its less an issue with more than one controller on the team, but if you're the only one, its important to be able to give mobs an aoe-lobotomy every battle.
[/ QUOTE ]
Did you get to play this game pre-I5? If not, I dearly wish you could've. ^_^ (The good old days of fighting statues.)
If you think this is good, BTW, you should try out a Mind/Rad or Mind/TA with the EMP. Can be tricky if you're accustomed to all those ranged targeted AoE mezzes, but that's almost like oldschool.
Again, great guide.
Choosing a Controller V2 | Splattrollers | Plant/Rad | Fire/Storm | Mind/Emp & Mind/Rad
Weird Controller Powers | Conf & XP/Time | Controller Damage
Being a Healer | The word Necessary | Natural Concept Characters
I started durring issue 5, but it switched to issue 6 before I had really 'caught on' to much of the game or had any high level characters. I understand some of the early issues had some pretty drastic and sweeping changes and nerfs, kinda like the recent pvp revamp. I'm just shy of my 33 month badge now, and anxious to try out the staff/wand power
___
I thought I would include my Mind/Storm's build, just as a reference. It is by no means the only way to do things, but I did put a lot of thought into it :
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]
Katerinae
Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Mind Control
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Primal Forces Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Levitate -- Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(A), Apoc-Dam%:50(3), Apoc-Dmg:50(3), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg:50(5), Apoc-Acc/Rchg:50(5), KBDist-I:50(7)
Level 1: Gale -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 2: Dominate -- UbrkCons-Dam%:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(9), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(9), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(11), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg:50(11)
Level 4: Snow Storm -- EndRdx-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(36), Slow-I:50(42), ImpSwft-Dam%:30(42)
Level 6: Hover -- Frbd-Fly:50(A), Frbd-Stlth:50(13), Srng-Fly:50(13), Srng-EndRdx/Fly:50(43), Ksmt-ToHit+:30(46)
Level 8: Mass Hypnosis -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 10: Swift -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 12: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(15), RechRdx-I:50(25)
Level 14: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(15), Mrcl-Heal:40(23)
Level 16: Freezing Rain -- Posi-Dam%:50(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(17), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(17), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(19), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(19), LdyGrey-%Dam:50(21)
Level 18: Total Domination -- UbrkCons-Hold:50(A), UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg:50(36), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg:50(36), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg:50(43), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold:50(48)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(21)
Level 22: Steamy Mist -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(A), LkGmblr-Def:50(23), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(25), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:50(37), TtmC'tng-ResDam:50(37), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:50(40)
Level 24: Fly -- Flight-I:50(A), Flight-I:50(31)
Level 26: Terrify -- Posi-Dam%:50(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(27), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(27), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(29), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(29), Abys-Dam%:50(31)
Level 28: Hurricane -- EndRdx-I:50(A), DampS-ToHitDeb/EndRdx:50(31), DampS-ToHitDeb/Rchg/EndRdx:50(34), DampS-ToHitDeb:50(43)
Level 30: Confuse -- Mlais-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(A)
Level 32: Mass Confusion -- CoPers-Conf:50(A), CoPers-Conf/Rchg:50(33), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(33), CoPers-Acc/Rchg:50(33), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx:50(34), CoPers-Conf%:50(34)
Level 35: Tornado -- Dmg-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(37)
Level 38: Lightning Storm -- Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg:50(40), ExStrk-Dam%:20(40)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(42)
Level 44: Energy Torrent -- Posi-Dam%:50(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(45), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(45), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(46), Range-I:50(46)
Level 47: Temp Invulnerability -- TtmC'tng-EndRdx:50(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam:50(48), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:50(48), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(50), S'fstPrt-ResKB:30(50)
Level 49: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(50)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I:50(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 1: Containment
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]10% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]10% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]10% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]10% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]10% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]10% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]10% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]10% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Smashing)[*]3% Defense(Lethal)[*]3% Defense(Fire)[*]3% Defense(Cold)[*]10.5% Defense(Energy)[*]10.5% Defense(Negative)[*]3% Defense(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Melee)[*]10.5% Defense(Ranged)[*]3% Defense(AoE)[*]1.8% Max End[*]4% Enhancement(Confused)[*]56.3% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]56% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]72.5 HP (7.13%) HitPoints[*]Knockback (Mag -4)[*]Knockup (Mag -4)[*]MezResist(Sleep) 4.4%[*]24.5% (0.41 End/sec) Recovery[*]34% (1.44 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]7.25% Resistance(Fire)[*]7.25% Resistance(Cold)[/list]
In this build I spec'd out of telekinesis and picked single target Confuse back up. This is somewhat experimental, I didn't have much wiggle room with slotting so it had to be an unslotted power. In hindsight I think I may try to dig up 1 more slot for it, and change it to Assault. Particularly after testing my endurance use in live play and finding it virtually neverending, making another toggle more tempting to take.
I also 4-slotted snowstorm, and put a damage proc in it. This is sort of experimental. I want to see how the power performs if given enough slotting tender loving care. That's 2 end reducers, 1 slow, and 1 damage proc IO. I'll report back on how this works out later.
I've found that with enough +recharge, you can make Levitate & Dominate into a very nearly continuous single target attack chain. And by maxing out their recharge, damage, taking advantage of containment, and adding in damage procs, they are pretty impressively effective.
I dropped power blast (part of my former 3-cast single target attack chain), and replaced it with the new Energy Torrent aoe cone in the power mastery epic pool. Let me just say that I am very pleased with energy torrent. It adds that extra little bit of aoe *punch* that makes soloing, farming, or just showing off, that much easier. The knockback on it is just enough to help mitigate damage without scattering mobs. Its a great follow-up to it's bigger meaner brother Terrify. I slot it with an extra range increase IO to give it a more similar usable range to terrify, so that it's easy to line up both of them at once.
***Interestingly, I find that this second aoe damage cone makes the use of terrify, freezing rain, total domination, mass confusion, mass hypnosis, that much more complex. For example, if you have a set of confused mobs, you will want to cast mass hypnosis to make your terrify hit for double damage. Energy Torrent however, doesn't benefit from double damage (only the mind primary powers do), So you can end up casting mass confuse, mass hypnosis, terrify, then freezing rain, then energy torrent, to get the maximum damage out of both cones. When using total domination however, its much simpler, just follow up with freezing rain, and then both of the cone attacks in no particular order. This same principal would apply to the use of any epic pool aoe attack (like fireball, ice storm, psionic tornado).***
I hardly ever use Conserve Power except for fighting an AV, and without any end-mod slotting it is quite enough to make it impossible to run out of End for 90 seconds.
I use 3 sets of positron's blast and none of ragnarok. This is because in all 3 powers where I use the sets, I am trying to maximize damage output, and while both sets easily cap the damage bonus, positron's blast has a damage proc IO, while ragnarok has a knockdown IO. Also ragnarok has no range buff, which is critical to the two cone aoe powers. So why pay more for a set which does have higher set bonuses, but is arguably 'weaker' in the slotted power itself?
Inside missions I run around in Hover almost constantly. It is about as fast as unslotted sprint. If i fall behind, I just switch to fly for a moment. The fact that Fly is the slowest travel power seems almost meaningless anymore, given that the trains/oroubos/base teleporters can take you to almost any zone instantly. I have high level characters who use hurdle + combat jumping as their sole means of transit, and even they don't have trouble keeping up. Plus just for concept, I like my character with storm and levitational powers to be able to fly.
I did use teleport+hover for a while though, and let me just say that teleport is a great power set. Recall Friend can come in immensely handy. Teleport foe used to be the best way to get a pvp enemy into a corner where you could just trounce them with storm+telekinesis. And back when I had teleport I was in the ice mastery epic pool, and I'd use hibernate and teleport to get out of almost any jam.
I'm still working on getting all of the accolades I want. I'm mainly interested in the 4 passive ones : atlas medallion, freedom phalanx reserve, portal jockey, and task force commander (i still need task force commander). These cumulatively net 20% more max health, and 10% more max endurance.
Anyway, I hope the build is helpful. I realize it's on the pricey side, but much of the same thinking would apply with cheaper slotting as well. (with the possible exception of leveraging a high global '+recharge' to make a 2-Power single target attack chain work)
I would be interested in any constructive criticism of it as well
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
after trying out snowstorm with the chance for dmg proc in it, I'm a little underwhelmed. Its a good improvement to the power. And I like the power, though I often find i have too many great ways to make mobs helpless. But i'm not getting a huge benefit from single target confuse, and I think assault would be a better pick there. so that means I need 1 more slot for that power (because assault with 2 end reducers is perfect). There's not a lot of places to steal a slot in this build, but I'm eyeing that damage proc in snowstorm as a probable source. still thinking it through though.
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
OK, there are other Mind/Storm control guides out there. But I've seen only 1 good one, a couple mixed ones, and several very bad ones. Mind/Storm is not a common archetype combo, and unfortunately there are a lot of poorly informed and uninformed notions about these sets. I'll do my best to educate a bit, without dictating play-style or canned builds to anyone.
it takes time. Try it out for novelty value at least though. And if you can't eventually get the hang of it, consider dropping it (unless you pvp of course, in which case get it, keep it, love it).
I should mention that I myself primarily play mind/storm on large pve teams. I have played it in a variety of other situations, but not as extensively. So I may tend to focus on certain abilities more based on this preference. I hope to be informative and broad enough in scope that the guide would be useful and helpful to any play style though.
Controlers in General:
You can't take a great deal of damage, so in all play styles, avoiding being pulverized is a primary concern. Fortunately controllers have many more tools to pull this off than say 'blasters' do.
Containment :
Knowing what containment is and how to use it is 'vital' to successfully playing a controller. Containment is an effect which GREATLY increases the damage you deal to targets which are held, slept, disoriented, and imobed (note: confused is not in the list). So before thinking about doing damage, you've got to focus on setting up containment.
Magnitudes :
In PVE (pvp was recently changed in regards to magnitudes, and I've yet to gain enough experience to write intelligently about it), but in pve, all of your hold/sleep/imob/confuse/etc. Abilities have a 'magnitude' assigned to them. Likewise, various types of mobs have a magnitude of mezz-resistance. So if you use Dominate on a minion, the minion will have a mezz-resistance of 1, dominate has a magnitude 3 hold, the mob is easily held. Likewise a LT. which has a mezz resistance of 2. However a Boss, with a mezz resistance of 3 will resist dominate's mag-3 hold effect. So, how do you hold bosses? well, anything with a magnitude more than 3 will hold a boss. Unfortunately only Mesmerize fits this description (which is one power more than most control sets).
Further, magnitudes from various attacks can 'stack up' on the target. If you Dominate a boss twice (mag 3 each time), then the magnitude of hold adds up to 6, easily defeating the boss's mag 3 mezz resistance. Now, magnitudes can stack between different powers and even between different players... BUT only within their category 'hold', 'sleep', 'disorientation(stun)', 'imobilization', 'confuse', etc. So Confuse + Dominate will have no effect, as both mag-3 mezz's are resisted in their own categories by the boss's mag 3 resistance. However Total Domination + Dominate stacks to magnitude 6 and will hold the boss. Or Confuse + Mass Confusion, or 2 consecutive Dominate's, orr your Dominate and a Fire/ controller teammate's Char, etc.
Essentially the holds are applied for their duration whether they affect the mob or not. But they only take effect if they add up to more magnitude than the target's mezz resistance. So if you Dominate a boss, then come back to it 10 seconds later and dominate it again. The hold will take effect, but only for the overlapping chunk of time where the remainder of the first hold is stacking with the second hold. When the first hold's time runs out, the boss will break free of the hold. The boss will still have a bit of time left on the second dominate though, so his resistance to mezz will be tied up in staving off that second hold for an additional 10 seconds (until that second dominate wears off).
Now, mobs also have varying resistances to various types of mezz's in terms of how long the mezz will last on the mob. This is really a sort of second form of mezz resistance. Types of bosses which have very high "mezz resistances" in terms of decreasing the duration of mezz effects on them, will be frustrating to keep held. They'll require frequent attention if your mezzing powers are still at base values as far as their duration goes. This makes slotting to increase the length of time on your mezz effects fairly important in late game pve play. As the various villainous scum you face will become increasingly resistant to staying mezzed for very long.
Ok, now on to the actual powersets :
Mind - This set comes with a serious amount of raw control power. The only other set which can compete with Mind for raw control capability is Earth control. Mind control offers one significant advantage which I've not found in any other control set though... Mind control can be used to hold mobs without taking any 'alpha' damage. Alpha damage is the damage which the 'first character to attack a group of mobs' gets hit with as he's the sole target for the whole spawn initially.
Now on a team with a tank (or appropriately slotted keldian), this is not a very big deal, since typically the tank will go in first, get beat silly, and then controllers and healers will save him. Unless he's a stone tank, in which case you can just eat a sandwhich and wait for the mobs to die of exhaustion. Without a tank, a team is usually forced to depend on a scrapper or some other archetype to tank for them. This person in the lead can get killed a lot if they're not tough enough.
But all of that is not even an issue with a mind controller on the team. You can make a spawn of mobs utterly helpless before the rest of the team even catches up with you, and you can do it without getting hurt.
So without further adieu, a rundown of the
mind control powers:
Mesmerize - A single target 'sleep' attack. In most sets, people skip the single target imob or single target sleep. Its utility is simply not all that great. However, Mesmerize is at least 'somewhat tempting' to take, particularly at lower levels. It does modest damage (equal to dominate). It has a 100ft range. Which is longer than most opponents in pvp, and longer than some mob types can retaliate from. The sleep effect is mag 3.5, which is strong enough to sleep a boss in one hit. The cast time is relatively quick at 1.67 seconds. The recharge is fast, with a base of 6s, end result usually less than half that. And the duration is nearly a full minute (at least before taking into acount a mob's "mezz-durration" resistance). That makes it 'fairly strong' as single target 'soft' control powers go.
It can be used to pull a spawn from a safe distance, and then duck around a corner (classic corner pull). Then wait for the mobs to come and stack up nice & tight, at the corner where they can see you again. Since it can sleep a boss, it makes it tempting to sleep the boss in a spawn from a safe distance, then corner pull all the Lt's and minions. Then use an AoE control on them, and just let your team fight with them there. Then you can go take out the boss at your liesure. It makes you an ideal 'puller' on low level teams.
At higher levels (and with some uncanny coordinating skills) you can pull in this fashion, and then let a tank taunt the mobs when they are about halfway to your corner pull. That way as the mobs round the corner they won't be thinking about how easily they can kill you before the stragglers arrive making a nice tight group. Instead they'll be pounding on the tank. And when the last few catch up, you click your AoE control, and voila, everything's held. The boss held by a sleep "over there"(tm), and the rest held at the corner in a tight clump. This of course may be too much to expect from a PUG, as many seem to not understand even basic corner pulls.
It is an early source of both damage, and damage mitigation at low levels. If you plan to solo up through the lower levels until you get your AoE hold at 18, then Mesmerize can be a real help. But like many tier one powers it becomes a 'questionable' choice at high levels when so many other powers are available. I could imagine someone keeping it at high levels as a sort of utility tool, with range & accuracy slotted into it. But it wouldn't be especially common.
Levitate - A single target Knock-Up attack. This is one of your stronger single target attacks, and may prove very useful even at 50. The advantages of Levitate are that it does noticeably more damage to damage a single target than Mesmerize, Dominate, and the AOE cone Terrify. It also has a "powerful" knock-up effect. Weaker foes will be tossed by this thing like a rag doll. With slotting even heavy duty foes will find themselves sailing dramatically into the air. The plus side of this is that while mobs are off their feet, they can't attack. There are plenty of other powers in the game which have this effect, but few have it as potently as levitate. Also, since it knocks mobs directly upwards, and then back down again, it does not 'scatter' mobs like most other knockback powers do. It gives you several seconds of reprieve from any attacks from the mob you use it on.
At high levels, slotting some KB into it, you can hurl bosses into the air with it on the first hit... this is an important facet, since it can overcome a boss's resistances in the first hit. This renders that boss temporarily helpless while you build up a magnitude of hold on him. Conversely if you have 2 targets, you can hold one, and keep the other one off his feet for most of the battle with Levitate.
As part of an early level single target cast chain with Dominate and Mesmerize, it doesn't take very long to get a boss locked down and helpless, without taking *any* damage. And nothing in your primary will do more damage to a single target. By late level, given that you 'must' take either Mesmerize or Levitate, and that Levitate does respectable damage while simultaneously greatly mitigating the enemy's ability to hurt you, its a hard power to dislike.
I personally have this power 6-slotted with the kinetic crash IO set on my 50. It has incredibly good set bonuses, and for those of you with a calculator handy, it brings the knock-up effect to magnitude 32.5 (that's not a typo, and its more with power boost). I've seen weaker mobs take 'fall damage' on top of what the attack itself does. And it's dreadfully fun to throw mobs around so dramatically.
Dominate - Single target 'hold' attack. This is your bread & butter for single targets. It will hold Lt's & minions in one hit. It does damage (same amount as mesmerize & terrorize). It's perfect to stack onto bosses after using total domination (the second hold effect brings the magnitude up to 6, holding those pesky bosses). Unlike Mesmerize, mobs you hit with this will stay helpless regardless of taking damage. It's probably the 3rd best power in the set for doing dmg, after terrorize & levitate. Terrorize does more damage by virtue of being an AOE (area of effect) hitting many targets at once, and Levitate just does more up front single target damage. But neither of those powers hold a mob totally helpless like Dominate does.
Its a vital power at lower levels, and at higher levels most builds will end up keeping it. On my 50 it's 6 slotted, 5 IO's from the thunderstrike set, and 1 Hold enhancement. Its uses are as a single target attack for damage & holding, to hold 'stragglers' and 'runners' in a battle, or to stack magnitude on bosses/elite bosses after total domination. As part of a cast chain with levitate, you can keep a 'hard' target incapacitated very nicely while doing damage to it.
The number one thing you will use it for (in team based pve) will be as an attack immediately following Total domination, to lock down bosses. So you'll want to identify the bosses prior to engaging the enemy.
Confuse - A single target 'confuse' power. First thing you'll notice about confuse, is that it does no damage. Second thing you'll notice about confuse is that it also does not create any 'aggro' (which is to say that confused mobs and their friends will not think to turn & attack you). This can be a useful low level way of weakening mobs before a battle. If you use confuse on a boss, twice, before the fighting starts, then the boss will turn on his friends. This removes him from being a pest when casting Total Domination.
Conversely, using confuse 'once' on the boss in a group, immediately prior to, or immediately after, casting Mass Confusion, will make the whole group fully incapacitated very quickly, again without drawing any 'aggro'.
Used on sky raider force field generators, you can simply steal the defensive effect to benefit your own team, instead of the mobs. Used on rikti guardians, they'll heal & buff your team for a short while. Used around an AV, you can thin out the 'adds' prior to the battle. Used on mobs with debuff powers, they'll debuff their fellow mobs helping your team to wipe them out more easily. It doesn't draw any 'aggro', so if you see a 'support class' type mob in any grouping, its an ideal thing to confuse just prior to pretty much 'any' style of team attack.
The confuse effect duration is 'significantly' longer than dominate's hold duration, which can make it useful for building up & maintaining very high magnitudes of mezz effect. There's 101 spot uses for this power, its a very unique tool. I'd highly recommend getting this power at low level when it will be of the greatest use, and thoroughly experimenting with it before deciding if it will end up in your high level spec. It can be very helpful for soloing difficult missions at any level. Slotting priorities should be accuracy & recharge, with confuse duration as an afterthought.
**a word about 'confuse' powers and xp loss. Damage done to other mobs by your confused targets WILL detract from the xp gained when your team kills those damaged mobs. However confuse does not take away xp in a 1:1 ratio like 'killstealing' does. The amount of xp lost follows a curved graph, such that minor mob-to-mob damage has an almost negligible effect on xp, and the amount of xp loss doesn't start to become very noticeable until you surpass about 50% of the mob's health (via mob-to-mob dmg). Past 50%, the amount of xp loss ramps up dramatically, resulting in zero xp for a mob defeated 'entirely' by another mob.
Now, most people who feel that confuse 'nerfs' xp are not crunching the numbers all that well, or are simply way out of date. A long long time ago, when confuse did 1:1 xp loss to damage by other mobs, it DID nerf xp to a degree. But with the current 'curved' gradation of xp loss, letting mobs beat on each other can effectively give you 'some' of the xp for damage which your team didn't even do, as long as you are inflicting around 60-90% of the damage to kill mobs. Taking the TIME a battle takes into consideration, just further emphasizes the "xp per minute" BENEFITS which using confuse powers has on your xp gain.
If however, the mobs are very very tough, and they tend to do really large amounts of damage to each other before your team can do much damage to them... then confuse IS nerfing your xp... but... als saving your team form a probable wipe and all that debt & travel time. So don't let anybody trash talk your confuse powers while you're out there making hard missions quick & easy for them, ok?
Enough said, moving on...**
Mass Hypnosis - A targeted AOE 'sleep' power. Ah, your first AOE... at low level this can be a rather useful power (depending on the size of your team). Solo or paired up with 1 or 2 friends who do *not* have AOE attacks, mass hypnosis will make everything seem so very easy. And on larger teams or teams which have any amount of AoE damage dealing powers, mass hypnosis will [u]on the surface[u] seem quite useless.
Unlike Mesmerize, mass hypnosis does no damage, and garners no 'aggro'. You can cast it on a group of mobs, and anything you don't hit won't even be alerted of your presence. This aspect of it is the saving grace of the power, and makes it into a powerful utillity.
At low level (its available at lvl 8) you may find it to be of some use, a lot of use if soloing. At more intermediate levels it may seem like it does little more than flash arrow, in that you can sleep one spawn out of two nearby spawns so that you don't accidentally aggro the second spawn, since they're happily snoozing. Useful, but not 'very'.
However, at 18 you'll suddenly find Mass Hypnosis to be very useful. Welcome to phase 1 of aggro-less aoe controlling. At 18 you'll get Total Domination (which we'll be discussing in a bit). What does this have to do with mass hypnosis? Well, Total domination is something you can cast on a group of mobs to hold them nice & tight while your team rushes in to beat them up...
However, total domination causes 'aggro'. So any mobs which the power 'misses', plus all bosses and elite bosses, will all 'shoot back' and all of them directly at you. Further, many mob types seem to be able to get off a retaliatory attack before the hold effect locks them down (again 'alpha damage'). These types of mobs can be 'brutal' to a controller who doesn't have a tank on the team.
But not so with mass hypnosis. it puts the mobs to sleep, it has excellent accuracy, recharge, and endurance cost. All you need to slot in it is a single accuracy enhancement. And if you cast Mass Hypnosis and *then* Total Domination... you will notice a pretty impressive difference in how much 'response' comes your way. With Mass Hypnosis, Total Domination becomes really impressive, as you can use the pairing without taking much at all in the way of 'alpha damage'.
If you have another controller on your team, you can offer to 'mass hyp' the mobs before they use their aoe control as well, thus protecting them from alpha damage as well. It's a very handy thing. It does however require that you explain to your team what you're doing, so that they don't rush in prematurely.
And, if you have a group of mobs confused, which is an effective control mezz, you can cast mass hypnosis on them to make them sit tight and not damage each other until the team arrives to beat them down.
Further... When using Mass Confusion, you'll want a means to set up containment (remember that confuse powers don't grant 'containment'), so casting mass confuse, then total hypnosis will make your Terrify attack hit with about double damage compared to using mass confuse by itself.
And... (yes there's even more uses) you can cast mass hypnosis on a group of mobs which you intend to ensnare with your telekinesis ability. This keeps the mobs quiet docile & stationary until they are actually caught up in the telekinesis effect, and by then its really too late for them to do much about it.
So, this early and seemingly weak power is really just a late bloomer which is of significant use at higher levels. Available at level 8, if you don't solo much, I'd put it off until lvl 12. You won't really need it until you get Total Domination at 18, but its hard to fit powers into the teens & 20's in mind/storm. Basically, between mass hypnosis and 'Hasten', you'll want to take one or both of the two in the 6-12 range, since after that, there's not a lot of room for things until the late 20's. I know Hasten is fantastic and all, but personally I find Hasten a more pleasurable power to take in the 20's after getting Stamina, and being at a level were 3 slots of enchancements will actually make it be 'in effect' much of the time. Anyway, mind/storm is very 'thick' with desirable powers in the middle levels, so that means taking mass hypnosis either very early or very late. I would recommend taking it though, at some point.
Slotting is as simple as putting a single accuracy enhancement in it.
Telekinesis - Now here's a seldom seem power which has amazing potential in the right hands. In my opinion (over the course of various game issue releases) I think that Telekinesis doesn't work as potently as it used to. It's still very nice if used well though. There is a guide devoted entirely to using Telekinesis 'well' here (and it really deserves an entire guide unto itself): http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....&PHPSESSID=
The linked guide also contains some info on other mind powers, but some of the info is out of date. There is some good info in there though. If you've never played a controller, then you'll want to read all of that other thread as well as this one.
The very extensive bit on telekinesis, is a masterful work, complete with step-by-step pictures. Read it especially for the information on how to *use* telekinesis. Telekinesis is a 'very high' skill level power. Using it well can be daunting for anyone amateur to the game, or even for an experienced veteran. Out of all the powers in mind and storm, this will have the steepest learning curve to use the power well. To be honest, i've had it for quite some time, and I'm still not great at it.
There are a few situations where it can work especially well with other powers, i'll mention that in those other powers. Its a quirky unusual power which is a signature unique trait for the mind set. Its worth at the very least trying it out.
This power is an amazing endurance hog though, so although it can be an early powerful form of control at level 12, you might not even want to mess with it until after you get stamina. And in mind storm, you WILL be getting stamina.
Slotting is easy, it'll want 2-3 end reducers.
Total Domination - Area Of Effect 'hold' power. Ok, now you are finally a real controller. This is the all important lvl 18 aoe hold power. Get it. At level 18. Seriously, if you wanted to play a controller, this power is what you've been leveling up to get. Enemies have reason to fear you now. With this power you perform a lobotomy to a whole group of mobs all at once. Lt's and Minions will be left cross eyed and drooling (menacingly) at you, while your team beats them to the floor.
If you have it, use Mass Hypnosis first, to soften them up without drawing their attention, then hit them with Total Domination. The mobs would be saying "game over man, game over!" except they can't talk after what you've done to them. 18+ teams will suddenly start saying things like "hey maybe we should look for a controller".
Just get this power, at 18, regardless of playstyle, and then 6 slot it, right away. It needs accuracy, recharge, and hold, as much as you can possibly cram in there. It badly needs all 3.
Terrify - AoE-Cone 'fear' attack. After Total Domination, this is the next power in mind control which you should be just dying to get. Used properly it does a LOT of damage.
Damage-wise, it's like hitting the mobs with mesmerize or dominate, but ALL of them, at once. If the mobs are 'held' or 'slept' then you'll do about double damage to them all. If the mobs are 'held' and on top of a freezing rain patch, you'll do about 2.3 times damage.
The fear effect is powerful too. Feared mobs will stand & tremble they will not attack unless they are attacked, and even then they'll return to trembling after their counterattack.
Inside an AOE kill zone, they will spend zero time trembling, since they're bing hit by effects such as your own freezing rain, which does almost constant damage to them. But with more scattered mobs, the fear effect can help tame them down a bit.
It can also make certain types of mobs run like a man with a sandwhich at an eithiopian market, but its usually not a problem. If it is causing 'runners', then just be careful where you aim it and try to only hit mobs which you've otherwise controlled/slowed, so they stick around.
This power benefits significantly from increased range, as the area of effect is much larger if the cone is longer. However, it also benefits greatly from damage procs. since it can hit up to 16 targets, and at late levels it recharges fast enough to use twice in a battle. That's a lot of proc 'chances' to strike targets. Terrify and Freezing Rain will be the 2 powers in mind/storm which benefit best from any 'chance to proc' IO's. I have my terrify 6 slotted with 5 positron's blast (all but the dmg/end one), and with 1 lady gray's chance to do dmg. This gives it max dmg, 2 dmg proc IO's, good recharge & accuracy, and a bit more range. Terrify, slotted & used well, can be the most damaging thing in your build in team pve play.
Take note that there are 3 different situations a battle can be in, relative to how you'll use terrify.
1. On confused targets (via mass confusion) which are not yet under attack otherwise, you can use mass hypnosis to set up containment, and then cut loose with terrify for 2x dmg, do not freezing rain as it will break your sleep and ruin containment prematurely.
2. On confused targets which are being bombarded by damaging effects, which would break sleep instantly, just put freezing rain under them before using terrify, your dmg will be about 1.3x normal.
3. And on mobs which are held by total domination (setting up containment) go ahead and put freezing rain underneath (since it'll break sleep but it won't break the 'hold' power) and then hit the mobs with terrify for about 2.3x damage.
Also, it's helpful to target the 'furthest' mob from you which you want to hit. Then move until it is centered behind the group of mobs. And then click terrify, and move closer until it 'goes off'. This will ensure that you get the best coverage. The cone is fairly wide, so you don't need to line targets up in a row to get the most of it.
Mass Confusion - I've seen numerous guides trashtalk this power, but I think a lot of that owes to outdated information and misconceptions about how confuse effects xp gain (see above info on that). Mass Confusion is your 'other' powerful AOE control ability.
Use it as a control power, just like total domination, but without any need to prep the mobs with mass hypnosis. Mass confusion, like mass hyp and single target confuse is aggro-less, so you can make the mobs 'not do damage' to your team without drawing any punishing return fire (alpha damage). Used this way, its simply another way to make mobs relatively helpless while you mow them down. This is plenty reason enough to take it.
Having mass confusion means that in a team play situation, you can go from spawn to spawn, battle to battle, and you can have a 'aoe control' power ready for every single battle. Just alternate Mass Confusion every other battle with Total Domination, and you're ready for the next mob group every 40-60 seconds.
If you're on a team with another controller, let them use their AoE hold in alternation with your Total Domination. Use mass hypnosis to protect both of you if you're running without a tank. And keep Mass confusion in your pocket for any emergencies.
In a 'bad' situation, you can cast mass confusion to 'turn the tide' of the battle. On a team in a 'near-wipe' situation, adding mass confusion (if the recharge timer is up) to the battle can turn things around DRAMATICALLY. Suddenly a sizeable number of mobs are attacking each other. Not just held and removed from battle, but actively helping your teammates to win the fight.
If mass confusion's recharge is up, and someone types 'split!', you can just respond with 'I got this. Go to the other battle!'. Actually I have a macro which says that in local chat. Its pretty impressive to be able to use that macro, and mean it.
And solo? well, you can stealth missions, mass confuse the final boss group, let them thin themselves out a bit, then flatten them with your attacks, and go to the next mission. And pvp? Its the best way in the game to make a mastermind cry. In my opinion, Mass confusion is a worthy tier 9 power, and I'd never pass lvl 32 by without getting it. Slotting? 6 slots, put in the Purple confusion set. Its amazingly cheap, I managed to 6slot my character with the purple confuse set for about 30 million (which isn't much at lvl 50). Great set bonuses, and the contagious confusion can help mezz bosses for you. While leveling up, mass confusion desperately needs recharge and accuracy, much like total domination. But less desperately needs additional 'confuse', since it has a longer base mezz duration than TD.
Items worth mentioning :
- 'hold' powers benefit telekinesis by stacking magnitude on its hold effect, helping ensure nothing breaks out (freakshow tanks for example like to slip out of TK and that basically de-toggles it).
- know what to do with freezing rain & mass hypnosis to get the most out of terrify in any given situation.
- telekinesis takes PRACTICE to use well, spend some time reading the linked guide, and some time in a lower level zone just playing with it. Personally I find it more useful indoors than outside. If you can't get the hang of it, then you're probably doing it right
Remember, Your job as a mind controller is to make tanks feel totally useles..err i mean "totally unharmed" until you get to an AV fight
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge