1. Team.
2. Patience. Any combination can solo on challenge level 1.
3. Leverage containment.
With that said, illusion and fire control (and maybe gravity) do respectable damage at low levels. Add in a secondary with -res (sonic, rad, storm) and you solo very easily.
It is easy, you slot your single target powers for damage and make use of containment.
I kill minions in one pass of dominate -> mesmerize -> levitate, providing I setup initial containment with mass hypnosis.
I've soloed throughout my mind controllers career and it is both fast and risk free. The only weakness is endurance. Oh and boredom, I like to throw in a confuse so that I can remember what the enemies actually do when not sleeping or held.
As mentioned I use superior invisibility to sneak inside a mission. I confuse an entire mob and then decloak, as it were, to help them beat on one another. Eventually it's down to one minion that happily stands there. head glowing purple with a goofy look on his face, while I finish him off.
Get's even more fun once you pick up your Phantom Army since you can confuse the mob and then send in the PA to wipe out the entire group. I have gone entire missions, solo on heroic of course,without ever taking a single hitpoint of damage.
Oh add Plant controllers to that list as well..... not as sneaky and require different tactics but once everything is immobilized, held, and confused you can practically stand back and watch them slowly get strangled into submission.. still soling with her at level 39. 
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This really depends on what type of Controller you are.
In general, most damage is going to be coming from the Mag 3 hold that all controllers get. For many sets, its best to use it after establishing containment with a "cage" power.
Illusion, Mind, and Gravity all get single target attacks that do decent-ish damage.
Fire has an inherent damage advantage.
Plant, Mind and Illusion all get a Confuse power by level 8.
Ice and Earth are the two trickiest early on. For these sets, plan on picking a melee attack as a pre-req for your travel power (Air Superiority, Flurry, or Jump Kick).
I slot my single target immob for damage, and pick up a pool attack. Air superiority is nice. Generally, however, I prefer teaming, because I find soloing a controller boring (even after pets).
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This really depends on what type of Controller you are.
In general, most damage is going to be coming from the Mag 3 hold that all controllers get. For many sets, its best to use it after establishing containment with a "cage" power.
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I'd say it's best to do the opposite. First you use the hold, then the "cage" ( immobilisation, slotted for damage ).
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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I'd say it's best to do the opposite. First you use the hold, then the "cage" ( immobilisation, slotted for damage ).
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You can do this, but you sacrifice the Containment bonus you'd get for caging first. It probably depends on how much you fear the retaliation of the mob.
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I'd say it's best to do the opposite. First you use the hold, then the "cage" ( immobilisation, slotted for damage ).
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You can do this, but you sacrifice the Containment bonus you'd get for caging first. It probably depends on how much you fear the retaliation of the mob.
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If you are Mind Control you can start every fight with Mass Hypnosis for a nice blanket containment. Very useful, and does not aggro either. ;-)
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I'd say it's best to do the opposite. First you use the hold, then the "cage" ( immobilisation, slotted for damage ).
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You can do this, but you sacrifice the Containment bonus you'd get for caging first. It probably depends on how much you fear the retaliation of the mob.
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Uh, no you don't. Holds set up Containment just like Immobilizations do.
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Holds set up Containment just like Immobilizations do.
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This actually revealed something to me when I went to test the numbers. Not that both Immobilize and Hold set up Containment (they do, of course), but that Damage-Over-Time abilities base their containment flag off whether the mob was contained the moment when the power was fired, not when the damage actually procs, as I had always assumed. This makes the situation somewhat more complicated to calculate.
The main thing about containment and maximizing damage is that you want your least damaging power to be the one that establishes containment, so that you lose as little as possible from the damage dealing powers that follow. Looking at the numbers for the Elemental sets, and only using the first 3 powers in the set, the resulting order of opportunity looks like (depending on which powers you have and don't have):
- AoE Cages, Hold, Single Target Cage
- Hold, Single Target Cage (they do almost the same damage so might as well try for the Hold)
- AoE Cages, Hold
- AoE Cages, Single Target Cage (and then go respec yourself to get the Hold!)
In practice, you wouldn't always do this because 1) this assumes we are only taking damage into account and ignoring safety and 2) you usually end up with better ways to set up Containment anyway.
3 ways to do damage as a controller at the lower and later levels:
1. Team
2. start Illusion/storm, rad, kin
3. Mind control
Thats about it, until you hit 32. everything changes at 32
Most of the people here are forgetting Plant/*.
You get seeds of confusion at level 8, you can have it 3 slotted at 9, 5 slotted at 11, and 6 slotted at level 13.
You can perma it early (level 11 using level 14 confuse set IOs) with 5 slots and then franken slotting confuse IO sets.
Throw seeds of confusion then follow up with roots, the mobs all be come your pets, the damage from roots assures that you get XP, and you can use strangler on any thing you missed with seeds and/or roots.
The AoEs can get kind of expensive on endurance if you have fewer than 3 targets so I always recommend a setting of at least Tenacious as soon as you have seeds perma. You will almost always have 3 mobs per spawn that way.
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I'd say it's best to do the opposite. First you use the hold, then the "cage" ( immobilisation, slotted for damage ).
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You can do this, but you sacrifice the Containment bonus you'd get for caging first. It probably depends on how much you fear the retaliation of the mob.
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Uh, no you don't. Holds set up Containment just like Immobilizations do.
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The only problem with using the hold to set up containment and then using the immobilize to do damage is that the immobilize takes so LONG to do its damage - a 9 second DOT is a long DOT. I find it inefficient and boring to wait that long plus as far as I can tell the single target holds and immobilizes do the same damage, its just that the holds either do it up front or over a shorter time. Yes, you can spam the single target immob faster but at low levels that burns a lot of end that you don't have.
I suspect you are better off using the immobilize to set up containment (either single target or AE) then a hold to lock things down (and do damage) and then taking and slotting up a melee attack to actually finish off targets. I find that air superiority speeds things up considerably and it costs less end for the damage then either your hold or immobilize. Boxing is also a good choice as is jump kick. As an added bonus, both jump kick and AS open up movement powers.
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Early on, most controllers' damage comes from layering their Single Target Immobilize, and their Single Target Hold on an enemy. Mixed with Pool or Veteran attacks, when applicable.
Don't expect to move your difficulty off of Heroic for quite a while. You probably won't have the tools needed to survive a group of more than 3 or 4 enemies until after level 20.
So until then, your tactic is limited to - get containment, and then plaster all that you can onto them.
I'd recommend slotting the Single-target immobilize as an attack... their recharge and duration are good out of the box, so you can concentrate on making it hit and doing as much damage as possible.
The Single Target Hold also has a decent duration and recharge, but Hold Duration will probably make you safer than putting more damage there. If you've got extra slots, though, a Damage or Two here won't be wasted.
Illusions, Mind Control, and Gravity all have direct damage options available to them. If you choose one of these primaries, you'll have a somewhat easier time with the early levels.
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The single target Hold, Air Superiority and vet Sands of Mu is all I need. Very seldom do I pick up the single target Immob. I have the vet Nemesis Staff, but for some reason, its accuracy sucks way more than Sands of Mu to the point where I don't find it reliable at all until I get some +tohit or +acc.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
Mind Control with a resist debuff or damage buff is one of the easiest soloers in the game I think. I didn't even take the aoe sleep on my mind/rad and never felt any need for a pool attack. Mag 4 sleep and levitate slotted for damage, hold slotted normally, and confuse were plenty of damage to take down all the downgraded EB's solo and plenty fast, and those are your first 4 powers in mind.
Each set is going to deal damage differently, so without knowing what you are playing it's really hard to give advice on what to use for damage.
Air Superiority can be a pretty good supplemental source of both Damage and Control. For Ice, Earth, Plant, and Fire the single target Immobilize slotted for damage can help, also slotting a little damage in your single target hold can help.
If you were to say what sets you are playing the advice can be tailored to your character.
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The single target Hold, Air Superiority and vet Sands of Mu is all I need. Very seldom do I pick up the single target Immob. I have the vet Nemesis Staff, but for some reason, its accuracy sucks way more than Sands of Mu to the point where I don't find it reliable at all until I get some +tohit or +acc.
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Or -Defense. There is a lot of -Defense available in the Earth Primary, and in Rad's Radiation Infection, which you can get very early. An Earth/Rad, while having very low damage, has the tools to make those vet attacks hit very reliably. These will make your vet and other attacks hit much more often, which is important in those lower levels before Stamina.
TA has -Defense in Acid Arrow, but that doesn't become available until much later (Level 20 I think). Storm has great -Defense in Freezing Rain, available at 16. Thermal has it very late in the build.
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Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
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Don't expect to move your difficulty off of Heroic for quite a while. You probably won't have the tools needed to survive a group of more than 3 or 4 enemies until after level 20.
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Maybe I'm doing it wrong - but on my current controller (level 9) I set the difficulty to Tenacious for bigger spawn sizes as soon as I grabbed my AoE Immobilize. The ranged attacks on most low level NPCs are pitiful - I drop a few Range TOs into my AoE immob ASAP and sit back beyond the range of most attacks while they die. I'm Plant/Storm and it's working out pretty well. I drop Roots, then if it misses anything I hit it with Strangler and Gale it back into the aoe of Roots.
I made a Grav/Rad and I dont have an issue. I keep things held or immob and just kill them with crushing power.
I am only level 3, but I have a feeling its just gonna get easier.
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Don't expect to move your difficulty off of Heroic for quite a while. You probably won't have the tools needed to survive a group of more than 3 or 4 enemies until after level 20.
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Maybe I'm doing it wrong - but on my current controller (level 9) I set the difficulty to Tenacious for bigger spawn sizes as soon as I grabbed my AoE Immobilize. The ranged attacks on most low level NPCs are pitiful - I drop a few Range TOs into my AoE immob ASAP and sit back beyond the range of most attacks while they die. I'm Plant/Storm and it's working out pretty well. I drop Roots, then if it misses anything I hit it with Strangler and Gale it back into the aoe of Roots.
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In my experience, AoE Immobilizes generate far more aggro then you can really handle without something else backing it up. And you won't always be able to out-range your enemies. some Lost, Clockwork... and about half of Outcasts all can still attack from 80 ft away. Unless you're putting Range enhancements into EVERYTHING... they will be able to attack.
Then there's the detail that Bosses can generate at Tenecious and higher. And a controller has a VERY hard time taking out a boss in the early levels. Especially solo - which is my primary PoV here.
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Don't expect to move your difficulty off of Heroic for quite a while. You probably won't have the tools needed to survive a group of more than 3 or 4 enemies until after level 20.
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Maybe I'm doing it wrong - but on my current controller (level 9) I set the difficulty to Tenacious for bigger spawn sizes as soon as I grabbed my AoE Immobilize. The ranged attacks on most low level NPCs are pitiful - I drop a few Range TOs into my AoE immob ASAP and sit back beyond the range of most attacks while they die. I'm Plant/Storm and it's working out pretty well. I drop Roots, then if it misses anything I hit it with Strangler and Gale it back into the aoe of Roots.
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In my experience, AoE Immobilizes generate far more aggro then you can really handle without something else backing it up. And you won't always be able to out-range your enemies. some Lost, Clockwork... and about half of Outcasts all can still attack from 80 ft away. Unless you're putting Range enhancements into EVERYTHING... they will be able to attack.
Then there's the detail that Bosses can generate at Tenecious and higher. And a controller has a VERY hard time taking out a boss in the early levels. Especially solo - which is my primary PoV here.
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not sure about u guys but i solo'd my ill/ff on invince, and notoriously solo'd every freedom phalanx tf with it on invince other than manticore, i cou'd procur enough damage on hopkins since he had lots of resistances to his buddies attacks.
but my god, earth/storm, thats a conroller combo that makes players and npcs depending on who u use it on actually think about suicide because their so messed up and then they get rick rolled to death.
fire/kin possibly the least powerful combination of controller powers, if anything they should raise the damage cap on controllers by another 300% and then buff the durations of fulcrum shift to last 15 minutes. but hey those are just some of my observations. 
I seriously hope that was a troll.
Careful, DasBert. Don't anger Doctor Grass. He might rick roll you to death.
I team with the Repeat Offenders.
it seems to me that controllers are totally incapable of doing damage as they literally have no damage dealing primary or secondary...until they get pets.
How do you do it?
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