Mind control is very good at AoE control, actually. The thing is that only Plant is actually good at AoE control in very early levels - everyone else has to wait. (I'm probably forgetting another set with a good early AoE control, but Plant is the one that jumps out as being strong early.) Once you get Terrify you can use that every spawn, and Mass Confuse, Total Domination, and Mass Hypnosis are all there for when you need something more than that. I'm not very experienced with Sonic, but being bad at area control is mainly a problem with your level - Mind Control is one of the better area-control sets once it has its powers in place, in my opinion.
I was paired up with an earth controller. Maybe I didn't notice the level difference. Seems like earth had a nice aoe around my level.
And yes I'm wondering if the pairing of Sonic and Mind Control was a bad idea for some reason I can't see yet.
no hard controls with Mind but mind is strong damage. What I think pairs really well with mind is Rad or Trick Arrow, with TA being better then the 2. nice holds from those secondaries to overcome Minds main weakness.
And suggestions about power sets? I remember years ago I think people usually took fitness or was it speed?
Only issue with Mind/Sonic is that you don't have a pet to cast Disruption Field on if you plan to solo. Would recommend the fitness pool, as /Sonic has two end-sucking toggles.
Mind/Sonic is a nice (but rare) combination. (see sig.) Its very clicky, though. Yes stamina is recommended and I would also take hasten. You can still fit in a travel power but mind/sonic is a pretty tight build, yet flexible in direction you take.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
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no hard controls with Mind but mind is strong damage.
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..Hold and Confuse aren't hard controls?
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no hard controls with Mind but mind is strong damage. What I think pairs really well with mind is Rad or Trick Arrow, with TA being better then the 2. nice holds from those secondaries to overcome Minds main weakness.
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This poster clearly doesn't know anything about Mind Control.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
Mind gets the AOE sleep early. It is invaluable. You can sleep a mob then pick em off at your leisure. When you get terrify its containment AOE damage is perfect for this.
Sonic will help you overcome some of the later trapings. You get a really good -res power from start. Mind has some of the best single target damage capabilities. Sonic siphon also helps with those mobs that resist your main damage types (Smashing/Psi).
Sleep the mob. Hit one with your hold, sonic siphon, lift/mesmerize. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Teaming, your AOE sleep is largely useless. Terrify is even better on teams tho.
You don't much AOE control becuase you have 4 of the best single target controls. Your AOE is very late blooming and I can see the feeling of man that controller has better AOe controls but no other controller has the ability to single out a tough mob and make him your play thing.
Sleep (with good damage)
Confuse
Levitate (KU mitigates and does nice damage)
Hold
Those cover every situational mob in the game.
Someone has a really good guide on various tactics with mind. You should check it out.
Get Stamina from the Fitness pool, and Hasten from the Speed pool. Chances are thats what you heard before.
Mass Confusion and Total Domination (your best AoE controls) are on a 240 second timer.
Liquefy (a very nice Sonic Debuff) is on a 300 sec timer. You want these back up as often as possible, which is where Hasten comes in. Stamina will be needed to run Sonic's Disruption Field and Sonic Dispersion as well as attacking and controlling.
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You don't much AOE control becuase you have 4 of the best single target controls.
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No. You are Mind Control, you lack a PET, and in exchange you are THE BEST at BOTH single target AND AoE Control.
Mesmerize (Mag 3.5, works on bosses and purple triangle AVs)
Dominate
Confuse (Doesn't cause aggro)
Levitate
Mass Hypnosis (Doesn't cause aggro, Huge area)
Terrify (Long duration, short recharge, Huge area)
Total Domination
Mass Confusion (Doesn't cause aggro, Huge area)
Telekinesis (Autohit, with good slotting can be left running for long periods of time, useful for positioning mobs for followup AoEs)
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
For pools, you can try flight; Hover is great for finding JUST the right guy to set your AoEs on for maximum effect, and it's really fun to Levitate, then Air-sup a hapless minion!
I'll also second (or third or w/e) the suggestion for Hasten. The only thing that Mind needs a hand with is recharge.
Sadly, I don't know much about Sonic, other than its -res powers will greatly improve your already-good damage.
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
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I love the concept of my character, but for example, one thing that bugs me is I can only control one or 2 things, while other controllers are able to control several things. I've tried controlling the strays to feel useful.
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First of all, if you like the concept so much, don't worry too much how uber it is. Second, if you are only controlling 1, or 2 things, pick up more from the Mind primary. /sonic isn't that needy of a secondary so load up on Mind and then sub in /sonic when you get the chance. You could easily have 4 powers from Mind by level 8.
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I was paired up with an earth controller. Maybe I didn't notice the level difference. Seems like earth had a nice aoe around my level.
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Since you haven't reached your teens, Ice, or Earth really haven't taken off yet. Earth has Quicksand which a AoE slow, but it's not that super awesome. Ice has AA, but it's a beast on the blue bar that early. Again, by level 8 you could have four separate controls where you basically bounce back and forth between guys locking down as many as possible.
Also note you are comparing Mind with two of the best control sets. If you were saying you felt like you were being out done by Ill and Grav then something would be up.
FTR, /sonic is highly undervalued and Mind is somewhere in my top 3 favorite sets for controllers. It will make you work your butt off if you really want to become good at it. Compare this to Earth where I feel like I could go on auto-pilot and still come off as an AoE control monster. It pretty much has a control for any situation. It's knowing when to use what that will make it effective.
Have to disagree here. Mind is not the best at AOE control. You have 5 AOE controls but 2 are on really long timers. 1 is useless on teams.
Sorry but this has been debated to eternity and back. Mind has good AOE capabilities but it is not the best by a long shot. It has great tools and great damage.
Don't want to hijack this thread, but there is a great discussion on the matter of lock down power.
For the OP once you get your stride and learn how to switch mobs. You will feel obscenely powerful don't let how other sets appear dissuade you. You have a lot of wonderful tools it just takes some trial and error to figure out how they work for your style.
I agree that sonic can be light on power selection which grants you more flexibility with your primary. Slot up your sonic siphon. It will make your hard hitting attacks that much better and you'll find that enemies simply melt.
There is no such thing has a gimped controller pairing, on gimped thinking on how to bring it together.
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Have to disagree here. Mind is not the best at AOE control. You have 5 AOE controls but 2 are on really long timers. 1 is useless on teams.
Sorry but this has been debated to eternity and back. Mind has good AOE capabilities but it is not the best by a long shot. It has great tools and great damage.
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So wait, it has 3 AoE powers that aren't on long recharges. It has 4 AoE powers that aren't useless on teams(shakes head at Mass Hyp being useless on a team) and it doesn't even come close to being the best AoE control set?
(walks away mumbling)
Mind control was the only set I couldn't get to work and finally gave up on so it is arguably a question of play style as to how well you can make each set perform. This is a very old, long running debate and it's very unlikely to be settled here.
As to the OPs original questions, both Mental and DrMike had good advice.
I've seen mind outperform everything. I've seen everything (cept grav :P) outperform mind.
PIBCAK.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
I've not played mind/sonic, but I've played a LOT of mind, and a grav/sonic. A few notes.
As for what's been said here so far-- the "hard" control thing is a confusion not about the game but about terminology. Hard and soft vs partial and total have never been well defined. I tried to force definitions, but meh.
Mind isn't really exceptional with AoE control-- matter of fact, as feeble as Terrify (without acc debuff) is as a control, Mind is low/mid-range in terms of AoE control (Grav and Illusion are weaker). OTOH, for AoE effects that are readily broken-- which can be good for managing aggro but isn't the same as a nice in-combat control, it does pretty well with Mass Hypnosis and Terrify.
Also of note, Mind doesn't root (make controlled mobs reist knockback), and it doesn't have much that's good for regularly setting AoE containment. It doesn't have anything quite comparable to the standard AoE Immobs, IOW.
Mind is very good ST damage and ST control, and it's very good at delivering aggro-free mitigation, thanks to Confuse and Mass confusion. Those are its strong points.
ST control can be useful in teams, but controller-level ST damage is much less so. For teaming, mind frankly just doesn't have a whole lot, and what it has is mostly defensive.
When you pair that with something very team- and defense-oriented like FF, Empathy or Sonic, you run the risk of backing yourself into a corner where to be relevant, you need a team full of gung-ho blasters or something. And sadly you can't even throw the sonic disruption bit, or your bubbles, on a pet.
Reckless teams with short attention spans, e.g., pickup groups, will probably love you to the extent they realize what you contribute. Some people find that frustrating.
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
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no hard controls with Mind but mind is strong damage. What I think pairs really well with mind is Rad or Trick Arrow, with TA being better then the 2. nice holds from those secondaries to overcome Minds main weakness.
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Mind has Dominate (a fairly quick recharge ST Hold), Confuse, TK (Anchored AoE Hold + repel), Mass Domination (AoE Hold), and Mass Confusion.
In contrast, Plant and Illusion have 3, and the rest have 4.
A lack of control powers is NOT Mind's weakness.
I created a Mind Control/Sonic controller recently.
I couldn't find much information about them. What I was looking for is if there is a preference when it comes to choosing the additional power pools?
For instance if there is one pool that is a staple for this type of controller?
I tried asking in game, but was really surprised no one had any opinions.
Sometimes popular choices are popular for a reason (powerful, easy to play, easy to find groups, etc.) But sometimes unpopular choices are unpopular for a reason as well.
I'm wondering if my choice of MC/Sonic was a bad one for reasons I can see yet? I haven't even reached my teens obviously.
I love the concept of my character, but for example, one thing that bugs me is I can only control one or 2 things, while other controllers are able to control several things. I've tried controlling the strays to feel useful.
Are there other things similar, that are going to make me regret my choice down the line.