Mind/Emp vs Ill/Emp

Hi, Controllers.

I have a Mind/Emp Controller, my only Controller so far (and probably for the foreseeable future, since I don't plan to make new characters anytime soon). The other day, it occurred to me that I could reroll her as an Ill/Emp, which would offer much better damage and ability to absorb alpha strikes, the ability to do some pretty amazing stuff with a perma-PA build, better personal survivability with SI, and a pet I could use buffs on.

Rerolling is going to be very costly, especially in terms of time spent accolading and levelling to 50. I don't want to do this unless the result will be significantly better. That said, given a perma-PA build, is Ill/ going to be much better, damage-wise (both ST and AoE)? How solid is the control compared to a high-recharge Mind alternating between Total Dom and Mass Confusion? I can't think of anything from Mind/ that I would miss a lot on an Ill/Emp, except probably Mesmerize.

I should note that I skipped Levitate on my current build, if it matters.

Have you worked out how you would achieve Perma PA on a Ill/Emp?

Perma PA on a /emp is just... waste...

but still, Illu/emp is better than mind, more soft control (PA, Spectral Terror), free invisibility that you can just sit back and heal people while no one notices you, and you don't need to pick stealth to combo with TP if you want to be full useful.

You can have 4 power pools:
Fitness
Hasten/SS
Recall Friend
Leadership

(or tp instead of SS))

As for epic pool, I'd take primal forces for Power Boost, (which is nice with Flash for emergency, or with vengeance, that can turn the tides of battle completely if your tank dies, making everyone close to def cap! )

Because honestly, if get so close to perma PA, means you had to use ALOT of epics, and alot of influence...
Well, I don't know about you, but use so much money on a character that will be mostly built for your team... isn't worth it...

I am a bit selfish, I'd go as a Illu/rad instead, at least I could solo GM's, with less money, and still be loved by my teammates :P

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This is the build I made, with recall friend and leadership, and powerboost.

63 sec recharge on PA, and yep, this build has no travel power, you'd have to buy the jetpack and use it as travel ^^ (which is not much of a bother in my opnion.)



------- Edit ----------


Found a good between the usefulness debuffs of a /rad with the lovely buffs of a /emp, your team will love you, and the AVs will still phear you!!

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/thermal is awesome ^^

You could go for a nice concept as well as /thermal, like a burning ghost or something you can buff your phantasm to look like a nice burning huge ghost!

Fireball will help a bit, not much, but it's still fun for concept, you could switch to fireblast for a better ST chain against enemies: Blind/SW/Fireblast

Ill/Emp is easier than Mind/Emp to play. Drop pets, buff, heal, done.

You don't need perma PA on an Ill/Emp, spectral terror works well as an opener 90% of the time and lets not kid ourselves here, you are not going to be an AV soloing champ even with perma PA. But if you do end up getting perma PA that means you can also rotate your buffs faster. With that level of recharge you can probably put fort on at least 5 people at any given time.

You can fort 7 with perma PA, fort will be down to 16-17 seconds recharge.

Thanks for all your input. I'm kind of limited by concept - only Mind and Illusion work as primaries, only Emp works as a secondary and the only APPs that make sense for the character are Psi and Power. And I like playing Emp, too.

I will probably end up rerolling into Illusion in the end, although I'm pretty burnt out on levelling characters now.

I remember taking my Mind/Emp to 50. I can imagine being burnt out on it too.

I'll just point out one or two things that I think address some of your questions. Illusion is genrally stronger than Mind, and considering Empathy's a good small-team (or pet!) buffing set with no special synergy with Mind, I think it's largely a given that Ill/Emp would be a substantial improvement. OTOH, though I realize Illusion pets throw torrent now and again, which puts a little AoE in Illusion, but I doubt that's significantly better than damage-optimized Terrify (which is itself not exactly a feast of AoE damage.) Neither set has meaningful AoE damage-- certainly nothing on par with Fire and Plant.

Last, I think you'd have some adjusting to do in terms of going from MC & TD to PA, Flash, Spectral Terror. I don't think one of those two is head-and-shoulders above the other, but they'll play quite differently, even if they're not far apart in effective mitigation.

I didn't think a consistent perma PA was achievable and quite frankly its perma PA or bust. If you can't get it you may as well not gimp some part of the build getting it. The build cost is too extreme trying. I had in my head an 8 sec shortfall not being as overly expensive as you and if you are going to fall short then you may as well fall short by more, having the build right. There should always be atleast a couple of alternative ideas to count on when perma is required, so perma isn't the be all and end all for anyone.