Quicksand

A friend of mine was teaming with me on my Earth/Therm troller, and she asked me which Earth control power I thought was the best. I answered Quicksand, because it has a 25% defense debuff, making just about any other power I use on anything withinin Quicksand's range much more likely to land, which is especially handy when it comes to Stalagmites (due to its low accuracy). Essentially, it's a power that makes all of my other powers almost guaranteed to work, and it helps the less accurate members of any team I'm on, as well.

She had no idea. Apparently she though it was just Glue Arrow for Earth Control.

Anyone else have an experience like this, where their favorite power was kind of poo-pooed because people don't know what it does?

Mass Confusion. For some reason a lot of bossy Tanker types dont realize I can throw it without pulling aggro before they they jump in (I have 100ft invisibility by combining Super Speed, mists, and a Celerity IO), and tell me constantly to get back behind them.

I don't see Insulation Shield from Force Fields being poo-poo'd exactly, but very few people seem to know about its End Drain resistance.
Great against Clockwork in the early levels pre Stamina, Arachnos and Freaks in the middle and Malta and Carnies at the end.

On the other hand, when I'm on a PUG with my FF Defender, I bubble everyone up and then I end up leading the charge, that is a kind of poo-pooing of my Force Fields I suppose.

It is not exactly a favorite power, but I think it is underappreciated: O2 Boost. One power that provides a somewhat weak heal, but also Endurance Drain resistance and mez protection. During a PUG where teammates are falling left and right, a wakie + O2 Boost puts them back in the action much faster. Similarly, Increase Density from Kinetics, which can provide short-term knockback protection and some mez protection.

Phantom Army is underapprecated by anyone other than Illusion Controllers, who know how awesome it is. Phantasm is looked down upon for his knockback, when all he is doing is being the bodyguard he is supposed to be. Deceive is certainly underappreciated.

I rather like Earthquake for a similar reason, most people don't realize it has a tohit debuff in it.

I always thought O2 boost should give back a chunk of endurance (say 25 points.) It makes sense with the concept, and it would make it hugely helpful in the pre-20 levels when everyone is gasping for blue.

I think Smoke is really under-appreciated. The -tohit is nothing amazing, but the -percep is hugely useful. It keeps the imps out of trouble (mostly) and buys you that precious second or two to drop a stun/hold before the enemy can retaliate. Plus it lets you stealth glowies without breaking cover!

I have to agree with Local Man on Phantom Army. Just for example I joined a team fighting AVs with my Ill/Rad the other day, and due to the team make up I was able to have Perma PA. The leader spent about ten minutes searching for a tank and gave up and was worried that we were going to die against Nightstar without one, even with me trying to explain Phantom Army and Rad's debuffs. Nightstar fell without anyone dying or really taking any damage and the leader exclaimed we were just lucky -_-

The other power I have to give most underappreciated to is Arctic Air, the amount of damage mitigation it provides to protect meleers is astounding, it can be turned into a proc monster and yet so many Ice/ controllers skip not only this but shiver as well.

Some other little known secondary effects:
- Snow Storm auto-interupts interupible powers (e.g. Rikti Communicators, exploding Vaz corpses)
- So does Arctic Air
- Illusion's single target hold has a small AoE sleep built in
- Force Bolt slotted with 3 lvl 50 Knockback IOs is Mag 50 Knockback!
- Jack Frost has a slow aura that stacks with Ice's -Speed and -Recharge
- With enough Recharge you can cast Freezing Rain or Sleet on top of themselves, and the penalties stack
- Heat Loss can provide huge endurance recovery bonuses, but there is no icon to show you're under its effect

Also, lots of unexpected effects can be achieved via Confuse:
- Confusing a vaz zombie before it sees you causes it to immediately begin the animation to blow itself up while still standing in the middle of enemies, damaging the whole group when it blows
- Confusing a Rikti Protector (I think it's called) who hasnt yet seen you will often cause it to immediately use Accelerate Metabolism. You get the benefit if you are standing nearby. When many enemies of this type are around, you can manipulate it to stack multiple AMs.
- Confusing anything with a toggle (e.g. the FF and Sonic big bubbles) causes the bubble to protect you instead.
- Confusing CoT Earth mages makes their earthquakes reverse and hit their teammates even after the quake has been placed
- Confusing a Mastermind NPC (which mainly occurs in the AE) before he sees you makes his pets attack him and each other even if they are not independently confused. I am not sure if this works after they have been summoned.
- Confusing a Malta Sapper... well it doesn't do anything special, except make you win.

Just checked on live ... icons are definitely displaying so if you aren't seeing them somethings bugged or wrong.

Operative Grissom (Cold/Ice/Power lvl 50)