Things you wish you'd known about your powers...

Detailed info is usually correct, but there's always those oddball powers with @55-backwards mechanics that require a bit more observation.

When in doubt, consult City of Data

Aegis: Psionic/Mez Resist is the best sounding IO in theory, yet worst possible in practice.

Here are a few:

Invisibility (the power in the Stealth pool) prevents "aggressive" toggles from hitting enemies without actually shutting the toggle completely off. For example you can run into the center of a group of enemies with Arctic Air and Choking Cloud running and they won't alert until the Invisibility toggle is turned off.

Chain powers in the Electric Control set are actually a series of AoE attacks with a nearly 100% chance to hit all enemies if the first attack lands and the enemies are close together, due to the way the ToHit roll is calculated.

Feared enemies caught in a damaging "rain" power like Ice Storm or Sleet only get a chance to react every 10 seconds, not continuously.

Feared enemies that are knocked down or back by an attack lose their chance to retaliate or run. This happens even if the power applying the Fear is also doing the damage and knockdown (such as Terrify slotted with the Chance for Knockdown proc).

A lot of heavy hitting -Recharge powers actually are over the -Recharge cap for same level enemies, and only have extra effect when used on higher level or more resistant enemies.

Despite all looking more or less the same, the stats on knockdown zone powers are different from power to power. Ice Slick has the largest knockdown chance of any of them, and Liquefy has the lowest.

Enhancing Immobilize duration does not increase the -knockback time in Immobilize powers. Some types of Controllers (mainly Ice Control) can take advantage of this to have both Containment and knockdown at the same time.

Illogicially, hitting an enemy with a Hold or Immob that also has -KB will apply the -KB even if the enemy has sufficient protection to ignore the Hold or Immob.

Knockback powers always calculate knockback direction using the angle between the caster and the victim. For most powers this sends the enemy flying directly away from you. The exception is if the KB is technically cast by a pet, in which case the angle of knockback is based on the pet. Important to understand because of how illogical it is (e.g. an Explosive Arrow that blows up behind your target will send them flying away from you instead of toward you).

Most powers with Knock Up take Knock Back enhancements and IOs.

You can keep Super Speed turned on while flying with a Raptor Pack, allowing you to retain Stealth from that source.

If you Confuse an enemy that summons pets, the pets will usually turn on them even if not individually confused.

Enemies hit with Mass Hypnosis still "notice" you if you stand next to them unhidden. This does not happen with similar confusion powers that are non-notify.

Gale really blows. Like really really blows. (though some people seem to like it)

AV's resist debuffs (freezing rain)

Freezing rain lasts a lot longer then the animation leads you to believe.

Bonfire just wasnt quite what I expected and is situationally very powerful.

Repel can perma lock down multiple bosses if you corner them.

Tornado doesn't just do knock back and damage. It does lots of knock back and lots of damage, and stun and -resist. I have watched it eat bosses whole by itself.

Lightning storm is an AOE. It fires at the closest target to YOU the caster. The range from the cloud to target is much larger then the range away from you it will target a mob.

With lots of recharge you can stack lightning storm. With speedboost and hasten you can manage two full time. (with good slotting)

You can tank with hurricane.

Electric armor for my stalker now has a heal. (when I last played it didn't)

People will actually complain about getting a buff the gives +recharge and +end in large quantities.

Temp invulnerability (epic controller pool) is a toggle not a click.

People will always kill the mob with snow storm on it first -- no matter how many times you explain.

You can make low level mobs go a very long ways with repel.

Force bubble is very useful for a bots mastermind despite with nearly everyone says.

Force bubble/hurricane wont take knock back enhancements even though it does knockback.

Hotfeet is uber. (though it takes a ton of end redux)

Nothing eats endurance like the Storm set. NOTHING.

Fire imps arnt as cute as you think they are. (most particularly after the first few times they agro several extra groups of mobs and get you killed)

Nova/Dwarf take end mod enhancements. (built in stamina)

Tri-form Kheldians are a lot of work and even more fun.

More recently I have found (some) people dont get how controller powers work and dont know how to play with one in the group.

When your recharge gets buffed, your Lightning Storm's fire rate increases as well. Found that out when my Stormie teamed with a kin in Croatoa. Respec'd the second that team broke up to put Hasten in my build.

Yes, well... it was a bit overpowered. Storm is still a great set, and Lightning Storm fires pretty regularly.