All-Around Trial Toolbox Character

I know there is no such thing as a "best" anything, but I've been wondering what character people feel would be an ideal one for essentially being the all-around performer guy who when well played pretty much ensured any league always had that "one thing" necessary to complete the trial. Note that this isn't a character who is there to solo the trial, but the one to make sure even the worst leagues can still progress.

Thinking about this led me to a possibly weird conclusion that points to a character I've never actually seen in play: an Illusion/Thermal/Fire Controller. While I have no intention of rolling one just for this, I notice that this character would:

- have a non-aggro confusion power that stacks quickly
- be able to heal disentegrating targets during Keyes
- have hefty -Regen for big bosses
- be a strong counter to the UG bosses' Confusion
- have resistance shields for the team
- be able to off-tank in an emergency
- be able to self heal quickly (note: I've found this to be very helpful in general)
- be able to self rezz if killed
- do suprisingly decent DPS to bosses once Controllers get automatic Containment bonuses in issue 22
- be able to resurrect players during MOM (unfortunately not very often)
- electively have the ability to make the group invisible (not very useful elsewhere, potentially very useful in lambda and tpn depending on the type of teammates you get)

The character's main weakness would be the runners during BAF.

I also noticed something weird: according to Mids, the anti-confuse in Thaw doesn't stack from the same caster, so you'd need to take Tactics if you wanted to make it a sure bet. Still, if the Confusion is mag 12 like I think, one Thermal Controller with Tactics rotating Thaw across the league could keep one team entirely Confusion free, and make it so all other teams need only 1 Break Free to eliminate it.

Sidenote: is it possible to slot Hami-Os to increase mezz protection? I note that a Thermal Defender has 12.98 Confusion defense in Thaw and could protect a whole UG league by him or herself if s/he did nothing but rotate casts of that power. The Controller starts at Mag 10.38, so if Hami-Os can push it over the top it would be worth slotting.

Sonic/Thermal Defender and Fire/Thermal Corruptor also get very high marks from me in terms of their trial viability.

What other characters are competitive?

Illusion is great.

Ill/Therm is what I would suggest.

- have a non-aggro confusion power that stacks quickly
[Deceive]
- be able to heal disentegrating targets during Keyes
[Cauterize] [Warmth]
- have hefty -Regen for big bosses
[Heat Exhaustion]
- be a strong counter to the UG bosses' Confusion
[Thaw] + Clarion
- have resistance shields for the team
[Fire Shield][Thermal Shield]
- be able to off-tank in an emergency
[Phantom Army]
- be able to self heal quickly (note: I've found this to be very helpful in general)
[Warmth] + [Aid Self]
- be able to self rezz if killed
[Wakie] or [Rise of the Phoenix]
- do suprisingly decent DPS to bosses once Controllers get automatic Containment bonuses in issue 22
can get around 300-400 dps most likely.
- be able to resurrect players during MOM (unfortunately not very often)
[Power of the Phoenix]
- electively have the ability to make the group invisible (not very useful elsewhere, potentially very useful in lambda and tpn depending on the type of teammates you get)
[Group Invisibility]

Looks like you have a winner.

My VEAT is a jack of all trades, master of nothing.
I always say he is a Blapping Cranker (Blaster Scrapper Crab Tank Controller)

Come to Guardian and ask about Nephila.

Problem with Controllers are the iTrials where AoE is not welcome and with so many AoE attacks and uncontrollable pets, it will put you at a disadvantage.

And I don't have a clue why confuse is important. The AVs are immune and the foes can't really damage each other because of the debuffs the rest of the league throws down on them.

Sounds like you want a Tankermind with either Dark, Poison, Pain, Thermal, or Traps. Then take Provoke and whatever Pool or Incarnate powers to round out the character.

You could also go for an always welcome Kin and use Barrier Destiny to shield your allies.

Against Incarnate Trial bosses, controllers will always get Containment damage. No source other than the wiki, though, but if you want to see all the stuff (which isn't much), you can do so here.

A note as an Illusion Controller on a BAF: My Illusion/Sonic/Fire troller has very few problems helping in the prisoner phase of the BAF. It's basically like being a MM during that phase since I have 6 attacking pets, the downside being I can't order them this way or that. I have to concur with most of your other assessments on Illusion/Thermal/Fire, though there has never been a time where I didn't feel like I was helping simply because PA is pretty much superawesome.

K, then. If you're hoping to confuse several bosses in a spawn as self protection, you're going to limit yourself certain ATs and power sets and thus probably not be able to do everything else you want to do.

Illusion, by itself, won't stack Confuse quickly enough to save you from three bosses and allow you to do anything else but spam Deceive.

I'm with Z-man. What you want is a bots/traps. Henchmen are all but immune to the AV powers, and bodyguard still resists unresistable damage, and they all get extra level shifts. Tankerminding never felt so good.

1. My Ill/Rad/Fire seems to do well everywhere except the prisoner escape part of BAF, where I just don't quite have the single target damage to be as effective as, say, a blaster or high damage corruptor. I do ok, but not great there. But still, indestructible pets, heals, buffs, debuffs, rez, confuse - I'm rarely at a loss for being highly useful in iTrials. My Ill/Rad is still, seven years and counting, by far and away by most versatile character.

2. The Avatar room confuse is Mag 20.

I'm waiting to make a tankermind until MMs get cold domination :/

(My favorite support set hands down)

My apologies, but a lot of people seem to be listing trial characters who are just good at trials in general and not actually what I am talking about. I have some favorite builds too, which does not actually include the character I posited. Part of that is my fault for the title of the thread. In any case, a character who can't actually heal wouldn't qualify unless someone can show how it would answer to Disentegrate. Most of the characters listed sound like great characters, but don't specifically meet the "most likely to have correct support" requirement. If we just wanted to talk about characters who are very good, I think the list would have to be a lot longer, and include everything from perma-Doms to good Tankers. The central requirement of what I'm discussing is support options though, specifically support options unlikely to be duplicated by other league members and could become the lynchpin that prevents a failure or enables easy mode.

My toon Nephila, a Crab Spider:
-Dual Leadership pools (2x +def, 2x +tohit, 2x +dam.)
-Most powers are Def Debuff.
-With Rebirth I have a decent healer.
-Web Grenade to bring down all flying foes (Immob, -Rech)
-Lore for some mighty pets (Arachnos Core T4)
-16 T4 powers to accommodate the team and switch to what is needed.
-Mixed attacks. (Melee and Ranged)
-Can Tank if needed.

One of the better support toons i can think of.

Confuse can be useful in Keyes. Confused Warworks don't count as present at the terminals. However, to reliably confuse the whole spawn you'd probably have to play as a dom or a mind controller (to stack and pick up those you missed). Unfortunately, the same trick doesn't work in the TPN.

Hmmm.

Defender with leadership pool, for confuse/terror defenses. Cold primary. Sonic secondary.

Ice shields to make stuff miss, ice shields for extra resists, and benumb. Sonic for the -resist, including a handy cone.

Oh, benumb, how I love it....

Cold/sonics melt hard targets as well as anything. Leadership toggles to add a hefty confuse/terror. Ice storm for teh win. Heat loss for moar debuff and infinite endo.

it is teh nice.

Are you factoring in Incarnate abilities in this? If so, Lore Pets can provide -Regen, Continual Knockback or massive single target DPS, depending on what hole you're looking to fill. T4 Rebirth's Regen and handing one or two green inspirations can allow anyone to survive being disintegrated, or you can use Barrier to revive two people every 2 minutes while also buffing the entire league - all a nice means of opening up more support options for you to look at.

You can also count on constantly using Vengeance for your teammates to allow at least one team to survive or recover from the beginnings of a league wipe.